Lingering

by Melissa Simonson

  W

  henever I think of Carissa, I always think of her mind.

  I told her that once, but she called me a liar around the plume of smoke she’d been exhaling, a dark eyebrow arching on her winter-white forehead. Oh sure, my mind. You just don’t want to sound like a horndog and say my rack.

  It was true though, but her rack would probably win a close second place.

  I never knew what she was thinking, even though she claimed I knew her best. She surprised me constantly. I came home from work one day and she’d made tiramisu, cheesecake, a mocha torte. We’d been together over a year at that point, and she’d never mentioned a thing about baking. And when I told her I didn’t know she could bake, she shrugged and said she hadn’t known either.

  It had never occurred to her to tell me she spoke fluent French. Not until she heard some tourists in Boston arguing in heated French over their cell phones. They’d needed directions, it turned out. She cut into their conversation, pointed them to their destination, and turned back to me like nothing at all out of the ordinary had happened.

  She was one of those people who could leap from point A to point X without missing a beat. I didn’t even have to utter a syllable sometimes before she’d answer my questions. Yeah, I added coffee filters to the grocery list. I accused her of being a witch once because of it. Well, I do look good in all black, she’d said around a tube of lipstick. Happy Hour, she told me the shade was called, rolling her eyes as she caught my gaze in the mirror. Of course they’d call magenta Happy Hour; all women are supposed to like those fruity umbrella drinks.

  Carissa had been a strictly gin and tonic kind of woman. No umbrellas or alcohols in gaudy colors. That looks like something Liberace would drink, she’d said once, eyeing a Tequila Sunrise. I conveniently forgot I liked Mai Tais after that.

  She was the most complicated, infuriating person I’d ever met, but I loved her anyway.

  I slouched beside her grave, stretching my legs out. Carissa would have told me I was an idiot for splurging on the most expensive headstone. It’s not like I’ll be around to admire it, I could imagine her saying, and probably with an eye roll. Just put a couple coins over my eyeballs and shove me out to sea. Much cheaper.

  I pulled the flask she’d had engraved with my initials out of my jacket pocket. Almost empty, but it was Joe’s turn to bring something. His dead wife was my dead fiancée’s neighbor. From all Joe had told me about Cathy, I had a feeling she and Carissa would have gotten along pretty well.

  “Who’s this?” Joe had asked me the first time we met. I’d always pictured cemeteries as bookless outdoor libraries, like talking was taboo, but it turned out to be more in the way of a support group. A cozy little support group of two. Joe and I never did meet the husband of the woman buried to the left of Carissa.

  “My fiancée.”

  He pointed at the suspiciously new-looking headstone in front of him. “My wife. Cathy. Cancer.”

  I wanted to say I win and laugh, but nothing was funny. “Carissa. She was murdered.”

  Assassinated, I knew Carissa would correct, pointing one sharp nail at me, ash from her cigarette snowing all over our back patio. I’m much too important to just be murdered, right?

  “What’s so funny?”

  I’d shot a look at his raised eyebrows and realized the strangled snorting had come from me. “Nothing. It’s just, Carissa would have said she was too important to just be murdered, or something. She’d insist I say assassinate. She was funny like that.”

  You’ll learn to notice the signs, she told me the first night we met, after it was clear I hadn’t been able to tell she was joking. You’ll feel waves in the air. Animals will start acting oddly. The world will tilt on its axis.

  “How long has she been gone?”

  “Three months.” I hadn’t been able to work up the energy to visit her in as long. On an afterthought, I’d added, “And Cathy?”

  “About four months.”

  And I’d thought how strange this all was, how I’d have never met Joe if it weren’t for Carissa’s death, if Cathy hadn’t died of stage four ovarian cancer. If I’d bought a plot beside the French soldiers who’d been dead hundreds of years over in the cheapskate area of the cemetery instead of this one by the pond. How weird it felt that we were standing here introducing each other to dead girls we loved. It was a transformative thing, death. I had no idea who I’d turn into without Carissa, or if I’d even want to know who I’d become.

