The Shining Girls

by By (author) Lauren Beukes

  He goes past the war, which is tiresome, with the rationing and the fear in people’s faces, to 1950. He tells himself he is only looking around, but he knows one of his girls is here. He always does.

  It’s the same tug in his stomach that brought him to the House. That sharp edge of awareness when he walks into someplace he’s meant to be – and recognizes one of the talismans from the Room. It’s a game. To find the girls through different times and places. They’re playing along, ready and waiting for the destiny he’s writing for them.

  As she is, sitting at a café in Old Town with a sketchbook, a glass of wine and a cigarette. She’s wearing a tight-fitting sweater with a pattern of rearing horses. She’s half-smiling to herself as she draws, her black hair falling forward, catching fleeting impressions of faces, other patrons or people walking past. Caricatures that take seconds to sketch, but clever, he sees, catching a glimpse over her shoulder.

  He takes his opportunity when she frowns and rips the sketch out, squashes it in her fist and drops it. It falls close enough to the sidewalk that he can make as if he notices it in passing. He stoops to pick it up and unfolds the crumpled ball.

  ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ she says, half-laughing, mortified, like she’s been caught with her skirt tucked into her pantyhose, but she falls into startled silence when she sees the metal around his face.

  The drawing is good. It’s funny. She’s caught the vain haughtiness of the pretty woman with the brocade jacket rushing across the street, with a V-dash of a sharp chin and pointy little breasts to match and a little dog as angular as she is. Harper sets the sketch on the table in front of her. There is a smear of ink across her nose where she has rubbed it absently.

  ‘Yw drppd ths.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you,’ she says, and then half gets to her feet. ‘Wait, can I draw you? Please?’

  Harper shakes his head, already walking away. He has seen the black and silver art deco lighter on her table, and he is not sure he can control himself. Willie Rose.

  It is not time yet.

  Dan

  9 MAY 1992

  He’s gotten used to her already. It’s not just the easy access to the irritating bits of research that he’d otherwise have to look up himself while on the road, or being able to delegate phone calls for soundbite quotes. It’s having her around in general.

  He takes her for lunch at the Billy Goat on Saturday, so she can ‘acclimatize to the culture’ before he takes her into the press box at an actual live game. There are big-screen TVs and sports memorabilia, green and orange vinyl chairs and old-time regulars, including journalists. The booze is reasonable and the food is good, even if it’s becoming more touristy. Ever since the cheezborger Saturday Night Live skit with John Belushi, which it turns out she’s seen.

  ‘Yes, but it was infamous long before that,’ he says. ‘This was Cubs history. 1945, the owner of this tavern tried to take a real live billy goat to the game at Wrigley Field. Bought the goat a ticket and everything, but he got turfed out because Mr Wrigley decided the animal was too smelly. He was so mad about it that he made a solemn promise on the spot that the Cubs would never win the World Series. And they never have.’

  ‘So it’s not just because they suck?’

  ‘See, that’s exactly the kind of thing you can’t say in the press box.’

  ‘I feel like the Eliza Doolittle of baseball.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My Fair Lady? You’re giving me the makeover so that I can be presentable in public.’

  ‘And I have so much work to do.’

  ‘You could do with some finessing yourself, you know.’

  ‘Oh really?’

  ‘The whole scruffy-almost-handsome thing is a good look for you, but you need better clothes.’

  ‘Wait, I’m confused. Are you flirting with me or insulting me? And you’re one to talk, kiddo. Your entire wardrobe consists of T-shirts of bands no one has ever heard of.’

  ‘You’ve never heard of. You should let me school you sometime. Take you to a gig.’

  ‘That is not going to happen.’

  ‘Oh, and talking about school, do you think you could proof-read these assignments for me before the game starts and I have to pay attention?’

  ‘You want me to do your homework for you? Here?’

  ‘It’s already done. I just want you to play copy-editor. Besides, you try interning and studying and trying to hunt down a serial killer.’

  ‘How’s that going?’

  ‘Slowly. No replies to the ad, yet. Although I have a meeting with the defendants’ lawyer in the Madrigal case.’

