What It Was Like

by Peter Seth

  “I wish we didn’t have to have the lights on,” I said, worrying about who might see us from outside. Not that there were any neighbors nearby, but still, I was worried about everything. Which was the correct way to be.

  “How are we gonna see?” Rachel countered, and she was right, of course. It was a dark, dark night out there.

  Still, I thought about all the private security “rent-a-cop” cars I saw driving around her neighborhood at night, but kept that thought to myself. If someone came by, we would have to deal with that.

  “There!” Rachel said, pointing to an upper shelf. “Those big canvas things.”

  I had to get a ladder, set it up, make noise, and take time, but I climbed up to where Rachel had indicated. Thank goodness there were no houses right near the Princes’; no pain-in-the-ass neighbors to see or hear anything going bump and scrape and bang in the night.

  “These?” I asked, touching a piece of stiff, cream-colored canvas.

  “Yeah!” she said. “Get those down!”

  I pulled hard and two big things fell off the shelf, but they weren’t that heavy. They were made of canvas and almost floated to the ground. I climbed down as Rachel was unfolding one of them.

  “These are the covers that go over the loungers outside,” said Rachel. “During winter.”

  She spread out one of the canvas covers; it was about eight feet long and three feet wide, open on top but with sides, to keep everything in.

  “These are perfect!” I said. “Let’s go.”

  We took the two covers back inside, through the laundry room, kitchen, and dining room. Nothing had changed in the back room. Eleanor and Nanci were exactly where we left them, not that I had expected anything else. But it would have been so nice if their bodies had miraculously vanished. No such luck. Not that we deserved any.

  “OK,” I said. “You take this one over by Nanci, and I’ll deal with Eleanor.”

  I could see that Rachel was completely ready to defer to me on how to do what we had to do.

  “OK,” I repeated, trying to think, trying not to look like I was stalling, trying to stay in control of the situation for Rachel’s sake (and, yes, Counselor, I know what I’m saying). “Help me lay this out.”

  After Rachel put one canvas cover by Nanci, she helped me unfold the other one next to Eleanor. It was stiff and crinkly, but when we got it open, it made a perfect vessel for moving what we had to move. Which were “bodies.”

  I knew I had to touch Eleanor, to move her into the pocket of canvas. I don’t think I’d ever touched her, except for that first insincere, bony handshake at the Costa Brava. I looked down at her on the floor, mesmerized by her limp, loose-angled body, her half-hidden face, and by Death itself, still right there.

  “Hell-eanor…Hell-eanor…Hell-eanor…Hell-eanor.”

  Four times I think I said her name. I don’t know if I was apologizing, or trying to exorcize her evil soul, or saying a prayer, or conceding victory.

  “Go on, baby,” Rachel urged. “We have to do this.”

  Carefully I leaned over and took hold of both of her ankles, one at a time. She was wearing nylon stockings under the legs of her pantsuit, and her narrow ankles felt slippery in my grip. I moved her legs over onto the canvas while Rachel held it in place with her foot. Then I moved up to Eleanor’s upper body. She was sort of on her side, sort of face down, so I had to change her position. That’s when I saw the other side of her head, where Rachel hit her. It was all smashed in and creased with blood in her reddish hair. I think I saw a little bit of her brain, but then I made myself look away. I had already seen too many things that night that I knew I would want to forget. This was just one more.

  Without trying to look too closely at what I was doing, I transferred Eleanor’s upper body, holding her under the armpits, onto the canvas. I looked down at the floor under Eleanor as I moved her. No blood on the floor, but that didn’t prove anything.

  “You’re gonna have to wipe over here after we move her,” I said.

  “I’m gonna wipe down everything,” she said. “Believe me: everything!”

  I looked at Rachel, and she seemed well-resolved and in control. Good for her. And good for me. I was going to need a focused Rachel to get this thing done.

  When Eleanor was safely inside the canvas, I said to Rachel, “You should go get the car keys and get the trunk open.”

