by S. J. Maher
I sat down by the jogging trail and, full of envy and resentment, watched young moms run by in expensive running clothes, pushing expensive running strollers. I hated them. Why should they have everything and I have nothing?
I needed to text Jess.
Meeting with Declan inconclusive. Can’t be sure about him.
No way I was telling her about the supposed late-night theft of his laptop.
She texted back.
That’s too bad. Don’t forget the meeting at 10 a.m. Monday. They’ll likely offer a settlement.
Should we meet to discuss it?
I have too much work to do. Will you be okay?
I’ll be fine.
Hm. Too much work.
Before I could think about it, I emailed Wayne.
To: Wayne Timmons
From: Candace Walker
Date: 8:42 p.m., June 23, 2018
Hey. Sorry about that weird email. I really was hacked. Free for a drink?
He replied almost immediately.
To: Candace Walker
From: Wayne Timmons
Date: 8:44 p.m., June 23, 2018
Don’t worry about the email. Someone’s messing with you. Unfortunately I have plans tonight. Rain check?
Rain check! I replied. Look forward to catching up.
See you Monday, after the meeting, he emailed.
I was now all but certain that my sister and Wayne were an item.
I had a fresh email from Francis, who I’d been neglecting. I agreed to meet him for Sunday brunch.
Then I took the subway home to my wine and my Ambien.
63
Head down. One foot in front of the other. Not too fast. Don’t run. Is anybody looking at me? No. There’s nobody on foot. That’s good. Or is it? That makes me stick out. There’s a steady stream of cars going past me as I walk past car dealerships and miniplazas. No police cars. No police cars. No police cars.
I have to keep slowing myself down. My heart is pounding. I can feel it in my ears. I want to run. Walk more slowly. What did I do? I stabbed a man to death, shot a woman. I killed them. There was blood everywhere, and dead bodies. I want to hide. I want to cry. I am crying. Stop crying. I am going to prison. I belong in prison. I can’t go to prison. I should kill myself. I start to think about opening my throat like I opened Scary Pimp’s throat, picturing it in detail. One quick cut, knife severs the artery, I lie down on my back, eyes open, watch the light fade to dark. Good idea. That’s what I will do, what Miss Busy can do.
The new plan snuffs out my anxiety about what has just happened. It is such a relief.
The woods on the left are so nice, a mix of pines and little hardwoods, climbing a hill. Looks like a good, peaceful place to die. I leave the road, walk into the trees, up the hill a little ways, looking around. The ground is springy, covered in leaves and pine needles. I sit down on a dead hardwood in a tiny clearing. I am only twenty or thirty feet from the road, but it is like a different world. The light is pretty, greenish and soft. I can barely hear the cars going by. I like it here.
Miss Busy is in charge. She is going to cut my throat. I am calm. I put my bag between my knees to take out my knife. Oh. It’s back in the motel. Right. I need a new plan. I need to get another knife.
I’m headed back to the road when I see the cat. It’s a big orange tabby, with a collar, sitting on a stump in the sun, watching me.
“Oh, hi, kitty!”
Kitty meows at me. I want to be friends. I walk over slowly, talking quietly, reach out my hand. She turns as if to jump and run away, then turns back, curious. I step up, making kitten-soothing noises. I reach out my hand, and she pushes her head against it, lets me pet her, closes her eyes and rubs her head against me. This is so nice! She has a tag on her collar with her name.
“Hi, Sadie. You’re a pretty cat, aren’t you?”
She likes it, rubs her head against my hand. I am crying again.
Will she let me pick her up? She will! I gather her in my arms and sit down on the stump. I rub behind her ears and whisper her name. She snuggles into my lap and purrs! I put my face into her fur and inhale her scent, pulling it deep inside.
Oh no. I get tears on her fur. She doesn’t like that and tries to wriggle free. I have to hold her firmly to stop her from running away. Then her claws dig into my arm. I am sad, but I let her go. I’m not the kind of person who would hold someone against her will.