  ‘You were supposed to talk to the prosecutor.’

  ‘He hung up on me. I think he thinks I’m trying to get the case reopened.’

  ‘Well, you are. On some half-baked theory you’ve got.’

  ‘Give it more time in the oven. So, can you read these essays while I get us drinks?’

  ‘You’re taking advantage,’ he grumbles, half-heartedly, but takes out his glasses anyway.

  The essays veer wildly from whether free will exists (apparently it doesn’t, he’s disappointed to discover) to the history of erotica in popular culture. Kirby plops back down in the chair with a Diet Coke for him and a beer for her, and sees him raising his eyebrows at the content.

  ‘It was that or “propaganda war films of the twentieth century” and I’ve already seen Bugs Bunny vs. the Nazis, which is the masterwork of its time.’

  ‘You don’t have to explain your choices to me, but it’s obvious that whoever is teaching this stuff is just using it as an excuse to get his students into bed.’

  ‘Actually, it’s a female lecturer and, no, she’s not a lesbian. Although, come to think of it, she did mention a sideline in catering for orgies.’

  He hates how easily she can make him blush.

  ‘All right, shut up. We need to talk about your enthusiasm for commas. You can’t stick them anywhere you like.’

  ‘That’s what my gender studies professor said.’

  ‘I’m ignoring that. You need to get to grips with the mysteries of punctuation. And lose the formal academic style. All this “one must contextualize this within the strictures of the postmodern framework” crap.’

  ‘You know, academic kinda comes with the territory.’

  ‘Sure, but it’s going to kill you when you have to write journalism. Keep it simple. Say what you mean. Otherwise, it’s fine. Some of the ideas are stale, but you’ll grow into original thinking.’ He looks at her over his glasses. ‘And I’m just saying, as much fun as it is for me to read about stag films from the 1920s through to blaxploitation pornos, you might want to consider doing this in a study group with other actual students.’

  ‘Yeah, no,’ she dismisses him. ‘It’s bad enough going to class.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’m sure you could—’

  She interrupts. ‘If you’re about to say “make friends if you tried”, fucking don’t, okay? It’s like being the trainwreck celebrity without the limo rides or free designer clothes. Every single day, everyone stares. Everyone knows. Everyone’s talking about it.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true, kiddo.’

  ‘There’s this amazing thing I can do, which is condense clouds of silence around me. It’s like magic. I’ll walk through a conversation and it’ll stop, dead. And resume again the moment I’m gone. In slightly lower tones.’

  ‘It’ll wear off. They’re young and stupid. You’re a fad.’

  ‘I’m a grotesque. There’s a difference. I shouldn’t have survived. And if I absolutely had to, I should have been different. Like the tragic damsels my fucking mother’s always painting.’

  ‘You’re no shrinking Ophelia, that’s for sure.’ And in response to her raised eyebrow, ‘Hey, I had a college education too, you know. But I didn’t waste mine sitting around drinking Diet Coke with sports hacks.’

  ‘It’s not a waste. It’s an invaluable part of my internship, which is worth
a college credit.’

  ‘And you forgot to add that I’m not a hack.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Well,’ Dan says cheerily, ‘now that our afternoon’s off to a miserable start, you want to watch some ball?’

  The bar is well and truly packed out, the fans wearing rival colors, ‘like gangs’, Kirby whispers during the anthem. ‘Crips and Bloods.’

  ‘Shhh,’ he says.

  He finds that he enjoys explaining the game to her, not only the blow-by-blow, but the nuances.

  ‘Thanks. My personal commentator.’ She snarks.

  The whole bar leaps to its feet in a roar, half elation, half disappointment. Someone spills their beer, the splash barely missing Kirby’s shoes.

  ‘And that’s a home run.’ Dan nudges her, pointing at the screen. ‘Not a goal.’

  She punches him playfully in the arm, but hard, with her knuckle out, and he retaliates without really thinking about it, punching her back with about the same amount of force. Give as good as you get, his sisters taught him. They threw some mean punches. Also wrist burns. Wrestling him to the ground and pulling his hair. Affectionate violence. For when a hug just won’t do. That’s a Hallmark card for you.

