by Phoef Sutton
“Yeah,” he asked.
“Hello, I was wondering if you saw a woman here yesterday. In her late twenties, a white dress, long sandy colored hair?”
“Here?” He shrugged. His face was expressive in a European way and his eyes frank and blue and easy to trust. Carl liked him immediately. “Just the kids and the teachers. Is something wrong?”
“No, but…” Hell, was there really any reason not to tell him? He found an old business card the studio had printed for him in his wallet and handed it over – it was the first time he could remember giving one out. “Here’s my name and number. If you see her, give me a call. You see, she’s a little disoriented.” He tapped his forehead with two fingers.
Frank was next to him now, smiling and cutting him off. “But, I think we’ve taken up enough of your time. Thank you.”
The man was still reading the scrap of paper. He looked up and smiled happily. “I’ll call if I see anything,” he said and Carl’s heart sank a little as he went back in and shut the door on them.
Carl turned to him in irritation. “How am I supposed to find something out if you don’t let me talk?”
Carl was amazed at how clearly the hurt registered on Frank’s face. “I’m sorry Carl.”
Carl sat down on the edge of the loading dock, letting his legs dangle despondently. Frank stood next to him and cleared his throat in embarrassment. “This is true, isn’t it, Carl.”
There was no humor in his question this time, but no anger either. For the first time Carl realized how crazy it was. Not the story, not Jesse’s reappearance, but how easily Frank had believed him. A stranger comes to him with this tale and no proof and off he goes looking for her. He must love her very much, Carl thought with an acute feeling of uneasiness. He reached into his pocket for some bit of proof to offer as comfort to this rival. He pulled out the car keys he’d found in the greenhouse. “Here are her keys.”
Frank took them from Carl’s hand, glanced over them and tossed them back to Carl. “They’re not hers.”
“Well, she had them.”
“What are you going to do if we find her?”
“Take her back to the house, feed her, keep her warm.”
“Then what?”
“Take her back to her husband.”
Frank just sat in silence for a moment. “I don’t know about that…”
Carl looked up at Frank. “You think I’m right about him?”
Frank was quiet for a moment. “I wouldn’t want to bet her life on it,” he finally said.
The silence that hung between them was broken by a high-pitched chirping sound coming from the parking lot. It sounded like a single cry from a jungle bird, but it was the sound of a remote controlled lock on a car door. Carl looked at the keys in his hand. He’d been fumbling with them idly, pressing the button on the key chain. He pressed it again. Another chirp.
They leapt from the loading dock and Carl kept pressing the button while they followed the chirping sound, like children playing a game of ‘warmer-colder.’ Together, they zeroed in on a large black Mercedes. Carl pressed his key again and they watched through the window as the lock shot up and down.
The first thing he noticed when he flung open the trapdoor was a stinging, acrid scent. He focused his light on a pool of vomit. She was sleeping away from it, curled up like a child.
So he whispered, “Jessica?” his voice full of calmness and fatherly assurance.
She shifted a bit, mumbling to herself. Then she began to roll over and stretch. She sat up, her face still in shadow. “Who’s that?” she asked.
“It’s me, Ted. I’m a friend of Carl’s.”
He shifted the beam of light and he saw her face for the first time. There was not a trace of fine pubescent fat on that face. It was a face run through with lines of age. A woman’s face.
Ryan simply stared. The wonderful thought that had come to him on the loading dock, the wonderful thought that he’d barely let himself believe, was coming true.
“Jessica? How old are you, Jessica?”
“Eighteen.”
“And you know somebody named Carl Robson, don’t you?”
“Is he here?”
He felt such a joy, such a total relief that he couldn’t help but laugh, echoing loudly throughout the theater. He saw again in his mind Carl’s simple little two-fingered gesture to his forehead, a gesture that was his salvation. Crazy, he thought, the woman is crazy. He was giddy. It was like he’d been in the gas chamber, the whole world staring at him with hate filled eyes and suddenly discovered it was all a dream. He wanted to kiss his pillow in gratitude.
Found out at last, but the woman is crazy, so it’s like it never happened.
“Eighteen is a wonderful age, Jessica,” he said, still laughing.
NINETEEN
Getting her out to the car wasn’t too difficult. He just said he’d take her to Carl and, at the time, that was what he meant to do. But as he pulled out of the long school driveway onto Glenoaks the high of his relief began to evaporate and was replaced by a feeling of something unfinished, nagging at him like a post-coital depression.
Jenny. He had to tell her there was nothing to worry about now. And he had to tell her before her behavior made it obvious to everyone that there was something to worry about.
The best way to set her mind at east was to introduce her to the crazy chick in the passenger seat he thought, glancing over at her. The crazy chick was wearing a backless sundress. He guessed it had started out white, but now it was covered with grime and dust and so was her skin. Her hair was plastered to the side of her face with sweat. She glanced back at him self-consciously and tried to brush it away with her scratched and bruised hand. The gesture was touching; the pathetic attempt of an insane, filthy wrench to improve her appearance. That was the first feeling of affection he’d had for her.
