“What are you doing?”
“Taking it to the Dumpster.”
“Wait.” He got up and took the strap from my hand. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m so tired of going through other people’s things, Lee. And I especially don’t want to go through his.”
“You don’t have to watch.”
“There’s worse, you know. You should have seen what he left on my desk at the library.” I shuddered. “He killed Mrs. Harmon’s cat.”
For a moment we looked at each other in silence. “Am I still going to feel like this?” I asked. “Even now, when I know he’s dead?”
“Takes time for your nerves to settle, that’s all,” he said. “It’ll pass. Why don’t you take a shower now, and whatever I find I promise I’ll keep it to myself.”
Once I was under the hot water I felt a little better. When I came out of the bathroom he held up a thick wad of twenties. “See? This is why I told you not to trash it.”
“I don’t want it,” I said. “It belonged to Mrs. Harmon.”
“She wasn’t the only one.”
He was right. I didn’t know what to say, so I picked up Kerri-Ann’s copy of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I couldn’t read though; I felt his eyes on me. “What?” I said finally.
“I love the look on your face while you’re reading. It’s like you really are someplace else.”
“You watch me while I’m reading?”
He shrugged. “You’re so caught up you never notice.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but then he licked his thumb and began to count the money, and I went back to my book.
“Five hundred eighty-nine dollars.” He held up a small pouch. “And here’s something else.” He shook it a little, and it jingled. “I bet it’s jewelry.”
“Can I see?”
He handed me the pouch, and I loosened the drawstring and tipped the bag so all the pieces came out onto the bed. There were, among a couple dozen things I didn’t recognize, the opal and pearl rings I’d laid out on Mrs. Harmon’s mantelpiece.
Lee looked up from the rucksack. “Find something that belongs to you?”
“No,” I said. “Mrs. Harmon’s.” I pulled the rings out of the jumble and laid them out in the palm of my hand. I wanted to send them to her niece, but I had no idea how I’d go about finding her. I ran my finger over the locket around my neck and thought of the carrot cake and the bride and groom at the Emerald City.
“This is crazy.” Lee laughed as he pulled something else out of the sack. “He was like a demonic Santa Claus.” He held up Sully’s tarnished silver flask and unscrewed the cap. “Bottoms up!” And he tossed back his head and took a long swig.
“You sure you want to put your lips on that?” I asked.
“Does it matter?” He wiped the rim of the flask with the corner of his shirt and held it out to me. “I shouldn’t have brushed my teeth.”
“No, thanks.”
“You should reconsider. This is good whiskey.”
He got up and joined me on the bed. I took the flask and tilted it back, coughing as the alcohol seared my throat. “Yuck,” I said. I took another swig. “This is disgusting.”
“And yet you keep drinking it.” Our fingers touched as I handed it back.
“It tastes awful, but it lights a little fire in your belly.” All of a sudden nothing bothered me: not the thought of Sully’s knife against my throat, or his bones sitting like a pile of gravel in Lee’s stomach. I didn’t care that my grandfather would never take me fishing. I didn’t care that I had no money that was rightfully mine, or that my father would wake up every morning for the rest of his life hoping I would visit, or that someone might come knocking for Kerri-Ann, see the light on and hear our voices, and turn us over to the campus police. I could see how people fell into drinking.
I pulled the duvet up to my chin. “Here.” He held out the flask. “You finish it.”
“No, thanks.” I had a feeling if I drank any more this warm cozy not-caring would leave me. I felt weak, but in a good way. Tonight I would have happy dreams.
Lee shrugged, tipped it back, and placed the empty flask on the nightstand. “Time to put this day behind us.” He got up and turned off the overhead lamp. There were lights on across the courtyard, and it was enough to see by. He took off his shirt and tossed it over the desk chair; then, after raising a hand to his mouth to sniff his breath, he went back into the bathroom for Kerri-Ann’s toothbrush.