  “Right!” she said firmly. “I’ll go get ’em.”

  She turned and walked straight out of the room.

  I reached down and shifted one of Eleanor’s legs, to get her more centered in the canvas. Then I tugged at the canvas. It would slide easily on the floor, but would that be a good idea? Shouldn’t we carry her and not leave any traces of canvas thread or anything on the floor?

  “Here!” sang out Rachel, jingling Eleanor’s huge key ring with the black, shiny leather handbag in her other hand. “You wouldn’t believe how much this purse cost . . . almost a thousand dollars at Bendel’s!”

  That’s more than my father makes in a month, I thought, but didn’t say. I stayed with the plan.

  “OK,” I said. “Go into the garage and open up the trunk of the Caddy. And tie Max up someplace. We have to go through there.”

  “Where should I tie her up?” Rachel asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s your house. Find someplace!” I raised my voice a little, for the first time, I think. I saw the cold look on her face.

  “You don’t have to shout,” she said and turned, walking back out of the room after dropping the thousand-dollar handbag on the floor.

  “Sorry!” I said as she left, but really, I couldn’t care too much about the tone of my voice at that very moment. Of course I cared about Rachel and how she was going to get through this, but for now I had to decide how to deal with Nanci.

  I walked over to her body, lying against the fireplace stone. I tried not to look directly at her. She was still in her bra and panties. She was so big and smooth and pale. There looked to be some blood still under her head, but Rachel had cleaned up a lot. We’d have to do more when we got back, but it was a start.

  I unfolded the other cover next to Nanci. She was about twice as wide as Eleanor. She’d fit in the canvas, easy, but carrying her might be another thing altogether.

  “OK, what’s next?” asked Rachel, coming back into the room with a determined spring in her step.

  “Let’s move Nanci into this,” I said, standing by the canvas. “Then we’ll take both of ’em out to the garage. OK?”

  “Whatever you say,” she said earnestly. “OK, baby?” I could see that she felt bad about yelling at me before, when she left the room, and wanted to make amends.

  “Yeah . . . OK, ” I nodded as I walked around to Nanci’s head. “You take her feet.”

  Rachel took her place at Nanci’s feet, splayed wide on the floor. Her body was wide and very still. I could see that Rachel froze when she started to bend down. She blinked, tried again, and still couldn’t bend down.

  “Wait,” I said. “Let me do that.”

  I stepped down to Nanci’s feet, and Rachel moved out of the way.

  “Thanks,” she murmured softly. “I can help, but I don’t want to touch her. Is that all right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. She suddenly looked a little weak and lost. I didn’t want her to come apart.

  “Stand back a little,” I said.

  I stooped down and, one at a time, grabbed each of Nanci’s fat, fleshy ankles. I think it was my imagination, but her body already felt cold. Colder than normal.

  First the left leg, then the right leg, I lifted over the side and into the bottom of the canvas cover. Then I scooted back to her head.

  I got a grip under her arms, in her armpits that were cold and moist, and hoisted her top half into the pocket of canvas. Or, let’s say, I tried to hoist her. She wa
s one heavy girl, and I could barely move her off the ground. I slid her more than lifted her.

  “Here,” I called to Rachel. “Please! Help pull this under her.”

  Rachel quickly knelt down and pulled the canvas under Nanci’s body that I was just able to get a little bit off the floor. It took a couple of tugs and grunts, but we got her into the canvas cover and pulled the sides up all around her.

  I looked down Nanci’s large, fairly shapeless body, so still.

  “Now I see why she wore so many clothes,” I said. “To cov –”

  “Don’t – !” Rachel cut me off. “Please. Don’t say anything. Let’s just get them in the car.”

  “OK,” I said. I tried to clear my mind and be logical. “Put all her clothes in here. Her boots, her purse. All traces of her. Put her whiskey sour glass in too. Everything.”

  “How about the cards?” Rachel asked. “She touched the cards.”

  “The cards,” I agreed. “Everything.”

