Please See Us

by Caitlin Mullen

  “I’m sorry I didn’t ask this before. But what’s, you know, your real name?”

  “It’s Ava,” she said. “Same as my mom.”

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “Yeah. I guess.” We pulled up to the beach, parked near the bulkhead. For a minute we listened to the screams of seagulls, the shouts of children playing in the sand.

  “Can I ask you something else?” I said, as we stepped out of the car.

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Did you ever—your visions—see anything about Emily?”

  She shook her head. “That bothered me for a while. I don’t know why I didn’t. Some people are really closed off. I could never pick up anything from her, even when I was trying to so she’d let me into the spa. Maybe even when she died she was like that. Hard to read.”

  “Yeah. She was definitely”—was, how I hated that past tense—“closed off, that’s for sure. In some ways I feel like I knew her well. I mean, we worked together all the time. But obviously I had no idea she had this other life. And I didn’t know anything about her family, her childhood. Still don’t, I guess.” I could only piece together scraps of information from what I had read in the paper. That the killer seemed focused on sex workers in particular. You’re not like the others. That they were in the process of interviewing other women who worked on the streets, but it was hard getting any of them to talk to the cops. I thought, too, of the way Emily had started fiddling with that necklace more and more often in those last few weeks. Those dark circles under her eyes.

  Clara sighed. “I should have told you. I saw her out once. With a man. All dressed up. Different from how she was at work. The guy was like twenty years older than her. The situation was pretty clear, you know. That’s why I used to get so mad at her when she’d kick us out.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Were there clues that I had missed? I thought of my first day at work, Emily showing me all of the places to sneak a look at your cell phone, where to stash a snack. How good she was at hiding in plain sight. Would it have made a difference, if I had known? Clara must have sensed what I was thinking. “People are going to do what they’re going to do, Lily.”

  “So what happened to her … you think that’s fate?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t believe in fate as much now. We all make choices, and sometimes those choices bring us to places we never expect. Those women made choices to go with that man without any way to know he would make a choice to do something evil. I’m trying to choose a normal life. You chose to ignore that moron ex-boyfriend of yours, to go your own way. We never have total control, but we all do our best, right?”

  “I guess so.” We walked along the shore, let the cool waves wash over our bare feet.

  “I guess you’ll go back to New York now,” she said.

  “Actually, no. I think I’ll stay here, at least for a little while.”

  “You’re not scared?”

  “I am, but I don’t have a plan to go anywhere. Not really.” A seagull swooped over our heads, and we both flinched. “What about you? You’re being safe, right?”

  “The stuff with the men, that’s all over. But I am leaving. I don’t know how. I actually think Des used my cash to leave town herself. I haven’t seen her or heard from her in days. I mean, she goes MIA all the time when she’s on a bender, or when she’s met some new guy, but usually she at least comes home for a change of clothes. But I can’t wait for her. I’ve got to get out.”

  We were quiet as we walked back to my car. Clara was still wearing Victoria’s purse. I didn’t think I could help Clara until we passed the bank. I pulled over on a side street and told her to wait. I couldn’t take out more than $1,000 in one withdrawal—it was half of what I’d made so far at the spa. I had never handled that much cash before, and what overwhelmed me was the scent, that tantalizing, terrible smell of grime and paper and promise. I hoped it would be enough to hold Clara—Ava—over for a little while.

  I handed it to her, told her she could only use it to go.

  “I can’t take this, Lily,” she said.

  “For once, you’re not taking anything.” She smiled at that. “I wish I could give you more.”

  “Are you sure? You might not want to get back to the city now, but maybe in a few months you’ll change your mind.”

  “Doubt it. Plus … maybe this is stupid, after everything it almost cost me. But I really want to figure out the story with those paintings.”

  “It’s not stupid at all.”

  “Any psychic insight you can give me on those?”

