Dierdre slipped back down and waited. The attendant, a young woman in a silly tight skirt, came back and asked the old woman if she needed any help. Dierdre peered over the partition and saw Edwina Foster shake her head. Her trembling hand shook as she held an old picture. The attendant left quickly.
Dierdre twitched and emptied the old woman onto the table next to the box and then hurried around to the cubicle. She scooped up the brain with a large handkerchief, wiped the table carefully, and put the mess in her handbag, later dropping the bundle in a street wastebasket on the way home. She had taken only the packets of money, leaving the jewelry and personal items untouched, then put the money in her own box and replaced it in the wall.
The old woman’s family doctor, who seemed to be trembling at the edge of his own grave, signed the death certificate without examining the body. The well-dressed daughter and son-in-law drove in from Far Rockaway to clear out the apartment and arrange the funeral. They took away a few choice pieces of old furniture. Dierdre overheard them complaining that the old woman, the wife’s mother, had left no money in the deposit box and not enough in her bank account to clean out her apartment and bury her. They were slow in emptying the rooms, and grudgingly paid an additional month’s rent. The daughter seemed relieved when she came back alone to return the key to Dierdre, and had apologized for the odors that might still be lurking.
“I’ve opened the windows,” she said, “so you’ll want to close them before it gets too cold.” Possible odors seemed to distress her most of all.
The old woman’s money had cushioned the running of the building. Dierdre left the apartment empty for a few months, and let any rent raises slide until the following year. An aging policeman finally took the apartment for his uncomplaining mother, whom he visited regularly, and Dierdre felt that Edwina Foster had departed much too easily.
Dierdre lay down on the sofa, closed her eyes, and remembered her high school years, when she had come to hate people she knew only by sight, or very slightly, because they acted as if they knew something she didn’t. They wanted people to believe that they had a plan, in the way they talked and dressed, but their plan seemed to be only to look like they had a plan.
No matter how much she studied them and tried to imitate them, her clothes were always not quite right, her hair the wrong style, her attempts at wit awkwardly delivered, or just misunderstood. Almost everyone around her behaved as if they had something no one else could get, and she hated them for it, because it seemed that there was only a limited supply of things to do and have, and they were planning to get them all for themselves, leaving nothing for her. They had made her feel that she had nothing and would never grow up to be anything.
In college she had learned that a scholarship and good grades did not trump the faint mustache she had to have removed by electrolysis, that she had no special academic gifts beyond being a good student, and that she lacked the confidence and poise of the other students, who went out to movies and concerts and football games and beer blasts and parties, where the men seemed to want only to use her. Lonely nights in the dorm had taught her to think of herself as a failure in a world of faces, torsos, thighs, tits, and asses.
“Dierdre.” She still remembered the way Ken Raskin had said her name and how the other boys with him had snickered during her first year in high school. Walking down hallways, she had heard them braying, “Deeer-dra.” She had made a collection of their remarks about her uncoolness and lack of tits, all filed under Ken Raskin’s sneer, “Deeer-dra.” She had sometimes hoped to become a “Dee” or “DeeDee,” but she had never achieved the acceptance, much less the love, that went with a nickname. Something evil had simply made her unlovable.
People, she had quickly learned, were only examples of a clique, never themselves. In high school, there had been the black rappers, the tough Latinos, the diligent and studious Asians, the working-class ethnics, a few bewildered-looking white kids whose old Sixties radical parents wanted them in a multiracial public school, the gangs and the dropouts, and a mixed group of popular kids who dominated most of the activities, and whose females flirted with the dangerous kids to annoy their boyfriends. There had been one blond college-bound boy, a lone bewildered intellectual type who had told her that he felt like a god reincarnated in the body of a beast and forced to run with them. “Only quoting Nietzsche,” he had said, but what could citing some dead philosopher mean? It was how someone felt about living that counted; one had only to feel hunger, to sweat, to smell one’s own body and that of others, or look into a toilet bowl to feel that the beast was alive and well.