He came out again, unbuttoning his fly. “How long have we known each other, Maren? Has it really only been three months?”
Suddenly all speech, even a simple yes or no, seemed like an incredible effort. The warmth and heaviness had spread down through my limbs, tugging on my eyelids and muffling my tongue.
Still, I kept my eyes open just enough to watch him as he finished undressing. Lee had nice muscles. He bent forward as he took off his jeans, and by the courtyard light I could see the down on his back, glowing as if his shadow were made of gold instead of darkness. I thought back to that first night when I passed out on the waterbed and he went out to sleep on the couch. The useless air mattress lay crumpled in the corner. I wanted to say, Why are you sleeping here? What’s different about tonight?
He left his jeans in a pile on the floor and climbed over me, carefully, to fit himself between the wall and where I lay. “Is this okay? Are you comfortable?”
How could I be? “Yeah,” I whispered.
He cupped a hand on my shoulder. “Maren…”
“Mmm?” Through the fog in my head I marveled at how I managed to sound like I didn’t care.
He laughed quietly. “You’re gonna have a hangover in the morning.”
“I only had a few sips!”
“That’s a lot, when you’ve never had any.” He rested his chin on my shoulder. He wanted to say something, but I couldn’t ask. Finally he said, “As soon as I saw you that night in the candy aisle … what I mean is, I felt it. Something. I don’t know. All I know is that I saw you and I felt it.”
“Felt what?”
“This,” he said. “I knew this would happen.”
This? What was this? The warmth trickled up again to reclaim me, limb by limb. Sleep it away, I thought. Forget it. “Did you know what I was? Even in the candy aisle?”
“I didn’t know for sure until I saw you in the car.” He must have felt me cringe. “Sorry. I know you don’t like to be reminded.”
Neither of us spoke for a while. He was still propped on an elbow, his free hand resting on my shoulder. Then he began to stroke my head. “Your hair,” he murmured. “He would have used your hair.”
I’d never really paid any attention to my hair before—it was long and dark and nondescript—but when Lee put his hands on my head it turned to silk. With gentle fingers he brushed my hair away from my neck. He leaned in and kissed me there, just beside the place we always went for first. “Don’t,” I said.
“Because you don’t want me to, or because I shouldn’t?”
“Don’t … because … you shouldn’t.”
“I know I’ve been cold.” He ran his fingers up and down my arm. “I’m sorry. You know I had to be.”
And beneath that heavy warmth, the safety I had conjured out of a bottle, I felt my stomach rumble.
12
I woke up, and Lee was gone. The bad taste was in my mouth. There was no denying what I’d done.
It was a gloomy gray morning, and in the room there were things that should not have been there. His Stetson hat was on the desk where he’d laid it. His jeans were still in a heap on the floor. There were other things he couldn’t leave without, parts of him I should never have seen the inside of.
I shut my eyes and breathed in the smell of him lingering in the sheets. When he held me everything had melted away, everything dark and ugly and rotten inside of me. Lee had made me pure. He’d let me do it. But I lay in bed for a long time, wishing with all my heart that he hadn’
t. Now his name was written there too.
* * *
When I came back from the library that night there was a note on pink paper taped to the door: K-A: Why didn’t you show at the Delta welcome breakfast?? Were you hungover or what? Call me ASAP. —Melissa
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t go on like this, could I? Any day now someone would find me in Kerri-Ann’s room.
* * *
The next morning I was putting books away when I saw a boy at one of the study tables watching me. He was older—he looked like he could have been a sophomore, or even a junior—and although he was as fit as Lee, he wore a crisply tailored button-down shirt that made him look like he belonged at a bank.
When I was finished with my stack I took down a book called The Legends of Babylon and I sat down at the table opposite the boy. A lot of it went over my head, but it felt good to try to understand. It also felt good to know his eyes were straying off the textbook page, across the table, and up the inside of my arm.
