by Sandra Block
“Any nightmares?” she asks.
“No.” I used to be plagued by those too. Frustrating snippets of memory. A stale mattress. Twisting pain. Laughter. The odd sound of birds, which I’ve puzzled over again and again. Birds at night, in the middle of a room? “No, not this time. No nightmares.”
“Good,” she says.
“I don’t know. It just seems so…” I struggle for the word. “Unfair in a way.”
“Of course it’s unfair,” she says.
“No, I mean. Not the fact that it happened. I know that’s unfair. That’s pretty obvious.” My hand is twisting my earring again, and I consciously bring it down, squeezing my palms together. I already had one earlobe split and sewn up from all this twisting. “The fact that I can’t even remember it. But I have to live through it anyway.”
Rae-Ann shrugs helplessly for me. “It sucks.”
For a while, this fact obsessed me. I wanted to remember. Even if remembering would hurt, at least it would make me whole again. Instead of this fractured being, with a piece of my life ripped out. I pored over books about recovering memories. I replayed the night over and over, pestering friends who may have been there. Like a reporter digging out the truth of my own life. But I never got anywhere. Just sad looks, pats on the arm, and soft suggestions that “maybe I should let it go.” The same thing my parents said, that Shoshana said. But they don’t understand. No one does. Of course I’d love to let it go.
But it won’t let me go.
“If I could just remember something,” I mutter, for the millionth time.
She nods sadly. “At some point, you may have to accept that there is some time missing from your life that you can’t account for. Time that was taken from you and that you can’t get back. And try to be okay with that.”
I don’t answer, but I know she’s right. And the truth is, I do understand that, and I do accept it. Someone stole some time from my life. Time that changed me.
But no, I can’t be okay with it.
Chapter Five
James
When I get back to the cubicle, Cooper looks up at me with a questioning expression.
“Got it,” I say with a smile that takes over my face.
“Dude!” He high-fives me, and although I don’t like high-fiving because it’s totally stupid and basically a vehicle for spreading germs, I high-five him back anyway. Jamal told me it’s an easy way to be sociable, and he’s right.
I’m not sure why Dahlia gave me her number, to be honest.
Earlier this morning, I told Cooper about seeing Dahlia. I didn’t tell him about S.O.S., just said I saw her at a meeting and he said, “You should ask her out.”
I explained that she’s two years older and much cooler than me, and she’ll probably say no. He said I was probably right, but sometimes guys can get girls way out of their league. We both understood that she’s way out of my league. “You never know,” he said. Then he got on the phone with one of the lawyers. The team usually lets Cooper deal directly with the lawyers because everyone else was getting bad reviews. The last lawyer, this asshole named Corbyn who’s since moved to Portland, complained that I was arrogant. But actually, he was the arrogant one, while I was trying to keep calm with his frustratingly stupid, unhelpful suggestions about what was wrong with his computer when obviously it was a simple problem with his ad-blocking software.
Anyway, Cooper said I should ask her out so I started thinking of ways to run into her. I could come up to her station, saying we were doing computer checks, but I didn’t think I could pull it off. I’m not good at lying. I have her address from the directory, but not her cell number. It wouldn’t be that hard to figure out, but I don’t want her thinking I’m stalking her.
Then, it happened. My chance came. Like I said, I don’t believe in fate exactly, but I was walking to the bathroom and she was right there. I didn’t have to make up any excuse or anything. She went into the break room, and I never go in there because it’s just people making small talk, and I hate coffee anyway, but I went in there. And I got her number.
“James,” my boss barks out.
“Yup?”
“Where are we on the system 508 update?” Grayson asks.
I look down at the mini window at the bottom of the screen. “Sixty-three percent done.”
He loops his fingers through his belt loops. Grayson has a big belly and a gray mustache that curves up. He reminds me of a walrus, and he’s not that intelligent, but he’s nice enough. A monkey could do a systems 508 update, but they give me complex things to do sometimes. Quasi-complex things, at least.
“Let me know when it’s finished,” he says, then walks away. I go back to the scan I’m running on Tabitha Jackson’s computer, which has already come up with three viruses.
I put my phone down on my desk, thinking about Dahlia’s number stored in there now.
It seems incomprehensible. She actually gave me her number. I could tell by the way she looked at me that I did it wrong. I don’t know exactly what I did wrong, but it wasn’t exactly smooth, because I’m never exactly smooth. Still, the important thing is, she gave me her number. Maybe it’s the wrong one. I hope not, but girls do that sometimes. To me, anyway. But I’ll know soon enough.
Because I’m calling her tonight, and I don’t care if it’s smooth or not.
Chapter Six
Five Years Ago
“Wu-wu!” I am screaming.
My voice is hoarse. I am drinking a grape-flavored, cloying drink, laced with grain alcohol. Wu-wus are what they’re called—wicked drinks—and I have had quite a few of them. Daisy loops her arms around my neck. She smells like cigarettes.
“Yo, girlie! What’s up?”
“Wu-wu,” I say to her, somberly.
She checks me over. “You are seriously fucked up.”
“This is correct.”
“Want to go to the Phoenix?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, looking around the room. “Where are we right now?”
