Burning September

by Melissa Simonson

  But when I peeled back the ratty outdoor runner lining the cement near the sliding glass door, there they were again. So normal looking. I don’t know what I expected. Maybe jagged claw marks, some creepy hoof prints. Not slender outlines that looked like they came from a pair of Vans. It seemed outrageous that my stalker wore Vans. I wore Vans, who the hell did they think they were, walking around in the same brand of shoes I sometimes wore?

  I straightened up, squinting around the yard for anything unusual, but found nothing. What really filled me with dread, however, wasn’t the proof of someone’s unwanted presence; it was the fact that I had to call for help, and that list contained only one name.

  ***

  “Hmm.” Kyle gazed down at the footprints with thoughtful eyes in an otherwise vacant expression. “So I’m guessing your boyfriend Jeff didn’t stop by to see you randomly while you were out?”

  “I’m getting really tired of people calling guys who aren’t my boyfriend my boyfriend.”

  He lifted a brow, the prelude of a smirk on his lips. “That happens a lot?”

  “This isn’t from anyone who’d stop by randomly. Nobody stops by randomly, and if they did, they wouldn’t go around to the back door and try to break in. They’d ring the bell, knock, and leave after they got no answer.”

  “What about mail carriers, landscapers? Are you expecting a package?” He turned toward the patch of grass lining the walkway, the sun drizzling over his face. “Someone’s gotta cut this grass, tend to the shrubs.”

  “I didn’t order anything, and the landscapers don’t tend to the backyards. I’m telling you, there’s no reason on earth why anyone would go around to the sliding glass.”

  “They tried the knob.” He waved a hand at the smeared toe of the Vans impression. “They look the same at the back door?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Looks like a guy, unless it’s some tall Amazon woman with huge feet. You didn’t go in yet, did you?”

  “No.”

  He turned his hand palm-up, and I shot it a leery glance.

  “I want your house key, I’m not asking you to dance.”

  I handed it over.

  He inserted the key, turned the knob, stepped inside. “Looks empty,” he said, his head swiveling from side to side, “but stay behind me.”

  I stood in the foyer, watching him look behind sofas, throw back the drapes, check behind the entertainment center, but I didn’t follow when he went to the kitchen. I didn’t need any reminders of his assault on my lips. It had already infected my brain like Mad Cow disease, turned it into Swiss cheese, frequent still frame images of it blooming behind my closed eyelids at inopportune times.

  He strode back into the living room a moment later, swung himself around the stair banister. “I’ll just check the bedrooms.”

  I stayed where I was, hoping I hadn’t left any random undergarments scattered across the floor of my room.

  “Nice bra on the bed,” he said when he galloped down the staircase a minute later. “Other than that, nothing of interest going on up there.”

  “Should I call the cops?”

  He exhaled loudly, crossing his arms over his chest, his eyes tracing the corners of the room. “I don’t know. There’s nothing they’d be able to do, but you should still make a note of it in that log I told you to keep. You were considering a security camera, you said. I can help you install one.”

  “I can probably pay someone to do it for me.”

  “Why pay someone when I can do it for free?”

  “Why do it for free when I can pay someone?”

  “Are you mad at me or something?”

  I shook my head, unwilling to inflate his ego even further and give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d managed to rattle me the last time we were together.

  “Looks like you might be.”

  “Well I’m not,” I said, in a tone that betrayed anger in every syllable.

  “You baited me. You know you did.” I didn’t have to look at him to know he was smiling, a big one, I was willing to bet, one that showed the tips of his canines and the whites of his eyes all the way around.

  “It’s not baiting if it’s the truth,” I shot back. “It was just you being irrational and me pointing it out. I’m the innocent party here. Not you. I could probably even get you fired.”

  “I wouldn’t get fired over that. Maybe at most a stern talking-to and a slap on the back.”

  “I’m sure it’s against the rules to fraternize with clients.”

