Body of a Girl

by Leah Stewart

  “What other guy?” I ask, and then I realize he means the one who knew Allison. I take another step back. “Have you been following me?”

  “I told you,” Carl says. He catches my hand and holds it tight. “I’m watching out for you. Just like I did for Allison.” He tightens his grip on my hand, pulling me toward him. He looks at me like he means to kiss me, inclining his face toward mine.

  “You know what, Carl?” I say, panic rising in my throat. “I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.” I pull my hand away.

  “What do you mean?” he says. “We . . .” I don’t stay to hear the rest. I turn and push into the moving crowd, almost running in the direction Evan went. I go until I reach the statue of Elvis at the end of the street. Evan is gone. Carl hasn’t followed me. I stand there breathing hard. A man leaning against Elvis winks at me as he lights his cigarette. I stare at him. “All alone?” he says. He’s got a tattoo of a dragon on his shoulder. I’ve never touched tattooed skin. He gestures at me with the cigarette hand. “Who are you supposed to be?” he says.

  I’ve got the strangest sensation, like I’m running a fever, like this heat has slipped its way inside my head. The man’s voice seems to come from very far away. “What?” I say.

  “The hair,” he says, gesturing again. “What’s with the pink hair?”

  I reach up and touch the wig. It feels slick between my fingers, not like real hair. “I don’t know,” I say.

  “I like it,” he says. He holds the cigarette in his mouth and talks around it. “Sexy.”

  I look back down Beale. I don’t see Carl. The lights blink on and off. Crowds of people seem to be crossing and recrossing the street. A woman’s voice rises from among them. “Can you believe it?” she is saying. “Can you believe it?”

  “Hey,” the man is saying, “Hey, pink girl.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “What do you want?”

  He looks me up and down. “What do you got?”

  “You can see what I got,” I say.

  “I sure can,” he says. He grins and takes a step toward me. “I sure as hell can.” He holds out a cigarette. “You want?”

  I lean way forward and take it. “I don’t smoke,” I say, even as I’m putting the cigarette in my mouth.

  “I can see that,” he says, laughing. He strikes a match and lights my cigarette. “What are you doing here all alone?”

  I take a step back and inhale. “I’m not alone,” I say. He takes another step toward me. Panic flutters up in my chest. “Don’t come any closer,” I say.

  “What’s the matter, pink girl?” he says. “I just want to get to know you better.”

  “There’s nothing to know.” I take another step backward, then another. Then I drop the cigarette on the ground and step on it hard. When it’s out, I spin on my heel and start walking as fast as I can back down the street. “Don’t go, sugar,” he calls after me. “I was just starting to like you.”

  A voice in my head is saying, What are you doing? What are you doing? and I don’t know what to tell it. I’m moving through groups of college boys, couples, tourists, even a few children. They part around me, talking over my head, the same fixed grins on their faces. I am invisible.

  In front of the bar where Evan left me, I sit on the curb and pull off the wig. My own hair is wet, plastered to my skin, and I run my fingers through it trying to shake out the sweat, trying to sober up and come back to myself. I’ve been down here talking to people for stories before. Once it was because a street artist who used to paint sidewalk portraits of tourists had died of AIDS. Every Christmas he decorated all the windows of the bars and souvenir shops with pictures of Santa and elaborate, writhing ivy. I put on my reporter voice and I went from place to place and told these bar people that their friend was dead. Whatever they said to that, I wrote it in my notebook. I typed it in my computer. I saw it under my byline the next day in three neat columns of text.

  I can imagine myself in a story right now. I can hear these people saying to a reporter, to someone like me, “I saw her, wearing that pink wig. She was out of control, drunk, shouting on the street. I saw her talking to some strange guy. I don’t know what happened to her after that.”

  I get up and start walking. Two blocks from Beale it’s so quiet my footsteps on the pavement pop like gunshots. A police cruiser flies by, sirens wailing. Up ahead a tall figure crosses under a streetlight and disappears around a corner. I keep walking. A man comes toward me, watching his feet, his hands in his pockets. When he passes me he looks up. I force myself to look into his face. He raises his eyebrows and drops his head again. For another block I hear no one, passing in and out of patches of light, past storefronts with dark corners, past the mansion the Union Army used as its headquarters when they took this city whole. Now it costs $8.50 to go inside.

