“Hello?”
“Sharon, it’s me, Tegan, from the pool.”
“Oh, hey. How did you get…”
“Oh, we go to the same salon,” I lie. “I was wondering, do you have a shift at the pool today?”
“Yeah, one to five. What’s going on?”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “Nothing! I’ll explain it later. At the pool. See you then. Take care of yourself.”
I hang up and cross over 17th Street and walk down the alley. There are some randoms sitting against the side of the CVS. Their shadows are enlarged against the brick wall, like a gathering of giants. As I get closer, I can see one of them is the sailor. He still has his hat on. He looks sun-kissed and handsome, like if he put on a suit he could be at a dinner party. The line is that thin. As I pass, he smiles at me, his eyes open and clear. I smile back.
* * *
When I get to the pool, Sharon looks skeptical.
“Sharon, I need to tell you something.”
“You sounded weird on the phone. And how did you get my number? The salon?”
“Yeah. But listen…” I try to think of a way to say it that doesn’t make me sound like a street psychic. “I know stuff. Like, things come to me.”
“What?”
“Tell me something. Are you going to this guy’s house tonight?”
“Yes. Why?”
“You can’t go to his house.”
“We’ve been texting, and we spoke on the phone. Besides, I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”
“Look, everyone knows you meet at a public place on a first date.”
“Why are you so concerned? Are you a psychic or something?”
“Yes. No. I mean, it’s complicated, you just have to trust me.”
“Go swim, why don’t you,” she says, shaking her head.
I give up for now. I might have to stalk her after all. Unless she drops dead at the gate from heart failure. Please let that not be the case.
Gwen isn’t here today. Her arm is still healing from the ambulance crash, but she’s also been hanging out with J-Rod. It actually makes me smile. Maybe she needed to help save him to find out how much he meant to her. Maybe I needed to follow Tom Elliot so I could meet Edge. I’m beginning to believe everything is connected, even if it doesn’t seem that way. It’s overwhelming to think about, but also a little reassuring. We’re on a conveyor belt of life, and there’s no point in getting off; you have to keep going.
The water is all-encompassing. I start what is called my maintenance training. A mile swim alternating breaststroke and freestyle. I’m astonished at Sharon’s plan to go to a stranger’s house. Does she not watch TV or read the news? It doesn’t seem like she can be talked out of it. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know I have to do something. That seems to be the only pattern here, which isn’t a lot to go on.
In the changing room, Sharon comes in to pee. My mind immediately starts calculating. I rush out, knowing she probably left her phone on the little desk at the gate. It’s there, and thankfully she doesn’t have a password.
I go to their Tinder chat and find his address. 1201 Q Street. I wipe the phone with my shirt and put it back on the table exactly as it was. Then I take off.
I decide to get there first and scope it out. On my way, I get a text from Edge. It’s a GIF of a chubby baby dancing. Underneath it says, This is how you make me feel.
Like a rock in a stream, I stop and look at it while pedestrians file around me. I text back eight hearts, but cut it down to three before sending.
Everything okay?
I think so. You?
I think so too—will fill u in
I send back a smiley face with a winking heart, then continue on my way. Regularguy!’s town house is the only one on the block that’s been neglected. There are no flower boxes or fountains, only some trash bags and a broken chair. There’s about three feet between his and the next house, but it’s enough for me to scoot through. I see a window to the basement. It’s fogged up, but slightly open. I pry it open a little further to peer in, holding my breath.
There are bookshelves filled with dolls; some are only bodies and some are only the heads. Their eyes are glass, their faces shiny. Some of the heads are thrown askew, like they’ve been chopped from their bodies. My stomach flips over onto itself and makes a noise. I adjust the window back to how it was and hurry out of the alley. There’s an old woman standing there, holding a cat.
“Can I help you with something?”
“I’m scouting for a film,” I say, remembering that Jenna mentioned that a few days ago.
The woman gives me a strange look, and the cat snarls.
“Sorry, I’m allergic,” I say, and walk away.
A little way down the street, I stop and watch the neighbor woman go back inside, then I take a perch diagonally across from the house in question. The image of the basement is fresh in my head, like a scene in a psychological thriller. Why would he have all those creepy dolls? Something is off. Sharon cannot go in there alone.
My mother calls me, and I let it go to voicemail. Gwen texts me, and I don’t respond. My head is fixed on the door across the street. Can I stop her outside somehow? Before I have a chance to answer that question, there she is, walking up the steps. Sharon doesn’t seem fazed by the state of the house. A man answers the door in a suit and smiles, then lets her in. He looks both ways before he shuts the door.
I get a text from Larry.
We are at the hospital where r u?
Oh my God. The surgery! She’s in recovery and can have visitors now. I completely blanked. If I leave, I could make it to the hospital in time, but if something happened to Sharon, I’d never forgive myself.
I start pacing outside his house on the sidewalk. What am I going to do? Should I crash their date?
I think about my mother, worried in her hospital gown. Then I see the name carved in the table. This is life or death. I have to do something.