  “Ha. Nothing, unfortunately. I think you’ve got this one, though.” We were almost at the bus stop. Clara finally put the money in her purse.

  “I hope you’re right.” I felt like there was still so much to say between us, but anything I tried to think of felt forced, melodramatic. “And hey. I never said thank you.”

  “You don’t have to. I just wish I could have known more sooner. And I wish I hadn’t said that about Luis. Whenever I saw him he gave me this feeling, like I always thought he was hiding something, but he must have been in the same boat as me. He must have seen them somehow and wondered what to do. Oh, that reminds me.” She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and held out a tarot card.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready for another reading, Clara. I’m just going to stick to the here and now, I think. I want to rent a room somewhere here, see if I can show these paintings in town. Simple. Easy.”

  “Just take it, okay? It’s the Moon. It stands for the part of yourself that is yet to emerge, for mystery and illusion. The version of events you can’t see just yet. It’s a reminder to connect with your subconscious, to trust yourself.”

  I took the card and slid it into the cupholder. “Thanks, Clara. I’ll try my best.”

  “You better.” A bus chugged up to the shelter.

  “That’s me,” she said.

  I leaned across the console to hug her, but I didn’t want to say a real goodbye. “Text me when you know what your plans are, okay?”

  “I will,” she said. “Okay, better go.” She waved to me from the line, and her dark hair disappeared behind the tinted windows.

  Even after the bus pulled away, I sat in the car for a few minutes, feeling like there was something I could be doing, but not sure what it was. I thumbed the card. It showed a round yellow moon above a pool of water, a curving path to the horizon, a dog and a wolf raising their heads to howl at the sky. What illusions was I hanging on to? What was the version of events, the story, that I had yet to see?

  Maybe I should go back to the library, talk to Sue again. But she wouldn’t have anything new to tell me. I was still stuck on the idea she’d mentioned, that woman, the one who used to come looking for the photos. I wasn’t ready to give her up. Something about her was relevant, close to all this. And then I felt it, the knowledge dropped like a stone in my gut.

  Luis. Clara had said she felt like Luis had been hiding something. Maybe she had been right about him, but not in the way she thought. It made perfect sense. The grandson. Quiet. Stuck to her side, watching. His last name was Silver. That big, swooping S at the bottom corners of the paintings.

  Luis. Of course.

  * * *

  THE BOARDINGHOUSE, Sea Breezes, appeared ready to collapse in on itself. All the porch spindles were broken, and sections of lattice looked like they had been kicked in. I knocked on the door and an old woman answered, her hair a nest of brown-and-gray frizz.

  “Is Luis Silver here?”

  “Haven’t seen him today. You one of those ladies from the state?”

  “From the state?”

  “One of those social workers. Don’t know why you bother. His grandmother raised the boy right. Never had any trouble with him at all.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s right. It’s just a routine visit.” I felt nervous about lying to her, sneaking around on Luis. But I was worried about what he would do without his j
ob at the spa, and he deserved so much better than this. I hoped she didn’t notice the way I stammered, the way I flushed, or, God forbid, ask for a business card. “Can I see his room, please?”

  “Up there, second door on your right.” She moved aside to give me access to a dark, narrow staircase. I wanted to turn around and drive away, but I felt the tingle of possibility, even as the smell of cat urine stung my eyes.

  I knocked once, twice. No answer. I tried the knob and the door was unlocked. I counted to three, then stepped inside, my eyes shut tight like a kid making a wish. Would he be angry at me for showing up like this? What if he wanted to keep the paintings a secret? It would be an unforgivable intrusion, inserting myself into his home, his work, if he didn’t want me there.

  I kept my eyes closed at first, but I could smell the paint. The mellow scent of linseed oil and the chemical tang of turpentine.

  When I opened my eyes I had the same stunned feeling I always got before an anxiety attack. But instead of the tightening of my chest, the breathlessness, the clammy skin, I was dumbstruck, then filled with a warm joy.

