That night I dreamed about you. In the dream you were a rowboat and I was the ocean; I was a castle and you were a massive, cut-glass chandelier. I was the moon and you were the stars. It was one of those pleasurable dreams you think you can control, a dream where I sat on my throne and said “Show me. Please me.”
But your spirit invaded my dream and took control. I saw you as a child; I became you, but I was also an observer above the scene. I felt your terrible fear as I saw your devil-worshipping father holding a frog gigger like a miniature pitchfork. I felt the pain and he used it on you head. I felt the warm blood running down my face. When I forced myself to wake up, the blood turned into tears. Do you know how long it’s been since I wept? When a Queen weeps, a universe sorrows with her. I felt the yearning of your heart that your father must die.
I awoke a different person. I had already traveled a small way towards rescuing you, and I will go further. I owe it to you. Last night transformed me, freed me; more than the death of my stepfather, more than leaving home, more than the extinction of mentor, more than coming into my money or even buying my perfect house. These had were just steps on a ladder – you are flight. Neither of us needs “steps” once we are airborne. Our throne is of the air. It was as if I had lasik surgery and no longer needed a crutch. The Queen weeps. The Queen can fall in love. For the first time in her life, when she finds a worthy knight.
I used to see my loneliness as freedom. It isn’t. You want a gift from me; the gift of your father’s death. He’s locked up in a SuperMax so that’s a conundrum I haven’t yet solved. But by the time the trial ends, I will have. Sometimes you simply have to cut your way through a troublesome problem. I long to introduce you to the power of magic. The power of magic is the power of substitution. We must agree on a vessel acceptable to you into which your father’s spirit can be drawn. And we must arrange a time, a place, a method for sacrifice. Believe me, you must trust that that will heal you. It will be your father’s own blood with which I will adorn your face.
As soon as I got in the truck I got the air conditioner blasting. I swear it was ll0º in the shade in this part of Texas. Second thing I did was crank up the music. It wasn’t until I had Muse’s Uprising blasting that I had the nerve to put in a call to Nicholas Rudoff down at the bank. I didn’t expect to actually speak to him. I am way low on Nicholas Rudoff’s list of priorities. “Probably on the “avoid at all costs” list. In my experience it takes ten phone calls to even get a phone call returned. That’s when he finally figure out that you just won’t go away.
I didn’t have a good feeling about it, though. He’s Charmian’s little cat’s-paw. But wouldn’t you think he’d be at least interested to find out Charmian is really Pearleen Purdy? You’d think. But here’s the other thing; he would definitely tell Charmian what was up. He has no special confidentiality deal with me, whereas Charmian takes him out to lunch and lets him look down her blouse. How much would it matter if I lost the element of surprise?
Rudoff’s paralegal, on the other hand, always seems much more helpful. He acts like he actually likes me. And, after all, he’s the guy doing all the work. His name is Max Ignow, but my sisters rudely refer to him as Ignatz. Just never to his face. But I have to work hard not to call him that. Max, Max, Max. Couldn’t I swear him to secrecy? Maybe. I pulled over and pulled out my cell. “Max Ignow, please. Whitney Quantreau calling.”
He was available. He was always available. Either he has a special thing for me or Max Ignow has no private life whatsoever. With this friendly accessible attitude in life he’ll go nowhere.
“How ya doing, Whitney?” he said. “How’s school?”
Poor Ignatz. His news is always out of date. I turned down Arctic Monkeys’ Don’t Sit Down Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair so I could hear him better.
“I’m taking a breather.” Bravely – after all, he pays the “education” bills so on a need-to-know basis he needs to know – I said, “I’m thinking of transferring. I’ve got an ex-boyfriend I need to get away from.”
“Oh, my God,” said Max with all the sensitivity anyone could require. “I’m so sorry. Did you get the police involved?”
“I want to avoid getting the police involved. That’s why I’m thinking of transferring out of Pueblo to the University of Colorado at Boulder. If they’ll let me in. But it’s interesting that you mentioned the police.”
“It is?” asked Max. “Uh oh. Not what a lawyer – or even a paralegal – likes to hear.” “Yeah. Put on your lawyer hat. I have a question for you in absolute confidentiality,” I said. “Don’t even tell Nick. I want to figure out how to tell him and maybe we can figure it out together.”