  ‘Ow, you ass!’ Her eyes widen. ‘That hurt.’

  ‘Oh shit, I’m sorry, Kirby,’ he panics. ‘I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t thinking.’ Nice fucking work, Velasquez, hitting the girl who survived the most horrific assault he’s ever heard of. Next up: beating old ladies and kicking puppies.

  ‘Yeah, right. Give me some credit.’ She snorts, but she’s staring intently at the screen mounted above the bar – at the MilkBoy commercial, which has already aired twice during the game. He realizes it’s not the play-fighting that has upset her, but his reaction.

  And it’s that easy. He reaches out and taps her knee softly with his knuckle. ‘Tough cookie, huh?’

  She gives him a side-eyed smile, pure mischief. ‘So hardcore even girl scouts can’t sell me.’

  ‘Wow. Your jokes are feeble,’ he says, grinning, leaving himself wide open.

  ‘Not as feeble as your punches,’ she retorts.

  ‘Almost handsome?’ He shakes his head.

  Willie

  15 OCTOBER 1954

  The first nuclear reactor went critical under the University of Chicago’s overgrown football stadium in 1942. It was a miracle of science! But it didn’t take long for it to twist into a miracle of propaganda.

  Fear festers in the imagination. It’s not fear’s fault. That’s just the way it’s made. Nightmares breed. Allies become enemies. Subversives are everywhere. Paranoia justifies any persecution, and privacy is a luxury when the Reds have the bomb.

  Willie Rose makes the mistake of thinking it’s a Hollywood thing. Mr Walt Disney testifying to the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals that commie cartoonists want to turn Mickey Mouse into a Marxist rat! How absurd.

  Of course she’s heard about the ruined careers and people blacklisted for not taking the oath of loyalty to the United States of America and all it stands for. But she’s no Arthur Miller. Nor Ethel Rosenberg, for that matter.

  So it’s a shock when she gets into work on Wednesday at Crake & Mendelson, third floor at the Fisher Building, to find the pair of comics sitting on her drafting table like an accusation.

  Fighting American: Don’t Laugh –-They’re not funny! POISON IVAN and HOTSKY TROTSKI. A superhero dressed in the American flag and a golden boy sidekick prepare to take on the hideous weirdo pinko mutants creeping out of a tunnel below. On the cover of the other comic, a handsome secret agent wrestles a gun-wielding dame in a red dress while a Russki soldier with a big beard bleeds to death on the carpet. There’s a snowy landscape hanging above the fireplace with a streaked red sky and the silhouette of distinctive minarets visible through the window. Admiral Zacharias’ Secret Missions: Menace! Intrigue! Mystery! Action! The woman looks a bit like her, same pitch-black hair. Hardly subtle. Risible. Except it’s not.

  She sits down in her swivel chair with the loose wheel that cants precariously to the side, and flips through the comics, looking serious. She half-spins in her seat to catcall at the giant with the thinning hair in the blue shirt with the white collar watching her from the water cooler. Six foot eight and all asshole. The same guy who told her the only reason they hired a woman architect was so that she could also answer the phones. Number of times she’s answered the phone since she started here eight months ago: zilch.

  ‘Hey, Stewie, your funny books aren’t funny.’ She dumps them dramatically in the waste-paper basket at her feet, two-handed, as if they weigh a ton. The tension she didn’t even know was there breaks, and several of the guys chuckle. Good old Willie. George fakes a one-two punch at Stewart’s jaw. K.O. The asshole puts up his hands in mock defeat and everyone more or less gets back to work.

  Is it her imagination or are things slightly out of place on her desk? Her .25 Rapidograph is on the right of her T-square and the slide rule, but she usually leaves it on the other side because she is left-handed.

  For God’s sake, she’s not even a socialist, let alone a member of the Communist Party. But she’s artistic. And these days that’s bad enough. Because artists socialize with all kinds of people. Like blacks and left-wing radicals and people with opinions.

