Somebody I Used to Know

by David Bell

  “You’re right,” I said. “Lots of good memories.”

  * * *

  Then I walked from Blakemoor back to campus and behind Beech Hall. A small creek ran through campus over there, and in the 1920s, a group of alums had pooled their money and had the Beech Bridge constructed. Except no one ever called it the Beech Bridge. Everyone called it the Kissing Bridge. Campus lore said if two students kissed just as the clock tower in the quad chimed midnight, then they were destined to spend eternity together. I had no idea what the success rate of the Kissing Bridge might be. I suspected the university really didn’t want to know. It made the campus brochures and tours so much more appealing to simply tell prospective students they might find true love on a small wooden bridge over a trickle of a creek than to discuss love’s fleeting nature.

  As I told Dale, Marissa and I kissed there. We waited until our one-year anniversary, and then we went out there one night and managed to get the bridge all to ourselves. We waited, shivering in the autumn cold, until the bell tolled, and we started making out like we wanted to swallow each other’s face. We never talked in any real terms about getting married someday. A concept like that seemed too big, too far away. We clung to our plans for New Zealand, though, and in a way that made it feel like forever for me, with or without the silly Kissing Bridge. I couldn’t imagine forever feeling like anything else but being with her.

  I stood on the bridge and stared down into the water. The little creek grew deeper as it passed under me, and I watched the shifting layers of silt and the occasional appearance of a small, darting fish. Overhead, the trees were just starting to fill out with green, so enough light filtered through to keep me warm. Classes must have been changing, because a stream of students passed me in both directions, their footfalls rocking the tiny bridge ever so slightly. A few of them bumped against me, but most of them went on, talking and laughing, without making contact of any kind with me.

  I stood and stared a long time, long after the student traffic had slowed to nothing. I knew I had to get back to work, but I didn’t want to go. I felt tired, wrung-out. The rest of the day would be a slog. But being an adult meant slogging through when no other option presented itself.

  I was just about to return to real life when I thought I heard someone say my name.

  One word. My name.

  But who there would know my name?

  Then she said it again.

  And I knew who it was even before I turned around.

  She’d come back.

  She’d found me.

  Marissa.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  We were alone on the bridge again, just like that kiss twenty years earlier.

  We stood on opposite sides, separated by about eight feet of wooden planks.

  It was her. A little older, of course. A few streaks of gray in her red hair. A few more lines on the face. But it was Marissa. Alive. In the flesh.

  Marissa.

  But neither one of us made a move for the other. I felt paralyzed. Stunned. I feared that if I moved I would break the spell, end the dream, and she’d be gone.

  Again. Maybe forever.

  She finally shrugged. “It’s really me, Nick. It is.”

  “I know,” I said.

  To that point, I had been inadequate to the moment. And I knew the moment ticked away faster and faster.

  Was I going to let it speed by me like a runaway train? Like the previous twenty years?

  I moved toward her then. And she moved toward me too. And we were in each other’s arms, hugging, holding each other tight.

  “My God,” I said. “It’s real. It’s really and truly you.”

  We held each other a long time. I absorbed the sensations: the vanilla scent of her hair, the soft brush of my skin against hers, the tangle of her hair against my face. I didn’t want to let go.

  “I’m sorry about all this,” she said finally.

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  “Jade. She told me she’d talked to you.”

  “But here . . . the bridge?” I asked.

  “I didn’t want to just show up at your house,” she said. “I didn’t want to ambush you. Jade looked up where you worked, so I drove by there. It’s lunchtime. I looked around downtown and around campus. I found myself coming this way, and, of course, I remembered the bridge. To be honest, I drove by your office a few times this morning, hoping I’d see you. It sounds crazy, but I wanted to lay eyes on you again.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t care at all.”

  I released my grip on her a little. I held her at arm’s length and studied her face. It was the same. She was there. The same girl.

  “I’m worried about Jade,” I said. “I scared her. I wanted her to tell me where you were.” For a moment, I couldn’t speak, and then I asked, “Where have you been? What have you been doing? My God, Marissa, how did all of this happen? Is what Jade told me true?”

  “Whoa,” she said. She appeared guarded, nervous, looking around, averting her eyes from mine. “I’ll tell you. I promise.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “I do want you to know something right away,” she said, returning her eyes to mine.

  “What? Anything.”

  We still held hands, our arms extended.

  “I’ve looked you up over the years. People-finder programs on the Internet. Facebook. I knew you were here. I saw things happening in your life. I wanted so much to make contact, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Too much was at stake.”

  “I heard. And I’d want you to be safe.”

  “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to reach out to you. I wanted to tell you everything twenty years ago.” She closed her eyes as though she’d been stricken with a sharp pain. “If only I had. If only I had told everyone the truth about everything back then.”

  “You were young. You were under your father’s control.”

