“Thanks. Summer was the great designer. She worked over there in the corner.”
“Did she?”
“Yep,” I said.
Montgomery strolled along my personal art festival. Yes, I had actually considered paying the vendor fee to sell off Summer’s works at local street fairs. He stooped down to look closer at her small paintings of our old life and house, abstracts of what she alone saw, and portraits of imaginary people. I continued to talk.
“She was a night owl. By the time she hit her stride I was out for the count. But we got along well. She was fancier than me. I got by with simple things, a little luxury when I brought in enough business. Other than that, we fit pretty well. The standard bitchiness here and there, but normal. Women’s hormones. The moon.”
“Did she have any commissions, people who paid her a lot up front? Invoices . . . ?”
“If she did have new ones, she didn’t tell me. When she first got here, she sold some things to new bistros popping up, an upscale hotel, a few hair salons. She was excited. I think she got undisciplined, just the fun of the Big Apple, and slowed down a lot. Shall we sit?”
I guided him to the couch. I went to the wicker chaise we covered with pillows Summer embroidered with patterns and lines. I saw my feet were dusty and my toenails chipped, sharply. Had I bitten them?
“Sorry I’m not dressed for company,” I said.
“It’s fine just to see you’re okay. I like to go to my clients’ houses sometimes.”
“Your clients?”
“It’s a more polite thing to say.”
“I see. I like politeness, but I wish people would get more real with me.”
“I’m all real. I tried to call first.”
“I thought I heard call waiting earlier. I had an angry client on the line.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that. On a better note, your neighbor’s a nice young lady.”
“Asha’s a good friend,” I said.
His brow wrinkled. “I asked her about your sister, what she thought about her disappearance. She clammed up, said she didn’t know much about your sister.”
“Apparently none of us knew much about my sister,” I told him.
“Hard to believe Asha wouldn’t know much about a neighbor she had for so long a time, or be part of searching for her.”
“Everybody’s lost steam on this. And, Asha probably only let you in because you’re in a suit. Not that serial killers don’t wear suits. And tax collectors, and sheriffs serving evictions for that matter. I think she’s heard me mention you. It was only okay to let you in, not tell you our life stories. We look out for each other. She was there that night and I know she talked to police. She’s just as in the dark about Summer as we all are.”
“Did you get a chance to look through Summer’s things more? I’m curious.”
“A little at a time,” I said. “It’s hard for me to do. It’s one thing to think of someone and see them in your mind. Like, not outside of myself. I don’t want you to think I’m in here jumping at my own shadow or having hallucinations or anything.”
“No, you mean in your mind’s eye,” he assured me. “I got you. May I see some of her journals?”
I walked to choose a spiral notebook and bound journal, both with less pages filled, perhaps faster lanes to a destination. These were pretty ones Mama made nice jackets for: good cloth and fabric from her clothes she just started to shrink inside. Montgomery skimmed as I talked. I related to Summer’s handwriting like my own. Montgomery frowned through much of it.
“You’re welcome to take them if you think it will help,” I said.
“Sure,” he said. “I think it would help. Like looking around where she lived does.”
Other than her bedroom and its consoling atmosphere of her, I kept Summer’s life and things here preserved and intact, my newly disoriented messiness aside.
“It’s hard to let pieces of her leave out of here. They’re all I have. And the words people leave behind are themselves outside of your mind. It’s who they really are in their own minds. I think people deserve that respect.”
“And, you feel like you’re violating your sister if we look through her stuff for whatever you can find, to help figure out where she is?”
“It’s not the only violation I’m giving her, Detective Montgomery.”
Asha picked up on Chase still coming by. Fran caught him rush away a few mornings as she shoveled the snow or Swiffered the hallways. He told me later. It was civil. I’m sure they’d just thought he was checking in on Summer’s sister, not sleeping with her. Belinda was the only one who perhaps knew more, given her veiled warnings about noise. Had she heard me calling his name? Or just put two and two together? I needed to be upfront with someone about all the links in the chain, for Summer’s sake. I took the risk of turning my most fervent ally off.
