Jar of Hearts

by Jennifer Hillier

  She mentally slaps herself. It’s Kaiser. Stop it.

  “What brings you by? Something new with the case?” she asks, heading into the kitchen where her bagel has already popped out of the toaster. “Coffee? I know how to use the Nespresso now.”

  “Coffee would be good, thanks.” He leans against the counter. “I guess I’m here because I didn’t like how we ended things the other day.”

  “And how was that?”

  “You know … awkwardly.” Running a hand through his hair, Kaiser sighs. “With you getting angry. With me feeling bad about it. I don’t know … it reminded me of being in high school. It felt shitty then, and it feels shitty now. I don’t enjoy upsetting you.”

  “I wasn’t upset,” Geo says, although in hindsight, she supposes she was. They did argue about Calvin James, which ironically is the only thing they’ve ever argued about, even going all the way back to high school. “Anyway, why do you care?”

  “Because I care about you,” he says, taking the cup of coffee she offers him. He sips it black. “I’ve always cared about you. You’re the girl who—” He stops abruptly, his cheeks flushing slightly, and looks away.

  She looks up at him. “The girl who got away?”

  “I was going to say that, but no, you’re not.” Kaiser meets her gaze. “Because that implies I once had you. We both know I never did.”

  They stand in silence for a moment, Kaiser sipping his coffee, Geo ignoring the bagel that’s now cooling in the toaster. She notices he’s not wearing a wedding ring. “Did you ever get married, Kai?” she asks, her voice soft.

  He seems surprised by the question. Nods. “Briefly. It wasn’t a good relationship. She’s married to someone else now, and they have a kid.”

  “Andrew got married. They have twins. I saw him the other day, by accident. He was with his family.”

  “How’d he look?”

  “Terrible,” she says, and they both chuckle. “But it made me realize that he wasn’t for me. That I was chasing the wrong thing. I’ve always chased the wrong thing.”

  She lets her words hang in the air for moment. Kaiser doesn’t respond, but his eyes are flicking over her clothes, her face, her hair. Not in an intrusive way, in an observant way, and she begins to feel a bit self-conscious. Which is ridiculous, because it’s Kaiser. His opinion of her appearance isn’t supposed to matter. But she finds herself feeling glad she washed her hair that morning, that she took a minute to swipe on a coat of mascara and a bit of tinted lip balm.

  The Shipp lipstick he left with her, Cinnamon Heart, she stuck in a bottom drawer. She didn’t try it on. It’s now beside the Mason jar that wouldn’t break. Where it belongs.

  “You look good,” he says. “Rested.”

  “I’m sleeping better,” she says. “It’s amazing the things you take for granted. I can take showers longer than eight minutes, with water as hot as I like, and without having to wear shower shoes or worry that someone is going to open the curtain before I’m finished. My dad made steaks last night for dinner. And this morning I got a call from a friend in Hazelwood, who’s getting out soon. She’s coming to stay here. She has cancer. She … she doesn’t have much time.”

  Kaiser nods, a small smile crossing his face. He understands. He knew about her mother.

  “Was it terrible?” he asks. “Prison?”

  “In some ways, it was horrible,” she says. “And in some ways, it was fine. You adapt, you know?”

  She’s aware that he’s now standing too close, smelling too good, looking too clean. She takes a step back.

  “I took a few pictures of your car,” he says. “I’ll file a report when I get back to the precinct. I don’t think anything’ll come of it, though. It’s not like we can get a search warrant for every house in the neighborhood to see who has a can of red spray paint in their garage. Any ideas who did it?”

  “Well, it’s not the first time,” Geo says, and she explains about the two other messages left on the garage door. “I’d love to blame it on that old bat across the street, but she wouldn’t do something like this. A neighbor like me reflects poorly on her, and she wouldn’t draw attention to it.”

  “Mrs. Heller? She didn’t recognize me when I talked to her last week,” Kaiser says with a smile. “She didn’t remember that I was the one who broke her window with a baseball.”

  Geo laughs, delighted. “I forgot about that.”

