The Gorgeous Slaughter

by Christina Hart

  Troy is not some high school kid who just graduated, he’s a fully matured man. Twenty-two years old with his own apartment, a good job, nice car, cute dog, you name it, any of the adult stuff we’re all supposed to have, he has it. He’s not some teenager playing Fortnight in his bedroom every night of the week. I check his Facebook, too, but see nothing out of the ordinary.

  Has she told him about the flowers? Has she put two and two together that they’re from him or is she that dense that she doesn’t know who they’re from? I close my laptop and lie back in bed and think. How can I push them together? Troy’s apartment isn’t as easy as Tracy’s house. He lives in a building, with locked mailboxes pertaining to each unit. I know, because I drove by there earlier today. I wanted to take a test drive, just in case. It seems like I may have to go back there, but with what? What would Tracy do to gain his attention? What would she give him?

  Then it dawns on me. Nothing. She would give him nothing, do nothing. She would never go out of her way to get a man’s attention. She’s not wired that way. It comes naturally to her, and she accepts it or she doesn’t. Did Troy’s move do the trick? Were they at work right now, flirting and laughing?

  I see Troy post on Facebook.

  “I’d do anything for a chocolate chip muffin right now,” he says.

  And here it is. A sign from the universe. My in. It’s 3:17pm. I decide to go over there and make things happen myself. Because if they’re both going to be babies, someone has to make the moves around here. I get dressed like Tracy would. Something business-casual, something I’d wear to an interview. I rummage through my closet and find a chic white dress. It looks like something she’d wear. I put a pair of black strappy heels on and sit down to do my makeup. I apply a nude lipstick. I do my hair, make sure it’s straightened. I look at myself in the mirror and pretend I’m going to work now, like I dress like this every day. Stilettos on a Thursday. Maybe I am more like Tracy than I thought. And I grab my keys and leave the house. First stop, Panera.

  Their job isn’t too far from me. They work in Morristown, go figure. I pull into the parking lot around 4:15pm and spot their cars. They aren’t too close to each other, but not that far either. Troy is parked closer to the building, he must have gotten here earlier than her. My sunglasses are on. I have a fedora on, just because. If anyone spots me, they won’t be able to accurately describe me. Plus, it’s Morristown. Who would find it odd that a woman is going to work here?

  I find Troy’s car and pull up just outside it and get out in the parking lot. I hear the clicking of my car as I walk briskly toward the driver’s side. I put the bag with the chocolate chip muffin on his windshield and get back in my car. I close the door. It’s not too hot, the temperature says seventy-six. They’ll be getting done in about forty minutes. I park in the lot in a back row, reverse in. Make sure I can see both their cars so I can see their expressions and the way they say goodbye. I’m making bets with myself that they’ll be walking out together, smiling, laughing. But will they be arm-in-arm? Will she have warmed up to him enough to do that just yet? I don’t know if the poem broke her the way I wanted it to. If Rogue’s words got to her like they got to me the first time I read them.

  It’s 4:37pm and I’m checking their Facebooks for any more sign of activity but I see none. I sit here chain-smoking in the parking lot, waiting for our future. It’s exciting to be able to watch this all unfold before my own eyes. Eventually, 5pm rolls around. 5:05. 5:07pm. I see different people leaving the building. A man dressed up in a suit. Is that their boss? From this far away, I think it might be. The way he walks is a dead giveaway. The briefcase. He looks like someone who is in charge and one day I hope someone looks at me and thinks the same thing.

  More people leave. A woman in a hurry, maybe on her way to pick up her kids. She’s almost jogging to her car and I wonder if she leaves this place every day like this, running from the building to get to the part of life she actually enjoys. A man in glasses and a button-up shirt. I look closer. Model-esque appearance, check. Bulging biceps, check. Dark hair, dark eyes. It is, it’s him. Troy. The Jersey native himself who looks like a Greek god. He’s holding the door for someone.

  “Come on, let it be her,” I say out loud to myself.

  And here she comes, a flash of blonde hair and a smile I can see from here. She’s laughing at something he said, and he’s smiling, too. If I didn’t know better I’d think I was watching a rom-com happen. They’re walking out to the parking lot and then they stop, she points. They start walking again, together, toward the direction where her car is parked. What a gentleman. He’s walking her to her car and this is how it’s supposed to be. The two of them, together. But they should be holding hands. They reach her car and she’s looking for her keys in her purse. She looks up and they’re talking about something. I see him shake his head. She says something else. He shakes his head again.

  “You idiots. Just let this happen,” I say.

  Tracy gets in her car and drives away. I watch her shiny white car pull out of the lot and focus my attention back on Troy. He reaches his car and finds the bag, takes it off the windshield, opens it up. He smiles, ever so slightly, and shakes his head a little. He gets in his car and I see him stopped in the driver’s seat, looking down. I think he’s texting her. And this is how their love story begins.

  Each of them, giving each other little gifts, being coy about it, pretending they don’t know what the other is talking about. At some point, in both their heads, the only logical conclusion that will make sense is that it is the other. That the blunt truth is that they like each other. And each of them will think the other is joking and being cute when they pretend they have no idea what the other is talking about.

