The Other Side of Dark

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  “Do you think that will help me remember?”

  “It’s worth a try.”

  “Then, I’ll be there.”

  “Ask your father,” he tells me, so I do.

  Dad takes the receiver and talks to Markowitz. Then he turns to me. “Are you up to all this, Stacy? It’s going to be an emotional strain.”

  I stand as tall as I can. “I can do it. I have to do it. I hate him.”

  “Hate isn’t the answer, Stacy. It won’t solve anything.”

  “It will send the murderer to prison. That’s all I care about.”

  “There are other things to care about,” Dad says, but then Norma and one of the other nurses crowd into the room to say good-bye and interrupt him. I hear Dad tell Markowitz he’ll take me home first, then bring me to the downtown station. I gather up the rest of my things, wad them into a small suitcase Dad has brought, and say good-bye to the nurses and to Dr. Peterson.

  “Take it easy, Stacy,” Dr. Peterson says, and suddenly wraps me in an awkward hug.

  I wish he hadn’t. When he releases me, I stare at the floor and hope nobody notices my cheeks are hot. “He hugged me. Really!” I’ll tell Jan, who thought he was gorgeous. But I suddenly remember that the Jan I want to tell doesn’t exist anymore.

  I just stumble close to Dad and hang onto his arm as Dr. Peterson smiles and says, “I’ll see you in two weeks, Stacy. Just change the gauze pad on the incision each day, and call me if you have any problems.”

  We’re met outside the front door of the clinic by a couple of reporters and cameramen. For a moment I can only stare at them.

  “Not now,” Dad says. He makes a shooing motion with the arm I’m not clinging to. “Stacy has nothing to say to you now.”

  We make a dash for the car.

  Dad and I don’t talk much on the way home. I can tell that he’s trying hard to think of just the right things to say, and I am, too, so our wary words back off and circle each other. We make sense, but that’s all you can say for our conversation.

  I enter the front door of our house and walk past the living room back to the den. For a few moments I stand with one hand braced against the top of Dad’s reclining chair. Everything looks the same. I wish it had changed. I wish someone had painted the walls blue, or bought a new chair, or put flowered pillows on the sofa—anything to make it different. It’s just the way it was when Mom was here. Only Mom isn’t here now, and she won’t be back.

  I glance around the room. “Where’s Pansy?”

  “Oh,” Dad says, “I guess I forgot to tell you. Pansy just, well, disappeared last year. She was getting old. She—” He gulps, looking miserable, and quickly adds, “The Coopers have a cat that’s going to have kittens soon. Maybe you’d like one of her kittens. We could ask. People usually want to get rid of—”

  “Who are the Coopers?”

  “They live next door, in the Hadleys’ house. The Hadleys moved to Dallas a little over a year ago. You’ll like the Coopers. They’re a nice family. Three little girls.”

  I move to the window, studying the backyard, which is deep in the ragged color of spring. The grass needs mowing, and the althea bush is spewing limbs of lavender blossoms with abandon. The pink and white geraniums have overgrown their bed, and the confederate jasmine vine on the back fence waves loose tendrils in the breeze as though it were deranged.

  In the large oak rests the funny little shack of boards, with its open door and oddly shaped windows, that Donna and I so carefully hammered together—with a little help from Dad. It had been my sanctuary, my quiet place, so many times in the past. I suddenly want to climb the oak and curl up in the tree house now. “It’s been so long since I’ve been in the tree house,” I murmur to myself.

  But Dad is standing next to me and hears. “Don’t climb up there, Stacy. It isn’t safe now. One of the supporting limbs broke off in a storm, and the whole thing could come crashing down. I should have taken it apart long ago, but I just don’t seem to have enough time.”

  I take his hand. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “It’s not your fault, honey!” He suddenly brightens. “I’ve been talking to Donna and Dennis, and well, how would you like it if we set a date for all of us to drive down to Padre Island for a weekend? We know how much you always loved Padre Island. Remember? We used to go every year. I think it will be nice to have a family outing, don’t you?”

  The last thing I want to do is go to Padre Island. It holds too many memories, but Dad is looking so uncomfortable, so hopeful, that I smile and say, “Sure.”

