But the four women clustered around the makeshift tub were strangers. The tub was really more of a giant trough composed of sections of white plastic pipe that had been capped off and propped up on a pair of sawhorses. It had been filled with water that steamed in the rapidly cooling evening. A small fire crackled in the hearth a few yards away, a neat stack of burning madrone branches giving off a spicy, pleasant smell. Several pots of different sizes simmered on the grate above, and Cass guessed they poured the boiling water into the tub to keep the communal bath warm, and to replace what sloshed and splashed out with their movements.
Two of the four women were naked except for plastic flip-flops, and one of them held a nearly new bar of soap. The naked women washed, passing the soap back and forth. One of the other women was undressing, hopping from foot to foot as she stripped off her clothes and tossed them into a pile. The fourth woman had put her clothes back on and was toweling her hair. She was telling some sort of story that had the others cracking up, but when they noticed Cass approaching they all went silent.
“I’m sorry,” Cass said. “I didn’t mean to… Smoke said I might be able to wash. Except…I, um…”
“We have extra towels,” the woman who was undressing said, offering a tentative smile. “I brought two. I wasn’t sure if you… It’s pretty casual. We keep the water hot for a couple of hours and people just show up whenever.”
“Some people, anyway,” one of the naked women said. She was a well-built girl in her early twenties who didn’t seem the least bit self-conscious about dragging her soapy washcloth up and over her wide thighs, her rounded stomach. “Some folks, I don’t think they’ve had a bath since they got here. They get kind of unfresh, you know what I’m sayin’?”
She gave Cass a friendly wink as her companion flicked her with her own washcloth. “Not everyone’s as comfortable strutting around buck naked as you,” she scolded, grinning. “Forgive Nance here. She’s got no manners.”
“I, um…” Cass said, swallowing. “Is it okay… Do you mind if I don’t…uh, if I keep…” She hugged herself tightly, battling her warring desires to keep the evidence of her attack hidden, and to wash her filthy body.
“It’s okay,” the first woman said gently, handing her a small towel and a folded washcloth. They weren’t terribly clean, but Cass took them gratefully. She set the towel on the ground and stripped out of her overshirt and pants before she could change her mind, keeping her eyes downcast, and then approached the trough wearing only the nylon tank and panties that she’d been wearing beneath her clothes all this time. There were only a few scars on the backs of her thighs, and they had healed to barely distinguishable discolorations, but the gouges on her back were still raw and obvious. She knew this from tracing them with her fingers-the undeniable evidence that she’d been torn at by Beaters.
But there was more to her discomfort. It had also been years since she had undressed in front of another woman, and she felt her skin burn with shame as the others watched her.
It was different with men. She’d been with so many; she’d stopped counting one weekend when, by Sunday, she couldn’t remember the name of the one she brought home Friday. She hadn’t been self-conscious-hadn’t been conscious of anything, really, other than the driving need. Not a hunger for the coupling itself, but a need to beat her pain and confusion into a thing that could be contained again, could be put away far enough in the depths of her heart that she could keep going. Keep living. To get to that place she had to use her body, to show and undress and flaunt it, all of which was done without a second thought.
But now she felt hot shame color her face as her nipples hardened under the tight shirt, exposed to the evening chill. She had no bra-what would these women think of that? Cass didn’t know what to make of it herself-on the day she woke up, when she stumbled to her feet and tried to work the kinks out of her mysteriously abused limbs-she’d gone to tug at her bra, a habit of decades, and found it wasn’t there.
Cass hooked her thumbs in her socks and pulled them off, tossing them on the pile. There was nothing more that she could take off.
“I’ll-why don’t I…?” the woman who had been telling a story said. She made a move toward Cass’s clothes pile and hesitated. She looked Cass in the eye and spoke slowly and clearly. She was old enough to be a grandmother-old enough to be Ruthie’s grandmother, anyway. She had several inches of silver roots, an expensive dye job now losing ground, what must have been a severe bob softening to a wispy cut around her chin. “I’m Sonja,” she said carefully. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take these things, bring you back clothes that are clean, that you can wear on your… That will be good for traveling.”
Cass made a sound in her throat, a rusty and ill-used sound that was meant to convey gratitude. Hot dampness pricked at her eyes and she found that her lips did not move well. But Sonja just nodded and swept up the mess of clothes, hugging them against her body as though they didn’t stink, as though Cass had chosen and treasured them, rather than the truth-that she couldn’t say who she’d taken them from and what she’d done to the person who wore them before.
Cass wanted to watch Sonja walk away, to watch the filthy and hated rags disappear, but she knew that if she did she ›wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the bath, and the bath was a rare treat. She had not had or even allowed herself to dream of having such a thing in such a long time. There had been several moonlight splashes in the streams and creeks that crisscrossed the foothills, but the water never came up any farther than midankle, and no matter how Cass cupped her hands and splashed, she succeeded only in wetting her clothes and her skin, never cleansing them.
She approached the trough, the concrete cold and rough on her bare feet, focusing on the steam that rose into the evening air.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the woman who was undressing pause, her jeans folded in her hands. She had not yet spoken, and unlike the others, she had made no move to welcome Cass. Hostility came off her in waves. The others had somehow made their peace with Cass, with what she had done to Sammi-but this woman did not want her there.
Cass inhaled deeply of the steam. Someone had crumbled something aromatic into the water, bath beads or powder or something else that perfumed the air with lavender and created a thin layer of white bubbles. She longed to dip her fingertips into the water.
She was so filthy. She could barely abide herself, and she wanted desperately to wash even a little of her shame away.
Instead she forced herself to turn away from the water, toward the silent woman. “I’ll go, if you want me to,” she offered quietly.
But the woman-she was a handsome woman with a short, no-nonsense haircut and sharp cheekbones-picked up her shoes and socks and glared at Cass. “No, I’ll go,” she muttered, and stalked away.
“I’m sorry,” Cass said to the others, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I should-”
“Stay,” one of the women said. “I’m Gail. Trust me, you need this way worse than she does.”
Cass was grateful, but she stared down at her hands, crisscrossed with cuts from running into dead shrubs and trees, and from falling in the dark. The nails were black and broken, her wrists creased with dirt. Her own odor was strong enough that she caught sour whiffs when she moved; she could only imagine how she smelled to others. “If you don’t mind,” she said, suddenly near tears and more humbled than she had ever felt in her life. “I’d like to stay.”
“I was about done,” Gail said, flipping thick brown braids over her shoulders and stepping aside to make room. “But don’t worry, I’ll stick around and chat.”