Charlie, Presumed Dead

by Anne Heltzel

16

  Aubrey

  Charlie reaches for the slim front pocket in my messenger bag; I slap his hand away. I’ve slapped his hand away from that very leather pocket half a dozen times now and each time he’s retreated, a scowl darkening his handsome features. This time, he pushes further. “What are you hiding?” he asks, his voice low.

  “Nothing.” My face flushes. “Why is it so inconceivable to you that I might not be hiding something?” Still, my heart accelerates. I fight to steady my hands where they grip the magnetic clasp. My knuckles are white. I’m hiding far more than he suspects.

  “You carry that thing with you all the time. You’re hiding something. This breakup, it’s . . . it’s out of nowhere.” Charlie’s face is hard, his eyes dark. I expected him to break down when I told him about Adam. I wasn’t expecting this denial.

  “You know it’s not,” I whisper. I’ve given him so many reasons already, but still he’s fighting it. I can’t remember when I started waking up with a weight pressing on my chest. I don’t know whether it was before Adam or after, but it’s definitely not just about Adam. For months now, something about my relationship with Charlie hasn’t felt right. But all of that has nothing to do with what’s happening now—with what’s inside my bag.

  “You’re hiding something.” He clutches the bag where I do, his hand resting partially on mine and partially on the frayed leather folds. “You pull it into bed with you. You don’t let it go. There’s something in there that matters. Fucking tell me, Aubrey. Tell me so I don’t have to force it out of you.” My face flushes again; my head begins to ache. I think about what I’m supposed to tell him. I come up blank. What is in the bag? For a second, I forget. For a second, I really don’t know. It happens sometimes like that, when I get angry or scared: I black out. I have a hard time remembering the most important things.

  Then it floods back, and the pain of it makes me wince. My senses flood with the memory of what happened that night, three weeks ago: The wheels screeching, the smell of rubber on asphalt. The form of an old man, splayed and broken. Littered on the roadside like trash.

  Reflexively, I move my hand to my brow. In that second he grabs my bag and yanks it toward him. Its contents spill across the floor: a lipstick, some receipts, a course catalogue for Georgetown. He rummages through the front pocket. The scene runs through my head on repeat:

  Striking something large in the middle of the road—a deer, maybe. Dead already? It was just lying there.

  The tires of my parents’ car squealing as I swerve after the impact. Tears coating my cheeks. Blood clotting on my forehead from where it hit the dash.

  Pulling over, clutching the handle of the door, poised to climb out. Squinting at the large, motionless lump. Hesitating. Paralyzed by fear. What if it wasn’t a deer?

  Roadkill. It was already dead, I told myself before I drove away.

  Now Charlie pulls out a journal. The journal my dad bought me for my birthday. He flips it open and out spill stacks of newspaper clippings. He swears under his breath. I don’t have to look over to know what he’s reading. I’ve memorized the headlines: “Vagrant Struck by Hit-and-Run Driver.” “Western Springs Hit-and-Run Motorist Remains Unidentified.” “Homeless Man in Critical Condition After Hit-and-Run in Chicago Suburbs.” A dozen more. Now he flips the pages of the journal, poring over my scrawled confessions, his face turning white.

  “Aubrey,” he says slowly, clenching a clipping in his fist. “What is this?” I shake my head, tears pooling in my eyes. I can’t speak. I feel dread mingling with relief. Finally, someone knows what I’ve done. But what will he do with it? “You hit this man,” he says, pulling my chin toward him—forcing me to meet his eyes. Mine are so clouded by tears that I can barely make out his features. I can’t tell whether it’s sympathy or something else that’s contributing to the intensity in his voice. “That’s a very bad thing,” Charlie whispers, his hand still resting on my cheek. I feel chills sliding up the back of my neck. “You could get in so much trouble for what you did.” I nod, and the room turns bright around me. My entire body is trembling now, as I anticipate his next words: I’m going to tell.

