Heartbreaker

by Maryse Meijer

  It’s me, he tells her, and puts his hands on her arms. When she moves dirt falls on her shoulders, skips down her dress. He’s aware that her back is only bones beneath the dress, skin shrunk against them like leather, but he doesn’t mind; he expected worse.

  Do you know how long you were in the ground? he asks.

  No.

  Eight weeks, he says, and she looks surprised, her eyes climbing the hill as though looking for something.

  Oh, she says.

  * * *

  He met her on TV. She was already dead by then: in all the photographs beautiful, smiling, nineteen. She was buried a mile from his apartment and he went to her every night, all night. The facts of her death did not deter him: brutal, raped, slashed. His love would fix all that. All she had to do was find her way back to the world, to him. If he wished hard enough, loved strong enough, she would. Did.

  * * *

  When he kisses her he can taste her teeth right behind her lips. There is no water in her; she can’t cry, she can’t spit. Everything on her cracks and splits. When he touches her he can feel her bones trying to remember how to move, clicking where the cartilage is almost gone.

  Do you like it when I do this? he asks.

  I will, she says, I just have to get used to it.

  Am I your first?

  She frowns. Why does that matter?

  It doesn’t, I just want to know.

  Well, you know what he did, she tells him.

  I mean besides what he did.

  Then you’re the first, she says, and he squeezes her hand, so happy. He says it: I’m happy.

  She touches the hem of her dress, remembering something about it. Picking it out, putting it on. Being happy, too. She couldn’t reach the zipper herself and someone had to zip it for her and that must be the sound she hears all the time, the teeth coming together, then being torn apart.

  * * *

  The cut is still there, a dark smile on her throat, but on the third night he can see something bright glitter beneath the skin: freshness, red.

  There’s blood, he says.

  What?

  Growing, inside. Can’t you feel it?

  She swallows. The spot shifts, looks wet.

  No, she says. She touches the white line of skin on her ring finger.

  Not there, he says. Here. On your neck.

  I can’t feel anything there.

  Just try.

  No, she says again, and pushes his hand away, the bone-light brush of her without power, without weight. He thinks of holding her wrist, squeezing it. It would snap. Even a man like him would be able to hurt her. The other man, the bad one, was so big he could do anything. Whatever he wanted.

  * * *

  She looks tired, or maybe it’s just how deep her eyes have sunk in their sockets. It’s hard for her to really look at him; she keeps seeing old things, things that aren’t happening anymore, and the new things get lost beneath them. He tells her that her vision will get better; she knows it won’t, because her eyes aren’t really eyes anymore, but she keeps this to herself. They sit on the dark grass and he holds her hand, marvels at it, the split nails still flecked with polish, pink. There are lots of little things like this, things that delight him: the full white skirt of her dress, the ankle straps on her white shoes, the small gold hoops in her ears.

  Did you know? That I was here? I came every night. I read you all the articles and the obituaries and stuff, remember?

  She nods. She doesn’t say what else she heard: the dropping of his semen in the dirt, its slow sinking, the thirsty earth bringing it closer. The box stopped it from touching her but she still knew it was there, more and more, his crying out a whisper bleeding down to the roots of the new grass.

  She shivers and he puts his arm around her. She can’t seem to be made warm but he tries; he holds her close, closer, and she makes a sound and it sounds to him like Yes.

  * * *

  He can’t take her out during the day—when the sun appears she is simply not there, doesn’t come back again until it is night—but in the dark she can pass as something still living. He is ecstatic when he sees her, less than a week later, changed; the bones don’t press so painfully against the skin, her eyes have fattened in their sockets. He has brought a comb and he rakes the rest of the dirt from her hair until it gleams. The wind strokes the tall grass. When they take their first step beyond the cemetery he is delirious, full of plans.

  We could go out, he says. Dancing, walking, wherever you wanted to go.

  Oh no, she says, shaking her head. No, I don’t think so.

