First You Try Everything

by Jane McCafferty

  “No, I’m fine. Please. Stay as long as you want. I’ll rest.”

  He’d already wept in her arms and told her he was sorry and that they’d be together again. They’d find a way. They’d already found it! He’d already explained how their whole life had been returned to him. She’d not been able to say much at all. He kissed her good-bye at the door, on the mouth, and she felt this kiss try to turn into a promise of future kisses, but she couldn’t taste it. A new barrier, heavy as iron, was erecting itself in her heart. As soon as he left, she got online and wrote to Celia.

  I DECIDED NOT TO DO IT. IT’S TOO CRAZY. AND WHO KNOWS WHO THESE KIDNAPPERS ARE IN REAL LIFE. THEY COULD BE INSANE. THEY SAY NO GUNS, BUT WHY SHOULD I BELIEVE THAT? THE ONE GUY HAS BLUE EYES THAT SPIN. THEY MAY NEVER STOP SPINNING. I’M NOT ABOUT TO FALL FOR HIS CHARM! EASILY COULD BE SOME PSYCHO SOCIOPATH. THE WORLD BREEDS SOCIOPATHS.

  IF BEN WANTS TO COME BACK SOMEDAY, FINE. BUT I’M NOT GETTING INVOLVED IN ANYTHING CRAZY. I JUST WANT HIM TO BE HAPPY. I REALLY JUST WANT HIM TO HAVE A LONG, HAPPY LIFE. AND THAT’S IT.

  She sat and stared at the screen, then added,

  OTHERWISE, NOT A LOT GOING ON HERE. I MIGHT ORDER SOME PIZZA. AND I’M THINKING ABOUT A NEW CAREER—MAYBE SOMETHING IN THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY, SINCE SUPPOSEDLY THERE WILL BE TONS OF JOBS.

  Again she sat back and looked at these words. She had never seriously considered health care until the words came out of her fingers, onto the keys, then onto the screen. But now she thought, that’s exactly what I’ll do.

  She signed off with, YOU MIGHT SAY WHY HEALTH CARE, BUT IT JUST DAWNED ON ME, CELIA, THAT WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO IS QUIETLY HELP PEOPLE IN CONCRETE WAYS.

  The sound of the warehouse door, when it finally had opened, was still inside her, repeating itself, a reverberating screech shooting upward from her stomach, past her heart, into her head, then into the atmosphere like a comet, and she knew now how sound could leave a scar, because each time it repeated itself inside of her, she felt a little different. Some people heard sound as color, and maybe she was turning into one of those people, since the scar seemed to be red-orange, and getting brighter with each repetition.

  She walked a tightrope back and forth in Ben’s apartment tonight, Ruth staying close beside her, sweet Ruth, who looked at her with the same old eyes of compassion, but also somehow asking a question of Evvie that Evvie couldn’t answer. What is it, girl? What do you want me to say? I know I don’t deserve you, but I will someday. I will.

  The cops had yelled, “Police!” and shone an enormous, blinding flashlight into the darkness.

  The flashlight had wandered all over the warehouse, leaving no corner unchecked, bathing her finally with the cold miracle of light. She’d been huddled in the corner, alone. She’d fallen asleep. She’d not been raped.

  Then she’d heard Ben. “Evvie?”

  “You can come with me,” a cop said to Ben. They approached her, single file.

  And then Ben crouched down and held his hands out. She took them and stood on wobbly legs. He took her in his arms.

  She couldn’t think of that reunion now. She might never be able to tame it into memory, even if she lived to be a hundred.

  She’d had to go to the police station, and tell the story of the night.

  It was not difficult to lie—or to refrain from telling the whole truth—because the self who’d hired the men to show up in masks at Ben’s office was dead.

  In the room with the tiny window, she knew she was being watched as she told the story verbatim except for those details that would have implicated her, or the person she used to be. She told the story with restrained passion and tears and the bedraggled detective had patted her hand and said he knew it was hard, but she was doing a fine job.

