“All right,” Joe says. “I believe you. Anything else?”
“Yes.” Topher shivers. “Richie said he was going to kill Vince. He has a gun. So you might want to look for him at the Covington Arms”—he blows a bubble—“like, soon.”
Sixteen
The Covington Arms is a big, three-story brick building that has clearly seen better days: the sidewalks are cracked, the parking lot is littered with deep potholes. Even though I’ve sworn up and down to Alex that I’ve never heard of Vince Aiello and that I’ve never been there before, when we approach apartment number nine I feel a shiver of recognition that starts in my spine and tingles outward into my fingertips and face. I feel a churning sense of nausea, the intense desire to leave before we even go inside. The physical feeling is identical to the way I felt the first—and only—time I ever smoked a cigarette. I feel like I’ve ingested poison.
We’ve gotten here by riding in the backseat of Joe’s sedan, sitting on the floor so as not to crowd ourselves between the car seats tethered in the back. It’s ironic, considering the story Topher told Joe about my disdain for dirt: the floor of Joe’s car is littered with empty juice boxes, ratty coloring books, and general messiness. But that’s nothing—and I mean nothing—compared to what we find inside number nine.
The apartment consists of a living room, a kitchenette, and a door leading to what I assume is a bedroom and a bath. There’s only one window, in the front of the living room, closed and covered with cracked plastic venetian blinds. There aren’t any curtains. This guy Vince obviously doesn’t have a decorator. The apartment floor is covered in filthy-looking beige shag carpeting, except for the kitchenette, which has peel-and-stick linoleum. The kitchen sink overflows with dirty dishes. There’s no dishwasher. No microwave. Just a small oven with dirty electric burners, and a narrow beige refrigerator. All the walls are white with fingerprint smudges around the doorways. In the living room, there’s a threadbare orange sofa, a wooden coffee table littered with three ashtrays (each of which is stuffed with cigarette butts) and empty beer cans. The only thing in the apartment that could remotely be considered nice (and I’m using the word generously) is a big flat-screen TV mounted to the wall in front of the sofa.
Since Alex and I have the luxury of not having to knock, we’re already in the apartment by the time Joe starts banging on the door.
“Nice company you’ve been keeping,” Alex observes, looking around. “And all those years, you and your friends made fun of people for being poor.” He gives me a broad smile. “Quite a secret you were hiding, wasn’t it?”
I frown at him. “I never made fun of you for being poor. Did I?” My gaze drifts to the far corner of the living room. Oddly, there’s a stack of National Geographic magazines that’s almost as tall as the TV. Maybe Vince is a nature lover.
“You certainly did.”
“Name one time.” But even as I’m saying the words, I know he probably has more than a single example in mind.
“Okay. I was working at the Mystic Market a couple of years ago. You and your … your ilk came in to get lunch. I remember because all we serve are wraps and sandwiches and pasta salad, and your friend Mera was horrified by the fact that everything on the menu had carbs. After I rang you up, you took a ten-dollar bill and stuffed it into the tip jar. Do you remember what you said?”
I shake my head.
“You looked at your friends and asked, ‘Do you think this counts as a charitable donation?’ ”
Joe’s banging is more persistent. From the bedroom, we hear rustling. A man’s voice shouts, “I’m fucking coming! Jesus, let me put some pants on. It’s like the middle of the goddamn night.” It’s eight in the morning.
“I’m sorry, Alex,” I say. And I mean it.
He gives me a doubtful look.
“Hey.” I steady my gaze at him. “I’m sorry. It’s true, Alex. If I could go back and change things now, I would. You have to believe me.” I should leave it at that, I know. But I can’t help myself. “Alex … people grow up,” I continue. “Didn’t you say your friends at the Mystic Market told you that the real world isn’t like high school? That it would get better when you got older?”
