The Girl She Used to Be

by David Cristofano

  I pick up the phone and dial.

  It rings six times and I am awash in failure; I fear an answering machine is imminent. And though this chapter of my life is coming to a close, it also happens to be the last chapter in the book.

  After ring seven, someone picks up and all I get is an unfriendly, raspy male voice. “Yes.”

  “Um, oh, hello?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hi, um, I’m… I’m trying to reach Jonathan?”

  He pauses. “Who?”

  “Jonathan.”

  Another pause and then, “Sorry, no Jonathan here. You got the wrong nu—”

  “Wait!” I yell, loud enough to cause the procrastinators to stop typing. I know that if this guy hangs up the phone, I am done. Forever. I try to think of something to say, to extend the conversation, to create a conversation, until I can find a way to link myself to Jonathan without sounding like an undercover agent. Then it hits me. Jonathan. Who am I kidding?

  He resumes. “Look, there’s no—”

  “Actually, I’m looking for Johnny. You know, Little John?”

  “Oh, Little Johnny? Why didn’t you say so?”

  I knew it. Those Versace frames aren’t fooling anyone.

  “He’s out of town,” Raspy Guy says, “but he can’t really be reached at this number anyway. Call his cell. 212-555-1214. Is this Carla?”

  I finish writing the number on my napkin and consider lying and saying yes because, of all the skills I’ve acquired over the years, my most practiced is that of assuming an identity.

  “Uh, no. Just an old friend.”

  “Oh, well, Carla will be happy to hear that.”

  I close my eyes and inhale loudly. “Yeah, we wouldn’t want to upset Carla.”

  “Do I know you? Your voice sounds familiar.” He might know me better by my scream. I consider belting out a few renditions of “Daddy! Daddy!” for him. “What’s your name, dear?”

  “Angelina Benedetto.” See how easy this is?

  “Hmmm… sorry, doesn’t ring a bell. Angela, you said?”

  “Angelica, uh, Berenetti.” Good gravy.

  “Well, if you’re a friend of Little Johnny’s…”

  I think for a second and smile. “I am.”

  We have one of those weird endings where no one says good-bye, like in the movies.

  I look for the barista again but she’s disappeared. Who cares; I’m calling Jonathan’s cell phone no matter what she says.

  I dial and on the third ring he answers and I can hear the wind and I know the top is down and I am anxious to be with him, wherever he is, wherever he is going.

  “Guess who?” I say.

  “I… don’t know.” It’s a better response than Carla. “Um,” he says, fumbling with his phone a bit, “someone calling from the Mountaineer Coffee Mill?”

  “Right. Now who do you know who could be so unfortunate to be calling from a coffee house in Morgantown, West Virginia.”

  “Well, that certainly narrows it down.” I hear the rhythm of the concrete clicking under his tires. “How are you, Melody?”

  I sigh and listen to the road and though it was only a day ago, it seems a lifetime ago (or, at a minimum, a persona ago) that I had the wind in my hair and I was feeling the irregularities of the highway in the seat of my pants.

  “I’m cold, dirty. I’m exhausted and broke. I’m at the end, Jonathan.” I whisper, “I didn’t leave you. I hope you know I didn’t leave you.”

  The lag of his cell phone delays his response, but it seems he might have hesitated anyway. “I know.” I hear a horn blare in the background. “Hey, up yours, you fu—uh, fantastic driver.”

  “Always the gentleman.”

  “It’s a challenge.” A few more concrete seams distance us. “You have a… an unexpected, positive effect on my life, Melody.”

  I smile. “And for some reason you have the only positive effect on mine—which is why I want you to know that I didn’t leave you; I was taken away.”

  “It seems no one wants me to have you, not the good guys or the bad guys. It’s just one big—hey, how’d you get my number?”

  “Your dad gave it to me.”

  He laughs. “Seriously.”

  “I might be. 718-555-4369?”

  “Holy sh—”

  “You mean that was dear old dad? The Disemboweler of Brooklyn?”

