I called off work when I finally stumbled down the staircase. Nobody questioned it; they’d all gotten wedding invitations in the mail, the ones I’d deigned way too girly. Carissa had given me a world-weary sigh when I said as much, told me there was no such thing as manly wedding invitations, so could I just let that one slide?
Now I’d have taken pink perfumed lacy monstrosities if it meant I’d be marrying her.
I sloshed a stream of Kahlua into my coffee. Dexter watched me do so from atop the fridge with that disapproving look he always wore, sighting me down the barrel of his nose before becoming distracted by a fly.
Whenever missing her had gotten to be more than I could handle, I’d try to remember all the bad things about her. Anything that might force me to keep it together. She had something I always figured was body dysmorphic disorder. She’d drive me batshit crazy, asking whether her birdlike arms looked like ham hocks in this blouse, did I think her head looked too small in this sweater? Oh my God, does it look like I’ve got cankles, never mind, I can’t wear these ankle boots. It was maddening, watching her pinch that half inch of skin on her waist, her cheeks apple-red with frustration that she didn’t look like those supermodels she saw on the catwalk for work, even though she did, she completely did, she was just way shorter than them, but that worked for me. I liked that she was so small I could sling her over my shoulder. Sometimes I thought she didn’t hate anything as much as she hated herself.
She had a short fuse; sometimes her anger came out of nowhere because of literally anything, something I did and said or didn’t do or say. It drove me crazy how she expected me to read her mind. I couldn’t read her mind any better than I could read Latin.
She’d thrown my Xbox controller at my head the night she died. It didn’t hit me, it sailed past my shoulder and gouged the wall, but still.
Dexter followed me onto the porch, where I nursed my spiked coffee and played a game with myself.
A, she was argumentative, B she could be bitchy, C was her cup size which she claimed meant she was fat, D she was deeply damaged in a way I could never completely understand, E was for her random spats of energy, when I’d come home from work, baffled to find the house sparkling from top to bottom, Carissa attacking the baseboards with a bucket of soapy water.
And by the time I’d hit the rest of the alphabet, it turned into a horrible sappy love poem, no more bad or bewildering qualities. L, because she told me she loved me so often, W because she wanted to be my wife, X for all that X-rated lingerie she only bought because she knew I liked it, even though it was all too slutty for her personal tastes.
I hadn’t quite planned on getting hammered before noon. I figured I’d be able to white-knuckle it until Joe got off work at five. Carissa would have been able to tell me that was wishful thinking. She always had known me better than I knew myself.
I switched from Kahlua to whiskey and rattled off a passably coherent text to Joe, but I knew he wouldn’t answer, this was the busiest time of year for construction. It would snow soon, autumn having already given its last death rattle, and he’d have to work double time to get most of the heavy lifting out of the way.
Calling Carissa’s cell phone just to hear her voicemail message didn’t do anything helpful. You’ve reached Carissa Kloss, I’m not available at the moment, but please leave a message and I’ll call back as soon as I can. Thanks!
Carissa Kloss. I’d always told her she sounded like a comic book character, that she should swap the C in her first name for a K.
Hearing her voice was like dousing disinfectant all over an open wound. I thought, however drunkenly, that it might help the healing process—wounds need to be cleaned properly to heal—but it didn’t, it just hurt like hell and made me sad that Dexter had gone off to hunt mice and wouldn’t be there to sit on the couch with me while I continued drinking myself into a stupor.
My phone rang on and off as the hours ticked past. People calling to comfort me, I presumed, but none of them could have comforted me the way Carissa could have.
There was a pack of leftover cigarettes in the junk drawer; I found it while rummaging for a bottle opener, having switched to beer after the whiskey bottle ran dry. I used to smoke with her whenever I’d been drinking, and it suddenly seemed like a fine idea, smoking the rest of the cigarettes inside the last pack she’d ever bought. She was dead, she wouldn’t mind if I borrowed them.
