Still Lives

by Maria Hummel

  It’s a logical question, and the logical answer would be: He’s telling the truth. He simply didn’t know.

  But I don’t believe that’s it exactly. Brent let himself go blind. I think of the momentary fire in his eyes after the Jason Rains preview, how even my small burst of admiration affected him. What if such adulation were magnified a thousand times by the big theater company orchestrating his Broadway comeback? Why would he care about anything else? I relay my thoughts to Yegina.

  “But Kim told him she was pregnant,” she says. “It seems like they were really close.”

  “Maybe.” I muse aloud that Kim was panicking about the responsibility of a child, and how it might ruin her art career. She might have thought Brent would understand. Because of Barbara.

  “So Evie overheard the pregnant part and she went nuts,” says Yegina. “But she was so calculated, too. I feel like I never knew her.”

  “I agree.” I grab an article and read aloud about Evie’s childhood in small towns in the Imperial Valley and Northern California. She moved often with her single mother, who had a drug habit, and for several years was placed in foster care by the state for neglect. Evie’s biological mother declined to be interviewed, but the foster mother characterized Evie as the “prettiest little psychopath” she’d ever met.

  “One thing we do know: it was dangerous to be close to her,” I say. It was dangerous to know her at all, I add internally, wanting to confess to my stolen phone, my hunch that Evie sent the warning note to Greg, that she was scoping out my house to figure out how to frame me next and ran out of time. I wait again for Yegina to say something about my fall in the sculpture garden, but again, she doesn’t. She is looking down, pressing a finger into her forearm until the skin whitens.

  I ask about her brother. She tells me Don is living at home, but the whole family is seeing a great therapist, and Don’s saving money to bike up the coast to San Francisco. Yegina says she might go with him.

  “Work is so busy, though,” she adds. “With you and Jayme gone. And Bas is fund-raising like crazy in Kim’s name, which I know you’ll think is crass, but people want to do something, they feel so sad …” She trails off.

  “How is Bas?” I say. “I mean, how are Bas and you?”

  Yegina heaves a giant sigh. “The day Don tried to … Bas was with me in my office,” she says. “And yes, we’d been flirting, in this silly, sinkingship sort of way, because his career was going down and his marriage was breaking up and Kim Lord was missing and my best friend was lying to me and we might all lose our jobs if the Rocque couldn’t balance its budget.” She absently stacks the magazines as she talks, periodically pausing to tuck her black hair behind her ear. “And then I get a call from my mom saying she’s bringing Don back from the hospital because he tried to hang himself. I can’t drive, I’m too upset. And you’re totally unreachable. So Bas just dumped everything and drove me.” Bas told her that his older sister had committed suicide when he was a teenager, and that he’d never recovered from it. “We both realized we came from these pressure-cooker families, where you have to stay on track or you’ve failed forever.”

  That day, Bas stayed in the car for two hours while Yegina went inside with her family, and then he escorted her home.

  “And if you must know, we decided not to sleep together,” she adds. “He’s only an okay kisser, anyway.” Her tone is light, but her eyes, locked on mine, are hurt. “So you didn’t really interrupt anything, and you didn’t have to take off like that.”

  “I was in shock,” I say. “And there you were with him. I felt like an intruder … What was I supposed to do?”

  “You could have trusted me,” Yegina says.

  I did trust her. I might have died if Yegina hadn’t believed my text in J. Ro’s garden. It hurts how much I trust her, and she rescued me. But I don’t want to start bawling now because I don’t know when I’d stop.

  The bustle of the ward fills the silence: the custodian rattles her mop bucket, rolling it down the hall. There’s a burst of conversation at the nurse’s station.

  “Ray Hendricks was in the office today,” Yegina says. “He said he left something for you.”

  “Strange,” I say, my stomach dropping. Hendricks hasn’t been back to the hospital since we lied to Detective Ruiz. “Why was he there?”

