Speak Softly, She Can Hear

by Pam Lewis

  “You don’t know your own strength, Fatcakes. I thought that the first time I saw you. She’s a big girl, I said to myself.” He looked her up and down. “A huge girl. A dangerous girl.”

  “But you said—” Beautiful. She was aware of her nakedness all of a sudden. Of her large body, the rolls of flesh across her stomach, the expanse of bare thighs. She crossed her hands over her breasts, then her abdomen.

  “I told you to get off the goddamned bed, remember? But oh, no. You go crawling all over her. What’s the matter with you?”

  “She told me to,” Carole said, looking down at her hands and then away, anywhere else.

  “Don’t bullshit me.” He gathered a bedspread from the floor and threw it to her. “Cover her up.” He went into the bathroom but came out again. “And don’t fucking touch her. You got that?”

  Not that she even could. Not that she could even look at Rita. She opened the bedspread and held it out, staring at her hands again, hands that seemed like they belonged to somebody else. And the room too looked like a place she’d never seen before, static and out of scale, like a room in a dollhouse. She threw the bedspread, which fluttered and landed in a tangle across the body.

  When Eddie came back, he was calmer. He pulled a window curtain aside, holding his hand to his eyes, and looked out. Then he shut the curtain and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. “Here’s what we do.” She felt better hearing this, back on steady ground. They would do something. “Well, let me back up here. Before I get to that.” He took in a breath, held it and then let it all out. “This is a big problem,” he said. “A very big problem you have. Nobody can find out about this.”

  “But they will,” she said. “When—”

  “For somebody smart, you’re not catching on. Maybe I’d better spell it out. Nobody is ever going to find out. Just you, just me. So here’s what we do. We take her up there.” Eddie indicated the window, the back of the motel.

  “It’s illegal.”

  She was afraid he’d hit her, the way his fists clenched. “What’s illegal was you breaking her fucking neck.” He pulled away the bedspread, raised Rita’s head, and let it fall. Carole had to look away, or she’d throw up again at the sight of Rita’s face, her eyes still partly open. “If you call the police, we have to tell them what you did.”

  “But I didn’t mean to do anything.” She was frantic, trying to think, trying to remember doing what Eddie said she did, but it was as hopeless as remembering a dream. There, and then gone. All she could remember was the feel of it, the way she’d been thrown around in the dark. She had a memory of her hands on either side of Rita’s head, and her thighs too, and hating the way Rita’s hair stuck to her thighs and the hot fat feel of Rita’s shoulder under the heel of her hand. All that she remembered. Maybe. Maybe accidentally.

  He came over, so close she could smell him. Like metal or blood. “You were all over her.” He spoke softly, nicely even. “You busted her neck.” She was about to speak, but Eddie put a finger to his lips. “Don’t,” he said. “You were drunk. Shit, you’re drunk now. Look at you.”

  “I never drank before.”

  “You were on her like a fucking gorilla,” he said, still in the same soft voice.

  There was a sound outside. Footsteps, right at the door. “Somebody’s out there,” she said.

  Eddie switched off the light and they waited.

  “I saw that.” The voice was Naomi’s. “Open up, you guys.” She was right there, right on the other side of the door. She pushed it open. There was a rush of cold. “Pewey. It stinks in here.”

  Suddenly Naomi was standing before them in a raccoon coat, her mouth wide open, looking around. “You guys?” Her eyes traveled from one of them to the other. She burst out laughing and turned away. “Cover up, will you?” Carole snatched up a sheet and wrapped it around herself.

  Eddie got up and put a hand on her shoulder, guiding her back toward the door. “Go on back,” he said. “Get out of here.”

  “Wait.” She was looking at the bed, at Rita. She took a step toward the bed. The bedspread had only partly covered Rita. Her hand dangled beneath it, her hair spilled down. A calf was exposed. “Who’s that?”

  “Shit,” Eddie said and shut the door.

  “Carole?” Naomi was still staring at Rita.

  “You’d better tell her,” Eddie said.

  Carole shook her head.

  “Tell her the truth.”

  “What truth?” Naomi said. “Somebody?” She looked from Carole to Eddie and back to Rita. “She looks—”

  “Your friend’s quite the pistol,” Eddie said.

  Naomi took a few steps toward the bed and stopped, staring for several seconds at Rita. “Everybody just shut up,” Eddie said, even though nobody had said a word.