  “And remember she came out yelling with that curler in her hair—”

  “Which fell out, and you stepped on it and it broke in half—”

  “And she picked it up and she looks at me and says—”

  “You’re a tornado of destruction, young man,” they say in unison, dissolving into laughter. They laugh deeply, and fully, and for a long time. It hurts Geo’s stomach, and it feels great.

  “What was I, sixteen?” Kaiser can barely get the words out.

  “Fifteen,” Geo says, wiping a tear. “It was at the end of freshman year. I remember because that was the last time my hair was short.”

  “Your birthday weekend,” he says. “I forgot, you’re older than me.”

  “By three months.” She punches his arm. “And it’s really rude to keep reminding me of that.”

  “You could pass for twenty-five.”

  “I feel forty-five.”

  “Same.” He smiles down at her, and just like that, everything feels … better. “So why are you selling the Range Rover?”

  ”I don’t want it anymore. It’s too expensive and too pretentious, the kind of thing an affluent young executive drives when she wants everyone to know she’s an affluent young executive.” She gives him a small smile. “I’m not that person anymore. Mind you, I’m not the person I was when I was sixteen, either.”

  “So who are you, then?” His tone is gentle.

  “An unemployed ex-con who has no idea what the fuck to do with the rest of her life.” It’s the most honest answer Geo can give. “And I’m learning that it doesn’t matter how sorry I am—and I am so fucking sorry—or how much time I spend in prison, or how many college degrees I have, or how much money I made … I will always be judged on the one terrible, horrific thing I did when I was sixteen. I’m not complaining about that, because I know I deserve it, but I don’t know how to make up for it. Because if I could, I would.”

  “So reinvent yourself,” Kaiser says, and it’s only when he touches her cheek that she realizes she’s crying.

  “I thought I did that already. How many times can one person press the reset button?”

  “As many times as it takes. But you have to move past it. You have to forgive yourself. Even if nobody else does.”

  Why they’re even having this conversation, Geo doesn’t know, but she feels an overwhelming need to explain herself to him. And he seems to want to know.

  “It’s not that I don’t think I can move past it,” she says. “It’s that I did move past it. I think everyone might have forgiven me back then had I told the truth right away, and had I turned Calvin in right after it happened. I was sixteen, only a kid, and kids make mistakes. But what upsets people isn’t just what I did that night. It’s that I had the audacity to go on with my life. I went to college, climbed the corporate ladder, bought a nice car, got myself a rich fiancé. I built a successful life on top of the shitty, horrific thing I did. Without owning up to it. Without paying for it first. That’s what people can’t forgive. And I understand it, I really do. Because it’s almost as terrible as the thing I actually did.”

  “Wow.” Kaiser lets out a long breath. “That’s pretty fucking self-aware.”

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it,” she says. “It’s my fault more women are dead. It’s my fault that little boy is dead.”

  “You couldn’t have known he would go on to do those things,” Kaiser says. “You didn’t know who Calvin was. Back then, he might not even have known who he was.”

  Geo searches Kaiser’s face for any hint of sarcasm o
r condescension and finds none. If anything, she sees kindness. Compassion. “Why are you being nice to me?”

  “Because we’re friends,” Kaiser says. “We have history. That means something to me.”

  “You’re going to catch him, right?”

  He nods. “I did it once. I can do it again.” He hesitates. “There’s actually something I need to tell you about the victim. About the little boy.”

  “What about him?”

  “He was adop—”

  His cell phone rings loudly and they both jump, making Geo realize exactly how close they’d been standing to each other. He pulls it out, checks the display, and frowns. Holding up a finger, he steps into the living room, and she can hear him speaking in low tones. He’s back a moment later.

  “I have to go,” he says to her, slipping his phone into his jeans pocket.

  “You were going to tell me about the little boy.”

  “Next time,” he says. “It was more of an FYI anyway, but there’s no time to get into it now. There’s a lead on Calvin.”

  She freezes, a sour taste at the back of her throat. “What kind of lead?”

  “Nothing that concerns you right now. It may not pan out.” Kaiser heads for the door. He grabs his hoodie from the closet, slips it on, then stops. “You sure there’s nothing you can tell me? Nothing at all?”

