by Riley Sager
Framed in the doorway, teetering on three-inch heels, she surveyed their shared room and declared, “What a dump!”
Charlie got the reference—Maddy was impersonating Liz Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? impersonating Bette Davis in Beyond the Forest—and her whole body fizzed like a jostled bottle of champagne. She’d just met a kindred spirit.
“I think I adore you,” she blurted.
Maddy fanned herself. “As well you should.”
Her style was easy to adore. Maddy talked fast, using a clipped Yankee accent purposefully meant to invoke Katharine Hepburn. Rather than the clothes favored by every other girl on campus—stone-washed jeans, white Keds, GAP sweatshirts under denim jackets—she dressed like a fifties socialite. Pastel cocktail dresses. White gloves. Pillbox hats with delicate veils. She even owned a mink stole, bought secondhand at a yard sale, its fur shabby and matted in spots. At parties, she’d smoke using a cigarette holder, waving it around like Cruella de Vil. Affectations, all. Yet Maddy got away with them because she never took them seriously. There was always a twinkle in her eye that made it clear she knew how ridiculous she could be.
On the surface, they seemed like an odd pair. The glamour girl and her blandly pretty roommate giggling on their way to the dining hall. But Charlie knew they were more alike than it seemed. Maddy grew up in the Poconos, firmly lower middle class, her childhood home a beige ranch house on the outskirts of a small town.
She was extremely close to her grandmother, from whom she claimed to have inherited her wildly dramatic streak. Mee-Maw was what she called her, which Charlie always thought was weird, even though Nana Norma isn’t exactly normal. Maddy spent the first four years of her life being raised by her grandmother as her deadbeat dad roamed the northwest in an endless quest to avoid paying child support and her mother drifted in and out of various rehabs.
Even after her mom got clean, Maddy stayed close to her mee-maw, calling her every Sunday just to check in. Sometimes when she was staggeringly hungover. Other times as she got ready to go out. Charlie noticed because it always made her feel guilty that she rarely called Nana Norma just to check in. She only called when she needed something, and hearing Maddy ask her grandmother how she was doing usually caused Charlie to picture Nana Norma home alone on the couch, lit by the flicker of whatever black-and-white movie was on the TV.
Movies were another thing Maddy and Charlie had in common. They watched hundreds together, with Maddy commenting on the action the same way Nana Norma did.
“God, has there ever been a man more beautiful than Monty Clift?”
Or “I would kill for a body like Rita Hayworth’s.”
Or “Sure, Vincente Minnelli was gay, but you wouldn’t know it from the way he filmed Judy Garland.”
Like Charlie, Maddy thrived on escapism, living in a fantasy world of her making. It was up to others to decide if they wanted to join her there. Charlie went willingly.
“You can tell me what happened, if you want.” Josh gives her a sympathetic look, trying to put her at ease. “I’m not going to tell anyone. And, hell, it’s not like we’re going to be seeing each other after this. There’s no need for secrets in this car.”
Charlie’s tempted to tell him everything. The darkness, the close quarters, the warmth—all of it sustains her confessional mood. Then there’s the fact that she hasn’t really talked about it. She’s said some things, of course. To Robbie. To Nana Norma. To the psychiatrist she was forced to see. But never the whole story.
“You ever do a bad thing?” she says, easing herself into the topic, seeing if it feels right. “Something so bad you know you’ll never, ever forgive yourself?”
“Badness is in the eye of the beholder,” Josh says.
He turns away from the windshield long enough for Charlie to see the look on his face. He’s smiling again. That perfect movie-star grin. Only this time it doesn’t reach his eyes, which are devoid of any mirth. There’s nothing there but darkness.
Charlie knows it’s just a trick of the light. Or lack thereof. She assumes her eyes look equally as black and mysterious. But something about Josh’s dark eyes and bright smile rids her of the urge to confess. It no longer feels right. Not here. Not to this man she doesn’t know.
“What about you?” she says, trying to change the subject. “What’s your story?”
“What makes you think I have one?”
“You’re also leaving in the middle of the semester. Which means you’re also dropping out.”
“I’m not a student,” Josh says.
“I thought you were.”
He’d told her he was a student, hadn’t he? Or maybe she’d inferred that because of the Olyphant sweatshirt he’d been wearing when they met. The same one, Charlie reminds herself, he’s wearing right now.
Josh, apparently sensing her unease, clarifies. “I work at the university. Worked, I guess I should say. I quit today.”
Charlie continues to study him, realizing just how much older than her he really is. Ten years, at least. Maybe fifteen.
“Were you a professor or something?”
“A little less upscale,” Josh says. “I worked in the facilities department. Custodial work, mostly. Just one of those guys mopping the hallways, invisible to the rest of you. You might have seen me and not even realized it.”
Because he seems to expect it, Charlie searches her memory for sightings prior to yesterday, when they met at the ride board. She’s not surprised when she can’t summon one. In the past two months, she hasn’t ventured too far outside the dorm and dining hall.
“How long did you work there?”
“Four years.”
“Why’d you quit?”
“My dad’s not well,” Josh says. “Had a stroke a few days ago.”
