If She Were Dead

by J. P. Smith

  She kicked off the duvet and sat up on the side of the bed and rubbed her face with her hands. Richard had left her. Ben had left her. He had Janet and he had Andrew and he had his new job and he didn’t need Amelie. Hasta la vista, baby.

  She lay in the bath for twenty minutes and stared at the sky through the high window, a tree branch in full leaf waving and shifting in the breeze. She thought of Ben and her in bed one languid afternoon. The memory had lost its sweetness and had become merely wistful, and she knew that one day, like all memories, it would become just another still life, something she could view dispassionately before moving on to another. But there was no consolation in that, because one day could be a month from then, a year later, five years from now. Or maybe even never.

  She was now just another woman Ben had bedded, one among a long string of them. Amelie, however, was different. She had never forgotten the men she had loved. She kept memories of what they had done together, the concerts they attended, the movies watched, the dances danced. It even included Richard, because, really, there were the good times, the not-so-good times, and the slightly better times before everything had turned bitter and ugly, but there was always Nina, and because of her Amelie would never forget him.

  Love in and of itself was something permanent, like a tattoo that fades with age but never entirely disappears: the people might drift off and depart or even die, but what she and Ben had shared would always remain behind, a ghost in the heart of memory.

  In another week Nina would be home from college, and Amelie would put Ben aside and enjoy the time she’d have with her daughter. She would sit at her desk and shape her words into sentences and paragraphs and pages and chapters, and within them would be the work she had always been reaching for but never quite achieving: her story. A woman, her days numbered, who could now finally live to the fullest. All she needed was the right conclusion. Because, in fact, she knew that her story would begin at the end.

  She rose from the water and reached for the towel and wrapped it around her. She caught her reflection in the mirror and was startled to see she couldn’t recognize this other woman. As though someone had joined her in the room and had all along been standing there, silent and watchful. She looked again and thought, Yes. Now I know. I know who you are. I know what you’ve done.

  I know all about you. And him.

  And her.

  And then it snapped.

  She screamed and screamed, tearing at her hair, punching the air, until everything went still and she knew exactly what she had to do.

  The universe has a thin skin. All you have to do is blow a hole in it to change everything.

  58

  It was a pretty shade of Tiffany blue, as though instead of a lethal weapon it was a rare wildflower, or the name for a perky little assassin with vivid eyes and devastating aim: Tiffany Blue, Angel of Death.

  There was no point in taking lessons or visiting a firing range; she knew how it worked. You found your target, you aimed your weapon, you pulled the trigger. The heart or the head: either way, it brought things to a proper, unambiguous end.

  She dressed carefully: one had to look one’s best in such circumstances. She smiled at the woman staring at her. What pretty blue eyes she had. What things they had seen. What stories they could tell. She wondered if the stranger were going to say something, but the woman just smiled approvingly back, almost as if she harbored a secret she would one day share with her. She’d had enough of secrets by now. Enough of lies, of unintended smiles, of soft words and empty promises. She felt the weight of the gun in her hand. She nodded a little, smiled back, mouthed a word of farewell to her victim, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger.

  59

  The other woman was in tiny shreds all over the floor and the dresser, fragments of blue eyes and blond hair, the thousand shards of Amelie Ferrar. And now, she knew, there was only one of her.

  Her ears ringing, she went into the bathroom and carefully put on her makeup, lipstick, a little blush, some eyeliner and mascara. Killer eyes, the photographer had told her. Just as fatal as ever.

  She wondered what she should wear for the big event. Should she try her black dress? She took the hanger from the closet and slid the dress over her head. She shimmied a little to let it fall properly, slipped on her glasses, and there she was, a unity of look and attitude. The rain had stopped and the sun had started to break through the clouds. She thought of the cop who had stopped her and then recognized her at the accident scene. Was he keeping an eye out for her? Would he follow her once again to the scene of the crime? And would he be gentle with his handcuffs?

  She fingered away a stray spot of lipstick, and then brushed her hair again and again until all the little glassy bits of Amelie had fallen to the floor.

  It was funny.

  It was funny because lately people had come to photograph and interview her, readers had seen her picture, read her words. In her photos she was crisply defined: the blond of her hair, the blue of her eyes, the little lines around her mouth that she’d grown to like. Dressed to be photographed, she was a woman who, when she walked out of a room, left behind a shimmering impression in the air, like a ghost in a house that had seen violence within its walls, murder or passion. Yet beyond the image, behind the eyes, as much as she wanted to pretend she was at peace with herself, there was only the disarray of something breaking down, a many-limbed monster slouching toward chaos.

  She went out to her deck and leaned against the railing and smelled the air and understood that something within her was still alive, a creature that existed separately from the person known as Amelie the Lover. This entity had one option that possessed a measure of purity. It was how she measured the final twists in her novels. Unexpected, unanticipated, firmly grounded; in the end utterly inevitable. People would say: Ah, yes. How fitting.

