by Amy Stuart
Clare closes her eyes, the bass in her ears. She knows every word to this song. It even might have played at her wedding. Someone reaches for Clare’s hand and pulls her into a twirl, then passes her to Jared, then to a stranger, a blur of faces. She and Sara fly around the circle, and Clare is giggling, dizzy, drunk. It was Jared who started with the shots. Each one sweeter than the last, down the hatch. The row of glasses was a foot deep along the bar, all of them partaking, even Charlie.
In the bathroom stall Clare wrestles with the buttons on her skirt. She emerges to find Donna at the sink.
“You need a ride?” Donna says.
“I’m good.”
“You don’t look so good.”
Clare leans into the sink and splashes cold water on her cheeks.
“I heard you took the trailer,” Donna says, watching Clare through the mirror.
“There was nowhere else to go.”
“You’re asking for it, you know.”
“No I’m not. Really.”
But it takes effort to enunciate, and as Donna shakes her head, Clare can only look sheepishly away. In the bathroom mirror her reflection seems the spitting image of her own mother, the circles under her eyes just dark enough, eyes not green but hazel. How old was her mother when she died? Clare clamps her eyes closed and opens them again. This time the reflection is hazy, a film over her eyes that she cannot blink away. She is struck by her sharp likeness to Shayna, the same pale skin and big eyes cradled by a mess of dark hair. She recoils backwards into Donna, who must then intervene when she can’t get the paper towel dispenser to work.
“You might want to put a cork in it.” Donna holds the bathroom door open for her. “Sleep it off.”
At the bar Clare orders a glass of water. Jared is swiftly beside her.
“If it isn’t Clare O’Dey.”
“If it isn’t Jared Fowles.”
“We never shook hands yesterday,” he says. “Yours were full.”
He takes Clare’s outstretched hand and holds it in place.
“It’s still pretty crowded,” Clare says, withdrawing from his grip.
“People like to party. It’s the common denominator around here.”
“I guess no one has to work tomorrow.”
Immediately Clare regrets the words, but Jared laughs.
“I did some recon on you.”
“What did you find?” Clare must plant her hand on the bar to steady the incoming spins.
“Nothing. The only Clare O’Dey I found is a wedding planner in California. Not you, I’m guessing.”
“Not me. I hate weddings.”
“I heard you shot a bat out of the night sky.”
“Charlie seems to like that story.”
Jared presses his hand into the small of Clare’s back. She arches against his touch.
“Aren’t you the one with the missing wife?”
“Missing ex-wife,” Jared says without a beat.
“I saw the poster and I wondered. Because of the name.”
“She dropped my name when we split, actually. Went back to Cunningham.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Clare says.
“About what?”
“Must be hard. Missing wife and all.”
“Ex-wife. Like I said.”
“Missing ex-wife might be even worse. The optics aren’t great.”
“Right. So you’re afraid of me?”
“No.” Clare must articulate the word. She is surprised by her own audacity, how emboldened she still gets by a few drinks.
“If you want to talk to someone about it, talk to him.” He points to Derek Meyer. “He’s got his nose in everyone’s business. Loves to keep his nose in ours.”
“Isn’t that his job? He’s a doctor.”
“Yes. He’s also a prick.”
“Sara said he’s trying to send her to rehab.”
“That’s his thing. If he really wanted her to stop with the pills, he’d take away her kid.”
“Can he do that?”
“Of course he can.”
The dance floor drains when a slow song comes on.
“As much as I love uplifting conversations, maybe we could dance instead? Do you dance?”
Clare lifts her elbow in an attempt to decline, but Jared takes hold of it and guides her to the center of the dance floor. Then they are pinned close, the width of a fist between them, so that Clare’s chin touches his shoulder and she cannot see his face. She inhales the scent of his shirt, a mild aftershave detected only at close range. He is broad, lean, tall. Clare is too muddled to speak. Next to them, Sara’s face is planted in Charlie’s chest. Surely Clare has been bantering with Jared all night, sharing drinks, jokes, glances. Surely she did not just end up in his arms on the dance floor out of nowhere. She is not losing herself in this place or these people.
