by Dan Noble
“What is it?” Irene was friendly, warm. She had an inviting way about her, as if she could metaphorically use wine to connect with people on any level, but not on purpose, not with guile. Even if Erika wasn’t playing toward it, I could see how someone might open up to Irene. In fact, I felt I wanted to—but I was getting confused; which bits of motivation were mine, and which were the character’s? In another flash, it came to me—I had to abandon myself completely. From this moment forward, in every interaction with another human being, I would be Erika. “Erin” would only be the figure at her computer, writing. Again, that fated feeling that I’d uncovered The Way Things Should Be flashed over me. I made a vow: I was now Erika.
Shaking her head, this Erika brought herself back to the moment; there was Irene’s question to answer. In another scenario, they could be close; Erika could see herself feeling proud of this girl, maternal toward her youthful confidence and openness. “Well, I can’t help but feel like there’s something he’s holding back.”
“Like what?”
Erika shrugged, shook her head. “Wait a minute.”
Irene inclined her head.
“You were at that bar. Do you go there often?”
The girl blinked twice, like Erika had slapped her. Shit! What if she’d seen Erika watching her from outside the bar? She thought she’d been careful, but how could she be sure? Now that she’d merged the roles, the tension was incredible. Everything—not just a storyline—was truly at stake.
“I guess so. I’m friends with that bartender.”
“So, can I ask you this without sounding suspicious?” Oh! Why had she used that word? The word suspicion would only plant suspicion. It occurred to her that Erin would have avoided that trap; already, she was becoming Erika.
“Sure. What is it?”
She fumbled, trying to put on a front for some reason. Oh, this was trouble—good for the book, bad for the reality. If you know what’s good for you, run, Erika, run. And yet, she stayed.
“Like I said, I feel there’s a secret he’s holding back from me . . .”
“Like what kind of secret?”
“Like a girlfriend, or a wife.” That was good, perfect actually, but Irene had gone white. Did Erika look too suspicious now to pull off lies? Erika needed to get out of here; surely that was panic in Irene’s face. But wait. Did that mean that perhaps there was a wife or girlfriend? Did she care if there were?
“So, have you seen him there with anyone else?”
“Um. Not that, um, I can recall. I think he’s a builder or something. Seen him there with some guys in yellow shirts—after the time when they’re not supposed to be wearing that.”
We both looked away, but then caught each other retreating to eye level simultaneously. “I guess that doesn’t sound too suspicious. Perhaps I’m being paranoid.” Or, perhaps Irene had more to do with Mick than she was letting on?
“Perhaps.” Irene swallowed. What was she hiding? Had Erika walked into some complicated situation she couldn’t begin to comprehend? Had she overestimated her monopoly on knowledge? Did anyone ever come into this shop? She needed a break from this stare-down and an excuse to get out of here without looking even guiltier by bolting.
“What about some wine?” Erika said. “That’s what I’m here for.” Surely the quick change was even more suspicious.
“Right.” Irene walked straight to the reds without showing her cards. “How about this bottle?” Now everything she said seemed to have subtext to Erika.
So was it truly bizarre that this was exactly the bottle Gav had brought home the other night, or was this further evidence that she was being paranoid? Irene’s look was a poor copy of the kind of look Gav had taken on since Livvie’s death. You don’t see what you think you see, and if you do, I’ll fucking kill you if you bring it up; and yet, somehow, I’m still a nice, likeable person. Hers got the likeable part down, but merely flirted with caginess; if you just asked twice, she’d tell you whatever you wanted, but wished it might be otherwise.
Maybe Erika was just being neurotic. Surely the staff were told to promote certain wines, and besides, it was a smallish store with a smallish selection, so this was probably her go-to suggestion. And though it was on Gav’s way home from work, and so the obvious place to stop, the coincidence sat funny with Erika. So funny that she took the recommended wine and left, quickly, fumbling, twice dropping her keys on the way to the car. The two of them were probably keeping the shop in business.
9
GAVAN
The first time, he told her to meet him on a Monday, at the dog beach, at Pallaranda. He’d never run into anyone there. The dog was Olivia’s, and Erin barely looked at it. Gav had to take over feeding him when he uncovered the dry-food bucket, one day when Erin was sleeping in, and saw it was empty. He noticed the dog looked like hell and probably hadn’t been walked or fed in a while. Another casualty.
It was a nice thing, taking the dog, walking at sunrise, and after dark when he got home. Bud was a good dog, a golden retriever, nothing fancy, and he slept outside Olivia’s door every night, and most days. He looked sorry when Gavan held the lead up for him, as if he didn’t want to be a bother, knew he reminded us all of The Firecracker.
On the desolate beach, they’d started out bullshitting about wines, but the conversation had quickly turned to more intimate territory without him realizing, like she’d charmed him with wine speak, and out came all these feelings he didn’t even know he had. Then there was an awkward silence after he caught himself about to mention something about Erin, during which all he could think was how young Irene was. She moved a hair closer to him, and he could feel her inviting warmth, and she laughed at herself and said, “I’m sorry; I do that to people. I don’t mean it, but it happens. They tell me things.”
