The Little Black Dress

by Linda Palund

  “Okay,” I said. “And, Seth, thanks so much for this. You don’t know what it means to me.”

  “It’s okay. I’m going to need your help to navigate around that school of yours. See you tomorrow.”

  After we hung up, I lay down on one of my beds and stared up at the soundproofing squares in the ceiling and thought about Carmen. They were going to find her killers at last. Knowing this didn’t stop me from missing her terribly. It didn’t stop the rage I felt when I thought about how her life had ended in such a horrible way. Or that we would never be able to talk together again, lying just like this on the two little beds in my room, staring up at the ceiling and listening to music together, or that we would never finish exploring our new sexual relationship, the relationship that had started out so tentatively, so shyly, because it was so new to both of us.

  Mostly, we had only kissed and cuddled. I’d never kissed anyone before except this gay boy in drama class a few years ago. I had confessed to him that I’d never been kissed and that I was embarrassed because I didn’t know how.

  “I’ll teach you,” he offered.

  And he did. Backstage, behind the scenery, waiting for our entrance, me dressed in my rabbit suit and him dressed in his bear outfit, we kissed. His lips were soft, and his mouth tasted clean and sweet.

  “Just open your mouth a little,” he said, “and don’t freak out. I’m just going to slide my tongue between your lips.”

  It was weird, because it was totally nonsexual. It was like a tongue exercise, but I learned to open my mouth and let him slide his tongue between my teeth, and then I did the same to him, and we practiced that a few times, and that was it.

  So when Carmen and I came home after that first day at Shakespeare’s, we ran down to my room as usual, shut the door behind us, but this time I locked it. Carmen had walked to the back windows overlooking the patio and shut the drapes, making the room suddenly go dark. We met in the middle of the room, next to my desk, and that was where we had our first kiss. We just embraced like friends, and then I kissed her. I started it. It was as if Carmen, who was so ravishingly beautiful, had never been kissed before. But she opened her mouth when I pressed my lips against hers and kissed me back with a sudden frenzy as soon as she felt my tongue slide against hers.

  The next thing I knew, we were lying on one of my single beds, our tongues and lips glued together and her little black dress was sliding up over her head and my hands were on her soft breasts and I was moaning and panting and grinding my hips against hers, and before we could go any further, I ground myself into an orgasm, shuddering against her mouth.

  After that first experience, we went a lot further, but never all the way. Carmen never let me get between her thighs. She would let me caress her mound with the tips of my fingers, but that was as close as I could get. She had the most luscious tangle of black hair down there, making my thin, light-colored bush seem puny by comparison, and we shaved each other’s into interesting shapes, but she never let me slip so much as a finger between the lips of her sex, let alone my tongue.

  She happily went down on me, though, her wet tongue like a magical device that would make me come like the proverbial rocket, but she never let me return the favor. Most of the time we just kissed and cuddled. She liked to cuddle. She liked to cuddle and fall asleep in my arms. It was beautiful and comforting, and I loved how she felt lying beside me, so soft and womanly. But I always imagined someday she would let me make love to her the way she made love to me. I would take it slow. I loved her. I could wait. I never imagined she would be taken away from me before she could know what it was like to be made love to like that. I never imagined I would never even get to hold her in my arms again.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE INTERVIEW

  WHEN I arrived at school the next morning, Seth’s little Honda was already parked in my usual slot, so I pulled in alongside it. Seth was sitting in his car, reading his transfer notes and looking at a map of the school when I tapped on his window.

  “Hey,” he said after opening his window.

  “Hey,” I answered. “Did you figure out where your homeroom was?”

  “Well, I was trying to do that just now. The homeroom teacher seems to be a Mr. Moskowitz. Do you know him?”

  “That’s great! He’s my homeroom teacher too. Just come along with me. He’s actually pretty cool. He’s a secret mathematician, so you two will probably get along great.”

  We walked together to homeroom, chatting about schoolwork and the rest of Seth’s teachers. He was in most of the same advanced placement classes I was, but all his electives were in math while mine were in theater and art. We parted after the homeroom roll call. He had to undergo some more indoctrination, and I had to get to art history. We arranged to meet during the first break. We were already friends. It was pretty effortless and had nothing to do with any of that boyfriend/girlfriend bullshit. In fact, it was precisely because neither of us seemed to feel any of that “mating pair” peer pressure that we were able to slide into each other’s lives so easily.

  Seth’s dad telephoned me on my cell during lunch to make an appointment with me.

  “Hello,” he said. “Is this Lucy Linsky?” He had a pleasantly masculine voice with a soft Texas twang. “This is Captain Greenberg of LAPD Homicide Division. I’d like to meet you and go over some details having to do with your friend’s murder.”

  “Sure,” I said, hiding my anxiety behind small words. “When?”

  “I’d like to come to your house as soon as possible. Your mother needs to be present, so you may want to talk to her first.”

  “Oh, it’s all right. She’ll be happy to be there whenever it’s convenient for you,” I said, and I wasn’t lying. My mom had been present for all the other police interviews, and I knew she would be happy to shift her own appointments around so she could meet the new captain of the LAPD Homicide Division.