This question elicits peals of laughter, though only drunk people would find it funny. “The Fly,” she answers, which is a final club. Final clubs are men’s clubs that make up a limited but undeniably significant portion of Harvard’s social life. I rarely go to these parties. Daisy always does. This time, she convinced Introvert Girl to come.
“Or we can stay here if you want,” she says.
“No. We could go to the Phoenix.” My speech sounds slurry. “That’s fine.”
She leans into me. “Should I hook up with Jay?”
“Who’s Jay?”
“The guy from Eastern Studies. I told you about him.”
“I don’t remember.” I hold her shoulder, as the room takes a spin when I move my head. “Is he cute?”
“Totally adorable.”
A guy comes over in a porkpie hat and a bow tie. Daisy sees him and squeals. “Jay, I was just talking about you! This is my best friend ever, Dahlia.”
“Daisy and Dahlia?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say. “We’ve heard it all before.”
He tips his hat in a mock formal way. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“She thinks you’re hot,” I inform him, to a strong elbow to my ribs.
“The feeling is mutual,” he says, looking at her with enthrallment at his apparent luck.
“Maybe we should stay here,” she says.
“Either way.” I am handed another purple drink, but put it down. The room is spinning, and the sweetish smell is making me sick. “I’m going to step out for a second,” I say, but Daisy doesn’t answer, cooing at something Jay is saying. The walls are stumbling toward me and I lurch my way onto the front steps. The pounding of the base rattles the iron railing as I stand there, gripping it. The night is hot, heavy. The sky looks smoky gray, like rain is coming
.
I sit down, my skirt sticky against my thighs, and my head hangs down. I might have closed my eyes.
“Hey, Dahlia!” It’s a girl from Winthrop House, my dorm. I think her name is Leah, but I’m not sure.
“Hey,” I answer weakly.
She sidles up to me. “You okay? You don’t look so good.”
“A little drunk. I’m fine.”
“Cool.” She pulls a crinkled cigarette packet out and offers me one, and I shake my head. “You want to walk around a bit? See if anything’s going on? I heard there’s a party at Adam’s.”
I consider Daisy for a minute, who has Jay and won’t miss me. I could use an escape from the blaring music anyway. “Sure,” I say and stand up.
My head is steadier this time. We walk together while she chatters about the party she just came from and the strap from my left shoe bites into my heel.
And that’s the last thing I remember.
Chapter Seven
Dahlia
“You sure you don’t want a glass of wine?” Daisy asks.
“No, I’m good.” I take a long sip of my water. San Pellegrino, because tap is too pedestrian for Daisy. She’s working at an investment-banking firm doing something that I will never understand. Which is to say, she can afford San Pellegrino.
I try to avoid seeing Daisy, but she’s persistent and lives in Boston, so we end up doing lunch biannually at least. It’s not that I don’t like her. It’s just that we’re in very different places right now. She’s got a perfect life, and I’ve got an imperfect one. Sometimes, it’s hard to see that in such stark relief.
“How’s the paralegal thing going?”
“It’s going.” I rip into a piece of bread. Daisy has pushed her bread plate away, which is probably how she maintains a size 0. I don’t bother with such niceties. And it’s not a calling card that I want to put out there anyway. Wispy, feminine.
Prey.
“How’s Jordan doing?” I ask, proud of myself for remembering his name.
“Awesome.” She grins. “I think he’s going to ask.”
It takes me a second. “To get married?”
She nods, her eyebrows raised in victory. “Yup.”
“Oh, wow.” I met him once. Handsome, thin, preppy, very much the male mold of Daisy. Just like every other guy she used to date. I wouldn’t have said he was or wasn’t marriage material. But then, I don’t know. I hardly know Daisy anymore. The marriage thing seems to be catching: first Sylvia, now Daisy. Though they are like an entirely different genus. “Aren’t we a little young for that?”
Daisy shrugs, her bra showing through the cream-white flounce. Between her flounce and her gray herringbone pants, her wardrobe probably costs more than what I made last month. “I’m twenty-six. He’s thirty. When you know, you know, right?”
“Sure, I guess.” But maybe I will never know. I drink more water; she, more wine.
“Have you heard from Quinn?” she asks.
“Not lately.” Quinn was our other roommate, not counting Trish, who hung out at her boyfriend’s apartment all the time but kept a toothbrush in our dorm for convenience’s sake. Quinn is artsy and cool. Lives in LA cool. “Last I heard she was living with Marta.”
Daisy shakes her head. “They broke up. Marta was sleeping with some girl from her yoga class.”
“Oh. That’s too bad.” The plates are brought to the table. Salad for her, risotto for me. “The heart wants what it wants, I suppose.”
“I suppose,” she says. “But it doesn’t seem very namaste to me.”
I laugh, and in that instant, I remember why I like Daisy. Or used to, anyway. It’s like a smell that calls up a long-lost memory, shooting past your cortex and straight to your limbic system. An instant that lurches me back in time in a way that is almost melancholic.
“How’s Eli?” She spears some lettuce.
“He’s good. Still bartending.”
