Charlie, Presumed Dead

by Anne Heltzel

  Inevitable. It was the word for us. The word our relationship would rest and revolve on.

  “Okay, well, thanks,” I said. “Here’s your forty pounds.” I sounded like I didn’t care, but inside, my heart was beating like crazy. I wasn’t nervous, exactly, because I knew how it would all pan out. It was like someone said, “Here’s how it’s going to end; now enjoy the ride.”

  “These guys will be gone in a minute,” he told me. “Stick around.” I leaned against the windowsill with my crate of records at my feet. Charlie looked over at me, smiling a little under blue eyes, hooded lids. Everything about Charlie other than his eyes was dark: his hair, the way he moved. Everything he did seemed like it had some deeper message I was supposed to decode. But I wasn’t intimidated. Charlie had met his match in me, and we both knew it. Charlie fiddled in the refrigerator and I stood there and then the guys were gone.

  “So you like The National?” He nodded toward the stack of vinyls. The record on top featured a woman with her face split in two by a mirror. Trouble Will Find Me is one of my favorite albums.

  “I do. Easily top five. Are you cleaning out the fridge?”

  “I am. But I figure you’re going to need help carrying those when I’m done.”

  “No need,” I said. “I’ve got it covered. Not so sure about you, though.”

  “Oh?” Charlie poked his head out of the fridge. “Feel free to help me out, if you feel so inclined.” I moved toward him and eyed the open refrigerator. It was full of moldy stuff.

  “This is disgusting.” I plucked a jar of fuzzy pesto sauce from the top shelf and dropped it into the open garbage bag that Charlie had dragged over. It was already half full with old ratty towels and crumpled bags of chips.

  “Yeah, toss it. Toss it all.”

  “This?”

  “No, I want that.” Charlie grabbed the still-sealed brick of cheddar cheese from my hand and rummaged in a drawer next to him. “Want some? I forgot to eat.” I shook my head, and he ripped open the package and dug in.

  “It’s fun seeing the inside of your fridge,” I inform him. “I’ve never known a guy our age who eats pickled herring.”

  “Roommate’s,” he told me. “This, however, is mine.” He wrested a jar of hot peppers from my grasp.

  “When do you guys move?”

  “We have to be out by tomorrow morning. Wanna come to our packing party?”

  “Is that code for a getting-rid-of-leftover-booze party?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Then yes. Just don’t expect me to work at all. Why aren’t you taking the vinyls?”

  Charlie paused, straightening. “That’s not about moving,” he said. “That’s about karma. Plus I knew I’d meet someone interesting if I listed them. Only certain types of people collect vinyls.”

  “I’m definitely interesting,” I said, halfway out the door. “I’ll tell you about it when I come back.”

  “Tell me now,” he said. “Help me finish the fridge.”

  “Didn’t I say I’m not here to work? Will you still be partying after midnight, or is that when you vanish?” (I actually said that. How could I have known?)

  “We’ll be partying all night, up on the roof. Come by whenever. Text me.”

  “I’ll do better,” I told him. I didn’t know what I meant; I just said it, and it sounded good. Then I left. Most of what I said and did with Charlie was for dramatic impact, to play the game. Charlie was a guy who needed to be kept on his toes.

  “Don’t you want help?” he called after me. But I didn’t answer.

  Part of me didn’t want to go back. It took a long time to take the records back to my dorm room. Then I had to have dinner with the program, and then there was the simple matter of sneaking out after our eleven p.m. curfew. I was only sixteen then, but I’d already had ample practice with sneaking out. That was the easy part. The hard part was, I was tired. I had class super early and Alice Choi had had a change of heart and wanted to bond all of a sudden. But I also knew that my fate hinged on going. So I pretended like I had to call my mom outside in the hallway, and I went. It took me thirty minutes to walk from my place in Islington back to Charlie’s place in Knightsbridge. I didn’t know how old Charlie was. He could have been anywhere from seventeen to twenty-two. At that point, I didn’t know his last name. I just had a phone number and an anonymous Craigslist email address. All I knew was, if I went back, my life would change.