  Yegina says that Hendricks came for the legal sorting out of the Still Lives paintings. J. Ro insisted he take part in the dialogue because he was the one who identified Kim Lord’s alleged stalker. “It was this big collector who was trying to own everything Kim Lord ever made. Really creepy.”

  “Sounds it,” I say.

  “Anyway, J. Ro is buying them, on the condition that Nelson give Kim’s percentage of the proceeds to Kim’s family, and Nelson’s percentage to nonprofits for women artists. And then Janis is loaning the paintings to the Rocque indefinitely.”

  I try to show enthusiasm, though I am having a hard time processing the news. Still Lives will belong to the Rocque, as Kim wanted, but what will happen with the rest of her paintings—all her early work in The Flesh and Noir? Now that Steve Goetz and his supercollector scheme are known, will he continue with it?

  “How did you figure out that Evie did it?” says Yegina, watching my face.

  “I don’t know.” I don’t meet her eyes. “I just pieced things together.”

  “You should have gotten credit.”

  “So I could put it on my résumé?” I ask.

  “Hendricks said you would make a great investigator if you weren’t such a decent person,” she says.

  “It sounds like you two talked for a while,” I say.

  “Not really. He didn’t want to talk to me,” Yegina says, now smiling. “But I knew something was up between you, so I got nosy.”

  My mind flashes to Hendricks jumping into the pit of glass, smashing down with his knees bent, then swimming over to me, his hands cut on the broken pieces. His red-streaked palms reaching. I don’t remember what happened next, but he must remember. He must have done something to stop me from bleeding to death. He must also have taken the cassette in my recorder. And then he made me lie. Made me look like a clumsy idiot to Detective Ruiz. And never apologized. I mumble something and flip through the magazines. A masthead catches my eye.

  “Check this out,” I say, grabbing the issue of ArtNoise, which shows a blurry picture of the crew party on the roof on the night of the Gala. Evie is circled in bright-red ink. “Kevin’s article.” There I am in a full-page photo, standing at the threshold of the third gallery, my head bowed, blond hair falling in my face. Jayme’s green dress curves tight around me; her high-heeled boots extend my legs to spikes. I look good. A little dangerous. Unpredictable.

  But I also look like someone has just slapped me hard, and I am afraid to raise my head.

  I close the magazine and sink back to my pillows, suddenly exhausted. “I’ll read it later. I’m sorry. I’m so tired.”

  Yegina sits there a moment, and then starts sliding the magazines back into her bag. “I’ll hold on to them,” she promises. “Do you want me to bring whatever Hendricks left you?”

  “No,” I say, closing my eyes. “Leave it in my office. I’ll be back.”

  “Good,” Yegina says softly, and strokes my forehead. “I’ll swamp your inbox and take you to lunch at the new shabu-shabu place on Sunset. It’ll be old times.”

  “Can’t wait,” I say.

  I wish we both believed it was true.

  A MONTH LATER

  30

  The swelling is down all over my body, thanks to walks to the creek with my parents’ collies and deep sleeps in the starry northern quiet, but my face still looks unbalanced to me. Not bigger or puffier, just not mine. Every morning I pull my T-shirts over it, open my mouth for hearty breakfasts, whistle as I wander down cool dirt rows, helping my parents plant tomato seedlings. Every day I try to look pleased to hear (again) about the neighbor’s grown-up doctor son, who runs marathons and works at
the local hospital, and I smirk at stories of the town’s crazy libertarian, who recently hung the governor in effigy from his plumbing sign.

  Yet every evening I stare at my face in my mother’s mahogany mirror, and try to find what’s different.

  “Mirror, mirror,” my mother says from the threshold one day. “You look like my daughter again.”

  “Thanks to you,” I say. Every day I ricochet between gladness and dread at my mother’s homemade bread, her clean, crisp sheets, at my father’s ebullient teasing, the solid weight of his arm around my shoulders. I wish I could belong to them again.

  My mother steps into the room and straightens the already straight pillows on the bed. Then she shakes the gauzy curtains so that the evening light spills through them. It’s spring light, frail and silver-gold.