  There were canvases everywhere. They leaned against the wall, three deep. One was new, set up on an easel: the women, five of them in a single line. I knew their names now. Amanda, Grace, Julie, Victoria, Georgia. Emily had still been alive by the time Luis found Clara, when she came to see me at the spa. Another thing he’d been so desperate to show people, so relatively powerless to make them see.

  There was a small pile on the bed: a book of matches, a folded shirt. Had he been planning on going away? I didn’t know what I would do if he came back to find me in his room, but I couldn’t resist. I started going through the paintings. There was one of a girl in what looked like a shelter, the kind the state set up during Hurricane Sandy, a Red Cross blanket draped over her shoulders. Another of a jitney driver eating lunch from a Styrofoam container. And one that I loved, of a woman praying in front of the steps of an old church. To her left was a battered rowboat at the center of a plot of earth. The boat was filled with clusters of faded impatiens and held a molded statue of the Virgin Mary in the middle. The details were stunning: from the woman’s wooden rosary beads to the flecks of mold on Mary’s veil.

  And then I had to rub my eyes, stare at the floor for a minute, afraid that I would look again and the painting would be a mirage. But there he was, among all the gangsters and the nuns and the bartenders and the go-go dancers, the kids at the schoolyard and the pit bosses and the bodega clerks. My dad, in one of his ratty union shirts, a fingertip-sized hole at the collar. That grin like someone had just whispered a fantastic secret in his ear, his hands wrapped around a paper coffee cup, his hair wild and unbrushed, blown around from driving with the windows of his truck rolled down, even in the cold. I couldn’t help it—I raised my eyes to the ceiling and laughed as I choked down a sob.

  I don’t know how long Luis stood in the doorway watching me stare at the painting, feeling as though something precious had been returned to me. I wanted to tell my mother. I wanted to understand how. I turned when the floorboards creaked. Luis raised his eyebrows at me and I held out my hands: I’m sorry, then gestured to the paintings—hoping he would understand my awe, my wonder for what he had made. Wonder. I hadn’t felt it for such a long time.

  Luis reached toward the small pile on the bed, moved the shirt aside, setting it down as softly as you might a baby animal, something that could be injured if handled the wrong way. He picked up something that I couldn’t make out, then reached into his pocket. He held his palms out to me like an offering. A folded piece of paper and a two-dollar bill. Like the one my father had given me. Like the one Matthew had nearly destroyed.

  Out of instinct I flipped it to the back, where there was a zigzag of lightning above Ben Franklin’s head, traced in blue pen.The tears caught in my lashes. I unfolded the note. Two words: I SEE.

  JANES 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, AND 6

  AFTER THEY ARE FOUND, THERE is light. Bright, harsh, white like Heaven in movies. There are cameras, a battery of flashes. A large rectangle of police tape is drawn around the marsh and the Sunset Motel. There is no breeze that day. For once, the grass is somber, still, without its usually whispery shush-shush-shush. The marsh is filled with a quiet like the penitent silence inside a church. Without the wind, the flies are worse. Detectives and coroners are constantly slapping them away, swearing under their breath. Their boots slosh through the soft muck. Three of the men who report to the scene must step away to get sick. It’s the smell. The decomposed flesh. The open eyes, staring, imploring. The vulnerability of those bare feet. The splayed hands, asking for alms. Asking for more than what they got.

  All summer there have been questions in the air and the women seem to have the answers. What kind of place is Atlantic City? What is it meant to be now? A ruined dream? A tumbled-down sand castle buffed away by the tide? A nightmare?

  A coroner leans over Jane #6. “Who did this to you?” he whispers. But it is one more thing sealed behind all their lips like a secret.