  “Hi!” She froze on the tightrope in a patch of evening sunlight, one leg held out to the left, as if to keep herself from falling.

  “Hi.”

  “How was your visit?”

  “I don’t know. She’s freaked out, of course. And I haven’t told her what my plans are yet. I did tell her I was with you right now.”

  “OK?” She hadn’t meant it to be a question. Her heart slammed in her chest as she bent down to embrace Ruth. She lined her head next to Ruth’s head. Diligence Chung had taken care of Ruth while they’d been kidnapped. The dog smelled like the young woman’s soap, or perfume, or holiness.

  “I want to be careful. I’m sure if I go slow—”

  “The thing is, is, I’m on a tightrope. Ben.”

  Evvie was walking again, arms outstretched like wings. “Mr. Ben, my old friend. I’m on a very thin tightrope.”

  “Come here, you’re shaking. You can’t stay on a tightrope when you’re shaking like that. You’re just in shock.”

  “Because everything inside me is broken and it’s absolutely my fault.” She kept walking the rope. Ruth, beside her, gazed up anxiously. “You have no idea.”

  He walked over and stood behind her. “You don’t need to have survivor’s guilt. We survived. It’s the best thing we—”

  “I didn’t survive.”

  “Sure did. You’re right here, Ev. Come on.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders, and she stopped walking. “You survived and you’re the reason I survived,” he said. “I still can’t believe it.”

  “I can’t either.” She looked at the floor.

  “Take a deep breath, Ev.”

  But her breathing was shallow, more like a dog’s panting.

  “Is it going to snow?” she said, but it came out shrill. She knew she couldn’t do what she most wanted to do, which was turn her face into his chest and sob until she felt a kind of vanishing. Tears so plentiful and fierce they would be in lieu of confession. What good would confession do anyway? She could tell a priest and spare Ben the pain of knowing. She’d caused enough pain for one lifetime. It was time to start to live their lives again, and be happy.

  They stood there for a while, his hands massaging her shoulders. Tears, way back in her head, were trying to travel forward but came up against a dam.

  “I heard we’re getting a storm,” Ben said. His voice sounded like the old Ben. He had been returned to his old self, the one that wasn’t trying to run from her.

  “Kick me out,” she said.

  “Evvie, what are you talking about?”

  “I want to sleep on the streets. I want to be out there alone. I always have.”

  He placed his hands on her upper arms and pressed hard. “You’re in deep shock.”

  “No, that’s wearing off.” Her voice was low and steady. “Unfortunately.”

  “Well, I’m in deep shock. And I’d like to stay here for a while.”

  “You should. You should stay here as long as you like. But you should kick me out because I don’t deserve to be in your presence.”

  “Is this what they did to you? Made you more of a masochist than you ever were before? Is this what you’re going to let those motherfuckers do? You don’t think that—”

  “I met them on a bus. Way back in early spring. You hadn’t been gone long. They showed me this pamphlet.”

  “Met who? Evvie, go lie down. You’re delusional. I’m tired. We need—”

  “This pamphlet about how to get your lover to come back, really.”

  She spoke in a stage whisper, but the words scalded her mouth and lips as they entered the air. It was like she’d jump
ed off a bridge and the fall was taking a long, long time. Ben took her by the hand and led her into the bedroom. “You don’t need to make up a story. We’re both in a crazy state right now. All we need is a good sleep,” he said, and sat her on the edge of the bed, and knelt down to take her shoes off, one at a time. He set them by the door. Then was back to take off her socks. “Just get under the covers and go to sleep. I’ll be in soon.” He put his hand on her forehead, then through her hair. Then turned her onto her stomach and rubbed her back. “I hate that you had to go through that. All those hours not knowing whether you would live or die.”

