One
She woke from a dream she could not remember. There were tears drying on her cheeks.
When she opened her eyes and saw what surrounded her; the small pinewood bookshelf topped with stuffed toys (bells and motley, diamond patterned fabrics, painted cheeks…), a dressing table and chair, a tallboy with one of the top drawers pulled halfway out, scraps of colourful lingerie bursting from its mouth (like fat fuzzy snakes from a tin), she sucked in a shallow breath and her heart-rate picked up speed, a staccato drumbeat thrumming double time against her sternum.
This is not my home. She thought, slightly panicked. This is not my room. Where am I? Have I rumbled some poor sucker's digs for a place to hole up?
She sat up on the bed, and pushed back a lock of stray hair, it dry and straw-like from the latest bleaching. She remembered getting that done, two days ago, sitting down in the salon's red-leather chair, smiling at Becky while the noxious smelling stuff was applied, handing over the cash while Becky told her she needed to come in more often for a deep conditioning treatment. They'd laughed, hadn't they, over the handfuls of hair that always came out, ruptured from their bed in her scalp by the powerful chemicals…
She remembered.
She reached over to the bedside table and fumbled for her pills, taking the two she was prescribed and washing them down with the glass of water that sat by them. She sat the glass back down and watched the pink glitter that swirled inside the plastic move and settle by the motion, dancing around the head of Ariel, Disney's the Little Mermaid.
This was her home. This was her room.
For almost one whole year now she had lived in this small apartment, nestled on top of the pizzaria that overlooked the bustling street set in the heart of Gotham's Piccolo Italia.
Of course. How could she forget?
She got out of bed and stretched, the shorts of her pink babydoll pajamas riding up on her thighs, her midriff bared as the button down top hitched a little. The stretch felt good, so she did it again. The contents of her head felt like marshmallow, squishy and dense and feeling the lengthening of her limbs sharpened her a little. She scratched around her bellybutton, pulled the shorts out of the crevice of her bottom and padded towards the bathroom where she sat down for a pee, then checked the scales.
One hundred and fifteen pounds. Good. Most of it was muscle, too. She wouldn't mind gaining a little more muscle weight. Though she had plumped up a little when she first settled down, owing to the fact she spent most nights slumped on her couch shovelling in pizza sent up from downstairs, she was back in tip top shape again.
After weighing herself, she stood in front of the mirror and practiced her smile.
She did this every day. She had to. If she didn't, she was fairly certain she would forget how to. And then, when that happened, everyone would know.
Everyone would know she was faking it.
It looked good. Today it looked so good it almost convinced even her. So far, she hadn't been able to do that yet, though it seemed to work on everyone else. To her, it still looked painted on.
She thought she could pinpoint the exact moment the drugs began taking effect. Like a wet cloud, billowing out into the corners of her brain, smog to obscure it all. Dr. Leland would say it was impossible.
"Congratulations, Harleen." Dr. Leland was smiling, a smile she hadn't given her for years. "You passed your final competency evaluation with flying colours and have been declared rehabilitated and fit to re-enter society. You've made incredible progress. You should be very proud. I am."
"Call me Harley," she had said automatically, her smile splitting upwards, "Everyone does."
She'd said that since the age of fourteen. But saying it then felt – odd. Like the lines for a part that wasn't hers. The smile had felt scratched on, the flesh of her face plastic that would stretch and tear from the pressure of it.
"You said that the first day we met, do you remember?" Dr. Leland smiling at her. She realised Dr. Leland didn't see the small tears in the film laid over her skull, that she was playing her role convincingly.
"I… think so…" She'd felt the mask slip, a little frown furrowing her forehead. Did she remember? She wasn't sure… better pretend. "Oh yes, that's right. I often say it."
"Not anymore." Dr. Leland had stood, picking up the slim manila folder that had sat on the polished wood desk in her office at Arkham. "Due to the… reputation you've built up for yourself, the Arkham Board and Gotham Council thought it best you were reassigned a new identity. Do you remember us discussing this a couple of weeks ago?"