  I come upon a man sleeping in a doorway and stifle a gasp. Somewhere off to the right, car brakes squeal and I jump. When a car turns down the street, I step out of the way of the headlights like a fugitive. Up ahead a woman walks quickly across the street, glances over her shoulder, and disappears. I have the feeling that if I turned my head just right I’d catch a glimpse of Allison Avery, wearing her pink wig, a short dress, her silver boots, hurrying in the opposite direction, turning her head back to look at me.

  I turn in a wide circle. I am alone. Everyone on these streets is alone, strangers clutching their fear and loneliness to them like a purse they think someone wants to steal, hurrying home to lock themselves away.

  It takes me ten minutes to reach the newspaper building. A security guard lets me in the back. She looks at my outfit when I show her my press pass. “Late night,” she says.

  “Left my wallet here,” I say cheerfully. “Pretty stupid.” I hit the up button on the elevator.

  “Someone waiting for you in the car?” she asks, and I nod. The elevator arrives. “You gotta be careful,” she says, as I step in. “Did you hear what happened last night?”

  “No,” I say, holding the door open. “What happened?”

  She nods out at the parking lot. “Woman from Circulation was held up in the lot,” she says. “Guy made her perform oral sex on him.”

  “That’s awful,” I say. “Did they catch him?”

  “Not yet,” she says. “They’ve got a description. It’s posted all over the building. From now on you should get one of us to walk you to your car when you’re in the building late. Gotta be careful.”

  I nod at her. The doors close on her worried face.

  On the way down the hall I pass the windows that look down into the production room. The presses are still. The building seems to vibrate with a high electric hum. In the newsroom I turn on all the lights and walk down the aisles, running my fingers along the sharp edges of the metal desks. I don’t know what I came here to do. I feel in this moment that I am capable of almost anything, flying off a deck, rolling down to an interstate, running down Beale Street with my breasts exposed. Making the news, instead of just covering it.

  I come to a stop at the wall. In front of me is a blue flier. I lean in to read it.

  ATTENTION, it says. A WOMAN WAS SEXUALLY ASSAULTED IN THE PARKING LOT LAST NIGHT. PLEASE BE ALERT. DON’T WALK ALONE.

  I go back to my desk. I pick up the phone and call a cab.

  When I open my eyes, a figure is leaning over my bed. I take a breath to scream and Hannah says, “It’s me.” She’s wearing a cardigan over a long T-shirt and she’s holding that pink wig out over my face like she’s going to smother me with it.

  “Jesus, Hannah.” I press my hand to my heart. “What time is it?”

  “Four-fifteen,” she says. “I woke up and I was worried you hadn’t come home.” She holds up the wig. “What is this?”

  “A wig,” I say. “A pink wig.” Just the thought of explaining myself to her exhausts me. I know what’s she’s going to say, where did you get it, where have you been, what have you been doing, how much did you have to drink.

 
“I can see that,” she says. “Where did you get it?”

  “Somebody gave it to me,” I say.

  “Who?”

  “Somebody I know from work,” I say. “Why are you wearing that cardigan?” Her T-shirt says NO ONE CAN MAKE YOU FEEL INFERIOR WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT.

  “I woke up cold,” she says, sitting down on the edge of my bed and frowning at me. I can’t understand how she could be cold. My skin, my sheets, are so wet with sweat it seems likely that I’m melting. I turn off the window unit at night because it makes a rattling sound that keeps me from sleeping.

  Hannah turns toward the mirror and holds the wig up over her head to see what it would look like on her. In the half-light, without my glasses, it could be anyone’s face reflected in that mirror, framed by that bright pink hair, and for a sharp and terrible moment I believe that it’s Allison’s. I have a vision of us all in pink wigs and cardigans, reflected side by side, the brilliance of the wigs washing out our faces until each pale circle is just an image of the others.