I try to calm down, but what if he’s already tied her up or something? I have to go with my gut. I walk up the steps and knock loudly on the door.
A curtain moves to the side, and I see a long, pale face. This time I actually scream. The ghost man.
The curtain falls back, and I’m back to pacing, my breath heavy, trying to get the courage to knock again. Two more texts come in from Larry of just question marks. “Ugh!” I yell. My mother is going to kill me. But if she really knew what was happening, she’d want me to help Sharon.
I knock again. Regularguy! comes to the door. He looks somewhat normal except his suit is a little too large, and his teeth are slightly gray. But when he smiles at me, it gives me the shivers. It looks like he wants to eat me for dinner.
“Hi, I’m Tegan, a friend of Sharon’s?”
“Ah,” he says, “I’m Geoffrey, with a G.”
“A regular guy?”
He laughs, and it’s almost cartoonlike, but in a flash, his face gets dead serious. “Would you like to come inside and join us for a drink? I was showing her my fish.”
“Ah…what kind of fish?”
“Red-bellied piranhas.”
“Wow. Well, could you maybe ask Sharon to come out here for a minute?”
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
After all that’s happened to me, going into this psycho’s house, where apparently the ghost man lives, too, only seems mildly insane. My bar has been lowered considerably. Sorry, Mom, I think, but I’m going for it.
When we get inside, he locks the front door. With a key. What?
The place looks like an antique store, cluttered and stale-smelling. I follow him through what I’m guessing is the living room, and I almost trip over an old typewriter that’s sitting on the floor beside the fireplace.
“My mother collected antiq
ues,” he says, leading me into the kitchen, which is surprisingly uncluttered. He opens the fridge and pulls out a pitcher of apple juice. “It’s from the can, but I like it better this way because I can measure in a little more water. It can get very sweet, don’t you think?”
“Um, where’s Sharon?”
He laughs like he did at the door. That cartoonish bark. It startles me enough that I back up against the wall. He hands me the apple juice, as if I’m actually going to drink it.
“Sharon’s in the ladies’ room.” When he says this, it is with complete decorum. Is this guy eccentric or is he a sociopath?
“So, is this a thing now, people crashing their friends’ dates?”
“No, I mean, I’m so sorry. I needed to talk to her. It’s urgent.”
“She shouldn’t be long now,” he says, taking a small sip of the juice and clucking his tongue. On the counter, there’s a bowl full of loose batteries and a bottle of what looks like woman’s perfume. I flash back to Ghost Man behind the curtain.
“Do you live alone?”
Geoffrey stares at me blankly, and I can feel sweat forming on my hairline. “I prefer it that way. My mother left me this house. All her antiques. I might have a sale someday and move to Idaho or something.” He laughs again, and I try to laugh along, like moving to Idaho is totally funny. Is Sharon tied up somewhere? Did he kill her already? He certainly seems capable. He is handsome if you look past the teeth, and certainly physically fit, but Sharon must get the sinister vibe that slithers out of him through his words, looks, and movements.
I hear a door open upstairs, but no one comes down.
I pretend to take a sip of the juice, and it stings my lip. How am I going to get us out of here?
Geoffrey is looking at me like he’s planning how to skin me alive. I clutch my phone in my pocket. I put 911 on speed dial, just in case. He licks his lips and takes repeated sips.
I am starting to get really worried, when another door opens and this time, I hear shoes on the stairs. It’s Sharon. When she comes into the kitchen and sees me, she looks embarrassed that her life has come to this. Dating creepy guys from the internet.
“Tegan, what…did you follow me here?”
“No, I saw you around the corner.”
“Hmm,” Geoffrey says, “likely story.” He pours Sharon some juice, and as he’s putting it back in the fridge, Sharon starts to drink it. I give her the hand across the throat sign. She rolls her eyes and puts it down.
Let’s go, I mouth to her.
“Well, now that you’re both here, why don’t you come and see the fish? We can go from there.”
So we go, the three of us, deeper into this weirdo’s house. At least he’s not showing us the dolls downstairs. I shudder to think what else is down there. The rotting corpse of his mother? It wouldn’t surprise me. The back room is dark with red curtains, and there are gilded mirrors and ottomans that surround a large fish tank. Inside are two red piranhas, and one of them looks slightly deformed. I can see the serrated edges of their teeth. Geoffrey points as he tells us their names. “That one’s Sodom and that one’s Gomorrah.” I notice one of his fingers ends at the knuckle.
“Hmm, that’s not creepy at all,” I say.
Geoffrey laughs, and even Sharon is looking desperate to leave now.
“Sit, sit. I have some treats to share.”
We sit on one of the ottomans, and Geoffrey goes back to the kitchen.
“He has doll heads in his basement, and a ghost lives here,” I whisper to her quickly.
“What?” she whispers back.
“We have to leave.”
“Okay, let’s go,” she agrees. From the look on her face, I can tell she didn’t need to be convinced.
“Wait! I’m still thinking of a plan. We can’t just leave. He locked the front door from the inside.”