Jared’s heartbeat is slow, calm. The scratch of his stubble is in Clare’s hair. He seems to be bearing most of her weight, and Clare feels that she could fall asleep like this, her body limp against his. The rest of the night will have to unfold in a daze, because nothing is sticking anymore. Clare lifts her head to look around. Sara looks glassy eyed too, under Charlie’s spell.
Sometimes, in a crowd, Clare is certain she sees her father. Sometimes, she sees her husband. Or Christopher. Or Grace. It is never actually them, of course. But that initial trick of the light always brings a patter to her chest. This time, she blinks and blinks again. It could not have been Malcolm Boon she saw passing through the doors to outside. Out the window she sees only shadows, the brake lights from departing cars. She sets her cheek on Jared’s shoulder. It could not have been Malcolm. Malcolm is not here.
The air is like a cool cloth against her skin. Clare is relaxed, her body sweaty under her clothes. Charlie’s truck is right where he left it, the parking lot across from Ray’s almost empty. She feels in her bag for his keys. The walk back to the trailer is over two miles, and her joints still feel loose. The moon must have set long ago. The road will be dark.
The gravel of the parking lot slips into Clare’s shoes. She sits on the bumper of Charlie’s truck to shake out the pebbles. These old leather sandals are not the best for walking. Clare lifts one of the shoes to her face to examine it, its shine scratched away, the leather of the strap curled into a ringlet. How old is this shoe? Clare has no idea where it came from, when she bought it, how long it has been with her, stuffed into her bag with her flats, her boots, her sneakers. Four pairs of footwear bought secondhand along the way. Even when she had a bedroom and a closet of her own, Clare always wore the same things over and over anyway.
“Please don’t break my ankles, you stupid shoes,” Clare says aloud.
What a cliché I am, she thinks, the silly drunk. Clare digs for her pad and pen and leaves a note for Charlie under his windshield wiper, unconcerned as to whether it might anger him.
I have your keys.
You are too drunk.
So much for the coin toss.
Walking back now.
You walk too.
On the last stretch of town road, Clare meets a few stragglers still clinging to half-empty bottles of beer. Past town the road is dark and devoid of cars. Clare can’t be sure how far she’s gone. She is thirsty, and her ears ring, but she keeps a decent pace, her eyes on the ground. One foot in front of the other.
At the sound of a car behind her, Clare steps to the shoulder. The headlights come at her. The car is moving more slowly than it should be. It passes her without stopping, but then she sees the brake lights and the car is turning around, and the headlights are on her again, she is washed in white light, and all she can think to do is clutch her bag and stand there blocking the car’s path, frozen.
“Dammit. Get in.”
This is Malcolm’s voice. This can’t be Malcolm’s voice.
“It’s me. Get in the bloody car!”
Me, Clare thinks. As if there is only one person who could be me.
Clare t
ouches the heat of the hood and feels her way around to the passenger door. Malcolm leans over and opens it for her.
“I thought I saw you!” Clare says. “At Ray’s. An apparition.”
“Get in.”
Only when Clare sits in the warmth does it register that her legs are sore with cold. The car is moving before she can pull her door closed.
“Other way,” Clare says. “The trailer’s the other way.”
Malcolm yanks the car into reverse and turns around, driving in silence until the Merritt mailbox appears and Clare motions for him to pull over. The dashboard glows, and Clare can see the shadows of Malcolm’s face, the angle of his jaw, the white of his hands as they grip the wheel.
The second time Malcolm walked into that café where she’d been working, a strange calm overtook Clare. He ordered the same breakfast and plucked out his cell phone, leaving it on the table next to his napkin. He was finished with his meal and Clare was standing over him, pouring coffee, when his phone rang. The name on his call display came up as two single letters: J.O., and right away Clare understood. She understood that J.O. stood for Jason O’Callaghan, that this man was here for her, chasing her, the one she knew would eventually come.