  I was so mad at her that night. She called three times, but I never answered.

  I swilled the flask absently, staring at the wind snaking through blades of grass, when a pair of shoes crowded into view and stopped right in front of me. They weren’t Joe’s feet. Too small. Too female. I unscrewed the cap and downed the remaining scotch, averting my eyes from whoever the feet belonged to.

  “Hi.”

  I capped the flask, shoved it back in my pocket, and grunted a hello.

  Carissa bled fashion. It was her job, after all. She taught me what cap sleeves were, why they sucked, and what made a stiletto a stiletto. She could judge anyone based on their footwear, and she would have undoubtedly labeled this woman a hipster. Trying to be ironic in chunky platforms that haven’t been cool since the nineties. Carissa had hated that nineties fashions were back in style, anyway.

  I followed the tight jeans to the furry vest and up to the face. The I Just Woke Up hair wasn’t as effortless as it looked, Carissa had once told me. You’d think so, but no. It could take hours to achieve, lots of hair products I couldn’t remember the names of, a blow dryer to set the style in place.

  The woman’s face split into a red smile. Her lips looked like an open wound. “I’m Jess.”

  “Ben.”

  She stuck her hand out. I grudgingly shook it, swallowing a hard sigh as she sat in front of me. Like we were old friends who did this all the time, powwowing around my dead fiancée’s grave.

  “Looks like you’ve had a bad day.”

  “Well this is a cemetery. Is anybody happy to be here?” Though she looked to be in good enough spirits, carefree as if she’d just waltzed into a Starbucks, not a parade of some stranger’s grief.

  She leaned back on her hands, crossing her legs. “I guess not. Who is this, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  I did mind, but Carissa had always told me I was too nice. “My fiancée.”

  Generally, this was the part where someone said I’m sorry for your loss, but expecting her to say as much was nothing more than wishful thinking. “How long has it been?”

  I hooked a thumb over my shoulder.

  Her lips mouthed October 1987 to July 2018. “About five months, then?” I nodded. She plucked up a blade of grass, twirling it between red-chipped nails. “I’m willing to bet you miss her so much it hurts.”

  “I’m liking your odds.”

  “How did it happen?”

  I felt my jaw clench. I wanted to smack that blade of grass out of her hand. “She was murdered.”

  “Wow. I’m sorry. Do they know who did it?”

  Joe had asked me all the same questions five months earlier, but he’d done so with empathy, not morbid curiosity; his eyes hadn’t shone with something near excitement. He hadn’t worn garish smeary lipstick and smiled like he was interviewing me for some campy true crime special.

  “No. They never caught the guy.”

  “Do they think it was some serial killer or something?”

  Or something. Another woman had turned up in the same horrifically dead fashion a year and a half before Carissa died, but I couldn’t get those words out. I just stared openmouthed at this aggressively chatty woman and willed myself not to reach over and flick her hard in the nose. Who came to cemeteries for small talk?<
br />
  “All due respect,” I said, fighting back a snarl, “but what the hell are you doing here? I don’t come to a cemetery for conversation.” It was a lie, I talked to Joe all the time, but at least he had a reason to be here. I sincerely doubted this woman had lost anything more precious than a goldfish, the way her eyes flit through the headstones like they were nothing more interesting than parking meters.

  She examined the dismal paint job on a thumbnail. “What would you say if I told you you could talk to her again?”

  I pressed a hand to my eye hard enough to make red patterns bloom. “I’d say you’re a real bitch with a serious lack of anything better to do, trolling around a cemetery. What is this, your singles’ lounge?” I climbed to my feet, scotch swirling uncomfortably in my empty stomach.

  She looked up at me, nonchalant, like she’d gotten that reaction all the time. “I’m not coming onto you.” She laughed, shaking her head. “It was a serious question. What would you say to her?”

