Ellen latched on to a customer to assist. For the rest of the day, Peg followed Ellen around the store, trying to extract more information about Charles. Ellen remained tight-lipped, as if releasing information would diminish her excitement.
“Keeping me in suspense will not make me go away!” said Peg.
As soon as Ellen returned to her apartment, she felt the red notebook’s presence. It seemed to follow her around the living room, as if it could watch her through the drawer, using Charles’s eyes. She felt increased guilt over possessing it. She was close to the end. She knew that she could finish it tonight if she stayed up late.
Ellen ate a simple pasta-and-salad dinner at the small table in her kitchen and planned the notebook’s return to Charles. She plotted to bring the journal to the coffeehouse early the next morning in order to “find” it for him.
She drafted a short script to read when she called him.
“Charles, it’s Ellen. I’m at Pacific Coast Coffee. I think I found something that belongs to you. It’s a notebook. It was buried under a stack of magazines. It looks like your handwriting. I didn’t read any of it.”
She crossed out the final line. It was too dishonest. If pressed, maybe she would admit to glancing at some of it—reading a few pages before she realized it was private and closed the covers. But even that was totally dishonest.
I’m going to have to lie to him. Great way to start off the relationship, Ellen!
Ellen cleaned the dinner dishes, then prepared her couch with pillows and a blanket. Her heartbeat jumped with anticipation. She walked over to the desk drawer and pulled it open. The red notebook cover stared up at her like an old friend.
She reached down and took a hold of it.
One more dance, Charles?
She shut the drawer and brought the notebook to the couch. She had marked her place with her tattered bookmark from childhood.
Ellen began reading, her eyes moving down the page at a deliberate pace, anxious to take in the writing, but not wanting to rush, savoring every word and absorbing each emotion.
A revelatory clarity has yet to escape the fog. At times, I am consumed by overwhelming anxiety that leads me to blackouts, sucked into segments of space and time where I have no recall. I am lost in my own life, drawn back to childhood confusion, searching constantly for that parent or guardian or lover or friend who will lead the way. Short dips into therapy and counseling have not been effective means to self-discovery and happiness. I need someone to take my hand without motivations of billable hours, professional gain or smug self-satisfaction.
My stomach fell ill again today. Sometimes it is a miracle I can keep food down. I am fascinated that the people around me see an ordinary and bland member of the human race when I know that I am anything but. I remain broken, disassembled parts, a curiosity unto myself. I used to fool myself that love could solve…
The phone rang.
Ellen tossed the notebook off her lap like a child caught with a hand in the cookie jar.
For a moment, the prospect of two Charleses—one on the page, one on her phone—threw her. She froze and forced the transition in her mind.
Ellen caught the phone on the fourth ring, her last chance before the answering machine kicked in.
“Hello…?
“Ellen?” spoke the familiar voice.
“Hi, Charles.”
He sounded hesitant, as if still struggling for a reason to call. She was growing used to his conversation starters—fumbling and uncertain until he found solid footing. “I just thought I’d call to say hi. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. I’m happy you called. How are you?”
“Good,” he said quickly in a flat tone, as if forcing the word out.
She told him, “I really had a nice time Friday night.”
“I did, too. That was a good restaurant. I want to go back there sometime and try some of the other dishes.”
“I know. Me too.” As she spoke, a horrible image flickered in the corner of her eye: Charles’s gruesome childhood discovery, replayed across her living room. She saw the fallen body of his murdered mother, his father weeping, the bloody butcher knife…
Ellen shut her eyes to drive the images away.
“Listen, I’m sorry if I acted a little weird the other night,” Charles said. “I’m sort of rusty. I haven’t dated a lot in the past few years. I’m pretty quiet. I work with people who are older. I don’t go out all the time. I’m a bit of a homebody.”
“I can relate,” she said, thinking, I can relate in so many ways you aren’t even aware of.
Ellen was determined to get him to open up. She wanted to hear him address the personal history he described so vividly and passionately in his journal. She knew that if she could prompt such a breakthrough, their relationship would become deeper and closer.
“I haven’t dated a lot, either, if you want to know the truth,” said Ellen.
“Really? A pretty girl—I’m sorry, woman—like you?”
Her heart danced inside. “Thank you, but I don’t know about that. When I was in high school, they called me Olive Oyl because of my skinny arms and legs and long neck.”
“Whoever said that was a jerk.”
“I didn’t take it seriously,” she said, which was definitely not true.
“I got teased a lot when I was in high school,” he said.
“What about?” she asked him.
“Oh, just, you know, the usual stupid stuff.”
“Like what? What do boys tease each other about in high school?”
“I don’t remember. It’s not worth remembering.” He was retreating.
She said, “I wasn’t very happy back in high school. It was a pretty melodramatic time in my life.”
“Everything is crazy and amplified.”
“I was really…depressed a lot back then,” she said. “I mean really depressed.”
