by A. J. Finn
I thank her, sink my head into the pillow, drop back into sleep. When I wake, I check my phone. Almost eleven o’clock.
I stare at the screen for a moment. A minute later I’m talking to Ed. No “guess who” this time.
“That’s unbelievable,” he says after a pause.
“Yet it happened.”
He pauses again. “I’m not saying it didn’t. But”—I brace myself—“you’ve been really heavily medicated lately. So—”
“So you don’t believe me, either.”
A sigh. “No, it’s not that I don’t believe you. Only—”
“Do you know how frustrating this is?” I shout.
He goes quiet. I continue.
“I saw it happen. Yes, I was medicated, and I—yes. But I didn’t imagine it. You don’t take a bunch of pills and imagine something like that.” I suck in a breath. “I’m not some high schooler who plays violent video games and shoots up his school. I know what I saw.”
Ed’s still quiet.
Then:
“Well, for one thing, just to be academic, are you sure it was him?”
“Him who?”
“The husband. Who . . . did it.”
“Bina said the same thing. Of course I’m sure.”
“Couldn’t have been this other woman?”
I go still.
Ed’s voice perks, the way it does when he’s thinking out loud. “Say she’s the mistress, as you say. Down from Boston or wherever. They fight. Out comes the knife. Or whatever. In goes the knife. No husband involved.”
I think. I resist it, but—maybe. Except: “Who did it is beside the point,” I insist. “For now. The fact is, it was done, and the problem is that no one believes me. I don’t even think Bina believes me. I don’t think you believe me.”
Silence. I find I’ve drifted up the stairs, entered Olivia’s bedroom.
“Don’t tell Livvy about this,” I add.
Ed laughs, an actual Ha!, bright as tin. “I’m not going to.” He coughs. “What does Dr. Fielding say?”
“I haven’t talked to him.” I should.
“You should.”
“I will.”
A pause.
“And what’s going on with the rest of the block?”
I realize I have no idea. The Takedas, the Millers, even the Wassermen—they haven’t so much as pinged my radar this last week. A curtain has fallen on the street; the homes across the road are veiled, vanished; all that exists are my house and the Russells’ house and the park between us. I wonder what’s become of Rita’s contractor. I wonder which book Mrs. Gray has selected for her reading group. I used to log their every activity, my neighbors, used to chronicle each entrance and exit. I’ve got whole chapters of their lives stored on my memory card. But now . . .
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“Well,” he says, “maybe that’s for the best.”
After we’ve spoken, I check the phone clock again. Eleven eleven. My birthday. Jane’s, too.
47
I’ve avoided the kitchen since yesterday, avoided the first floor altogether. Now, though, I’m once more at the window, staring down the house across the park. I pour a ribbon of wine into a glass.
I know what I saw. Bleeding. Pleading.
This isn’t nearly over.
I drink.
48
The blinds, I see, are up.
The house gawks at me, wide-eyed, as though surprised to find me looking back. I zoom in, pan the windows with my gaze, focus on the parlor.
Spotless. Nothing. The love seat. The lamps like guardsmen.
Shifting in the window seat, I swerve the lens up toward Ethan’s room. He’s gargoyle-perched at his desk, in front of his computer.
I zoom further. I can practically make out the text on the screen.
Movement on the street. A car, glossy as a shark, cruises into a spot in front of the Russells’ walk, parks. The driver’s door fans out like a fin, and Alistair emerges in a winter coat.
He strides toward the house.
I snap a photo.
When he reaches the door, I snap another.
I don’t have a plan. (Do I ever have a plan anymore, I wonder?) It’s not as though I’ll see his hands rinsed in blood. He won’t knock on my door and confess.
But I can watch.
He enters the house. My lens jumps to the kitchen, and sure enough, he appears there a moment later. Slaps the keys on the counter, shrugs off his coat. Leaves the room.
Doesn’t return.
I move the camera one floor up, to the parlor.
And as I do, she appears, light and bright in a spring-green pullover: “Jane.”
I adjust the lens. She goes crisp, sharp, as she moves first to one lamp, then the other, switching them on. I watch her fine hands, her long neck, the sweep of her hair against her cheek.
The liar.
Then she leaves, slim hips shifting as she walks out the door.
Nothing. The parlor is empty. The kitchen is empty. Upstairs, Ethan’s chair sits vacant, the computer screen a black box.
The phone rings.
My head swivels, almost back to front, like an owl, and the camera drops to my lap.
The sound is behind me, but my phone is by my hand.
It’s the landline.
Not the kitchen landline, rotting downstairs in its dock, but the one in Ed’s library. I’d forgotten it entirely.
It rings again, distant, insistent.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe.
Who’s calling me? No one’s called the house phone in . . . I can’t remember. Who would even have this number? I can barely remember it myself.
Another ring.
And another.
I shrivel against the glass, wilt there in the cold. I imagine the rooms of my house, one by one, throbbing with that noise.
Another ring.
I look across the park.
She’s there, in the parlor window, a phone at her ear.
Looking right at me, hard.
