by Lisa Lutz
“How’s Recluse treating you?” Domenic said.
“Quite well, thank you. Recluse minds its own business. What more can you want from a town?”
“Maybe a movie theater,” Domenic said.
“We have all of the essentials here,” I said.
“That’s enough for you?”
“What do you want?” I repeated, because we were going to get to that at some point and my insides were turning to rubble.
“I want to know what your secret is,” Domenic whispered in my ear.
It sent chills down my spine. The good kind, I hate to admit.
“Maybe I’ve got more than one,” I said.
“I know you’ve got more than one,” he said.
“Is there any way I could convince you to just leave?” I said.
“Sure,” said Domenic. “If you leave with me.”
“It’s a small town, in case you didn’t notice. I have something of a reputation to uphold.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to sully your reputation, Miss Maze. Why don’t I meet you outside the schoolhouse in an hour.”
“The schoolhouse?”
“That’s where you live, right?”
There was that quicksand again, only I was starting to struggle and sink.
“Half hour,” he said as he departed.
I SHOULD have cut myself off in the interim. A clear head—or at least a head as clear as mine had been two whiskeys ago—is generally wise when confronting an unknown human variable, but my nerves jangled like a set of janitor’s keys. Sean must have noticed the vibration from my general direction.
“You okay?” he asked as he served me yet another dose of slow reaction time.
“I’m great.”
“Ex-boyfriend?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because you look like you’re trying to stuff a bear in a gopher hole.”
“That’s an unusual analogy.”
“I’m not sure anyone else can see it, if that makes you feel any better.”
“A little,” I said, tossing some bills on the bar.
“You leaving?”
“Well, it’s a school night and I have exceeded my usual limit and tomorrow we have a long lesson on the Louisiana Purchase and I better get my numbers straight, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned teaching kids this age, they like to know the cost of things. Even things that they’ll never be able to buy, like one-third of the United States.”
I slipped off the bar stool and already felt my legs were far less trustworthy than when I entered the Lantern.
“Be good,” Sean said. He said it in a less casual way than I would have liked.
“Too late,” I said.
I beat a semistraight path back to John Allen Campbell. As I neared the stone steps of the Victorian building, I began searching for Domenic. I circled the house and returned to the front. I sat on the stoop where I sat with Andrew almost every afternoon and waited a few minutes. Maybe Domenic was running late. I had a foolish but hopeful notion that he’d decided against whatever he had planned. Or perhaps, as an officer of the law, he had been called away on a crime in progress. He had to have more pressing civic matters than a cagey schoolteacher with a new hairdo.
After fifteen minutes passed, I got up, dusted myself off, and strolled around to the side entrance, which led into my humble abode. I put my key in the lock, but the door was already open.
My reading lamp was on and Domenic was reclining on my bed, reading my battered paperback of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
Domenic barely looked up when I entered my home. “What took you so long?” he said.
“I stayed for another drink.”
Domenic kept his eye on the paperback. “I remember this book,” he said. “Damn, when you’re a kid, you think you can do anything. Live in a museum, become president, break into a used car lot and take a Corvette for a spin, fly.”
“You thought you could fly?”
“Briefly. I might have been under the influence at the time.”
“That explains it,” I said.
“But then you grow up and realize that you’re bound by laws of nature and society. That could be quite limiting for some people, I would imagine.” Domenic closed the book and returned it to my nightstand. “We should talk,” he said.
July 30, 2013
To: Jo
From: Ryan
There’s something you should know and I didn’t want you to hear about it from your routine cyber strolls down memory lane. You’ve been declared legally dead. Your mom took care of it just after the seventh anniversary of your disappearance.
They’re not looking for you anymore. I hope that helps you move on. People still talk about you, but no one believes they’ll ever find you.
Maybe severing ties from your past will give you some peace. Maybe it’s time for us to sever ties.
Always,
R
August 15, 2013
To: Ryan
From: Jo
I died seven years ago. I’m not interested in the official line. Out of curiosity, what do people say about me? How did I die?
September 1, 2013
To: Jo
From: Ryan
Do you really want to get into that? Remember, most of the rumors are being spread by people you went to high school with. You know the kind of lies people tell.
September 13, 2013
To: Ryan
From: Jo
Ryan, if there’s one thing you know better than anyone, it’s how to tell a lie. Spill the dirt. I want to hear all about it. I also want to hear all about your domestic bliss. I see the photos your wife posts for the world to see. You look much happier than your guilt-ridden e-mails would suggest. How about, for once, you just tell me the truth? However cruel it might be.