She meows at me and walks away.
“Bye, Sadie.”
Her work here is done.
I no longer plan on killing myself. I want to live, to hold kitties, make them purr.
Okay. I need to get out of this shithole town. Back to the road.
I end up having to walk a long way on the gravel shoulder of the road. I don’t have much of a plan. I need to get in a car, somehow, and get far from the grisly scene at the motel. I need to find a gas station.
* * *
I am really tired by the time I get to one, but it’s worth the walk. It’s better than a normal gas station. It’s a big truck stop, in the middle of a huge parking lot full of eighteen-wheelers.
I’ve never been to a place like this before. It’s like a little mall for truckers. There’s a deli, a barbershop, a store, a buffet, showers, a TV lounge. The truckers are wandering around, playing with their phones, a bunch of overweight white dudes in sweatpants and ball caps.
The smell of grease hits me and I’m suddenly starving. I will myself to walk slowly, looking like a bored suburban lady, not a hipster killer who has just cut a pimp’s throat and shot a sex worker. I buy a banana and a cup of coffee and a muffin at the deli counter and take them outside. There’s a busy gas bay, with a steady stream of cars and trucks coming in and parking, filling up, people going in to pee and buy coffee and snacks.
There is an empty picnic table next to a dumpster. I sit down there and eat my banana and muffin and drink my coffee. I count Chris’s money. $261. My new total is $755. I’m getting there.
I watch the cars come and go and try to figure out how to get in one of them and get out of here. I go inside to pee and fix my makeup. I look haggard, like I’ve been up all night, which I have. I do my best to cover that up and go into the store and walk around. There’s all kinds of trucker stuff, patriotic T-shirts, leather vests, work gloves. I stop when I get to a display of knives. I need a knife. I pick out a folding combat knife, a nasty-looking black thing called Extreme Ops. It costs $19.99.
I’m nervous, but when I put on the counter, the subdued-looking young guy at the cash register doesn’t even look at me.
I sit down at one of the tables by the deli and take the knife out of its plastic casing. I drop it into my bag when a trucker with bristly gray hair and a yellow mustache plops into the seat across from me. He’s holding a tray with a disgusting-looking plate of bacon and eggs on it.
“Hey, miss,” he says, with a smile that is meant to be rakish. “Mind if I sit here?”
Yes.
“No,” I say. There are no empty tables, so it makes sense. I need to get out of here. He is a trucker. He’s going someplace. I smile.
He takes a big bite of his disgusting food and gets yolk on his dyed mustache. He wipes it off and gives me a once-over.
“Are you a driver?” he says.
I laugh.
“No. Just passing through.”
He smiles.
“I’m just kidding, little lady,” he says. “I’ve never seen a lady trucker as pretty as you.”
Ugh.
“Thanks, I think,” I say. Forced smile.
He takes a piece of bacon and holds it in front of his mouth.
“No need to thank me,” he says. “Just the truth. Most of them, my goodness, I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole. A lot of extrawide loads, if you know what I mean.”
“Then it’s not much of a compliment,” I say.
He laughs, nods, and eats his bacon. His eyes are small and quick, darting up and down, checking m
e out.
“You’re pretty enough,” he says. “You are the prettiest thing I’ve seen in a while.”
“Well, thank you, then,” I say.
He smiles. One of his front teeth is a different color than the others.
He sticks out his hand. I hesitate, then take it.
“Rick,” he says.
“Amy.”
He nods at the empty knife package.
“You get yourself some protection?”
Shit. I shrug.
“It was on sale.”
He smiles again.
“Good thing for a girl to have,” he says. “Especially is she’s working. Got to take care of herself. Some of these lot lizards come to a bad end. All kinds of strange hombres in this kind of place.”
He thinks I’m a truck stop hooker. This suggests my makeover wasn’t as successful as I hoped. His comment makes me more tired. I frown and rub my eyes.
