The Day I Killed James

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  James was straddling the bike. He had his helmet braced against one thigh. With my name between his legs. That’s just too weird. Rocking the bike ever so slightly from side to side.

  I said, “Something I want to ask you.” I said, “I just sort of…need a…date.”

  James sat up taller on the bike. “I’m your man,” he said.

  I felt a desperate need for a disclaimer. But I really had none. There is never an attorney around when you need one. I should put one on retainer for life in general.

  I said, “It’s just a onetime thing, though.”

  He said, “That’s one more time than you’ve ever offered me before.”

  I said, “I don’t know, though. I feel funny about it. Like I’m using you.”

  I guess I thought if we really clarified that I was using him, then it would be okay that I was using him.

  He said, “Use me. I’m begging you.”

  That seemed like enough clarification. No lawyers required.

  I looked past him to his house, and I wondered again how he ended up back in this same rented house after two years away. I’d wondered that before. So, a thought out of place, I guess, but there I was wondering it again.

  He must have sublet it. I’d always half wanted to ask him why. But it’s so self-explanatory, really. Why ask when some part of you already knows?

  He wrote me a letter nearly every week while he was away. I wrote him twice in all. Maybe I said that already.

  Five or ten minutes after I went back into the house I looked out the window and there he still was. Straddling the bike in his driveway. Rocking it ever so slightly back and forth. My name between his legs.

  Journal Entry _________________________

  Day I’m writing this: Twenty-seven days after “The Day”

  Day I’m writing about: “The Day”

  It’s not the easiest thing in the world, telling a faceless emergency dispatcher over the telephone that you’ve misplaced James Stewart. You will inevitably be required to follow with something like, “That’s right. James Stewart. Like the movie actor.”

  If you’re really unlucky, like I was, the dispatcher will say, “But not the James Stewart.”

  Which is a ridiculous statement. Because the James Stewart is dead. It’s a statement that gave me a little insight into James’s world.

  Maybe it’s not such a wonderful life.

  “The James Stewart is dead,” I said to the dispatcher. Hoping they weren’t both.

  She said, “Oh, that’s right. He is, isn’t he? What a shame, too. He was so good in It’s a Wonderful Life. I love that movie. No accidents reported along that stretch. No motorcycle accidents in the county in the last twenty-four hours.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I should call back.

  I said, “Should I call back?”

  She said, “If you want to report him missing, you’ll have to call back day after tomorrow morning. But leave your name and number anyway. If we get an unidentified motorcycle accident victim, we’ll want to contact you.”

  Not three hours later, there were two uniformed Highway Patrol officers. Knocking on my door. Just standing there, looking at me. Like they knew it was me or something. Like I had a big sign on my forehead.

  And I swear to God I knew.

  Later I backtracked. Told myself, and others, all kinds of stories. I was a veritable fountain of alternative theories. But just in that moment I had the distinct sensation that life as I had known it was over.

  And, by the way, the journal thing is just to keep Dr. Grey happy. No way I would do a fool thing like this on my own. Believe me.

  Journal Entry _________________________

  Day I’m writing this: Twenty-eight days after “The Day”

  Day I’m writing about: Two days after “The Day”

  I’ve been through a few phases. There was this strange, brief no-man’s-land where I reasoned there was still time to save myself. Because nobody had to know. This was evidenced by the fact that the Highway Patrol let me walk away free. They didn’t know. They figured I’d been nice to the guy, been a decent friend, and he’d done this crazy thing anyway. Only Randy knew.

  So I called Randy and told him that James had skidded out on a turn. Told him the tire tracks chronicled the whole sad, blameless story. Clear cognizance of guilt, when you cover up the crime. But covered up it was. Now nobody had to know.

  My smoke screen didn’t last long.

  The phone blasted me out of sleep. I hadn’t been dreaming. I hadn’t had a dream in days.

  I jumped for the phone.

  I said, into it, “James?”

  Randy said, “You thought it was James?”

  Randy.

  I said, “It could be James.”

  He said, “Theresa—”

  “Stop talking, okay? Why are you even calling me?”

  He said, “What, I can’t call you anymore?”

  I said, “I think it would be better if you didn’t.”

  I’m the shooter, you’re the gun. Stay out of my hands.

  He said, “Ever?”

  I said, “Yeah. Pretty much ever.”

  He said, “Okay, but before I hang up…I take it they still haven’t found the body.”

  I wanted to ask if that was really why he called. I never did.

  I just said, “Right, they still haven’t.” It was easier that way.

  He said, “But it might be good for you to accept that they will.”

  I said, “I don’t think James would do a thing like that.”

  He said, “You hardly knew him.”

  I said, “He was a solid guy. You know? I can’t feature it on him.”

  He said, “Theresa. By your own admission he was a relative stranger.”

  “It still seems out of character,” I said.

  Then, after I hung up, I realized I’d just admitted James did not spin out on a curve. Which Randy probably knew anyway.

  All is discovered, I thought.

  But there was nothing I could do to change that. So I went back to bed.