She did remember that. "Yes, of course. Did I get to choose my name?" She beamed up at Dr. Leland as the doctor had stepped around her desk and came around to where Harley sat in front of it. Dr. Leland had raised a sardonic eyebrow.
"Unfortunately, the name you nominated – err – Busty Funbags –" Why not go out with one last gag? " – was not considered, ah, subtle enough. We've suggested Amanda Hart." She'd slid the folder in front of Harley and flicked it open, where the requisite documents were all assembled; birth certificate, passport, driver's licence – everything she could need.
The grin that half-quirked a corner of her mouth had felt genuine. "I'm Jewish, Dr. Joan."
Dr. Leland shrugged her shoulders lightly, crossing her arms over the front of her white coat. "Not anymore. Unless you have serious objections…? You were never observed to be practicing…"
"Nah, nah it's okay. Okey dokey, even. A-Okay." Her voice sounded hollow, reassurance by rote. The large window behind Dr. Leland's desk faced West; the sun was beginning to set, sending stark, warm rays over the bare back yard of the Asylum grounds. You could always stare into the sun when it was setting, and she did so now; its fire-orange speckling in her gaze, watching as it formed a sickle moon sinking down over the horizon –
A sickle moon, or a smile turned upside down.
"Har – Amanda?" Dr. Leland's hand was on the back of the chair she sat in, a worried note in her voice. She bent at the waist to look her in the eye. "Amanda, it isn't unusual for someone in your situation to go through a period of depression as they readjust to a normal life. Feelings of isolation, detachment, fear and confusion are common. We will of course provide you with a referral to a reputable therapist, and it is a condition of your release you attend twice-weekly sessions for a full twelve months but – well, Amanda – Harley." And Dr. Leland had laid a warm brown hand on one of her own cold, pale ones, squeezing it gently. "If you ever need to – please don't hesitate to phone me. "
She'd spent countless hours in Joan Leland's office over the years, first as an intern and then as an inmate. But she'd never really looked around. He'd always said that was a fault of hers, one amongst her many. After all, how did He always manage to get out? More than one way to kill a monkey, Harley-Girl, He'd tittered, paying attention can reap unexpected rewards at opportune moments.
She looked around the office then as Dr. Leland had taken her seat again and explained that one of the city's leading citizens, Bruce Wayne, offered a two-year pension to all of the Asylum's considered incorrigibles, if they proved that consideration wrong and were rehabilitated. Part of helping them get back on their feet, and so helping Gotham to continue to elevate her reputation, was the general idea, Dr. Leland said. So initially, Har – Amanda, would not need to worry about a job, but of course, she would need to demonstrate a smooth integration back into the workforce. That was another requirement. She was being provided with references for some basic career options. But Wayne Corp fully supported her to seek further education, if that was what she wanted, since she would not be able to practice psychiatry again.
Dr. Leland's office walls were filled with bookshelves, choking with books. Books stacked in rows, books piled on top of those rows, in front of them too, more books behind the rows of books. Dr. Leland had been at Arkham Asylum for almost twenty-five years, long beyond what many of the doctors stayed. She was not looking for glory. She genuinely wanted to help. Somehow, she resisted the pull and tug of Arkham's mad tide, kept her head above the insanity that threatened to drown all who came into contact with the madhouse. Probably through the books, Harley had realised. They were her anchor to reality. Escape in their pages.
It was not a big office, but it was big enough. Dr. Leland did not see patients in this office, not for sessions. None of the Doctors could hold sessions in their offices. Not unless they wanted their offices to resemble a padded cell. Too many of Arkham's inmates were too dangerous to be allowed within range of anything that might be utilised as a weapon – even a room full of books.
Even in the therapy rooms, the couches and chairs were bolted to the floor.
Come to think of it, this was the first time she'd sat in this office without her hands restrained.
"Amanda?"
She'd started and looked at Dr. Leland. From the doctor's raised brows, she realised it had not been the first time her new name had been uttered.