The air reeks of stale cigarette smoke. I can hardly breathe—not that it matters. I might not remember exactly what Alex is talking about, but I believe he’s telling the truth. Now, more than ever, it seems obvious that I was a rotten person. Especially in the months leading up to my death, it’s clear that I was nothing but a jumble of nerves and angry energy. I meant it when I said that I wish I could take it all back. I just wish I knew why I’d acted so terribly in the first place.
“My friends did tell me that,” he says. “They told me all the time. Both times my bike got stolen from work, they told me that, in the adult world, people are different. All those times I ate alone to avoid your crowd, they told me ‘real life’ would be better.”
I fan the air with my hand. Of course, it does nothing. But for once, I’m grateful to be wearing my boots; no way would I want to be standing on this carpet in bare feet. “Well, maybe they were right,” I say. “We were just being kids. It would have gotten better.” But there’s no conviction in my voice as I speak. It was hard for Alex—partly because of people like me and my friends—and I know it.
“Right,” he says. “Except, instead, I died. And here I am, stuck with you for the foreseeable future. Things didn’t get better.”
I stare at him. “They could have been a lot worse. You could have been treated like Frank Wainscott.”
He stares back. “You’re right. I know that.”
Before I can say anything else, the bedroom door swings open. Despite his insistence that he needed to get dressed before opening the door, Vince has not taken the time to put on pants.
Immediately, I recognize him with such aching certainty that I can feel my whole body go limp. My knees buckle. If my heart were beating at all, it would be racing. Vince Aiello. How could I have forgotten this man? And why can I not remember what he did to me?
He’s a big guy, built like a lumberjack, fat around the middle with an otherwise stocky frame and arms sleeved in tattoos. He’s wearing stained white boxer shorts and nothing else. He’s already got a lit cigarette between his teeth as he answers the door.
Joe takes a long moment to look him up and down. “I thought you were going to put on some pants.”
Vince shrugs. “My house, my rules.”
“Vince Aiello?”
Vince runs a hand through his thick, greasy black hair. “Yup.”
“Can I come in?”
He crosses his arms, narrows his gaze. “You’re a cop?”
“Yes.” Joe shows him a badge.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Then you don’t mind if—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Come on in.”
Vince goes into the kitchen, scratching his butt as he walks away from Joe. He opens the fridge and rifles around inside. I feel a pang of heartache as I realize that this man’s refrigerator is better stocked than Richie’s. Then it occurs to me that my boyfriend could show up here at any second. Where else would he go? He has no car, but he does have a gun, and Topher said he wanted to kill Vince. All our friends are at school, so he can’t go to their houses. All I want is for him to be safe, for him to disentangle himself from the mess that was my life.
Cracking open an energy drink, Vince takes a seat on the couch. “Let me guess,” he says. “You’re here about Elizabeth Valchar.”
Joe seems startled. “Then you knew her?”
“Sure, I did. She was my girlfriend. Been together almost a year.” He takes a long slurp of his drink. “I’ve been real broken up about what happened to her. She was a beauty, you know. A real class act.”
Joe clears his throat, looking around the apartment. “I don’t mean to be rude,” he says, “but I have a hard time believing the two of you were a couple.”
“So do I.” Alex shakes his head, sm
iling at me. “And you came here all the time, right? You? Here? What would your friends have said?”
I close my eyes. “I can’t imagine.”
“Neither can I.” And before I have a chance to say anything else, he adds, “By the way, don’t even think of leaving yet. We are definitely staying for this.”
The memory sucks me into it like goo falling through a sieve; I can’t stop it, I can’t avoid it. All I can do is feel momentarily grateful that Alex hasn’t come with me. I can see every crevice of the back bedroom, with its peeling lime-green paint and windowless walls. I see my body against the mattress, the springs pressing into my spine. There are no sheets, just a pilly, navy-blue bedspread dirtied with white stains. I’m in my bra and underpants. It’s a matching set: light pink with tiny red bows at the edges of my bra straps and the fabric gathered at my hipbones. Vince rests on his side, shirtless, leaning over my body. With a dirty index finger, he draws a slow line from my collarbone to the space between my breasts, all the way down to my belly button. He slides his hand to my hip.