“Hit me,” Max answered evenly, as if he cuts Nick out of the loop a lot. And maybe he does. Nick’s a golfer. Nick’s a partier. Nick hangs out at the club. Nick gets naked with a bunch of other out-of-shape old men in a steam room on a regular basis. Need I say more? Nick is a blabbermouth. “I just found out Charmian is pretending to be someone she’s not.”
“Really?” he said again, reflexively. Could he hear this a lot, too?
No way! He had that “stop being jealous of Charmian” note in his voice! Max, who likes me! Max, of all people! I turned down the airconditioning so there was no way he could mistake my meaning.
“She seems to have borrowed someone’s identity,” I said heatedly, trying to heat him up. No point telling him she used to be a stripper. Men love that. He probably thinks every man ought to have equal opportunity to marry a stripper.
“Well, has she committed a fraud?”
“Undoubtedly,” I said. “She didn’t use her right name when she married my father. She stole someone’s identity!”
“Are they complaining?” asked poor, innocent, out-of-the-loop Max.
“No,” I said, summoning up all the portent and the foreboding I could manage, “They’ve disappeared. It’s over seven years and no one’s seen them.”
“Interesting,” said Max. “Have they found a body?”
God, he’s annoying. This whole “law” thing is for the birds. I almost have sympathy for Charmian taking a shortcut to get what she wants. Almost.
“They haven’t found a body,” I said through gritted teeth. “Charmian’s probably hidden the body. I mean, duh. If you want to pretend to be a person you can’t have said person turn up dead!”
Max was as calm as if people consult him about murders and impersonations and missing persons every day of the week, instead of spending his time looking up trust documents and making copies for shut-outs and shut-ins.
“If I were you I would go to the missing person’s family and get them to complain. If your stepmother used someone else’s accounts or licensure to perpetuate a fraud, that would definitely be a matter for the police. Otherwise –”
I had a horrible, horrible memory that Charmian persuaded my father she could work for less per hour if she didn’t have to “change” her license to Colorado. God what a sucker my dad was. “I don’t think she used the other person’s caregiving license,” I muttered. “But she must have used her driver’s license! Maybe passport! Stuff like that!”
“That isn’t necessarily illegal unless she was perpetrating a fraud,” he instructed me in an annoyingly patient way. “It really is a free country. People can call themselves anything they want. Changing your name can be perfectly legal. Some women like to change their names.”
Not me. I’ll be Whitney Quantreau forever. If I ever get married I’ll make my husband change his name. He should be proud to link himself with any family as great as ours.
Max was droning on, “Marriage isn’t the only reason people change their names. Maybe she changed her name when she became this other person’s heir.”
I was so crestfallen I fell forward in my seat. I hadn’t thought of that. It certainly was possible, especially since they were mixed up romantically. Maybe they went to Europe – God knows the real Charmian had a good enough reason to get out of town – and Charmian died overseas and Pearleen – my Charmian – “inherited” everything that used to be the real Charmian’s. I was hungry and I can’t reason when I’m hungry. I could see this was going to be a lot harder than I thought.
“If she’s using a Social Security number she’d not entitled to, you could make a complaint to the Social Security Administration,’ he said. “But they usually take years to look into things. If somebody’s a natural born citizen and paying their taxes and no one’s complaining about their own identity being stolen I’m not sure you could make much of a case.”
He’s lucky I wasn’t talking to him in person. I was beginning to feel a need for violence, which I ordinarily would have satisfied by tipping over something on his desk. Violence. Hunger.
Frustration. It certainly is extra enraging to be actually becoming as bad as the enemy. I need virtue and justice and honor on my side to give me some lift-off here and Max isn’t helping.
“If she wasn’t legally married to my father I don’t see how she can benefit under the trust,” I muttered.
“Unfortunately Colorado recognizes common law marriage,” said Max. “Your father certainly intended to marry Charmian – or whoever she is. We know he did. You know he did.” Dammit I did know.
“Don’t remind me,” I muttered. “I’d like to think he was out of his mind.” But I was lying to myself. His mind was all he had left. At the end.
Fortunately Max didn’t rub it in my face that my father had the perfect right to sit ringside at a strip club and throw my inheritance into every passing G-string if that’s what he decided he wanted to do. Instead he set up a trust to pay for my healthcare and education and see that I maybe get some money after Charmian’s death. If she doesn’t use it all up first. And am I grateful? Hardly. I’m starting to consider bumping Charmian off myself. I wonder what she would do if she were in my position?
