Body of a Girl

by Leah Stewart

  A window around the corner opens into Carl’s bedroom. He’s not in there. The bedroom, too, is sparsely furnished. He has a twin bed covered with a blue blanket, tucked neatly under the mattress and pulled so tight it could be in a military barracks. The closet door is closed. There’s a little loose change and a shoe box on top of the old white dresser, but nothing else to indicate anyone has ever lived in this room. I lean in, trying to peer into the corners of the room, and then I notice something. The window is unlocked.

  I rock back on my heels. It would be so easy to slip inside. Breaking and entering, I imagine Evan saying. Are you insane? I picture Hannah’s eyebrows raised, that look of contemptuous disbelief she perfected a long time ago. I shouldn’t do it. I know that.

  The window slides up without a sound. The screen squeaks, a small, barely audible noise. The frame is just large enough for my shoulders but with my torso half in I see that there’s nothing to break my fall if I slide through headfirst. I wiggle back out and look around for any curious passersby. Nothing moves but the heat waves rising from the parking lot. I grab my bag and toss it through the window, aiming for the bed. It slips off and lands on the floor, pens and a notebook spilling out. Then I turn around and start easing my feet through, like I’m going cautiously down a slide. When my legs are all the way through, I take a breath and push off hard against the ground. My shoulder scrapes the metal frame and I land hard, wrenching my left knee. I crouch there until my heart rate slows. The air in here is still and heavy.

  The room is just as monastic as it looked from outside. There’s a television and VCR on a rolling cart at the foot of the bed. There’s a desk and chair in the corner. I drag the chair over to the wall and stand on it to shut the window. I’m careful to leave things the way I found them; I move the chair back so its legs fit neatly in the indentations on the carpet. I pick up my bag and smooth the blanket.

  On top of the dresser I find the shoe box full of playbills and scripts. I sift through them and find a clipping from the newspaper, a review of a local production that mentions a “promising performance from Carl Fitzner.” Someone has inked in a huge exclamation point at the end of the sentence. In one script, Carl has written 1,233 on the last page in pencil. I flip through, trying to figure out what the number means. On other pages he has written smaller numbers, and I realize he was going through his lines, counting every word.

  The dresser drawers are a turmoil of underwear and single socks, jeans and crumpled T-shirts. Underneath a sweater I find a book of monologues checked out from the library three months ago. I turn to a dog-eared page. It’s one of Hamlet’s. “O that this too too sullied flesh would melt . . .” I shake the book and a snapshot falls out—Carl in a black turtleneck, grinning into a dressing room mirror, his hand raised to apply foundation to his cheek, his eyes outlined in black. The reflection of the camera flash in the mirror beside him hides the photographer. On the back it says Hamlet, 1993 in neat print. I slip the picture into my pocket. In another drawer I find a wooden box. Inside is a jumble of high school yearbook photos. I sort through them, looking for Allison’s face. They’re all of girls, all with faces that seem plump and shiny with newness, emerging from clouds of glossy hair. I turn some over and read their curlicue handwriting: “To Carl, a sweet guy.” “Carl, maybe I’ll see you around this summer.” “Dear Carl, it was fun being in French with you. Au revoir!”

  I wonder if he sits here, reading these over and over, hoping to find more in these words. At the bottom I find Allison’s picture, the same one we ran in the paper. I turn it over. “Carl, we’ve had our problems but I’m glad we worked them out cuz you’re a nice guy. Wasn’t driver’s ed fun? I’ll never forget how Coach Murdock screamed when I ran that stoplight! Oops! Love, Allison.” I slip that in my pocket too.

  On top of the television is an empty tape case. I push open the VCR with my finger, just enough so I can read the label on the tape inside. Allison 9, it says. I take my finger away and let the slot swing shut. Carl stole a tape from her apartment. I shudder, and then I think, And so did I.

  I walk into the living room, and stop. The floor in front of the couch is littered with snapshots of Allison Avery. You could walk across them like a rug.