“We’re going to go somewhere else first. I want you to meet a friend of mine, then I’ll take you home, okay?”
She nodded and smiled shyly. A lost lamb, he thought, and aren’t we all?
As soon as he saw Jenny’s mother ‘s face he knew he was too late. She stammered something about Jenny not feeling well and not wanting to be disturbed. He smiled calmly and told her it would keep.
He kept the panic out of his steps as he walked back to his car, feeling on the skin of his back that the front door was still open, that she was still staring at him as he moved. And maybe Jenny was too, from one of the windows. Hiding ashamed behind a curtain, watching the man she’d betrayed.
Jessica was still sitting in the passenger seat, looking out at him with politely concealed boredom. Then a startled look came into her eyes. Ryan had just a second to think she was lapsing into some kind of manic-depressive hysteria before he heard Jenny’s mother yelling “NO!” and feet clumping across the lawn behind him. Heavy, masculine feet. Should he run? An innocent man would just turn. He just turned.
Before his turn was complete, a rough hand grabbed his shoulder and shoved him against the car.
“I ought to fucking kill you, you know that? I ought to fucking smash your head in!”
“What’s the matter?” Ryan asked, all shock and concern.
“You know what the fuck’s the matter!”
“I’m sorry?” he replied, vaguely aware that he was stealing his blank replies from his conversations with Jessica.
“I’m gonna have your fucking job, and I hope they send you to prison and somebody knifes you in the goddamned shower.”
“I’m sorry, but I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jenny’s father yanked him up by the shoulders. “I know what you did to my daughter.”
Easy enough to reply. Easy enough to spit in his face and let him take him apart. There isn’t much point in lying. Ryan was done for and he knew it. But he lied anyway, just on principle.
“Jenny’s a troubled girl, Mr. Kallen,” he made a casual gesture with his right hand. “I’ve been trying�
�”
The casual gesture was a mistake. Kallen slapped his hand down and it cracked against the window.
“Don’t try any shit with me, or I’ll fucking kill you right now.”
Jenny’s mother called out something restraining from the porch and Ryan took advantage of the distraction to open his car door and slip inside.
“Maybe we’d better talk this over when you’ve calmed down.”
Kallen shoved the door so that it pressed hard against Ryan’s chest. “When I calm down I’m gonna call your wife, then I’m gonna call the principal, then I’m gonna call the goddamn cops.”
“Okay, you do what you think is best, but I think you also ought to consider what’s best for Jenny.”
Dangerous, he told himself as he felt Kallen shove the door harder, pressing it into his ribs. All Kallen said was “Jenny” but it burst out of him like a curse stronger than Ryan had ever heard.
But the wife was back there again, begging him off. Bless her, Ryan thought. Kallen stepped back and Ryan slipped into the car.
He could have pulled out right then. Instead he kept talking through the half opened door. “Haven’t you noticed she’s been acting strangely, Mr. Kallen? I hate to use the word drugs, Mr. Kallen, but…”
Kallen slammed the door shut and began kicking the side of the car so hard Ryan could almost see the dents. He started the car and peeled out, leaving Kallen running after him half a block swearing and shaking his fists like a child in a tantrum. Then he saw him run back into his house.
Ryan figured it would take about five minutes to drive home. Time for Kallen to make how many calls? And who would he call first? The trick was to keep acting innocent. What would he do if he were innocent?
“Are you okay?”
He’d forgotten she was there and hearing her voice like that he almost jumped out the window.
“Yeah, I’m fine, he’s crazy. The world’s full of crazy people.”
She laughed. “You said it.”
You should know, he said to himself, laughing at her laugh. “Look, I gotta go somewhere right away, it’s very important. Then I’ll take you home okay?”
“Thanks. What’s your name?”
He looked at her in surprise. “I told you five minutes ago, did you forget already?”
She looked suddenly defensive. “You didn’t tell me. You didn’t tell me.”
“You forgot already? How often do you forget things?”
“I don’t forget things. What are you talking about?”
“Where’d we meet?”
A pause. “What difference does it make?” She sounded petulant now.
“Come on, we were just there ten minutes ago. Where’d we meet?”
“I don’t know, I don’t remember, who cares?” She curled up by the door on her side and stared at the floor of the car, wounded.
Jesus Christ, he thought, she forgets everything as soon as it happens. What an annoying disease.
Why couldn’t everyone have it?
TWENTY
He drove Jessica to the grocery store on Glendale, gave her money for a cab and told her to find her own way home. She thanked him. He told her to forget about it and he didn’t think that would be too difficult for her.
When he pulled out he saw Ernie, the old black man who washed cars in the parking lot for spare change. Ernie smiled and waved. Ryan waved back and cursed to himself. But he shook it off. So he dropped someone off at the store? There was no reason for anyone to connect her with the alleged events in the school auditorium. And even if someone did, and even if that someone got hold of Jessica, it wouldn’t matter. Jessica wouldn’t tell them a thing. Jessica was someone he could trust.
Still, what if they ask the simple question, ‘who was that woman?’ He’d have to come up with an answer. There were a lot of things he’d have to come up with. He checked his watch and wondered if he could still get home before Kallen called.