“You’re further out of luck,” Max went on serenely, “Because of the phrasing of this particular trust. She’s not even mentioned by name. She’s just “ux”. Now if you could prove bigamy,” he went on, “That would present a very intriguing little legal problem. They don’t punish bigamy very harshly – she might not even get jail time – but it would certainly freeze the trust till it got sorted out and you could get it up under a judge’s nose. I think an effective litigator could definitely argue that as she had perpetrated a fraud on the trust she should be estopped as a beneficiary.” Don’t you just want to smack people who use jargon so ruthlessly?
“So I have to find out if Pearleen Purdy made another marriage?” I inquired. “Is that what you think I ought to do?”
“I think you ought to enroll at UColorado Boulder in pre-law,” said Max. “You know the trust will pay for that. Do your own legal work. That’s my personal opinion. If you’re determined to hassle your stepmother, try to find out if she committed bigamy by marrying your father. Maybe she thought it wasn’t bigamy if she used another name.”
Go ahead. Take her side.
“But I’m not a lawyer,” said Max. “Not yet. So don’t quote me.” “Well, you don’t tell Nick what we talked about. Zip your lip.” “Consider it zipped.”
“I have a call into him. Cancel it.” “Consider it canceled.”
After I hung up I had to find a drive through and get the full combo meal. With a whipped cream shake. Because, I mean, really. There’s just so much a person can stand.
The moon loves me. The moon is my friend. When the Moon card appears, it means the hero is at the critical stage of his journey. The Moon represents Hecate, Queen of Hell. Hecate is the Hero’s Muse in her menacing aspect. The crab – seventh sign of the zodiac – is pictured at the base of my beautiful moon card, a work of art. The Crab is trying to birth himself as he drags his body from a stagnant pool. This armored creature represents primitive unacknowledged forces of the spirit which seek to sabotage us and which must be overcome. In the middle distance a road is seen, guarded by a wolf and a dog. Their attraction must be resisted. The moon is freedom; the dark path descends back into the womb from which we’ve fled; the inchoate hell of life before we recognized identity and made choices.
I advocate no path; I wind around through the bushes sharing beneficiary of the Moon’s light and glamour. The wolves won’t know I’m there.
Memories stirred as I darted through the shadows. I felt like a teenager again, sneaking in and out of my house, avoiding my stepfather. How relished staring into people’s windows when they did not know they were being watched. Tonight I saw a family – I guess Zanellis – through their picture window, working together, cleaning up after dinner. An older woman, older man, two kids under 10 – the dead son’s children from his previous marriages? moving as if in a dance through the kitchen, opening and shutting, drying and passing, folding and wiping. No sign of you.
My mother always felt spied upon. She was a “what will the neighbors think?” kind of person. If you’re gong to be controlled by your neighbors, you’d better choose them carefully, don’t you think? Don’t live in a trailer park, or the next worst thing, a shack ghetto around a dead-in-the-water lake. When Moms tried recruiting me for her act I just shut her out, trying not to listen, recognizing it as the mind control an older generation attempts to exert over the younger. She always said we should live our lives as if we were being watched every minute!
It wasn’t until I was taking the required Introduction to Basic Psychology course at the college that I had the chance to realize that she couldn’t hope to know what the neighbors actually thought. Their minds were forever closed to her. Duh. In fact ours is the only mind in which we can ever, ever live. The only person whose thinking matters is you.
By my mother’s own choice she was living in an ineffective world of her imagination – the very thing she accused me of – where she had no responsibility but no power either. Each of us lives completely alone inside our heads. It is literally as if there are no other people in the world.
There is an exception to that. The exception is the telepathy that exists between two perfect and like minds, sexually joined. You will become me as I become you. Admit it; haven’t you always wanted breasts and a pussy of your very own? We will wield each other’s weapons as well as our own. It is power doubling that vaults us head and shoulders above all other puny lives. The shed was pretty unappetizing. No wonder the social workers stoked the Sivarro’s fires! Not a place for a three year old.
There was a window, but it was dark. There was a pile of cans beneath the window as if somebody too lazy to get out of bed had thrown them there. I had to kick them out of the way and stand on a pile of compost to look in. A drape of honeysuckle partially obscured my view.
