‘Incredible woman,’ one man said to another. It sounded like it had a capital I and W like a superhero: the Incredible Woman, thwarting bad guys with her laugh, the toss of her hair like a cape.
‘Amazing,’ said the man opposite him.
The men didn’t look each other in the eye, two strangers raising a toast to a woman who, I supposed, both had shared their beds with.
Later, I heard one man say ‘catnip’.
‘First time I met Juju, I didn’t think she was that pretty, you know, no prettier than any other woman — but she had something about her, like catnip,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t keep away.’
‘Who could?’ the other man said. ‘To catnip.’
Chink chink. Two raised glasses met.
We drove to Judy’s apartment later to clear out her stuff and claim my inheritance. I pictured a boatload of stolen cash wrapped in red ribbon, a velvet pouch full of diamonds and a signed confession she’d been a spy. ‘Inheritance’ sounded like a big deaclass="underline" formal, important. Judy told me like she had some sort of cat sense she was dying, though she couldn’t have. It was sudden, she slipped on a juice box outside. There was a note taped to an ottoman in the bedroom.
Lana’s Inheritance, it said.
‘Inheritance!’ Mom said. ‘Would you get a load of that!’
The stuff Mom once said about her sister with a sigh now had exclamation marks and a smile, happier in the past tense. She opened Judy’s wardrobe and slung clothes in a sack. I opened the ottoman, filled to the brim with oil paintings, the real Mona Lisa… who knew that? It was full of perfume, that’s it: all identical, dozens of old-fashioned glass bottles Judy would have said held ‘cologne’. I opened a cap and sniffed. The perfume didn’t smell like much, not romance or moonlight, or some girl chasing a balloon in Paris like adverts wanted me to believe. It wasn’t spicy or flowery or anything in particular, but inhaling it I remembered Judy instantly, so vividly I could have been on a train with her on the way to the zoo, ice cream on my fingers washed with her handkerchief and spit. I closed the lid and stashed the bottles in the closet in my room when I got home. I didn’t know what to do with them, but I felt like an ass throwing away anything called an inheritance.
It was almost Christmas when I considered the perfume again. There was a costume party. Everyone had to go as a dead poet. I hadn’t a clue who to be. I clawed through boxes of clothes in the attic, raking up what Judy wore when she was young: a cat mask, miniskirts, circle dresses, cottony prints that believed life was as simple as daisies. It seemed like a start — the clothes had the look of a more lyrical time. I hung the dresses on the hook on my door and was overcome by the scent — a draught of my aunt wafted into the room. I missed her, suddenly, so hard I had to sit down.
I put on a dress I couldn’t imagine Catwoman in. It was covered in poppies, rippling like a field. I walked into the party alone. It was just like I thought — random. There were a few Allen Ginsbergs covering zits with fake beards. There was a guy in lederhosen for no reason I could name. The girls took it more seriously: poetry books poked out their purses, but other than what the jackets said it was impossible to tell who they were. Amazingly, one girl spoke to me. Stephanie. She walked over in a black flapper dress, beads jittering.
‘Razors pain you…’ she said. ‘I love your costume, it suits you.’
I shrugged, not really anyone (at a push I’d say Anne Sexton or Plath).
Stephanie smiled, hanging, like she wanted to say more but didn’t know what.
‘Who do you think I am?’ a tall Ginsberg interrupted.
‘I have no idea.’
‘How about me?’ Another Ginsberg, a short one, was at my side. Then another. Then a kid in a sheepy sweater I think wanted to be Ted Hughes. They were all offering me drinks and desperate to hear my opinion of who I thought they were. I thought about Judy, her giggle squeezing through a crowd. Is this what she felt like? I was having a hard time not laughing myself. I looked through the poets. The boy from English was dressed in pyjamas and a hunter hat. Kurt Cobain/Noah watched me from across the room.
It wasn’t Catwoman who looked back at me in the mirror in my bathroom. I didn’t have a giggle or a purr, more of a snicker muffled by one hand. Yet, something was different. I looked the same, but guys who never usually spoke to me all wanted to give me a ride home. On Monday, I paid attention to my clothes. I couldn’t wait for Noah to look at me like Kurt Cobain again. He was in the library, so were a couple of Ginsbergs from the party — except now they just had names like Aidan or Chris. I browsed the shelves. Noah looked up, and turned back to his book. No one else even glanced.
The poppy dress swayed on the back of the door, not smelling of ice cream, daytrips or Judy, just detergent. There was a flatness in my stomach, the feeling I had at the party ironed out. Catwoman never had this problem; men saw her and purred her name in her ear. I sat in my room thinking about Judy, wishing I knew her secret. I took out a bottle of her perfume and dabbed it on my wrists before I went to the Korean for snacks.
The shopkeeper watched me like I might slip something in my pocket.
‘Anything else?’ he said.
‘No.’
‘Are you sure? Look…’
He came around the counter to show me the vegan stuff he’d just started stocking, the soy milk and herbs. He kept talking, grabbing things off the shelves, showing me like he couldn’t let me leave before I approved.
I dabbed on the scent the next morning. Noah pulled out my chair in the canteen, a few of the guys from the party watched. Some guy called Chris stopped by our table to invite me to a party, the others smiled over, all eyes. Judy would have approved.
‘I’m sorry, I’m busy, maybe next time,’ I told Chris. I laughed for no reason, it fizzed out of me like shaken cola. I was fizzing from everyone looking at me so hard. It was a rush.
Noah pulled his sleeves over his dermatitis. The museum was a birdcage of a building full of crawling and still things, wood-boring bees under glass and stuffed animals behind velvet ropes: dead foxes, perched crows, a lion with bullet holes in its back. We looked at sad holes in the lion’s flank. Noah took a Band-Aid out his pocket, crossed the velvet rope and stuck it on the stuffed animal’s wounds. I kissed him. Who wouldn’t? He tasted milky sweet like rice pudding. We left holding hands.
It was raining. Walk/Don’t Walk smeared orange light on the wet street like jelly. We crossed to a café and sat behind some college guys. They all looked sort of the same: handsome and sure and clean. They looked at me and huddled. One came over. I wasn’t good at this, navigating how to be polite to some guy while still making the one beside me feel like no one else existed. WWJD — What Would Judy Do?
‘Sounds like a cool party, I’ll see if I can make it,’ I laughed. Where did it come from? I was one of those girls, laughing all over the place. I couldn’t keep it in. Noah fidgeted with his sleeves and went to the restroom. He came back to find some guy sat in his seat talking, talking, as I laughed and laughed. Noah hovered at the counter, unsure how to come back. I wanted to stand up and go over, but I didn’t. The college guy was looking at me so much, listening to everything I said.
‘I’ve got a surprise for you,’ Noah said outside.