"Sorry." She'd smiled, big and wide, hitching her shoulders up into a sheepish shrug around her ears. "It's gonna take some gettin' used to, I think."
She'd often imagined leaving Arkham Asylum as a free woman, the feelings of joy and elation that might overwhelm her. Saw herself cartwheeling and back-flipping her way down its long, ugly grey drive, leaving its gothic turrets and towers stabbing the sky behind her, her back turned away from its hundreds of blinking black windows for good. 'Sayonara, suckers!' she'd salute at the end of the drive, then hop on a motorbike (she wasn't sure why a bike, or how it had got there, but it seemed to fit the general celebratory air of the fantasy) and gunning the motor, tearing off, yahooing at the beating thundering sky of Gotham, triumphant and free, free, free.
Instead she felt fear.
She left in an ill-fitting set of jeans and a t-shirt, scuffed sneakers, an over-sized coat covering her shivering, small body. She'd lost almost thirty pounds in the last eighteen months, and she hadn't been a big girl to begin with. There was a small bag in one hand, holding the coat shut tight with the other. There was a car waiting for her, a car waiting to drive her to her new home, the one the Wayne Corporation had arranged. Dr. Leland was by her side, a gentle look of compassion on her face. She looked down the drive to where the Asylum's gates waited, the one break in the high brick wall that surrounded the compound, the armed guards poised to open them for her.
To open them for her… without coercion or threat. They would let her go, freely.
She had stopped short in her tracks, fighting with the sudden urge to go running back inside, to hurtle towards the Maximum Security wing, where she hadn't been for over six months, and plead with the guards to let her back into her old cell.
"Are you alright, Amanda?" Dr. Leland was frowning with worry. She'd swallowed, hard, and attempted a little smile. Fear, like loathing, choking her, swelling inside her breast until she thought it might burst outwards, spraying it in a hot gush, like Professor Crane's gas, over the doctor, and the guard, and the driver who waited.
Once inside the car, she'd twisted around in the seat and watched as Arkham shrank into the distance, Dr. Leland waving to her, and set her fingers up against the back windscreen. The fear had turned into an ache, dull as a bruise, as though she might get used to it.
The tears had been cold on her cheeks.
Amanda slowed into a walk on the corner, one block from her apartment, steadying her breathing into recovery mode. One big suck in through the nostrils, three short gusts out through the mouth. She kept the pattern up as she walked, her heartbeat slowing down to normal, feeling her sweat sizzling hot on her flesh, knowing she'd be flushed red all over her face, down her neck and over her breast and arms. A real classy sight, she thought wryly, reekin' to high heaven and drippin' all over the pavement! But then, there weren't many out at this time of the morning to see her.
She jogged ten miles every morning, except for Sunday. It took her an hour and a half, which she'd steadily reduced from just over two. It was good for a lot of things: kept her figure trim, her fitness high, her muscles loose and cleared her head. Maybe it even got the medication working faster, her blood racing the way it did.
When she got to the laneway two doors down from the pizzaria, she turned and headed towards her front door, set in the back of the building, facing an unexpectedly pleasant alley-way. Once there she stretched, enjoying the tension in her warmed muscles, pleased with how far she had to go before she really felt a good stretch. A side split up the wall, both sides. Hips flat and square on the right side, just a small gap between her crotch and the wall on her left. She grabbed a water pipe set against the wall and pulled herself in harder, closing the gap.
The flyscreen backdoor of the pizzaria flew open and the patriarch of the business waddled out, a bulging garbage bag in either hand.
"Bonjiourno, bella!" he declared upon sight of her and she offered him a smile while he strode over to the dumpster and heaved the bags inside.
"Good mornin', Signore Ciccolina!" she replied and felt pleased. She'd sounded really chirpy.
"What is this!" he came forward, his grey moustaches quivering on his upper lip, gesturing towards her with both hands. "You gettin' too skinny again, bella! You need to eat a bit more, eh! You come down tonight and have dinner in the restaurant, our treat, okay?"