Then there had been the college jocks, the sorority girls, the frat boys, more pretentious intellectuals, the future doctors and lawyers, the party animals, the politicians, the one-of-a-kind individuals who belonged to nothing, and the sturdy farm kids. She had never fit in with any of them, and wished now that she been able to use her power to thin out the herd...
She steadied herself. A child or adolescent with such power, combined with the hormonal rages of youth, would have given herself away early. Better that her gift had flowered in her in adulthood, as had her good looks, giving her a chance to see through people. Today, none of her detractors would know her; she would have to explain too much, if they remembered her at all.
But one of them had come to her—like a gift from the angels.
“Is there an apartment for rent?” the woman had asked meekly.
“Yes, there is,” Dierdre replied, recognizing the short, redheaded woman. She was fatter, and tired, in a gray business suit that did not quite fit, with a white blouse and low black heels. She clutched a small black purse in her left hand.
“Your name?” Dierdre asked.
“Ivy... Young,” she said.
So she had married, Dierdre thought as she recognized Ivy what’s-her-face from college, the girl in the next dorm room. She had once given Dierdre three dresses as a present and told her that she had bought them for three dollars each. “You’ll look much better in these,” she had said, oblivious to her insult. Dierdre had accepted the dresses with a smile, had endured Ivy’s nagging to wear them during the next two semesters, but had thrown the dresses away when Ivy had finally transferred to a more prestigious university, bragging that she was now going to attend a “real college.”
Despite Dierdre’s stare, the apartment hunter had not recognized her, and Dierdre realized that no one knew that Ivy was here. Such a moment would not come again.
Dierdre had read somewhere that people had better things to do than seek revenge. But who had ever had her ability, or the sudden chance to use it against an old enemy? This was Ivy Reed—yes, that had been her name—come here to be punished of her own free will. More of an annoyance than an enemy, but close enough.
Dierdre said, “I was about to have coffee. Maybe you’d like some before I show you the apartment. You look tired out.”
“Do I look very bad?” she asked.
“Yes, you do,” Dierdre said.
Ivy flinched. “Thanks. Maybe I do need the coffee,” she said. “I’ve been looking all day, and have to find something today.” It was obvious that she was unable to afford the agented rentals, and had taken a chance on the cheaper classifieds and window signs.
“It’s on the top floor,” Dierdre told her.
“Is there an elevator?”
“No.”
“Oh, then perhaps I shouldn’t even look.” But Dierdre felt that she needed to look, that she couldn’t afford much more but felt she had to sound as though she could refuse.
“We plan on putting one in, up the back of the house,” Dierdre lied. “Please, do come in, for the coffee, at least.”
Dierdre led her through the living room into the kitchen, facing away from her as much as possible to avoid being recognized.
“Sit down,” Dierdre said, turning to face her as Ivy lowered herself clumsily into one of the two chairs by the old red table and placed her purse near the edge.
Dierdre was enjoying the encounter; this was not a cat, or stupid Ricardo; this was someone with a past that chained them together.
“Why here?” Dierdre asked, standing on the other side of the table.
“I’ll be working nearby,” Ivy said.
“May I ask where?”
“As... an administrator in the grade school on the corner two blocks up.”
More likely in the cafeteria, Dierdre thought, but Ivy might be telling the truth.
“Will you trust me for the rent until I get my first paycheck?”
“Of course,” Dierdre said because it wouldn’t make any difference.
After a moment, Ivy became very still. “Do I know you?” she asked, looking up at Dierdre.
“I’m Dierdre Matera.”
Ivy had looked puzzled as Dierdre sat down.
“Oh!” she said almost happily. “From... that college, the one I transferred from.”
“Yes,” Dierdre had said softly.
“I bought you some nice dresses, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“That was you?”
“Yes, you made me feel awful. Cheap dresses were good enough for somebody with my bad taste.”