  Naomi turned to Carole with a look of confusion, her mouth shaping the word what. Carole looked away.

  “We have a problem,” Eddie said.

  “Not me,” Naomi said. “Don’t look at me.”

  “All of us,” Eddie said. “But your friend in particular.”

  Naomi sat on the floor, her dark hair covering her face. “What did she do?”

  “Let me lay it out for you,” Eddie said to her. He put on a pair of underwear and a T-shirt, then he drew a chair over and sat facing Naomi, as though Carole wasn’t even there. “Things got out of hand. Your friend here got carried away.”

  Naomi turned to look at Carole, her mouth wide in amazement, then back at Eddie.

  “She got rough.”

  “I didn’t mean—” Carole started.

  “I don’t have a lot of time for this.” Eddie gestured toward Carole. “Fatcakes here leans on my friend while we’re going at it. She’s got the bitch’s head in a knee lock.” He demonstrated, spreading his bent knees, fists balled between them, like Rita’s head. “And she lets fucking loose,” he said, twisting his knees, fists flying out from the force. “And crack. End of story. I’m trying to help her. All I’m trying to do is get her out of this.”

  “Is she the … ?” Naomi indicated Rita with her thumb.

  “The what?” Carole asked.

  “Nobody,” Eddie said. “She’s nobody. You’re here. Okay? You’ve seen. That makes three of us. Okay, okay.” He flicked his hands as if they were wet. “Here’s what we do.” He opened the curtain again. It was still dark outside. “Who’s got the time? Doesn’t anybody wear a fucking watch?” He was getting so agitated. Fierce. He looked again.

  “It’s about four,” Naomi said. “I waited up. That’s why I came over here.”

  “Then we do this fast. Do it now. We take her up there, up over the field and the woods back there. We bury her in the snow. Nobody will know. Not ever. It’s a fucking wilderness out there.”

  “We can’t. The police. It’s too fast,” Carole said.

  Eddie exploded. “Will you please ask your friend why she doesn’t understand she fucking killed this girl, fucking broke her fucking neck, and I’m only trying to help her here?” He kicked the wall, slammed his hands against his temples. “Okay. You think it’s too fast. Let me tell you about fast. Fast is when they get wind of this back at East Sixty-second Street. Fast is what happens to your dad’s job at Ivey and Mason when this gets out. And all those boards of directors. What, Continental Pipe, the water company. Or your mom out there hobnobbing at Sign of the Dove. I know. I do my homework, Fatcakes. Fast is what happens when Mom and Dad find out where you are, who you’re with, what you did. That’s fast. Compared to that, this is molasses. Believe me. They’ll turn on you so fast you won’t know what hit you. And which college again? Vassar? Wellesley? It doesn’t matter. You’re not going anywhere when this gets out. Your dad will be shining shoes for a living.”

  How did he know all this? “But I didn’t mean to do anything,” Carole blurted out.

  “So it was an accident. Big deal. Try explaining that. Rich spoiled fat girl from the city kills a little piece of
ass from the sticks. Oh, it’ll play all right. You won’t have a chance.”

  He waited for a few seconds and then said, “The room is in your name.” Her name? She couldn’t take it in at first. “This. This room. Not that it matters. How’s it going to look? Big-deal lawyer’s daughter pays for a shitty motel room, pays to get herself fucked because nobody else will step up to the plate.”

  It was all coming at her too fast. The details about her parents and now the room. She couldn’t keep up. Couldn’t sort it all out, but it was bad. That was for sure.

  Eddie sat on the bed. “Look, you two.” His face glistened with sweat. “We’re running out of time. We’re going to take her out in back right now and bury her before it gets light.”

  “Not me,” Naomi said. “I’m not going out there. It’s freezing out there.”

  “It’s not a choice.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “She’s your friend. And you,” he said to Carole. “Get yourself dressed.”

  Carole looked over the floor and tried to understand what he meant. Rita’s dress lay at her feet, and her stockings and sweater were a few feet away. She wondered how she would ever find what she needed.

  “Now!” Eddie bellowed, and she dropped to her knees and crawled about the room, gathering up what was hers, afraid to touch Rita’s things. She couldn’t figure out her own pants at first with those confusing straps under the feet, or the sweater. This was going to kill her parents. Their good girl. Their reliable daughter. She thought about the night at Giovanni’s and her heart sank. Her parents had been a little drunk. It was the day she got her acceptance to Vassar. “You’re going to make the grade,” her father’d said. “It’s just a matter of time.”