After fifteen minutes or so the boy tore a page out of his notebook and slipped it across the table. Sorry for intruding, but I couldn’t help noticing you’re reading about Babylon. Have you read Reginald Toomey’s I Dreamed of the Tigris?
I shook my head and he kept writing. Look for it in the catalog. Or if it’s checked out I can lend you my copy.
Thanks, I wrote back. That’s very kind of you.
Are you planning to major in archaeology or anthropology?
I haven’t decided yet.
I’m double majoring in both. I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have. Have you read any Claude Lévi-Strauss? Or Margaret Mead?
We went on like that for a few minutes, writing back and forth about books and the classes he was taking. He was cute, and holed up in a library of his own free will. We had just enough in common.
I’m Jason, he wrote finally. Nice to meet you.
I wrote my name below his, and his smile was so perfect he could have starred in a Colgate commercial.
Or Listerine, said a little voice.
It was his next question. Of course it was. Do you have a boyfriend?
I glanced at him—he was looking at me, painfully earnest—and, because I knew I couldn’t make it too easy for him, I wrote, Yes. I didn’t have to turn the paper around; I felt him cringe as I was still writing it. Sorry, I wrote. Thanks for all the good recommendations.
I would have given them to you anyway, he wrote back. I hope you believe me.
I nodded, smiled, and gathered up my books. I was bound to run into him again. He went to school here; he’d be in the library almost every day.
* * *
Sometimes, if I sat in on a lecture, I’d do the reading and think about what I would write if I were actually in the class and had to compose an essay about the Jívaro tribe of Ecuador, who used to shrink the heads of their enemies. Maybe they still do. Jason stared at me through the stacks, and I let him.
One day I got tired of reading and started shelving the books like usual, and when I headed back for another armful I saw a man standing at the end of the aisle, his elbow propped on the shelving cart. He wore a white short-sleeved button-down shirt, slightly rumpled and thin enough that I could see the outline of his undershirt. I couldn’t help noticing the damp rings under his arms. It wasn’t a nice thought, but it escaped before I could censor myself—he was lumpy. His nose, his arms, the shape of his face. His black hair hung long and unruly around his ears, and he hadn’t shaved in a while. I was taller than he was. I’d seen him nearly every day, answering questions at the reference desk, but I hadn’t paid this much attention to him before.
I stood there nervously and thought of pretending to browse the shelves as though I hadn’t been planning to replace all the books waiting under his doughy white elbow. He was looking at me, the corner of his mouth twisted into what, for him, probably amounted to a smile. “And all this time I thought those books were putting themselves away.”
“It was something to do,” I said.
“Don’t you have any class reading to do?”
“I finished it.”
“Suit yourself.” He stepped aside, and I grabbed an armful of books.
He picked up a stray pencil off the cart and tapped it against his nose. “Shelvers get six-fifty an hour. You’ll have to register with the library director.” With the pencil he pointed to the glass-fronted office at the far side of the room. “It’s usually ten hours a week, but we’re short right now, so you can pick up a double shift whenever you want.” He paused. “You a freshman?”
I nodded.
He held out his hand. “I’m Wayne. I’m working on my Ph.D.”
“I’m Maren.”
“Charmed,” he replied, and suddenly I understood the difference between wryness and sarcasm. I decided I liked him. Wayne and I would never be friends—lucky for him—but he made it clear he respected me, and that meant a lot.
I shuffled from foot to foot. “What are you getting your Ph.D. in?”
“Library science.” He shrugged. “Nothing interesting.”
We traded a smile. He turned to go, then paused. “Hey—I’ll have a word with Henderson. He’s the director. I know you’ve already been working for a week and a half, so I’ll just make sure you get paid for it.”
“Thanks.” Suddenly I felt so grateful I could have cried. “That’s really nice of you.”
Wayne offered me one last shrug before shuffling back to the reference desk. I returned to the stacks with my arms full of engineering textbooks, smiling to myself like I didn’t have a worry in the world.