  “Ah. But you’re not a client, and therein lies the loophole.” I felt the burn of his eyes on my skin, but I didn’t look at him. “I probably haven’t been as professional as I should be with you, though. I’m only human.”

  So was I, but you wouldn’t ever find me running around kissing unsuspecting people. Baiting him. Bullshit. It was a joke, I’d have never said it had I known he’d follow through. Caroline would say the fact that I made the joke at all was proof I’d ‘baited him’ on purpose, evidence I wanted him to do it, but she was a lunatic for Christ’s sake, had the papers and the scrubs to prove it.

  I’m only human, what the hell did that even mean? Thanks for stating the most obvious fact in the world.

  “Do you even know how to install cameras?”

  “It’s not rocket science, they come with instruction manuals. Tomorrow works best, Tuesdays are light for me. I have one condition, though.”

  “If it’s another kiss, you can leave right now.”

  “God, how nervous do I really make you? I just wanted to drive the Challenger to Best Buy.”

  ***

  Darkness pressed heavily against my eyelids, my vision reduced to two puffy slits as I sat on the couch, staring at a truly terrible reality show on TV. Some sobbing woman claiming she’d never been vulnerable in her life, now look where letting her walls down had gotten her? A first class ticket to the island of fools.

  Hadn’t she been asking for it, though, lining up at The Bachelor casting calls? Could any reasonable woman really waste tears on some guy she had only a slender chance of being with?

  I’d never let that happen to me, not ever, look how well a broken heart turned out for Caroline? And she was the strongest person I’d ever met. Vulnerability handed people the weaponry and tools needed to destroy you with as little as a few words. You just had to trust that they wouldn’t. Fat chance.

  Understanding why Caroline had held her rules so close to her heart was easy now. Once you broke one, you started thinking it was easy to break the rest. They all snapped like toothpicks, one after the other, and then look what happened? The mother of all splinters.

  I remember seeing Caroline break up with a man when I was fifteen. I’d been waiting in the Buick, watched her knock on his door, take two dainty steps back, shrug her hair behind her shoulders. The sun at her back turned her gauzy dress completely transparent, I saw the gap between her thighs clear as day as the boiling wind ruffled the hem around her knees. I couldn’t hear their exchange after he’d opened the door, but when she walked away two minutes later, she held her head high, strode back to the car with one foot directly in front of the other, sliding her sunglasses back down on her nose as the wind whipped her hair back like a supermodel’s. Quick and easy. She didn’t look back, even though she had to have known he was standing there stupefied, watching her grand exit. I remember thinking this is the way all women should stage their breakups, no need for tears, long closure attempts, messy details, just walk away wearing your sunglasses and high heels, get in your car, drive off. Just another thing to scratch off your to-do list.

  That never happened in The Bachelor.

  What was the point of the host barging into the ceremony to announce this was the last rose? It was obvious by virtue of the fact that only one rose was left on that little silver tray. The cameraman never failed to zoom in for a close-up.

  If Kyle were around, he’d propose a drinking game. Anytime someone said amazing you’d take a
shot. Whenever the word vulnerable made an appearance, you’d take two. If tears erupt, take three. Guaranteed to get you a brand new DUI in thirty minutes flat.

  Caroline, so sophisticated and superior, loathed reality television, but I’d always been drawn to it in a car crash kind of way. What fresh hell is this, she’d say, walking through the front door with a finger pressed to her temple like a gun barrel, her thumb the trigger. Who cares if it may be scripted had always been my answering line. There was always a chance it wasn’t, that people this outrageous really existed outside the viewfinder of a camera lens.

  And she’d settle in beside me, sipping her herbal tea from a thrift store teacup, gracing me with her running commentary the whole time. You do realize they’re only keeping this jackass around for ratings, right? They’ve got a never-ending full bar in their ‘mansion’, you know, that’s why everyone’s so emotional, so loud and obnoxious. This is their make it big moment, they’re all desperate to be famous. How did these women manage to graduate high school thinking that ‘conversate’ is a word? Christ on a bike.