I blinked, looking out the sliding glass door, and shook my head a few times, brain thick with alcohol. Snow had started to fall and I hadn’t even registered it. I stumbled to the coatrack, grabbed the first coat I touched, and tripped outside onto the patio steps.
Carissa loved the snow. There’s nothing quieter than snow, she told me once when I found her wrapped up in a few blankets on the patio at two in the morning, looking like she was just waking up from something or somewhere. She liked when everything was calm and still, she did her best thinking in silence.
It took me twelve tries to light the cigarette. My thumb throbbed dully, glowing as red as the cherry I finally managed to ignite. I jammed the menthol between my lips and took a long drag, shoving my hands in my pockets to ward off the chill. My fingers closed around something crumpled in the wool lining. A receipt, I assumed, pulling it out. But it wasn’t a receipt. It was that business card Jess had tossed on the grass in the cemetery.
I ran the pad of my thumb over the raised lettering on the business card, reading it like braille. Jess Alder. Even her name sounded annoying and smug, just like her smiles.
I dialed the number quickly, thinking I might lose my nerve, but when I slapped the sliding glass door into place and promptly ran into a chair that I could have sworn hadn’t been present a second ago, I realized I was too drunk to lose a nerve of any kind.
“This is Jess,” her irritatingly chipper voice said after two rings, a keyboard clacking in the background of her end.
“Uh.” I cleared my throat, sending static her way. “Hi. I don’t know if you remember me from a few days ago at the cemetery. Ben.”
“Ben, Ben…Ben with the murdered fiancée?” Her typing broke off. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Oh. Good.”
“You sound terrible.”
“I’ve been drinking.”
“Got it.” Her typing revved up again and her voice muffled, like she was switching the phone to her other ear. “So I’m guessing you’re interested in what I told you about at the cemetery?”
Well I wasn’t calling for her shining conversational skills. “Yeah.”
“Okay. So I’ll give you the address, you’re in Boston too, right? The office is just outside the city. Get here when you can.”
I sank into a chair, pressing both elbows into the table, trying to focus on the grains running through the wood surface. “I don’t think I can drive.”
She made one of those annoying female noises, like a laugh of derision got caught in the back of her throat. “So call an Uber.”
“Oh. Yeah. Okay.”
“It’s 311 Emery in Boston. Make sure you write that down right now. 311 Emery. I don’t trust you to remember it on your own.”
I knocked a book off the table reaching for a pen. As I uncapped it with my teeth and scribbled the address down, she said, “So I’ll see you soon. I’ll wait for you in the lobby. Oh, hey.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have her cell phone?”
“Who’s?”
“Queen Elizabeth’s.” She sighed loudly, like she was flapping her lips like Mr. Ed. “Your fiancée’s, Ben. Do you have her cell phone?”
“Yeah.” I nodded, and not for any real reason I could glean. Nobody was looking at me. “Somewhere.”
“Android or iPhone?”
“Android.”
“Thank God. I hate iPhones. Make sure you bring it with you. So I’ll see you in…” Something creaked in the background. “What, like twenty minutes?”
“Yeah.”
“Awesome. Drink some
coffee while you wait for that Uber. Take some in a travel mug on the way. Sober up some.”
I disconnected, knowing coffee wouldn’t do anything but make me energetically drunk.
T rue to her word, she waited for me in the lobby, pacing past the frosted glass door off to the side of what looked to be an old mill, abandoned long ago. The chill from outside rushed in as I fought with the door, and she turned toward me, eyes way too bright with interest. She was in the wrong industry. I couldn’t imagine her comforting grieving people day in and day out.
“Found it okay?”
“Well, Simon the Uber driver did.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, looking me up and down. “You smell like a bar. You did drink coffee, right? The last thing I want is you passing out during the question portion.” She exhaled a short sigh and turned on the heel of a fuzzy boot. “Well, come on.”