If you leave, Jason used to say, his thumb pressing into the softness of Clare’s throat, I’ll find a way to find you.
In the café that morning, the phone vibrated on the table, and Malcolm rested his hand against it without looking up.
Aren’t you going to answer that? Clare asked.
No need, Malcolm said. In the glance exchanged, Clare wondered if he understood too.
It was sunny and warm, the morning of his second visit. The café was busy, the griddle in the kitchen crackling with bacon and pancakes. Clare walked behind the counter and set the coffeepot back on the burner. A family occupied the booth next to Malcolm’s, a young girl fiddling with the salt and pepper shakers while her parents debated the menu. In the kitchen, Clare pulled off her apron and left through the back door. She drove her car to an empty parking lot tucked behind the elementary school and sat with her face in her hands, the early July heat prickling her legs through the windshield. She knew enough to have her things packed and with her at all times, just in case. A few minutes later she was on the highway headed north.
To think of that as only days ago. To think of Malcolm as that man in the café, the same man now fuming and quiet in the driver’s seat.
“What are you doing here?” Clare asks.
“I came to find you.”
Clare puts her hand to her mouth to stifle a hiccup. “Wow. Sorry.”
“I was there long enough to witness the show you put on,” Malcolm says.
“You said you weren’t coming.”
“I said I’d be nearby.”
“You’ll blow our cover.”
“I’m sure everyone was too busy watching you.”
“You know what? I had a few drinks. Is that a crime?” Clare feels dizzy. She drops her chin to her chest.
“What are you doing?” Malcolm asks.
“I’m resting.”
“No. I mean, what are you doing here?”
If she tries to speak, Clare might well throw up instead. She shakes her head. Malcolm drops an envelope into her lap.
“More notes. I figured I’d get them to you directly. Since you’re supposed to be working.”
“It feels like you’re spying on me.”
“You have a job to do.”
“Here’s the thing. Whatever this job is, I’m doing it.”
“Didn’t look that way to me.”
“I’m sorry, Malcolm. I thought you were staying out of sight.”
“I am out of sight.”
“You came to the only bar in town. That’s actually the opposite of out of sight.”
“I stayed in the background. You didn’t even see me.”
Malcolm starts the car. All Clare can do to stop herself from retching is open the window and lean out to gulp the fresh air.
“Can you give me a minute?” she says. “I don’t feel very well.”
“Get out.”
Something in Malcolm’s voice sets Clare alight, sobers her, the annunciation, the bite in his tone so much like her husband’s. She edges along the seat until their faces are inches apart.
“Don’t you want me to fit in?” Clare asks. “Isn’t that why I’m here instead of you? I keep asking you that question and you won’t answer me.”
“I don’t think it’s working.”
“Isn’t this exactly what you want me to do?” Clare’s voice is measured, raspy. “Live like the locals? That’s what you said. You said, ‘Be methodical. Eliminate the obvious possibilities first.’ You want me to get right in there. I can ask them anything I want. I can eat off their plates. I’ve haven’t been here three days and I’m in. I’m not an outsider anymore. They think they know me. I might as well be Shayna. How convenient is that? And I haven’t told them a thing. Even Jared. He’s asking me to dance. They all want to be my friend. They’re that lonely.”
“No one here wants to be your friend,” Malcolm says. “And you’re not Shayna.”
“I know that,” Clare says, stung. She sits up straight. “Do you have any friends? Because that’s how people act with friends. They open up.”
Malcolm is silent. Clare slumps back and fingers the envelope on her lap.
“What is this?”
“Articles. Some history I thought might help.” Malcolm pauses. “They are not your friends, Clare. You’re being reckless.”
“No I’m not.”
“She could still be alive, you know. You don’t have any time to waste.”
“I wasn’t . . .”