  The Bachelor took a deep breath after Chris Harrison informed him unnecessarily of the number of roses on the table. The sea of women standing before them exchanged looks, shifted in their glittering gowns, blinked furry fake eyelashes that looked like the legs of a tarantula—

  And then the television cut off. Beneath it, the digital clock’s green numbers faded. I glanced out the blinds and found all of the neighbor’s lights ablaze, the blue glints of TVs flashing against windows, their silhouettes swaying behind sheer curtains.

  I sat up straight, clutching a prom dress pillow to my chest. Blackouts weren’t unheard of, but to have it limited to one condo, mine, was. But before I could give the thought any real traction, the TV blinked back on, the clock illuminated, The Bachelor’s dramatic music blared.

  I sank back down. The Bachelor still stood there, pretending to waffle with his decision, the women holding roses still wore smug smiles—

  Before I could bolt upright, the momentary blackness had abated, the Bachelor had already called the name of the final rose winner, she looked so relieved, like she wanted to sag into the carpeting, the only thing keeping her standing had to be the lethal-looking shoes she wore—

  And I was drowned in darkness yet again, such a thick darkness it seemed like I could cut it straight through with a knife, and this time, the TV didn’t flick back on immediately.

  That’s why the footprint-leaver went around to the sliding glass door, that’s where the circuit panel was, and he was out there right now, pulling the main breaker switch again and again and again, probably laughing under his breath and a ski mask.

  I could be just as sneaky, as light on my feet as a cat, having been forced to tiptoe around my hungover father as he slept on the couch, so I crept toward the kitchen, blending into deeper shadows, breathing so lightly it felt like I wasn’t breathing at all.

  My hand closed around the largest knife in the butcher block, I’d gotten two steps from the sliding glass, watching the wind snake through the moonlit grass like a serpent, when the TV blared again from the living room, Chris Harrison now blathering on about the book he wrote for the umpteenth time.

  I flattened myself against the wall, reached out to flick the lock on the sliding glass, and flung it open as the TV fell silent.

  A great rustling erupted, so loud it was like a sasquatch hid in the shrubs near the circuit panel, and as I planted the ball of one bare foot onto the patio, muffled steps pounded around the corner, toward the wooden back gate of the condo which led to the main walkway.

  I threw the sliding glass door into place and followed the asshole around the corner, knowing it would be too late, he had a head start, his footsteps had already faded.

  The only proof he’d been there at all was the distant, wet sound of a car engine coughing like an old man.

  I think I’m going to have to call the police, I texted to Kyle once I’d flipped the breaker switch back on and made my way inside.

  ***

  “You need to station someone outside the complex,” Kyle was telling the uniformed police officer who had answered my call while I sat there on the couch feeling like the dumb little girl I kept telling people I wasn’t, but there I was, calling Daddy in to save me, letting him field the bulk of the questions lobbied my way by a bored cop with cynical eyes and a buzz cut. Some might be annoyed that Kyle had taken it upon himself to be my mouthpiece, but I liked it. I didn’t want to talk to the officer, anyway. When had they ever listened to me before?

  “It looks like she scared him off, Mr. Cavanaugh. If he were intent on harming her, wouldn’t he have done so? But he just ran off. It’s probably a prank, but I can check to see whether we can spare a patrol car, though I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

  “This isn’t the first time her stalker’s made an appearance, and it won’t be the last. He didn’t harm her yet because he wants to scare her. It’s some fucked up foreplay or something.”

  The officer smacked his notebook against his open palm, watery cow-like eyes swimming in skepticism. “But she never reported anything to do with the other incidents.”

  Kyle donned a patronizing expression, a teacher spoon feeding a D student the answer. “Would you have done anything about it, based solely on her word?”