“That’s a gift, you know.”
“Right. Well. While we’re telling, I should probably tell you that I Googled you.”
It was a loaded confession; it meant she knew everything, and his first instinct was to call the dog back from the swim he was enjoying, and excuse himself. But she voiced these exact thoughts, and this put him so far out of his comfort zone that he was dumbstruck. People were generally afraid to talk to him about anything, much less about his dead daughter and recluse wife.
Without realizing, they’d stopped walking, and he turned to her right there and kissed her. He hadn’t known he was going to do it. He couldn’t believe how natural it felt. Easy, nice. Comforting. And hot. Because it was the wrong thing to do. Everything else he did because it was the right thing to do. This was liberating in its complete disregard for his sensibilities. It was all for him. Fuck, it felt good. He grabbed her ass, and he felt her push into him. When she moaned, he wanted to rip her jeans off right there. But no. He could wait. Or not.
He yanked himself away. Her breath shuddered in his face, and he almost went back in. He looked at Bud, swimming, and then thought, eh, leave him. Let him enjoy the waves. He gave the whistle call to stay and took Irene’s hand, leading her back up to the heavy scrub. He knew about snakes and spiders, but that was part of it: if he died, so be it. He felt duty-bound to Erin, but he had started to feel like she would be better without him, that his presence was too painful. Hers certainly was. If some deadly thing went for Irene, well, he had a soldier’s instincts. She’d be fine.
She had protection, which was a good thing, because he wasn’t ever going to have a kid again. That was for certain. She was young, but wasn’t dazzled by the romance of it, which made him slightly self-conscious, as if she might be less interested than him. And so he worked harder to impress her, to turn her on. At the very end, he caught her looking closely at him and thought there must be something in that look. It was enough to bring him over the edge. When he collapsed onto her, she put her arms around him. He hadn’t expected it, but he knew from his reaction that there was no turning back now.
10
ERIN ERIKA
When you get past a certa
in distance from normalcy, there are things you find out about yourself that are horrific. Because of the way it propelled the story, even these fascinated Erika, in an incredibly satisfying way. It was all working—better than any story she’d told before. Made her wonder if the greats had been onto this method. More, deeper; she was so alive, she couldn’t believe she was the same person she’d been after the child had gone; of course she wasn’t.
The ironic thing was, she was living. It almost had nothing to do with Mick; she had been right about that—with the right caressing of the plot, she could have used anyone in that role. That was the trick, getting the characterization right (whatever it might be) so that the actions took on a propulsion that the readers almost couldn’t bear. That was what made them stay up all night. And she’d worked Mick out, hadn’t she? That was why it was all spinning so quickly out of control.
It was a Monday when she worked out Mick had been spying on her. First she saw his truck pull away from the museum parking lot—right next to her house—and then when she got home, there was a muddy boot print on the carpet. She stared at it, knowing it was not Gav’s. She’d know his boot print anywhere, but that was moot: he’d never leave a mess. He wasn’t that sort of person.
Her mind flashed to Mick’s truck, and immediately she made the connections. She hadn’t been making things happen—maybe at first there were a few coincidences, or even more: the power of her intention had set things in motion. She wouldn’t be the first to accomplish that. But, what she’d mistaken for her “power” was nothing more than Mick’s deceit. She felt defiled. She’d been doing something pure, something that had made her feel closer to Olivia, that had made her feel alive, and he’d been fucking with her all this time. There was no reason to kill him; there was no test of her “powers.”
Erika should have been relieved. She didn’t really want to kill anyone and had been catching herself testing her sanity with the way she handled everyday encounters, but what she was left with as her heart slowed down was disappointment. Was she a killer? Did she want to kill someone? Had it been about that all along? If so, what was her motivation? Was she so warped as to think this would bring about some justice in the world? One random death in exchange for another? She wanted to say no, that’s ridiculous, but in this moment of pondering, Erika looked up and caught sight of one of the memento mori photos she’d printed out: a little girl and her mother—both in their final sleep, in matching high-necked lace. She was nearly there, close to Olivia somehow. She could feel it. Serenity.
So it wouldn’t come about in the way she had originally thought, but that was okay. She was ready to risk everything. She had nothing left anyway. She realized that was what this had always been about—how far would she go to get out of this stage, to get somewhere new, start something new, whatever it was? It wasn’t as simple as wanting to laugh, as she’d originally thought. It was a clean break she was after. Leaving behind who she was for someone new.
At first she was suspicious of why he’d left the boot print. Surely, he had been very careful up to that point for her not to have realized he’d been breaking in and reading her manuscript. Why be messy now? Erika’s chest went cold; did he want her to know he’d been reading the pages?
She tried to work through the possibilities. Her computer was where she did her best thinking—pulling the strings together into something coherent. If he read the pages and knew her plan to kill him, then he was fighting back in some way here. But how? The thrill coursed through her blood. See? This was why pantsing was the best writing method. She never could have foreseen this complication if she’d planned out a plot from the outset. If he’s also creating the story, she thought, this is a deeper complication. It’s like performance art, or Shakespeare in the Park, where the lines between actor and audience are confused. He’s taking part. He’s deepening the story’s entrenchment in reality.