  Marissa was shaking her head. “I can’t use that as an excuse anymore. The expiration date on that one is up. Dad is dead. So’s Mom. It’s us now, we’re the adults, and maybe it’s time to clean all of this up.”

  “We can take our time figuring that out.”

  Marissa looked away. The breeze picked up, blowing a strand of hair across her face. A couple of students came walking by, and we stayed silent while they passed, her body pressing closer against mine, a surge of energy speeding through me, illuminating every cell. Filling me.

  When the students were gone, Marissa said, “I dreaded you ever knowing those things. About the accident. Honestly, a part of me didn’t want to see you because I didn’t want you to hear about all of that. I worried—”

  I placed my hand on her shoulder. “There’s nothing to worry about. It was an accident. You were helping Jade.”

  She didn’t look at me, but said, “Thanks.” And then she did it. She lifted her hand to her mouth, pinching her lips between her thumb and index finger. Just like Emily in the grocery store. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

  “I want to talk to you. Can we go somewhere?”

  “We should.” She nodded. “We’re out in the open here.”

  “Do you want to go to a coffee shop or something?”

  “No.” Her voice carried surprising force. “I want to go someplace private, someplace safe. I don’t even like being out here this way. Campus always felt safe to me, but it doesn’t now.” She turned to face me. “Can we go to your place? I don’t have much time.”

  “My car’s downtown,” I said.

  “Mine’s right here.”

  She took me by the hand, and we left the bridge.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  When we reached her car, a red hybrid, Marissa held the keys out to me.

  “I want to look around at the campus and the town,” she said. “Do you mind driving? I haven
’t been here in twenty years.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  When I took the keys, she held on to my hand for a moment. “I used to think I’d never drive again, after the accident. But I did. I had to.” She let go and we got in.

  Once we were moving, I asked, “Would you like to see anything in particular?”

  “Not really.”

  She stared out the window and seemed to have settled into a moody silence. I didn’t want to push her, but I said, “I went somewhere today, right before I saw you.”

  “The house?”

  “Yes. It’s weird. It’s like it never existed.”

  “I went by there too. It wasn’t easy to see. I was so close to those girls. They were my best friends.” She swallowed. “And I know someone else died in there as well.”

  “Charles Blevins is his name.”

  She turned to look at me, her face expectant and nervous.

  “Long story,” I said. “His family knows. We’ll see what they do with the information.”

  We fell back into silence, twenty years hanging between us. Not exactly my vision of our reunion, but what could I really expect? We drove through the center of campus and then out on the north side, heading toward my apartment. Marissa made a couple of comments about buildings that had been torn down or put up. She said, “The whole place seems bigger than it used to be. I thought it would seem smaller, more cozy.”

  “The town and the campus keep growing,” I said.

  “I guess so.”

  I looked at her, and she was looking out the window. I said, “I know you don’t want to be bombarded with questions, but there are so many.”

  “One at a time,” she said.

  “Fair enough. Did you call nine-one-one that night?” I asked.

  “No, it wasn’t me,” she said. “I remember the police tried to find the caller, but I have no idea who it was.” She swallowed hard again. “When I came home . . . that night, the police and fire engines were already there. It was obvious what was happening.”

  “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Maybe we’ll talk about it all more. I’m prepared for that. Why did you even ask about the nine-one-one call? Did you remember they tried to find out who made it?”

  “I didn’t remember that,” I said, “but I talked to one of the cops who investigated the fire. He said they never found out who made the call, so I thought maybe you had.”

  “Not me. Probably some other drunk kid stumbling home who came upon the scene and freaked out.”

  “Probably.”

  When we pulled up to my building, Marissa tensed up. She looked around the lot, one way and then the other. “Can we get inside quickly? I don’t like being exposed this way.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll get the door. And I have a dog, but he doesn’t bite.”

  “Just go, Nick. Please.”

  She sounded desperate, so I hustled to the door and pushed it open. I turned to summon Marissa, but she was already moving, brushing past me and inside the apartment like a Special Forces operative.

  Riley came out from the kitchen. I could have sworn his eyebrows went up when he saw Marissa. After living with me during a couple of years of near celibacy, he was seeing the fourth different woman cross my threshold in the past few weeks.

  Marissa asked me to lock the door, and I did, going so far as to put the chain on. I wanted to do anything I could to reassure her, even though the only break-in I’d ever had was perpetrated by her sister.

  But then I remembered Andrew and the attempt to get him into the car.

  I understood her fear. Very well.

  “Jade said you live alone.”

  “I do. Me and Riley.”

  I saw the apartment through her eyes, and it seemed small and bland.

  “But you have a son?”

  “A stepson. Did I mention that to Jade?”

  Marissa sat down on the couch, in the same spot where her sister had sat. “No, I spied on you on Facebook. I saw some pictures of you with a boy, a really cute little boy.”

  “I’m divorced. And he’s Gina’s, my ex-wife’s, son. But I got pretty close to him when we were married. I’ve been trying to see him more lately.”