  What roses? Haha.

  A muffin? No. Why would I do that?

  And they’ll laugh and doubt each other and wonder, if not you, then who? But they don’t want it to be anyone else, they won’t want to believe they have anyone else yearning for their attention, so they’ll give up and stop trying. They’ll stop asking. And then eventually, they’ll give in to the blatant desires blaring right before them.

  Do you see how this works? Do you see how easy it is to push people together when it’s what they wanted in the first place?

  Forty-One

  I’ve received sporadic responses from Charlie here and there, saying he’s okay, saying he isn’t. He hasn’t caught wind of the budding romance with Tracy and Troy yet. If he had, I’d have heard about it. Because if there’s one thing he likes to do, it’s vent. But not now, right now he’s deep inside himself, still trying to accept the fact that his mother is gone. And I know this feeling, it can take years to process. I don’t know if the acceptance ever comes. It hasn’t for me. I’m still waiting for that.

  It is 7:23pm when my phone dings. It’s Charlie.

  “Hey, are you busy?” he asks.

  “No, I’m not,” I say.

  I start the timer.

  Reset.

  My pre-paid starts ringing a minute later. It’s his ringtone. I grab it and answer and stop the timer.

  “Hey,” he says. His voice is worn, like he’s tired. Sad. Borderline distraught. Like he just lost his mother and is trying to navigate his way through it without losing what’s left of his mind.

  “Hey,” I say. I put the therapist hat on, but it’s hard to separate it anymore. Dr. Love from actual Love. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t think so. We handled all the final things with the arrangements. I’m going through her stuff. There’s just so much life here. So many years she lived. I don’t know what I’m looking at sometimes.”

  “Do you have an attorney? Someone to help you sort through it all?”

  “Someone from the state. They’ve been here. There are a lot of records to go through. She adopted a foster kid, for fuck’s sake.”

  I nod, silently, giving him space.

  “Her wake will be on Saturday,” he says.

  “Where are you
having it?”

  He tells me the name of the funeral home and I write it down.

  “From three to five and six to eight,” he says. “I don’t know if anyone will even show up.”

  “People will show up. And you’ll be there. That’s what matters,” I say. “That’s what she would have wanted.”

  “I guess. It’s just hard, trying to figure it all out. What dress she would have worn. Who she would have wanted to speak. You know? I can’t believe she’s gone. Still. It feels like I’m still hearing it for the first time. And I’m just going through the motions. Going through her stuff now. God, she has so much stuff. I don’t know what she was keeping it all for.”

  “She kept it for herself, I guess. Things she couldn’t imagine throwing away. It’s always easier getting rid of someone else’s stuff for some reason.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably true,” he says.

  “Where’s Tracy? Is she there with you?” I ask, poking, prodding. I know it’s not the right time but still, I ask. The selfish part of me rears its ugly head and I allow it, welcome it even.

  “She’s home. She wanted to come by, but I just didn’t want to see her. I don’t know.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t even know. She seems like she cares more about the sympathy than what actually happened. Like she lives for stuff like this, for other people to die, just so she can accept apologies and roses for it.”

  Roses. My heart pounds. Does he know? Did she tell him?

  He continues. “Like she wants to cry in front of everyone and act like she’s holding me together while trying not to fall apart herself. It’s kind of fucking irritating, honestly. And the more I see of it, the less I want her near me.”

  “Did something happen?” I ask. Tell me if she got roses. Tell me that you know.

  “Not really. She’s just hamming it up all over Facebook and social media.”

  “Maybe she’s trying to be there for you in the way she knows how,” I say, trying to sound like I’m not biased here. Trying to sound like I don’t hate her. “Plus, your reaction, do you think it’s a defense mechanism? Pushing her away because you think you deserve to be alone?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe.”

  “Why would you think that on any level?”

  “I think I was a shit foster son to a great woman. And I think I have a shit girlfriend now and lost that great woman I never really appreciated like I should have. Death really puts things into perspective sometimes. I don’t know. I’m probably just tired. Tracy loves me. She’s just trying to be there for me. I’m just a shit boyfriend like I was a shit son.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s true. You just might not want to hear it.”

  “Why do you say that?” I ask.

  “Because for some reason you think I’m better than I actually am.”

  “No,” I say. “I think you’re a good person because you are a good person. And you have a good heart.”

  He laughs a little. “Yeah, well, I’m not so sure. And you’re not gonna convince me of that tonight. I’m just gonna go, okay? I’ll talk to you soon. After all this stuff with my mom is over.”

  “Are you sure? I’m here. You really shouldn’t go through this alone,” I try. My heart is pounding. Please don’t say that. Please don’t tell me it will be days until I hear from you.

  “No, it’s okay. My uncle is here and I have Tracy,” he says.

  And I want to scream. She’s not enough and you know it, Charlie. You just said how empty she’s making you feel. How do you not see this? How do you not see that she’s making everything worse? But instead, I stay calm. “Okay. Well, if you want I can check in on you just to make sure everything is okay, see if you’ve changed your mind.”