  Why not? It’s almost closed up, he says, looking at her neck. And the dress fits now. You gained weight.

  I don’t weigh anything, she says matter-of-factly.

  He smiles. If you say so.

  She looks down the road outside the gate and stops, pulling on his hand.

  What? he asks.

  We shouldn’t, she says.

  Shouldn’t what? You don’t want to go out tonight?

  I don’t think I want to go out any night, she says.

  Why not?

  I should go back to where I came from.

  But you came from the ground, he says, giving her a little smile as he gestures toward the cemetery.

  Isn’t that where I belong?

  No, he says. Why would you even say that?

  She looks over her shoulder, back to the hill, takes a few drifting steps to the gate; he takes her arm to stop her, his fingers meeting around the narrow bone.

  You’re not giving this a chance, he says.

  A chance? she says, and there is that look again in her eyes, like she is seeing two things at once.

  Look, he urges, I’ll be with you the whole time. I won’t let you out of my sight for one second.

  She swallows and her throat makes a clicking sound. I don’t want to get in a car, she says. It always happens in cars.

  He doesn’t ask, What happens? Fine, he says, shrugging. We can walk, it’s just six blocks. A nice place. I promise, you’ll like it. Okay?

  She is quiet.

  Okay? he says again.

  * * *

  He gets her a soda water with cranberry; he drinks bourbon straight. She looks at the glass.

  I could have brought you a clean dress, he apologizes. I will next time.

  She shakes her head. It’s fine.

  Take a sip, he suggests.

  She puts the glass to her lips but the liquid somehow doesn’t make it into her mouth. She can feel it dripping down the front of her. The cranberry juice leaves a long pink mark on her dress and she scratches at it with a napkin, over and over.

  It’s okay, he says, patting her knee. We’ll try again some other time. Did you taste it at all? he asks.

  I don’t know, she says, and as she works at the stain her movements become angry, erratic. What is it supposed to taste like? she says.

  What do you mean?

  I can’t drink it! she half-shouts, the scarf around her neck slipping; she pushes it back up.

  Hey, he says, leaning close to calm her. Shh. There’s nothing wrong.

  Her fingers tremble. I still can’t really see you, she says. I don’t know what you look like.

  Who cares, honey, you will, you’ll see everything just perfect in a little while, he says, draining his glass. I’ll put a song on for you.

  I don’t want music, she says.

  He tucks his lips, turns the glass in his hands. I didn’t bring you here so you could mope.

  What did you bring me here for?

  To just … have a nice time. He shrugs. He can’t say what he wants, it is so deep, so difficult inside him. It will take time, he reminds himself; he can wait, he has already been so patient.

  Remember this? he says, slipping the ring out of his pocket, putting it on the bar. She stares at it: something flickers in the amethyst heart, the scratched gold band.

  Where did you get that?

  I found it, he says, grinn
ing. He offers it like a piece of candy, in the palm of his hand. It might be a little big now, he says. But you’ll grow into it.

  I don’t want to, she says.

  Why not?

  She keeps her hands clasped beneath the bar. He elbows her gently. Just take it, he says.

  She remembers the box it came in, white velvet, stamped with the name of the jeweler in silver letters.

  But why? she asks. Why should I take it?

  Because it’s yours, because it’s pretty. Why does it matter? Why do you make a big deal out of every little thing?

  I don’t.

  You’re always complaining.

  She is silent.

  Hey, come on. You look beautiful. No one can tell what happened to you. Don’t worry about it.

  She turns back to him, her eyes fresh with tears; his chest clenches to see them. Water. Life.

  It’s not that, she says through gritted teeth. Her cheeks are fuller, rounder. He still can’t believe how young she looks. Is. Was.

  Can we try to have a good time? Please?

  Yes, she says. I’m trying.

  You don’t know what life was like for me before I met you. I know you had it bad, at the end, but you came from a good family at least. Not me.

  I’m sorry about that.

  You could at least thank me.