  Rita’s purse was on the table next to the bed, and Carole watched Naomi pick it up and look inside.

  “What’s that?” Eddie said.

  Naomi pulled out a red and blue plastic Minnie Mouse wallet. “God,” she said. The way she held it up by one corner made Carole want to weep. She snatched the wallet from Naomi and thrust it into the pocket of her parka. “Nothing,” she said.

  It was hard to follow his orders. They were all mixed up, full of contradictions. He was telling her something about her shoes. Her Capezios. The only boots were Rita’s, and he made her put them on. They were short for her, and painful. He checked the window. “Hurry,” he said.

  Carole was in the middle, bearing the weight of Rita’s wide hips, which were sickeningly hard, with Eddie at the front, facing her, walking backward, and Naomi at the feet. When he opened the door, there was a rush of cold air. Instinctively she gathered the spread over Rita to keep her covered from the cold. The body was heavy and warm. She had to pause and hoist again and again.

  At first they moved well, quickly around the outside of the cabin to the edge of the field. But it was so cold and snowing hard, and the snow got in everywhere, at her neck, into her boots, her wrists, and she couldn’t stop shivering. They dipped down and crossed a brook. In the field, the spread began to fall away from the body, bunching up at the hips so that Rita’s breasts and face were exposed. Eddie and Naomi didn’t seem to care. They wouldn’t stop. They kept pushing forward through the snow. Carole had to adjust the cover the best she could, with one hand, or even with her teeth. They moved in starts, lost their balance. “Forget that,” Eddie said when the bedspread fell away for the umpteenth time.

  It was impossible to see where they were going in the thick snow, and Rita’s body was slippery, harder and harder to hold onto. The spread was soaked through from dragging along the ground. Carole kept pulling it up and throwing it around Rita over and over.

  “He said forget it.” Naomi was hoarse from exhaustion. “Just let it go.”

  The field was uneven under the snow, with ditches and boulders, strands of barbed wire that wrapped around their legs. Twice they put the body down to untangle themselves. Carole could hardly move her hands. When they got to the woods, the going was even slower, a few steps at a time, ducking branches and stepping through thick brush, but at least the wind wasn’t so fierce.

  “Here.” Eddie stopped and dropped his end. “We’ve got to dig a hole.”

  She fell to her knees and tried to wrap the bedspread around Rita, to cover her face and feet and tuck it in along the sides, but the ends kept coming loose.

  “Help us!” Naomi screamed at her. They were scooping out snow with their hands. Eddie yanked her by the arm and pulled her down. “Dig, for Christ’s sake.” She scooped up the snow, her hands numb. Eddie got into the pit they were digging and worked in a kind of frenzy, like a dog. There was the sound of ice collapsing under him, and he sank slightly before her eyes. “Bingo.” He stamped, breaking through underfoot. “This is good.” He reached from the pit and started to pull the body toward him by the arm.

  Carole tried to pull back on the body. “Don’t just let her fall. Somebody get her feet.”

  But they shoved the body sideways toward the pit, and Eddie scrambled out of the way as the body fell heavily in. They stood quietly, all of them looking down. The pit, the snow, the color of Rita’s skin were all the same gray except for the darkness of her eyes and lips, and the patch of her pubic hair. After some moments, Carole opened the spread to cover Rita.

  Eddie snatched it away. “Are you crazy?”

  “We need to cover her,” Carole said. It was the least they could do.

  “And have the cops trace it to the motel? And then to you?”

  They pushed the snow back over Rita and smoothed it out. Eddie stamped on the filled grave, his boots making a soft, hollow sound. Carole fell to her knees, struck down by what they’d just done. Rita had been alive an hour ago, and now she was only a few feet beneath this perfectly smooth snow. It was impossible. It was a terrible dream, a horrendous dream. She blinked to wake herself, but it was real.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Eddie said.

  Carole smoothed the snow where Eddie’s boots had left deep marks. “Rest in peace” was all she could think of to say. It was pitiful. It was not nearly enough. Nothing she did would ever be nearly enough.

  When she stood, Eddie and Naomi were gone. It was lighter out, but still snowing and hard to see. She made her way back down through the brush and when she reached the edge of the field saw that the footsteps they made coming up here had already blown over. Only Naomi’s and Eddie’s new ones leading back down toward the cabin were visible. Soon the field would be swept clean.

