I Don't Forgive You

by Aggie Blum Thompson

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Believe it or not, we had a murder in our neighborhood this weekend.”

  “See, that’s why I will never leave the city. Too dangerous in the burbs.” He raps his knuckles on the table.

  After he’s gone, I turn my attention to my computer. I should be editing. Instead, I call Krystle.

  “This is no Russian scam, Allie,” she says as soon as I answer. “This shit is real. Personal.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me that,” I snap. Still, I am grateful. It confirms my innermost fears. I am not paranoid; I am being targeted.

  “Who’s doing this?”

  “I feel like it has to be someone from Overton. I mean—Sexy Lexi?”

  “Like who?” she asks. “I mean, you don’t think it’s Paul Adamson, do you?”

  “Maybe. I think it’s possible.” Paul would be in his mid-forties now.

  “Maybe his life hasn’t turned out the way he’d planned. Maybe he blames you for what happened.”

  “He’s not like that. He was a kind person.”

  “Allie! He slept with a student when he was a teacher. He was a total creep. Why are you defending him?”

  “I’m not. But you make it sound like I was a victim.”

  “That’s because you were a victim. You were seventeen. He committed a crime.”

  “I take responsibility for what happened.”

  “That’s not how the law works. Trust me on this one.”

  “And now he lives in my neighborhood? I mean, it’s been years, but I like to think that I’d recognize Paul Adamson if I saw him at my neighborhood pool.”

  “I’m texting you a link to a page set up specifically to address false accounts,” Krystle says. “Email them.”

  My phone pings right away with her text. If Tinder has bothered to create a whole page of FAQs about false accounts, that means they’ve encountered this problem before. Maybe there will be a quick fix, although somehow, I doubt it.

  I open the page Krystle sent me and follow Tinder’s instructions. It takes all of three minutes, and then there’s nothing else I can do for the moment.

  I should be editing. I should throw myself into work. But all I can think about is Paul and the blue bikini. Worst of all is how queasy I feel, how Krystle made me feel. Is she right? Why does the idea of being a victim repel me?

  I’m not like her and Sharon. I don’t blame everyone else for my life’s problems. I type Paul Adamson into the computer.

  I know what I’ll find even before I hit Return. It’s not like I haven’t searched for him over the years. I’ve typed his name into the void of the web dozens of times. After all, everyone is on the internet. Everyone, it turns out, but Paul Adamson. At least not the Paul Adamson I knew. The first four pages of any search are gummed up by a Minnesota Vikings player with the same name. Once I found an apple-cheeked priest in the Midwest named Paul Adamson who was charged with molesting altar boys. But I’ve never found my Paul.

  I turn my attention to the hundreds of photos of Dwayne and Kylie, trying to find one where their newborn, Jaden, isn’t scowling. I’ll be culling the ones that don’t work and putting together Package C—twenty-five different images on a disc.

  Back when I was struggling to make it as an artist in San Francisco, while waiting tables and bartending to make ends meet, I looked down on this kind of photography. I am embarrassed to remember mocking another photographer friend who did weddings.

  I wasn’t mature enough to bear witness to other people’s peak happiness. Now I love my work and feel honored that people let me into their private moments.

  Mike returns with my coffee and two packets of Splenda, which is how I like it. After about an hour of editing, I’ve managed to cull the lot down to thirty photos and decide to take a break. I open the Eastbrook Facebook page, an idea stirring in the back of my head. It feels like every moment of life in our neighborhood is documented and posted on the site. So maybe if I go back to the day that my picture was taken at the pool, I can figure out who else was there. It’s a long shot, but it’s worth a try.

  It takes a while to scroll all the way back to Memorial Day weekend, but I finally find it. Picture after picture of my new neighbors and their kids, sunburned noses, big smiles. I can almost smell the chlorine and grilled meat. It was the first weekend the pool was open, and there was a potluck and barbecue, and the pool was packed.