And the fact that she was Erika, rather than just writing about some character named Erika, gave it infinitely more oomph. This would be her swan song. It was almost unbelievably perfect. Even she didn’t know what would happen when she met him on the night in question. Would she get the chance to see if she had what it took to kill him, or was he going to beat her to the punch? Her hand was shaking from excitement. She got up and poured herself a glass of that expensive red. God, it was good.
Okay, wait. Another think about Mick’s snooping. Could he have had a benevolent motivation? Did he want her to write about it to help her in some way? Think. Reading the pages, he would know Erika’s thoughts, allow her to think she had the power. Could it be a kindness? A thoughtful indulgence to go along with her harebrained scheme, under the assumption it would come to nothing? How could a woman like her murder him?
Surely no one was so kind as to help someone plot their own murder out of compassion. Still, Erika couldn’t help but sense that Mick did have feelings for her, genuine feelings.
Then why leave a sloppy print now, after being so careful all this time? If Erika saw the print, became suspicious, wrote about it, and then he read her suspicions—what then? Nobody would know what was truth and what was intended as deceit. Everyone would be in the know, but no one would know anything for certain. It was a test of intuition, of guessing the outcome, seeing how good you were at working out mysteries.
The problem was, she didn’t know Mick the way she knew fictional Mick. She didn’t know his motivations, his desires, his agenda. And this meant she’d always be in the dark. All she could do was continue with her plan, try to get to know him better, so that she could predict his moves as best she could, and see where the chips fell.
She was not as devastated as one might think. In fiction writing, this happens all the time; you write along one avenue only to find that actually, that’s not the way things are headed. There is another way in which the story is going, all by its own propulsion. It’s exciting, addictive. And such doubling back is all part of the process. Especially when your characterization is incomplete. She’d have to make more plans before she tried anything, get to know him.
The other thing she had to do now was research. How to get away with murder? Normally, she would interview someone for authenticity and accuracy: a forensics expert, for example. But that wouldn’t work here; she’d give herself away. And she couldn’t check anything out of the library either, or it would be on her record. The bookshops in town were small; she’d never buy a forensics or crime book without being noticed. And she’d never written that sort of thing, so she didn’t own any volumes on crime. A road trip: she’d have to drive to the closest big city where she’d be anonymous, pay for gas and any purchases in cash, try not to stick out to anyone, and then come back.
Erika couldn’t sleep the night before her trip. She tossed all night, while Gavan slept intolerably soundly. But once she got out of bed in the morning, things had solidified in her mind. She was resolute. She was going to Brisbane, she was going to buy a book, and she was going to come home. It would be an overnight trip, but she would come up with an excuse.
Gavan came down as the coffee brewed, showered and fully dressed in fatigues. It had been a while since she’d really looked at him, and she got that sense again that there was something different about him.
“I’m staying overnight with Lottie at some holiday house she rented for the week. She said it’s about an hour’s drive from here.” He didn’t know Lottie, and for good reason. There was no Lottie. But they didn’t question each other, because too many questions led to too many questions, which only led to one little girl they didn’t want to think about.
“Right-o.”
Did he look relieved? She couldn’t blame him; Erika certainly exhaled greatly when he left in the mornings. He ate his toast standing outside over the waterfront, poor fucking man—see, already the thoughts sprinted there; this was why she never wanted to be around him. He compacted his cloth hat at the worn creases and slid it into his back pocket (she never could believe how soft those fatigues we
re, used to love to hug him in those, rub her face in the laundry-fresh softness), took a last draught of coffee, and kissed the air near her ear.
Even the drive to Brisbane was thrilling. The most boring stretch of road known to man, and Erika couldn’t stop her heart from racing. “Mummy, you’re being so silly!” Olena loved the opportunity to say that to her. How many times had she gotten it wrong—like when she was measuring out detergent for the laundry, or packing her lunch? But when she used it at the right occasion, well, you never saw a face light up so. “Did I get it right, Mummy? Did I?”
“You did, darling! Aren’t you clever?”
“I am; I am.” So serious, head nodding. A beautiful, shining girl. With a halo of light. How she could be so interested in everything she did—piling blocks in a bucket, mounding sand into a heap. Yes, Erika could watch her for hours. That is precisely how interested Erika felt in this present adventure. She wouldn’t get it wrong. Olena was with her. She’d “reached” her substantially enough to actually hear her words. That much was clear.
Erika sang along to the old songs played on the ABC, noted the funny bumper stickers, remarked on the Jesus freaks. She was eighteen again, only better, cleverer and more comfortable in her skin, and not alone. She was definitely not alone. When she filled up the tank, she was careful not to make remarkable small talk; she kept to the general pleasantries. You’re so silly, Mummy! She’d be one of dozens of middle-aged women in floral sundresses. She’d melt into the scenery. She wore no makeup. No expensive handbag. She could feel herself pixilate into obscurity.