  A worry wrinkle flickers on and off across his forehead as he asks me over and over again if I’m sure I’ll be all right.

  “I’m fine. Honest, I’m okay,” I tell him. “Let’s go see those mug books. The sooner the better.”

  It doesn’t take long to get to Riesner Street, and on the way I gawk out the car window like a tourist. Downtown Houston is a collection of sharp-edged, shining new buildings which stretch high over their old, ornate brick neighbors like a collection of slender giants and chunky munchkins. Much of what I see is new to me, but the police station squats in a very old part of town and looks as though it had been there forever. Dad parks in the lot in front of the station. I climb from the car and stand there, staring at the building. All sorts of people are bustling in and out of the front doors.

  “Would you rather go home?” Dad asks, and I realize that I’m visibly trembling.

  I just shake my head and, clutching Dad’s hand, blindly follow him into the building and across the lobby with its olive green asphalt-tile floors. There is a sudden crush of bodies as we enter the central room. Someone pushes against me. The shoulder of his plaid shirt is damp and sour with sweat as it rubs against my cheek. A woman who is bulging in her faded cotton dress follows the man, swinging sharp elbows and talking all the while in rapid Spanish. She treads on my toes.

  “Ouch!” I mutter, and stare after her, but she’s unaware of anything but her own problem. Beyond her two men are talking. A man in a business suit has his back to me, and a tall, light-haired guy, who is probably close to my age, faces me. For a second our eyes meet, but a fat character in khakis, puffing, muttering, and pushing between us, follows his protruding stomach through the crowd. An elderly woman and man come through one of the doors, clinging to each other, looking terrified. Are all these people here because they’re in some kind of trouble?

  “This way,” Dad says. He leads me into the elevator and up to the second floor. Just down the hall is the homicide room and Detective Markowitz’s office.

  Markowitz tugs a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes the sweat from his face. “Air conditioner went out yesterday. Hot weather, even for Houston. Feels like midsummer already.” He gives me one of those searching looks and asks, “Ready to get to work, Stacy?”

  “I’m ready.”

  Markowitz seats me at a table at one side of the room and places five huge scrapbooks in front of me. Dad sits at the table next to me. “Take your time,” Markowitz says. “Look at each face carefully. I’ll be working here in the room most of the time. If you think you recognize the face in one of those photos, just call me.”

  “Okay,” I tell him, and open the first scrapbook.

  At first I’m hopeful, but by the time I’ve gone through the third book I’m discouraged. When I finish the fifth, I slam it shut with a groan.

  Markowitz comes to the table. “No luck?”

  “His picture’s not in those books.”

  “Maybe it’s there, but you can’t remember him.”

  Dad stands up, the legs of his chair screeching against the floor. “I think this is enough for now. Stacy needs to get some rest.”

  “I’m not tired,” I insist, but Markowitz looks at Dad and nods.

  “She might need a little more time,” he says. “Let’s put it on the shelf for a few days.”

  “I’m going to remember,” I tell them.

  “I’m counting on it,” Markow
itz says. “But I’d like to wait and have you remember the face naturally, instead of forcing your memory.”

  “How do you mean, forcing it?”

  He looks at Dad again, then back at me. “Well, for one thing, I’ve given some thought to trying hypnosis.”

  “That’s a great idea!” I grab Dad’s arm. “Can you do it?”

  “We’ve got some people in the department who are trained to hypnotize, and there are a number of M.D.s who can do it. But there’s a big problem, and that is, it doesn’t always hold up in court.”

  “But if I could remember—”

  He shakes his head. “I’d like to catch this guy and see that he’s put away so carefully there won’t be any technicalities for a sharp lawyer to use like a key to get him out. Understand?”

  I nod.

  “So I’ll get in touch with you next week,” he says, and walks with us to the elevator.

  We’re in the same squeeze of bodies as we leave the building. I’m glad to get out of that place.

  It’s good to be home again. Dad was right. I am tired.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind staying alone?” Dad asks.