  Geo thinks of the letters she received in prison, ten of them, only one of them read. The rest are in a box upstairs, under the bed. Where secrets hide.

  “There’s nothing,” she says, touching his arm briefly. “But I understand why you keep asking me. I do. And if anything changes, I’ll let you know.”

  She closes the door behind him, locks it, and lets out a long breath. There are things that came out at the trial, ugly things, horrific things. She told the court—and by extension, the public—what they needed to know.

  The rest, she keeps to herself. And always will. She wasn’t perfect, but neither was Angela. In every story, there’s a hero and villain.

  Sometimes one person can be both.

  22

  Geo watched in a haze as her best friend stared at her boyfriend. Angela’s lips were parted slightly, her tongue skimming lightly over her top lip. Her signature move, something she did when there was something—or someone—she liked. Geo used to think she wasn’t aware she was doing it, but of course she was. She saw that now. Calvin took in the sight of them, in their short dresses, the way they were leaning into each other even though they were technically standing still. He turned the TV off.

  “You girls want something to drink?” he said, grabbing a T-shirt off the bed and pulling it over his head. If he noticed Angela watching him, he wasn’t acting like it. “I’ve got beer, orange juice, vodka, rum, Coke.…”

  “Rum and Coke for me,” Angela said.

  “Orange juice,” Geo said. She walked toward the bed, shrugging out of her coat, then sat down on the edge of the mattress, wondering where Angela would choose to sit. The apartment was tiny—five hundred square feet, if that. Other than Calvin’s bed, there was only a love seat and a small dining table with two wooden chairs.

  But Angela didn’t sit. She fiddled with the stereo instead, leaning over it with her back to the room, the hem of her dress hiked up to reveal an eighth of an inch of ass cheeks.

  As if Geo weren’t here. As if Angela were visiting her own boyfriend.

  Calvin was back with the drinks, and Geo took a long gulp of hers, gagging a little as the strong liquid went down. There was vodka in it, which she hadn’t asked for, but she sensed she might need it. He handed Angela her drink and came back to sit beside Geo, kissing her, his lips lingering on hers for a few seconds. She felt herself relax.

  “You taste sweet,” he said. “And drunk. I kind of like it, even though I don’t like you drinking without me.”

  “I wasn’t really drinking. I just had some fruit.”

  He frowned, not understanding what she meant by that, but he didn’t ask for clarification. “It’s late. Where does your dad think you are?”

  “Her house,” Geo said, looking at Angela. Her best friend was watching them with a small smile on her face, but behind it there was something else.

  Jealousy. And Geo liked it. Because, just like the day they met Calvin, it was role reversal. She was never the girl who made other girls jealous, and she was enjoying being that girl, for once.

  “And where do her parents think she is?” Calvin asked. He was looking at Angela, too, but his expression was hard to read.

  “My house,” Geo said.

  It was warm in the apartment, and the alcohol was making her warmer. She reached down to pull her ankle boots off. Angela already had her shoes and jacket off and was wandering around, taking it all in, not that there was much to see. Small kitchen with a fridge, stove, and a few cabinets. The bathroom was only large enough for a shower stall, tiny sink, and toilet. Calvin’s bed was in the living room-slash-bedroom, covered in a red plaid comforter, and the wall unit with the stereo and TV was across from it. The love seat was against the side wall. This little apartment was nothing special, but Geo loved it.

  Angela reached into her bag and pulled out her camera. “Come on, kiss again. I want a picture of you two. You’re both so fucking hot.” She pointed the camera at them and it flashed. “Come on, you guys. Kiss.”

  Calvin kissed her, and the camera flashed again. “Creep” by Radiohead was playing and Angela turned the volume up. The studio was soundproofed, so there was no risk of disturbing the other tenants or the neighbors next door. Geo finished her drink, and Calvin made her another. The room was beginning to spin again. She’d only been drunk once before, sophomore year, at Angela’s when her parents were away and her dad’s liquor cabinet was left unlocked. She finished her drink, then climbed up on the bed to lie down. No more, she was cutting herself off. She was one sip away from puking.

