Body of a Girl

by Leah Stewart

  “Where did your friends go?”

  “My friends,” he repeats. “My friends. They’re around here somewhere.” He takes the beer from my hand and drinks. “You’re stoned, aren’t you?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Your eyes,” he says, gesturing with the beer. “All red and squinty.” He grins. The discovery seems to please him. “Are reporters supposed to be potheads?”

  “Are teenagers supposed to hang out in bars?” I take the bottle from his hand. “You should probably go home.”

  “You’re right,” he says, turning away from me. “I should find my friends.”

  “Peter,” I say, stepping toward him. He turns, and I touch his arm, lightly, with just my fingertips. “Please be careful.” I don’t know where that came from, the urgency in my voice.

  Peter raises his eyebrows in a question and then smiles. Then he lifts his hand and tousles my hair, as though he were the adult and I the scared and reckless kid.

  He disappears into the crowd, and I go back to the bar and climb onto a stool, turned out so that I can watch the room, thinking about that hand in my hair. That boy has a car crash feeling about him. I wonder if he learned it from his sister, how to live your life like a rock and roll song. Everyone but me has a reckless youth to look back on, even my brother, Rob, telling tales of redemption for his church youth group. I’ve never slept around or danced on tables. I’ve never jerked my car over the railroad tracks just in time to miss the train. There is nothing I can claim to have survived. I’m just growing older with my same cautious self, like settling into marriage without ever feeling that first wild flush of love.

  Next to me a big-breasted girl bounces up and down on her toes, trying to get the bartender’s attention. Her breasts jostle against my arm. “Hey,” she keeps saying, her voice pitched high. A man leans over and asks me for a light so I pull matches from my pocket and strike one. I love the way that flame appears, something from nothing.

  Peter comes weaving back toward me. It seems hours since he left me. I look at my watch. It’s been five minutes.

  “I can’t find my friends,” he says. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Hold on to me,” I say. “I’ll take you outside.” He takes my hand, and I lead him through the crowd to the side door. Faces, confused and laughing, bob before me and disappear. I’m looking for David, but I can’t see him. I tighten my grip on Peter’s hand. We go through a heavy metal door into the alley, and Peter drops to his knees at the side of the building. I crouch beside him. His head is swaying back and forth. “Fuck, fuck,” he mutters. “I’m going to die.”

  “You’ll be okay. What did you drink?”

  “Everything,” he says.

  “I know you feel awful,” I say. “Just try to be calm.” I put a hand on his back and rub it in small, slow circles. “You’ll be okay,” I say over and over, I don’t know how many times, until the voice saying those words doesn’t even seem to be mine. He vomits, more than once, and I try not to pay attention because it makes me nauseous. I’m focused on the circles my palm is making against his back, I’m watching the way the T-shirt wrinkles and smoothes as my hand goes round and round.

  After a while I notice he’s quiet. “Are you okay?” I ask. “Peter?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think I’m going to throw up anymore.”

  Pulling on his arm I manage to get him to a sitting position. He leans his head back against the wall. His throat is smooth, a perfect curve. I lift my hand and let my fingers brush it. He doesn’t seem to notice.

  “We need to find your friends,” I say. I take my hand away, embarrassed by the impulse that led me to touch him.

  “I can’t go back in there,” he says. “Please don’t make me go back in there.”

  “Stay here,” I say. “I’ll be back.” The metal door is locked from this side, so I go around the club and show my hand, smeared with a blurry stamp, to the skeptical bouncer. He looks from my hand to my face, my hand to my face, before finally stepping aside. Down the dark hall, and the music roars up and hits me in the chest again, the woman singer wailing while the bass drum plays a heavy thudding beat. I push my way between warm sweaty bodies, muttering “Excuse me.” A girl’s cigarette stings my arm, a fat man steps on my foot, a woman pushes back against me so that I almost fall. I keep pushing and pushing. All of the faces wear the same oblivious expression, shifted by degrees like pictures in a flipbook. I’m not even sure where I’ve been or where I’m going anymore, like I’m a child lost at the swimming pool without my glasses. Then hands are reaching out and grabbing me. It’s David. He lifts me off my feet and then lowers me down so I’m leaning against his chest.