  She covers her face with her hands. He wonders what she is doing behind them—crying, or getting ready to scream. He looks around the room but no one is watching. He wipes his napkin against the damp bar.

  You can go to the ladies’ room and clean your face, you know, he says. You can get that crud out from under your nails. You can make an effort.

  She gets up from the stool and walks across the empty dance floor to the bathroom without moving her hands from her eyes.

  * * *

  When she doesn’t come back after a quarter hour he goes to look for her, his knuckles sorry on the door. Hey, you okay? he calls. No answer. He knocks again. Please, I didn’t mean it, just come out.

  When he opens the door there is no one inside, just a circle of dirt in the wet sink.

  * * *

  She walks until the pavement gives way to tall trees and soft earth. This is a different place, not the cemetery, not the side of the other road, where he might go to look for her again. This way is steep; she claws her way upward, her shoes slipping over the leaves, until the lights from the town are dim and she can start to dig.

  She remembers this: the feeling of the dirt beneath her nails, the taste of it tamped hard into her mouth as the soil sucked her dry. There are white things in this earth, pieces of young roots or teeth or bone; she still can’t quite see. Instead she sees him, recalls the naked rage in his face when she threw the ring from the window, the ring he had given her, the ring she did not want. It is on her hand now, because of him, the other one, and she takes it off, throwing it once more into black grass.

  Sitting in the shallow pit, scooping dirt over her legs like a blanket, she watches as the white dress darkens; there is no young man here, she tells herself, no ring, no knife. The dress is gone. If she is lucky, she, too, will disappear.

  THE DADDY

  Daddy comes over on Thursdays. My husband and son are out watching movies where people blow each other up. They have burgers afterward and buffalo wings and milkshakes and they talk about TV shows and girls and the latest bloody video game. At least that’s what I imagine they do. No way do they imagine what I am doing, sitting here at the kitchen table doing my math homework as Daddy microwaves the mac and cheese he brought over. We have three hours together and in these three hours I am twelve years old and my daddy is the most wonderful man in the world.

  * * *

  On craigslist I post the photo from my work website, the one with my hair scraped back in a ponytail, exposing my shiny forehead, my thin lips, my arms bursting from the sleeves of my blue blouse. Daughter seeks Father is all I write as a caption. In response I receive an avalanche of cell-phone numbers, chat invitations, and penis pics lifted from porn sites.

  I delete all the emails except for Richard’s: Sweetheart, please call home. I sit for a moment hunched in my cubicle, sweating, before lifting the receiver and dialing his number.

  Daddy? I whisper, hand up to cover my mouth so no one walking by can see it moving.

  He doesn’t skip a beat. Sweetheart! he says.

  Did you see the photo? I ask.

  Of course, he says.

  I’m not better in person, I warn.

  You’re perfect, he assures me.

  I’m married, I tell him. I have a kid.

  No problem, he insists.

  I chew the inside of my cheek. There’s not going to be any sex, I say.

  Absolutely not! he agrees.

  I wait for him to say something creepy or disgusting, but he doesn’t. We make arrangements to meet at McDonald’s for dinner on Thursday.

  Don’t kill me, I say, and he laughs.

  Oh sweetheart, he says. What on earth?

  * * *

  I’m early. I don’t know what Daddy looks like and every time the door swings open my head jerks like a ball on a string. I convince myself I’m going to be stood up and that it will be better anyway if I am. But at seven on the dot he enters and he looks straight at me and waves.

  Our usual, sweetheart? he says, loud enough for other people to hear, and I nod. He brings a tray of chicken nugget combos to my table. He kisses my cheek. The food steams in our hands as we look at each other; he seems about twenty, twenty-two, with chinos frayed at the bottoms and red hair and glasses and biceps as skinny as my wrist. Maybe someday he will be good-looking.

  Extra barbecue sauce, just the way you like, he says, gesturing to my nuggets. I smile and take a bite. He asks me about school and I ask him about work and he is as interested in how I’m doing in gym class as I am in the stocks he’s trading at the office; we slip into our new roles as easily as knives into butter.