  The picture on the bookshelf I saw from outside is also of Allison. It looks like a snapshot blown up to eight by ten. Allison is smiling, outside somewhere. Wearing a red shirt, she stands out in sharp focus from the trees behind her, their deep green leaves. Tucked inside the frame is a notecard. I open it. It reads “Dear Carl, I thought you might like to have this. Thank you for your thoughtfulness. Take care, Cynthia Avery.”

  I walk over to the couch and stand looking at all those faces on the floor. Then I drop to my knees and pick one up. It’s Allison and Carl at a high school dance. Carl is thin and almost handsome. Allison is laughing, an enormous corsage at her wrist, her hair bountiful and stiff with hair spray. The picture is so soft to the touch I can only imagine he holds it in his hands every night.

  I keep picking up pictures. Allison onstage in tight black pants and a tank top. Allison in a Betty Boop T-shirt, leaning forward and pursing her lips. Allison outside wearing a backpack and walking somewhere in a hurry, frowning at the ground. Allison as a little girl at the beach, her hair in pigtails. The little boy just behind her could very well be Carl. I hold on to that one for a moment, looking at their soft round cheeks, their brown legs coated with sand.

  Some of the photos are as recent as a month ago, the date printed in the corner in blocky yellow figures. One of them, a picture of Allison curled up on her couch, frowning hard, is dated two days before she died. Her mouth is open, like she’s telling him to get out, to go away, to stop.

  I slide the pictures around with my hands. A foot away I spot one of Allison wearing that pink wig. I pick it up and bring it close to me, and my heart jumps.

  The face in this picture isn’t Allison’s. It’s mine.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, surrounded by Allison, holding that picture in my hand. There’s a sound—footsteps, the jingle of keys. I jump to my feet, scattering the pictures. Without thinking, I bolt back into the bedroom, where there’s nowhere to go except the closet. As the front door opens, I pull the closet door closed. It clicks, too loud, and I hold my breath. I still have the picture in my hand. I shove it in my pocket. A long minute goes by. I’m imagining the door swinging open, Carl’s shocked face, me blinking helplessly as the light rushes in. Nothing happens. I push through the clothes to the back of the closet, where there is barely enough space between the clothes and the wall for me to stand.

  Footsteps approach, stop, approach. A light shines in through the crack at the bottom of the door. I clutch at his shirts and feel polyester, slick inside my hand. Then there’s the sound of the bed creaking. Two thumps could be his shoes hitting the floor. I strain for more but hear nothing. The hot, close air inside the closet makes me want to gasp for breath. The line of light at the bottom of the door disappears.

  Then I hear the sound of Carl’s sock feet, padding across the carpet. The television goes on, a loud blare of sitcom laughter, and then a few clicks and silence. Then I hear a voice I recognize. “Hi,” it says. “I’m Allison Avery. Thanks for coming.”

  Inside the closet I listen to Allison sing, and rub impatiently at the tears that come to my eyes at the sound of her voice. Then I listen to what must be the few moments after she comes offstage, the voices of her friends’ congratulating her, her own giddy voice rising above the rest. I hear a male voice, murmuring something, and then Allison says clearly, “Well, thanks, Carl. Thanks for coming.” Then she laughs. “Don’t just stand there,” she says. “Give me a hug.”

  The tape goes silent. I press my ear to the door. There’s a faint whirring, and then I hear it again. “Thanks, Carl. Thanks for coming.”

  Three more times Carl rewinds the tape and plays those few words again. Then there’s silence again and I wonder if he’s paused the tape on he
r face, shaping her lips around his name.

  What seems like a long time goes by before it begins, a sound I can’t identify. It stops and starts, stops and starts. I push as quietly as I can through the clothes and press my ear to the closet door. It’s quiet, and then I hear the sound again.

  Carl is sobbing.