“You’re too effing skinny,” he growls. “You gotta put some meat on your bones.”
He tries to kiss me. I turn my head away from his face, wincing like I’m in physical pain. As I watch the scene play out in front of me, I almost gag.
“Liz.” Alex is squeezing my arm. “Hey. Snap out of it.” He nods at Vince and Joe. “Listen.”
“We met last fall,” Vince says, “when she came to my shop with this other guy. She needed some work done on her car. We had, like, an instant connection. She was tired of all the white-glove treatment, you know?” He shakes his head, coughs a few times, then continues. “She could relax around me. I let her be herself. I guess you could say we had a perfect arrangement.”
Joe fidgets in his seat. “And what kind of arrangement did you have, exactly?”
“When she got sick of her life as a princess, she came over here. We had some fun together. You know what I mean?” He raises his eyebrows. “But when it was all done, she’d go back to her life, with her rich friends and her boyfriend and high school, all that bullshit. It was casual. But believe me, she enjoyed it every bit as much as I did. She was a tiger.”
“I was a virgin,” I say weakly. “I wouldn’t have slept with him. I was saving myself for Richie. I only wanted to be with Richie.”
Alex is looking at me intently. “You know what? I think I might actually believe you.”
For the first time since we’ve entered Vince’s apartment, I feel a rush of relief. “You do?”
“Yes. But then what were you doing here, Liz? There has to be an explanation. I know it’s not that you actually liked this guy.”
I stare at my boots. My toes are in so much pain that they’re almost completely numb, except for the persistent stabbing sensation. It hurts so badly, I almost wish I could just cut my feet off and get it over with. I give Alex a pleading look.
“Let me guess,” he says, “you really want to leave.”
I nod.
“Where do you think we should go? We don’t know where Richie is.”
“I don’t care.” The smell in the apartment is beginning to overwhelm me. I’ll do anything to avoid confronting another memory with Vince Aiello. I close my eyes and think to myself, Take me anywhere.
Maybe I need the catharsis. The memory that I slip into, alone, feels as good as a long soak in a warm tub. It’s prom night, junior year—the same night, I realize, when Richie and I ran into Joe Wright while our car was parked at the beach. I wore a pink halter gown with a trumpet skirt. As I look at myself, I remember that I had to have the dress taken in twice before the big night; that’s how much weight I’d been losing.
Richie has never been much of a dancer. I love to dance, but he’s always acted like he’s too cool for it. I know the truth, though: he’s shy, too afraid of looking anything but fully composed in front of our friends and classmates; he’ll usually stay near me, kind of swaying, moving just enough so that he doesn’t stand any chance of embarrassing himself. That night, my girlfriends and I all gather together, dancing in a group while our dates sit at a table watching. The room is dark, lit with floating tea candles that sit in glass bowls. The tables are covered with them, casting shadows all over the room, and there’s glitter and confetti on their surfaces, too, along with fat arrangements of flowers, three or four bouquets each. It’s magic. We’ll only be this young once. Even as I’m standing on the dance floor with Mera and Caroline and Josie, the four of us grinning so hard that our cheeks probably hurt, my shoes stowed under the table hours ago so that I could dance without my feet aching, I recall thinking to myself: remember this forever.
The dance is supposed to last until midnight, but Richie and I slip out a little after eleven.
We took a limo to the dance. All our friends chipped in, $17.65 per person—it’s amazing how these tiny details are all coming back to me now—and the car was supposed to take us wherever we wanted all night, but Richie and I aren’t just going to run off with it, leaving everyone else behind. It’s a warm night, and it’s less than a mile walk back to Richie’s house. We can’t go up to his room; his parents are actually home for once. So we take his mom’s SUV and drive down the shore, along the winding rows of empty vacation homes, until we find a long driveway leading to a clearly vacant house. We park at the very end, close to the garage, and pretend that it all belongs to us.