  That she finds William Burroughs incomprehensible and all the brouhaha over the Chicago Review daring to publish his over-the-top pornography equally so is beside the point. She’s never been much of a reader. But she has friends down at the 57th Street colony – writers and artists and sculptors. She’s sold her sketches down at the art market. Female nudes. Friends who pose for her. Some of them more intimately than others. It doesn’t make her red, dammit. Even if there are things she’d prefer not to come out in the wash. To most people, it’s all equivalent anyway. Pinkos. Subversives. Homos.

  To keep her hands from shaking, she fiddles with the cardboard model she’s been working on for the new Wood Hill bungalows. She’s done fifty sketches of the same, but she finds it easier to imagine in three dimensions. She’s already built five of them based on the most promising ideas, in varying degrees from the original concept sketch George gave her, trying to find the opportunity. It’s hard to have an original thought when you’ve been briefed very specifically by the firm’s principal. Can’t reinvent the wheel. But you can put your own spin on it.

  They’re working-class homes, part of an insular development blatantly based on Park Forest and its self-contained downtown, with a bank and a Marshall Field’s. He’s letting her handle it on her own, down to cabinetry and lighting fixtures. She won’t get to present, but he’s said she can manage the project on site. It’s only because the rest of the office is tied up with office blocks for the government project they’re pitching on that everyone is treating very hush-hush.

  Wood Hill is not to her personal taste. She’d never give up her Old Town apartment, the hustle and vibrancy of the city, or the ease with which she can smuggle a beautiful girl up the stairs. But she finds it fulfilling, designing these utopian model homes. In an ideal world, she’d want them to be more modular, in the Kecks’ style, so you could switch things up and make them different, with a flow between the interior and exterior spaces. She’s been looking at books on Morocco recently, and she thinks an enclosed central courtyard might work with Chicago’s brutal winters.

  She’s got ahead of herself and already done a watercolor artist’s impression of her favorite of the designs. It’s filled in with a happy family, mom and dad, two kids and a dog and a Cadillac in the driveway. It looks cosily uncomplicated, and is it her fault if the dad seems a little fey, with high cheekbones?

  When she started here, she was peeved that she was having to make modifications to these shake’n’bake homes. But Willie is a woman who has come to terms with her ambitions. She’d tried to get into Frank Lloyd Wright’s colony and been rebuffed. (Rumors were he was broke anyway and was never going to finish
another building, so boo to him.) And she was never going to be a Mies van der Rohe. Which was probably a good thing, because Chicago has a surplus of would-be van der Rohes. Like the Three Blind Mies over the way. Not her description. That Wright’s a funny, bitter old guy.

  She would have liked to do public buildings. A museum or a hospital, but she had to fight for this job like she fought to get a place at MIT. Crake & Mendelson were the only firm who invited her back for a second interview, and she made it count, wearing her tightest pencil skirt, armed with her brassiest humor and a portfolio that showed she was more than that, even if they hired her for those other reasons. You take whatever advantages nature and wile afford you.

  This latest stuff is her own fault. Running off her smart mouth about how suburban developments are going to transform the lives of working-class families. She likes that they’re building communities around people’s workplaces, that blue-collar guys can have white-collar dreams and get to move out of the city where ten families are squashed into an apartment meant for one. She can see now how that might be seen as being pro-worker, pro-union. Pro-commie. She should have just shut up about it.

  Anxiety poisons her, like too much coffee. It’s the way Stewart keeps darting her little wounded looks. She’s made a dreadful mistake, she realizes. He’ll be the first to put her up against the wall. Because that’s what people do now. Neighbors twitching curtains, teachers ratting out the kids in their class, colleagues making statements on subversives one desk over.

  It’s because she laughed at him when they all went for drinks in her first week and he got a little tipsy and followed her into the ladies’ room. He tried to kiss her with those thin dry lips, pressing her against the sink with its gold-plated faucets and black tiles, trying to hike up her skirt while reaching into his pants. The ornate nouveau mirrors reflected endless iterations of fumbling. She tried to push him away and when he didn’t give, she reached into her purse, propped on the sink because she’d been applying a fresh coat of lipstick when he’d come in, and grabbed her silver-and-black deco cigarette lighter – the present she bought herself on getting into MIT.