  I’d tell her how sorry I was, that I should have never left her that night, that I was absolutely the asshole she’d called me as I walked out our front door.

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “It could be.”

  “Fuck off.”

  She got to her feet, dusting off her ass with one hand, shielding her eyes from the sun with the other. She wore a massive amount of makeup, thick hooker lipstick and precisely applied heavy eyeliner. One of those faces you couldn’t imagine without all the war paint. I wondered what she looked like underneath it all. She had to have kept it hidden for a reason.

  “I’m not here to hit on mourning men. I’m recruiting beta testers for my boyfriend’s company.” She dug through a purse the size of a suitcase and unearthed a business card. She stuck it out, but I didn’t accept. Shrugging, she dropped it, let it flutter to the grass, blinking eyelashes as furry as her wooly mammoth vest. “It’s called Lingering. I can explain it to you, but I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

  “Good thinking.”

  She took a few backward steps and tripped over a sprinkler head. “Keep that card. You’ll want to call me someday. They always do.” She shot me another smile. Her front teeth turned slightly inward. I wondered if that was because someone had punched her in the face. She probably had it coming.

  Joe plodded down the sidewalk, hands stuffed in his pockets. Still walking backward, Jess ran into his shoulder. She didn’t even say excuse me, just looked up at him and walked off, the wet ground sucking at the soles of her shoes. She almost lost one, stumbling slightly, ramming her heel back into place.

  I stuck one foot over the business card, pressing it into the ground with the toe of my Timberland.

  “Who’s that?” Joe pulled his flask out, wrinkles lining his already-lined forehead. It was one of those days, I could tell by his expression. There would be many glasses of gin in our future.

  “A fucking lunatic.” We watched her heavy footsteps plod away until she’d disappeared behind a thicket of trees, furry vest flapping, black hair shining red at the edges from the late fall sun.

  We settled into the grass like we always did, and when Joe was busy unscrewing the cap of his flask, I read the card out of the corner of my eye.

  Jess Alder, Lingering Specialist.

  She’d forgotten to add raging bitch to her title, I thought, crumpling it in my palm and discreetly shoving it into my pocket.

  I used to bitch and moan about Carissa’s cigarette butts and loads of ash all over our back patio, but now I’d have given anything to see them. It didn’t look the same in their absence. But death had a way of contaminating everything it’s ever touched—nothing I knew had been the same since she’d died. Her cat that had always hated me suddenly attached himself to my side, shadowing me to the kitchen, curling up beside me on the couch while I pretended to watch television, spooning me in bed.

  Sometimes I’d look at Dexter and wonder what he’d seen that night. If he didn’t see her die, he’d at least seen her body. There were bloody paw prints all over the house when I got home, red splotchy breadcrumbs I had to follow into the bathroom.

  You know how they say cats eat their dead owner’s faces? Dexter hadn’t. I think that’s what made me warm up to him after everything that happened. He’d had ample time to eat her, if he’d wanted.

  I told my mother all that. She’d had no clue how to respond to it, but her expression said it all. If Dexter not eating Carissa’s face is cause for celebration, surely you need to be committed.

  I think Carissa would have been happy Dexter had decided to forgive whatever I’d done that made him hate me. She’d probably laugh if she could see him now, his hairy orange ass planted against my foot as he gave himself a vigorous bath.

  It was funny how all your non-negotiables became completely negotiable once you got emotionally attached to someone. I’d broken all my stupid rules with Carissa. Almost immediately, I’d forgotten them. I’d always told myself I’d never date a smoker or a cat lady, that a high-maintenance woman was the last thing I wanted, and certainly never a glass half-empty one at that.

  Joe said he’d done the same thing with Cathy. All his life he’d wanted a quiet good girl, but when he saw her wearing next to nothing at that college party in a skirt that looked more like a washcloth, the only thing he’d thought was, I have to meet this girl.

  Carissa was everything I’d convinced myself I didn’t want, but none of that meant anything when I saw her sitting at that bar by herself.