  “I won’t tell anyone,” he says, folding me into an embrace. He holds my head firmly in place over his shoulder so I can barely move. My heart trumpets against his slower, more rhythmic pulse. He’s incongruously calm. It doesn’t feel right. My eyes flit around the room, settling on all the generic hotel room décor: a wooden lamp with a cream-colored shade; a speckled brown-and-blue carpet. A green satin runner on the opposite bed, meant to convey warmth. Ever since that first time in Montreal, we’ve spent our whole relationship in places like this. Every part of me is stiff. I wriggle my body, trying to pull away, but he only holds me closer.

  “I forgive you,” he says, and my heart clenches and my body turns cold. “I forgive you about Adam. It was only the distance making things difficult for you. You’ve had so much on your mind. My poor little Aubrey.” He leans his head into my hair and breathes into it. He caresses my back with one hand, and it’s all I can do not to recoil.

  “Charlie, I—” I struggle to pull back, to make him talk to me, because all of this is wrong. But he cuts me off.

  “No need to say anything,” he whispers, while his grip tightens on my arms. “I love you and I forgive you.” He’s squeezing so tightly I’m sure I’ll have bruises. I realize I’m terrified. I wish I could grab the phone, run to the door; but just as in the car that night, I’m paralyzed.

  “I forgive you for everything you did with Adam,” he continues. “I know what you did was just from the stress.”

  “Charlie—” I start. He’s not making sense. What happened with Adam came before the accident. I didn’t mean for it to go further, to turn into something emotional. But it did. Charlie lifts a finger to my lips to silence me.

  “You’re devoted to me,” he insists. “I’ll keep your secret. How could I not? How could I not protect my beautiful girlfriend? No one will ever find out, baby. Not as long as we’re together.”

  “You still want . . . to be with me?” I manage to ask. None of it makes sense: why he’d want me in his life after Adam, after this.

  “Of course!” His eyes soften, and he leans in to kiss me everywhere: my cheeks, my throat, my collarbone. Every part of my body is screaming to pull away; his lips feel somehow violating. “How could I not? Who would I be if I abandoned you at a time like this? No, Aubrey,” he tells me. “You haven’t thought this through very clearly, have you? I’m not letting you get away so easily.” I can’t explain why, but his words cause my body to seize up in terror.

  Charlie stops kissing me, and reaches over to collect the newspaper clippings and my journal into a stack. My eyes follow the clippings, all the words I’ve circled and notes I’ve taken in their margins. Some of them say, “I’m sorry.” I’m not sure who I was apologizing to, but the stupidity of doing so is overwhelming. The journal contains worse. I needed an outlet. I’ve been so afraid to tell anyone. But now, I know that Charlie could turn these into a jail sentence if he wanted to. His eyes meet mine again and he smiles with compassion. In my state of unease, the warmth seems manufactured. This time, I can’t help but shudder. His eyes narrow behind his smile as he slips the clippings and the journal under his arm. I move to stop him but he grabs my wrist and tightens his grip until I gasp with pain. Through the whole thing, his smile is unchanged. I’m bound to him now. I have no choice.

  I know something’s wrong even before I open my eyes. They’ve been shut for a while now, even though I’ve been hovering between sleep and an awake state for five minutes, maybe ten. My head is heavy and aches from the memories that have been plaguing me all night—memories of that awful day. I experience a brief, gory image of fishhooks dragging down my eyelids, a snapshot in my brain. My whole body feels tired and sore. I feel Lena shifting around beside me, and I try to remember what’s going on—Kerala, a boat, Anand, chai . . .

  “Oh, shit,” Lena says in a g
ravelly, sleep-clogged voice. “Shit, shit, shit. Aubrey. Get up.” She elbows me hard and I pry my eyes open with effort. Things look blurred and my head pounds. I blink a few times and take in the room, eyeing it for signs of what’s causing Lena’s distress. I don’t panic at first; Lena still has her penchant for melodrama.

  Then I see what remains of our possessions strewn across the bed. My green canvas messenger bag is lying open near where I lie; crumpled bits of receipts, gum wrappers, and an open lipstick tube clutter the thin bedcover. Lena is on the floor, scrambling around under the bed. Her efforts grow more frantic by the second.

  “Aubrey,” she says. “My wallet’s gone.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. But I know exactly what she means. The abrupt switch from aggressive to saccharine. The false camaraderie. Us refusing the beers but accepting the tea, drinking from our cups only after we’d seen Anand drink from his; but accepting refills from the pot. Anand, I think now, didn’t pour himself a second cup.