  Evvie again felt the presence of tears, far back in her head. She held her eyes wide open in the dark room. He felt her pulse. He rubbed her back, but she couldn’t feel anything.

  “You should go spend the night with Lauren.”

  “That wouldn’t be right.”

  “You could figure stuff out. You don’t know how things will—”

  “I have to find the words to apologize to her. That will take a while. I have to wait and figure it out. I don’t have any—”

  “I wish you’d go. You can’t just—”

  “Shhh. Evvie, your voice is really strange. Just try to take some deep breaths. I’m really worried about you.”

  He stood up after a while, and left the room, leaving the door partway open, so that Evvie could lie there taking in the hallway, the light, and occasionally glimpse Ben, who kept coming to the door to check on her, wringing his hands, as if she were his own fevered child.

  Ben and Evvie

  Later Ben lay down in the dark to join Evvie for a long sleep. Evvie was on her back, eyes closed, breathing shallowly, and when he said, “Ev?” a smile came to her lips. “You OK?” he said, and she didn’t say anything. When Lauren called his cell phone, before he even got his hello out, she said, “Who’s Val?”

  “Who’s Val?” he said. “I told you last week. I don’t know a Val.”

  “You have to remember. Your old friend Val. She has a thick midwestern accent?”

  “I never knew a Val.”

  “Think. You had to. She called you. I have a feeling—”

  “I’m thinking. Hold on.”

  He covered the phone and said to Evvie, “Did we know a Val?”

  Evvie didn’t respond.

  “Why are you so determined to know?” he said to Lauren, sitting up.

  “She was going to come visit you. She wanted to know your work schedule. She wanted to know exactly when you’d be at your office.”

  “Val. Val.”

  “Val,” Lauren said. “That’s all she said. And she said it in this really, really strong midwestern accent. Like that woman in the movie Fargo.”

  “Val,” he said, and got out of bed, and something inside of him began to stomp out a rising knowledge that for some reason Evvie had called Lauren and said she was Val. Evvie who’d always loved lapsing into that Fargo accent.

  “Look, I’ll think about it and call you when I remember.”

  He put the cell phone down and sat on the edge of the bed in the darkness.

  “So why’d you say you were Val?” he said. He didn’t want this conversation. It was bad timing. They needed to recover before anything like this. But Lauren’s voice had been penetrating. The voice of a detective.

  He spoke more clearly. “Why’d you say you were Val?”

  “Because I needed to do my homework.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I needed to find out when you would be in the office. When you would be working.”

  “Because?”

  Evvie was out of bed now, pulling on her jeans.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting ready,” she said.

  “Evvie?”

  “I had to find out when you’d be in the office because I’d hired those guys, those kidnappers. I thought they were safe. They swore they’d never use guns. They said it was like some kind of performance theater. They were just a couple of guys who couldn’t get jobs because they’d been to prison and nobody would hire ex-cons. So I thought I could give them some business and just see what happened because they seemed really safe and honest and just interested in thee-ate-her and stuff.”

  “You’re dead serious, aren’t you? You thought you’d give the ex-cons some business.”

  “I’m dead serious, Ben.” Evvie stood over in the corner. She had her arms crossed. “I just need to find my coat and then I’ll exit.”

  “You’ll exit?” He turned and punched the wall. “You’re not going anywhere!”

  He walked over to her and stood a few feet away from her. He took one step forward. He thought he would shake her. He thought he would slap her. He thought he would knock her head against a wall. But he didn’t want to touch her.

  “What the fuck are you saying, Evvie?”

  She didn’t say a word.

  “You’re serious, you’re telling me the serious goddamn truth, and I can’t believe it! I know it’s true but I can’t believe it! I can’t believe anyone would be so fucking stupid.”

  “I can’t either, Ben. I can’t believe it, either!”

  “Why, Evvie?”