  She shut her eyes and shook her head a little. She put the gun and both boxes of ammunition in her bag and walked away.

  60

  She drove slowly through the village, past the Coach & Four and Zeke’s Bar and Grill, past the gourmet shop where she bought her soup, and the bakery where for years she had bought Nina’s birthday cakes, and found herself in the winding lanes beyond, by the paddocks and the drowsy sunlit horses, the old-money farms, the soulless supersize McMansions, the gas stations. Children stood in line at an ice-cream stand while others peered down at her from passing school buses. She slowed when she came to Ben’s street and saw his wife taking groceries from her car. Janet turned to look and waved her over.

  “Amelie. What a surprise!”

  “I just wanted to say goodbye.” She held out her hand, and Janet reached into the window and held it for a moment. “I wish you all the luck with the move. You and Andrew and…Ben.”

  “Thank you. You’re so kind to say that.”

  “Well, I have errands,” Amelie said, and Janet said goodbye and smiled and turned to reach for another bag, and now Janet was lying on the ground bleeding from her head, her legs splayed in this moment of tragedy and surprise as apples rolled away and boxes of linguini and Cap’n Crunch tumbled onto the sidewalk, as the woman began to convulse in her final moments on earth. Amelie drove on without once looking back.

  But that didn’t happen. Janet hoisted her shopping, her son’s treats and breakfast cereals, and watched as her husband’s lover turned the corner.

  Amelie’s cell rang. “It’s me,” the woman said.

  “Janet?”

  “Laura.”

  “Laura,” Amelie said. “Yes. Hi.”

  “You heard about the accident, how it was Jane Baron’s car?”

  Amelie listened. The woman sounded shaken, just like before when she called.

  “Of course, yes, it’s…it’s horrible.”

  “The police just released this. It wasn’t Jane, it was Linda Kinsman. You’d met her, hadn’t you?”

&
nbsp; “Yes, I think so.” She tasted blood in her mouth, and when she probed with a finger she discovered a tiny sliver of Amelie stuck to the inside of her cheek. She pulled it out and launched it out the window into the slipstream. Another little piece of her heart, gone with the wind.

  “One of her kids was in your daughter’s class until she transferred,” Laura said.

  “I don’t understand, what are you trying to tell me?”

  “It was Jane Baron’s car. But she’d let Linda borrow it. Linda lived across the street from her. Her car was in the shop, and she was late picking up her youngest from school. So Janey let her use hers.”

  “Jane’s still alive?”

  “She’s getting ready to move to San Francisco in another month. So we’re still looking forward to you visiting our reading group next week.”

  It suddenly, blindingly, came to her: the day when she and Ben lay together on the bed as a shaft of sunlight fell over them. She reached down and touched him in a playful way. Come on, Janey, he’d said.

  Janey.

  Janey Baron.

  She’s getting ready to move to San Francisco, Laura had just told her.

  Janey. Ben. Janey and Ben. San Francisco.

  Janey’s car.

  She may have been forced off the road, the police had said.

  Janet…

  61

  Amelie clicked off and pulled to the side of the road. She flipped down her visor and opened the mirror, and the person she saw was looking at her with a mix of contempt and pity.

  Well, she said, and closed her eyes.

  And now she opened them.

  It was open and shut, she now saw. Absolutely airtight. Amelie had been the cover for Ben’s other affair. He had sacrificed her for Janey Baron, leaving Amelie to take the fall had Janet ever found out he was cheating on her. Once again he had the ideal arrangement: his family intact, his lover across the bay, no one any the wiser. The perfect life.

  When she arrived home there was a police cruiser parked at the top of her driveway. She came to an abrupt stop. It made no sense, a police car at her house. It was the same cop she’d seen before, the one who’d followed her, the one from the accident scene. He walked over to the front of her car, looked down, then looked at his pad. She thought: Nina.

  “What’s happened? Is it my daughter?” She could hear herself shouting as she flung open her door.

  “Nothing like that. I just need to confirm your identity. You are Ms. Ferrar? Ms. Amelie Ferrar?”

  She nodded.

  “Can I have a couple minutes of your time? I just have a few questions for you.”

  “What is this about, Officer?”

  “Can we…?” He nodded to the front door.

  He sat across from her in her living room and took out his pad. “It’s probably nothing at all, but I just need to clear up some things regarding the fatal accident that occurred yesterday.”

  It took her a few seconds. “Yes. Of course. It was terrible.”

  “And I remember you driving past it, maybe half an hour after the police arrived there. Am I correct about that?”

  She nodded, still not understanding what this had to do with her.

  “And you were heading where at the time…?”

  “To town. To get my lunch. What exactly is the problem here, Officer?”

  “And that was the first you’d seen of the accident itself?”

  “Well, yes, of course,” she said.