Richie and I have been together for so long, we almost don’t have to say anything to each other. I loved being alone with him; I loved the deep, comfortable silence between us that was woven by so many years of conversation, of learning to read the nuances in each other’s expressions, in our body language, in our breath.
I watch from the front as we climb into the back, put the seats down. Carefully, so gently, with fingers that I imagine are soft and cool, his breath calm, Richie unzips my dress. I feel so close to him that I can almost sense his touch, even though I’m not in my living body. I watch myself slip out of my gown and fold it across the back of the front seat. I’m not wearing a bra, just a simple white thong, so thin and light that it’s almost like nothing.
As he kneels above me, I lie flat on my back. I stare up at Richie, who’s watching me, tugging his bowtie loose almost without any awareness of what he’s doing. He presses a palm against my stomach, which appears to be nothing but skin over muscle. He leans over to kiss me.
“I love you,” I tell him. I’ve said it a million times before over the years, but this time, it seems different somehow. There’s something odd about my tone.
He pulls away. It’s dark in the car; I can see his eyes flashing in the moonlight spilling through the windows, but I can’t read his expression. “Do you?” There’s doubt in his voice.
“Richie. Of course. I’ve loved you forever.”
He takes a fingertip, traces it along the outline of my rib, which is fully visible beneath my skin. “It’s like you’re disappearing,” he murmurs.
“I’m not disappearing. I’m right here.”
“Where do you go when you’re out running?”
I laugh, but the effort seems hollow. “You know where I go.”
He opens his mouth. He tightens his grip around my rib cage, pressing so hard that it looks like it might hurt. “I want to be your first.” He swallows. “I want to be the only one. Forever.”
“You will be.”
“Promise?”
He already knew about Vince; I understand that now. And as I stare at the two of us together, I realize that I knew he didn’t believe anything I was telling him.
Then why doesn’t he confront me? Why does he kiss me, and continue to love me, when everything we have built together over all these years is dissolving into lie upon lie?
“I promise,” I whisper. Maybe he doesn’t want to know the whole truth. Whatever it is, it was too terrible for me to share with Richie.
And if I’d told him, would things have been different? Could I have
lived? Or were the events that led to my death already in full swing, too far along to be prevented, no matter what I might have done to stop them?
As soon as the memory drifts away, Alex grabs my arm to take me somewhere else. “We’re here,” he says.
I can tell from looking around that we’re in the present; Alex and I are nowhere to be seen. And if I didn’t know any better, I’d think it was just a normal day at a normal high school. We’re in the cafeteria.
“It’s pizza day,” he says.
Right away, I spot my friends sitting at their usual table. It’s our premium spot in the lunchroom: a big, circular table in the far right corner of the room, next to the potato bar, closest to the double doors leading to the parking lot.
“I thought you hated lunch,” I tell Alex.
“Well, I thought you might like to see some familiar faces.” He half smiles. “Did I say that I hated lunch?”
“Yes. Because of me and my friends. You told me you ate lunch in the library sometimes to avoid us.” I stare at him. “I remember. I’m sorry.”
“You can stop saying that you’re sorry.”
“I can’t help it.” It’s true; I can’t.
We position ourselves beside my friends. It might be pizza day for the other students, but for all of my girlfriends, every day is salad day.
Josie is picking at her Caprese salad, nibbling the edge of a basil leaf.
“You okay?” Mera sips a Diet Coke. “Worried about Richie?”
Josie nods. “They’re going to arrest him.”
“Josie, would you relax?” Topher stretches lazily, slings an arm around Mera. “So they’ll arrest him. His parents will bail him out. He’ll end up with, like, probation. It’s not a big deal. He’s still a minor.”
“Leave her alone,” Caroline says. “He’s her boyfriend. She’s concerned about him.”
“Oh, he is not her boyfriend,” Mera says, shooting a glance at Topher, who remains casually uninterested, a far cry from the chatty informant he played earlier with Joe. “Richie’s freaking out. You should have seen him this morning at Topher’s house. He wants to figure out who killed Liz.”
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