Stacking in Rivertown

by Barbara Bell

  Once we’re settled in a quiet, tasteful café and have ordered our meals, Johnson looks at me, fidgeting with his Rolex.

  “Just spit it out,” I say. “Why’d you bring me here?”

  He attempts a smile again, but he’s quite bad at it. Somebody should tell him not to try.

  “Miriam’s such a good kid,” he starts. I feel myself bristle.

  “She’s very trusting, always thinking the best about people.”

  I wait, staring at his weak chin. Johnson is just a wee bit shorter than I am, narrow in the face, partially bald, and looking squeezed-in.

  “So,” he continues, “when she gets involved with someone, I try to make sure they’re not just using her. You know.”

  Our food comes now. I don’t respond until the waiter has left. Then I say, “No, I don’t know.”

  He doesn’t try to smile anymore, which is a relief. “She’s worth a lot of money, Rebecca. Not just to herself, but to all of us that work with her. She’s at the top of her game and going higher. We think she’s in line for a Grammy this spring.”

  “Good for her,” I say. “She’d like that.”

  “So you can see how important it is that we make sure there’s nothing that could get in the way.”

  “Don’t worry about the gay thing, Johnson. I hate publicity. I go out of my way to stay a perfectly happy nobody.” I’m thinking about my jump from the bridge. That was a hell of a diversionary tactic.

  “Ah,” he says, eating a bite of his halibut. “I’m thinking about the problem with your birth certificate.”

  I sit stunned. The little creep has been investigating me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “What problem?” I keep my eyes steady.

  “Well, we found out nothing about Rebecca Cross, you see, no credit history, no schooling, nothing but a birth certificate saying you were born in Philadelphia.”

  Oh my lovely Asian family. I want to kiss them all. They filed that birth certificate for me.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  He looks at my plate. “You’re not eating,” he says. “The chef here is quite good.”

  “I’m sure.” I don’t make a move.

  He lays down his fork and wipes his mouth, acting too much like Ben. “I don’t understand these computer things, but my investigator thinks your birth certificate is fake.” He says the last word, picks up that fork, and takes a hearty swipe off his potato, stuffing it in his weasel-like mouth.

  A long line of overfilled Dumpsters enters my mind, holding all the leftovers Johnson is trailing behind.

  “Does Miriam know you do this? Investigate her lovers.”

  His eyes, narrowed down, rise to mine. I’d been around Violet long enough to know that look.

  “Yes,” he says, and goes back to his plate.

  I get the sense that Johnson views life as a string of events in which one either wins or loses. Johnson is determined to win.

  “And if I don’t check out?”

  He shrugs. “I can’t make Miriam stop seeing you. And Rebecca, I don’t want to.”

  As I stare at his lips, compressed, I wonder if he ever makes one statement that’s not shot as full of lies as a slash pine full of borers. Of course, I’m not one to talk about lying.

  But I’m picking up the scent of Rivertown. I weigh my options.

  “I witnessed a murder,” I say. “I’m supposed to lie low and keep quiet. No one’s supposed to know I’m still alive.”

  He takes that in. “Miriam told me about the murder.”

  I grind my teeth.

  He reaches inside his suit to the inner pocket and takes out a memo recorder. “If you give me the name of the investigating officer and where he’s located, I’m sure we can clear this right up.”

  If he had been Ben, I would have collapsed right away. Johnson has no idea that he doesn’t hold a candle to my old pimp in the scare market.

  “Oh, no, Johnson. When I say nobody, I mean nobody. That cop would get real pissed if he knew I said one word to anyone. If you want to screw up Miriam and me, you go ahead and try. You might find that you can’t. It’s a chance I’m willing to take, because if she dumps me because of something you tell her, then I guess it isn’t as good a thing as I think it is.”

  He sits frozen, his hand still clutching his nifty memo recorder. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but his eyes narrow even further, and as I watch, they appear not to see me at all. A chill runs up my back.

  He finishes his meal in silence. I don’t touch mine. As we’re leaving, I turn to him and say, “I’ll walk back. It’s not far.”

  He nods.

  “Oh, and by the way, Johnson. I think the Grammy would be great. But it’s not the end of the world if she doesn’t get it. And I think Miriam would agree with me.”

  He twists his mouth and leaves, not looking back.

  I walk to the studio where Miriam is dressed by others, where her face is created to be a thing that it is not, and where Johnson sets up the plays and the players. I think I might not know Miriam at all, and the cold starts working its way in like I wonder sometimes how death would feel.

  When I hit the studio again, I’m in a state. I find myself thinking about the tip of my whip and Johnson’s baby white ass. I think of him as an anesthesiologist.