  “Put it on,” I say, though I don’t want her to.

  “No thanks,” she says, still frowning. She lowers her arms and turns the wig round and round in her hands. “What . . .,” she starts.

  I hold up my hand to stop her there. I say, “No comment.”

  She closes her mouth tight and drops the wig on the floor. For a long moment she stares at herself in the mirror, as though she’s conferring with her reflection about her next move. She says, “I was going to say, what do you think this is made of, but I guess that’s too painful to discuss.”

  Then she gets up to go, and I say, “I’m sorry, Hannah. I just want to forget this evening ever happened, okay?”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” she says before she shuts the door. “I’m not a fucking reporter.”

  16

  Someone is ringing the doorbell. I come awake slowly and lie there listening for the sound of Hannah’s footsteps. The house is silent, and then the sound of the doorbell comes again. I sit up and call Hannah’s name. No answer. Pain pulses through my head. Every morning, lately, is worse than the one before. I swing my feet onto the floor and call Hannah again. When she still doesn’t answer I get up and go down the hall. The place has a messy, abandoned look this morning, like a trashed motel room. The person is ringing the doorbell constantly now, not even pausing to give me time to answer.

  I reach the door and look through the peephole. An enormous eye stares back at me through the hole. I jump back, knocking some shoes against the wall, and, hearing the noise, the person starts knocking on the door. I look through the peephole again and this time see a face. It’s Carl.

  I glance down at the deadbolt lock. It’s open. I put my hand on the lever and click the lock into place as quietly as I can. Then I stand there, watching him through the peephole, trying not to make a sound. He turns away from the door, then back. “Shit,” I hear him say.

  I realize I’ve been holding my breath and let it out. It’s quiet. I look through the peephole. No Carl.

  Staying close to the wall, I creep over to the window and stand behind one of the open curtains. Slowly, I lean over just enough to look out. Inches from me, on the other side of the glass, I see his face. He’s got his forehead pressed to the window, his hands cupped around his eyes. I jerk back behind the curtain. I don’t think he saw me.

  He knocks on the window with his fist. I press myself as far as I can into the corner. Every time I see a horror movie, every time I write a story about a woman assaulted in her home, I wonder what I would do in a situation like this. The truth is I’m terrified, my heart inside my throat, my hands shaking. The truth is I don’t want to know what I’ll do if he breaks that window open. All I want is for him to go away.

  I hear his voice, muffled by the glass, as though he’s underwater. He’s calling my name. “Olivia,” he says. “Are you in there? I want to talk to you. Olivia!”

  I look around me for a weapon I could reach. There’s a small lamp on the end table by the couch. I need something heavy in my hand. I dart toward the end table, and in that moment he sees me.

  “Olivia!” he says. “I’m sorry about last night! I’m so sorry.”

  I look at him, his eyes wide, his forehead flattened by the glass, his lips shaping over and over the word sorry. I take a step toward the window, the lamp in my hand. “Get out of here,” I say.

  “What?” he shouts.

  “Get out of here,” I shout back. “Get the hell out of here.”

  For a moment he says nothing. He lets his hand slide down the window. It makes a squeaking sound. Then his face crumples and he starts to cry. His shoulders shake. His forehead bumps against the glass. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out. It’s not loud enough for me to hear, but I can read it on his lips. Finally he pushes himself away from the window and turns to go. I watch him walk to his car, his shoulders hunched in a position of defeat. He gets in the car and sits staring at my house for a moment and though I don’t think he can see me now I take a step back.

  Not until his car disappears up my street do I put the lamp back down on the table. Then I close the curtains on the living room window and go around the house making sure the doors and windows are locked, the blinds lowered. I go back in my room and get in the bed, shaking with nausea. I don’t know how long I lie there, drifting in and out of sleep. When I finally sit up again my hair is plastered to my forehead with sweat.

  I think about Carl’s face, pressed up against my window. I pick up the phone and call Sergeant Morris. He answers on the first ring.

  “Sergeant, it’s Olivia Dale.”