  I got there and Charlie was carrying a shelving unit downstairs with one of his friends, a guy I’d find out later was named Peter. He was a short, skinny Asian guy who was too small to carry shelving units by himself. I walked right past them and upstairs to the roof. “Aren’t you going to help us out?” Charlie asked. “I’m here for the party,” I called back. I could feel his eyes on me the whole way, even after I was out of sight.

  Here’s a little secret: I effing hate showing up at parties alone. This was worse than usual because I didn’t know anyone and it took Charlie forever to make his way up there. For an hour I talked to random people. But the good thing was, they’d all been there for, like, two or three hours and were drinking their faces off that whole time, so no one cared who I was or would remember anyway. The rooftop was beautiful. London spread out all around us, its lights ablaze. From a certain angle, it could have been any city, on any night. But it was London, and it was that particular night. It all meant something. I was only sixteen but with my new red hair I could pass for eighteen, and I was hovering on the precipice of something big.

  Two vodka OJs later he was at my shoulder.

  “Oh, hey,” he said, breaking off mid-conversation with someone else, like he hadn’t expected to see me there.

  “Hi,” I said.

  And then we were talking, all in a group, and I was being the kind of charming I can be with the help of vodka; and he said something and I rolled my eyes and he said, “She just rolled her eyes at me!” and seemed to like it, and I said: “Well, what did you say? I’m sure you deserved it,” and he said, “Let me show you the view from the other side of the roof,” and we went over there and he kissed me, cutting me off in midsentence with his lips and his tongue. Just like I knew he would.

  For much of the night, we walked around the city. We got pizza a few blocks down at a place called Merv’s. We picked up his rental car at a parking garage, but first we stopped on the corner where there was this huge, cement egg-shaped chair. Charlie grabbed my hand and pulled me into the chair next to him and we kissed for an hour.

  “I must be having fun,” he told me when we finally stopped and my head was resting on his shoulder. “Because it’s been an hour and fifteen minutes and I’m paying for this car by the hour.”

  “I must be having fun too,” I said back, “because I have to get up at seven and it’s already three.” We went on like that for two more hours: kissing on the corners, in the car, against the exteriors of buildings, the grit of their filthy brick walls leaving trails on my shoulders and back. Charlie’s hand on my waist with me in front of him. Later we packed the rest of his apartment into the car, we talked on and on about stuff I don’t remember anymore, not that it matters other than in the sense that it kept us happy. Finally at five a.m. I got in a cab and headed back to my dorm room. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said. I knew he wouldn’t, and he didn’t. After all, he was leaving. But I also knew it wasn’t the last I’d hear of Charlie.

  The boat in Kerala is different from what I expected. So’s Anand. He’s older than we are, first of all—maybe in his midtwenties. And Aubrey, she’s quaking in her prissy ballet flats. I plan to keep her quaking. She deserves it. I paid fifty dollars for the use of Anand’s boat for eighteen hours. Around the time we were looking for a boat, the sun was high. The water looked clean and inviting, but the paths to the boats were mostly just mud with a few plywood boards thrown over it. We trudged up and down maybe seven of those paths, and it was all a show. I made this big deal out of checking out five of Anand’s
boats before settling on the one Anand himself is sailing, partly to torture Aubrey, but also because it would be too much of a giveaway to choose his right away, even though hundreds of tourists must come through here. I don’t want Anand to know how we found him, that we know Charlie. We’ll find out more if we’re covert. I like the word covert. It makes me feel like we’re protagonists in a spy movie.

  Aubrey’s looking for her stupid journal and I’m looking for Charlie. Still looking, still believing he’s alive, even though it’s been more than two weeks since his alleged death. Still thinking we’ll find him, if only we search under the right rocks. Like he’s a lost puppy. Am I crazy for thinking this way? Aubrey thinks I want answers; and I do, but I want them from Charlie. I’d feel bad for her if I weren’t so angry with her; but anger has pretty much filled every fiber of my being, until I almost ooze it. I woke up furious this morning in our hotel. My whole body was coiled and so tense that my muscles were sore, almost like I’d spent all night working out.