  Vicki, Priya, Daisy—they’re all there. I didn’t know half these people yet, of course. And then I find me. In the background of a shot of two teenage girls, arms flung over their shoulders, is me. I’m sitting by the edge of the pool in that bikini. I remember being there for what felt like an eternity as Cole dipped one foot and then the other in the pool, terrified to commit to going in but refusing to abandon the exercise altogether.

  But it was more like twenty minutes.

  The angle is basically the same as the photo of me in the Tinder photo.

  A chill runs down my spine. Whoever took the photo of me was standing basically where this person stood. I check to see who posted it. Heather, my neighbor. Could she have taken that shot of me? But why?

  On another screen, I pull up the Tinder photo that Krystle sent me. The angles are not just the same. They are identical. Either someone took a photo from the same place and at the same time as Heather did, or she took the Tinder photo.

  I need to find out.

  My phone pings with a text from Mark with the name of the lawyer. I look up the website. A banner overlaid across a photo of a gavel resting on a stack of law books reads: Artie Zucker: Aggressive and Experienced! A bald, middle-aged man with arms crossed over his barrel chest sneers at the camera. Below him are boxes to click on for more information, all with names.

  Drug Crimes.

  Domestic Violence.

  Assault.

  Sex Crimes.

  Drunk Driving.

  Is this what it’s come to? I need the help of some guy who defends rapists and drug dealers? This doesn’t feel right. I decide to double-check with Mark before I call. This isn’t the right guy.

  My phone rings, and the caller ID says Morningside House. When I answer, a woman introduces herself as Lydia, the head nurse. We talk a little about the bruise on my mother’s neck and the scratch from last week and my concerns that I don’t know where they are coming from. I don’t accuse her staff of anything.

  “We completely understand your concern, Ms. Ross. Your mother can become quite agitated, especially in the evenings. She’s been trying to leave after dinner, and there have been some altercations. Have you heard of sundowning?”

  I jot the word down on a pad of paper as Lydia explains to me that dementia patients often become confused, anxious, and even violent as the sun starts to set and night approaches. “Our first line of defense in this case is usually some kind of antianxiety drug. With your permission, we’d like her to see the staff psychiatrist, and maybe we can start her on some kind of regimen.”

  Drugging her into compliance. “What are the options besides drugs?”

  “We may have to move your mother into Memory Care.”

  Memory Care is the locked ward on the first floor. I got a glimpse of it when I took the tour, and it scared the heck out of me. Semi-catatonic people slumped over in wheelchairs, staring at a TV blasting infomercials. Sharon might have her problems, but she does not belong there. Not yet.

  I tell Lydia to go ahead and make the psychiatric appointment.

  “Until then,” Lydia says, “you’ll have to hire an aide from the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. to shadow her—”

  “Wait, eight until eight? I thought you said the problem was in the evening.”

  “This is Morningside policy, based on years of experience. If someone tries to escape, doesn’t matter what time, an aide needs to be hired to shadow them until bedtime. We need to ensure your mother doesn’t go out and become lost. We have no problem with residents leaving, as long as they are accompanied. If that works, she c
an stay on the assisted living floor. But if an aide doesn’t work out, she will have to move to Memory Care.”

  She tells me the facility has a service they use that provides private aides, and she offers to call them for me and initiate the process.

  “How much will that cost?”

  She tells me, and I scribble down a few numbers on the pad. It adds up to another two grand a month, which takes Sharon’s monthly expenses above the income that comes from renting her old house in Westport. Mark and I can make up the difference for now, but it is not sustainable.

  This extra cost, along with the repairs the Westport house needs, means one thing to me—I’m selling the house, whether Krystle likes it or not. The fact that it’s sitting there empty, not earning us any money, is just another reason to sell.

  “We shouldn’t have moved her,” I say. “She didn’t have these problems in Connecticut.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. Yes, the move may have triggered some of this, but in my experience, these declines are inevitable,” Lydia says. “They are a matter of when, not if. And if she had stayed where she was, how often would she see you? What kind of life would that be?”