  The camera flashed a few more times, and then it was in Calvin’s hands. In the center of the small apartment, Angela twirled. The short skirt of her tiny dress billowed up around her as she spun, showing more of her thighs, her skin the perfect shade of golden thanks to her last tanning-bed session. Geo caught a glimpse of Angela’s white lace bikini panties, but before she could get upset, Calvin pointed the camera at her, and she forced herself to smile.

  She coughed into the back of her hand, tasting something sour. Calvin noticed and came over to the bed, rubbing her bare leg. “You feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Geo said, but in truth, she was beginning to feel queasy. Grabbing his T-shirt, she pulled him closer to her and said into his ear, “Stop fucking staring at her.”

  “She wants to be stared at.” Calvin shrugged her off. “It’s no big deal.”

  “You don’t like it when other guys stare at me.”

  “Because you’re not asking for the attention. Therefore, it’s my duty to defend you.” The music was loud, and he leaned over to speak into her ear, his breath hot on her neck. “But girls like your friend here, they wither and die if guys don’t validate them. I knew that from the minute we met. She’s the girl guys fuck. You’re the girl guys marry. You’re the one I want, Georgina. Only you.”

  Sure, they were only words, but they did make her feel better. Geo kissed him. He kissed her back, hungrily, his hands running up her thighs and under her dress as he pushed her back onto the bed.

  “Oh my god, you guys,” Angela said. “Get a room.”

  “We have one already,” Calvin said.

  Angela finished her drink in one gulp, her second one since they’d been here. Or maybe it was her third. Some of it dribbled down her chin, and she wiped it away sloppily, almost losing her balance in the process.

  “Sorry, we’ll stop,” Geo said with a giggle, her queasiness under control for the moment. But they didn’t stop. Calvin’s erection pressed against her hip, and she subtly rubbed against it as he continued to kiss her neck. The vodka was making her uncharacteristically uninhibited.
Or maybe it was because she was the one with the hot guy who couldn’t keep his hands off her, and Angela was the third wheel. For once.

  Radiohead ended, and the song changed to Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer,” a sexy song if there ever was one.

  “Dance for us,” Calvin said, lifting his head long enough to smile at Angela. “Come on. You know you want to.”

  Angela laughed, swaying a bit. The heavy beat was easy to dance to and the perfect tempo, not too fast, not too slow. She set her glass on top of the stereo, turned up the volume another notch, and began to move. A trained dancer after years of jazz and ballet classes—same as Geo—she raised her arms up over her head, her long hair trailing down her back all the way to her waist. As she moved, she mouthed the lyrics.

  YOU LET ME VIOLATE YOU

  YOU LET ME DESECRATE YOU

  She slowly moved her hips, then lowered an arm and cocked a finger toward Geo. “Come dance with me.”

  Geo laughed and shook her head, but Calvin seemed to like the idea. He cupped her breast, then kissed her again, a lopsided grin on his handsome face. “I know I’d enjoy that.” Leaning closer, he spoke into her ear again. “You’re hotter than she is any day of the week.”

  HELP ME

  I’VE GOT NO SOUL TO SELL

  Bolstered by the booze and Calvin’s words, Geo got up off the bed and joined her friend in the middle of the room. Angela grabbed her around the waist and turned her so that Geo’s ass was pressing into her crotch. She ran her hands down Geo’s shoulders, stopping at her breasts, which she massaged for a few seconds. Shocked but too drunk to protest—she and Angela had never touched each other like that before—she looked over at Calvin. There was no doubt he was loving every bit of it. Lying back on the bed, propped up on a pillow with arms behind his head, his grin said everything. Geo continued to dance with her best friend, the music wrapping around them like a blanket.

  I WANT TO FUCK YOU LIKE AN ANIMAL

  I WANT TO FEEL YOU FROM THE INSIDE

  Aware of Calvin’s eyes on them, Geo turned and faced her friend. Angela’s eyes were glazed, her face lit up with drunk amusement. Because she sensed Calvin wanted her to, Geo leaned in and kissed her. She felt the other girl jolt in surprise. They’d never done that before, either, but there was something about knowing Calvin was watching that was a total turn-on. Angela must have felt the same, because her lips parted and they started making out. Hard.