  It got me thinking about all the things that are put on for show. Charlie and me, for one. His heart was apparently half elsewhere. Aubrey and me . . . sometimes it feels like a screwed-up fledgling friendship with her. I’ve always been popular, moved around a lot, had groups of friends wherever I’ve gone. But I’ve never had just one friend who was mine, precisely for the reason that I do move around a lot. That’s what it’s started to feel like with Aubrey. Then I stop to think about how messed up it is, how much we’ve already lied to each other. And now, finding this boat, weaving more lies, and a true friendship—the kind I’ve always craved—feels impossible. Sometimes it feels like my whole life lately is one huge lying mess. Sometimes I wonder if I would have thrown my whole self into Charlie the way I did, if only I’d had closer friends.

  I made this big deal about choosing the boat, but there was no choice to make. Let’s be honest: The other available boats were just as dinky and rotted as this one. This one is just a little bigger. So when Anand approached us with a deal and assured us he’d sail it himself (“top captain”), it was a no-brainer. Aubrey’s impressed. But we needed the boat that comes with Anand, that’s all. It’s wood-paneled and thatch-roofed, and the bottom level has a wraparound deck. A ladder near the bedroom leads to the upper deck, which is fully exposed to the sun. From where we stand on the lower deck, we can see the water lapping up against the sides. It’s fresh water, but probably just as toxic as the sea, and the whole time we’re standing out there I’m thinking, I’d love to push her in. I shoot her a grin and make a little shoving gesture with my hands, and she recoils. I’d never actually do it. But she doesn’t know that.

  I try not to think about Charlie in Kerala, of the whole life he led here that I was never a part of. Three years. Three fucking years. I look at Aubrey’s short dark hair lifting in the breeze as the boat sets off and try not to think about her future with Adam, how she still has the promise of someone waiting for her. I don’t. Charlie was my world . . . and then he destroyed it. Objectively I try to think about what that does to a person. What it’s probably done to me. I can’t see myself clearly enough to know for sure. I’m jealous of Aubrey’s hope, her innocence, the way she’s leaning on me to make all the decisions on this trip and can lean on Adam when she gets home. The jealousy is so strong it nearly knocks me out. A wave of anger and hatred makes me gasp, and she trains her bright blue eyes on me, concern radiating from just under her knitted brow.

  I should tell her the truth now. I can destroy her if I want to, right now.

  I can see it in her face: Adam is everywhere. She still has that early-stage, just-in-love distracted glow. She’s pushed Charlie out, let this other guy claim a prominent space in her heart. I don’t know why it bothers me. It shouldn’t, but it does. Maybe because I feel like I’m sliding back while she’s pushing forward. Maybe because I’m protective of this person who deceived me.

  Anand has retreated to the kitchen, where he’s frying up the fresh fish we’re having for dinner. Anand is handsome in a way I didn’t expect: young, muscular. Tall with appealing features and chin scruff. He has a gentle smile, crinkly eyes, a friendly way. He exudes confidence and ease, like he knows exactly what to expect from the world. Like nothing’s ever caught him off-guard.

  I crack open one of the beers that Anand left for us on the picnic-style table and take a long pull, mostly to still my trembling hands. I have issues with what I’m about to do. Big ones. Moral ones. But my anger builds up under my skin, bleeding through my pores from the inside out. I know nothing will make it go away except revenge. I make my decision to tell Aubrey the truth right here, standing on deck while Anand works away at the fish, sliding a knife over their scales and gutting their putrid insides. I want to gut her the way he’s gutting them. It’s not rational. I want her to feel guilty about what she did to Charlie. I don’t even believe he’s dead; but I know she believes it, or she wants to. I can hurt her, so I decide I will. I want to do it right here, right now, while we’re trapped on this boat and there’s no way she can possibly escape.