  “Tomorrow at 4:00 p.m.? Would that be a good time? Will you be home from school by then?”

  “Yes, that’s great. I’ll let my mom know.” I gave him my address again and hung up.

  I was in a state of high anxiety from that moment on, and the school day seemed to last forever. It was useless for me to be there, but the next day was even worse. I went to school anyway, just to see Seth. Fortunately, I had two free periods after lunch, so I hung out in the seniors’ lounge and plotted and planned and imagined what I was going to say to Seth’s father, Captain Greenberg.

  Then Wendy came in for her free period and kept me entertained with some interesting news about the cheerleading squad. Usually, I smiled and zoned out during Wendy’s chatter, but today her conversation was curiously dark, and I listened and took a lot of mental notes. Although Wendy wasn’t exactly popular, she was blonde and athletic and knew how to be friendly to the right people. The right people, in this case, were the cheerleading squad.

  “Something definitely weird is going on in the cheerleading squad,” she announced, sitting down and opening a peach yogurt. Who cares? was my immediate reaction, but I didn’t say it out loud. I just looked up with a big question mark on my face, because I knew Wendy was going to tell me no matter what.

  “I mean it,” she said, leaning forward and looking at me with an unusually serious expression on her plump little face. “I know you don’t like the cheerleaders, and you don’t care, but I’ve got a few friends on the squad, and they’re worried about something.”

  “Yes, well, they should be worried about devoting themselves to such a ridiculous endeavor,” I answered, rather meanly.

  Wendy dropped a spoonful of yogurt into her mouth and ignored my comment. “Have you heard about all the injuries they’re having this year?”

  “I don’t really pay any attention to anything about cheerleading.”

  “Well, my friend Andrea showed up at school yesterday with her arm in a sling. She claims she dislocated her shoulder learning the new routines. In fact, all the girls are complaining about the new rou
tines, but I think there’s more to it than that.”

  She sat back and looked at me, her blonde eyebrows raised, waving her spoon in the air like a magic wand.

  “What do you mean?” I asked to be polite.

  “I think that’s just an excuse. They have new routines every year. They’re supposed to have them, but this year, something is different. They all seem so down somehow, I mean the squad,” she said. “I think there is something else going on, and they’re blaming the routines instead of talking about it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “These injuries, for one thing. It’s not just Andrea. Last week, Natalie came to school with a black eye. She said she had earned it when one of the other girls accidently elbowed her in the eye during a routine.”

  “Every year there are some minor injuries on the squad, even I know that,” I said.

  “No, it’s different this year. Either the girls are becoming unusually accident prone or something really strange is going on. I just know something has changed, and it isn’t just the routines.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t explain it, but I’m worried about my friend Caroline. She only just made the squad for the first time this year. She was over the moon when she made the final cut, but now she’s all depressed. She told me last week that she thought she really wasn’t cut out for it after all, and maybe she should quit.”

  “Well, that’s probably a good thing. Shows she’s growing up,” I said.

  “No, believe me, it’s not a good thing. The whole squad seems depressed, like they’ve lost their usual spark.”

  “Well, I guess that can’t be a good thing for a cheerleading squad.”

  Wendy shook her head and got up, throwing her yogurt cup into the recycling bin. “Well, bye, then. Off to fail another algebra quiz.”

  After Wendy slipped away to her algebra class, I tucked those tidbits she’d told me away to mull over later, and then Seth popped in, reminding me we had a world history class together.

  “Great. This is my last class, and then I get to escape. I promise to tell you everything about the interview after your dad leaves.”

  Seth just chuckled. “I already figured out the passwords to my dad’s files, and I bet I can get you the transcript of your own interview by tomorrow morning!”

  Amazing, I thought to myself as I sat down at my desk.

  I actually managed to sit still for the full hour, but I was out of my seat as soon as the bell rang.

  “Talk to you later,” I called as I ran down the hall.

  Seth’s dad arrived at our house at five minutes past four. I had been on the lookout for his car ever since I arrived home, and I had the door open as soon as he extricated his rather long body from the unmarked police car. He had somebody with him who was carrying a big brown leather briefcase.

  “Hi,” I said, holding open the door so they could walk past me into our foyer.

  “Lucy Linsky, I believe?” Seth’s father said, turning to face me. He was just as tall as I had expected, about six foot two, with the same dark hair and gray-blue eyes Seth had. He was handsome, though, as unlike Seth, his face had settled into an attractive maturity. Poor Seth needed a few more years before his face settled that way. Like Seth, he had a fine aquiline nose and a nice big mouth. The lines on his face indicated that he smiled a lot, and he smiled down at me as he introduced me to his partner. “This is Lieutenant Harrison, from the Robbery Homicide Special Case Division.”

  “Hello,” I said, suddenly shy. Lieutenant Harrison was a very fit-looking young man, with light brown hair and serious brown eyes. He seemed to be studying our wallpaper, an exotic design of cranes and birds of paradise. “Uh, well, we thought it would be a good idea to meet in our kitchen. It’s more comfortable there, and our housekeeper has made us some coffee and cookies, if you like.”

