“I remember very well,” he said. “What job was it you lost?”
“It was a shitty job,” Melody said. “A factory job. It was in Iowa. In Des Moines. Des Moines is a shitty place. I didn’t come to work, so they fired me. I was strung out, you know? I needed a couple of days off. I would have come back to work. But they fired me.” She looked close to tears again. “I haven’t had a good job in a long time, Ted. I was an art major. You remember? You and Michael and Anne used to have my drawings hung up in your rooms. You still have my drawings, Ted?”
“Yes,” he lied. “Sure. Somewhere.” He’d gotten rid of them years ago. They reminded him too much of Melody, and that was too painful.
“Anyway, when I lost my job, Johnny said I wasn’t bringing in any money. Johnny was the guy I lived with. He said he wasn’t gonna support me, that I had to get some job, but I couldn’t. I tried, Ted, but I couldn’t. So Johnny talked to some man, and he got me this job in a massage parlor, you know. And he took me down there, but it was crummy. I didn’t want to work in no massage parlor, Ted. I used to be an art major.”
“I remember, Melody,” Ted said. She seemed to expect him to say something.
Melody nodded. “So I didn’t take it, and Johnny threw me out. I had no place to go, you know. And I thought of you, and Anne, and Michael. Remember the last night? We all said that if anyone ever needed help …”
“I remember, Melody,” Ted said. “Not as often as you do, but I remember. You don’t ever let any of us forget it, do you? But let it pass. What do you want this time?” His tone was flat and cold.
“You’re a lawyer, Ted,” she said.
“Yes.”
“So, I thought—” Her long, thin fingers plucked nervously at her face. “I thought maybe you could get me a job. I could be a secretary, maybe. In your office. We could be together again, every day, like it used to be. Or maybe,”—she brightened visibly—“maybe I could be one of those people who draw pictures in the courtroom. You know. Like Patty Hearst and people like that. On TV. I’d be good at that.”
“Those artists work for TV stations,” Ted said patiently. “And there are no openings in my office. I’m sorry, Melody. I can’t get you a job.”
Melody took that surprisingly well. “All right, Ted,” she said. “I can find a job, I guess. I’ll get one all by myself. Only—only let me live here, okay? We can be roommates again.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Ted said. He sat back and crossed his arms. “No,” he said flatly.
Melody took her hand away from her face, and stared at him imploringly. “Please, Ted,” she whispered. “Please.”
“No,” he said. The word hung there, chill and final.
“You’re my friend, Ted,” she said. “You promised.”
“You can stay here a week,” he said. “No longer. I have my own life, Melody. I have my own problems. I’m tired of dealing with yours. We all are. You’re nothing but problems. In college, you were fun. You’re not fun any longer. I’ve helped you and helped you and helped you. How fucking much do you want out of me?” He was getting angrier as he talked. “Things change, Melody,” he said brutally. “People change. You can’t hold me forever to some dumb promise I made when I was stoned out of my mind back in college. I’m not responsible for your life. Tough up, dammit. Pull yourself together. I can’t do it for you, and I’m sick of all your shit. I don’t even like to see you anymore, Melody, you know that?”
She whimpered. “Don’t say that, Ted. We’re friends. You’re special. As long as I have you and Michael and Anne, I’ll never be alone, don’t you see?”
“You are alone,” he said. Melody infuriated him.
“No I’m not,” she insisted. “I have my friends, my special friends. They’ll help me. You’re my friend, Ted.”
“I used to be your friend,” he replied.
She stared at him, her lip trembling, hurt beyond words. For a moment he thought that the dam was going to burst, that Melody was finally about to break down and begin one of her marathon crying jags. Instead, a change came over her face. She paled perceptibly, and her lips drew back slowly, and her expression settled into a terrible mask of anger. She was hideous when she was angry. “You bastard,” she said.
Ted had been this route too. He got up from the couch and walked to his bar. “Don’t start,” he said, pouring himself a glass of Chivas Regal on the rocks. “The first thing you throw, you’re out on your ass. Got that, Melody?”
