Cruel Beautiful World

by Caroline Leavitt

  “What are you doing?”

  She put one hand across the page. “Writing.”

  “But that’s great.” Maybe that explained why she was up so early. She wanted time and quiet. He could understand that. Maybe it had nothing to do with him at all. He had tried to write himself, even with the demands of his new job. He had told himself he’d carve out a half hour in the morning, while the kids were rambling around, but when he’d sat down, all that had happened was he had doodled Lucy’s beautiful face on the page, over and over. He had thought about all the things he wanted to tell her about his day. He had felt bad enough when he had stopped writing, though he told himself he’d pick it up later. Everything had a time and a season, as that old song said. He didn’t know where his drive to write had gone, but it seemed to have been replaced by Lucy, and to him that was a good thing.

  He pulled up a chair and sat beside her, and she shut her journal. “It’s okay if you keep writing,” he said, but she shook her head.

  She used to show him her work, almost desperate for his suggestions, gnawing her nails as he was reading, pacing the floor sometimes. “Do you like it? What do you think?” she kept asking. He could feel her panic, and it was his job to calm it all down. She used to welcome his help—the way he showed her how to build a character, how to keep the plot spinning. “Throw rocks at your characters,” he advised. Even little things, like spelling and grammar help, she was grateful for.

  But by March, she had started changing, and maybe he had, too. He knew that she felt isolated, that she was lonely, but what was he supposed to do? He had told her they had to lie low. She knew all the reasons why, and at first she had been just as excited as he was about their new life. “Just a little while longer,” he kept telling her, but she looked more and more as if she didn’t believe him.

  He kept hearing those stupid songs on the radio—rape songs, he called them—about older guys and younger girls, and every one of them seemed directed at him, like a finger, pointing. He could tell himself all he wanted that Lucy was mature, but she didn’t know how to use an iron. She couldn’t cook. She was seventeen, and even if she would be legal in another year, that was still months of worrying every time he saw a cop, every time the phone rang.

  WHEN SHE WAS out of the house, he looked for her journal, but he couldn’t find it. Sure, he sometimes read her writing on loose leaf paper, but it was always only beginnings of stories, snippets of dialogue. Where was her blue journal, the one she thought was so special? Would she really go so far as to actually hide her writing from him? He knew it was a rough patch for them, but didn’t all relationships have them? Couldn’t making it through those shaky spots actually strengthen a bond? That night, he came home with wildflowers that he had picked by the school, a bouquet of tiger lilies that he put in a glass for her.

  And then, a few weeks later, while looking for his glasses, he found a magazine shoved under the bed, just pages stapled together, and a name, the RagTag Literary Review. He had been the one to tell Lucy to read what was being published, to study it, but he meant places like the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, the Michigan Quarterly Review. He leafed through it. Some bad poetry, two stories. He idly started reading a story by someone named Berry Moss, thinking maybe he could finally find time for himself and send off his own story. He recognized a phrase. And then another. He felt something slam shut in his head. It was Lucy’s writing and it was about an older guy and his younger girlfriend living in an isolated town in Pennsylvania, and then the guy hits the girl. It was published. He grabbed the magazine, went to the living room, where Lucy was reading, and held it up, watching her face pale. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” he told her. “Do you want people to find us?”

  She stared at him. “I didn’t use my real name—”

  “But someone could call the magazine and ask. They could make up some story to trace you. And you must have given them our address—”

  “No one will find us,” she said. “No one has.”

  “How could you publish this?”

  “Because it’s good! Because I’m good!”

  “I’m glad you’re writing again, but don’t write about us. And you don’t publish right now. It’s too dangerous. Save your stories until you’re eighteen, and then publish them, and then no one can touch us.”

  She grabbed the magazine back from him, wincing when it tore in his hand. She smoothed the pages. “Fine,” she said stiffly. “Fine.” She left the room, and he sighed. She’d get over it. She’d come to see that he was right, that he was doing this out of love, because he needed to protect her. To protect them.