“You’re looking beautiful today, dear.”
“Fuck off and die you son of a bitch.”
He guessed that Kallen had called.
“I knew you were fucking somebody, but a fourteen year old girl? I knew you were fucking somebody, but I didn’t know you were sick.”
“The man’s upset, I don’t blame him. His daughter’s very disturbed, she has a crush on me, now she’s started making up these stories.”
“Don’t, just don’t. You can lie to everybody, but not to me. I know you, that’s the sad thing, I know you.”
“You want to believe this, don’t you? You want to believe the worst of me.”
“There’s no best of you.”
“I love this. I’m the teacher, I’m the adult, and I don’t get the benefit of the doubt over some drugged up teen-ager – Where are you going?”
“I’m leaving. I’d throw you out, but the house is too cheap to fight over.”
“So it all comes down to money, is that it?”
“Good God, can’t you show a little courage once and tell the truth?”
But she’s wrong, it would be easy to tell the truth. It’s lying when everyone knows the truth that takes courage.”
“This girl’s trying to destroy me. I need you to stand by me.”
“I hope they send you to prison and some big drug dealer makes you his boy toy.”
Funny how that’s everyone’s idea of the nightmare of prison now, Ryan reflected. It used to be the loss of freedom, the stripping away of one’s free will, the four gray walls, the forced separation from nature and one’s family and friends. Now it’s unwelcome intercourse with a large, rude man. Just another aspect of our society’s unhealthy obsession with sex.
“How can you joke about this?” he asked.
“You think this is a little game, a little adventure? Fucking a child will make you young again?”
“She’s not a child!” Wrong thing to say, Ryan told himself, make a note never to say that again.
“Well, at least after you she has nowhere to go but up.”
With that, his wife was gone.
Getting her back again was going to be a little harder this time.
But okay, how bad is that? If he could get over the bitterness and pain it might be a chance to start over.
And there was nothing she could really say to hurt him legally, was there? He knew they couldn’t make a wife testify against her husband, but he wasn’t so sure if they could stop one from doing it.
He went to the bedroom and got out some of the stuff he had shoved into the back of his sock drawer. Then he got in his car and drove to the school.
He noticed that there was still dust from Jessica’s dress on the passenger seat and brushed it off at a red light. But the dust was still on her dress. If the police check it will they know where it came from?
But why would the police check it? They wouldn’t be looking for her. They wouldn’t be looking for anyone. Because there wasn’t any third person up there in the ceiling. Jenny was the one who was up there, wasn’t she? That was where Ryan found her. And he was very shocked and she started making threats.
He checked his watch. It was about fifteen minutes since Kallen must have called his wife. So he’s talked to Presser by now, but Presser wouldn’t call the police right away. He’d want to talk to Ryan first before getting one of his best teachers in serious trouble.
So Presser was probably calling him right now. And there was no one home, but there’s nothing suspicious about that. I’ll call him as soon as I get home, Ryan thought.
He went into the school parking lot and parked in back behind the gym. He knew the door would be open there on account of basketball practice. It wasn’t too hard to get in without being seen, not that that really mattered. Hell, he had a right to be there, didn’t he?
Jenny’s locker was by the clinic. He remembered where it was because he used to hang out there and chat with her between classes. Was anybody’s affection ever so misguided?
Those combination locks couldn�
�t be easier to crack, you could hear the tumblers from across the hall. He opened it, put half a gram of cocaine, a plastic film container of pot and a bag of Quaaludes on the top shelf, behind her geography book. He closed it up, spun the dial and went on to the auditorium.
When he went into the light booth he straightened up the shelf again and set all the gels back on it, neatly. He took some tools out of the storage room and used as chisel on the broken lock, chipping it off from the outside. Then he went into the tunnel, rolled two joints, smoked half of one, put it out and let the other one burn. He left the pool of vomit, thinking it gave the whole mise-en-scene a touch of authenticity.
He went out the same way he came in and again no one saw him. He drove home, resisting the temptation to speed. After the misunderstanding with his wife, he’d gone out for a drive, just to let off some steam, had a burger at Tony’s – no, at In ‘n’ Out, no one expected anybody to remember you there.
Not that anybody would be checking. He’d thought he’d taken care of everything fairly well. It would be his word against Jenny’s and who were they going to believe, a respected teacher or some teen-ager hiding in the walls, smoking pot and vomiting her lungs out?
Of course she’d say it hadn’t been her vomiting, it had been this ‘other girl.’ That was the wonderful thing about her story – this phantom girl in the ceiling, the very part of it that had caused the whole problem, would sound like the lie. Something of child would make up to dodge punishment. “It wasn’t me, really it wasn’t, it was this ‘other girl.’” How pathetic.
There was a Beatles song on the radio and he sang along. When he got two yards from his house he slammed on the brakes.
Jessica was on the front step.
TWENTY-ONE
Carl sat down on his driveway, leaning back against the hubcap of the black Mercedes. Frank was still in the passenger seat, digging through the glove compartment for the third time. No sign of Jesse. No trace of the owner.