  But in quick moments, I find that it’s Miriam I’d rather have crouching before me like the fawn, baring her back to me. I wonder what other things Miriam has done behind my back.

  That Johnson’s a tricky one. A lot like Violet. Only she had good reasons for what she did. He’s doing it for money.

  When I walk in, I see that Miriam is looking bad. They’re taking a short break to move the lights and adjust the set while she fidgets up on her platform. I walk up to her, trying to look like nothing happened.

  “You look tired,” I say.

  “Where did you go? You’re supposed to be here for me, remember?”

  “I’m sorry. I got overwhelmed. I had to leave.”

  Her eyes are red. I think she might start crying.

  “I won’t leave again. You want me to do anything for you? How about I get a bottle of whiskey and sneak you a shot every now and then?” I take her hand and hold it in mine.

  “We’re ready,” the little pipsqueak Stewart says to Miriam. She squeezes my hand.

  “How much longer?” I say to her.

  She shrugs her shoulders.

  “You look worn out. Why don’t you call it quits?”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “This might be a stupid question, but aren’t you the boss here?”

  “Jesus, Becca. For being so bright, you can be really dumb sometimes.”

  “Do you always do what Johnson says?”

  She rolls her eyes. “I don’t even want to start this with you.”

  I pull her down toward me and whisper in her ear. “What’s your favorite liquor?”

  She kisses me light on the cheek and says, “I hate liquor.”

  “Cognac?”

  “Yuck.”

  “Wine.”

  “Ummmm.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  After picking up a bottle of cabernet, I dump part of it in a McDonald’s cup. When I get back to the studio, they’re working Miriam hard. She’s looking so tired that I don’t know why they’re staying at it. During a short break, I slip up and hand her the cup.

  She lifts the top, smelling it first. Then she takes a hit off it, closing her eyes in happiness. She smiles at me. I go and sit in my corner, wishing I had an imbecile to watch. He would be a lot more interesting.

  It’s ten in the evening before Miriam’s ready to leave. I retrieve the Taurus.

  “You hungry?” I say as I shovel her into the passenger seat.

  “I’m too tired to eat.”

  I drive us to our hotel, having to wake her when we get there. At least she’s too sleepy to ask me about the photographer fiasco. I put her to bed and order some appetizers to be b
rought up. She’s asleep by the time they arrive, so I turn off the lights and look out our big windows to see the Santa Cruz Mountains rising up dark against a deeper darkness.

  I eat by myself and finish the bottle of cabernet, worrying about Johnson, trying to let that thing he birthed in me pass as light as a breeze. It won’t go. I watch Miriam sleep, feeling my distrust widen and spread like the arms of the live oak, shading the stacks at Rivertown.

  * * *

  Miriam doesn’t wake until nine the next morning. I’ve been lying in bed, trying to decide if I should bring up my conversation with Johnson or not. I feel her stir. She turns over and looks at me, her face still coated with some of that icky makeup.

  “Hi,” she says.

  I lean over and kiss her. “We don’t have to hike today,” I say.

  “You can rest if you need to.”

  “I’d rather get out into the air. I felt like I was smothering yesterday.”

  “It was nasty.”

  She narrows her eyes. “How would you know? You weren’t there for most of it.”

  I purse my lips. “I’ll order us up some breakfast.”

  She nods.

  An hour later, I’m in my new gear, ready to hit the trails. Miriam seems to have regained her enthusiasm, so we head to the first trail, a short one since we’re getting to the trailhead late. Midmorning is late by hiking standards, I discover.

  Surprisingly, I quite enjoy myself. But about halfway through, I get a nasty jolt. Miriam pulls out a camera. A Polaroid.

  How perfect for the person who hates to wait.

  “I loathe those things,” I say.

  “Get over it.” She aims it at me.

  I stick out my tongue. She ruins a whole wad of film on me.

  As we lie in bed later that night, Miriam falling off fast and looking so peaceful in her sleep, I turn her body to me and hold her, feeling my chest fill with a thing better than desire. I want to protect her from all that can go wrong in a life. I’m thinking of Kat and Violet, of how they were lost in the surge that races downstream. And I’m thinking of Johnson and his plague, how I’m carrying it inside like a deadly infection.

  The second day we nearly kill ourselves hiking from dawn to dusk. By the time we get back, I’m exhausted and irritable. Bates is on my mind. Johnson aggravates like a handful of fleas.

  I start out dinner with a double whiskey neat. Southern Com fort, of course. I get snotty as dinner progresses. I try to solve the problem by drinking more.

  “We need to talk,” Miriam says about midway through dinner.

  “It’s not a good time.”

  “With you, it’s never a good time.”

  I wait, still sober enough to hold my tongue.

  “What happened yesterday morning?”