  But more and more, she was out of sorts. One month passed and then two and three, and things were no better. “What do you want?” he asked her, and she always said the same thing. To live in a city. To drive. To get her GED. Things he couldn’t risk giving her. And then everything had come apart.

  His job was more and more terrible. He couldn’t handle the kids, they didn’t listen to him. He had to come up with a new plan, but what?

  The night before Lucy died, when he reached for her, she pushed him away. “I’m tired,” she said. When he persisted, stroking her back, nuzzling her neck, he felt her stiffen. When he turned her to face him, her eyes were blank, and his desire faded. He smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead. “Sleep, then,” he told her, and when she did, he stayed awake, his mind racing. She used to chatter when she made breakfast, but that morning she was silent, setting down his oatmeal thinned with organic milk, a slice of the corn-and-molasses bread he was addicted to. “Eat with me,” he said, but she shook her head. “I ate already,” she told him.

  She ate without him? Why? The school had taught that eating together was a privilege, that it bound people together. Weren’t they a couple? Didn’t they do things together? They didn’t have that much time together, so why didn’t she prize the time they did have? He took a deep breath. “Well, keep me company, then,” he said, in as pleasant a tone as he could manage. She sat in the chair opposite him. He sat eating, looking around the house, which was a wreck. Dust bunnies floated along the floorboards. Laundry bred in chairs. But when he suggested—merely suggested—she clean it, she got that look on her face, as if he were pressing a great stone down on her chest. “Okay, never mind for now,” he said. “We can both clean it up later. Or I’ll do it.” He finished his breakfast, but when he went to kiss her good-bye, she dipped her head so that he had to tilt her chin up to get to her mouth, her dry lips.

  “Bye,” he called to her, and then he was out the door.

  Maybe, he thought as he drove to school, it was this place that was ruining them. Lucy could be right: maybe they needed a fresh start. They could move to a better place, with a bigger garden. Or he should really teach her to drive, get her her own car. He trusted her to drive now, didn’t he? It wasn’t the same situation as when she was younger and wilder, and he was so afraid something might happen to her. She was sturdy stuff. And he could track her by the mileage. He could know where she went, so he could keep her safe.

  When he got to work, William was still trying to figure out what to do. As usual, he walked into his room and it was chaos, with two kids, Rain and Doobie, shouting at each other. “Come on, let’s learn about the kings of Europe!” he said, trying to sound encouraging, and Rain made a face. “Fuck the kings,” she said cheerfully, and he lost it. “Shut up! I can’t hear myself think!” he said, and just as he said it, the head of the school walked in.

  “Did you just say ‘shut up’ to a child?” he said, and he started lecturing William on the pacifist nature of the school, on how teachers were supposed to be loving and kind, and William threw up his hands. “You can shut up, too,” William said, and he was fired.

  THE MAGNITUDE OF what he had done didn’t hit him until he was in his car. He didn’t have a job anymore. There’d be no money coming in. He couldn’t even get unemployment because the school was set up so that everyone’s hours were part-time
.

  What in God’s name would he tell Lucy? That without a steady job, there was no way that he could pay the rent on their place anymore? That he wouldn’t be able to take care of her? He pulled over to the side of the road, trying to calm his breathing, the way Mimi, the school’s yoga teacher, had shown him. He leaned his head on the steering wheel. “Ideas will come to you if you breathe properly,” Mimi had said, but all that he could see were bills piling up on the dining room table and Lucy’s disappointed face.

  He straightened and began driving again. He and Lucy had each other. They were healthy. They were young enough to walk into any place and find some kind of work. What did it matter what the work was, as long as there was money coming in? And hadn’t he been thinking about moving farther out, where it was cheaper? They could grow their own food, give back to the community, really live all their ideals.

  He felt a flash of hope. He pulled the car over and picked some wildflowers on the side of the road. Lucy loved them.