  “Hey,” he says. “I was just about to come find you.”

  “I’ve got to go somewhere,” I say, breathing hard against his shirt. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To give someone a ride home.”

  “Someone you know?”

  “This girl Hannah knows,” I say. “Kathleen. She’s wasted, so I think I should get her home as quickly as possible.” The lie just slips out. I want to correct it, but there’s no way to explain why I lied in the first place.

  “That’s nice of you,” he says. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  I shake my head.

  “Are you okay to drive?”

  “Yes, David.”

  “All right,” he says. He pulls me to him and kisses me quickly. His lips are warm. “Be careful.” I go back through the crowd with my hand pressed to my mouth. When I push that metal door open I find myself gasping in the air outside.

  In the alley, Peter sits with his eyes closed, his legs sprawled out in front of him. I’m relieved that he opens his eyes when I say his name. I don’t know how I would’ve gotten him to the car if he’d passed out. It’s hard enough with him conscious. Somehow I get him standing and then I walk behind him with my hands on his waist, steering him toward the parking lot. My palms and his shirt are damp with sweat. “Where are we going?” he says.

  “I’m taking you home,” I say.

  He weaves abruptly to the right, almost falling, almost knocking me down. “Careful,” I say.

  “I can’t go home like this,” he says.

  “I don’t know what else to do with you,” I say.

  “Allison used to drive me around first. We used to go get coffee.” He stops walking, leaning back against me. “I should go get coffee.”

  I hesitate, bracing myself against his weight, and think of David waiting for me in the club. “Not this time,” I say.

  “Allison used to drive me around first,” he says again.

  “I’m not Allison,” I say sharply, pushing him to start walking again.

  “I know.” His voice catches, and I am ashamed. “You’ll be okay,” I say. “Here’s the car.” I prop him up against the car and open the door. He gets in, and I go around to the other side. He has his head back at an impossible angle, his eyes closed. “Put on your seat belt,” I say.

  “I can’t,” he says. I feel a flash of irritation, and then I look at him and see that tears are slipping out from underneath his lids. I sit for a moment and watch. He turns his head from me and lifts his hand to his face, trying to sniff quietly.

  I reach across him and pull the seat belt down past his chest, over his thighs, to snap into place with more force than was probably necessary, my hand brushing against his soft flat stomach, over his long thighs. The sensation lingers on my skin. I shake my hand to get rid of it. His house is less than ten minutes from here. Neither of us speaks on the way.

  When we pull into his driveway, he opens his eyes and looks around as though he’s never seen this house, this yard before.

  “You’re home,” I say.

  He turns toward me, his eyes wide, appealing. “Come in with me,” he says. “I don’t want to go in there alone.”

  “You know I can’t do
that,” I say. I hand him a piece of gum. “Just go in, take some aspirin, and go straight to bed.”

  He opens the car door. “Listen,” he says. He’s not looking at me. “I’m sorry I was such a prick before.”

  “It’s okay.”

  He takes a shaky breath. “Can I call you again? At home?”

  “What for?” I say. I think of Carl, flipping his lighter, the way I smiled when I told him he could call me. It seems like days ago. I’m so tired, I could curl up and go to sleep right here, where Peter’s parents would find me when they came out for their paper in the morning.

  “I’m not hitting on you,” he says. “Jesus. I guess you think I’m stupid. I probably wouldn’t ask you if I weren’t drunk. It’s just, I miss . . . I feel like I can talk to you.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugs. “You saw me cry.”

  “How do you know I won’t put it in the paper?”