  I’ve been ready for this. I have ammunition. “I think a better question might be why you would tell Johnson about Violet’s murder. You had no right to tell anyone, much less that ass of a human being.”

  For once, Miriam is speechless.

  “He took me out to lunch yesterday and informed me about an investigation he’s been doing on my background, saying that you knew about it. Is that true?”

  She looks down. “Yes .”

  “Thanks a lot. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I don’t know why I’d want to tell you anything about me and my shitty past.” Her head jerks up on that comment.

  The waiter sets my third double in front of me.

  Her head goes into her hands. I think she might start crying. She raises her head, her eyes red.

  “I’m sorry. I’d be mad as hell if I were you. Johnson always makes things sound so logical. He told me he wanted to do a background check, and since you wouldn’t tell me anything about yourself, well, my curiosity took over.”

  I pick up the glass of whiskey, still full, and down it in one swallow. “What do you want to know? Do you want to know that he slashed Violet’s neck so hard and deep that her head was almost cut off?”

  She looks horrified. I should stop, but I don’t.

  “And did I tell you he sliced her stomach, too? Her intestines were spilled out. Like sausage,” I say. “Maybe I didn’t tell you how she was the eighth that he’s killed. There’s been a ninth since. Is that what you want to know?”

  “Stop it, Becca. You’re making me sick. And you’re using it to hurt me because you’re hurt. I want to know about your past because I love you, goddamnit. It’s not a game for me. And you never even explain why you won’t talk about it. That would help. And why you don’t want your picture taken, or a picture of your car. If you don’t tell me anything, I start to fill in the answers myself. I begin to lose trust in you.”

  I motion the waiter to bring me another double.

  “You’ve had enough,” Miriam says.

  “I’ll decide that.”

  We sit and glare at one another. “What do you know about real life anyway? You’re babied, pampered. You have all the money you’d ever want. Everybody thinks you’re so swell because you sing up on a stage. I don’t think you could ever understand my life. We’re as different as night and day.”

  “How are we different? Because you work at Tutti? What’s so bad about that? I don’t get what you’re so secretive about. And what do you mean, shitty past?”

  “Oh fuck off.”

  She stands up. “I hate it when you drink.” Miriam stalks out. I sit, thinking what a stupid shit I am. And everybody around is giving me looks like I’ve done a terrible thing making the lovely Miriam Dubois angry. I move to the lounge, brooding over Bates’ request and my memory of Violet’s battered face.

  And because I can’t stand the thought of Miriam being angry with me, I go up to our room. When I open the door, I see her sitting in the dark, looking out to the mountains like I did the night before. I walk up behind her and bend over, lying my head on her shoulder, smelling her neck, kissing her. I act a little too much like Jeremy, nuzzling close, letting my adoration show.

  She ignores me for awhile. Neither of us says a word. Then she stands and takes me by the arm, sitting me on the bed and stripping me, still angry. She pushes me onto the bed and lies me in the center. That’s when I see she’s already attached straps to the corners. Miriam straps me spread out and jams a gag in my mouth.

  “Drinking is a vice,” she says as she’s getting off the bed. “Whiskey is bad for you.”

  Miriam goes and turns on the TV. I moan.

  “And I’m not spoiled. And I’m not pampered. You saw what it was like for me at that damn photo shoot, so you should know better.”

  She starts flipping through the channels, leaving me like that for an hour while she watches some stupid movie on TV.

  “Patience is a virtue,” she keeps reminding me. “Drinking is a vice,” she repeats. “Especially for you.”

  When she turns the TV off and comes over to me, she strips and slips on a harness, inserting the dildo. I shake my head no.

  The dangers. You know.

  I struggle against the straps and shake my head with vehemence.

  She mounts me. “What’s the matter? You can shovel it out, but can’t take it?” Miriam positions herself and plunges in hard. God, it hurts. I try not to let it show, but tears come into my eyes, not so much from the pain, but from the whole thing.

  She sees my eyes. That’s when she stops. It’s like her face disintegrates, and she collapses on top of me crying. All I can do is lie there, still penetrated by that damn thing. She pulls out slow and takes the gag out of my mouth.

  “Miriam,” I say, “I don’t want this. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I’ll tell you everything. Just let me go and let’s never end up like this again.”

  She’s still crying as she undoes the cuffs. I take her in my arms and hold her so tight I think I might squeeze the life out of her.

  When she stops crying, she turns and we stare into one another’s faces for a long while.

  “I mean it,” I say. “What do you wa
nt to know?”

  She touches my cheek and kisses me. “Nothing. Not like this. When you’re ready, you tell me. I hurt you, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I wanted to hurt you. I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  I think she’s going to start crying again. “Shh. Miriam. Don’t cry.”