  “Why is a great question, Ben. I can’t answer it. I—”

  He walked out into the living room. He sat on the end of the couch, his head down in his hands, and began counting. If he sat there and counted and counted, maybe this all would be revealed as a dream, maybe the numbers would line up like ladder rungs and he could follow them out of this apartment, climb out of this conversation, and into another world of peace and quiet sanity. This could not really be happening. This was an Evvie nightmare. He’d had them before. He’d once had a dream where Evvie was crawling down a highway on hands and knees, traffic driving around her and people shouting out the window, and she’d just kept on crawling. This was like that nightmare, only worse, and so much longer. But it was quite possible that soon there would be an awakening, soon he would be in his bed sitting up and saying to himself, That was the strangest dream of my life. Only it wasn’t.

  It wasn’t a dream, that was just a foolish hope and the hope was leaving him and Evvie was actually saying, as she slipped into her coat, “I’m sorry and I’ll be sorry forever and I’ll find a way to make it up to you and I don’t blame you if you want to kill me but I’m already dead and on my way so see ya.”

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Back home. To my room? Tessie’s?”

  “Is that right? That’s what you think?”

  “That’s where I live.”

  “No, you live in a nightmare of your own making, Evvie.”

  “You could say that.”

  “You don’t understand, do you? You don’t understand—”

  “Obviously a person who is capable of hiring madmen to kidnap her husband understands very little. So—”

  “I mean you don’t understand that you can’t just go home. You just can’t stroll out of here and go home, Evvie!”

  “You want me to stay?”

  “I have to call the cops!”

  “No, you don’t! I’ll go to jail, Ben! I can’t go to jail!”

  “Why can’t you? You’re a criminal!”

  “Stop it!”

  “Stop it?”

  “I just went crazy, Ben! I told you, they lied to me! They said they would never use a gun, they said it was like theater, and I never would have hired them otherwise! They were totally convincing! Nice guys! No words could explain how convincing they were!”

  “The whole idea of it is criminal, Evvie. Can’t you see that? I don’t even know who you are anymore. That you would think, ‘I’ll just pay these strangers to fucking kidnap my husband and me
.’ It’s not about how convincing anyone was! And how much did you pay them anyway? No, don’t tell me. Don’t tell me! You can tell everything to the cops. Because I don’t want to know a goddamn thing.”

  “You can’t call the cops, Ben. I’ll do anything. Please.”

  “If I don’t call, then I’m a criminal too! Did you stop to think of that?”

  “You can put me away.”

  “Put you away.”

  “Take me to Western Psych. I’ll commit myself or you can commit me. All we have to do is say I’m a danger to myself or others. Which I obviously am. I’ll stay locked in there for months, Ben. Whatever you want. I’ll take medication, I’ll get therapy, I’ll never even come near you again.”

  “Just shut up.”

  Ben paced in the same space where Evvie had been walking earlier. For a long time, he moved in silence. Evvie leaned back against the wall by the door, and waited.

  He’d taken some time, but then they were in the car, headed to the hospital. Ruth sitting up straight in the backseat. “Do you mind if I get a few things first? From Tessie’s?” With nothing left to lose, she could ask this. She could ask anything. She could be the person with a million requests, the most annoying of all people. It didn’t matter.

  He nodded. He pulled in front of Tessie’s house and said he’d wait for her. “Don’t take more than a minute.”

  And when she got out of the car and walked up the path, he rolled the window down and called, “And don’t even think about trying to escape!”

  She stopped on the path and looked back at him. She hadn’t considered such a thing. But now she did. What if she just walked into Tessie’s house, climbed down the back fire escape, and started to run through the crowded backyards, hiding behind this trash can and that tree, under those steps, up on that porch. . . . What if she left as a fugitive for a whole different place where she could reinvent herself as someone strong and capable and solitary? This all flashed through her like a sneeze.

  She turned and headed toward the house. Tessie came to the door of her apartment, stuck her face out halfway, and asked Evvie where she’d been.

  “Oh, out and about.”