The hallways reminded me of a hay bale maze my mom took me to when I was young. I wouldn’t have been able to find my way out sober, but I trudged along after her short, quick strides. The walk combined with the alcohol and coffee made my pulse skyrocket. I was out of breath by the time I fell into the visitor’s seat in her cubicle.
To be honest, I had no idea what to expect in this place, but my brain hadn’t conjured pictures of an empty and dimly-lit State Farm office, which was what it looked like. Hers was the only occupied desk, though computers hummed and blinked from each cubicle.
She slid into her swivel chair, tucking both legs beneath her. “Well, I’m glad you’re here.”
“You can’t be surprised. You said they always call back in the end.”
“I lied. They don’t always.” She pressed her red lips together, pupils flitting between both of mine. “Rough day, huh? You wanna tell me what happened?”
“We were supposed to get married today.”
“Ah.” She nodded like she understood, but she’d never understand what it felt like to see your dead fiancée’s dress hanging in the closet on what should have been the best day of your life. “Well, I think you came to the right place. I’m sure you’ve got questions.”
“You asked me what I would say if you told me I could talk to her again. What did you mean?”
“I should probably get my questions in first before clarifying a few points.” She held out her hand. “I need her cell phone. You remembered it, right?”
I pulled it out of my coat pocket and slapped it into her palm.
She rooted through a crowded desk drawer and unearthed a charger. “Do you know the passcode?” She shook a finger when I opened my mouth. “You don’t need to tell me what it is. I’ll ask you to input it when I’m ready.” She plugged the charger into the outlet and connected it to the phone. “It just makes things easier when the client knows the code. Was she active on social media?”
“She had to be for work. She had a Facebook, Twitter account, SnapChat, Instagram, a blog. She wrote articles, too.”
“Can you give me the URLs?”
I did after consulting my own cell phone, and for once, she fell silent.
There were no windows in the place. It made me claustrophobic and itchy, like an army of fire ants crawled beneath my socks, under my shirt, on the hot skin beneath my collar.
The dim lights flickered, pulsed like a strobe light for a few seconds. I whipped my head toward Jess, who didn’t even bother looking up. She just waved one airy hand. “That happens sometimes. Don’t worry about it.” She pulled up the Instagram account and clicked on the default image. “Aww. She’s cute.”
I didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh or smack her. Carissa wasn’t just cute, she made Jess look like an inbred hick. “Thanks. I guess.”
She shot me a sideways half-smile, pecking at the keys. “Are you her next-of-kin?”
“Her mother’s dead, and she never knew her father. No siblings. So I guess.”
She nodded, eyes on the computer screen. “Did she have a criminal record that you were aware of?”
“No. What kind of question is that?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I just work here, Ben. It’s something I have to ask. She’s only been gone…what was it, five months?”
“Yeah. Is that important?” I fell back against the chair, massaging my temples as the beginnings of a headache caught my skull in a vise grip.
“Longer than two years is a little more difficult.” I closed my eyes, listening to her typing and clicking. “She was extremely active online. Which is good news. It’s harder when someone only has a Facebook page they updated every blue moon.” She leaned over to check Carissa’s cell phone and handed it to me, the cord draped across her chest from the opposite end of her cubicle. “It’s got enough juice now. Enter her passcode and pull up her email, okay?”
I did as told, turning the screen to face her. She jabbed a few buttons with one finger, the blue glare of the phone reflecting over the whites of her eyes. “Good.” She took the phone back. “Let me get the texts downloaded. Dear God, she texted more than she spoke. It’s unbelievable how much of our exchanges these days aren’t oral,” she said conversationally, like she was my dentist’s receptionist, logging my next appointment. “But in our situation, it’s a good thing. Okay, I think we’re all set.”
She put the phone on her desk. The screen turned black as it locked. She pivoted in the chair, turning so she faced me head-on.