“Oh.” Ivy’s face grew puzzled again. “Maybe I’m misremembering...”
“You were mean,” Dierdre said. “You didn’t want to be seen with anyone like me, but you liked impressing me. I remember how you used to go on about that sorority you joined, the one that wouldn’t even invite me to a pledge party.”
Ivy sighed. “Well, look at you now—you’re pretty. I guess I taught you something, if you’re the one I recall. Do you own this place, or just manage?”
“I own,” Dierdre said.
“Good for you!”
“Please don’t shout. Gives me a headache.” Ivy had always shouted, and was as cheerfully stupid as ever, but it seemed a shame to finish her off too quickly, before she knew why she was going to die.
“Coffee?” Dierdre asked.
“Sure! I mean, yes, thanks. Let bygones... be gone?”
Dierdre got up, quietly poured out two cups from the coffeemaker, placed one before Ivy, then sat down again.
Ivy sipped and smiled. “Can you give me a deal on the apartment?” she asked. “I mean, given there’s no elevator... and that we’re such old... friends.”
“There will be an elevator,” Dierdre said, enjoying Ivy’s emotional contortion. “But we were never friends,” she had added.
“Well, then you can raise the rent when there is one,” Ivy said.
“Of course,” Dierdre said, looking down into her coffee. The headache was growing worse. “You’ll have a place here,” she added. There was more than enough room under the dirt floor at the back of the basement.
“Thanks,” Ivy said, taking another sip and pushing the cup aside. “How much, if I like it, of course.”
“I don’t think you’ll have a chance of disliking it,” Dierdre said.
Ivy put both her hands on the table and smiled. “So how much?”
Dierdre reached over and grasped her hands. Ivy looked puzzled again, but still tried to smile.
“You’re going to die here,” Dierdre said, grasping Ivy’s wrists.
“Well, I don’t think I’ll be here that long,” Ivy said, still smiling. “But... it must be a great apartment for you to say that.”
“You hurt me,” Dierdre said, squeezing her wrists and hoping to make her brains come out slowly.
Ivy struggled to pull her hands free. “Please, my head hurts. Coffee in late afternoon doesn’t agree with me.”
“It’s not the coffee,” Dierdre said, glaring at her, wanting her to be conscious for as long as possible.
“What are you doing to me!” Ivy shouted, and their eyes had locked. Ivy was breathing with difficulty.
“It’s me,” Dierdre said, feeling her headache flare. “You’re dying, Ivy.”
“What?” Ivy tried to look away from her.
“Dying,” Dierdre repeated. Legend had it that guillotined heads were able, for an instant, to look back at their bodies from the catch basket.
Ivy screamed.
It had ended too soon. Ivy had tried to push her chair back and stand up, but fell forward onto the table. Her mouth opened as her brains came out like toothpaste from a tube. It seemed that she was vomiting as her brains slid across the table toward Dierdre and stopped.
Dierdre let go of Ivy’s wrists. Her own nose had started to bleed on the table. The blood was darker than the red surface, she noticed as she reached for a blue cloth napkin and stopped the flow. Ivy lay there, eyes open, like a pig waiting for its apple.
When Dierdre’s nose stopped bleeding, her headache had faded. She mopped up her blood and threw the wet napkin over the brain in the center of the table. Then she opened the purse and found twenty dollars in cash, a non-driver’s ID, and a few cosmetic items. Nothing else, not even a set of keys to a car or an apartment.
The ID she had burned; the purse and its contents went into the trash. The brain could never be found with an empty body. She had to remember to keep them well apart.