  “Why would you say that?” He looks hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. I take the gum wrapper and write my home number on it. When I hold it out to him, he takes it, and then touches my fingers. I’m looking down at his bent head, the brown curls, the curve of his slender neck. He turns my hand over in his like a palm reader and runs his fingertips over the lines in my skin. Then he raises his head, searching my face. I don’t know what he sees there, but something makes him smile. He leans forward. Without thinking I close my eyes, as though I were back in high school and this were the end of a date, sitting in the car outside his parents’ house. He kisses me, his lips slightly parted, tugging gently at mine. Then I remember where I am and who I’m with, and I open my eyes and pull away.

  With a confident touch he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, lets his hand run down the side of my neck to my shoulder. Like a well-stroked cat, I want to lean into that hand. Instead I frown at him. I can feel the color rising in my cheeks. “You should go in,” I say, trying to make my voice sound firm and adult.

  He nods, his expression serious. “Thanks,” he says. He squeezes my shoulder gently before letting go. As he gets out of the car he says, “I’ll call you,” and then he stands in the driveway, his hand lifted, as I back out onto the street. I can see him in my rearview mirror, still watching me, until I turn the corner and he is gone.

  When I pull into the club’s parking lot, I can see David waiting, his tall figure spotlit beneath the streetlight, his face creased with worry. When he sees me, his mouth relaxes into a smile. He lifts a hand in greeting and starts toward the car.

  As we drive back to Mud Island, David says, “I’ve been thinking about that dead girl. Allison, right?”

  “What about her?”

  “The tape she sent me,” he says. “Do you think her family would be interested in us putting it out? We could even give a portion of the profits to some charity, victims’ rights or something. What do you think? Should I talk to them?”

  I don’t say anything for a moment, asking myself why I want to tell him no. Finally I say, “If you want.”

  “I just think people would buy it. Pretty girl, tragic story. And that voice. It’s a shame to let it go to waste,” he says. “Can you give me their number?”

  “Sure,” I say. “Remind me.” I picture him listening over and over to her tape, talking in a low, sympathetic voice to Cynthia Avery, shaking Peter’s hand.

  “It’d be a good story for you, don’t you think?” he asks. “Human interest?”

  “Sure,” I say, although he should know by now that that’s not the kind of story I write. Soon he’ll be sitting in that white living room, staring at her perfect picture. Even David, coming under her spell.

  10

  Monday morning and Angela is late. I pace in front of Allison Avery’s building, walking the path the dead girl must have taken from the front door to her car. I stand on the doorstep and look at the street. This is what she saw in the moments before her life turned upside down—trees, thick with summer leaves, grass in need of mowing, a patch of pink and yellow tulips, her car, waiting, only a few feet away. Or maybe she saw none of that, hurrying, her mind on the rest of the evening, searching in her purse for her keys.

  A car pulls up and parks, and Angela steps out. She lifts a hand in greeting and bends to retrieve her bag. Then she walks quickly toward me, traveling that same path. She looks demure in a blue linen sundress over a T-shirt, her hair pinned up behind her head. “Sorry I’m late,” she says. “Thank you so much for coming.” She touches my arm and leads the way inside.

  The entryway to the girl’s apartment is a jumble of shoes—sandals, running shoes, cowboy boots, elegant black high heels, tall silver boots designed to hug a slender calf. “She likes shoes,” Angela says. “She spends half her paycheck on them.”

  I notice she’s using the present tense. She stands staring down at the profusion of sandals, boots, and sneakers. Maybe she imagines that Allison is in her room, taking too long to get ready for a night out, that she’ll call out any minute, asking her what shoes she should wear. Or maybe she’s picking out the pairs she wants to keep.

  “Come on,” she says after a minute. She reaches out toward me, and I take her hand and squeeze before letting it go.