“The first and most important thing I need to tell you is, we can’t bring Carissa back to life. I’m not sure what you were expecting, and you didn’t let me get a word in at the cemetery, but I want to lay that out on the table right now. She’s gone, and nothing we do here will change that.”
I don’t know why my heart sank, hearing that. I knew it was impossible, Jess wasn’t Christ, for God’s sake, I could sooner sing opera than she could raise the dead. Carissa was gone, she didn’t know or care if I missed her. I loved her, she said she’d loved me, but now she was dead, that was the end of our story, I should close the book and burn it in a funeral pyre. I hadn’t known it would turn into some twisted Grimm fairytale tragedy when I first saw her; I might have changed my mind about talking to her in that bar. I had no idea things could wind up ending so wrong.
What the hell was I thinking. I should have waited for Joe to call back. He should have been tucking me in about now. It was only seven p.m., but I’d been drinking since nine in the morning. I was ripe for a drunken coma.
“I don’t want to lose you now, Ben, don’t zone out, I’m still talking. Look at me. Come on.” She waited until I maintained eye contact for a full five seconds before carrying on. “I’m going to run everything you’ve given me—Facebook activity, Twitter feeds, blog posts, emails and texts—through software that can mimic her tone, her way of speaking. I’m sure you know what vernacular means. It’s not going to be her, but it’s the next best thing, as good as it gets. Most beta testers report not being able to tell a difference. You can still talk to her whenever you want. The computer has a pretty accurate picture of who she is now, the loads of material you’ve given it to work with, but it’s going to need some time to sort through everything.”
Carissa would roll over in that expensive casket I bought her if she knew the lengths I’d reach to get even a tiny piece of her back. Everything about her was sharp except her heart. The only things I’d ever seen melt her cold Ice Princess exterior were animals and strangely enough, me. When I met her, I’d never imagined how tender she could be, how she could spend hours entwined on the sofa with me, how she’d laugh at my lame jokes and pack me lunches and walk me through pronouncing Shyamalan.
Babe, it’s M. Night Shaw-ma-lawn, she’d told me every time we saw one of his movies, shaking her head so all that Disney princess hair fell around her slight shoulders.
But my tongue always twisted around the word, I couldn’t help pronouncing it Shama-lion.
My knee bucked of its own accord when Jess slipped her hand on it. She yanked it back, held both hands in fr
ont of her face like I was a tiger crouched to pounce.
I ran my hand over my face, heaving a deep sigh. “How much will this cost?”
“This whole process is still in beta.” She leaned back in her chair, swinging one leg over the other. “It won’t cost you a thing.”
What could there possibly be to lose then, I thought dully. Things can’t get worse. If my mother were here, she’d say there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but she’d given me free lunches all the time, I always thought that was a stupid saying.
“And…how long will it take to start?”
She tilted her head from side to side, wrinkling an upturned nose dusted with freckles. “Anywhere from six to twenty-four hours. I don’t have any timeframe more exact than that.” She turned one hand palm-up. “So? If you’re interested, I can draw up the paperwork. I just need your signature.” Her chin dipped as she tried to meet my gaze. “Look, if you hate it after a few days, we can wipe out all the information you’ve given us, give you back her cell phone, whatever. Piece of cake.” She snapped up a pen on her desk, depressing the point rapidly. “You in?”
II
I tried to remember the last thing I’d said to Carissa as I sat on the couch later that evening, stroking Dexter’s orange spine the way she used to.
You’d think I’d have it committed to memory, but words weren’t spoken so much as hurled that night. She could lob cutting remarks like a knife slinger when she put her mind to it, always knew just what to say, always hit her mark. She claimed I was the same way, but I’d never believed it, not until that night.
Carissa had found out one of her old friends was bringing Carissa’s ex-boyfriend to the wedding as her plus-one, rendering me predictably furious.
And just what in the fucking fuck do you expect me to do about that, Ben? She’s still friends with him, that’s fine, was I supposed to insist she cut him off after we broke up?
Lingering Page 3