I scuttle from my seat, grip the camera in one hand, retreat to my desk. She holds her gaze, her mouth a terse line.
How did she get this number?
But then how did I get hers? Directory assistance. I think of her dialing, speaking my name, asking to be connected. To me. Invading my house, my head.
The liar.
I watch her. I glare.
She glares back.
One more ring.
And then another sound—Ed’s voice.
“You’ve reached Anna and Ed,” he says, low and rough, like a movie-trailer announcer. I remember him recording the message; “You sound like Vin Diesel,” I told him, and he laughed, and pitched his voice lower still.
“We’re away right now, but leave us a message and we’ll get right back to you.” And I remember how as soon as he’d finished, as soon as he’d pressed the Stop button, he’d added, in a god-awful Cockney accent, “When we bloody feel like it.”
For an instant, I close my eyes, picture him calling to me.
But it’s her voice that fills the air, fills the house.
“I think you know who I am.” A pause. I open my eyes, find her looking at me, watch her mouth shape the words boring into my ears. The effect is uncanny. “Stop photographing our house or I’ll call the police.”
She removes the phone from her ear, slips it into her pocket. Stares at me. I stare back.
All is silent.
Then I leave the room.
49
GIRLPOOL has challenged you!
It’s my chess program. I give the screen the finger and press the phone to my ear. Dr. Fielding’s voicemail greeting, brittle as a dead leaf, invites me to leave a message. I do so, enunciating carefully.
I’m in Ed’s library, laptop warming my thighs, midday sun puddled on the carpet. A glass of merlot stands on the table beside me. A glass and a bottle.
I don’t want to drink. I want to stay clear; I
want to think. I want to analyze. Already the past thirty-six hours are receding, evaporating, like a bank of fog. Already I can feel the house squaring its shoulders, shrugging the outside world away.
I need a drink.
Girlpool. What a stupid name. Girlpool. Whirlpool. Tierney. Bacall. It’s in your bloodstream now.
It certainly is. I tip the glass to my lips, feel the flood of wine rushing down my throat, the fizz in my veins.
Hold your breath, cross your fingers.
Let me in!
You’ll be all right.
You’ll be all right. I snort.
My mind is a swamp, deep and brackish, the true and the false mingling and mixing. What are those trees that grow in heavily sedimented swampland? The ones with their roots exposed? Man . . . mandrake? Man-something, definitely.
David.
The glass wobbles in my hand.
In the rush, in the rumble, I’ve forgotten about David.
Who worked at the Russells’. Who could have—must have—met Jane.
I set the glass on the table, bring myself to my feet. Sway into the hall. Down the stairs, emerging into the kitchen. I lob a glance at the Russell house—no one on display, no one watching me—then knock on the basement door, gently at first, again with force. I call his name.
No response. I wonder if he’s asleep. But it’s midafternoon.
An idea flares in my brain.
It’s wrong, I know, but this is my house. And it’s urgent. It’s very urgent.
I move to the desk in the living room, slide open the drawer, and find it there, dull silver and jagged with teeth: the key.
I return to the basement door. Knock once more—nothing—then push the key into the lock. Twist it.
Pull the door open.
It whines. I wince.
But all is quiet as I peer down the stairs. I descend into darkness, softly in my slipper feet, grazing one hand along the rough plaster of the wall.
I reach the floor. The blackouts are drawn; it’s night down here. My fingers brush the switch on the wall, flip it. The room bursts into light.
It’s been two months since I last visited, two months since David arrived for a tour. He scanned it all with his licorice-dark eyes—the living area, with Ed’s drafting table front and center; the narrow sleeping alcove; the chrome-and-walnut kitchenette; the bathroom—and nodded once.
He hasn’t done much with the place. He’s scarcely done anything with the place. Ed’s sofa is where it was; the drafting table has stayed put, although it’s now level. A plate rests on its surface, plastic fork and knife X-ed across it like a coat of arms. Toolboxes are stacked against the far wall, next to the outside door. On the topmost box I spot the borrowed box cutter, its little tongue of blade glittering beneath the overheads. Beside it a book, spine broken. Siddhartha.
A photograph in a slim black frame hangs on the wall opposite. Me and Olivia, age five, on our front steps, my arms wreathed around her. Grinning, both of us, Olivia with her summer teeth—“summer here, summer there,” Ed liked to say.
I’d forgotten about that picture. My heart twitches a little. I wonder why it’s still hanging.
I tread to the alcove. “David?” I ask quietly, even though I’m certain he’s not here.
The sheets are roiled at the foot of the mattress. Deep dents in the pillows, like they’ve been scissor-kicked. I catalogue the inventory of the bed: filigree of brittle ramen noodle coiling upon pillowcase; prophylactic, wilted and greasy, snagged upon the newel; aspirin bottle lodged between bedstead and wall; hieroglyphs of dried sweat, or semen, inscribed across top sheet; a slender laptop at the foot of the mattress. A belt of condom packets is looped around a floor lamp. An earring beams on the nightstand.