  “You can do it,” I say, and she moves on down the hall, turning on lights. In the living room, cassette tapes and CD cases litter the floor near the stereo. Videotapes are piled on the television. I pick one up. It’s labeled: Allison 5, May 9, 1992. The rest of the tapes are labeled, too: Allison 1, Allison 2, up to 11. Angela has wandered into the kitchen. I put the tape in my bag, meaning to ask her about it later. Stacks of magazines cover the coffee table. A half-full coffee cup sits on one stack, with the pink lipstick print of Allison’s lower lip visible at the rim. I notice a bottle of moisturizer smashed beneath the table, shards of glass glinting in the yellow stain on the floor. I check the answering machine. The tape is missing. I wonder if the police have taken it.

  In the kitchen, pots and Tupperware spill out of cabinets. There’s a pile of laundry on the table, more magazines spread across the long counter. Angela is staring into the sink.

  I wander over to the refrigerator and open the door. A gallon of skim milk, not even opened. A bottle of diet Coke, a few eggs, a carton of sugar-free strawberry yogurt, half an apple, browning. Not much food for someone who had just gone to the grocery store. Angela says my name. I turn my head; she’s staring right at me, a little frown creasing her forehead. I shut the door and go to stand beside her. She says, “There’s still food in here,” and points at the sink. She looks at me with tears in her eyes. “SpaghettiOs. She never could cook.”

  Some last meal, I think. I say, “I wondered why there weren’t more groceries.”

  “Did you look in the freezer?” Angela says. “It’s probably full of frozen stuff. I used to cook for her sometimes. I should have done that more often.”

  “Why aren’t you two roommates?” I ask. I’m careful to use the present tense, like Angela, although in my own voice I hear the falseness of it, the lie.

  “She’s too messy,” she says with a wave of her hand. “Just look at this room.” She turns on the water and uses her hand to scoop the noodles into the garbage disposal. When she switches it on, the dishes on the counter rattle and shake.

  I open the freezer. The walls are packed thick with ice. There’s an open box of Popsicles, something wrapped in tin foil, a bag of frozen french fries. Nothing else but empty ice cube trays. “I don’t think she went to the grocery store,” I say.

  Angela turns and stares into the freezer. “Where the hell was she then?”

  “I don’t know. With a guy?”

  Angela lowers her head, shoulders tensed, and says nothing. I spot something tucked into a corner of the freezer, behind the ice cube trays, and reach in to find a fat bag of dope. I show it to Angela. “You might want to take this out of here before her mother sees it,” I say.

  She takes it and turns it over in her hands. “Do you want to smoke so
me?” she says. “It’s good stuff.”

  It’s eight o’clock in the morning, and I have to be at work at ten. “All right,” I say.

  “There might be rolling papers in that drawer,” she says, indicating where with a nod of her head.

  I open it and start rummaging through expired coupons, rubber bands, scissors, and tools to find the papers. When I reach for the papers I prick my finger on something. I snatch my hand back, then reach in carefully again. It’s a hypodermic needle.

  I find a cap for the needle in the drawer and put it on. Angela is standing with her back to me, looking at the photos on the refrigerator. I grab the papers and call her name. When she turns she sees me holding the needle in the air, like my mother used to hold up a lighter when she found one in my brother’s drawer.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  She comes over and takes it from me. “It’s a hypodermic needle,” she says, handing it back.

  “Why would Allison have this?” I set it on the counter and roll it back and forth with one finger.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she brought it home from work. Maybe her mother left it here.” She plucks the papers from my hand. Sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter she begins to roll an expert joint.

  “Do you bring needles home?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, her eyes fixed on the counter, where her fingers delicately slide each leaf into the crease she’s made in the paper.

  “Why would Allison do that? Was she diabetic?” I swallow. “She didn’t have AIDS.”

  Angela shoots me a look. “Of course not.”

  “I pricked my finger on it,” I say, sitting on the other stool.

  “Even if she had it, you couldn’t get it from that. The virus would be dead by now,” Angela says. She finishes the joint and pulls matches from her pocket. “I don’t know why she had that. I’m sure it’s nothing.” She lights the joint and takes a drag, then offers it to me.

  “Angela,” I say, taking the joint from her hand, “was Allison into anything more than dope?”