I’m pulling at Kathi.
She’s yanking away from me.
Benny points at Kathi. “She’s manic,” he shouts.
“Very helpful, Benny. Thank you!” I say.
“Yeah! Go to hell, LIAR!” Kathi shouts at Benny, then turns to me and calmly says, “He’s right, I’m manic.”
“Benny, go get Miss Gracie, please,” I say. Benny starts but doesn’t get far.
“Stop right there, Benny, or you’re fired!” Kathi yells.
Benny stops and instantly returns to tree trimming.
“Thanks a lot!” I yell to him.
“You’re welcome,” Kathi says to me.
Benny ignores us both.
Kathi reaches her two hands out to mine, an invitation for me to grab on, and I do. “Let me ask you something,” she says seductively. “Are you afraid of the human body?”
“Maybe,” I say, releasing her hands, putting mine on her back, and gently pushing her past my car, farther from traffic and danger.
“You’re so diplomatic, Cock-cack. That’s something I like about you. That, and your long neck.”
“Thank you.” I guide Kathi past Benny.
“You need medicine,” he says to her.
“You need it!” Kathi shouts at him.
She shouts, “LIAR!”
She shouts, “You don’t know what I need!”
She turns to me and says quietly, “I need medicine. Meet you inside?”
“Yup.” I nod, and just like that Kathi twirls up the hill, shouting down to Benny as she goes.
“I love you, Benny,” she says. “It’s my mental illness that hates you.”
Benny turns back to pretending to service an already perfectly manicured bush. He continues with his duties as if this outburst, as if Kathi wanting to play in traffic wearing a bedsheet, is just another ordinary workday.
Chinese emperors.
Mateo the Moose.
Fireplaces.
In Kathi’s palatial closet, the fitted sheet is on the floor, and she’s now wearing pink leggings and an oversized sweater with plastic eyes stitched all over it.
I ask, “How are you feeling?”
“I feel like all of these eyes should have eyelashes glued on, so I’m going to go to Home Depot to see if they have any.”
“Maybe we can take a moment and talk about your health. Did you take your meds this morning?”
“I feel great,” Kathi says. “Except for these leggings.” She starts tugging at her leggings, struggling to get them off. “Ten seconds ago I wanted them, but now I see that leggings are one of mankind’s strange wearable Rubik’s Cubes.”
I go to her nightstand and look for yesterday’s pill case. I give it a shake. Empty. I rustle in the drawer, through papers and pens and books and hair clips, and there on the bottom—the pills, the magic beans, unsowed, and more than there should be for one missed dose. I collect them and bring them to her.
“Kathi, you have to take your medication,” I say.
“My medication takes me,” she says, having traded the pink leggings for gold.
“No, they don’t. Please take them.”
“I thought I took all of them.”
“These were all at the bottom of your drawer.”
“I think those are old,” she says. “Did you forget to give them to me maybe?”
I open my mouth to deny it but feel a surge of heat rising in me. Did I forget? Did I fail her? “Shit, Kathi. Maybe I did. Are you sure the ones in the drawer are old?”
“It doesn’t matter! I’m flying,” she says, raising her arms, keeping eye contact with me. She’s intense as ever, playful in a way that’s kind of drunk, and determined in a way that’s kind of dangerous.
“No, you’re not. We need to pin this down.”
“I’m not pinning the butterfly to the wall of your collection,” she says. “I’m catching fireflies in a jar and lighting your way with them till one or all of us burn out.”
“What can we do to avoid us burning out?” I ask.
“Get some milk from the holy cow to put out the fire.”
“I can’t do dairy,” I say, trying to keep us on point.
Kathi laughs, opening her jewelry drawer and putting everything on her body, wherever, however it can be attached: multiple earrings in her ears, rings on every finger. “If you could really understand me, you might say it sounds like a plan. As it is, it just kinda looks like one.”
“Okay,” I say. “The plan is just to get you level, you know?”
“Maybe you can save me from me, if you’re so good at it. Or explain me away. Far away, where there’s no reception. Wedding or otherwise. Invitation to a beheading. Bring your children. Show them what not to be.”
“Okay. Can I take you to see a doctor so you can get some meds to help you rest?”
“No, thanks. Sweet of you. I’ll take some Beethoven to rest,” Kathi says, grabbing for her cell phone on the lanyard around her neck. She starts poking at apps.
“This seems like it’s going to end badly. Has this happened before? Should I call a doctor?”
Kathi opens her mouth as if to speak, but instead, from her phone she plays Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major Op. 92-II, Allegretto, the harmony filling the room as if it’s coming from inside her.
“What do you think of the music?” she asks.
“It’s pretty,” I say.
“It’s so pretty, Cockring,” she says, choking up, her shoulders collapsing, her arms reaching out for support, her hands, they find mine.
“We have to get you on the right medication,” I say.
The music is building, building.
“Wait,” she says calmly, listening.
“Can I see if Dr. Miller is available?” I ask. “Maybe a phone chat is all we need to get some helpful information.”
She looks at me, tears in her eyes, and raises the volume on the Beethoven even higher, pounding in our lives, in our heads, in her closet.
“Or I can call Miss Gracie,” I say loudly over the music.
“No, do NOT call her,” Kathi snaps. “She’s been unwell, and I don’t want you to stress her out and kill her.” She keeps staring at me, as if in a trance.
I say, “Look, this is not healthy. I care about you.”
“Let me have this one manic indulgence, and then when this song is over, I’ll take some fucking meds.”
“Fine. How long is the song?”
“Could be days,” she says. “I have it on repeat.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Fine, it’s just eight more minutes.”
“Okay, great,” I say. “What meds will you need? Seroquel? I’ll get everything ready.”
“First step is, you need to dance with me,” she says, grabbing my body.
“No,” I start as she spins me around.
“There you go! Look at us dancing!”
“This is not dancing. This is technically assault.”
She whirls me around again. Again. She laughs. The music is building, building, layers upon layers upon layers of instruments.
“I need you,” she says.