  A dozen gloved hands touch the women. The investigation is doomed from the beginning. They will never find the man, though some of the police sketches circle his likeness—the set of his jaw, the blades of his cheekbones—yet none of them capture the pale glass of his eyes. The city won’t treat the cases as the work of one person—pressure from the politicians, from the casinos; the words serial killer will scare off whatever tourists are left. And so they investigate each woman as her own crime, her own case, isolated from the rest. Having lain there, sisterly, so close, for so long, the women bristle at the absurdity. They thought they had seen everything this city could do to them, but even now they can still be surprised.

  The other girls from the streets leave flowers, plush bears, little crosses made of plywood. But after three days, the offerings are rain-drenched and faded. The crosses tilt in the muck. In a few weeks, they’ll be washed away by the September storms that drive against the coast, hurricanes thrashing up from warmer seas. Lost.

  The investigators never find the seventh woman, the one he left near the rusted-out railroad tracks. They never even know to look for her, even though for weeks her dyed red hair is bright against the fading grass. The police bring in a suspect for questioning, a plumber who had been staying at the Sunset Motel when the bodies were found. They question another man—one whose apartment on the boardwalk is filled with women’s shoes. But they are all the wrong guesses. The women know he’s gone for good after the seventh woman. They know, too, that he’ll never be caught. Who they were, their longings and dreams, their secrets and their darkest thoughts, will be lost. Time will turn them into warnings, symptoms, into stories people tell in dark corners of bars.

  Seasons pass. The tides surge and recede. The moon waxes and wanes. The grass of the marsh turns green and brown and green again. One spring, the feral cats under the boardwalk are caught and taken to shelters inland. A new restaurant opens in the middle of an empty, gray block on Pacific. A section of boardwalk that was ruined in a storm is nailed together again. The state buys the Sunset Motel and razes it to the ground. A new governor promises the city more funds. The lights at the Revel go on again, a glittering column at the end of the skyline. An art show draws a critic from the New York Times. In the Press of Atlantic City: “Local Painter Honored for a Lifetime of Work, Commissioned to Paint Murals Downtown.” A young woman waits tables at a diner in San Diego and writes a college application essay about tarot cards and telling stories, about a boardwalk shop overlooking another sea.

  The women hover above it all, presiding like ghosts. Even now, they, like everyone else in town, still believe in luck, in the change of tides, in the upswing, in the chance that they’ll hit on the next deal. That something else will happen, something beautiful, wonderful, something that will turn it all around. They choose to believe that this isn’t the end.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THANK YOU—

  To my agent, Sarah Bedingfield, w
ho shaped this manuscript into the book it was meant to become with endless patience, keen editorial acumen, and unbridled enthusiasm. I can’t imagine this journey without you, or our marathon breakfasts. To my editor, Kate Dresser, whose passion bowled me over from the very beginning. Thank you for embracing this project with such wholehearted gusto and for your razor-sharp insights and clear vision, which have elevated every page. To Molly Gregory and the rest of the team at Gallery for bringing this book into the world with such care and giving it a loving home.

  To Susan Scarf Merrell, my very first reader, for your boundless generosity and unwavering support. I am awestruck at my great fortune to have you behind this book and its author. Thank you for making me finish the lap.

  To Susie once again, along with Meg Wolitzer and the rest of the BookEnds ’19 crew, for the camaraderie, motivation, and windmill sing-alongs. Gratitude in particular to Sheena Cook and Mike McGrath, whose savvy edits, honesty, and humor brought life to these pages and pushed me to be better.

  To the many teachers whose life-changing support has been integral to my writing life. First, Rebecca Harlan and Susan Connolly of Mainland Regional High School, who helped a shy teenage girl realize that writing could be power. Jennifer Brice and Peter Balakian at Colgate University, for showing me the way. The wonderful, tireless faculty and staff of the Stony Brook MFA program—thank you for fostering such a smart and kind-hearted community, where much of this book was written.

  To Melanie Pierce, I can’t imagine the past few years without our Citarella dates, story swaps, and mutual teaching meltdowns. I am so lucky to have you as a writing buddy and, most important, as my friend.