As Ellen talked into the cordless phone, she paced the room. She began turning off the lights one by one. Click…Click…
The dark made it easier to talk about pain. Draining visibility from the apartment somehow brought Charles closer.
Click.
As she turned off the final light, plunging the room into complete blackness, she said, “I used to think about killing myself.”
There was silence on the other end.
Now is your chance, Charles. This is your opening. Please…
“That’s really terrible,” he said.
“Did you ever feel so down that you wanted to just, you know, put it all down in a suicide note and leave the planet?” Her tone was light, almost encouraging him to agree.
He held steady. “Not really. I mean…I would feel down, but not to the point where I would do something like that.”
“Or even just think about it?”
“No.”
She felt disappointed. He was so candid in his notebook. Why wouldn’t he open up now, over the phone? Couldn’t he see the intimacy in this evening conversation, holed up in their respective dwellings, two voices engaged in a private dance, not having to look one another in the eye? She wanted so badly to share secrets with him…
She said, “If I tell you something, do you promise that it won’t scare you away?”
“Boy,” he laughed. “That’s a loaded question.”
“No, it’s just something about my past. A long time ago. But it’s part of what made me such a messed-up teen. It’s my parents. My parents really screwed me up.”
“I can relate to that,” said Charles. “Without a doubt.”
Ellen thought, he’s emerging.
“Tell me more,” said Charles. “What was it about your parents that messed you up?”
“Well, some if it was pretty typical. They fought all the time, they got divorced. I never saw them happy together. Just battling. Screaming. Violent even.”
She paused, offering him another opening.
He didn’t say anything.
So she continued. “After they divorced, my mom had something like a nervous breakdown, and she was always on pills, which actually made her worse instead of better, and she got involved with this guy…” Ellen realized that her own story was getting harder to push out. She sat down on the living floor, surrounded by darkness.
She could hear Charles’s breathing on the other end.
She said, “Her boyfriend was pretty sick, it turned out. He abused me…”
“Hit you?”
“Worse than that.”
“Oh,” Charles said. He understood. He gently asked, “How old were you?”
“Young.” She felt tears on her cheeks. The pain of the memory was catching up with her. She had never talked about it out loud like this before. Not to her mother, not to anyone. “It was…traumatic beyond belief.”
Damn it, Charles, I gave you this opportunity. Open up for me. I know what happened to you and your brother. I know about your parents.
“I’m so sorry,” was all he said.
“I shouldn’t go into this,” she said, swallowing back any further tears. “I mean, you couldn’t possibly relate…”
“Not exactly, but maybe a little.”
“What do you mean?” She felt her heart pounding. Was he ready to reveal his past?
“Well, I once knew a girl who had an older sister who was abused by her uncle.”
Seconds after feeling her hopes rise, Ellen felt swamped by disappointment. She decided to give up, at least for now. What did she expect? They had gone out on only one date. Maybe as the relationship continued…
“Hey,” she said, injecting a cheery tone, abruptly switching gears. “How did we get down this path? Talk about a bummer. Let’s talk about something a little more upbeat.”
“That would be a good idea,” he agreed.
“Here’s a funny story. We caught a guy shoplifting at the bookstore today. He had like four books shoved down the front of his pants. He could barely walk. We caught him at the door. Then he tells us he was planning on paying for them, he just forgot. And they were all science fiction paperbacks with dragons on the front.”
They shared some more stories about their day and the conversation ended on a high note: Charles asked Ellen out to dinner and drinks on Saturday night.
After the call, Ellen checked the clock. Their conversation had lasted nearly ninety minutes. After a bumpy start, they had found a smooth, comfortable rapport, despite only skimming the surface of each other’s lives. There would be more opportunities to lift the layers.
Now she was pressed to stay up even later to accomplish her goal of finishing the notebook. There weren’t too many pages left. She knew she could do it.
Ellen returned to the couch, where the notebook remained hidden under the blanket, as if Charles could have seen into the room from the phone.
She took it and curled up against a pile of pillows. She quickly returned to the point where she had left off.
The words on the page came to life with Charles’s voice still fresh in her ears. He spoke again about his brother, Darren.
I went looking for Darren today. I continue to worry for his mental health. His absence frightens me because I can envision all too well his behavior and the potential for dangerous predicaments.
I love and fear my brother. We recognize ourselves in each other’s eyes. We share an experience we can never shed. We must suffer together. We must watch out for one another and protect each other by any means necessary.
If I must have Darren committed to a psychiatric hospital, I am prepared to take that action, even if it rips out my heart.
As Ellen read well past midnight, the journal’s handwriting became more rushed and careless. Charles became obsessed with finding his missing brother, frightened by his disappearance and fearing the worst. His words flowed fast and furious. Then she read:
I came home today to find Darren in my living room. I do not know how he got in. He boasted of violence. He claimed he had attacked innocent people in the park, hurting them, seeking satisfaction in creating pain and fear. He told me that he could only cope with his rage by turning it on others. He ridiculed me for being “passive” and “resigned” to feeling sorry for myself. He said I would self-destruct while he grew stronger.
