I put my hand on her knee.
Her face softened, and her tone became loving and precariously hopeful. “Can we go somewhere private and talk? I want to be alone with you.”
I started to say yes, and then remembered I couldn’t. When I told Del I had plans with Katie, her brows crunched suspiciously.
“I haven’t seen you in a week, Jenna. Where are you going with her?”
Reluctantly, I said, “I can’t tell you.”
“You can’t tell me?” She laughed. “Why not? We tell each other everything.”
The locker-room door, which we couldn’t see from where we were sitting, opened. Some girl, I think it was Edie, called out, “Social worker is here, looking for Del. Some agency that protects kids.”
“We should go.”
Del glared at me.
“I promised Katie. I can go with you tomorrow, Del.”
Del’s face was still and sad and cold—lifeless as steel. She turned away from me for a moment, as if responding to a distant voice or receiving counsel. “I’m going home.” She stood up and walked out, the heavy metal door slamming closed behind her.
Del was in and out of school the rest of the week, dodging the social worker. Annie Sloan had spied on us, seen us kiss in the locker room, and now people were talking about us, low-grade rumblings running the gamut from confusion to concern to perverse interest. The interest made any attempt at contact between us conspicuous, so when Del was in school, we avoided each other, passed in the halls with hardly a glance.
On Friday of that week, I invited myself to have a sleepover at Gail’s. Around midnight, I borrowed Gail’s bike and rode to Del’s house, desperate to see her. I was relieved to find Pascale’s car gone and Del’s bedroom light on. I left Gail’s bike on the porch, made my way to underneath Del’s bedroom window, and lightly tapped on the glass. It felt like hours, searching for her face. In fact, it may have been only moments before she came into view, a look of surprise. I smiled and started to wave. From behind her another face emerged and came into focus—Andrew Torie’s. Sharp pain shot across my chest. As if his moving toward me pushed me away, I lost my balance and stumbled backward, repeating, “I’m sorry.”
My hands shaking, heart racing, I returned to the porch to retrieve Gail’s bike.
“Jen, wait,” Del said, as she came out, pulling sweats on over a pair of shorts.
“Andrew, Del? Seriously? Andrew Torie?”
“We’re just hanging out. I promise.” I shrugged as if it didn’t matter what they were doing, but it did. “Do you want to come in? Andrew has coke. You want to try it?”
“No. Tell him to leave.” We were suspended in a stare. “He doesn’t care about you. He’s gonna use you.”
“I’m just getting to know him.” She put her hand on my arm. Her touch reverberated. “I’m cold,” she said. “Are you gonna come in or not?” She tugged at me playfully. “Come on, just give him a chance.”
“I miss you.” I pressed my forehead to hers. The intensity of the contact seemed to take her by surprise. Her eyes closed, her lips trembled. Tears came on contact. I touched her hair, squeezed her hand. “Please, can’t we just talk now?” Her lips were instinctually edging toward mine and mine toward hers, infants rooting. Our tongues touched slightly. “I can hang all night.”
“I can’t.” Slowly, she said, “If you want, we can try to be friends. Come inside, hang with me and Andrew. I…” She stumbled over the words. “I can’t be alone with you.” Her hand on my face, her mouth near my mouth. “Do you understand?” She whispered, “I need you. You’re my best friend, Jenna. Isn’t that enough?”
“Friends? And what are we going to talk about, Del, having sex with other people?”
Angry herself now, she said, “What is so wrong with that? I want to have sex with other people. It’s having sex with you that’s a problem. I don’t want to do that anymore. I’m not gay.”
“Having sex with me is a problem?”
“See, you’re doing it right now.” She backed away. “Either I have sex with you or we’re not friends, right? Is that what you’re saying? I’m cold. I’m going in. You can come if you want to.”
“Del.” Confused and desperate, I grabbed her arm. “Stop walking away from me.” She stopped. “I didn’t know you wanted to sleep with other people. Is this because Annie saw us?”
She yanked her arm away. “It’s not gonna work for us—that’s all I know.”
Her solution that night, to just be friends, felt like the “sleep” shot she had wished for her sisters. It was a way to be rid of us, but without having to watch me suffer—to have us fade into nothingness. I felt my insides heaving as I returned to the bike. I wanted her to call me back, hoped she’d relent, get rid of Andrew, be with me. She didn’t. I turned back to look for her, and she was already in the house going to Andrew, the door quietly closing behind her.
My heart felt like a rag having the life wrung out of it. I flashed on the pills in the medicine closet in my parents’ house. I didn’t have a shot to put myself to sleep, but I did have those pills. Had I been going to my parents’ house, I might have taken them. I don’t know. The pull to do so was very strong; I resisted it with everything in me, like riding into a strong wind, the whole way back to Gail’s.
It was upon returning to her house in this devastated state that I told Gail about Del and me. Once I started talking, I couldn’t stop, and in answering the many questions Gail asked about how it started, how far we’d gone, what it was like to have oral sex, I opened up about my feelings for Del, my fears about being gay, and my sadness over the breakup. Gail’s response—accepting, curious, impressed—made my feelings for Del seem more normal and legitimate and eased my fear of having to now face this loss alone. It was also true that Gail’s interest and acceptance pulled for more and more detail, and before long what had begun as a wrenching outpouring turned into boisterous bragging.