  I got the whiskey sour glass, figuring out pretty easily, by position, which one was Nanci’s, and picked up the cards while Rachel got her clothes and other things.

  She dropped the clothes in delicately alongside of Nanci’s body and put the boots at her feet. Then she picked up the big, fringed purse that Nanci always carried from the corner where “Eric” had dropped it.

  “Nanci Jerome’s famous suede purse!” said Rachel ruefully, holding it up like some kind of rare specimen. Then she walked back to the canvas cover and dropped it in.

  “She still might have some clothes upstairs,” Rachel said. “But I could explain those away. If I had to. ‘She slept over last week.’ There.”

  I put the whiskey sour glass in and tossed in the deck of cards lightly on top. The cards scattered and slid all over Nanci’s body and clothes. I could see one card on top, right at the peak of her belly, almost covering her deep, dark navel: it was, I swear, the King of Hearts. The Suicide King.

  “We have to move, baby,” said Rachel. I guess I must’ve been looking at Nanci, daydreaming or daynightmaring, before she snapped me out of it. “It’s getting late.”

  I didn’t want to look again at the clock with no numbers over the mantel, but I knew that she was right.

  “Right,” I said. “Let’s move Eleanor first. She’s lighter.”

  “The one good thing about her,” Rachel muttered, walking over to Eleanor to take her place at the foot of the canvas. How quickly could Rachel recover her Rachel-ness!

  “OK,” I said, going over to Eleanor’s canvas and getting set.

  I got a good grip on the two corners by her head, purposefully not looking down at Eleanor’s body.

  “You ready?” I asked, seeing that Rachel, copying me, had the other two corners tight in her fists.

  “Yeah,” she answered.

  “OK,” I said. “On three. One . . . two . . . three!”

  And we both lifted the canvas up – it was surprisingly, pleasingly light – and started carrying it out of the back room.

  “Great,” I said as we shuffled the canvas as quickly as we could across the room, inches off the floor. “You OK?”

  “Yeah,” Rachel grunted, though I could see by the stretching in her neck cords and arms that it was a heavy carry for her. Rachel was strong, yes, but that’s only strong for a girl.

  We were out of the back room and halfway through the dining room when the telephone rang, scaring the hell out of both of us. I hate to say it, but we dropped Eleanor.

  “Who is that??” I said.

  It rang again, sounding even louder, resounding from the kitchen to the living room to the back room. They had phones all over the house.

  I looked at Rachel. Her eyes were wide and glistening, blinking widely.

  “Don’t answer it,” she said.

  It rang again. We didn’t move a muscle.

  “Who do you think it is?” I asked her.

  It rang again.

  “Herb,” she said.

  It rang again.

  “Then definitely don’t answer it!” I said.

  It rang again.

  “I bet he’s calling to apologize,” I added.

  Rachel said, “He’s going to have a whole lot to apologize for when they think he killed Eleanor”

  “Ssshh!”

  It rang again. Wouldn’t it stop??

  “What if he comes over here?” I worried. She looked back at me with fear and uncertainty in her eyes.

  “He better not come over here!” I said, right on the edge of panicking when it suddenly stopped. It didn’t ring again. We waited a moment . . . no more rings.

  “We better move,” she said. “Fast.”

  She couldn’t have been more right. We picked up Eleanor in the canvas and took her the rest of the way at double-speed, through the kitchen and into the laundry room.

  We put Eleanor down as Rachel opened the door to the garage.

  “You OK?” I asked when she regained her grip on the corners.

  “Yeah,” she huffed, “let’s go.”

  We had to bend Eleanor a little to get her out the door and down the two steps to the floor of the garage, but we did it pretty easily. We had to carry her around the Mustang, and that made things tight.

  “You should move this,” I said grunting, meaning the Mustang. The weight of Eleanor swayed side-to-side and we bumped her into the garage door, but we got her past the Mustang.

  “Wait!” gasped Rachel, putting her half of Eleanor down.