  “Where’d you get that number? That’s the private line for his office in Brooklyn. Not many people have it.”

  “I’ll tell you later. So where are you? I’m a damsel in distress here.”

  “Distress?”

  “West Virginia, Jonathan, West Virginia. People think I’m Billy Idol.”

  “I’m still in Baltimore.”

  I take a deep breath. “Will you come and find me?”

  There is a long delay before he answers and I fear we’re about to lose our connection. “Are you sure, Melody?”

  The barista returns to the bar and glares at me. “I’m sure.”

  “I’m getting on I-70 right now. What’s the address?”

  “254 Walnut Street, outside the university.”

  “254 Walnut. Got it.” I can hear his car accelerate and the wind increase into the phone. “Don’t move.”

  We end our call and I push the phone back toward the interior of the bar. The barista walks over and returns it to its hiding place, then stares at me like she’s possessed. “Anything else?” she asks.

  “I have about four hours to kill. What can I get for a dollar and forty-six cents?”

  She grabs a can of Pepsi and slides it over to me and clears the bar of all of my money.

  I use some arithmetic to plan out my stay: twelve ounces, that’s three ounces per hour, and at a half ounce per sip, that’s one sip every ten minutes or a quarter-ounce sip every five minutes. The soda may evaporate faster. I open the can and walk to the free computer.

  I consider killing time by visiting one of a dozen of my favorite math Web sites, but I’m just too shot, even for math.

  I decide to Google Sean Douglas but I get over 33,000 hits and I’m not about to start narrowing the results. Then I try to Google some of my past identities—May Adams, Karen Smith, Jane Watkins—and sure enough, my aliases are even more mundane than Sean’s moniker. Hundreds of thousands of hits and I am not tied to a single one, as though they made me vanish before I was ever created.

  Which is exactly what I’m about to do right now.

  JONATHAN PULLS UP IN FRONT OF THE CAFé, TOP DOWN, AND parallel-parks in one move, which is less about luck and more about having lived in the city his entire life; there are no parking lots, no lines. He looks around a little, pulls a sweater over his head, and runs his hands through his hair a few times.

  I am waiting for him by the door.

  Though certainly fueled by exhaustion and hunger, I can feel myself switching over, a conversion from allowing the good guys to do the work to the bad guys; I feel like I’m surrendering everything I’ve been brought up to understand as moral and right, giving the darkness a try to see if it can carry the weight more mightily. And at the same time, the lightness evanesces, passes me on like a baton, yanks from me my crutches.

  Have you ever noticed that the end has a more distinctive feel than the beginning?

  He walks in, sees me, and smiles, and I immediately start shaking. My legs go limp and just before I am about to crash, he catches me and holds me—not wrestles me back to my feet, but holds me, like a rag doll—and I tremble in his arms for many minutes. And though I can feel the eyes of all the patrons boring into me, he just hugs me tightly and whispers in my ear, “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” The last time someone held me this unconditionally was when I was eight and two boys bullied me on the playground, scaring me to the point that I’d wet my pants, and when my mother came to pick me up she held me and let me cry and didn’t care about how my wet clothes were seeping onto her slacks or my relentless tears or the layers of mud the boys ha
d put in my hair and down my shirt. And today I’m being held by this strong man and he doesn’t care that I’m filthy and not smelling like anything that implies femininity or how I am broken in ways he could never comprehend. He just tightens his arms around me and whispers over and over, “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

  Indeed, he does.

  What he doesn’t know is that I don’t have a penny on me, I have been living on a liquid diet for the past day, and I have not showered or washed my hair or changed my clothes in what seems like a week. I was at the end of the proverbial rope and had he not been there to catch me, I might’ve fallen into the abyss forever.

  When I’m back on my feet, Jonathan steadies me and helps me walk out of the café. The temperature in the café and the temperature outside are identical, but the smell of the fresh air is wonderful, an arid and floral blend like nothing familiar to my senses. I take back everything I said about West Virginia.