I woke up the next morning, my stomach in knots, my head throbbing, my memory hazy. I knew there had been a betrayal the night before. With heart-stopping angst, I remembered telling Gail about Del and me. I hadn’t just told her about us, I had gone into great detail about very intimate things. I can say I was drunk on grief. I can say I was saving myself. I can say I was hurt and angry because Del had chosen Andrew over me. I can say all those things, and they might be true. But I had to tell Del what I’d done, and now, in the light of day, anything I thought had justified my actions the night before seemed indefensible. I knew she would never forgive me. For Del, it was not so much the secrecy, but rather that the privacy of our relationship had been an invisible membrane protecting us from the abuses and exploitations that all other realms of her life had been subject to. Now that I had exposed us and her feelings for me, like everything else precious to her, we could be used against her.
*
As I waited for the driver of the Jeep and watched the people passing by, I thought for the first time that the ways in which Del and I kept missing and hurting each other in those last days were not so much mistakes or misunderstandings as decisions that each of us was making to let the other go.
It was five p.m. when a woman exited from the apartment building across the street, made her way toward us in the crosswalk, and then headed in the direction of the Jeep. Nicole was fast asleep on the bench. She was snoring, a string of drool dribbling from her open mouth. I thought about waking her up and then decided I was better off doing this alone. I stood up and walked quickly to catch the woman, reached her as she was opening the car door.
She posed, sandal on the cabin threshold. One hand rested on the top of the open door. Her expression inscrutable, her accent subtle and of Latin origin, she said, “Can I help you?”
I was taken aback by how beautiful she was: late twenties, tall and lithe. She was wearing a straw-colored fedora and dark sunglasses. Her light-brown hair was woven into a french braid that fell past her shoulders. She was tan with red lipstick and rouged che
eks. And she wore a floral pattern tie-neck halter top and matching wraparound skirt, with her slight midriff left bare.
“Why are you following us?”
Now she recognized me and her face softened a bit. “I thought I lost you at the intersection.”
“Apparently not.”
Nicole came running up, panicked and out of breath, wiping the drool from her face. To me, she said, “Where did you go? What are you doing?” When she saw the woman together with the car, she said, “Who the fuck are you and why are you following us?” As Nicole spoke, I noticed the woman’s wrist, which bore the unmistakable years-old scars of vertical razor cuts. I also noticed she was driving a rental.
“You’re Del’s sister?” the woman said. “You look just like her.”
Nicole’s face opened and her tone changed. I think she was realizing the woman was attractive. “Uh, who are you?”
“I’m looking for Adeline Soto.”
Nicole and I exchanged a curious look. “You don’t know, do you?” The woman glanced at me. “You’re from out of town?” She neither confirmed nor denied it. “Del’s dead,” I said. “With all of the election news, her death hasn’t gotten much publicity, I guess.”
The cool veneer cracked momentarily. Her legs swayed and her jaw tightened. She gripped the door more firmly in an effort to conceal her sudden shakiness. “When?” Her expression impassive, her tone sullen, she said, “When did she die?”
“Your turn,” I said. “Why are you following us?”
“I was trying to find Del.” To Nicole, she said, “I thought if I followed you, I’d find her.”
“Why are you looking for her?” Nicole asked.
The woman climbed into the Jeep. “I have to go now.”
Nicole grabbed the door. “Tell us who you are.”
The woman yanked the door shut, started her engine, and pulled out. Her actions were so determined I was certain if we had been in her way, she would have run us over.
“What the fuck?” Nicole said, backing up a few feet. “This just gets weirder and weirder. Those fucking cameras in her house. And now this. Who was that?”
“I think I know.”
Back in the car, I called the one person I knew could tell me more about this woman and what she was doing here. The administrative assistant answered.
“Margaret Todd, please.” I told her who I was.
Moments later, a different voice said, “This is Margaret Todd.”
“Jenna Ross, do you have a minute?”
“Depends on what for.”
“A favor. A personal favor.” There was a lengthy, uncomfortable silence. “Margaret, I need to know if a friend of mine was trying to use the underground. I wonder if you could help me find out.”
“I don’t have any connections with any underground. That’s illegal.” I didn’t respond. After more silence, she said, “Why?” Her question confused me. “Why do you want to know?” When I didn’t answer, she added, “I just need to make sure you’re not using me to get some skank off the hook for hurting his wife.”
“Would you give me a fucking break?” I blew out a breath, tried to get my heart rate down. “I’m in Miami trying to figure out if my first love was murdered by her husband. I think she contacted some folks to get away, and if so, they probably know her story. Can you help me or not?”
Slightly kinder, she said, “I don’t know. Miami?” Then she said, “Give me her information, I’ll call around. If I find out anything, I’ll call you back.”
*
Pulling into Pascale’s, I eyed the box. “What do you think is in it?”
“Whatever it is,” Nicole said, “it can’t be good.”