  I almost didn’t strike up a conversation. She had this go to hell aura about her. The Ice Princess mask, like she could just as easily take a bite out of you as smile at you. But then, it looked like she’d never smiled a day in her life, so I figured that was why no other guy had approached her. The sharp symmetry of her features coupled with dark hair and severe black clothing made for a pretty intimidating picture. But when she looked up, caught me staring, her left eyebrow lifted just slightly, and one corner of her naked lips turned up. I thought I’d been fairly discreet, that she hadn’t noticed how closely I’d examined her, but later she told me she knew what I’d been doing all along.

  I have peripheral vision, you know. Every time I so much as tilted my chin, your eyes dropped straight to your drink. I was beginning to think you’d never come over, that I’d have to go to you.

  But we both knew she’d never have done that. She wasn’t the type to make the first move, she made me work for everything.

  The screen door slapped aside, and Joe stumbled onto the steps beside me, reeking of gin, a constellation of salty tears on his cheeks, mucus running rivers over his lips. He slapped at his face with a paper towel as though it had done him a great personal wrong. Maybe crying was exposing weakness, but that weakness was only love. It didn’t appall me, make me shrink away. He’d seen me in the same state.

  Cathy’s hamster died that morning. Most would find it a stupid reason to cry, but that hamster was the only living link he had to Cathy in that house. If I woke up to Dexter dead, I might have lost my shit, too. I hated everything about that cat until I needed him.

  “She’d tell me I was stupid for getting so upset,” Joe said, as if we were in the middle of a conversation. He’d been locked in the bathroom for the past twenty minutes, but I made no mention of it.

  “She wouldn’t have said that.” Truthfully, I had no idea what she’d say, but if the tables had been turned, it would have been the lie I’d want to hear.

  “Yeah, she would have. She would have said you’re forty years old, Joe, how about you strap on a pair?” His laugh turned into a hiccup. “I keep thinking things will get easier, but it hasn’t happened yet.” He blew out a shuddering sigh, looked over at me, and seemed suddenly struck by what he’d just said. “I shouldn’t say that to you. It does get easier. But then you still have some bad days, too.”

  This wasn’t news to me.

  He got steadily drunker as I sobered up, and by ten p.m., I’d cov
ered his prone, snoring form with a blanket on my couch. Dexter gave Joe his classic look of simpering incuriosity before following me up the staircase to the room I used to share with his dead mistress.

  In the morning, Joe had left, but not before neatly folding the blanket I’d tossed over him, throwing away the empty bottles, wiping down the countertops, and filling Dexter’s food dish from the canister near the microwave.

  Thanks, buddy. I’ll do the same for you the next time you’ve got a bad day, he’d texted at six forty-five a.m.

  He didn’t need to thank me. It went without saying. And I was damn near positive I’d have to take him up on that offer sometime soon.

  M y mother had made a habit of stopping by unannounced since Carissa died. She claimed it was simply because I’d started working from home, but it was a ridiculous lie, like she was trying to convince me Santa Claus was real. I was just in the neighborhood, thought I’d say hello. My neighborhood was ten miles from hers.

  She’d finally stopped asking how I was feeling, which was something, I supposed. I was tired of lying every time someone asked me that question. You know, I’m kinda feeling like splitting open a vein, jumping off that high-rise building I used to work at, standing in front of an oncoming train wouldn’t go over well with anybody.

  I opened the door after her knock, and she bustled inside, laden down with plastic bags and Styrofoam food containers. She’d made a habit of shopping for me too, as if I’d somehow forgotten how to get myself family-sized bottles of Tums and toilet paper.

  She jiggled the sweaty Styrofoam container as I shut the door behind her. “Got you a BLT on rye.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Where’s that cat? I got him some treats, too.”

  Dexter turned into one of those cartoon blurs, feet pedaling the air wildly before zooming out of the room whenever company came by. I wished I could do the same, hide under the bed until the visitors left.