I writhed as if stung at the thought that I had missed you. I’m not sure I have ever felt true jealousy – as opposed to, say, envy – in my life. But I was discovering that when you want a person, everything is different. I used to spend all my time trying to maneuver men who had something I wanted into wanting me. Is this “I’ve got to have you” sensation what you men feel?
Sex is usually like the solitary experience that trains us in desire. Men like pornography, women like romance novels. My mother’s eating was her pornography. “I want a chocolate one layered with a vanilla one and then a salty snack washed down by a cold hush of juice.” Understandably, people want experiences they can manage. My grandchildren are obsessed about electronic games. Virtual games. What happens when “virtual” isn’t enough and you must have reality?
I push away the doll-like figures, kick them out of sight, and you and I stand alone but together, facing each other, weaponless, maskless, along a level plain. It is your freedom that I desire. And in turn, my beautiful Knight of Swords, my Knight of the Colt .38, I offer you my power. I want to be the one who provokes that rich, slow smile.
And then my eyes became adapted to the light and I saw you, sleeping nude upon a narrow bed. Your sheet was partially thrown off, your manhood rose, exposed. Knowing I was there. Summoning me. I felt the answering squirt between my legs. Suddenly I needed to pee, and squatting right there relieved myself upon your junk pile, my hot perfume of me mixing with the honeysuckle. Athletes must imagine the course before possessing it, dancers imagine the dance; my husband used to say that for all we know we’re the imagination of a dreaming Chinese philosopher.
Your chest was bare, the color of moonlight. I would finally touch its hard silk and hairless ripples. The tattoo on your shoulder: what does it represent? I imagined the tattoo was my own face looking out at me from your chest, swelling like a spider-web across muscle and throat, reaching toward your nipple. You knew I was coming and you had always kept yourself pure for me.
The door was unlocked and almost silent. I stepped over the pinkish flannel shirt I had seen you wear. I picked it up, pressed it to my face and I was rewarded – surrounded by your smell. Sweat, yes, cigarettes, and a subtler, musky aroma like the underside of leaves. Like the mossy lake after a rain. That will be the way you taste.
I thought of the power of the stars. As a Gemini born on the cusp of Aquarius rising, your Sun was in Gemini and your Moon in Aquarius. Your strong air element gives you a throne like mine; you were born to be a revolutionary and a man of ideas. By birthright you possess the power of your other twins. In the womb you slaughtered him; gave him up for sacrifice, probably during the Transit of Mars with Saturn in your twelfth house. You knew instinctively that you would lay him someday on my altar.
You are my ram in the thicket, given to me as an offering. Will I startle you? Will you push my hand away? It’s the creature with the sharpest senses that transforms, transmutes, transcends each otherworld encounter, by intuiting the opponent’s move. There ‘s our edge.
Somewhere music played – back in the house they cranked up a singer’s sorrowful wail as a wall, to curtain, to separate each from the other as the empty people wandered towards their beds. I stripped off my clothes and threw them in a pile. My body moistened, senses sharpened, heart contracted. Lust for your otherness opened inside me like a flower. I took my scarf, winding it around my palms, and covered you eyes. Lightning passed between us.
I feared you would vault out of that bed as if you’d been gouged. But you didn’t. You reached a sleepy hand over one of mine to capture it, to keep me from escape. As I mounted your magnificence still you were not afraid. I ran my hand upwards toward your throat: still accepted my invasion, your blind eyes fluttering behind my scarf. You reached your arms up for me and I rode you like a succubus, like a revenant.
In the moonlight I saw your beautiful body as well as felt it: every inch. You are lit from within; the flying buttresses of your ribs are tent spines where the parachute silk of flesh is stretching tight. I thought of bodies as machines, as engines, now I saw yours as the tabernacle for your spirit, for your hidden self, a thing too beautiful even to risk the moonlight. Too beautiful for exposure. I ran my hands over the pale silver fur of your legs and crotch and I raised a lot more than gooseflesh; your balls tightened in my palm like a pair of dice yearning to be thrown.
Your muscles felt like those of a powerful animal like a jungle cat, locking and interlocking smoothly beneath the velvet of your skin. I saw the tattoo; gothic words; Razor’s Edge, and the semblance of a creature. Bird? Buffalo? I will know for certain soon. The razor’s edge is where both of us live indeed. From the words dripped drops of blood; one for every man you killed?