  I don’t answer because my ten o’clock photo shoot arrives. Sarah Ramirez, late twenties, glows the way you do when you’ve just spent the last three days rolling around in bed with someone you love, which she informs me right away she has been doing. I take her into the private studio in the back where we do the boudoir shoots, and I flick the switch on the wall that lights a blue bulb above the outside door.

  “No one will come in while that light is on. You can undress right here, or behind that screen if you want.” I point to a red-and-black printed screen that stands in the corner.

  “Here is fine, I guess.” Sarah’s fingers hover over the buttons on her swiss-dot blouse, which she has fastened all the way up to her neck. With her calf-length navy skirt and sturdy shoes, she seems an unlikely candidate to strip in front of a stranger. But love makes you do crazy things.

  I connect my phone to the speaker and put on Lana Del Rey. “How’s this for music?”

  Sarah smiles and then, keeping her gaze on the floor, peels off her clothes. I busy myself setting up lights around the shell-pink velvet chaise we have chosen for the shoot.

  Shoots like this involve a lot of trust. I ask questions about her fiancé, Jordan, who is about to leave for a stint on the east coast of Africa where he will research and write a report on water quality. Soon enough, she has unleashed her long black hair from its bun and donned a fuchsia merry widow she bought for the shoot. I take some test shots of her lounging on the chaise, adjusting her long, black hair so it falls over one shoulder, moving a leg here, an arm there.

  The work makes me think of my fake Tinder account. I wonder if Sarah knows how vulnerable she is right now, and not from an aesthetic standpoint but from a privacy one. These photos could do serious damage if they fell into the wrong hands.

  The camerawork is second nature to me by now. I’ve known I wanted to be an artist since I was young. I was that girl who oohed over a new set of Crayolas, opening the cardboard box reverently, inhaling the scent of fresh wax. But I had never thought much about photography before I took Paul’s class my senior year of high school. If you had asked me then, I would have said a photographer is a man who takes pictures of beautiful things—women, mountains, buildings. I didn’t know the names Richard Avedon or Ansel Adams.

  It was Paul who taught me that he who controlled the camera controlled the truth. He introduced me to photographers like Mary Ellen Mark, Cindy Sherman, and Nan Goldin, women who had the guts to challenge the mainstream and interject their own worldviews into the conversation.

  Whatever else happened, he gave that to me.

  A weather-shredded American flag flapping in the wind on the side of an old farmhouse. That’s what I was focusing the lens on when Paul Adamson first touched me, pulling my hair out of my face.

  It was a windy March day, the icy mud soaking through my tennis shoes as we tromped through the farmland of rural Connecticut. We were still pretending to be teacher and student. Paul had tacked up a sign-up sheet earlier that week, offering to take students out on a field trip to practice taking landscapes, to put what we had learned about hyperfocal distance into use.

  I was the only one who signed up.

  Paul put his hand over mine, which was stiff with cold, and adjusted the f-stop on my Nikkormat camera, which was a low-end, mass-produced, single-lens-reflex model from Nikon that could also accept the lenses that fit the company’s coveted F series.

  Of course, I didn’t know all that at the time.

  I knew only that the clunky camera had been my dad’s, one of the few items that escaped my mother’s purge after he died. It wasn’t until I signed up for Introduction to Photography that I ever used it.

  I remember Paul’s hot breath on the back of my neck.

  The way his lips brushed my ear as he whispered his instructions.

  He had long, slender fingers like a pianist’s. I used to love watching him handle the camera, twisting the f-stop, adjusting the focus. For months, I longed for him to turn those same competent hands on me.

  And then, that afternoon, in the back seat of his BMW at the end of a quiet, muddy country road, he did.

  I shake the memories from my head and turn my attention back to Sarah. “So how long have you known Heather?” I ask.

  “Like, three years. I couldn’t imagine working without her. She’s been sort of like a big sister to me. She’s the one who encouraged me to apply to law school. She’s been so sweet.”

  “She’s my neighbor,” I say. “We moved in next door to her.”