  “Look at this, Aubrey.” I say it in a falsely cheerful voice. My pulse thrums at my temples. Aubrey looks up expectantly, responding to the kindness in my voice. She moves toward me to stand at the entrance of the little cabin that houses the bedroom and the bathroom. The just-setting sun frames her figure in the doorway. “It’s so romantic!” I continue. “You and me, all curled up under mosquito netting. There’s only one person I can think of whom I’d rather do this with.” I turn to face her, pasting a huge grin on my face. “Can you think of anyone? Maybe our ex-boyfriend? The one whose heart you stole and skewered?” I fight to keep the grin on my face even though I’m quaking inside worse than Aubrey is quaking on her exterior. I imagine I must look manic, crazed. That mean, angry part of me wants Aubrey to be more than a little afraid. My heart accelerates and my hands turn cold.

  “Lena,” she tries for the millionth time in the past twelve hours. “I’m so sorry.” But I can sense the weariness in her tone. Her explanations haven’t helped, haven’t done anything but piss me off further, even after a whole night of listening to her exhaustive pleading. I’m not letting her off. She seems like the kind of girl who gets off easily all the time—like all it takes is a sincere apology and a good-girl smile. Maybe Aubrey needs to learn that the world can be harsher than that. I glare at her and turn away, and this crazy surge of anger works its way up my chest and out through my temples. It’s time to tell her.

  “Oh my god,” I hear her say. This is new; she actually sounds irritated. The smell of fried fish is in the air, the boat is coasting through an idyllic landscape, and the air between us is leaden with fury. “You do realize I didn’t ‘do’ anything to you, right? So what, you always get this angry on Charlie’s behalf?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” The question is a threat, and the tension of the last couple of days is too much. My vision is cloudy and I’m shaking. I lower my voice to a hiss so Anand won’t hear us from the kitchen. “Charlie would still be here if you hadn’t set this whole thing in motion.”

  “We have no idea what happened with Charlie!” Aubrey replies in a strangled tone, her fists clenched at her sides. She takes a step toward me. My heart is pounding in my ears. “We don’t know why his plane crashed. Why would you think it has anything to do with me?”

  I’m so furious I can hardly see. “It has everything to do with you,” I say, with venom. “Because if he’s dead, it’s your fault.” There. There it is. I said it, but she looks nonplussed. She looks like she doesn’t get what I’m saying. “Do you understand what I mean, Aubrey?” I’m the one moving forward now, and I back her against the thin wall that separates the sleeping cabin from the rest of the boat.

  “I’m the only one left who thinks he might be alive. Why do you think the investigation closed like it did? Why do you think his parents threw together that memorial service so quickly? His entire family is sure he’s dead,” I say, relishing every
hateful word as it pours from my mouth. “Because he left a suicide note.” I pause, preparing myself to put the final nail in the coffin. “I found it. I showed his parents.”

  “No,” she whispers, her blue eyes turning a ghostly shade of gray that fades almost entirely into her white orbs. I’m an inch or two away from her now, no more. I have just one more thing to say.

  “It’s the truest thing you’ve heard in weeks,” I tell her, my voice low. “You’re right, I’m probably crazy for thinking it’s all a setup. But if you’re right, for all you did to him, you may as well have killed him yourself. He wrote the note the night after you told him you cheated. It was dated May twentieth.” I stop, waiting for the guilt and remorse to overcome her the way I’ve been fantasizing it will. Aubrey already believed Charlie was dead; this will merely illuminate her role in his death. She deserves to suffer. She should hurt for her betrayal, whether or not he actually is dead. For being the kind of person who would do what she did.

  Aubrey’s jaw moves mechanically like she’s about to respond; I wait, but her eyes shift to a space behind me. Then they widen in fear. I turn to see what she’s looking at, and my heart stops. I take a step backwards, and my shoulder collides against the wall. I’m right next to Aubrey now, both of us vulnerable.

  I can’t tear my eyes away from what scared her: the outline of Anand in the door frame of the bedroom, backlit by the setting sun. In one large palm he carries a plate loaded with the heads of the fish he’s just finished cleaning. Their dead eyes gape. In the other hand he holds a large knife. It hasn’t yet been cleaned. It drips blood and gristle onto the deck. Anand’s demeanor has changed. His body is tense, powerful.