  “Jesus,” I whisper. “I think he drugged us.”

  “He definitely drugged us,” Lena says, her words rushed and clipped. “Check your bag.”

  “Just try to stay calm,” I say, in a level voice. But one glance tells me that many of my possessions—my earrings, my iPod, even some of my clothes—are gone too. “Do you think he’s still here?” I stand up and move stiffly to the doorway, squinting into the bright sun. My head feels like it’s being cracked open with a hammer. The boat’s docked in the same location where we started yesterday, but the shore is oddly deserted; only a lone crewman is cleaning up the debris of a party a few boats down. From the look of it, everyone has vacated. The sun’s high in the sky and I’d guess it’s midafternoon. I wander the length of the vessel, picking up a Kingfisher bottle and dumping its contents over the side of the deck.

  “Anand?” I call, heading toward the kitchen. My heart’s slamming. I’m not sure whether I want to find him or not, but part of me is hoping this is some horrible coincidence. I reach the little galley kitchen and am half relieved to find it empty except for a trash bin that’s overflowing with fish bones and some bootlegged DVDs that are scattered across the floor.

  He’s gone.

  I go back to the bedroom to break the news to Lena. She’s sitting on top of the thin mattress, her head buried in her hands. She’s motionless.

  “Aubrey—” she starts, dread in her voice.

  “It’s okay,” I interrupt. “I do have a credit card for emergencies. It’s probably enough for a flight back. And your parents will help with yours. They have to, right?” I laugh nervously. The truth is, my own parents are probably ready to disown me and would likely be happy to see me spend eternity in an Indian jail. They’d probably rather never see me again than welcome me home with an eight-hundred-dollar credit card bill and open arms. Because that’s what a flight back home will cost. At least. I’ll be babysitting for a year to pay it off.

  My heart is working its way up into my throat, and I feel sick to my stomach. The thought of putting even more of a burden on my parents—and letting them see how awful I’ve been this whole time—is making me ill. They’ve been worrying about me; they’re not oblivious to the way I’ve been hiding from them ever since the accident. Still, I can’t tell them. I tried a few times. The thought of seeing their disappointment and hurt was too much. Now, though, I’ve made everything worse.

  “It’s not the money,” Lena mutters. “It’s worse.” My heart goes still. I wait for her to continue. Her silence is scarier than anything we’ve faced yet. “It’s the passports, Aubrey,” Lena says, her voice dull. “They’re gone too.”

  It takes me a few seconds to reply. Anxiety wraps itself around my vocal cords, making me feel like I might choke. “Both of them?” I ask.

  “Unless you were keeping them somewhere other than your bag,” Lena says. “Remember, you put them there after our flight two mornings ago? I already checked.” It’s true, I’d taken both passports that morning because I had the bigger bag and Lena had brought just a small clutch. She had wanted to keep the passports on one of us, though, rather than leave them in our luggage.

  “No,” I whisper, moving toward my bag. I check the front pocket, where the passports had been. “But there’s a lock—”

  “Broken.” Lena lets out a humorless laugh. “Those locks aren’t exactly built to withstand pickpockets.” The lock was the reason that I had purchased the bag before my trip to Paris, but I’m not going to tell her that. I feel embarrassed, naive. And panicked.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, sinking to the floor in front of where she sits.

  “It’s not your fault,” Lena tells me. “If anything, it’s my fault. I’m the one who dragged us on this stupid trip. You never would have chased his ghost if I hadn’t made you.”

  “You didn’t make me.” It’s the most honest conversation we’ve had in a while, but it does little to calm my nerves. “What do we do?”

  “I’m not sure. Go to the consulate? God, I don’t even know where that would be around here. It would be one thing in Bombay . . . Oh god. I don’t even have other ID to fly back there with. There’s got to be an American consulate here, right?”

  “I don’t know. This is the first time I’ve ever really traveled. Maybe he’s still around somewhere?”

  “Right. He robbed us and then stuck around to see how we’d take it.” Lena rolls her eyes and draws her long blond hair over one shoulder.