  I almost forgot, he says. He reaches into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out a CD with a Christmas bow stuck on it. Just a little something, he adds, and hands it to me. I unstick the bow and turn the CD over in my hands: Britney Spears. I bounce, once, and my left butt cheek, which doesn’t quite fit on the plastic chair, bangs on the edge of the seat.

  Oh Daddy, I say, touched because I know he went into a store and asked what would be the right thing to get for his little girl, and he paid for it with his own money and put it in his pocket and found the gaudy bow to go with it and then brought it all the way here, to me, because he knew he would like me and already wanted to give me something, and this makes me want to give everything I have to him in return.

  * * *

  Apart from Thursday nights—and it’s always Thursdays, always nights—we don’t communicate, except by email. Sometimes he’ll send me a note just to say, Have a great day!! or he’ll tell me what plans he has for dinner: Working late need a treat pizza sound good??? or he’ll hint at imagined happenings in my little-girl life: Don’t forget dentist today xoxoxoxo!! and Good luck on the history quiz I know you’ll do awesome!!!! I write back in equally breathless terms to report the results of the history quiz or the number of cavities rotting my teeth or to squeal over the impending pizza feast. These exchanges give me a high so intense my chest muscles spasm and when my boss calls and says to bring her such-and-such a document I hit print and out comes an email from Daddy, not the work document, and I giggle into my hand and hit print again.

  * * *

  He always arrives exactly fifteen minutes after my husband and son leave. I sit on the couch with the television on while he fumbles with the keys and the empty banged-up briefcase he always brings. Sweetheart! he says when he enters, and I yelp Daddy! and if I was maybe ten or twenty or, okay, thirty pounds lighter, I might run toward him, but as it is I wait on the couch for him to come over and kiss my hair. I’ll pour him a soda on the rocks and he’ll pour me some milk and we touch glasses and smile. If my
husband calls I stand by the back door with my head down and say Uh-huh, yes, fine, all right, see you soon, no, nothing for me, thanks, I’m enjoying the leftovers, have fun, love you.

  * * *

  Richard lives with his mother but I never meet her or hear anything about her. I only know she exists because I Google Richard’s phone number and thanks to the white pages I know where he lives. She is seven years older than me and her name is Gayle. I imagine Richard when he is not Daddy, lurking unhappily beneath her thumb, still living in the room he grew up in. I wonder if he’s done his homework and discovered that I am a loser, too. Or maybe it’s obvious and he doesn’t care. So when I’m with him I don’t care either.

  * * *

  We never run out of things to talk about. There are dance recitals and music lessons and colds and heartbreaks to discuss and I am always the center of his attention. Sometimes he comes and crouches by the sink and pretends to fix a faulty pipe; I stand helpful at his side and listen to him slap and pull at the plastic tubes. Other times I refuse to do my homework or flaunt the fact that I’ve ignored my chores and he has to speak very sternly to me and point at the neglected essay assignment or the pile of dirty laundry in the middle of the floor until I melt with shame. He is patient and fair and my tantrums are mild, my rebellions quickly conquered. Sometimes, if I’m feeling low that week, I will cry for real, and he’ll say There are lots of other boys who will want to go to the dance with you, or You can always try out next year for the team, or—and this is by far my favorite—The school photo came out beautiful. And I sniff and say Really? It did? And he literally dries my tears with his hands and says Yes, of course it did.

  * * *

  Some girls are being mean to me, I complain one Thursday. Daddy whips his head up from his food like a hunting dog smelling blood. Excuse me? he says. Who exactly is being mean to you?

  Jennifer and Holly and Deborah, I say, using the names of women from work, women who aren’t mean to me but might as well be since they are not and never will be my friends.

  He shakes his head, wiping his fingers with his napkin before leaning back in his chair, his wrists on either side of his plate.

  That is unacceptable, he says. When did this start?

  I shrug. They’ve always had something against me.