She giggled, pushing strands of sweaty hair off her neck, and swinging her waterpack around to fumble for her keys. "I'd love to, Signore, really, but if I don't watch what I eat, I'll be kicked off the squad! Thanks anyway!"
He clicked his tongue and shook his head, turning to go back inside. "Well, you just come down if you change your mind, okay bella? You take it easy now! You alone too much for a young girl like you!"
She opened her mouth to respond, something bright and witty, a little playful. Something about how she was too busy to be alone, but snappier than that. But in the end nothing came out, and she stood there, in the early morning sun, sweat steaming off her over-heated skin, with her mouth open like one of those plastic circus clowns, just waiting for a ball to be shot into it.
But Signore Ciccolina had already gone back inside, the flyscreen banging shut behind him.
Another day of freedom had started.
Back inside her apartment, she began to peel off her sports gear, leaving them in a sweaty trail on the baby-pink carpet. Pink shorts. Pink sports top. Pink bra. Pink panties. Off came the pink and white Reeboks, followed by the sopping wet socks. She wrinkled her nose as the smell of her ripe feet hit her nostrils.
"Peeeee-YEW!" she declared for no one's benefit, and padded into the shower, switching the faucets on and pulling her blonde hair from its twin plaits and fixing it into a messy bun on the top of her head. Then she stepped under the luke-warm stream. She never liked to shower too hot after an intense workout.
She pulled on the hot pink exfoliating mitts and scrubbed her body down hard. Then she cleansed her face and gave it a gentle exfoliation too. On impulse, she took her hair out and turned the hot tap off altogether, squeaking a little as cold water gushed over her head and shoulders, her reddened skin slowly fading back to its normal pallor.
She switched the shower off and stepped out onto the fluffy pink bathmat, frowning as she noticed that the shower curtain, a white number emblazoned with bright pink hearts, was growing mottled green spots of mould along the bottom. She wrapped her hair in her pale-pink microfibre turban and wrapped a hot pink towel around her body.
A new colour, is what she had decided she'd needed, not long after moving into the little apartment. For a while now her surroundings had been defined by colours – black and red for her, purple and green for Him. But that was her old life. That was her old persona. Not her new one. Not Amanda Hart. Amanda Hart was not red and black, diamonds and jokers. No, Amanda Hart was, was –
She'd been pondering the question in front of the mirror, brushing her teeth, the brush going up and down and round and round just as she'd been taught in school, with the same precision and care. She'd noted then the fixtures of the bathroom – the tub, the toilet and the sink, even the walls of the cabinet – all of them a dusky pale pink. Old fashioned fixtures, in porcelain. Maybe fifty years old. Like something you'd see at Grandma's house. A pretty colour. Very feminine. A relative of red, of course. Lots of shades of it, all of them nice. Versatile. Went well with leopard print, too.
So it had been decided. Amanda Hart was –
Pink. Pink and white, but mostly pink.
It had helped her focus her mind, in those early months. She never went anywhere or did anything, so she had money to burn, thanks to Wayne Corp's pension and the low rent on the place. They'd chosen a nice place, one in a busy, bustling, yet safe part of town, and for a good price too, especially considering the place was in pretty good nick. The building was owned by the Ciccolina's of course, and they did a fair trade in the pizza business, calling themselves the best pizzas in Gotham for no small reason. Such was the demand for them they even did deliveries all the way over the other side of town, to the South and East. They hadn't minded her asking to paint the walls, said she could liven the place up any old how she liked. So she'd bought the colour – Rose Madder Lake it had been called – and painted each room, with the trim around the doors, the windows and the sideboards a stark white. How nice it was. A warm pink, with a bright glow to it. She'd lain on the floorboards in the bedroom afterwards and watched the sun's rays set the room spilling a warm caress of dusky rose over her, like a hug.