He insulted and baited me until I could take no more. I told him I was going to confine him to an institution where he could do no harm. I told him that if what he told me was true, I would call the police. The violence had to stop.
In a flash, like the crack of a thunderbolt, we fought. We attacked each other as if tearing into a hated part of ourselves. I finally pulled a knife on him. He fled my home. Now I fear he is out there, somewhere, dangerous, performing acts of random violence to satisfy his sick soul.
Ellen’s heart pounded as she read a long, rambling passage lamenting Darren’s mental deterioration. It went on for several pages, panicked.
Then she encountered a blank page. She stared at the whiteness.
Had the journal ended?
She turned the blank page and the writing started up again.
She read:
Hello there.
It’s Darren.
I have enjoyed reading the drivel that drips from the pen of my brother. He feels that he is stronger than I. He believes he can control me, that he is somehow superior.
He is wrong on all counts. He is sad, pathetic and misguided.
To prove my point most emphatically, I have beaten him into submission. I have sent him away for a while, crippled his abilities, and there is only me. I will take over these pages, your “guest host.” I will smear my bile across this journal. I will share with you, dear reader, a lifetime of unrelieved agony and all of its consequences. I will bare the truth that my brother can only allude to.
It’s so easy.
I operate without conscience.
I move anonymous among the masses.
Tonight was a milestone in the madness. It was decades in the making. In the dark of the night, I slaughtered a complete stranger. A human being became an object for my manipulation. I made an innocent young woman die. I lashed out like an animal upon weaker prey. I fed on the flavor of blood like a starving man feasts on food. I left no witnesses. I felt no regret.
There is no going back. I will deliver more hurt to the world. It tastes good. The world has fucked me for too many years and now I fuck the world. I have found the simplest answer to my unrelieved agony. How could I not see it before? Always in front of me, always so plain. I merely altered my role, and therefore my destiny. I am no longer a victim. I am in total control. I am more powerful than life itself because I can personify death. I am rising above it all. The ugly in my mind has manifested itself into action. On this day, a killer is born.
Let the victims begin.
With those four words, the journal ended.
Ellen stared at the last sentence in horror, the notebook stuck in her sweaty grasp.
The intrusion of Darren’s narrative came from nowhere, a shock striking her deep in the heart.
But the most horrifying aspect of this new voice and its murderous confessions went beyond the prose. It lived in the penmanship staring back at her. Darren may have taken over the journal from Charles.
But the handwriting remained the same.
Chapter Thirteen
Linda Geesin thought about the red clogs for most of the afternoon and into the early evening. It gave her something to focus on outside of the checkout counter routine at Sunrise Groceries. The Swedish-style platform shoes had wood bottoms, red leather, and cost sixty dollars minus twenty percent off through Friday. If ten percent of sixty was six, then twenty was twelve, and sixty minus twelve was…forty-eight. Plus tax. Sixty was pricey, but forty-eight…that entered the realm of possibility.
She had seen the clogs in the window of Sole Mates, a small shoe store between her job and apartment, the previous morning. She had gone inside the store and confirmed that they had size eight in red. But she h
adn’t bought them right away. She was more disciplined than that. She was not an impulse shopper—not like the customers she saw in the grocery store who grabbed random candy and magazines off the racks in the check-out line, items they had never intended to buy when they came in.
Linda typically gave herself a twenty-four-hour cooling period, minimum, to analyze whether or not she really wanted particular merchandise. For the clogs, the cooling period had ended earlier that day, and she still wanted them.
The clogs created a nice picture in her head, a daydream to fill the short moments between customers. The shoes helped distract her from the stress and tension in her hands, arms, shoulders and neck that came from moving an endless parade of groceries across the scanner. Another clerk had once shared stretching exercises with her and recommended a better standing posture to relieve some of the aches, but it didn’t bring Linda more comfort than the aspirin she kept in her pants pocket, under the purple apron. Sometimes, on a particularly bad day, she took two or three. A bad day usually meant customer problems: out-of-control toddlers provoking hot-tempered parents, glitches with processing credit or debit cards, arguments over change or expired coupons, slow check-writers, and demands to discount less-than-perfect produce, as if she was in a position to barter.
Through it all, she smiled sweetly until her face hurt. Usually smiles could offset the anger. She rarely argued with the customers. She simply brought in a manager to take over. Most of the time that meant Marty, who was cranky and less patient. The good cop/bad cop routine would go into effect.
Linda rarely complained, even when Marty repeatedly placed her at the checkout counter nearest to the sliding doors, which meant frequent blasts of cold winter air and listening to the shrieks, squeals and crashes of shopping carts rolling in and out of the store.
Every day started fresh and ended in exhaustion, even though she mostly stood in place.
Commonly, her “breaks” meant trading off with an employee working the floor. She didn’t mind taking inventory, stocking shelves, cleaning spills or removing torn bags of chips and cookies where patrons had helped themselves to a snack. At least it offered some variety.
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