“Hey,” he says. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I didn’t mean to insult you.”
I make myself smile again.
“I’m not a lot lizard,” I say. “I’m just passing through.”
He’s watching me closely.
“Look here, missy,” he says. “I’m not going to shit in a bowl and tell you it’s macaroni. I’m a straight shooter. If you want to come out to my truck with me, I could make it worth your while. I’m not saying you’re a working girl. I’m just offering you a little work. Who knows? You might even enjoy yourself.”
He winks. I can’t even.
“No thanks,” I say and stand up. “I think it’s time I got going. Have a good day.”
When I stand up, I find myself blocking the path of another trucker. He’s holding a tray with bacon and eggs. Fuck. It’s Bruce. He’s as surprised to see me as I am to see him.
“Crystal?” he says.
I look at him and smile, trying to look confused.
“No,” I say. “Sorry. I don’t know you.”
“I thought you said your name was Amy,” says Rick.
I don’t like any of this. I head for the exit. When I go through the doors, I glance back and see the two men talking together and looking at me.
I need to get out of here in a hurry.
I go back to the picnic table where I ate my breakfast and watch the vehicles come and go. I need to get in one of them.
A dirty-looking redneck pulls up in a clapped-out Ford pickup and parks next to my picnic table. There’s a pair of truck balls hanging from his rear bumper. He’s unshaven, wearing a sleeveless Kid Rock T-shirt and a Ford hat. He looks like he smells bad.
I come up with a plan. I get up from the table and walk past him, eyeing a little Toyota Prius with Ontario plates. The driver, a middle-aged, bearded guy in a golf shirt and cargo shorts, is putting away the hose. All done.
When Redneck and I pass, I turn and look at him.
“Hey,” I say.
He looks at me expectantly, the beginning of a smile at the corner of his ugly mouth. Honestly, dude, you can’t think that. Look at yourself.
I stand there looking at him. He looks back at me. Here goes.
“No,” I say. “No!”
I shout.
“Leave me alone!”
He stands back, baffled.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, crazy bitch,” he says.
“Just leave me alone!” I shout again.
People turn to look. I walk quickly to the pumps, to the bearded man standing by his Toyota. I can see his wife sitting in the passenger seat.
“Sir,” I say. “Can you help me, please?”
He looks concerned.
“What can I do?” he asks.
“I need to get away from that guy over there,” I say, moving close to him, trying to look scared. “I’m afraid he’s going to hurt me.”
I look over my shoulder. Redneck guy is giving me a dirty look, headed into the station. Bearded guy sees him.
I start to cry.
“He won’t leave me alone. I just want to get away from him.”
His wife is now out of the car.
“You want us to call the police?” she says.
“No,” I say. “I just want to get away. Can you drive me to the next exit, please?”
She looks back at the redneck, who is now standing inside the gas station, angrily looking out at me. I wonder if he’s trying to decide if he should come out and tell me off.
“Get in,” she says.
I am Amy. I am from Watertown, in upstate New York. I am a Rutgers student. I am in Scranton with college friends. We went to a party that got out of hand, so I left, because I didn’t want to be around certain kinds of things. I was walking to the highway, hoping to find a bus for Watertown, when this truck started following me. It was one of the scary guys from the party. He won’t leave me alone.
This is what I tell Simon and Karine. They’re nervous. Simon keeps checking the rearview mirror and Karine keeps looking over her shoulder.
“He won’t follow us,” I say. “Guys like that, they look for weak people to exploit. He thought I was one of them. But I’m not.”
Eventually they relax, and we start to talk. They tell me they can drive me all the way to Watertown, no problem.
Simon is a pudgy journalism professor from Ottawa. He and Karine are headed back to Ottawa after a journalism conference in Philadelphia.
As we get farther from Scranton they feel better about rescuing me. It’s probably the most interesting thing that has ever happened in their dreary lives.