  I led them into the kitchen. Constanza had already made herself scarce, but she had left a fresh pot of coffee and a batch of her special cookies waiting for us on the counter. I yelled down the hall for my mom, who was in her study on the other side of the house. It was my mom who had decided we should use the kitchen instead of the den, because she knew they would be taping the interview, and it made sense to sit around a table.

  It was a good thing too, because it turned out the briefcase the Lieutenant was carrying was full of all the old case files, and he took these out and laid them in piles in front of Captain Greenberg so they could refer to them. Then he set up the tape recorder.

  After the first pleasantries were over and I had found out Seth’s dad’s first name was Michael and the lieutenant’s name was Stan, we sat down with our coffee and cookies, and the lieutenant clicked on the recorder, made the usual announcement with the date and time, occupants of the room, etc., and we began.

  I was impressed. Seth’s dad was much more thorough than the other detectives had been. “All right, Lucy,” he began, looking calmly at me with his ice-colored eyes. “In your previous statements, you say that Carmen didn’t have a boyfriend and wasn’t dating anyone at the time of her murder, is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” I answered. “She wasn’t dating anyone ever. She wasn’t interested in dating. She just wanted to get good grades, get into Columbia, and become a famous writer.” As much as I wanted to tell him the truth, that Carmen and I were lovers and that she wouldn’t think of dating anyone else but me, I wasn’t ready to share that information with the outside world. I just hoped my word on the subject of dating would be convincing enough.

  “You also said that several of the boys in your high school were coming on to her, and that some of them were quite persistent. Can you remember who any of these boys were?”

  I laughed. “Aside from the entire male student body, you mean?”

  “Yes, I mean were there any boys in particular that you could name,” he prompted.

  “Well, yes. There were several jocks that kept hitting on her and didn’t seem to want to take no for an answer.”

  He handed me a pad and pencil. “Do you mind writing down their names?”

  “No,” I said, “I’ll be happy to.” And I began to list them. I tried to put them in descending order according to their level of persistence. Then I handed the list back to the captain, who gave it a quick glance before giving it to the lieutenant, who slid it into a new folder.

  “If you think of anyone else, just e-mail me at the station. My e-mail address is on my card.” He took a business card out of his pocket and handed it to me. It looked very official, stamped with the LAPD logo, and had his direct line and his e-mail address on it. I slipped it into my bra for safekeeping when he looked back down at his notes.

  “Do you happen to know if any of these boys drive SUVs?”

  “The school parking lot is full of them,” I told him. “Practically every boy over sixteen drives some kind of sporty SUV nowadays. Most of them cost more than a home in The Valley. But I haven’t paid any attention to who drives what car. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay, Lucy, we can check it out from the school files.” Then he asked me that same question all the cops had asked me before. “Do you think your friend Carmen would have willingly taken a lift from anyone she knew from school that day?”

  “Absolutely not!” I said. “Not only would she not have given any of those jocks the time of day, but we were meeting up just down the street. It was a ten-minute walk. She didn’t need a lift, and she didn’t want a lift. She told me she wanted to walk.”

  “Do you usually meet up at that phone booth?” he asked, jotting down something in his notepad.

  “Yes, we do” I said, sorry for my previous outburst. “It’s convenient after I’d finished tutoring Wendy. I can just scoot down to the corner and pick up Carmen, and off we go. Wendy lives closer to that corner, and on sunny days, Carmen likes to sit out there on the guardrail and listen to the traffic.” He looked at me oddly at that statement, but it was true. What else could I tell him?


  “Do you think that Carmen might have been the kind of person to walk up to a vehicle if she knew the occupants? Let’s say, if they drove by and stopped, and maybe rolled down their window to ask her a question?”

  I nodded and began to feel sick to my stomach. “Yes, she would,” I answered. “She was very polite, even when she was putting someone down.”

  “So she could have come close enough to a vehicle to be grabbed,” he said solemnly. I nodded again. I couldn’t say anything because all I could think about was my beautiful Carmen, the breeze blowing her hair, walking up to an ugly SUV, smiling her lovely smile just to be polite, and those creeps grabbing her and shoving her into the back of their car.

  “Would you like some more coffee?” my mother asked, suddenly aware that I was losing it. I had forgotten she was even in the room. She hadn’t sat down at the table. She had been leaning back against the sink and observing us, the way she does.

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  “I might as well give you all a refill,” she said, walking over with the coffee pot, looking cheerful and attractive for an older woman.

  While I got myself together, pretending to examine the cookie plate, Captain Greenberg shuffled through the folders on the table. Then he looked over at me again and must have decided I was okay, because he began to ask me a totally different line of questions.

  “You said in your statement that neither of you girls ever dated, but that you went out on the weekends to this place called the Sugar Shack. What is that, exactly?”

  I explained that the Sugar Shack was a club almost exclusively frequented by girls and that we all just danced with each other.

  “No one ever tried to hit on Carmen there?”

  “The girls certainly didn’t,” I said, “and the few boys who hang out at the Sugar Shack are just nerdy muso types who know the DJs. Sometimes they watch us dance, but mainly they hang out by the turntable and talk about music with each other.”