  He took a breath. “Here’s the situation. Just after the accident, a local woman happened to be driving on the same road. She identified your car as moving at considerable speed in the opposite direction.” He shut his pad. “Away from the accident scene.” He looked at her and waited.

  “But how could you know for sure when it happened?”

  “The victim’s wristwatch was crushed, and we could determine the moment she was forced into the tree. This witness was the one who called us to report the accident in the first place. And from her testimony we feel pretty sure that a second car was involved. Unfortunately the tread marks had been affected by the rain, so they can’t be used as evidence. We believe it was this car that forced the Mercedes off the road at a high rate of speed.”

  Amelie swallowed hard. “This is crazy. I wasn’t anywhere near it until you saw me.”

  He looked at her. “Did I say that she said it was your car?”

  “No, but it sounds like you’re—”

  “Let me continue. Apart from any sort of road-rage incident, there may have been a motive involved. That the victim’s car was somehow targeted by the driver of the other vehicle.” He opened his pad again, and then his phone rang. “I need to take this, Ms. Ferrar.” He said, “Yes. Yes, I’m here now… I understand.” He glanced at his watch and made a notation on his pad.

  Amelie got to her feet, and he took the phone from his ear. “Please remain seated,” he said, pointing his finger at the sofa. He finished his call and referred to his pad.

  “It gets a little more complicated. The witness was able to remember the first three letters and numbers of the license plate of the car she saw speeding away from the scene.” He held up the page for her to see. “An exact match to yours, as you can see.” And then he closed it.

  “I’m really not understanding this, Officer.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve become a person of interest in our investigation. I’m going to ask you not to leave the area for the next thirty-six hours, and—”

  “This is crazy. You’re accusing me of forcing that other car off the road? Why would I do something like that? I didn’t even know the driver.”

  “I’m only saying the witness identified that Volvo that you just now drove up in. Color and license plate. As you may already know, the Mercedes was registered to a Ms. Jane Baron, but was being driven by her neighbor, a Ms. Linda Kinsman. This witness—I can’t, of course, reveal her name—stated in a written, sworn statement that you and Ms. Baron had recently had a heated argument over a personal matter. Something about a man you both knew. This constitutes a potential motive.”

  When Amelie again stood abruptly, he gestured for her to sit.

  “Look,” she said. “I hardly know these women. Someone’s making all this up.”

  He stood and slipped his pad inside his pocket. “I’m going to ask you not to leave the area until this matter is cleared up. And we’ll need you to come in for further questioning sometime in the next day or two. So I suggest you call your attorney, Ms. Ferrar.”

  She watched from the doorway as he drove away. This is how it ends. This is the way Janet had wanted it to turn out. She had written Amelie into her own story.

  But one good story deserved another.

  62

  Following the long driveway, Amelie parked and walked into the building. People happily greeted her, and she ignored each and every one of them, because she was no longer the person they knew but someone else. She opened the door to the classroom and said to the teacher, “I’ve been asked to give Andrew a lift again today. His father called and was hoping I might do it, and as I was passing, I didn’t mind. Is it okay if we leave a few minutes early?”

  “His father never left word for us.”

  “It was a last-minute thing. He’s running late in a meeting in Boston.”

  The teacher looked as if she was trying to read Amelie’s expression. Amelie smiled a little.

  “Sure,” the teacher said. “He’s all yours.”

  Together they watched the boy gather his things: backpack, Spider-Man lunch box, lacrosse stick. He looked at her and she smiled. The teacher touched his head, wished him a good weekend.

  They walked out together just as other cars, other parents, began to arrive. She switched on the ignition and released the brake. Locking all the doors, she drove slowly out of the driveway and
onto the road.

  He said, “Did my dad call you?”

  She said nothing.

  “I don’t have a piano lesson today.”

  “I know, darling.”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “I’ll get you something in a little while. It won’t be long now.”

  “And I’m really tired.”

  She wanted to reach out and take his hand, for he was innocent and his voice was high and sweet and she was moved by him, and she did it, she gently took hold of his hand. The fact that he didn’t try to slide it away or shake it off cheered her, because now she knew that he was in her world, just as she was in his. She drove through the village. She drove through another and another and another, moving north into the late afternoon.

  “I thought you were taking me home,” he said.

  “I am, darling. I’m taking you to where you belong.”

  “But this isn’t—”

  “You’ll see, eventually. And then everything will be exactly as it should have been. Right from the start.”

  The smell of the sea was in the air, and the cars and trucks on the interstate moved swiftly as headlights began to come on. The blue of the day had given way to the gray obscurity of evening. Andrew’s eyes were closed and his breathing was steady. He was so at ease that he had succumbed to sleep.

  When he roused it was already night. He knuckled open his eyes and looked around. The air outside had grown a chill, even though summer would be upon them in a matter of weeks, and she turned up the heat a little.

  “I’m hungry,” he said.

  “We’ll eat soon.”

  “Promise?”