I imagine them with their lumpy colleagues, having celebratory dinners in pretentious, unfashionable restaurants, exchanging bitter stories about who was denied a trip to what conference, who was stealing research, gossiping about gross middle-aged professors preying on nearsighted, plain grad students.
I liked being at college because I got to spend most of my time doing basically whatever I wanted—which often meant getting high with JFXBF and binge-watching TV series—but I never really liked college, like, as a thing.
It’s a power structure where the dullest, hardest-working nerds get to run things. To get ahead, you have to suck up to them. I hated that. Simon and Karine remind me of how much I hated that, since I have to suck up to them to get them to drive me to Watertown. I repeatedly praise them for heroically saving me and chat pleasantly about my made-up life.
But I am tired and start to make mistakes, and they are dull but not stupid. I mention casually, while discussing my imaginary academic career (working on an undergrad in psychology) at Rutgers, that I like living in New York City.
They ask me about Watertown, and I don’t know anything about it, since I have never been there, and try to change the subject, but Karine persists.
I decide to have a nap before my Amy facade completely collapses.
When I awaken, we’re pulling into a roadside Denny’s at the Syracuse exit. They’re chatting quietly in French.
“We thought we’d stop for some breakfast,” says Karine. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m starving.”
“Let us buy you breakfast,” says Simon.
“You guys are too nice!”
64
Francis, sweet Francis wrapped me up in his catty, funny, kind world as he filled me full of drinks during a lazy Sunday afternoon drinking beer in Village dives.
Before I could tell him all my troubles, I insisted that he tell me about himself. How was Jason? He was cute!
“Jason dumped me,” he said. “I guess he was just using me for sex.”
“Francis, no. I liked him.”
Francis always kept a happy face for the world, but I saw he wasn’t feeling good about this.
“It’s fine,” he said. “The sex was fun. He was too young for me. I realized that on Saturday, when we went to Langston for a few cocktails. We ran into some of his friends on the dance floor. They wanted to dance and I just couldn’t. I suddenly felt soooo old. So I did an Irish exit.”
“You need someone more grown-up,” I said.
“I know, but if they have abs, that would be okay, though, wouldn’t it?”
I laughed and gave him a hug and for a second I thought he was going to cry.
“Anyway,” he said. “Forget about my love life. You have real problems. Spill.”
I unspooled everything that had happened since our post-Guggenheim dinner, which took hours and many beers. It was just what I needed.
When I finally finished with the story about my vomit-interrupted date with Declan, he gave me another beer and fixed his gaze on me.
“Is there any way you did it?” he said. “Any chance you stole his laptop, and, like, forgot about it? Left it in the cab?”
“No! I was hammered enough that I’d banged a guy I just met. I was way too hammered to steal a computer.”
“You were mixing Ambien and booze, right? You sometimes forget things when you do that.”
“No way. I wasn’t sleep-stealing.”
“So he’s lying. He’s your tormentor.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Think about it. He had access to the lists. He has the computer skills. He’s telling a bullshit story designed to blame you. The only reason you don’t think it might be him is because he’s charmed you.”
“I don’t know. His personality . . . he just . . . I can’t see why he would do something like this.”
“Tell me,” said Francis. “Did you tell me that he said you promised him dinner?”
“That’s right. He was joking, but yeah.”
“When did you promise to buy him dinner?”
A light bulb went off in my head.
“When he sent me the list,” I said. “Oh my God. You’re right.”
“See?” he said, obviously pleased to have spotted a clue I’d missed.
“But that doesn’t prove one hundred percent it was him. My memory could be muddled.”
“Do you think it is?”
“No.”
But Francis, like Jess, also thought Alvin could be behind my troubles. I was going in circles again.
I told him about the Pandora interview and the possibility of doing a CNN interview, which got him excited.
I checked my phone.
“While we’ve been sitting here talking, in fact, I got an email asking me to clear my schedule for an interview tomorrow at two p.m. with, ahem, Anderson Cooper.”