There had been mornings, in the first few weeks after her true beginning, as she now thought of it, when it seemed that her power was a delusion; but she had now tried it often enough to know that it was real and to trust it. Soon she would learn what to do with it. She often thought of it as a jewel set deep within her, teaching her about herself, telling her that she had been a wolf raised as a sheep believing in the goodness of people while all the time the world of wolves had insisted on hurting her. Her father had died from a heart attack during her first year in college, and her mother was dying from lung cancer by the time Dierdre had graduated. She had come home to care for her mother, who died three months later, and to take over the building. Dierdre had felt more for her mother than for her father, and not that much for either of them, but she hated the world for wrenching away the only two people who had ever cared about her.
She was alone now, to do with her life as she pleased. At twenty-five, she was the most powerful human being alive, but almost no one else knew it; there was no need for anyone to know it yet, or ever.
She might be like her grandmother. People had feared the old woman and had gone out of their way to avoid her, and her parents had never spoken about her after her death. Dierdre had been only seven when her grandmother died, but her mother had not seemed very grief-stricken over losing her. People had whispered about the old woman. “Don’t cross the old lady. She’s got the evil eye.” One of the neighborhood kids had asked Dierdre why so many cats seemed to disappear near the building owned by the Materas.
Perhaps her grandmother had possessed the same power, and used it against cats when they annoyed her. Maybe she had used it against people.
Her grandmother had lived in this house for two years before her death, in an apartment on the second floor. Dierdre remembered her parents arguing about letting her have the apartment at no charge. “What do you mean, we have no choice?” her father had shouted, and Dierdre had been puzzled and afraid. “She may be your mother, but I don’t see why she can’t at least cover her expenses—”
“She has to have it,” Dierdre’s mother had replied, “and for nothing, no matter what it costs us.” Her mother’s voice had been low but fierce.
Events that she had not understood as a child now seemed to make sense. She had been playing on the stairs. Her grandmother had come out and glared at her for making so much noise. The old woman had trembled and closed her eyes, retreating back into her apartment. Dierdre remembered watching her shut her door halfway. Then she had heard her scream as if in pain; after a moment the old woman had wept, muttering to herself.
She had come out later to sit with Dierdre on the landing. “I’m so sorry,” she had said, stroking Dierdre’s hair. “I’m so sorry.” And she had hugged Dierdre, holding her close and kissing her face unpleasantly. No one had ever shown her so much caring,
for so little in return.
Dierdre believed that in time she would discover what she should do with her skill to gain wealth and power. Her grandmother must have feared herself, and used her power only when she could not help herself. But Dierdre knew that the only way to learn about her skill was to use it, in as many different ways as possible, to find its limits, to learn what it would take from her to use it. Robbing Edwina Foster’s safety deposit box had been only the beginning.
She thought again of the priest, and the nonsense about goodness he had been spouting. She had been on her way home after her walk, and had gone into the church merely to sit down for a few minutes. Just her luck to walk in as the sermon was starting. It had infuriated her, and she had reached out impulsively, unable to stop the spasm, and had exhausted herself. The same thing had happened to her at the river. She had gone through the park in the late afternoon, and had found the derelict sitting on the bench she had known since childhood. What right did he have to enjoy the evening? He had been sitting there, bathing his face in the warm sun, and had opened his eyes when she came by. He had smiled at her. That sudden effort of rage had cost her three days in bed, and had taught her to be careful about overdoing it, at least until she became stronger. And she was growing stronger.
No one had seen her, but it became obvious to her that it wouldn’t have mattered; they wouldn’t have understood what they were seeing. The only way anyone could ever be able to interpret what they were seeing would be if she gave a public demonstration and explained it, as she had done with Benek, and even he still doubted. What was she going to do about him? What could he ever do to her?
Increasingly, in the last few weeks, she had felt a deep frustration in her body, as she began to fear the fatigue that came upon her after each exertion, that the weakness might only increase with more frequent use and with age, and that no amount of strengthening would be enough. She had to have a daughter to teach, just in case; by then she might know what to do, unless she was like a chess piece—good for only one kind of move—and her child would also be condemned to a life of frustration. What if her skill could not be passed on? What if it had nothing to do with inheritance?
Empties Page 10