September 25, 2013
To: Jo
From: Ryan
Here you go. The current consensus, since you were never found, is that you drowned yourself in Moses Lake after you left the hospital. You tied something to your ankle and jumped. In some theories, it was an antique anchor, in others it was the base from the stop sign you stole during that scavenger hunt. Roger Bly (that confederate nut from US history class) thinks it’s just a plain old bag of rocks. Edie thinks you finally took that trip to San Francisco and jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. I heard a few more fanciful tales. You hitchhiked and were murdered on the road—just one of thousands of missing girls who die at the hands of an unknown assailant. And then there is Eunice, who has a very dark imagination, as you may recall. Eunice thinks your mother killed you out of shame and buried your body deep in the woods behind your house.
Have you heard enough?
November 11, 2013
To: Ryan
From: Jo
Do you remember what drowning feels like? You only know about the first part. That vise grip on your chest. It hurts. Probably hurts more than what you felt. But then it eases up, and before you lose consciousness it doesn’t hurt at all. It’s kind of pleasant. That’s why people say drowning isn’t a bad way to go. Because the end is peaceful. I should have given you that peace. But how could I know that saving your life would ruin mine?
Drowning would be just fine with me. Let’s pretend that’s how I went. When you think of me, try to imagine me tied to a glorious antique anchor at the bottom of San Francisco Bay.
Since I’m dead, you won’t be hearing from me again. Good-bye, Ryan.
Jo
Chapter 14
* * *
MAKE yourself at home,” I said, not pleasantly. Not unpleasantly.
“You left the key under the dead plant,” Domenic said.
“That’s not exactly an invitation inside.”
“My point was that you don’t seem the type.”
“The type to leave keys under dead plants?” I said.
“The trusting type.”
“I’m not.”
“And yet you left the key to your living quarters in the second-most obvious hiding place.”
“I don’t have a doormat.”
“Which made finding your key all the more easy.”
“What do you want from me, Domenic?”
“I want to understand you.”
“That might never happen.”
“I’m willing to give it a shot,” he said.
I still couldn’t read him, and I had learned how to read men over the years, after reading a few of them so wrong it cost me everything. I noticed Domenic had left his shoes neatly at the door, abiding by an unspoken apartment rule. He had also refrained from rifling through my belongings, which would be the obvious next step for someone who wanted to understand me. I did appreciate those small tokens of courtesy, and I thought it best to try the hospitable approach.
“I’m hungry,” I said. “I’m going to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Do you want one?”
“I’m allergic to peanuts.”
“Really?”
“Don’t get any ideas.”
“I wasn’t,” I said. “Can I get you something else?”
“I wouldn’t say no to a jelly sandwich.”
I made the jelly sandwich first. Domenic devoured it like a twelve-year-old boy after a Little League game. I turned my head, turned back, and it was gone.
“I think I’ve got some bologna in the refrigerator. Maybe you need something with more sustenance.”
“I didn’t expect you to be so hospitable,” he said.
“I didn’t expect you at all. How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t easy. But you mentioned being in the educational profession. All of our public school teachers register with the police, but you weren’t on that list. So, after the school year started, I just started calling around to private schools that don’t generally follow protocol.”
“That’s a lot of work just to find a girl you had a burger with.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But I think it was probably worth the effort.”
I made Domenic a sandwich of processed meat and cheese. We sat down at my card table and ate in silence. I had a bottle of decent bourbon that was a gift from Sean for saving the kid, so I broke that out. It wasn’t like I ever had visitors.
Despite the looming threat of exposure, I enjoyed the company. In some ways it felt perfectly ordinary, and I had missed ordinary. Sure, I was lying to Domenic, had lied to him fro the start, but he knew I was a liar and at least that pretense had been lifted. You can’t imagine how exhausting it is to spend your entire life in performance.
Domenic took the last bite of his bologna and American cheese sandwich, leaned back in my wobbly wooden chair, and sighed as if he’d just finished a Thanksgiving feast.
“I needed that. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He was going to start talking soon and the spell of ease would be broken, but I tried to enjoy his simple company for just a moment longer. Domenic finished his bourbon and I poured him another. I fortified myself as last-minute adjuncts, amendments, and loophole fixes to my fake history swirled in my booze-soaked brain.
“What are you running from?” Domenic asked.
“Who says I’m running?”
“I do.”
“Well, then, it must be true.”
“Women change their hair, their clothes, the color they paint their lips, but they don’t generally try to look like someone else completely.”
“They do if they don’t want anyone to find them.” The truth when possible.
“Have you decided to get honest with me?” Domenic asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I think you’re in trouble. I’d like to know if you’re the cause of injury or the collateral damage.”
“The second thing.”
“Would you like to tell me the story?”
“Not really.”
“Maybe later?” he said.
“You planning on staying?”
“How long does it take to drive from Cleveland to Chicago?” Domenic said.
I had no idea what he was getting at, but he was asking the right girl for directions.
“It’s about five hours on I-90. Why? You thinking of taking a trip?”
“Now how long a drive is it from Cleveland to Akron?”