  “Of course, I don’t.” I lie, so he leaves to go back to the bank where he works. The aching loneliness of the house soon creeps around me, clinging, crawling, trying to seep through my skin to the hollow inside of me. I push myself out of the deep armchair and hurry to the backyard.

  As I walk to the center of our backyard I take a deep breath of the mingled sour-warm geraniums, honeyed jasmine, and spring-sharp air, remembering, remembering, and turn to face our house.

  The screen door flies open, and someone races through. He pauses, stares at me—his pale eyes frightened and glittering—and raises the gun.

  “No!” I shout, backing away in terror. He evaporates, and the memory turns as blank as unexposed film.

  “I saw his eyes,” I whisper, furious at myself for giving in to the fear that erased the face I was almost able to see.

  I know I should walk that mile Mrs. Montez insisted on, but I’m reluctant to leave the house. Finally I find a book to read and settle back into the armchair, deliberately forcing myself to concentrate on the book. Slowly I manage to relax and curl into a cocoon of sound spun by the hum of the air conditioner.

  The sudden jangle of the telephone smashes the silence of the late afternoon. I drop the book and jump from the chair, staring at the phone, wishing it would stop.

  On the third ring I answer and sigh with relief and gratefully flop back into the chair as I hear Jan’s voice. “Stacy! Your dad said you’d be home. I’m so glad!”

  “I’m glad too,” I answer, and wonder what to say next.

  It doesn’t matter because Jan says, “You’re going to a party!” She doesn’t give me time to answer but probably has guessed what my answer would have been because in one long breath she adds, “You’ve got to go, so don’t say no. The party’s being given in your honor. Besides, it’s important for you to meet some of the kids.”

  “Jan, I’m not ready to go to a party.”

  “You are too. You just don’t know it.”

  “But everyone’s different. I mean, they’re like you. They’ve grown four years older, and—”

  “Hey, Stacy, cut it out. We’re friends. Remember? I wouldn’t make you go to this party if I didn’t think it was right for you, and it is. It’s going to be Friday night at Tony’s house. You know Tony. And he’s got this great house that is super for parties, and everyone is going to be there. Not just the kids you remember. All sorts of people will be there. There always are at Tony’s parties. I mean, most of them are really neat, but some—oh, well, I’ll brief you on those, and they won’t bother you anyway. All in all, it will be a great party.”

  “Jan, listen to me. I can’t go. I haven’t got anything to wear.”

  Jan sighs so elaborately I have to laugh. That dramatic sigh hasn’t changed. “Everyone is wearing jeans. You have jeans. I know you have. You’re going.”

  “I don’t have a date.”

  “You don’t need a date. It’s not a date party. B.J. and I will pick you up at eight Friday night.” She giggles. “That brings me to the best news of all.”

  “Jan, listen to me! That party’s just the day after tomorrow. I’m not ready!”

  “Hmmm,” Jan murmurs. “That’s partly true. I’m going to come over early and fix your makeup. We’ll be there at seven, so don’t argue anymore.”

  “You haven’t given me much chance to argue.”

  “There. You see? It’s all settled. And I’ve been talking long enough because you’ve got to come over to my house right away.”

  “Why?”

  She giggles again. “Wait and see!”

  “Jan?” But she’s no longer on the phone.

  The party’s a dumb idea. I don’t want to go. Who are these people now who used to be in the seventh grade with me? What are they like? Will they think I’m just a stupid kid?

  I walk into the bathroom and study my face in the mirror. No, I’m not a stupid kid. “Who knows?” I say to the green-eyed girl who is staring back at me. “The party might be a lot of fun.”

  I grab my house keys and make sure the door is locked. It doesn’t take long to walk to Jan’s house, which is just a couple of blocks from ours; but the air is humid and sticky, and my shirt begins to cling to my back. My finger is still on the doorbell when the door flies open and Jan says, “Stacy, guess what?”

  She takes a long look at me and rolls her eyes. “Thank goodness we have time!”

  “Time for what?”

  “You’ll never believe this. No one will believe it. Jeff Clinton is coming over!” Jan grabs my arm and pulls me inside and down the hallway.

  “Come on, Jan. Make sense,” I manage to say. “Who’s Jeff Clinton?”