  He helps me into the car and I fall back against the seat and the leather wraps around me like the arms of an old friend. He gets in too, then reaches into the backseat and pulls out a bag.

  “For you,” he says.

  I glance at him and pass him an emaciated smile. “You’re always bearing gifts.”

  “Well, I had time to kill in Baltimore. Picked this up for you at the college bookstore at Johns Hopkins.”

  I open the bag to find a brand new copy of Barton Zwiebach’s A First Course in String Theory.

  “Not as useful as a sweater, I suppose,” he says, then looks down.

  I get a little misty. “Are you kidding? It’s perfect.” I reach over and give him a hug and he puts his arm around my back and pulls me in. When he lets go, I ask, “You pick this out on your own?”

  “Get real. I would’ve thought string theory had something to do with the clothing industry. I called the assistant dean of the School of Math and asked what the next logical class would be after Differential Equations. Then he reeled off a list of titles that made my head spin. The only one I could remember was String Theory. The lady at the bookstore said this was the best for self-learning.”

  I shake my head in amazement. “I can’t believe you called the dean to research this—and that you remembered that I was ready to move beyond differential equations. That’s so… romantic.”

  Context is everything.

  The sky fills with clouds as we chat. We both glance up and watch them move at the same time.

  “Where’s that useless fed of yours?” he asks.

  “A few miles back.”

  “He managed to lose you twice in two days. That’s gotta be a career killer.”

  I walk my fingers around the edge of my text and smile. I catch a glimpse of Jonathan and he’s watching me—noticing me—and I can tell he’s taking it all in, making mental notes, experiencing.

  “You know,” I say, “your dad called you Little Johnny.”

  He sighs and rolls his eyes. “What bugs me is there’s no Big John. It’s not like my dad’s name is John or there is some bulky uncle in my family who goes by John.”

  “So, you’re little because you’re the youngest?”

  “No, I’m little because I’m the smallest.”

  “What? You’ve got to be five-eleven and three-quarters.”

  He narrows his eyes at me. “Six feet, thank you. And a solid two-ten. Anything small about that?”

  I don’t answer; I’m imagining a family of Bovaro men towering over me in my final moments. To think Jonathan would be the smallest guy in a room full of Italian muscle is disturbing at best.

  He starts the car, and as we pull onto the road droplets of rain begin to fall on the windshield and Jonathan raises the top while we’re in motion. He navigates the town like he’s driven through it every day of his life, and just as I settle into my seat, we’re on I-68 and the sun is fading in the mirrors. He rolls up the windows and the tint of the glass keeps enough light out that I become drowsy.

  I turn and stare at him for the longest time.

  Jonathan clears his throat and asks, “Do you want me to take you anywhere?”

  I breathe him in, unbuckle my seat belt, and slowly lay my head in his lap and say, “Yes, take me anywhere.”

  He gently takes his right hand from the steering wheel and places it on my shoulder, and I can feel it shake a little before it comes to rest. I put my hand on his knee and slowly curl it underneath until the tips of my fingers are between his thigh and the seat.

  Sometimes there is something sexual about surrender, but not this time. Besides, it’s hard to imagine sex could ever bring this kind of euphoria.

  I wake to Jonathan speaking softly, and though the car is still in motion, there is no light. Not even on the dashboard.

  “What’d you expect?” he says. “You think they’d keep her there forever?”

  I try not to stir; I can tell I’m going to be in pain when I move from this twisted position. Right now I feel fine, so I decide to stay silent as long as possible and let the kinks out slowly.

  He continues, “Yeah, well, good luck. She’s probably in North Dakota.”

  I’m so comfortable and drowsy that I could probably stay this way forever. But Jonathan’s side of this conversation—of which I am likely the topic—is bringing a rush of alertness.

  He whispers his final statement, “I’ll let you know what I find out.” Then he quietly closes his cell.

  I decide to let my wakefulness be known.

  “Jonathan?”

  He jumps and his leg slams my head against the bottom of the steering wheel and suddenly the car is swerving from side to side.