  He takes a ragged breath so loud I can hear it on the other side of this door and then he wails. The cry goes on and on, rising and falling. It chokes down into silence, then hiccups out again like the sputter of a motor. I sink down until I’m crouched on the floor of the closet, my ear tight against the door, and I listen to him cry. I notice everything about it—the high-pitched whimpers at the end of a long wail, the rapid exhalations that signal the start of another, even the tiny moans between those outward breaths—as though the quality of his crying can tell me whether this is the sound of sorrow or remorse. He sobs with abandonment, not even muffling the sound with his pillow, and I think the neighbors must be able to hear him, if they’re home and listening.

  I listen to him until he stops, trailing off into a series of sniffs and whimpers. I think I hear him whispering something to himself. Then he blows his nose, once, twice, and is silent.

  I can just make out the face of my watch. I wait for half an hour. My knee aches where I wrenched it dropping through the window. I long to straighten out my legs. I recite lines of poems in my head—“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/A stately pleasure dome decree:/ Where Alph, the sacred river, ran/Through caverns measureless to man/Down to a sunless sea.” I say the alphabet, shaping my lips in silence around each letter. Something in my bag jabs me in the breast. I change my position with tiny, cautious movements.

  When half an hour has passed I wrap my hand around the doorknob and turn it slowly, slowly, and with a tiny click the lock springs back and the door opens. I lean out into the dark room, bracing myself on the door knob, until I can see the bed, and Carl’s figure on it. He is fully clothed, but stretched out, and his chest rises and falls with a sleeper’s slow breathing. I straighten up. My knee cracks painfully. Carefully I close the closet door. For a moment something keeps me there, watching Carl, trying to see in his puffy red face, his curled-up body, the shape of a murderer. Instead what I notice is the place where his black shirt has pulled loose from his belt, the soft white roll of belly slipping out.

  I let myself out the front door.

  At home I sit on my bed, looking at that picture of myself. Hannah is still not here. Twice the phone rings but I don’t want to answer it. The third time I hesitate for four rings, then snatch the phone off the receiver, but the person has hung up. I stare for a moment at the phone in my hand. Then I dial Angela’s number.

  She answers, and we talk for a moment about how she is. I bring the conversation around to Carl, and her voice tightens while she tells me again what a creep he is. “Angela,” I say, “do you think there’s any reason to consider Carl a suspect?”

  There’s a silence. I’m holding my breath. I’m hoping for a yes, because I need to know, because I want it to end. I’m hoping for a no, because Carl knows where I live, and I’m afraid.

  “I don’t think so,” she says finally. “I think he was there the whole time.”

  “Where?”

  “At the bar,” she says. “Sitting at a table in the corner, pretending it was just a coincidence. He knew we used to go there and sometimes he would show up, looking for Allison. Sometimes he wouldn’t even talk to her, just watch her from the corner. God, it was creepy. They’d even had a fight a few nights before about him following her around. But he didn’t kill her. He was there all night, pretending not to wait for her.” She sighs. “Sometimes I almost feel sorry for him.”

  “You do?”

  She pauses. “No,” she says, and her voice is sharp with hatred. “I don’t.”

  17

  The surface of my desk is an Allison Avery collage. Her high school picture in blurred newsprint. The back of the photo I took from Carl’s, that looped handwriting, that girlish tone. Carl’s face, grinning in theatrical makeup. The girl’s dead body, curled up and smashed. The branch from Peter’s bonsai tree. My notes. Nice girl. Lilies. Rock and Roll. Wild. Sexy. Slut. Pothead. Junkie. Thief. The picture of me, looking like her.

  I’m picking up the phone to call the police station when I hear Peggy say my name. I look up, and she is standing beside my desk. “Can you come into my office?” she says. “I want to talk to you.”

  “I’ll be right there,” I say. “I need to make a phone call.”

  She shakes her head. “Make your phone call afterward,” she says. She waits there until I stand up, and then we walk together across the newsroom into her office, my body jumping with impatience.