“Good,” she replies, carefully. She doesn’t like Eli, never “got my infatuation with him,” in her words. Once over dinner, she told me we were stopping each other from “progressing.” I told her she didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about. After that, we stuck to lunch.
I spoon some risotto, which is just the right creaminess and easily the most delicious thing I’ve eaten all year.
“So, are you going to the reunion?” she asks.
I just got a postcard for it. Fifth year. “I don’t know. I didn’t even graduate yet.” I don’t mention that I felt physically ill when I saw the postcard in the mailbox.
“Yeah, but who cares? You’re, what, two semesters away?”
“Actually, I’ve only got the one class left at this point. Going tonight, in fact.”
“Oh yeah? What are you taking?”
“Feminism in the Law.”
She shakes her head and smiles. “You were always so smart.”
“Yeah, well,” I say. I’ve never been great at accepting compliments, and Daisy was always very free with handing them out. “It’s not as easy as it was back in college. Working full-time takes its toll.”
“Oh, I can’t even imagine,” she says, which comes out sounding patronizing, though I’m sure she doesn’t mean it that way. “Well, come to the reunion anyway,” she continues, “I’m on the committee. Quinn said she’s coming.”
“Maybe,” I say. “We’ll see.” Though I might as well just say no.
There is silence, then Daisy says, “There were good memories too, you know. Before it happened. Years of good memories.”
“Uh-huh,” I say and drink my San Pellegrino.
• • •
The professor has spoken the last of her lecture, and farewell noises ring around me. Bags being zipped, books snapped shut. I throw my stuff into my army-green satchel. Some of my fellow students, who are all women incidentally, except for one man with a “yes, I am a socialist” button on his backpack, are talking about getting together, hitting a bar or a coffee shop. They’ve asked me to go a few of times, and I’ve politely refused. There was one especially persistent woman named Whitney, who’s a pseudo-celebrity in here. She’s beautiful in a Nordic sense, with the light-blue eyes of a Husky and flaxen-blond hair. She reminds me of Daisy, but in a crunchier, I-don’t-shave-my-legs way. Even she stopped asking, which is both a relief and a disappointment. I don’t know what I want from them. To beg, maybe.
The pavement is shiny from the earlier rain, which emptied the humidity from the air. A streetlight glows a fuzzy line through a puddle. I adjust the straps of the satchel, then notice a form against the brick wall near the Harvard station stop. She’s got a cardboard sign in black, fuzzy marker that reads PREGNANT AND HUNGRY. PLEASE HELP.
“Spare some change?” she asks as I read the sign.
“Oh, yeah. Wait a sec.” I scrounge around my satchel for a dollar.
“Dahlia?” she asks.
Taken aback, I take a closer look at her. “Natasha?”
“Hey!” She jumps up like a jack-in-the-box. “How are you, girl?” She reaches over for a hug, and I smell smoke and grime in her faded-green-dyed hair.
“Liking the color,” I say. Though she’s a chubby, busty girl who is barely five feet, fully standing now, the green calls to mind a leprechaun.
“Yours too,” she returns, signaling my purple. “So what’s up with you?” Her voice is animated. She’s always been bubbly, but this is overboard, like she’s jacked up on something. Meth probably. When she smiles, she is missing a front tooth. “Anything new?”
“This and that,” I say.
“Still a lawyer?”
“Paralegal,” I correct, downplaying it.
“That’s good,” she says. “Real good.”
“And you’re…?” I point down to the sign.
“Oh, no. That’s just for the
money.” She laughs raucously, which is uncomfortable. “It really works though. My profits are up, like, twenty percent.”
“Huh. Well, that’s good, I guess.” I have an odd vision of her handing a P&L sheet to Daisy. See, I really think this new sales pitch is working. As we stand there, some people pass by, looking at us, then away. “Well,” I say, “I’d better…” I motion to the Harvard subway station to finish my sentence.
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” she says and hugs me again. “It was good to see you.”
As we awkwardly disengage from the hug, I hand her two twenties. “Here,” I say. It’s all I have. Hopefully, Eli can lend me some money this week. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”
“Yeah, sure, thanks,” she says, fingering the bills with real pleasure. “You know where to find me, right?” she asks with her lopsided smile and plops back down to her spot. We both wave, and walking away, I reflexively reach into my bag for my wallet and gun. I find both. With Natasha, that isn’t a given.
I saw her boost off various girls in our support group. This one was S.O.R., not S.O.S., if I remember correctly. Survivors of Rape, following the S.O. theme. The logo has an eagle, as the founders meant it to sound inspirational, like soar. Though, to me, it always brought sore to mind instead. Natasha never stole from me, but I wouldn’t put it past her. I wasn’t surprised when she was asked to leave the group, and I haven’t seen her since.
The roar of the subway rises up the stairs, along with a faint whiff of urine. As I hit the last stair, a red train rumbles past, so I’ll have to wait for the next one. I stand up straight, making sure I give off a don’t-fuck-with-me air, but there’s just a woman texting in a cheap, blue business suit and an older, wizened-looking African American man whistling.
When my phone rings, I jump anyway.
I don’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
There is a brief pause. “Hi,” the voice says. “It’s James.”
Chapter Eight