  I suppose the kinks were inevitable. I quickly sit up.

  Jonathan gets us back in our lane and steadies the car. “Geez—you scared me to death.”

  “Sorry,” I say as I rub the back of my neck with one hand and my forehead with the other. “Why are the dashboard lights out?”

  “I thought you’d sleep better. Well, that and I didn’t want any passing trucks or cops to get the wrong impression.”

  “How long was I asleep?”

  He turns up the lights on the dashboard. “About three hours.”

  “We must be getting close to Philadelphia.”

  “Baltimore, actually.”

  I rub my eyes and think. “Wouldn’t it have been faster to take the Pennsylvania Turnpike?”

  “We’re avoiding Philly. For the moment.”

  I stop rubbing and try to focus. “What’s in Philadelphia?”

  “Some bad people—bad people who received incorrect information.” He says this with a strained, wry smile.

  I lick my lips and swallow hard. “You gave them the incorrect information?”

  He nods, inhales awkwardly, and adds, “And there are some bad people in D.C. as well, so we need to snake ourselves between the two. And who knows where the marshals and FBI are at this point. They’re a completely separate issue.”

  It seems Jonathan might have found this task tougher than he first imagined, that keeping me away from both the feds and his family simultaneously is proving to be an undertaking too arduous for one man.

  It all sinks in rather quickly. At first, having approximate locations of the hit men brings on a wave of anxiety, a sensation bordering on vertigo. But the more I ponder the situation, the more I realize I’m actually on the proactive side of things for once. Most of the time, the marshals are just moving me around, waiting to see if anyone is coming after me; it always felt like I was barricading myself in a foxhole, waiting for opposing soldiers to find me before figuring out the next move. It’s nice finally to be the one with a plan.

  I try to watch Jonathan without him noticing. He focuses on the road, almost cataleptic, driving. Devising. When he finally sees me, he smiles, and it is casual and calm, as if nothing is wrong and everything is on schedule. He subsequently calms me as well.

  He reaches behind my seat. “Thirsty?”

  I adjust my seat a little and Jona
than hands me an Orangina. I shake it a few times but do not open it. “Who’s Carla?”

  “Who?”

  “Your dad thought I might be Carla.”

  “Carla is my personal trainer.”

  Rough life.

  “Sounded like it might be more than that.” I twist the top and take a drink, as though the drink and the comment are equally casual.

  “She’d like it to be more, I guess.” He turns to me and says firmly, “But it’s not.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with Carla? I’m sure she’s buff.”

  He looks at me and smiles. “She is, but… she wants to be with me for the wrong reasons—because of my family’s influence and money. It’s like being a rock star, sort of.” He turns back to the road. “With a greater certainty of being murdered or doing time in prison.”

  I stare at the road and we’re passing by the white lines with steady speed. “At least you have some form of certainty. You have an identity, a family, a before and after, a lineage and history.”

  He takes a deep breath like he’s going to offer up some great insight, but he merely holds it for a few seconds, then lets the air come out in a rush.

  “What?” I ask.

  He hesitates again but finally drives it home. “You are beautiful, Melody, in more ways than one—but you would be even prettier if you’d stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

  I bite my cheek and turn in my seat to face him. “Come again?”

  “Seriously, do you think you and I are so different?”

  I consider his theorem but it’s not working for me. “Yeah… I think we’re totally different.”

  “Really? Well, let me tell you how we’re alike.” He scratches his cheek a few times, looks like a stereotypical mobster. “How often do you think I’m watched by the cops or the feds? If I get a citation for jaywalking, they’ll be on me in a heartbeat, trying to get me to flip on someone in my family. I can’t go anywhere without being noticed—and I’m a pretty stand-up guy by comparison. But regardless of how straight I am, I will never be rid of the Bovaro tag. I am anything but free. I will always be viewed as a criminal or as a criminal-in-training or, at a minimum, I’ll always be viewed as someone with information on other criminals.”