“Detective Montgomery, I’m sleeping with Summer’s old boyfriend,” I said.
If a secret is in the open with just one other mind besides the one keeping it, then it is no longer a secret. It is a fact.
“I still don’t think she would up and leave everything and everyone without a word,” I continued. “But I’ve thought maybe she sensed he and I slept together once, when they were still kinda sort of a couple. The best-case scenario is she’s punishing us.”
“Wow,” Detective Montgomery said. “Was it the fellow who picked you up when we met?”
“Maybe I don’t remember. She kind of put him off when Mama was dying. I don’t know. I guess nerves. So, I went away with him on a trip abroad he invited her to, and well . . .”
“You sure he didn’t tell her about it? I mean, that could explain a runaway case. She’s an adult, and so it’s legal to run away.”
At this point I had to surrender to trust and hear him out. At least he had a reason beyond indifference and apathy to suspect she could estrange so abruptly.
“Chase never told her. He couldn’t. Neither could I. If she knew, she sensed it.”
Montgomery looked more off-kilter and uncomposed than he ever had, blindsided.
“Well, Autumn,” he said, “hey, you kids are grown. People come together in odd ways. And, they leave each other in even more odd ways.”
“Would you like some more water?” I asked.
“Sure.”
Okay. So now I seemed phony and maybe only guilt-tripped for a distraction from my own moral injustice. He would probably never see me again after this.
“I’ve always had attachment issues to men anyway,” I told him. “I had boyfriends in college, my twenties, sure. But nothing stuck. When Mama moved out here and she needed so much time and so much care, I stopped seeing men altogether. Chase was just a man I knew already. And he knew me, like a sister I was. He has no family here. He’s lonely, too. I trust him.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I’m no saint,” he admitted. “I just don’t think it’s wise to rely on him alone at a time like this, if he’s more engaged in being with you than finding her.”
“He was engaged,” I insisted. “So was my neighbor. And our landlords. They did not grow up with her, from just a baby, like I did. It’s easier for them to accept her absence. I can’t. I need Chase. This independence shit is getting old. It’s scary. Maybe I just want a man to be the big man. Like old times. I’ll stay home to have some kids, you know?”
“Most women want to settle down eventually,” Detective Montgomery said. “I have a daughter. She’s in school.”
“Oh, what’s she studying?” I asked.
“Prelaw. Wasn’t no way I was gonna let her get into law enforcement like she wanted to. I survived it myself, by miracle. I was a good street cop for over ten years. Like men in my family. Best job in town, we thought. And we all grayed earlier than the rest in my family for it. I went to night school at Medgar Evers, to move on.”
“You do a lot of good. So did my father. He was a fireman. Wasn’t many fires to put out in Hedgewood. He was
safer at work than play. Daughters like brave daddies.”
Detective Montgomery leaned back. Maybe he saw some of me in the women he loved, as he reminded me of men who had loved and protected me in my girlhood.
“I talk to her,” he continued. “I’m all for women working and having careers.”
“Women cops have one benefit,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“If a woman walks around with a gun and badge, she won’t get called ‘Hey baby’ or thrown in a killer’s van. I should’ve gone to the police academy just for that benefit.”
“True,” he laughed. “Yeah, I see ’em every single day. It’s like catcalling is their job. I feel sorry for you women nowadays. Disrespect is an epidemic.”
I had already told him my secret, my sin so pleasurable and good I did not feel guilty enough about it until I thought about telling it to someone. It felt just right to have that man in bed with me, sharing my heartache and softening my hesitance to sleep. I was tired of having to refrain from my joy. I decided to share more.
“Summer had some past bad experiences,” I began. “With men. She told me. Some of it seemed clear in her drawings, sketches, about it. I can show you, maybe later.”
“You don’t have to now,” he said. “Do so at your own pace. Or maybe with that group I told you about, if you’ve thought about going.”