  Sarah’s face brightens. “I know. She’s told me all about you.”

  I look up from the viewfinder. “Really? Like what?”

  Sarah flicks her hair over her shoulder. “Just like how you’re so pretty and nice and how you are from Connecticut, just like her.”

  I straighten up at the sound of the word Connecticut. “I thought she was from Rhode Island. Don’t you have to be in order to work for a representative from Rhode Island?”

  Sarah laughs. “No. I’m from New York. I mean, there are a lot of people from Rhode Island that work in our office, but not everyone.”

  “What else did she say?” I try to keep my voice steady.

  Sarah shrugs. “I’m not sure.”

  The camera feels slippery in my hands, which have become sweaty.

  Sarah shifts her position and scowls. “I’m not usually this fat,” Sarah says, shaking me out of my reverie. “But I’m studying for my LSATs, so I’m eating like a pint of Breyers every night.”

  “You’re beautiful.” I need to push suspicions of Heather out of my head and refocus on the shoot.

  “I look tired. I have these purple bags under my eyes.”

  “Any bags, pimples, or stretch marks will be gone by the time I’m done photoshopping, don’t worry.”

  Sarah giggles. “Promise me I’ll look gorgeous. I know I can send him selfies and stuff, but I want to have some really good pictures. Like, perfect.”

  It’s in her eyes, a pleading insecurity. She doesn’t think she deserves him just the way she is, untouched. I want to tell her that she does. I know words like that will roll right off her. Besides, that’s not my job. My job is to create beautiful photographs.

  “I promise,” I say. “You’ll be perfect.” I show her some of the shots on the screen on my camera. Red blotches appear on her cheeks.

  “Oh my god, if anyone at work ever saw these pictures, I would die. I mean, Congress is a very uptight place. You have no idea.”

  “Really? Senator Fielding seems so cool.”

  “Oh, she’s amazing. But she runs a tight ship. Everything is very professional.”

  “No one besides you and me will ever see these.”

  “Promise?”

  I cross my heart. “Promise.”

  “You know, the s
enator might be looking for a photographer.”

  “Really? For what?”

  Sarah laughs. “Believe it or not, she’s publishing a children’s book. I mean, between you and me, it’s ghostwritten. It’s about women politicians throughout American history. I heard her saying she wanted to update her headshot. Do you ever do those, for like public figures?”

  “Sure. I’ve shot Congressman Marcel Parks, and I may be shooting Valerie Simmons soon.” My tone is neutral, as if it’s not a big deal to photograph the former White House advisor turned CNN commentator, but I watch her eyes widen. She’s impressed.

  “That’s amazing! I’ll tell her that.”

  “Yes, please, pass along my info. I’d love to chat with her.”

  “I will!”

  When she leaves, all bundled up for the fall weather, Sarah plants a kiss on my cheek. “You’re the best.”

  I am buoyed after Sarah leaves. Whatever else is happening, my work is going well, and I have to remember to take comfort in that. Fielding would make three high-profile clients in a row, and three is a pattern, not a fluke.

  I head to my computer and spend twenty minutes stalking Heather Grady on social media. Although she is on Facebook, Insta, and LinkedIn, I learn little of consequence. Heather is a runner, always has been. This year she is trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon. She loves ladies’ nights—I see picture after picture of her with various combinations of women from our neighborhood: Priya, Daisy, Vicki, and others at bars and concerts and coffee shops.

  Then I see it. A shot of her at the finish line of a race, her arms wrapped around another runner, a woman whose face is obscured by a cap and sunglasses. They both have numbers pinned to their shirts, but I can make out the words on Heather’s friend’s shirt: Overton Academy.

  So thrilled to run Give a Child a Chance 10k with one of my besties, Jane Fuller.

  But when I check, I see Jane Fuller doesn’t have a Facebook profile. An internet search reveals no signs of her, or rather there are so many Jane Fullers the search is pointless. Maybe she didn’t even go to Overton. The T-shirt might belong to someone else.