But Clare trails off. She leans into the headrest and closes her eyes. It shouldn’t matter if she’s dead, this woman a stranger to Clare. Malcolm reaches over her. She can smell him, his scent alien to her. Has she ever touched Malcolm before? Clare can’t be sure. He pulls a drawstring sack from the glove compartment and sets it on her lap atop the envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Your gun.”
“You’re giving it back to me?”
He withdraws it and sighs. “Shouldn’t I?”
“No. I mean yes, you should.”
“Now I’m not so sure.”
“Malcolm. Please. I’m not an idiot. I haven’t had a drink in a long time. It hit me quick.”
The familiar contours of the barrel reveal themselves to Clare as she feels the gun through the canvas of the bag. How many hours has she spent in motel rooms staring at the door, this very gun loaded on the table in front of her, a split second from her reach? Waiting. Waiting for someone to knock, for him to come looking for her. Clare takes Malcolm by the arm and squeezes until she feels his biceps contracting under her fingers.
“You scared me. Driving up on me like that.”
“I was angry,” Malcolm says. “Shayna’s fate rests in your hands.”
“This is all on you,” Clare says. “Between you and me? Believe me, you’re not the angry one. Don’t ever sneak up on me again.”
And then Clare is out of the car, standing again on the side of the road. Malcolm turns his car around and passes her without a glance. Her breaths are quick. She would like to pick up a rock and throw it at his rear windshield. But as his taillights ebb, Clare’s fury soon gives way to a kind of shame, the thought of Malcolm watching her as she flitted from the bar to the dance floor and back, flirty in her denim skirt, putting on a show, filling the void. Clare sways and nearly bumps into the Merritt mailbox. She fumbles to open the drawstring sack Malcolm gave her. It is always a surprise, the surge that comes when she takes hold of this gun. The urge to fire it, to point it at someone and pull the trigger. To end it. She will have to find a hiding place back at the trailer. Tomorrow, she will start again. She will do her best to remember what she can from tonight, anything useful. But in the cold and dark she feels only anger. How did she end up her
e? What happened? In her mind the details are already liquid, the evening seeping its way out.
My sharpest memories are the dark ones. Driving in a heavy rain to the city with my father. Was I nine, or ten? A car bobbing downstream with its trunk in the air. My father pulled over and waded into the water ahead of the car. I rolled down my window and watched as he took hold of the fender before he dove under. Why did he drag the body back to shore by the collar? I would have let it float away.
The dead man was wearing a shirt and tie and his eyes and mouth were open. I was out of the truck by then, crouching next to them in the rain, the three of us soaked through. I’d never seen a dead body before. The man’s face was distended, his skin a pale gray. He must have tried to escape, my father said, because the driver’s-side window was open and his seat belt was undone. My father crossed the man’s arms over his chest one by one and pressed his swollen eyes closed. Don’t worry. That’s all he said to me.
My mother used to complain that my father never hugged her. As a kid I’d hide in the cold room and watch him eat a bowl of cereal after a shift, his face smeared black from the coal. He almost never mustered a smile. But he never flinched either, even that day at the river, his grip on that dead man’s collar. He never flinched in the face of terrible things.
SUNDAY
As she walks down the hill from the trailer Clare feels it, the flood of wanting more. The ache that always came the morning after. She pauses at her car, tracing the path of the dog’s leash from the porch to track whether he is tied to it.
“Timber?” she calls. Nothing.
Clare climbs the porch to tuck Charlie’s truck keys into the mail slot. She wears her camera around her neck, her flimsy decoy, the roll of film half finished. It is barely five hours since Malcolm left her on the dark road. Where would he have gone? Driven hours to find a bed or slept hidden somewhere in his car? A man of few traces. Popping through the line of birch trees, she finds Louise waiting on the porch chair, purse already in hand. The screen door is latched, but when Clare calls for Wilfred he appears right away from the living room. He’s been expecting her. He does not unlatch the door.