“Look, all that AA stuff and confessional parading isn’t for me.”
“It’s only a suggestion. You deal with things how you want to.”
I repeated what had become my mantra: “I’m doing fine. No matter what’s wrong with our situation, Chase is here for me. He does a lot. He’s bringing me groceries later on today. It’s been a cold winter, Detective Montgomery, you know?”
Montgomery nodded. He flipped out printouts I forgot I folded into the journal.
“You must have put these here,” he said. “They seem important. And your stepfather was in the NAACP, I see. Good for you.”
He passed me the papers. I shuffled its chaos I knew well: Hedgewood Sentinel features on the big fish Cole Murphy, Mama’s life insurance disbursement paperwork, and several Daily News crime sections I ripped straight from the paper.
“Yeah, he had a high-class reputation,” I said, “unlike this Jaylyn Stewart.”
I needed to hold the detective as long as I could. He certainly had to leave, at some point. It must be discipline that turned off obsession with cases. When he did leave, I would face a drumroll of footsteps up our stairs, an angry mob come to avenge my earlier stalking. The same flyers I wanted people to use to find Summer could also be used to find me.
“What does law enforcement think of this boy beyond what they say to the press?” I asked. “How many more like him don’t we know about?”
“Police can never say everything they know to the press,” Montgomery confirmed. “If they do, the public gets facts guilty parties can plan lies and cover-ups about in advance.”
“He’s confessed to all of it,” I said. “He’s gonna get the book thrown at him. What difference will it make if he had any more, and he doesn’t confess to them?”
“Any more what?”
“Well, more women he may have killed.”
“Autumn, the good news is this guy is off the street and you don’t have to worry about him.”
“So, you don’t follow?” I peered at Montgomery. I certainly appreciated his concern and efforts. I knew it was genuine. But I could not let it blind his true accountabilities to me. “I’d be interested to know where he was the night Summer disappeared,” I said.
“Hmmm, so would I,” Montgomery agreed. “The most heartbreaking part of the job is when these tragedies happen to people, and you walk through a sea of faces every day with no clue who’s responsible for bringing this darkness into our lives.”
The metal bell clanged. This time I knew it was Asha, returning in hopes of a new customer.
“I know you have to go,” I told him. “I appreciate you coming by, and listening.”
Asha knocked.
“Okay, Asha!” I yelled. We both stood up, but he turned back.
“Got any plans for Easter?” he asked me.
A Hedgewood trip was probably due, but out of the question. It was too soon.
“No,” I admitted. “I need to catch up on work.”
“My wife’s cooking dinner, and you’re welcome,” he said. “We’re in the Graham Court. Should be ready for company in the early afternoon. And maybe I’ll have read these diaries by then and thought of something new. You have my cell.”
“Oh, thank you,” I smiled. “If I get enough done. What could it hurt?”
Outside the door, Asha campaigned with her shining eyes. She passed my oddly established gumshoe friend a flyer for Sugar Hill Holistic Care by Asha Goddess: NUTRITION, YOGA, REIKI, AND PSYCHIC FILTRATION. COLON CLEANSES COMING SOON . . .
Spring
TEN
At the apartment’s threshold lies the frontline of our inner-to-outer lives: flip-flops to dash out in a hurry, then kick off once back inside. Open-toed season arrived, yet I resisted slipping on Summer’s many fun-colored and neutral pairs. Their soles curved upward in precise facsimile to her feet. Upon closer look each of her toes made its mark still. Their arches sank in perfect proportion to her feet, slightly smaller than mine—as was her waist—ever since we filled out to grown women. Her heels had ground a small bowl in back of each shoe. They appeared desperate to be worn again, waiting by the door in fidelity, like loyal pets, shaped in time to their owner’s still-missing person.
By mid-April, I relocated the unsightly pile and dangerous obstruction of gray-speckled snow shoes from the entrance to underneath the bed I never slept in anymore. The flip-flops stayed put.