  FIVE

  No More High School. Ever.

  James took me to the party on the back of his motorcycle. Even though it was barely a mile away. I suppose we could have walked if we’d wanted to. But we didn’t want to. We wanted to come roaring in and impress the hell out of everybody. I wanted him to park the bike where everybody would read my name on the gas tank. I wanted Randy to be sick with jealousy.

  By the time we got there, I felt like I was about to throw up.

  The inside of the barn was fixed up in the most natural way possible. Actually, maybe “fixed up” is the wrong way to put it. It’s just that normally, because there are no horses, there’s no hay or straw. So Frieda had some of the guys borrow a pickup and go out and get some. So, that was pretty much the whole motif. Simple. Hay and straw. On the barn floor. In the stalls. The cool thing about it was this: every surface became a seating area. Just get comfortable any way you please.

  Randy and Rachel weren’t there yet. I sat on the straw with James and tried to tell myself they’d never show. The whole thing had just been a sick joke. Nothing that terrible was about to happen to me.

  Meanwhile I glanced obsessively at the barn door. About two times per second. More often than most people blink.

  I think James noticed, but he kindly said nothing.

  “Want me to get you a drink?” he asked. When he needed to say something. And I guess nothing else was floating around wanting to be said.

  “Um. No. I don’t, really. Drink.” That just sat on the straw for a moment. While James was nice enough not to contradict me. I said, “That one time you saw me drunk was totally an exception to the rule. I hate drinking. I think it’s stupid. I was just upset that night.”

  “How ’bout a soda or something?”

  “Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”

  I looked around while he was gone. Well, not gone exactly. The drinks were wa
iting in a series of big picnic coolers in a far corner of the barn. There were only about ten people here. We were too early. We should have come fashionably late.

  A girl I barely knew from school slid by and bumped me on the shoulder. When I looked over, she gave me a sly thumbs-up. I think I mostly returned an ignorant, questioning stare. I had no idea what she was trying to tell me. She flipped her head in the direction of James at the coolers.

  Oh. Right. James.

  I smiled and nodded. Wondering if it was painfully obvious that I couldn’t even focus on James. I looked over my shoulder at him. Trying to see if he was really thumbs-up material. Maybe just because he was older. But it wasn’t just that, I decided while I was trying to see him with new eyes. In purely objective terms, he was good-looking. I mean, if you divided people up into categories of good-looking, he’d be in a flattering category. I just wasn’t attracted to him. The whole world was like a big black hole waiting for Randy’s face to come along and fill it. Randy’s face was like a drug to me. Something I needed. Something I got very edgy without. James had a face, but it didn’t fill that craving.

  I caught a whiff of someone’s cigarette smoke.

  “Oh my God, can you please take that outside!” I yelled. Before I even checked to see if it was someone I knew well enough to yell at. It wasn’t. And then I felt bad because I yelled. You can do that with friends. They won’t take it the wrong way.

  This guy I didn’t even know said, “I’m not going to set the straw on fire. If there’s a spark I can always stamp it out.”

  “It’s not the straw,” I said. More politely. “I don’t want it in my lungs.”

  “I got a right to smoke.”

  James appeared at my left shoulder. “Want me to take care of this for you?” Very much the gentleman. It was an offer I almost wanted to take him up on. I’m not used to chivalry, and I almost wanted to take it for a test-drive. But I like to fend for myself.

  “Let me try logic for a minute,” I said to James. Then to the idiot with the cancer stick, “Remember the first thing they taught us about rights in school? Your right to swing your fist ends where the other guy’s nose begins? Well, your right to smoke your cigarette ends where my lungs begin. If you can keep your smoke out of my lungs I’ll defend to the death your right to kill yourself. But I don’t want to die. So I’ll ask more nicely this time. Please will you take it outside?”

  He sighed. Rose dramatically to his feet. Took it outside.

  “Nice,” James said.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Then I looked up to see Randy and Rachel walk in. Holding hands. The world collapsed on itself like a house of cards. Not one freaking building left standing.

  I took hold of James’s hand. He looked over and smiled at me. More than a little surprised.

  I guess I need to cut to the chase here. There were other segments of the party, other horrible moments. But in the great scheme of things, they don’t really matter. This matters.

  Sometime around eleven or so, Randy and Rachel ended up in a stall. They weren’t the first or the last. But it happened.

  Now, I don’t want to give a wrong impression of the whole stall experience. They only have half doors. Anybody could walk right up to one and look right over the door. So it wasn’t quite the same as going off into a bedroom and locking the door. But close. Something was going on in there. Maybe not everything. But something.

  Randy looked back over his shoulder at me on the way in. I’m not sure what I saw on his face. Maybe regret. Or even longing. It was hard to read.

  I was just about to ask James to take me home when he took hold of my hand and led me into the stall right next door to you-know-who. He closed the door behind us, then smiled. Put a finger to my lips.

  “I know we’re doing all this to make him jealous,” he whispered. “But it’s okay.”