  “There are some new graduate programs at the university,” she says. “Your father and I want you to live here. If you find a degree you like.”

  I don’t know what to say. Behind every delicious meal and chat about the new bike path has been this unspoken question: Why don’t you stay here?

  Why don’t I?

  A fly buzzes out from the window, huge for this time of year, and we both watch it. The black body loops and settles back against the pane. Ever since I arrived home, Kim Lord’s death has receded behind the avalanche of a new homicide. Laci Peterson, a missing and pregnant California woman, washed ashore in Richmond in April, within miles of the beached body of her unborn son. Picture after picture of her life layers the media now: pretty at Christmas, holding her belly. Handsome husband with his strong chin, his arm squeezing his wife.

  Meanwhile, Kim is not forgotten, not replaced. She has simply faded as another victim takes the spotlight. Before long, another lovely murdered face will rise beside Laci’s, and Laci, too, will move to the background with the other victims of homicide. We’ll talk about her case as solved or unsolved, as if knowing who killed her and dumped her body explains anything about why her life had to end. Eventually the reason she died will frame her whole existence—and not the infinite reasons she deserved to live.

  My mother sighs at my silence. “I’m afraid there’s something back there that won’t let you go,” she says. “I don’t think it’s Greg anymore.”

  “It’s not Greg,” I say.

  “Then what is it?” She’s almost in tears. “Why do you get involved in this stuff? You don’t have to.”

  I shake my head, wishing I could explain. Instead, my dry eyes follow the fly, imagining slapping it, and the way its grotesque body would open, spilling its guts, smearing the glass. It crawls up the window until it reaches a ledge, then pauses, tenderly rubbing its legs together.

  The next morning even our distant Vermont newspaper is covering the Laci Peterson case. The husband’s lawyers are floating the idea that a Satanic cult kidnapped and killed her, which of course has spawned a juicy headline to make people once again wince over her story, her curving belly, her huge, happy smile.

  I go outside to help my mother spread compost on her future strawberry garden before she plants. The work is tedious and a bit smelly, but the softness of the soil promises that summer is coming and takes my mind away from the image of another mutilated female body. It’s also good to labor alongside my mom, who becomes so intent on her gardening, bending and plucking, it’s like she’s having a private conversation with the earth. I could learn from this. I could heal.

  When it starts to drizzle, I go inside and call Yegina. We gossip about the explosion of visitors to the Rocque, and Jayme’s return from Hawaii, her stories of swimming with dolphins. As we talk, I can feel Yegina’s L.A. filling my childhood bedroom: her favorite Korean barbecue place, her date with Hiro to the silent-movie theater, the Chilean singer that the public radio station is playing. I can see Yegina’s yellow Mazda in a long line of cars streaming to downtown, the sunlight already glaring off her windshield, as she passes signs for wide avenues that run for miles.

  “But the big news is that J. Ro strong-armed that big collector into donating all of Kim Lord’s paintings from her first shows,” says Yegina. “So the Rocque now owns her entire collection and we’re building a special gallery in his name. Steve Goetz.”

  “It should be in Kim’s name,” I snap.

  Yegina makes a surprised noise. “You ended up admiring her, didn’t you?”

  There’s a sinking sensation in my gut, like I’ve arrived at an important occasion far too late, and everyone is already there, staring at me. I was so focused on my own shame at losing Greg to Kim that she became a specter of my own self-loathing, and I couldn’t acknowledge the real Kim Lord. I wish I could have met her again, in a different year, and that we had become friends. I might have liked to see her and Greg’s child, even if it hurt. But most likely, I would have been happy to stay a stranger, to know her through her paintings alone, to appreciate the next stunning work she made. “I’m grateful Janis does,” I say. “It’s great news for the museum.”

  “The press release had typos,” Yegina informs me. “When are you coming back?”

  “Soon,” I say.