  Marissa smiled up at me. I was still standing. I didn’t want to sit. Too much energy, and I didn’t know where to direct it.

  “I can tell you’re crazy about him,” she said. “I can see the way your eyes light up when you talk about him. And you used to say in college you couldn’t imagine yourself being a dad. Remember?”

  “I certainly couldn’t imagine it back then. I guess I still can’t now. Being a kind of dad just fell into my lap when I met Gina. Maybe it was easier that way. I had less of a choice.” I needed to ask the next question. I couldn’t follow Marissa’s life on Facebook, so I had to ask her out loud. “And you? Kids? Married?”

  “It’s easy to forget how little we know about each other.”

  “Not for me, I guess. I know how little we know about each other. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

  She reached up and pushed a loose strand of hair back off her face. “I struck out in the marriage department like you. I got divorced three years ago. Two kids, though. Two daughters. They’re twelve and fourteen. It’s about to really become an adventure. I’d show you pictures . . . but it seems silly to be thinking about that. I’m sure you have some bigger things you want to talk about.”

  “I’d love to see the pictures,” I said. “But I agree, we have bigger things to talk about. Except I’d like to know where you live. Are you so close to Eastland that you could just show up today? Have you been right here the whole time?”

  “Wisconsin,” she said. “I live with my kids in Wisconsin.”

  “Wisconsin. I’ve never even been there.”

  “It’s cold in the winter. But I’ve liked living there. It’s been good . . . until lately.”

  I looked at the clock. “I need to call work.”

  “Am I keeping you? Do you need to go back?”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “It’s been twenty years. They can fire me if they want.”

  I stepped out of the room to call. I told Olivia something had come up and I needed to take the rest of the day off. She acted unconcerned, but then asked me if I would be in the next day since my caseload was getting backed up.

  I answered her honestly. “Tomorrow? I have no idea what tomorrow holds.”

  “Well, that’s mysterious,” Olivia said.

  “It is a mystery. I agree.”

  When I walked back to the living room I found Marissa looking over the things in my apartment. Books I’d both read and never read. A few pictures of Andrew. Old magazines.

  “It’s not as clean as it should be,” I said.

  “I don’t mind. It’s not like you were ever a neat freak.”

  “I’ve gotten a little better since I was twenty.”

  I asked myself a question then: What happens when the thing I’ve always wanted finally happens? Does that moment automatically erase all of my fears and anxieties? Should I have felt a sudden lightness, as though a heavy burden had been removed from my shoulders?

  I couldn’t answer my own question. I felt as though I was still walking in a dream, which had been the only way I could approach Marissa for the previous twenty years. If anything, I felt further away from her than I had before, when I thought she was dead. During that time, she had no history. Those twenty years simply didn’t exist for her. But facing her in reality, I had to reckon with someone who had lived and loved and lost, someone who had been buffeted by things I could only imagine. Things I realized I might always have to imagine.

  “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now,” I said.

  “I don’t think there’s a playbook
for meeting your first love after twenty years of thinking she was dead.”

  “First love,” I said, echoing what she said.

  She studied me. “First and truest,” she said.

  I was shaking then, inside and out. “Yes, Marissa. The truest for sure.”

  She came over and took me by the hand, and then she guided me to the couch where we sat down next to each other. Our knees touched, and the familiar but long forgotten surge of electricity that had always passed between us returned. It raced up my leg with a jolting quickness, hitting me in the center of my body and speeding on to my brain. I remembered the sensation well. It was ingrained like a primal instinct, and it felt so good to experience it again.

  “I have to be honest with you,” she said. “I can’t stay. My children are with my ex-husband right now, visiting their grandparents. It’s spring break for the schools up there. But I have to get back to them. I’m scared thinking about them being there without me.”

  “What are you afraid of? These people, the Maberrys?”

  “Partially. They killed Emily. I know it.”

  “How did they know who she was?” I asked. “Jade didn’t raise her. She looked like you more than Jade. But they couldn’t just go on that. How did they know?”

  I saw disappointment on Marissa’s face. Either she didn’t want to be asked these questions or she simply didn’t want to answer them. But I didn’t see how we could move forward in any way without covering that ground. Whether she wanted to talk about it all or not, I had been swept up in everything.

  She backed away from me just a few inches, breaking off the contact between our knees. She said, “I can’t say anything for certain. I only have guesses.” She looked over at me, and I nodded for her to go on. “Jade and Emily connected when Emily turned eighteen. That was the earliest age they could reach out to each other, and Jade initiated the contact. She found Emily through the adoption agency. And they started getting to know each other. They only had eighteen years to get caught up on. But they hit it off pretty well. Sometimes adoption reunions don’t go very well. I’ve known people who’ve been through it. But Jade and Emily did very well. They connected. They liked each other. Emily loved her parents, but she was curious about her birth mother. It seems natural to wonder about something that big. And it worked. It really worked.”