“You scum,” she repeated. “You were never my friend. None of you were. You lied to me, made me trust you, used me. Now you’re all so high and mighty and I’m nothing, and you don’t want to know me. You don’t want to help me. You never wanted to help me.”
“I did help you,” Ted pointed out. “Several times. You owe me something close to two thousand dollars, I believe.”
“Money,” she said. “That’s all you care about, you bastard.”
Ted sipped at his scotch and frowned at her. “Go to hell,” he said.
“I could, for all you care.” Her face had gone white. “I cabled you, two years ago. I cabled all three of you. I needed you, you promised that you’d come if I needed you, that you’d be there, you promised that and you made love to me and you were my friend, but I cabled you and you didn’t come, you bastard, you didn’t come, none of you came, none of you came.” She was screaming.
Ted had forgotten about the telegram. But it all came back to him in a rush. He’d read it over several times, and finally he’d picked up the phone and called Michael. Michael hadn’t been in. So he’d reread the telegram one last time, then crumbled it up and flushed it down the toilet. One of the others could go to her this time, he remembered thinking. He had a big case, the Argrath Corporation patent suit, and he couldn’t risk leaving it. But it had been a desperate telegram, and he’d been guilty about it for weeks, until he finally managed to put the whole thing out of his mind. “I was busy,” he said, his tone half-angry and half-defensive. “I had more important things to do than come hold your hand through another crisis.”
“It was horrible,” Melody screamed. “I needed you and you left me all alone. I almost killed myself.”
“But you didn’t, did you?”
“I could have,” she said. “I could have killed myself, and you wouldn’t have even cared.”
Threatening suicide was one of Melody’s favorite tricks. Ted had been through it a hundred times before. This time he decided not to take it. “You could have killed yourself,” he said calmly, “and we probably wouldn’t’ve cared. I think you’re right about that. You would have rotted for weeks before anyone found you, and we probably wouldn’t even have heard about it for half a year. And when I did hear, finally, I guess it would have made me sad for an hour or two, remembering how things had been, but then I would have gotten drunk or phoned up my girlfriend or something, and pretty soon I’d have been out of it. And then I could have forgotten all about you.”
“You would have been sorry,” Melody said.
“No,” Ted replied. He strolled back to the bar and freshened his drink. “No, you know, I don’t think I would have been sorry. Not in the least. Not guilty, either. So you might as well stop threatening to kill yourself, Melody, because it isn’t going to work.”
The anger drained out of her face, and she gave a little whimper. “Please, Ted,” she said. “Don’t say such things. Tell me you’d care. Tell me you’d remember me.”
He scowled at her. “No,” he said. It was harder when she was pitiful, when she shrunk up all small and vulnerable and whimpered instead of accusing him. But he had to end it once and for all, get rid of this curse on his life.
“I’ll go away tomorrow,” she said meekly. “I won’t bother you. But tell me you care, Ted. That you’re my friend. That you’ll come to me. If I need you.”
“I won’t come to you, Melody,” he said. “That’s over. And I don’t want you coming here anymore, or phoning, or sending telegrams, no matter what k
ind of trouble you’re in. You understand? Do you? I want you out of my life, and when you’re gone I’m going to forget you as quick as I can, ’cause, lady, you are one hell of a bad memory.”
Melody cried out as if he had struck her. “NO!” she said. “No, don’t say that, remember me, you have to. I’ll leave you alone, I promise I will, I’ll never see you again. But say you’ll remember me.” She stood up abruptly. “I’ll go right now,” she said. “If you want me to go, I’ll go. But make love to me first, Ted. Please. I want to give you something to remember me by.” She smiled a lascivious little smile, and began to struggle out of her halter top, and Ted felt sick.
He set down his glass with a bang. “You’re crazy,” he said. “You ought to get professional help, Melody. But I can’t give it to you and I’m not going to put up with this anymore. I’m going out for a walk. I’ll be gone a couple of hours. You be gone when I get back.”