* * *
On my way out of the library that afternoon I picked up a copy of the campus newspaper. I got a sandwich in the cafeteria and spread the paper over the table as I ate, scanning the classified page for rooms for rent. The cheapest option was only a half dozen blocks from campus, which made the two-hundred-dollar rent seem suspiciously low.
Apply to 355 Front Street between the hours of 10 AM and 6 PM. Young ladies only.
The boardinghouse was a rambling, shabby Victorian—lawn furniture stacked on the porch, and garden gnomes with the paint chipping off their jolly faces—dilapidated, but not unpleasant. A woman, as old as Mrs. Harmon and a great deal heavier, answered the door. “Hello,” I said. “I’m here about the room?”
She nodded and shuffled aside so I could enter. The front hall smelled of mold and cough drops. Sections of the Oriental carpet runner had worn down in long gray patches. Through an open door on the left I could see a brown sofa studded with needlepoint cushions. “You don’t look old enough to be living on your own,” the woman remarked.
“I’m a freshman.”
“Couldn’t get along with your roommate? Well, nobody’ll bother you here. I only take three boarders at a time, ladies only, and the other two are quiet as church mice. Hardly ever see ’em. You won’t have use of the kitchen, but you’ll be eating on campus, so that won’t matter. Do you want to see the room?”
“Yes, please.”
She pointed to the staircase. “Second door on the right. Bathroom’s at the end of the hall. You’ll pardon my not showing you up personally,” she said. “I don’t get upstairs too much these days.”
I nodded and went up. The room was small but very clean, with a desk and a dresser and crisp white sheets on a single bed. I opened the closet door, and a row of metal dry-cleaner’s hangers rattled on the rail. The window was closed, but I could hear children laughing in somebody else’s backyard. I looked up and found a crucifix over the doorway.
She was still standing in the hall when I came down the stairs. “Well?” Her manner was blunt, but not rude. I could never see her inviting me into the kitchen for tea and cake.
“May I have the room?”
“Rent’s two hundred a month. First month’s and last month’s makes four hundred, and it’s yours.”
“Will you take cash?”
She raised her e
yebrows. “You got that much on you?”
I took what was left of Travis’s money roll out of my bag and counted four hundred in twenties.
“Not a wise idea, walking around town with that much money on you.”
“I don’t, usually.” I handed her the money and she licked her forefinger before re-counting it.
“Now, you look like a good girl, but I’d better warn you anyway. It’s my rule that I don’t allow any men in this house apart from my grandson. He does odd jobs for me now and again, so if you see him don’t be alarmed.”
“I understand,” I said. Then I went back to Kerri-Ann’s room, packed my things, and closed the door behind me.
I had a job. I had a home. I should have been thrilled.
* * *
It was true, what Mrs. Clipper said about the other girls in the house—except they weren’t church mice, they were ghosts. I saw them once or twice a week, disappearing into their bedrooms with dark, dripping hair, their bodies wrapped in white towels. Late one night I could’ve sworn I heard a man’s voice as two sets of footsteps came sneaking up the stairs; I heard noises in the next room, but in the morning only one person—the light-footed one, my ghostly housemate—went down again. I wanted to knock on her door, but I knew she would deny it. I thought of Travis and wondered if there were people out there who did what I couldn’t. There had to be.
I had a routine now. I shelved, then I passed my lunch break with a tuna sandwich and an Anne Rice novel in a secluded corner of the library, and then I went back to my spare little room in Mrs. Clipper’s house and finished the books I’d begun during the day. I had off two mornings a week, and on those days I’d sit in on a lecture, taking notes like I had a grade depending on it. Other days, if Jason was at the library, I lost all sight of routine—especially if he followed me into the stacks.
“Read any good field studies lately?”
I gasped and glanced up with the latest assortment of textbooks clasped to my chest. Jason smiled slightly, as if he were pleased he’d startled me. “Sorry,” he whispered.
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