  She stopped to watch their two gray shadows ahead. She wished Naomi had waited. She needed her right now. She started walking again, but the sound of a car passing on a road nearby stopped her cold. What if it was someone looking for Rita? She held her breath and listened. The sound moved away and disappeared. But what if somebody else came? What if somebody was planning to pick her up and they went to the room? She had one terrifying thought after the other. Maybe lots of people knew where Rita had gone tonight and were coming to look for her at this very moment.

  She sped up to keep from thinking and was relieved when she reached the ring of cabins, which sat quiet, motionless. She had to narrow her eyes against the murk and the falling snow to see, but she could just make out Eddie and Naomi. They were together in front of the cabin, drawing close to each other. Perhaps it was only one of them saying something to the other in a whisper. Or the fact that to be heard, Eddie would have had to lean down. But it looked like a kiss, and it lasted like a kiss. Longer even. She felt the last bit of life drain out of her. As she got closer, she got up her nerve to brush past them into the cabin. She found her Capezios and kicked off Rita’s boots. Outside again, she passed Naomi and Eddie without a word, but he grabbed her by the sleeve.

  “Hey,” he said. “Wait a minute.” He pulled her close. “You know, I know, Naomi knows. It would have been better if it were only you and me. Safer for you. But Naomi’s your friend and she isn’t going to say anything. We already talked about that. So there’s only one way fo
r you to have a problem and that’s if one of us opens our mouth and it won’t be me, got it?”

  Carole nodded and turned to leave, but Eddie didn’t open his grip. “You’ve got everything to lose here, Carole. Remember that. We’re on your side. We’re going to keep this quiet for your sake. Next couple of days we’ll know if we’re okay.”

  She pulled away and headed back toward the mountain road. It was light enough to see through the falling snow, to the towering jade evergreens, the road ahead of her. A few minutes later she heard the sound of someone running behind her.

  “Wait up.”

  She stopped. When Naomi caught up, Carole turned to her. “Why did you put it in my name?”

  “What?”

  “The room, Nay. You’re the one who made the reservations. You and Eddie. Why didn’t you use your own name?”

  “Somebody might recognize it. Elayne’s famous, in case you didn’t know.”

  “She’s not famous.”

  “More famous than you,” Naomi said.

  Carole turned in a fury of tears and walked fast to get away from her. And then she remembered. She looked back. “What were you doing kissing him?” Her voice rang in the cold air.

  “Shush,” Naomi hissed at her. “You want to wake up the whole world?”

  Carole turned away and broke into a run along the snow-covered drive, her lungs burning with a sharp smart pain, her feet stinging with cold. Where it turned to pavement she ran faster, harder, her feet crunching the pebbles of salt. She ran until a car rushed past going the other way, and stopped short. What if people saw? The car sped away, not even slowing. She breathed in relief. Maybe they hadn’t noticed. Maybe they didn’t care. A girl on the road before dawn like this. Maybe it happened all the time. Oh, please, God, if only.

  Chapter Two

  Carole Mason had entered Spence in the eleventh grade, and on her first day Amanda Howe was assigned to show her around and take her to morning classes. Amanda had broad shoulders and narrow little eyes that seemed to have sand in the corners all the time. She was the class president and always wore her Spence blazer. Her grandfather, she told Carole that day, had been a famous diplomat and her father was a doctor. Amanda passed her along to Shelly Taylor, who took her to lunch. They used the elevator to the sixth floor, a privilege, Shelly explained, that they were allowed because Carole was a new girl. Normally you could use the elevator only if you were injured or had to go more than three floors. Shelly led Carole down the elegant old corridor with its gleaming marble floors, past the drawing room and through the cafeteria, where white-uniformed women ladled out plates of roast beef, mashed potatoes, and green beans. In the dining room Shelly pointed out the dark gleaming mural of verdant battle scenes. It was actually one-of-a-kind wallpaper, very old, very valuable, and made especially for Spence in 1895. Shelly and Carole sat at a round table with Amanda, Deirdre Martin, and some other girls from her class. They were all talking about what they’d done during the summer, the boys they’d met at horse camp or in the Hamptons or France. Carole had spent the summer helping her parents pack up the house and move from Ridgewood.