“Oh,” Charlie says. “I’m so sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Shit happens.”
“He’ll be okay, though? Right?”
“I don’t know,” Josh says, his tone justifiably melancholy. “I hope so. We won’t know for a few weeks. There’s no one else to take care of him, which means it’s back to Toledo for me.”
Charlie’s whole body suddenly tenses.
“Akron,” she says. “You told me you were from Akron.”
“I did?”
“Yes. When we met at the ride board.”
Because it was a possible means of escape, she remembers everything about that moment. And she’s certain Josh specifically told her he was going to Akron. After he learned she needed to get to Youngstown.
She replays that first conversation in her head. Him sidling up beside her, checking her flyer, seeing her destination clearly typed across the page.
Could Josh have lied about where he was going? If so, why?
Charlie can only think of one reason—to get her to agree to get into a car with him.
The thought makes her nervous. Tiny drops of dread spread across her clenched shoulders. It feels like rain. The first few drops before the storm.
“Now I remember,” Josh says, shaking his head, as if he can’t believe his absentmindedness. “I see why you’re confused. I forgot that I told you I’m driving to Akron. That’s where my aunt lives. I’m picking her up and taking her with me to my dad’s place in Toledo.”
It’s a simple enough explanation. On the surface, there’s nothing sinister about it. But the dread doesn’t fully leave Charlie. A small bit remains, wedged like a blade between her ribs.
“I wasn’t trying to be misleading,” Josh says. “I swear. I’m sorry if that’s how it seems.”
He sounds sincere. He looks it, too. When the car passes under the tangerine glow of a streetlight, it illuminates his face, including his eyes. The darkness Charlie saw earlier is gone. In its place is a glint of warmth, of apology, of hurt for being so misunderstood. Seein
g it makes her feel guilty for being so suspicious. His dad just had a stroke, for God’s sake, and here she is doubting him.
“It’s fine,” Charlie says. “I was being—”
She struggles for the best description. Unnecessarily worried? Downright paranoid? Both?
She knows it’s not what Josh has said or the way he’s dressed or how he put things in the trunk that’s made her so jumpy. Her nervousness lies in the fact that because something awful happened to Maddy, Charlie thinks it could also happen to her.
Yet there’s more to it than that. The bedrock truth, as Nana Norma would say. A truth that’s beneath the surface, buried deep. A foundation upon which all the lies we tell ourselves is built.
And for Charlie, the bedrock truth is that she thinks she deserves to have something awful happen to her.
But it won’t. Not here, anyway. Not now. Not in a car with someone who seems to be a decent guy and is just trying to make conversation during what would otherwise be a boring drive.
Again, Josh seems to know every single thing she’s thinking, because he says, “I get it, you know. Why you’re so nervous.”
“I’m not nervous,” Charlie says.
“You are,” Josh says. “And it’s okay. Listen, I think I know who you are. I thought your name seemed familiar when we met at the ride board, but I didn’t realize why until just now.”
Charlie says nothing, hoping that will somehow make Josh stop talking, that he’ll just get the hint and drop it.
Instead, he shifts his gaze from her to the road, then back again, and says, “You’re that girl, right?”
Charlie sinks back in the passenger seat, the base of her skull against the headrest. A light pain pulses where they connect. The stirrings of a headache. Confession time is here whether she’s ready for it or not.
“I am,” she says. “I’m that girl. The one who let her roommate get murdered.”
INT. GRAND AM—NIGHT
Charlie hadn’t wanted to go out that night. That was her excuse for why she did what she did. Back when she had an excuse. Before she came to understand that her actions were inexcusable.
It was a Thursday night, she had an early film class the next morning, and she in no way, shape, or form wanted to head out to a bar at ten o’clock to see a second-rate Cure cover band. But Maddy insisted she go, even after Charlie had begged off several times.
“It won’t be any fun without you,” she said. “No one else but you gets how much I love them.”
“You are aware it’s not really the Cure, right?” Charlie told her. “It’s just some guys who’ve learned to play ‘Lovesong’ in their parents’ garage.”
“They’re really good. I swear. Please, Charlie, just come. Life’s too short to stay cooped up in here.”
“Fine,” Charlie said, sighing the word. “Even though I’m tired. And you know how irritable I get when I’m tired.”
Maddy playfully threw a pillow across the room at her. “You become an absolute monster.”
The band didn’t take the stage until almost eleven, coming out in Goth garb so over-the-top it bordered on the ridiculous. The front man, aiming for Robert Smith realness, had powdered his face with white pancake makeup. Charlie told Maddy it made him look like Edward Scissorhands.
“Rude,” Maddy said. “But true.”
Three songs into their set, Maddy started dancing with some wannabe Bon Jovi in torn jeans and a black T-shirt. Two songs after that, they were backed against the bar, swapping saliva. And Charlie, who was tired, hungry, and not nearly drunk enough to stay, had had enough.
“Hey, I’m leaving,” she said after tapping Maddy on the shoulder.
“What?” Maddy squeezed out from beneath the random guy kissing her and grabbed Charlie’s arm. “You can’t go!”