I peek into the bathroom. The sink is brindled with whiskers, the toilet yawning wide. Within the shower, a gaunt bottle of store-brand shampoo and a shard of soap.
I retreat, return to the main room. Run a hand along the drafting table.
Something nibbles at my brain.
I grasp at it, lose it.
I scan the room once more. No photo albums, although I suppose no one keeps photo albums anymore (Jane did, I remember); no CD wallet or DVD tower, but I guess those are extinct as well. Isn’t it amazing how according to the Internet, some people might as well not exist? Bina had asked. All David’s memories, all his music, everything that might unlock the man—it’s gone. Or, rather, it’s all around me, floating in the ether, but invisible, files and icons, ones and zeros. Nothing left on display in the real world, not a sign, not a clue. Isn’t it amazing?
I look again at the picture on the wall. I think of my cabinet in the living room, packed with DVD slipcases. I’m a relic. I’ve been left behind.
I turn to go.
And as I do, I hear a scratch behind me. It’s the outside door.
And as I watch, it opens, and David stands before me, staring.
50
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I flinch. I’ve never heard him swear. I’ve barely ever heard him speak.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I back up, open my mouth.
“I was just—”
“What makes you think you can just come down here?”
I take another step back, stumble. “I’m so sorry—”
He’s advancing, the door behind him wide open. My vision rolls.
“I’m so sorry.” I breathe deep. “I was looking for something.”
“For what?”
Breathe again. “I was looking for you.”
He lifts his hands, drops them to his sides, the keys flailing in his fingers. “Here I am.” He shakes his head. “Why?”
“Because—”
“You could have called me.”
“I didn’t think—”
“No, you thought you’d just come down here.”
I start to nod, then stop. This is almost the longest conversation we’ve ever had.
“Could you close the door?” I ask.
He stares, turns, pushes it. It shuts with a crack.
When he looks back at me, his features have softened. But his voice is still hard: “What is it you need?”
I feel dizzy. “Can I sit?”
He doesn’t move.
I drift to the sofa, sink into it. He stands statue-still for a moment, the keys jumbled in one palm; then he jams them in his pocket, tugs off his jacket, tosses it into the bedroom. I hear it land on the bed, slither onto the floor.
“This isn’t cool.”
I shake my head. “No, I know.”
“You wouldn’t like it if I went into your space. Uninvited.”
“No. I know.”
“You’d be fuck— You’d be pissed off.”
“Yes.”
“What if I’d been here with someone?”
“I knocked.”
“Is that supposed to make it better?”
I say nothing.
He watches me for another moment, then walks to the kitchen, kicking his boots off. Opens the refrigerator door, grabs a Rolling Rock from the shelf. Chinks it against the edge of the counter, and off pops the cap. It hits the floor, rolls beneath the radiator.
When I was younger, that would have impressed me.
He presses the bottle to his mouth, sips, slowly walks back to me. Slanting his long body against the drafting table, he sips again.
“Well?” he says. “I’m here.”
I nod, gazing up at him. “Have you met the woman across the park?”
His brow creases. “Who?”
“Jane Russell. Across the park. Number—”
“No.”
Flat as a horizon.
“But you did work there.”
“Yeah.”
“So—”
“I worked for Mr. Russell. I never met his wife. I didn’t even know he had a wife.”
“He has a son.”
“Single guys can have kids.” He swig
s his beer. “Not that I thought about it that far. That was your question?”
I nod. I feel tiny. Study my hands.
“That’s what you came down here for?”
I nod again.
“Well, you’ve got your answer.”
I sit there.
“Why do you want to know, anyway?”
I look up at him. He’s not going to believe me.
“No reason,” I say. I push my fist against the armrest, try to stand.
He offers me his hand. I take it, his palm rough against my own, and he pulls me to my feet, smooth and swift. I watch the bands of muscle shift in his forearm.
“I’m really sorry for coming down here,” I tell him.
He nods.
“It won’t happen again.”
He nods.
I move toward the stairs. I feel his eyes on my back.
Three steps up, I remember something.
“Did you—didn’t you hear a scream the day you were working there?” I ask, turning, my shoulder pressed against the wall.
“You already asked me that. Remember? No scream? Springsteen.”
Did I? I feel as though I’m falling through my own mind.
51
As I enter the kitchen, the basement door clicking shut behind me, Dr. Fielding calls.
“I received your voicemail,” he tells me. “You sounded concerned.”
I part my lips. I’d been prepared to share the whole story, to decant myself, but there’s no point, is there? He’s the one who sounds concerned, always, about everything; he’s the one magicking my medication to the point where . . . well. “It was nothing,” I say.
He’s quiet. “Nothing?”
“No. I mean, I had a question about”—I gulp—“going generic.”
Still quiet.
I forge ahead: “I wondered if I could go generic on some of them. The drugs.”
“Medications,” he corrects me, automatically.
“Medications, I mean.”
“Well, yes.” He sounds unconvinced.
“That’d be great. Just because it’s getting expensive.”
“Has this been a problem?”
“No, no. But I don’t want it to become a problem.”
“I see.” He doesn’t.