  BY THE TIME he got to the door, he was anxious to see her pretty face, to tell her everything, to make new plans. He opened the door and saw Lucy’s coat and a stuffed backpack in the middle of the floor. “Lucy?” he called.

  And then she came into the room, her face pale as a sheet of paper.

  “I know. I’m home early.” He glanced at the knapsack. “Where are you going?”

  She hesitated.

  “Luce?”

  “I’m leaving you,” she said. Her voice was fragile, like a mirror with a crack in it.

  He put the flowers down carefully. “No. No, you’re not. That will never happen,” he said quietly.

  “Are you listening to me?” Her voice rose. “I’m leaving. You can’t stop me.”

  He tried to reach for her. He was sure that if he could just kiss her mouth, he might win her back. But as soon as he had her wrist, she jerked it back from him, scratching him, drawing blood. He blinked at her and then she turned around. “I’ll put the bag away,” she said, and he felt a hard skip of relief. She went into the bedroom, and for a moment he thought she was going to lock herself in there. “Honey—” he said. She was different, as if something had broken inside her, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

  And then there she was, the gun trembling in her hand. “Get away from the door. It’s loaded,” she said.

  “Lucy.” He said her name like a prayer. He told her how much he loved her, how he didn’t know how to be in the world without her. He had bought the gun because Lucy was getting so obsessed with everything she heard on the news, with being alone so much of the time with nothing but the woods around her. He had thought a gun—some protection—would make her feel better, but after the first time he tried to teach her how to use it, she’d freaked. She had never touched the gun again, and he hadn’t pushed. He had promised her it would never be loaded, but he couldn’t remember now if it was or it wasn’t.

  She held the weapon higher now.

  “Lucy, honey—I love you,” he said, and when she laughed, it sounded like a bark. As if it hadn’t come from Lucy at all.

  “You don’t love me. I don’t belong to you anymore,” she said.

  “I understand your pain,” he said slowly. “But I need you to understand mine—”

  “Be quiet! Just be quiet!” she cried.

  Her eyes blinked hard. Her hands shook. How could she be this desperate, this frightened of him?

  “People know about you. What you did to me!” Lucy shouted.

  “What people?” he said quietly. “And what did I do to you?” He thought of the story she had published. “Who did you tell about us, Lucy?” When he reached for her arm, she jerked free, but he took hold of her again. He twisted the gun in her hand, wanting to grab it, to hurl it outside. “Lucy,” he said. “Lucy—” She struggled in his arms, kicking his legs, bending down and biting his hand, so he felt a shock of pain. He wrenched her arm back at a funny angle, and then the gun went off, like a shout in his ears, and he saw a star of blood on his sleeve. A shell clattered to the floor.

  He looked at her in wonder. Her features had rearranged, so that she was all eyes and her mouth was a line, and her whole body crumpled against him and fell to the floor, the blood spreading across her chest.

  He screamed, and then he dropped down, frantically probing her pulse points, her wrist, her ankles, the base of her neck. “Lucy! Lucy!” he shouted. He breathed into her mouth, pressing himself against her until he was covered in her blood. She didn’t move. He wiped a hand across his face, his eyes so wet with tears that the world faded around him. Finally he got up.

  The floor was spattered with red. The gun was in the corner and it had both their fingerprints on it. He knew what it looked like. People know about you. That’s what she had said.

  No one would believe him. He had taken Lucy over state lines when she was a minor. It wouldn’t matter that they had loved each other, that they were planning to marry. The cops would blame him. And for this, too. They would blame him.

  He started to cry again. He couldn’t go to prison. He couldn’t. He’d die in there. But he couldn’t live without Lucy either.