If so, you slaughtered more than me. I wonder if we can count the walking corpses left behind; those who might as well be dead but still they lurch and breathe because they refuse to recognize their own mortality.
The Zanellis are dead, Karen Sivarro, maybe also her lover, the wretched Mr. Haymaker. Your father is dead and my stepfather, the Empress and all the zombies who hashed their lives to make our dinner. I sometimes think my poor stepdaughter Whitney, with her mind and heart so preoccupied – interred, you could say, with her father’s ashes, is a victim too.
Most of all I loved your chest, so wide and hard it could enfold like the spines of a boat. My ship of rescue, a pleasure yacht to float me away from the boredom and the loneliness of all my lovely money.
Whatever have you wanted, you shall have it. Other women? I will bring you whoever you desire. There mist be someplace on this earth you long to go. But we must wait until the trial ends, so you are safe. We cannot be seen together. I must restrain myself but it is hard. I have been so long alone.
I touched each star of your precious constellation; the cords of your neck, your silver seashell ears, the tip of your strong nose, your scarred bare head. Your pentacles. I wanted you to feel my hard body, not a young girl’s any longer but just as lovely as it was in childhood, before my stepfather tortured off my “flying dust”, as we once did to butterflies.
Everything you want I will do, Everyone you want I will be. This is my vow. Our hot breath steams the room, but this magic veil can conceal us not much longer. It is time to say goodbye. Making man come at my pleasure has a lot to do with the forefinger and everything with what ring I choose to wear. A gold nugget does the trick. You boiled inside me like a volcano.
I left you blinded with my scarf and stole in turn your red bandana, fleeing naked, holding my clothes before me, melting into the spring night that shelters lovers, becoming one with the crickets chirping, the peepers peeping, the lilacs rustling. I giggled as I climbed still nude into my car like a frat boy on a successful panty-raid.
I laughed while I drove. We will wrestle! I am strong from battling with currents; we will be so evenly matched. Even if each of us wants to be on top both of us can have our wish. I will caress the places where you shave and do not shave; I will free you from yourself. And when the rollercoaster breaks free both of us will fly free forever. We inherited hard shells like dragonfly larva, they will fall away as we give birth to our own power.
It will even be a beautiful way to die, spirits gone and left behind our abandoned silver shells, joined at the hip like a pair of Siamese twins? My husband always called orgasm “the little death”, I hated him for that. I never came with him. It is not little, it is a big, big death to catapult one’s self so freely through the reveries of another.
Is it raining? I felt the rain on my cheeks and hands as I rushed to my front door and disarmed the security system. Dogs barked everywhere, but thank the Goddess humans cannot understand their language.
Safe inside I took a long, perfumed bath, cleansing myself completely (except for my left hand) and when I climbed out, I wrote this down so I could live it all again.
Warm in bed I hugged my trophy – hugged you – to myself that night, recalled your every inch. When I pleasured myself to sleep, yours were the invading fingers.
I was afraid to go back to the dean. This impersonation stuff is soul wracking; I don’t know how Charmian – whoever she is – can stand it. You can’t ever relax. More evidence that she doesn’t have a soul. I feared the dean might call the police on me, so I went instead to the college library, darting and lurking like Someone with a Secret. Like I think I said before, it was very small, and disappointingly, only incredibly young students stood behind the desk. But behind bulletproof glass I did notice a door labeled, Director, so I asked the nearest Goth child if it was possible to ask the Director a question.
Without looking up he buzzed me into the sanctum. I rapped upon the door. “Come in.”
The harassed-looking woman behind the desk was on the phone. It gave me a chance to think of a cover story. Guilt gets in the way of everything. That’s what gives my dear old step mom her edge. A triumphant lack of guilt. For some enterprises – like transformations, say, or impersonations – salesmanship isn’t enough. You need actual magic. In sales you soon realize that a lot of being accepted has to do with whether you think you’re going to be rejected or not. In sales I’m comfortable, because it’s so impersonal. People might say they want American’s Next Supermodel salesperson but what they really want is someone they can be comfortable with and depend on. I can be that person.
In my private life it’s a different story. Since Penn and I went blooey and my official dating status is “desperate” I should be putting myself out there, but obviously I’ve been distracted. Some things I’ve gotta do.