“I don’t know. Two hours maybe.” I wasn’t particularly captivated by brief intrastate jaunts.
“Under an hour, even with traffic,” Domenic said.
I had fucked up. I wasn’t entirely sure how, but I could sense that Domenic had come to some conclusion about me. Not a good one. He got to his feet as if making to leave, but he was a bit wobbly. He’d had a few at the bar and we’d put a dent in my lifesaving bourbon.
“You’re not Debra Maze,” he said. “Debra Maze was from Cleveland, Ohio. She went to school in Akron, Ohio. She would know how long it takes to get from Cleveland to Akron. She would have probably made that drive at least a couple dozen times in her life.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to know who you really are.”
“I’m not anyone anymore.”
Domenic shrugged on his jacket and slipped on his shoes. I got up, took my key, locked the dead bolt, and blocked my door.
“What are you doing?” Domenic said as he moved closer to me. He stood just a few inches away from me. A head taller, so I had to look up, and yet, at that moment, I still hung on to some power. He didn’t look as sure of himself; I could see it in his cautious gaze.
“You’re drunk,” I said. “It’s my civic responsibility to keep you off the road.”
“A civic-minded outlaw. Is that what you are?”
“I’ve been called worse,” I said. “Still, can’t let you on the road in your condition.”
“Back away from the door. I promise I won’t drive.”
“There aren’t any motels in Recluse. You know that, right?”
“I’ll sleep in my car.”
“You can sleep on the floor.”
“My car is more comfortable.”
“Then you can have the bed.”
Domenic mulled over the offer for a little while, then made up his mind. He took off his coat and kicked off his shoes. Then he leaned close and whispered in my ear. He smelled like bourbon and man. That musky odor that can be nauseating or intoxicating, depending on the source.
“Are you scared of me?” he asked.
“No,” I said. I meant it just then. Scared was not remotely what I was feeling.
Domenic put his hand behind my neck. His fingers were warm and strong, and he kissed me. It was like the last time, only more intimate since I kind of knew him now. He pulled away, confused, as if he were having a moral conundrum. Sometimes I had to remember that some people considered me genuinely bad, or at least a questionable character.
I pushed him onto the bed and straddled him. I kissed him, hoping that he could forget for just a little while who he thought I might be. I wondered how long we could pretend that we were a normal couple, fucking on a twin bed in the basement of a schoolhouse.
Our clothes came off so fast, I felt like I’d had a sixty-second spell of amnesia when I noticed that they were gone. Being with him seemed as natural as breathing. He was as familiar to me as just about any man I’d ever known. He almost made me forget the one I was always trying to forget.
When we were done, Domenic kissed me on the forehead and looked me in the eye, searching, but still sweet, suspiciously sweet.
“Please tell me you’ve never killed anyone,” he said.
Talk about breaking the mood. I’m sure he saw the flash of hurt, followed by anger, that swelled inside me. In retrospect, it was a fair question.
“I’ve never killed anyone,” I said.
That was a point of pride with me. I’d never gone to college, never made anything of myself. But I’d never killed another human being, and considering the lives I’d lived so far, that was
something.
DOMENIC COULD probably have slept through a train wreck right outside his window. I have an alarm clock that sounds like a foghorn in your ear. It was a self-serving gift from Principal Collins, after I was tardy for class a few times. If you lived for seven years on tavern hours, you’d likely feel as if you had permanent jet lag if you had to wake up at seven on the dot five days a week. In fact, sometimes I thought my circadian rhythms gave me away more than my unconventional take on the grammar school curriculum.
I showered and changed into a flowered sundress with a cardigan that I would wear on occasions when I felt strongly about playing my role. Domenic continued to snore quietly. I sat next to him on my bed and listened for a moment. It was a comforting sound, hearing another human at peace. I took Blue’s gun from the nightstand, stuffed it in a paper bag, and shoved it in my purse. I left a glass of water on the nightstand and departed through the back door. I quickly dropped by my Cadillac to hide my weapon in the glove compartment. Then I walked up the steps of John Allen Campbell Primary School for another day in the trenches.
LONG DIVISION killed the morning. I always got the most tedious lessons out of the way first thing. By the time the recess bell rang, my students looked like inmates on death row who’d just been given a reprieve. I sat on the bench—my usual post—my head hanging in exhaustion more than usual. I heard a whistle and looked up.
“Teach,” Domenic said, beckoning me to the fence.
I walked over, trying to gauge his expression. It wasn’t like last night had changed everything. He was a cop; I was on the run. He hadn’t figured out all of the details, but he’d figured something out.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” I said.
“Thanks for your hospitality.”
“Is that what they call it these days?”
“Let me ask you a question,” Domenic said. “Is that your Cadillac parked out back?”
“Yes,” I said. It was registered under Debra Maze. Seemed a safe point to concede.
“That’s a hell of a getaway car,” he said.