  “I’m not gonna change my mind, okay? I need to be alone for a while.”

  “Okay.” I give in. Fine. “Call me when you’d like to talk.”

  “Okay, I will. Bye.”

  He hangs up and it almost feels angry. Bitter. Like he’s mad at me when he should be mad at Tracy. His words are ringing in my ears after we hang up the phone. Because for some reason you think I’m better than I actually am. And he believes it. He does. But I don’t. There’s a heart inside that man that cannot be tamed, cannot be unbroken, cannot settle. He is made up of things no one feels comfortable with, because it isn’t common, isn’t quite pure. It sure as hell isn’t easy. They just can’t quite put their finger on it, how to approach it, how to approach him, so they leave it alone. But that is worth something to me. And I won’t leave it alone. I won’t leave him alone.

  I will help him through this and I will be there waiting for him when he digs himself out of this. And eventually, this will work out. Soon it will be just me and Charlie, together, and it will be enough for both of us.

  Forty-Two

  I hang up with Charlie and check in with my patient, Rebecca. I see how she’s managing this week, dealing with her trauma. She tells me she started talking to someone, a guy at her school. But every time he tries to do anything more with her than kiss she freaks out. She has flashbacks to the incident that stole her youth and she stops. She doesn’t know how to move forward, how she will ever learn to be okay with sex after her assault. I tell her, once again, that I think she needs to speak to someone in person about all this. Someone who specializes in rape and assault and knows how to help people cope in effective ways. But she is still working up the courage to tell anyone what happened. Her parents don’t even know. I tell her what my mom told me, that sometimes it’s not good keeping things in, keeping them to yourself. I don’t know if she’ll listen, but I try.

  Brian, the magician, is becoming increasingly hopeless. He’s starting to feel like it’s all a waste of time. The magic, his efforts, even his life. This is the point that I refer him to a suicide hotline, and a therapy center focused on helping those with deep depression and suicidal thoughts. At a certain point, people’s issues become too real, and I just can’t help them. Sometimes they need more than listening. And I want to tell him, sometimes I feel like things are hopeless, too. Like right now. After Charlie has forewarned me of an upcoming break in our communication. A silence where I will be left with nothing, no him, no friends, just me and my thoughts and the people I am learning more and more that I cannot actually help. I see now that I need to focus on me, self-love, that thing I preach about. I need to focus on my relationship with Charlie and how I can make it better between us. Because this silence won’t be good for either of us.

  I post a poem on my page by Anna Corniffe.

  I died a million times practicing the art of sealed lips and still tongues.

  Unhappiness hid behind my eyes, and the tears I never cried watered the wildflowers growing in my throat.

  I should have told them how much they hurt me.

  It’s one of my favorites by her. I read it over and over again. I post it and tag her in it. I feel the tears well up and I tell myself to stop. I interact with some of the people who are commenting but I can’t do this for an hour or more. Not tonight. I am liking their likes and responding with emojis when Nikki comes through the door.

  I hurry and close my phone and sit up. “Hey,” I say, trying to sound normal.

  “Hey, oh my god,” she says, closing the door. “Charlie’s mom died.”

  “I know,” I say. The look of confusion on her face says it all and instantly I want to pull the words back in.

  “Wait, how do you know?” she asks.

  “I thought you told me,” I lie.

  She scrunches her face. “No, that’s not possible. I just found out about it today. AJ told me.”

  “I mean it doesn’t matter who I heard it from, it doesn’t make it any less horrible,” I say. “I feel so bad for him.”

  “Yeah, me too. I’m going to the services with AJ. He thinks the more people there the better it will be for Charlie. He said he hasn’t really been talking to anyone. Not
even his girlfriend.”

  “Oh, when are they?” I ask, acting like I don’t already know and have an outfit for it. I didn’t think that many people would go, though, out of his friends. Nikki hardly even knows him. Why is she going?

  “On Saturday. She died from a heart attack out of the blue. It’s so sad.”

  “Are you sure he would want a bunch of random people there?” I ask.

  She makes a face. “What would make you think he wouldn’t want his friends there?”

  “I mean, are you even really friends with him?” I ask. “You hardly know him.”

  “No, Love. You hardly know him,” she says. “I know Charlie a lot better than you do.”

  “What are you getting at here?” I ask her.

  “Nothing. I just mean, it’d be weird if you showed up. It wouldn’t be weird if I did. And I was gonna see if you wanted to come with, but if you wanna be like that then I can just go with AJ if you think it’s so weird.”

  This is a trap. She’s reminding me she has the power here, yet again. I hate when she does this. Uses her status to try to manipulate me. But it works. “No, I want to go,” I say. “You’re right. It isn’t weird at all. He needs all the support he can get.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she says. “Now, I have to get a dress for this thing. Do you want to come with me? I’m assuming you have nothing to wear either, unless you have something I can borrow.”

  She starts walking over to my closet and rummaging through my clothes and my heart starts pounding. The new black dress is hanging dead center, with the tags still on. Thump. Thump. Thump. She pulls it out.