  “He’s a guy at school,” Jan says, “and we’re talking real hunk. He comes to some of the parties, but he doesn’t date. He told Bick once that there’s a girlfriend in Michigan, where he came from, and they’re sort of going steady, which makes this whole thing absolutely amazing. B.J. will die when she finds out!”

  “Finds out what?”

  Jan glides into the den with one of her elaborate sighs. “Pay attention, Stacy. I’m telling you. Jeff Clinton called me and said he’d be going to the party, and he’d like to meet you, and one thing led to another, and I said how about today, and he’s coming over in a few minutes, so let’s get some makeup on you.”

  “Jan! You fixed up a date for me?”

  “It’s not really a date. We’ll just get acquainted and talk and drink some cola. And you and Jeff can get acquainted.”

  “Wait a minute!” I back away from her. “Why did he want to meet me?”

  Jan’s eyes open wider. “I don’t know. Maybe he saw your picture in the paper and thought you were cute.”

  “That’s not a good reason.”

  “Honestly, Stacy! That’s as good a reason as any.” She studies me, her head tilted to one side. “What’s the matter? You look so—I don’t know—suspicious. And that’s silly. There will be lots of guys who will want to get to know you.”

  “But I want to know why.”

  Her mouth makes a large pink O. “I get it. It has to do with the guy you saw on your back porch, the one who—”

  I interrupt. “Jan, I still can’t see his face!”

  “He wouldn’t be Jeff. I told you, Jeff just moved here from Michigan last year. And anyway, you can’t go around being suspicious of everybody.”

  I lean against the wall and sigh. “You’re right. I guess I sound like some kind of nerd. It’s just that—” Jan is looking at me with so much concern that I change the subject. “When he’s here—Jeff, I mean—what am I supposed to do? I don’t know what to say to him.”

  “Oh, you will.” She tugs at my arm, dragging me into the bathroom. “Aren’t you using the makeup kit I gave you?”

  I shrug. “Sometimes.”

 
; “You’re supposed to use it, Stacy! Look at you. Naked faces are not in!”

  “In what?” I ask, trying to be funny, but Jan doesn’t appreciate my humor. She’s too busy doing things to my face.

  The doorbell rings, and she hisses, “Here’s the lipstick. Quick!”

  “You answer the door,” I tell her. “I’ll put it on.”

  “Not much,” she says as she runs from the room. “Just enough to count.”

  I stare at my reflection in the mirror, startled again by the girl who looks back. I like what Jan did. There’s a kind of peach color over my eyelids, with a brown eyeliner. It makes my eyes look bigger. I fumble for the lipstick and put on just a little, following Jan’s directions.

  Taking a deep breath, I give one last glance at the mirror and head for the den, where I can hear Jan chattering.

  As I enter the room a tall sandy-haired guy pulls himself up from Jan’s father’s reclining chair and faces me. His pale blue eyes crinkle at the edges as he smiles at me.

  I can’t help smiling back.

  He’s wearing snug jeans and sneakers without socks and a white T-shirt and a light kind of unbuttoned jacket with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. It looks strange. It’s probably another new style. He must work out a lot. I wonder if he’s on the football team. His shoulders are broad, and even the jacket doesn’t hide the muscles in his arms.

  Jan introduces us and says, “Sit down, Stacy. I’ll get something for us to drink.”

  Suddenly I’m shy. I clasp my hands together and stare at them, wishing I knew what to talk about to a guy.

  “Have you thought yet about going back to school?” Jeff asks. “Will they let you make up some of the classes in summer school?”

  I’m so thankful that he didn’t ask me about Mom or the murderer that I stumble all over myself answering his question. “Dad and I were talking about that. I don’t know what they’ll want me to do. I do know one thing. I can’t go back to junior high school. I’d be so much older than everyone else.” I stop for breath. “What I’d like to do is study the things I’ve missed. I could study hard and make up some of the work. If they’ll just let me.”

  Jeff smiles. “It’s hard to study alone. Maybe some of the kids could help tutor you and get you ready for exams. If you could pass exams, they might give you credit for the courses.”