  HE LEFT EVERYTHING the way it was, jammed the gun into his pocket, and then ran out to his car. His shirt was spattered with blood. His hands. He glanced in the mirror, and though his face was clean, he looked like a stranger to himself. He drove around and around, trying to think what to do. A car beeped at him and he turned, and it was one of the mothers from the free school, waving hello, and he didn’t know what to do, so he just waved back, moving his hand like an idiot until he remembered the blood dappled across his fingers. He hastily wiped them on his shirt, hoping she might think it was finger paint, and then stopped, because really, what did it matter now?

  He kept driving, out of town now, not sure where he was going. Hours passed. The sky darkened and the air took on a clammy chill. A horn blared and he looked up and a truck swam into his field of vision, coming toward him head-on, and he wrenched the wheel to the right. His car skidded onto a shoulder, and he bumped up against the roof of the car, banging his head, feeling the star of pain, and the car slammed to a stop. He sucked at the air. He was all right. He was alive. And Lucy was dead.

  It was funny how calm he got after that. How he knew what to do. He drove to the Ben Franklin Bridge, a place that had always scared him. Whenever he had to drive across it, he would wonder, What if the bridge collapses, flinging cars and people into the dark waters? He still couldn’t swim, any more than he could when his father had flung him into the water when he was a child.

  He couldn’t save himself. Not then, not now.

  He parked by the bridge. In the backseat was an old sweatshirt, and he took off his bloody shirt and put the sweatshirt on so he’d look ordinary. Then he got out of the car, leaving the keys in it, his wallet. He took the shirt and balled it in his fist, and he forced himself to walk up the stairs. The bridge had a walkway. Walking across it was always mentioned as one of the fun things to do in the area, but the day was cold and clammy and the walkway was pretty empty. The cars were zooming by, too fast for anyone to really notice what he was doing. He walked over to the edge of the bridge. He was terrified of water, and so this was the way he had to die. His punishment. He wavered, bracing for the wave of nausea. One, two, three. He’d count, and then all he had to do was let go, falling, and it would all be like a dream. Or maybe he’d jump and fall and then there’d just be nothing more than a blanket of night to tuck him in.

  His whole body trembled. He threw the shirt into the water. Then he lifted up one foot on the railing, hoisting himself up.

  “Hey! You!”

  He jerked back from the edge.

  “What are you doing there? Hey!”

  He heard the voice, but he couldn’t see where it was coming from.

  “Hey!” This time the voice was female. There was a couple there, farther down on the walkway, and they were coming toward him. Running. He quickly turned, dislodg
ing a stone, which splashed into the water.

  He ran, too. His breath roared in his ears. Huh, huh, huh. His muscles ached, but he took the stairs three at a time, running, stumbling, so he had to grab the rail, skinning his palm. He kept running, past his car, onto the road, toward a train station.

  Coward. He had never hated himself more than he did at that moment.

  He left the car. He made it to the train station. No one paid him any attention. His arm throbbed where she had bitten him. Lucy. His Lucy. He stopped at a drugstore, bought a cheap pair of scissors, a razor, and a clean T-shirt, and headed for the men’s room. It was the middle of the night, and no one was there. He had never had his hair short, but he began cutting it as close to his head as he could, and when he was finished, he took the razor and shaved the rest. He ran one hand over his skull. He didn’t look like himself anymore.

  He heard a noise suddenly. A man strode in, hungrily kissing a woman wrapped around his neck, moaning. Neither one of them looked at him. William ran the water, washing the hair down the drain, then took off his old shirt and put on the new T. Then he walked out the door and, with the money he had in his pocket, bought a train ticket to Boston.

  HE WAS THERE by morning. He hadn’t slept on the train because he didn’t want to be defenseless, and now he could barely see straight. He didn’t have money for a hotel, so he went into the men’s room and found an empty stall and sat on the toilet and shut his eyes. Just for a moment, he told himself.

  SOMEONE WAS BANGING on the stall door. “What, you living in there or what?” a voice said. He stood up, shaky on his feet, glancing at his watch. Had he slept a whole day? How was that possible? He opened the door, and a man in a custodian’s jumpsuit glowered at him. “This ain’t the Ritz,” he said.