“Well, if it is videos of her having sex”—I tapped the box with my toe—“I don’t care if it is evidence. I’m burning them.”
Chapter Sixteen
Now in Pascale’s living room, Nicole, Ida, and I sat around the lacquered coffee table, our eyes dodging back and forth between the contents of the box and each other’s faces. A fly buzzed around and between us, occasionally slamming itself into a window, refusing to believe in the glass.
“Okay?” Ida said. She held up a wooden figure, examined it.
I immediately recognized it as Matsya, the fish.
“Hey, let me see that.”
Nicole raked through the box recklessly, unwrapping the apparently carefully wrapped objects and tossing them about. “Fucking Del’s toys. She wanted us to risk our lives to get her old toys?”
Gail and Katie, having just arrived, threw open the door, and the last remains of light from the day filled the room, momentarily brightening the interior.
“What did you find?” Gail looked into the box, then at the statue Ida was holding, and her expression went from eagerness to befuddlement. Then she laughed hard and loud. The laugh began someplace deep in her throat, built momentum like a wave swell as it gathered at the roof of her mouth, and then it burst out of her. “Mystery solved.” She laughed harder still. “You just risked your entire career for those.”
I wondered if part of Gail’s glee was payback for the fifteen-mile bike ride I’d made her go on with me to get Kalki for Del.
Katie was still trying to catch up. “Uh, what are these?” She glanced at Gail and then shook with noiseless laughter, her eyes beginning to water.
I was the only one excited by the contents. “They’re Avatars. Del collected them.” I fumbled through the box. “I was wondering where these were. I thought she might have thrown them out.”
My hand hit the paper before I realized what it was: gold, crinkly. There were objects wrapped inside it. I opened the paper to find Kalki and his white horse. On the inside was the note I had written to Del before I left her on the last night we spent together. I love you, it said. No matter what happens, I promise, I will never let go of you. I studied the pieces, turned them over in my hand, felt an energy emanating from them that made my palm hot and my skin tingle. These objects had outlived their context but maintained their poignancy. I rewrapped them and placed them back in the box.
“Great,” Nicole said, calmer now. “I risked a third strike for”—she was holding up one of the pieces and studying it—“a turtle.”
I smiled. “That’s Kurma.”
Pascale entered from the hallway, cigarette dangling from her lips. She was looking for a match. She had joined us when we had first arrived, eager to see what was in the box, and then when she realized what it was, she’d returned to her room disgusted. Now her usually strict posture compromised, her complexion ashen, Pascale staggered a little, mumbling as she passed us, “Fucking Omri. That old woman was always telling those Indian stories. I couldn’t get Del to do shit when she was around.” Her accented words were slurred from trying to talk with a cigarette in her mouth and also from alcohol. She used the stove to light her cigarette and then disappeared into her bedroom.
Ida and Nicole exchanged a worried look.
Ida asked Nicole, “Is she returning messages?”
Nicole shrugged.
“The funeral is Saturday, and all these people are calling, family and friends, and we have no idea if Pascale is even letting people know.” Ida rubbed her hand along the arm of the couch. “She’s just refusing to see anyone.”
“Put the date, time, and location of the funeral on the answering machine message,” Gail suggested.
I continued to study the wooden sea turtle, the size of my palm. I noticed the lines sketched on its shell, its beak-like nose, its deep-set eyes. Nicole sat beside me, smiling now as if proud of what we had just done for Del, even if it hadn’t led to much. Katie and Gail plopped down on opposite sides of the couch and stared off in different directions. Gail pushed her hair back off her face and let go a long sigh. I looked at my watch: seven thirty p.m. Beasley would be releasing Del’s body in the morning. I was out of ideas.
My phone rang. When I heard Margaret’s voice on the line, I went out to the porch for privacy. “The first
contact was last week. The woman you met today expected to meet Del Tuesday afternoon, but Del didn’t show.”
“So Del was trying to escape? Did you get any information from them about what was happening to her?”
“They wouldn’t give me any specific information about her.”
I made the decision now to share with Margaret what I had learned about Talon from the anonymous fax.
“Jesus,” she said. “Puppies? Who could do something like that? The underground people must have known about that incident, because they were really worried about Del, and you know, they see a lot. No idea who sent it?”
“No.”
“And he videotaped it? He videotaped the puppies after he’d maimed them? Huh, as interesting as it is horrific.” I told her about the cameras in Del’s house, and about the sex tapes. Margaret took a deep breath. “You know those surveillance cases are usually the worst.”
“I do know.” There had been a knot the size of a fist in my gut ever since I’d entered Del’s house, a twisting feeling that left me on edge, as if anticipating danger, but having no idea from which direction it would come.
Margaret said, “The domestic-violence-death autopsy team reviewed one case where the guy videotaped beating his wife, including the beating that killed her. The psychologist who testified for the defense in the murder trial said this man taped the beatings because he dissociated during them—like a blackout. It was too hard for him, when he came out of these things, to find his wife battered and have no idea how it had happened. Then there was another guy who taped beatings because he liked to masturbate to them later. Talon seems more like the second guy, I think. Or maybe a combination.”
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