Noon news reminded when Good Friday came. Chase was gone to Connecticut for a coworker’s family tradition. I first remembered only he was not there, not why he wasn’t. I tidied up my inbox, sent a few nice responses to feign actual work, and enjoyed a weird movie vortex on Netflix. I was waiting for eight o’clock. Any nuns not at church or the terminally ill’s bedside would be eating and prepping for early bedtimes. The convent’s answering machine clicked on the one telephone in the whole house, in its living room. I had no message in mind.
Greetings and God bless you. No one is here at Saint Mary’s Home of Holy Work to take your call. Please leave us a message and—“Allo? Allo?”
“Hi,” I said. “I’d like to speak with Penny.”
“Who? Allo?”
“Penny!” I yelled.
“Penny, yes. I think she still at church now. For evening Mass.”
Of course. It was Good Friday, second only to Ash Wednesday in nights a Catholic chapel’s lights stayed on as long as they did at Baptist Bible studies.
“I no see her today. Leave a message?”
Penny is not Mama. She just isn’t. She only helped us care for her, at the end. You gotta be a big girl now.
“No,” I told the woman. “I’ll just call her back later.”
Where we were from, and wherever we went, Easter was and always would be everybody’s pageant. Wherever I stood on belief in God in any given year (it fluctuated), nothing canceled Easter. To folks like us, the tall tale of a beaten-down man rising from the dead and defying a monstrous tomb was more relevant than an angel’s birth. The preachers finally had the full house eluding them the rest of the year. Old faces were behind the front door. Graves found an audience. Right after Christmas, talk turned to Easter: dresses, speeches, hats, purses, scoring hams, baking cakes, and assembling baskets.
Mama’s girls weren’t going to carry store-bought straw. I still had a few of the baskets she had given me and Summer. She dazzled us with manipulated clay, yarn, wood, and even dried corn-husk baskets once. Back then their contents were boiled eggs, jelly beans, and homemade fudge. Now they held my office supplies, broken jewelry, pens, and junk drawer things.
I stared blankly at a flowerpot Mama
had hand-painted with little bunnies and ducks. I had stored computer cleaning stuff in it for years. I swiped it off my desk and stomped on the shattered, sharp result.
“How could you do this to me?” I screamed.
I had no incentive not to cry so loud and become so disheveled. I curled into a ball against the kitchen island.
Montgomery’s was not my only invitation. Penny had invited me to the West Side four-story brick convent, where she lived with the other nuns. They all worked: as church administrators, preschool teachers, or nurses like Penny. They wore tennis shoes, jeans, and trendy tops and skirts most times I saw them. I heard they held customary habit and dress for Mass. Summer and I once joined them for dinner, on a long wood table with manor candlesticks, large bowls set buffet-style, no meat and no talk of fashion or the latest man debacles. By sundown the dining room was again a neat place and the kitchen back to its spotless urban-rustic vibe. Penny used to stop by to hold hands with us, read verses from Psalms and Matthew, and pray before she left. I always insisted I was a believer, despite what contradicted it.
“You’re always baptized, for the rest of your life,” Penny reminded us.
Thank God.
EASTER SUNDAY SEEMED A DAY for a long walk. My goal was Central Park—about fifty blocks. I’d done it before, when New York was still new enough to give me tingles and wonder. Now it was an old friend. Intimacy speeds things up. I opened my door to a purple peace sign on a hazel-colored sheet and headed down.
“Hi, miss. You look pretty today.”
Belinda’s teenaged son leaned against the wall in our stairwell, just waking up. How grateful I was to grow up in the spacious heartland, with copious options for the grumpy privacy that finding myself demanded. His hair finally inched into fuller cornrows. He was transitioning from awkward to beautiful. I imagined the stability our quiet, uncrowded brownstone life provided could thwart his transition to a kind of man who leaked his future into a vat full of errors.
“You’re getting to be handsome yourself,” I said. “Tell your mother I said hello.”
Speaking of Summer Page 9