  “They’ll stop asking you,” says Yegina. “I’ll never stop, but others will.”

  My mother is standing in my doorway, holding a large padded envelope, a dubious look on her face.

  “It’s from someone named Ray in L.A.,” she says when I hang up the phone. “Didn’t he visit you at the hospital?”

  “He was working on Kim Lord’s case,” I say.

  “Well, what does he want now?” She continues to clutch the package and I have to grab it from her. It feels light, like there’s very little inside.

  “We were sort of friends, too,” I mumble.

  I wait until she’s gone, and tear the envelope open. A black object spills out. A digital recorder, like the one Jay Eastman had, Detective Ruiz had. The size that could fit in my fist.

  A piece of tape is attached to it, a note in a man’s handwriting:

  Got this for you, but they said you’re not back. Sending it along in case.

  A gift to replace my old broken one. In case I don’t return. In case I never see him again.

  A meter indicates that there’s a short recording on it already.

  I shut my bedroom door, press play, and hear Hendricks’s voice:

  You want to know why we lied. You might have found your own reasons by now, but I owe you mine. You accuse a famous killer of trying to murder you, and you can never be yourself again. You’ll be in the trial, the newspapers, TV, you’ll be the one who escaped, but your life won’t be yours. It’ll be hers.

  Don’t let her have it. Make your life about the things and the people that matter to you, the ones worth saving. Keep them well, and let the dead go. The dead already know their ending.

  And then nothing for a long moment, and the recording stops.

  Hard as I listen, the words don’t sink in. I play it again, trying to understand if it’s an apology or warning. Or both. Finally I rewind to the end of Hendricks’s speech and just listen to his silence. It makes me remember my first night in the hospital. I can see it clearly now: Hendricks sitting by my bedside, his bandaged hand on my hand, his eyes on my damaged face. How the closeness would have ended if either of us had spoken. How in that moment there was nothing to say, no words that could explain yet how we felt. How we both were waiting.

  31

  When the rain stops, I go down to the kitchen to ask my mother if I can take a drive with her station wagon. It’s gotten warm today, almost sixty-five, and I can’t stay inside anymore, but I don’t want to wander my parents’ land either.

  “Need company?” she says, handing me the keys.

  “Not this time,” I say.

  “Where are you going?” she asks, trying to sound casual.

  I tell her I don’t know. She grips the counter. I hug her until her shoulders relax. “I won’t be long,” I say.

  She nods.

  When I reach the end of o
ur road, I have the choice to drive west to Burlington, the lakefront city where I used to meet Nikki, or east, deeper into the country, where Nikki lived. I turn east. I’ve only visited her hometown once, when I was younger, to hike the cliffs above it, but when I get there, it is exactly as I remember: a gas station, a village of white wooden houses set too close to the road, a volunteer fire department, and a couple of churches. Blink and you miss it, this little center. Most people in the town live on long woodsy roads that wind off in either direction. Exactly like my hometown. I don’t know which house Nikki grew up in, or where her killer lives, but I bet the houses are close. I bet in the winter they are visible to each other through the bare trees and snow, and if not the houses, then their woodsmoke, winding skyward, mingling in the gray air.

  I could stay here and find out who killed her. It might take a while, but I could do it. Is that what Nikki would have wanted? To bring down her neighbors?

  At Luster’s, Hendricks told me that Nikki had bragged to everyone in town that she was talking to a reporter. Even before that, she knew she was in danger for squealing on people, and she made it worse. She made herself a target, and she didn’t run away. I never understood why, until I witnessed Evie also hesitate.

  Evie was so meticulous at first. Killing Kim and getting her out of the museum was nearly impossible, and she pulled it off. All the way through the Gala and into the next day she’d kept her cool, going about her usual business while Kim died slowly in the crate. Evie could have left L.A. safely and easily after she buried Kim, but she didn’t. She waited. She stalled. Was she hoping Brent would pick up where they’d left off? She would have known by then that he’d reject her, but still she lingered.