Ted started for the door. Melody stood looking at him, her halter in her hand. Her breasts looked small and shrunken, and the left one had a tattoo on it that he’d never noticed before. There was nothing even vaguely desirable about her. She whimpered. “I just wanted to give you something to remember me by,” she said.
Ted slammed the door.
It was midnight when he returned, drunk and surly, resolved that if Melody was still there, he would call the police and that would be the end of that. Jack was behind the desk, having just gone on duty. Ted stopped and gave him hell for having admitted Melody that morning, but the doorman denied it vehemently. “Wasn’t nobody got in, Mister Cirelli. I don’t let in anyone without buzzing up, you ought to know that. I been here six years, and I never let in nobody without buzzing up.” Ted reminded him forcefully about the Jehovah’s Witness, and they ended up in a shouting match.
Finally Ted stormed away and took the elevator up to the thirty-second floor.
There was a drawing taped to his door.
He blinked at it furiously for a moment, then snatched it down. It was a cartoon, a caricature of Melody. Not the Melody he’d seen today, but the Melody he’d known in college; sharp, funny, pretty. When they’d been roommates, Melody had always illustrated her notes with little cartoons of herself. He was surprised that she could still draw this well. Beneath the face, she’d printed a message.
I LEFT YOU SOMETHING TO REMEMBER ME BY.
Ted scowled down at the cartoon, wondering whether he should keep it or not. His own hesitation made him angry. He crumbled the paper in his hand, and fumbled for his keys. At least she’s gone, he thought, and maybe for good. If she left the note, it meant that she’d gone. He was rid of her for another couple of years at least.
He went inside, tossed the crumbled ball of paper across the room towards a wastebasket, and smiled when it went in. “Two points,” he said loudly to himself, drunk and self-satisfied. He went to the bar and began to mix himself a drink.
But something was wrong.
Ted stopped stirring his drink, and listened. The water was running, he realized. She’d left the water running in the bathroom.
“Christ,” he said, and then an awful thought hit him; maybe she hadn’t gone after all. Maybe she was still in the bathroom, taking a shower or something, freaked out of her mind, crying, whatever. “Melody!” he shouted.
No answer. The water was running all right. It couldn’t be anything else. But she didn’t answer.
“Melody, are you still here?” he yelled. “Answer, dammit!”
Silence.
He put down his drink and walked to the bathroom. The door was closed. Ted stood outside. The water was definitely running. “Melody,” he said loudly, “are you in there? Melody?”
Nothing. Ted was beginning to be afraid.
He reached out and grasped the doorknob. It turned easily in his hand. The door hadn’t been locked.
Inside the bathroom was filled with steam. He could hardly see, but he made out that the shower curtain was drawn. The shower was running full blast, and judging from the amount of steam, it must be scalding. Ted stepped back and waited for the steam to dissipate. “Melody?” he said softly. There was no reply.
“Shit,” he said. He tried not to be afraid. She only talked about it, he told himself; she’d never really do it. The ones who talk about it never do it, he’d read that somewhere. She was just doing this to frighten him.
He took two quick strides across the room and yanked back the shower curtain.
She was there, wreathed in steam, water streaming down her naked body. She wasn’t stretched out in the tub at all; she was sitting up, crammed in sideways near the faucets, looking very small and pathetic. Her position seemed half-fetal. The needle spray had been directed down at her, at her hands. She’d opened her wrists with his razor blades, and tried to hold them under the water, but it hadn’t been enough, she’d slit the veins crosswise, and everybody knew the only way to do it was lengthwise. So she’d used the razor elsewhere, and now she had two mouths, and both of them were smiling at him, smiling. The shower had washed away most of the blood; there were no stains anywhere, but the second mouth below her chin was still red and dripping. Trickles oozed down her chest, over the flower tattooed on her breast, and the spray of the shower caught them and washed them away. Her hair hung down over her cheeks, limp and wet. She was smiling. She looked so happy. The steam was all around her. She’d been in there for hours, he thought. She was very clean.