She scoured the flea-markets and second-hand shops for old wood furniture, and painted it white and baby pink. She found a cheap set of pale pink dining settings in Wal-mart for just thirty dollars, hot pink plastic tumblers, a fat squatting pink kettle, the toaster and the baking trays. The utensils came next, and the blender, plus the lovely pink enamelled pots and pans. Manufacturers understood anything could be an accessory these days – and with the right marketing, you could make the consuming public realise that too. It gave her a sense of continuity, and completeness to see everything matching so nicely, contrasting shades complementing each other in a perfect, ruddy harmony.
While filling her trolley full of a pink colander and breadbin, tea and coffee tins and two tall salt and pepper shakers she noticed, with a start, they were making the same goods in a bold, brassy shade of red. A tomato-ish sort of red, marked as 'chilli-red'. How strange, to feel her heart speed up at sight of it, a glimmer of recollection winking in her mind's darkness, of a time she would've – would've plotzed – at the sight, and crammed her trolley full of them all, to stow them in a storage unit somewhere until the time was right. Not then, not when their home changed locations so often, when it was so subject to destruction and demolition. When they were ready to settle down, she would be ready, she'd be able to produce it all, piece by shining piece and say ta-daaa, you see, I've been prepared, we'll be snug as two bugs in a rug, Puddin'. Domestic bliss, at last.
She hadn't even noticed she'd spiralled into fantasy, that there was no storage unit filled with chilli-red white goods. She wondered which one she'd hidden them in; there were so many, all over town. Then she shook it off and kept on going. It didn't matter. She was crazy then, and did crazy things. Then belonged to another girl. Not her. Not Amanda Hart.
No corner of the apartment escaped the spread of pink; like a creeping blush across the cheeks of a maiden it continued to fill the little place she had been told was her new home. It gave her something to do, to consume the hours that ticked over and over, endless and otherwise empty, in those first early months after her release. Something to surround herself with so that the walls of her mind did not echo, throwing her scattered thoughts back at her, where she could not cringe away from them. Something to focus on, so that she could ignore how big and empty the world suddenly seemed, how frighteningly vast.
She'd brought a guy back to the apartment, only once, four months ago now. He'd staggered back a little, in awe of the profuseness of the colour.
"Lemme guess – ya favourite colour is pink, right?" and she'd laughed on cue.
"What gave it away?" And handed him the pink mug of chocolate.
But he'd been perturbed by it, sitting uneasily on the candy pink sofa, surrounded by cushions in shades of fuschia, magenta, peach and flamingo. His eyes had flickered from one pink wall to the window, where a gauzy carmine curtain fluttered in the evening breeze.
It occurred to her then that maybe customisation like this wasn't regular. But it was important – didn't he see that – to put your mark on things?
She had toned and moisturised her face and body, rubbed the leave-in conditioner in her hair and brushed her teeth. Patted the eye cream in around her eyes, the lip cream on her lips. The same ritual, every day. She'd kept it up, even during – during.
And it had paid off. She looked good, for her age. Hard to believe it, how much time had passed since before and after. So much of that time ran together, the days spinning into months spiralling into years until it had all seemed one big mess of events, one after the other, not confined by the passage of time but taking place almost simultaneously, it seemed like. There had been no reason, after all, to keep the time. No reason, except perhaps one – but if she'd kept track for that one, she couldn't have borne it, because it would never have come. She'd learned to live with that, to have it ever hovering in an indefinite future.
Ten years. She looked at herself in the small bathroom mirror. There were faint, tiny crows feet in the corners of her eyes. Laugh lines around her mouth. Just little ones. But they reminded her, like the occasional silver grey hair did. Before, when she'd worn the makeup and the cowl all the time, she'd never noticed. What was there to notice? It hadn't mattered anyway.
But it had been ten years. Ten years since interning in Arkham Asylum to being released from it as a former inmate.
They'd kindly given Amanda Hart those ten years back – her new birth certificate listed a decade she had not been born in – but looking at herself in the mirror, with nothing but the flesh of her own face staring back at her, the woman who had once been Harley Quinn knew.
She was almost forty years old.