“How did you see his basement?”
“From the outside.”
“You really are a stalker.”
“Shhh! Aren’t you glad I came?”
“Yes. Sorry.”
Geoffrey comes back into the room with a bowl of chocolate-covered raisins. I taste one, and they’re definitely old, but they’re not going to kill me. Sharon eats one, too, out of nervousness. Is this what internet dating is like for old people? No thanks.
Geoffrey starts talking about the mirrors, and how he has more in the basement. He talks about the rug, and how he has more in the basement. The third time he says basement, I stand and say, “Well, I should be going.”
“Me, too,” Sharon adds nervously.
“Whoa whoa whoa whoa, hold on, ladies, you just got here!” Geoffrey blocks the hallway.
“I’m not feeling so great,” Sharon says.
I start scanning the room for sharp objects. I see a framed college degree, with the name Rod Mallory. There’s also a picture of what I presume is his mother. She looks like a decent woman. Where did she go wrong?
“So, why don’t we all take a walk outside?” I offer.
“I’m not going to hold you against your will or anything, but I will ask you to perform one act before leaving. One that requires both of your cooperation.”
I try to remain calm. Sharon looks like she’s about to throw up.
“I would like you to kiss each other.”
Sharon stares at him, then at me.
“Listen, Rod,” I say, and his eyes widen.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Well, I’m not going to call you ‘Geoffrey with a G’ anymore.”
There’s a back door to a small patio along the back wall, and a set of fire pokers right next to me. I know this is the moment that I have to do the right thing. A moment where if something goes wrong, it could go really, really wrong. I feel it. And lately, my intuitions are pretty spot on. So I do it. I slide the fire poker right out of its holder and in one swift motion, hold it up to Rod while motioning Sharon to the patio door. She starts crying.
“Go!”
She cries louder. Rod giggles, which is disconcerting, and says, “What are you going to do, poke me to death?”
“Sharon! Go!”
She runs out, still crying, and surprisingly, Rod stays where he is. But then he grabs the fire poker, and we struggle back and forth. We have the same amount of strength, so I’m able to hold my own. Until he lets go. I flail backward onto an old ratty couch. Then he’s on top of me, the fire poker at my throat.
“Everything was going well until you showed up,” he says softly.
My first instinct is to knee him in the crotch, which I do. He screams, and it’s surprisingly high-pitched, and then he falls down in a heap on the floor. I jump over him and out the door. Sharon is climbing over the fence into the alley. She’s not crying anymore; she is running on pure adrenaline and in survival mode. So am I. We both get over it with little trouble. In the alley, we start running. We don’t stop until we’re almost a mile away. Then we sit on a stoop to catch our breath.
“Holy. Shit,” Sharon says. “You were right.”
“Did you not get the vibe that something was off when you walked in?”
“No, he seemed kind of normal!”
“Yeah. Goes to show, you never know.”
“Well, I’m not going to anyone’s house on a first date ever again, that’s for sure.”
“Maybe not a second, either,” I add.
She starts tearing up again, except this time it’s a quiet cry. “I kept thinking of my son, how if anything happened to me, he would be alone.” After a pause, she adds, “But why were you there, really?”
“Sharon, I’ll tell you, but not now. We need to get you home safe.”
We walk in silence, the temperature dropping as we head deeper into the night. My phone has been buzzing with texts, but I haven’t looked at any of them. My m
other’s probably getting out of surgery now. This is not going to go well.
At Sharon’s house, she hugs me and says, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I hope we never see Doctor Piranha Psycho ever again.”
“I’m never going to get the image of that gruesome-looking fish out of my head.”
“Do me a favor. Don’t leave your house tonight?”
“Promise.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow?”
“Another day,” she says, shaking her head.
On my way home, I wonder if I should call the police and tell them I was assaulted. It could enrage the guy more, so I decide against it. But on second thought, how many girls don’t say anything? Maybe a scare from the police would change him, prevent future victims? I call the anonymous tip line, saying I heard a man being physical with a girl at his address.
When I get home, the house is quiet. It’s too late to go to the hospital, so I wait. When Larry and my mother come home, they don’t look at me. My mother is weak, holding on to Larry for support. He sits her down at the table and starts fixing her tea.
“Did everything—”
“Your mother is fine,” Larry interrupts.
Then my mother finally looks at me. There is so much emotion in her eyes: anger, hurt, amazement.
“I hope whatever you’re doing is more important than your mother,” she says, and it feels like her words are daggers going straight to the center of my heart.
“Mom, I would’ve been there, but—”
“But you’re too wrapped up in your own world…” Larry is angry, but trying to hold it back.
“Not exactly,” I tell them. “I need you guys to trust me. It was something important; it wasn’t something stupid. I’m not being a kid. I’m being myself.”
“Well, I thought I raised a girl who would show up for her own mother’s surgery.” She’s crying now, and it makes me tear up as well.
“You did! Of course you did. Can you please trust me? I had to help someone.”
Neither of them say anything. They simply sip their tea and shake their heads.
* * *
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