  “Well, without any real proof—”

  “Exactly.” He threw his hands in the air. “Your hands would have been tied in all the other encounters, but he was right there this time; she was home when he showed up. Right outside her door fucking with the main breaker switch,” he said, his voice climbing decibels, “he could have done anything to her. Would you be able to do something about it if he’d raped her? Would he have to murder her to get your attention?”

  The cop cleared his throat, turned to me, sighed. “Ms. Smirnov, you’ve turned into something of a public figure recently, people know your face, probably recognize you everywhere you go—”

  “So she asked for it, that’s what you’re saying? If you hadn’t arrested her sister, none of this would have happened? Arrested her without a solid shred of evidence, I might point out—”

  “I’m saying it could just be teenagers playing pranks, you know what they’re like, we were all teenagers at one point—”

  “I’m technically still a teenager,” I cut in from the sofa, like a child refereeing a shouting match between her parents. “And I wouldn’t do anything like this.”

  They spared me a look, as though surprised to realize I could speak.

  “Listen, for now, the most I can do is write up the incident report, maybe try to get a free unit down here to watch the entrance of the B block in the complex. I’d do more if I could, but without a physical description, there’s not a whole lot to be on the lookout for. You should call if anything else happens.”

  Kyle’s eyes shot sparks as the officer handed me a card and took his leave.

  “Do you have school tomorrow?” He shut the front door, engaged the deadbolt.

  I buried my face in my hands as I yawned, peeking between the gaps of my fingers. “Yeah. In the morning.”

  “I have a deposition at nine o’clock, nothing going on later. Call me when you’re out of school, and I can head to Best Buy to pick up those security cameras. We’ll install them so they’re hidden, let this dickhead think he’s safe.” He looked at me in a way I wished I could bottle, spritz it on whenever I felt panic rearing its ugly head. “Are you planning on visiting your sister anytime soon?”

  “Day after next.”

  “You need to stress to her how important it is that she does this Karen Stone interview. She sure as hell hasn’t listened to me, but I have a feeling if she knew what went on tonight, she’d change her tune. The police won’t be able to do anything, nothing substantial, it’s not entirely their fault, but that’s how it is. A follow up interview with Caroline would be a good way to shoehorn in what’s been going on recently.”

  *** />
  Spring had almost sprung, if the rain-bloated dark clouds the sky screamed to let loose looming above the campus were any indication. The flower beds had turned into muddy Slip N Slides, plants struggled to hold their petaled heads up under the heavy weight of dew, and the stench of rotting mulch filled my nostrils as galloped down a set of stairs and swept past.

  Jeff fell into place beside me as I left Professor Rasmussen’s class, heading toward the music hallway.

  “How’s it going? I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

  I didn’t know why he’d expected to hear from me at all. We weren’t Friends, we were friends? without much in common except for one art class and a fondness for a certain murderer.

  “Sorry, I meant to text back. I’ve been busy.”

  “Oh, really? With what?”

  I shot him a sideways glance through the wet fog, eyebrows forced up in surprise.

  “I’m just interested,” he said in a rush, stumbling over a crack in the sidewalk. Dew clung to his pores and collected on the lenses of his glasses. He needed some windshield wipers. “That came out wrong. I’m not saying it as in, you owe me any explanations. We just haven’t hung out in a while.”

  “Well, I’ve had a lot of research papers and general homework, not to mention this thing with Caroline. It makes life pretty hectic.”

  He bobbed his head, keeping pace with my long strides. I’d hoped it would tire him out, make him get the hint; I didn’t want to talk or have a long conversation, clearly I had somewhere to go, but he didn’t seem to get the message, or had planned on ignoring it entirely.

  “Are you going home?” He cast a glance at the parking lot I’d buzzed right past.

  “No. Professor Lawlis’s office.”

  “What for?”

  “It’s…” I stopped, adjusting the strap of my backpack, trying and failing to smooth the annoyed arch in my eyebrow. “It’s kind of personal. Was there something you needed?”