Looking at the poor, exhausted library director groveling to some anonymous person about budget line items and “new collections” I suddenly had the weirdest memory of my mother. My mother could have pulled this off. Her big advice in life was, “Don’t think about yourself, just concentrate on the other person.”
Yeah, and we saw how that got her screwed over. I can’t stop thinking about how ludicrous I must appear to the other person – that’s if it’s anything personal that I want to get for myself. Am I feeling particularly unentitled? Or am I just ruined by seven years of knowing Charmian, whose feelers are oh so sensitive for anything you might want (or need) so that she can block it or obstruct it or mine it for a Shame Opportunity. Charmian the Beautiful, whose obstructive efforts are so graceful, so patently second nature, and so obviously pleasurable – to her. Why should anybody give me what I want?
You’ve got to hand it to me, though. I keep on trying. Whitney is a trier. “Whitney shows persistence in attacking her goals” was a typical teacher comment about yours truly. Attacking my own goals? Houston, we have a problem.
The woman before me with the tight curls and the loose dewlaps slammed down the receiver and barked, “What is it?”
I summoned up my inner magician. Nothing. OK, Sales. You say why you’re there and you wait for The Objection.
“I’m trying to trace Charmian Carr’s friends. Do you know of anyone who might be able to identify this person?” And I handed her the printout.
She didn’t look at it. She looked at me. Thoughtfully.
“Charmian Carr, eh?” she said. “We get a lot of inquiries about her. Maybe you should go to the police.”
I see we are at least talking about the same person.
“I have to find her first,” I said honestly. The real Charmian Carr. Or what’s left of her.
The woman shook out a pellet of nicotine gum and counted the few she had remaining. “Never had anyone looking for her friends before. It’s an interesting approach.” She gave my paper a cursory glance. “I couldn’t say,” she said finally. “I never get out of this damned hole. But I can tell you who would probably know. Mrs. Greenbelt. She’s our volunteer. She knows everything worth mentioning about everyone worth knowing.” She barked out an appreciative, reminiscent laugh, then shivered all over. Visibly reining herself in. “I was raised to believe gossip was a sin, Miss – er. Mrs. Greenbelt thinks it’s an art form.” She dismissed me. “I think she’s shelving in the basement today. Lucas or Mindy could buzz you down.”
Neither Mindy nor Lucas even looked up as whichever one of them it was – I swear I couldn’t tell – hit the buzzer. I was an unwelcome interruption to their intense conversation. Their warding, waving gestures appeared designed to tell me, “Take this whole library. Please.”
Down, down, down, into a world designated by wall art as a Civil Preparedness Bomb Shelter. I guess that’s a relief that the world won’t come to an end before I‘ve talked to Mrs. Greenbelt.
The stairs were strictly utilitarian, built of porous cement block in which antediluvian pebbles could still be seen. That theory that we are all breathing the very same air breathed by previous generations had never seemed so true to me before; this was definitely “used air: they were expecting me to breathe. Lucky I never got asthma, like Darby. Dad said I acquired my toughness from his side of the family. They had that kind of motion-triggered lighting that lights up as you approach and dies away the moment you leave. Not reassuring. Plenty of warning that I might well get stuck down here in darkness. If only I was a cast member on CSI I’d have one of those little flashlights. I cursed my total lack of preparation. No fake business cards, no miner’s helmet. I wasn’t even a good Girl Scout, much less a detective.
At the bottom of the stairs I was confronted by a pair of swing doors, so to escape from the spitting, hissing, sparking fluorescent light I pushed them slightly open and peered through. Just in case. If this was a more impressive institution of learning I would suspect I was an unlucky rat in a science experiment. I was hardly reassured by the musty, dusty, gloomy world before me. How could Mrs. Greenbelt stand it, unless she was the Cryptkeeper?
There she was at the end of a row of shelves, standing over a cart containing its own portable lighting unit. The buzz from the fluorescent light apparently did not bother her in the least, nor did she hear my call. I would have to take my chances and get closer.
She was a doll-size wisp of a person in a cardigan sweater set and an old tweed skirt. Her skimpy hair was encased in a hairnet and she wore huge thick glasses behind which her eyes revolved and swam independently of one another. She wore a magnifying glass on a chain of fake pearls and made liberal use of it. She took plenty time studying a book, checking her list, then looking at the book again as if she had already forgotten what she was supposed to be doing.