  I sit down on the other side of her desk. “I’m going to get some coffee,” she says. “Want some?” I nod, and she leaves the room. Peggy almost never uses this office; it’s pristine compared to her desk in the newsroom. Framed articles circle the walls, one on political corruption that put her in the running for the Pulitzer fifteen years ago. I haven’t been in here since I was first hired.

  She comes back in and hands me a cup of coffee, saying it’s hot. I sit and blow on it, waiting for her to talk. She seems uncharacteristically nervous, pretending to straighten papers on her desk, taking long sips of her coffee. Then she sets the cup down and leans forward, putting her hands palm down on her desk. “Look,” she says. “I’m not going to pussyfoot around this. I need to know—are you using drugs?”

  I just stare at her. Did someone know I was stoned that day in the office? It’s not possible. “No,” I say. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about heroin,” she says. “Are you using? Are you experimenting? Tell me the truth. I’ll get you help.”

  I shake my head, flooded with relief. “I swear to you, Peggy. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She sits back in her chair. “I can have you tested, Olivia. It’s in the union contract. But I’d rather you just told me.”

  “Peggy, please tell me where you got this idea.”

  “Evan came to me,” she says. She holds up a hand. “Now, don’t be angry at him. He was worried about you, said you wouldn’t talk to him, that you’d been strange lately.” She sighs. “He saw you with needles. You’ve been so jumpy.”

  “My house got broken into!”

  “I know. But one day, there was something about your eyes . . . I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I have to agree that you just haven’t been yourself.”

  “My God,” I say. “Is everyone insane? The needle came from the story I’m working on. It came from Allison Avery’s trash.”

  Peggy watches my face. “Why wouldn’t you have told Evan that?”

  I shrug. “I didn’t want to talk about it until I was sure.” Even to my own ears, that sounds like a lie. “Look at my arms,” I say, leaning over the desk and extending my arms, palms up. She runs her fingers down my arms, then tilts her head up and looks into my eyes. “Pupils look normal,” she murmurs. I straighten up. “You believe me now?”

  She waves a hand. “It can be snorted now,” she says. “It can be smoked. In the early stages of addiction, injection sites might not even be visible.” She sounds as though she’s quoting from one of her own articles. Then she says, “I’m going to tell you something.” She takes a deep breath. “Paula, in the story. Her real name was Vivian, and she was my niece.” She reaches a hand out toward me. “I’ve seen this thing drag people down. I don’t want to watch it happen to you.”

  “It won’t,” I say. “I promise I’m clean. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  Peggy lets her hand fall on the desk. She says, “I want to believe you. So I’m not going to have you tested now. But I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Olivia. One slipup and I’ll have you peeing in that cup.”

  “I swear,” I say again, standing up to go. “I’m clean.”

  She nods, her head bowed.
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  “What happened to your niece?” I ask her at the door.

  She doesn’t look up. “She’s dead.”

  I stand in front of Evan’s desk. I’ve never noticed before that bald spot forming at the crown of his head. “Can I speak to you?” I ask. He stands up and we walk in silence down the hall to stand near the window overlooking the presses. They’re silent now, still waiting for the day’s news.

  “Peggy talked to you,” Evan says, not even making it a question.

  “Are you trying to get me fired?” I say. “Are you that angry about the other night? I know it was terrible, what I said to you, and I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t do it because I was angry. I did it because it was so unlike you. I was worried.” He folds his arms across his chest. “You were out of control. The way you’ve been about this story, I thought you were crossing the line.”

  “It’s a story,” I say. “I’m covering it the best I know how.”

  “It’s not about the story, Olivia,” he says. “Admit that it’s not about the story anymore.”

  “What’s it about then, Evan? What’s it about, if it’s not about covering my beat?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “The way you told that guy on Beale that you knew her, that crazy lie you told him about the wig, you sounded like you believed it. You sounded like you thought she was your friend.”

  “The needle came from her,” I say. “It came from Allison Avery. Are you happy now?”

  “Did you tell Peggy that?”

  “Of course,” I say. “She might have me tested anyway.”

  “Well, if she does you’ll come up clean,” he says. “And everything will be fine.”