“I can,” Charlie said. “And I am.”
Maddy clung to her as she made her way out of the bar, pushing through a dance floor packed with frat boys in baseball caps and sorority girls in belly tees and preppies and stoners and flannel-wearing deadbeats with stringy bleached hair. Unlike Maddy, they didn’t care who was playing. They were just there to get plastered. And Charlie, well, she just wanted to curl up in bed with a movie.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Maddy said once they were outside the bar, huddled together in a back alley that stank of vomit and beer. “We were having fun.”
“You were having fun,” Charlie said. “I was just . . . there.”
Maddy reached into her handbag—a glittery rectangle of silver sequins she’d found at Goodwill—and fumbled for her cigarettes. “That’s all on you, darling.”
Charlie disagreed. By her estimation, this was the hundredth time Maddy had dragged her to a bar or a kegger or a theater department after party only to ditch her as soon as they arrived, leaving Charlie to stand around awkwardly asking her fellow introverts if they’d ever seen The Magnificent Ambersons.
“It wouldn’t be if you’d just let me stay home.”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“By ignoring me?”
“By forcing you out of your comfort zone,” Maddy said, giving up the search for a smoke and stuffing the handbag under her arm. “There’s more to life than movies, Charlie. If it weren’t for me or Robbie or the other girls in the dorm, you’d never talk to anyone, like, ever.”
“That’s not true,” Charlie said, even as she began to wonder if maybe it was. She couldn’t remember the last time she exchanged more than cursory small talk with someone outside of class or the insular world of their dorm. Realizing that Maddy was right only made her more angry. “I could talk to a ton of people, if I wanted to.”
“And that’s your problem,” Maddy said. “You don’t want to. Which is why I’m always the one trying to force you into it.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be forced.”
Maddy coughed out a sarcastic laugh. “That’s pretty fucking obvious.”
“Then quit trying,” Charlie said. “Friends are supposed to support each other, not change them.”
God knew she could have tried to change Maddy. The flightiness. The drama. The clothes that were more like costumes. Things so dated and preposterous that sometimes people rolled their eyes when she entered a room. But Charlie didn’t try to change those things. Because she loved them. She loved Maddy. And sometimes—like that night—she questioned if Maddy felt the same way.
“I’m not trying to change you,” Maddy said. “I just want you to live a little.”
“And I want to go the hell home.”
Charlie tried to walk away, but Maddy latched on to her arm again, pleading. “Please don’t go. You’re right. I brought you here, then ditched you, and I’m sorry. Let’s go back inside, have a drink, and dance our asses off. I won’t leave your side. I promise. Just stay.”
Maybe Charlie would have stayed if Maddy hadn’t said what came next. She was ready to forgive and forget as she always did. But then Maddy took a deep breath and said, “You know I don’t like walking home alone.”
Charlie flinched—truly flinched—when she heard it. Because it meant Maddy still made it all about her, like she always did. This wasn’t about her enjoying Charlie’s company or having fun together. She simply wanted someone to walk her drunk ass home when the party was over. It made Charlie think that maybe Robbie was right. Maybe Maddy didn’t think of her as a friend. Maybe she was only an audience member. One of many. One who was enough of a pushover to let Maddy get away with whatever bullshit she decided to pull on any given night.
Except that night.
Charlie refused to let that happen.
“I’m walking home now,” she said. “You can join me or not.”
Maddy pretended to consider it. She took a tentative step in Charlie’s direction, a hand raised ever so slightly, as if reaching out for her. But then someone lef
t the bar and music blasted out the open door into the alley. A rackety version of “Just Like Heaven.” Hearing it, Maddy turned her gaze to the bar, and Charlie knew she’d made her decision.
“You’re an awful friend,” she told Maddy. “I hope you know that.”
Charlie turned and marched away, not even pausing as Maddy called out, “Charlie, wait!”
“Fuck off,” Charlie said.
It ended up being the last thing she ever said to Maddy.
But that wasn’t the worst part of the night.
Far from it.
The worst came twenty steps later, when Charlie turned around, hoping to see that, despite the fight and the “Fuck off,” Maddy was right behind her, struggling to catch up. Instead, Charlie saw her still outside the bar, her cigarettes finally freed from her purse, standing with a man who’d seemingly come out of nowhere.
Charlie couldn’t see him clearly. His back was partly turned to her, and his head was lowered. The only part of his body visible to her was his left hand, which was cupped around the small flame of Maddy’s lighter. Everything else about him was shadow, from his shoes to his hat.
That hat—a basic fedora that all men used to wear until suddenly they didn’t—tipped Charlie off that something about the scene wasn’t right. It was 1991. No one wore a fedora anymore. Also, everything was too stark, too stylized. A single shaft of white light slanted between Maddy and the man in the fedora, splitting them into two distinct halves: Maddy glowing in the light, the man swathed in darkness.
It was, Charlie realized, a movie in her mind, brought about by her fight with Maddy.
Rather than watch the scene return to normal, which is what she should have done, Charlie turned around and kept walking.
She didn’t look back.