  I put my half down too. Eleanor was pretty heavy, even for me, and Nanci would be even worse. We might have to drag her.

  “OK,” she said after a couple of breaths. “I’m ready.”

  We picked up Eleanor and carried her the rest of the way over to the Cadillac – Eleanor’s beautiful, white Cadillac – with the trunk wide open, and put the canvas down on the cement floor.

  “I’m gonna move my car,” she said. “And open things up.”

  “Good,” I replied.

  I took her hand.

  “You’re like ice,” I said, feeling her freezing fingers with both my hands.

  “I know,” she brought her other cold hand up to mine. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

  “Me too,” I lied.

  I took her freezing hand in mine, and we ran back into the house to continue doing what we were doing, trying to think carefully and not think about it at all, both at the same time.

  “I’ll get my car keys,” said Rachel as we went back through the laundry room.

  “Where’s Max?” I asked.

  “Maid’s room bathroom,” she said, running ahead of me and through the kitchen.

  I heard her run upstairs while I walked through the dining room to the back room, thinking that I didn’t even know that there was a maid’s room, much less that it had a bathroom.

  The back room looked like a battle zone. Not that I’ve ever been in a battle zone, but I can imagine. The room was super quiet, as if Death had sucked all the life out of the air. Hanging over the whole room, over Nanci laid out in the big, tan canvas cover, was a palpable cloud of Nothing. Stillness. No life.

  But I had to walk into this void, and do what I had to do, for Rachel.

  I looked around the room. There was so much to do: Nanci to move, everything to finish cleaning up. We had to get everything ready for the long drive up to Mooncliff and then finding the Quarry because the only way to drive into the Quarry was from the Boonie side, through the forest, not from the Mooncliff side, the side that we knew well. With two cars. And two bodies. What the hell was I doing?

  “OK,” said Rachel, bouncing back into the room with fresh energy. “Let’s keep moving.”

  “Right,” I agreed.

  “I’m gonna go get my car out of the way,” she said, jingling
the keys in her hand.

  “Good idea,” I answered.

  “You finish up in here,” she said, “Then we’ll move her. And then we’ll get out of here.”

  “Another good idea,” I said as she turned and left the room again.

  I looked around for more things to clean up. All of Nanci’s stuff seemed to be in the canvas with her. I saw Eleanor’s expensive purse on the bar and went over to get it. When I picked it up, it was surprisingly light, made of this very nice black lizard or alligator or something, with bejeweled clasps at the ends. It was really a fine piece of leatherwork, much fancier and more delicate than anything my mother had ever owned. I carried it over to Nanci’s open canvas and was about to drop it in when Rachel came back in.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, a little out of breath. “I took all the money out.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Good.” I guessed.

  “Let’s move her,” said Rachel, approaching Nanci. “Then I’ll clean up the rest, and we’ll get out of here. We should already be on the road.”

  “I know,” I said, taking my place at the head. “Come on.”

  I grabbed my corners, and Rachel grabbed hers.

  Rachel said, “She looks so –”

  “Don’t!” I cut her off. “Please?”

  “I was just going to say that she looks so pretty,” said Rachel calmly. “That’s all.”

  I had already seen too much that night, too many things I wouldn’t want to remember: dead Nanci Jerome’s pretty face was just one more of them.

  “Ready?” I said. “On three. One . . . two . . . three!”

  We hoisted Nanci in the canvas and started to carry her, but I could barely get her off the ground. Rachel’s end, hardly at all. Nanci had to weigh over two hundred pounds: all those layers of clothing concealed quite a lot of person.

  Rachel cursed. “What a load.”

  “OK,” I said, regripping the canvas. “Do your best. We’ll slide her if we have to.”

  “We have to,” said Rachel, grabbing onto the corners of the canvas and lifting.

  It was a relief that the canvas was good and thick because we had to drag, bump, and bounce Nanci into the garage over many different surfaces. If it had torn, I don’t know what we would have done.