“Hello,” I said, loudly enough so that I could hear the echo.
She looked up annoyed. “No need to shout.”
Those big eyes swam over me, and her face lit up.
“What a pretty young lady,” she sighed. She consulted a watch pinned upside down on her sweater vest. “Tea-time!”
Not even the purblind have ever called me “pretty” so this must mean she had decided to be my friend. I followed her painful perambulation to a hidey-hole beneath the stairs. I wanted gossip and by repute she had raised gossip to an art form. We all know art takes time.
Very slowly she placed a tea bag in each of two thick diner mugs, and poured in water from a smoking electric kettle with such an unsteady hand I had to look away. She gestured me to a straight-backed chair of the kind schools have long since discarded, then settled herself down in a well-padded basket chair with an explosive sigh. I was afraid to ask for sugar.
I decided with Mrs. Greenbelt honesty had to the best policy if I wanted to keep explanation to a minimum, so I said, “I’m Whitney Quantreau, and I’m looking for somebody. They told me upstairs that you know everything.”
She continued to gaze at me beneficently. “You’re such a lovely, healthy-looking young woman,” she informed me. “Girls these days look so terrible. They just look terrible. They want to look terrible. It’s all I can do to keep from jumping back when I see one of them as if it’s a vision of the Antichrist. You on the other hand – ” she sipped her tea, completely unbothered by the fact that it was scalding hot. Pepper spray probably wouldn’t even work on her. “Are you a hockey player?”
I knew she meant well. I struggled to be complimented. I had the padding, what I lacked was the aggression. That “attack” so praised in school seemed to drain away when I hit the battleground. “I was a left wing,” she went on. “But you can’t even say left-wing nowadays.” “Not actually,” I temporized. “Do you know this person?”
I handed her the sheet with my thumb right next to my stepmother’s laughing face. “Oh, goodness,” said Mrs. Greenbelt. She put down her tea mug and picked up her magnifying glass. “My, my,” she breathed as she studied the face. “I never thought I’d see her again.” “Who?” I held my breath.
“Pearleen. That’s her name. She had a last name too. Probably. I could look it up for you.” She touched the blurrily printed face and shook her head back and forth.
“Are you certain?” I inquired weakly. It seemed rude but her vision was so compromised and the picture was such poor quality. Maybe Pearleen was my stepmother like I was a hockey player. “Oh, I’m sure nobody ever forgot Pearleen once they got to know her,” said Mrs. Greenbelt. “And look.” She pointed again to the picture, which under these lights was looking worse and worse, more of a Rorschach blot than an Identikit. “Here she is with Charmian Carr.”
“Charmian Carr,” I echoed, trying to damp down my excitement. “Didn’t she disappear?” “Oh, yes,” breathed Mrs. Greenbelt, as big-eyed as a night-hunting lemur. “It was the scandal of the campus.”
A miracle. I had myself a genuine miracle. Here was someone who knew everything, liked to talk, and didn’t punch a time clock. I took a cautious sip of my tea. Dusty. Green. Tasted like that diet tea everyone was in such a frenzy about a few years ago. So bad it had to be good. But after a few musty sips, I felt it growing on me. It was a keeper, just like Mrs. Greenbelt. The Tea of Knowledge, from the Tree of Knowledge.
“Miz Carr — that’s how she liked to be known, she was very fussy about not being known by her marital connections or lack of them – worked up at the college. She was – ” she halted, whether struggling with political correctness, generalized politeness or a lack of vocabulary I couldn’t say. “Miz Carr was one of them dykes,” she said finally. “Her hormones were all of a whack. Nowadays she’d just get her sex changed.” She waved the printout at me. “See? She had a mustache.” I was afraid to point out that she was in costume. I just hoped Mrs. Greenbelt had some actual facts and knew what she was talking about.
“Oh, she kept it quiet. She had to be subtle. But we don’t have much to talk way out here. She had a nice big house out on the Heights. And she used to invite students – girl students – to “live” with her.” She gave the word expressive air quotes, making moony eyes at me. “Helping them out. The poor ones. Doing them a favor. Oh, she could see ‘em coming! No questions asked.” She chuckled richly. “You know they say being a dyke was never against the law because nobody wanted to explain it to Queen Victoria! So there she was with her little girl gang and along comes Pearleen.” She shook her head thoughtfully. “I know I must have a better picture of her somewhere. Even though she didn’t graduate.” She gestured behind my head. “Fetch me down a Firewalker. 2004.”