Ted closed his eyes. It didn’t make any difference. He still saw her. He would always see her.
He opened them again; Melody was still smiling. He reached across her and turned off the shower, getting the sleeve of his shirt soaked in the process.
Numb, he fled back into the living room. God, he thought, God. I have to call someone, I have to report this, I can’t deal with this. He decided to call the police. He lifted the phone, and hesitated with his finger poised over the buttons. The police won’t help, he thought. He punched for Jill.
When he had finished telling her, it grew very silent on the other end of the phone. “My God,” she said at last. “How awful. Can I do anything?”
“Come over,” he said. “Right away.” He found the drink he’d set down, took a hurried sip from it.
Jill hesitated. “Er—look, Ted, I’m not very good at dealing with corpses,” she said. “Why don’t you come over here? I don’t want to—well, you know. I don’t think I’ll ever shower at your place again.”
“Jill,” he said, stricken. “I need someone right now.” He laughed a frightened, uncertain laugh.
“Come over here,” she urged.
“I can’t just leave it there,” he said.
“Well, don’t,” she said. “Call the police. They’ll take it away. Come over afterwards.”
Ted called the police.
“If this is your idea of a joke, it isn’t funny,” the patrolman said. His partner was scowling.
“Joke?” Ted said.
“There’s nothing in your shower,” the patrolman said. “I ought to take you down to the station house.”
“Nothing in the shower?” Ted repeated, incredulous.
“Leave him alone, Sam,” the partner said. “He’s stinko, can’t you tell?”
Ted rushed past them both into the bathroom.
The tub was empty. Empty. He knelt and felt the bottom of it. Dry. Perfectly dry. But his shirt sleeve was still damp. “No,” he said, “no.” He rushed back out to the living room. The two cops watched him with amusement. Her suitcase was gone from its place by the door. The dishes had all been run through the dishwasher, no way to tell if anyone had made pancakes or not. Ted turned the wastebasket upside down, spilling out the contents all over his couch. He began to scrabble through the papers.
“Go to bed and sleep it off, mister,” the older cop said. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”
“C’mon,” his partner said. They departed, leaving Ted still pawing through the papers. No cartoon. No cartoon. No cartoon.
Ted flung the empty wastebasket across the room, and it caromed off the wall with a ringing metallic clang.
He took a cab to Jill’s.
It was near dawn when he sat up in bed suddenly, his heart thumping, his mouth dry with fear.
Jill murmured sleepily. “Jill,” he said, shaking her.
She blinked up at him. “What?” she said. “What time is it, Ted? What’s wrong?” She sat up, pulling up the blanket to cover herself.
“Don’t you hear it?”
“Hear what?” she asked.
He giggled. “Your shower is running.”
That morning he shaved in the kitchen, even though there was no mirror. He cut himself twice. His bladder ached, but he would not go past the bathroom door, despite Jill’s repeated assurances that the shower was not running. Dammit, he could hear it. He waited until he got to the office. There was no shower in the washroom there.
But Jill looked at him strangely.
At the office, Ted cleared his desk, and tried to think. He was a lawyer. He had a good, analytical mind. He tried to reason it out. He drank only coffee, lots of coffee.
No suitcase, he thought. Jack hadn’t seen her. No corpse. No cartoon. No one had seen her. The shower was dry. No dishes. He’d been drinking. But not all day, only later, after dinner. Couldn’t be the drinking. Couldn’t be. No cartoon. He was the only one who’d seen her. No cartoon. I LEFT YOU SOMETHING TO REMEMBER ME BY. He’d crumpled up her cable, and flushed her away. Two years ago. Nothing in the shower.
He picked up his phone. “Billie,” he said, “get me a newspaper in Des Moines, Iowa. Any newspaper, I don’t care.”
When he finally got through, the woman who tended the morgue was reluctant to give him any information. But she softened when he told her he was a lawyer, and needed the information for an important case.
The obituary was very short. Melody was identified only as a “massage parlor employee.” She’d killed herself in her shower.
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