  I stare down at the pile of things Anand left us: my library card, a Snoopy keychain, a little notebook that must be Lena’s. Some receipts and a few American coins. The hotel key we never gave back to the Taj. The lipstick and some nose-blotting pads. Nothing of any use; thank goodness I had my emergency credit card in my jeans pocket yesterday—something I’d normally consider irresponsible but probably the thing that will save us. I’m thinking about this when I hear Lena call my name from the outside deck. I hadn’t noticed when she left the cabin.

  “Aubrey, come here! They’re out here. The passports.” I drop the pile of junk that I’ve been mindlessly sifting through and run to the deck to join her. I don’t know how I missed it before. On the picnic table where we were sitting last night, there’s the knife Anand used to gut the fish. It’s pinning our passports to the table.

  “Oh my god” is all I can say. It’s so creepy. What was he hoping to prove? Lena yanks a few times on the handle but it doesn’t budge—it’s firmly wedged into the wood. She moves aside to give me a try. I pull a few times and feel the knife loosen, and I can’t help but shudder at the thought of Anand’s hands having been where mine are now. I give the knife a solid tug and it flies across the deck with the passports still attached, landing just short of the railing. Lena and I dash over—she gets there first and begins to pry the passports away from the knife.

  “Be careful.” My voice is trembling. I’m still half convinced Anand is going to jump out of the shelter of the other boats and attack us. “Hurry, though—I want to get out of here.”

  “I do too,” Lena says. “Obviously. Do you think these will still work? Even though they’re sliced? Wait.” She pauses, then slides them the rest of the way off. “There’s a piece of paper on here too.” I peer closer at the white square she’s holding. I recoil at the thought of the knife puncturing the passports and the folded square of paper. Chills run up my spine when I consider what else the knife could have pierced while we were passed out.

  “We could have been gutted like those fish,” Lena whispers, echoing my thought. She unfolds the paper and I lean over her shoulder, wrinkling my brow. The sun bears down on us and I have to squint into the light to see. Lena’s mouth falls open, and she lets out a little gasp. She passes the paper to me, and it takes me only a second to see why she’s shocked. Anand has left us an address with a note that reads, “Quid pro quo—in exchange for settling Charlie’s debt, ask Dane for the truth about his ‘death,’ little lamb.” The address is scrawled firmly, like he pressed hard
with a sure hand, though his writing is messy. I peer closely at the last line.

  “Bangkok?” I breathe. But Lena doesn’t answer. Her face is white.

  “‘Little lamb,’” she says. “He wrote ‘little lamb.’”

  “It could be a coincidence,” I start. “Maybe he just happened to see your tattoo.” But I know it’s not a coincidence. We both know it’s not. I’m starting to get the terrible feeling that none of this has been coincidental.

  17

  Lena

  “—So furious with you, Lena. Your attitude is terrible. You’re supposed to be starting school in a couple of weeks, for god’s sake. Your father and I have been at our wits’ end . . .” My mother’s voice drones on, coming in clear despite the ancient spin-dial telephone I’m using, with the plastic phone card I purchased at the tiny Cheap Jack store in Kerala. I don’t want to risk using my iPhone—they’ll be able to track it and find us. Before today, I hadn’t known they still make phone cards. Cheap Jack, meaning jack-of-all-trades, I guess. I scan the room, which is packed full of random odds and ends—glittery mirrored boxes and journals, plastic dishware, and a clown’s head on a stick. Creepy. Aubrey is standing one aisle over, looking at a display of masala-flavored corn nuts. She looks as dirty and exhausted as I feel. Her tank top is torn and her white jean shorts are smudged with dirt. She shouldn’t be wearing jean shorts, here in India. The locals think it’s immodest, because they’re stuck about six or seven decades behind the rest of the world. There’s too much we both shouldn’t have done.

  “—just enough so you can get back to Boston. I’m assuming your friend is taken care of?” The five-second lull jolts me back to the present.

  “What?”

  “Lena. Really? Pay attention. This call must be costing a fortune. That’s another thing. Some things are going to change when you get home. No more wanton spending. This is too much. I don’t know where we went wrong—”