  I noticed that my mouth was open. Literally. That thing about someone’s mouth hanging open can actually happen. “How can that be okay?”

  “Well. It got you to go out with me. Anything that gets you to go out with me is good. When you get to know me more, you’ll see. I’ll treat you a lot better than he ever did.”

  Up to this point I might have sworn my stomach couldn’t hurt more or drop lower. But I would have been wrong. It was like James opened a window and let me look into his mind. Not a pretty picture. He thought this was going to be a real thing between us. He thought I’d see that he was better. And that would be that. I guess in a weird sort of way I could follow his logic. We should want to be with the person who treats us well. That should be true. We should function that way. We just don’t.

  Why don’t we?

  “Want to make him really jealous?” James asked. We were sitting on the straw by this time. He moved his face in close. “Is this okay? If I kiss you?”

  “How will that make him jealous? He can’t see us.”

  “I guess you’ll have to make a lot of noise about it.”

  So, I look back to that moment. I see it as the real heart of where things began to go wrong. Not that things weren’t pretty wrong before that. But after it, things were really wrong. Unprecedented-crazy wrong. So wrong that I ended up stretched out on my back with James on top of me, his hands all interwoven with mine above our heads, kissing. And me calling out his name. About three or four times. Before it hit me. Maybe he didn’t realize this was still all part of the Make Randy Jealous crusade. Maybe he’d gotten carried away, lost track of all that, and thought I was calling his name because he was doing great with me. He seemed carried away. But even then, after wondering about that, I had no idea what to do about it.

  “I need to stop for a minute,” I said.

  We sat up.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I had no idea where to begin. We were past the point of no return and there was nothing I could say without hurting him. And I didn’t want to hurt James. Have I made that clear already?

  I heard the door of the next stall slam. I looked up to see the top of Randy’s head go by the door. He purposely did not look in.

  “Are you okay?” James again. “Do you need something? Fresh air? Something to drink?”

  “Yeah. Maybe a glass of water.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll be outside getting some air.”

  “Good idea,” he said.

  I’d barely been outside long enough to take my first breath when Randy came up from behind me. Startling me.

  “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said, “but we need to talk.”

  “Where’s Rachel?”

  “I gave her my car and told her to go home.”

  “How will you get home?”

  “Hopefully with you.”

  “I didn’t drive. I came here with James.”

  “We could walk.”

  “Randy. I came here with James. That would be kind of cold.”

  “I did it for you. I sent Rachel home. Look, I was wrong. How many different ways do I have to say it? I was wrong. I want us back together. Please. We belong together. What do I have to do? I’ll do anything.”

  I looked into his eyes and folded.

  Another moment good for looking back on. Or bad for it. As the case may be. I could have held firm. But I didn’t. I saw the emotion in his eyes and turned to jelly.

  He pulled me in to kiss me. I let him.

  It was…everything. It was like a key you put into a lock, and it fits, and the whole world just opens wide. It was the very thing. The ticket. The only answer. There was nothing else like it. There never would be. There never could be. There was only one Randy. This was the only kiss in the world.

  I’m not sure how long we’d been kissing when I remembered there was such a thing as James. I’d like to at least pretend that it returned to my mind all on its own. But even that would be giving me too much credit. The truth of the matter is that I heard a motorcycle start up. That’s what made me think of James.
/>   “How long have we been out here?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “James went to get me a glass of water.”

  And, of course, he’d had plenty of time to come back with it by now.

  I am a very, very horrible person. I am beyond redemption.

  I ran around looking for him. Pretending there were lots of motorcycles parked at Frieda’s that night. That the odds were good I had heard someone else’s bike entirely.

  I ran into Frieda, who said, “Poor James. I’ve never seen anybody so upset.”

  I said, “This is totally your fault. You told me to invite him.”

  I know. I’m a horrible person. I have apologized for that remark since. Five times at last count. Which doesn’t make it even remotely okay.

  “I didn’t tell you to ditch him and go back to Randy halfway through the party.”

  There she had me. That last part had been my own unique idea.

  I stood for a few minutes in the spot where his motorcycle had been parked. But I could not make it miraculously reappear.

  Things are so easy to do, so hard to undo. I made a mental note of that.

  Journal Entry _________________________

  Day I’m writing this: Twenty-nine days after “The Day”

  Day I’m writing about: Five days after “The Day”

  I tried ditching school. Thought it would be easy. After all, there were only three days left. I called the principal’s office. Made an arrangement for Frieda to come in and pick up my diploma. Told them I had to regrettably miss graduation. A regrettable case of other obligations. All of which I regretted.

  Like they hadn’t already heard how I killed a guy.

  Then I realized that my locker needed to be cleaned out.

  Now, I guess it stands to reason that Frieda could have done that, too. But I was so heavily into my life-in-a-suit-of-armor phase that I didn’t want anyone going through my stuff. Not even my best friend. And I’m not sure why, because I don’t even know that there was anything terribly personal in my locker. But there could have been. And everything was personal. Suddenly.