  “Hello there, honey,” he says. “What can I do for you?” He sounds like he’s in a good mood.

  “I wondered if you have any new leads on the Avery girl.”

  “Nothing I can tell you.”

  “What about the men she knew?” I ask. “Have you talked to Carl Fitzner?”

  “I think Baker did,” he says. “Friend of hers, right? Why do you ask?”

  “I just thought maybe you should check him out,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “He was in love with her,” I say. “He never forgave her for rejecting him.”

  “That may be,” Morris says. “But he didn’t kill her, I’ll tell you that much.”

  “Does that mean you have a suspect?”

  “Ah, now, girl,” Morris says, a laugh rumbling in his voice. “Are you asking me about Fitzner to trick me into telling what I know? You’re a smart one.”

  “That’s not it,” I say. “I think there’s something about him.”

  “Olivia, honey,” he says. “Do me a favor. Leave the police work to the police.”

  “So you won’t talk to him,” I say.

  “I don’t need to,” he says. “Don’t worry about it. Everything’s under control.”

  “Does that mean you have a suspect?” I ask again.

  “Oh ho.” He laughs. “Don’t try that again. I got nothing to tell you.” In the background I hear a low male voice say, “Morris, you got a minute?”

  “You betcha,” Morris says. Then to me, “Gotta go, honey.” He hangs up the phone.

  I’m still sitting there, staring at the phone, when it starts to ring again. I reach for it, then just let my hand dangle. The machine answers and the person hangs up. After a moment I pick up the phone, dial *69, and listen to the phone ring three times before a cheerful female voice says, “Black Horse Theater Company.”

  “Hello,” I say. “May I speak to Carl Fitzner?”

  “Sure,” she says. “Hang on.” I hear her sing out, “Carl, telephone.”

  I wait. Then he picks up. “Hello?” he says.

  I hang up the phone and get out of bed. If Morris won’t check Carl out, I will.

  I’m driving into the sun, so bright through my windshield that it’s hard to see anything else. I hope the stoplight I just drove through was still green. In ten minutes I’ll be at Carl
Fitzner’s apartment building. I’m not sure what I’m going to do once I get there. I just want to take another look at the place where he lives. If he can come peer in my windows, I can go look in his.

  The first time I looked at Carl Fitzner I thought I knew who he was, a lonely young man living in a basement apartment with failure wrapped around him like a blanket, angry with people like Allison for shining brighter, for being what he couldn’t be and couldn’t have. Then I saw him onstage, and he was the kind of actor so talented he didn’t even seem to be acting, and now I wonder if he could be a murderer, someone for whom rage overcame everything else.

  People are like those nested Russian dolls. There’s always someone else hiding inside the person you think you know, layer after layer, each with the same painted face. I want to open someone up and hold that last solid little doll in my hand. I know all of Allison Avery’s disguises, femme fatale, loyal friend, maternal and corrupting sister, virginal obedient daughter, performer, alive with the magic of her own touch. But who was she at the center? I don’t know if I believe in the soul. I’m afraid of the darkness I see in all of us, every one of us a mystery.

  I have looked in the mirror and not been certain that I saw myself. And what separates me from Allison Avery, from Carl Fitzner, but the features of my face?

  When I get to Carl’s building, I park my car in the farthest corner of the lot and walk back in the direction of the building. Heat rises off the asphalt in waves; I swear I can almost smell it, feel it filling my nostrils like steam from a kettle. I approach Carl’s window from the side, staying close to the wall, and then I crouch near the living room window so I can look in. I’ve decided if anyone asks I’m going to say I think I dropped an earring here. I could even tell this story to Carl and be believed. I see only the living room I remember, spare and ratty.

  Five minutes go by with no sign of Carl. My legs start to cramp from my crouched position. I study the room, trying to determine whether anything has been changed since I last saw it. On the bookshelf is a large framed photograph I don’t remember seeing before. I lean in until I can feel the cool glass against my forehead, trying to make out the face in the picture. The long full hair indicates a woman, the face is pale—a white woman. I think it’s Allison. I’m almost certain. I’ve come to know that face well.