At first I thought we were talking about wine. Or malt liquor, at the very least. But no, The Firewalker was a yearbook, apparently. All the slimy vinyl volumes she had neatly ranked by number. I wondered if Mork and Mindy – no, his name was Lucas – knew how to do that. Maybe Mrs. Greenbelt was more than just than a charitable deduction and a fire hazard.
She leafed slowly through the pages, studying them with her glass while she spoke.
“Pearleen was a good deal older than most students. Word had it she’d been a stripper out of Branson, Missouri. You’ve heard of Branson, Missouri?” she hissed. I waggled my head nervously like a mongoose captured by a snake. Should I say I’ve heard of Missouri?
“Where anything goes.” She bobbed her head enthusiastically up and down so both of us could picture it. I tried envisioning Charmian as a stunt pussy. No surprises there, but it was just too much for me. Mrs. Greenbelt poked my shoulder suggestively and gave her throaty chuckle. “At the Brass Pussycat on our honeymoon my husband had a cigarette taken out of his mouth by a whip-wielding houri.” Her head bobbed. “He liked it better than the army.”
Most people like their honeymoons better than the army Or so I thought. But I’m a beginner, as I keep finding out. What do I know?
“Of course that was a hundred years ago,” said Mrs. Greenbelt dismissively. She poked me. “He gave up smoking but he died of cancer anyway. Still, he was almost a hundred. So, anyway, we get a lot of students the government pays for to transition.” She worked her dentures from side to side and poured herself a second cup of tea. I shielded my own mug protectively. How old could she possible be? I thought she might be looking at the magic three-digit number herself.
“They get trained to do something useful, something there’s call for, like asbestos abatement and wiping old people’s butts. If they’ve been in a line of business they can’t follow anymore. Pearleen was getting on in years.”
Mrs. Greenbelt was a hoot. Literally. She hooted ecstatically.
“Here she is!” she exulted. “I knew I could find her.” She swiveled the page toward me. There, in the center of a black and white portrait of The Future Caregivers of America, was my stepmother, crowned by amber waves of hair. Lots and lots of hair. My eyes were blurring as I located her name. Pearleen Purdy.
“I had a cat – Beazley he was, short for Beelzebub – who wouldn’t let any of the other cats sleep on my bed,” said Mrs. Greenbelt. “He’d hiss and chase them off. He’d fight them if necessary.” She blotted her huge eyes with a yellowed handkerchief. She was a lot more worked up over the cat than the hundred-year-old husband. “It was really kind of flattering.” She sighed. “I miss that cat. Now Pearleen was the same way. Miz Carr had several young women living with her when she invited Pearleen in. Some people complained she was running an unlicensed boardinghouse. But Pearleen put a stop to it. Pearleen ran them off.”
“And then what?” I asked her. There wasn’t going to be a happy-ever-after at the end of this story. “What happened?”
Mrs. Greenbelt shrugged regretfully. “No one sees behind closed doors, but I think that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. If it had happened now, they’d take a trip to one of them elitist states and get married. Pearleen stopped attending classes regularly and started spending money. She didn’t want to be a butt-wiper! One look at her and you could see what she had come for. Designer clothes! She and Miz Carr took plenty of trips to Houston and Dallas.
She must’ve thought she’d hit Easy Street but maybe Miz Carr had problematic health conditions. I don’t know what was wrong. I was a cleaner then. I saw Pearleen in the Administration office, helping Miz Carr with her work. Doing her work, for all I know. Maybe she didn’t like it. Maybe the worm turned. Miz Carr used to say that she was bronchial, and the college was built on a swamp. I thought she must have died. If she didn’t leave a will, Pearleen must have cleaned her out and run away.” She smacked her shriveled thigh. “That’s what I think happened.”
“But why get rid of a body that died of natural causes?” I demanded. Answering my own question. To steal her identity. Duh.
“I think she murdered her,” I muttered rebelliously. I wasn’t giving Charmian-Pearleen an inch. I couldn’t wait to call her by her real name.
“And everybody else thinks they went to Rio and were happy-ever-after,” said Mrs. Greenbelt. “But the most interesting part was what happened after.”
“What happened after?” I was on the edge of my seat. That Mrs. Greenbelt is a born storyteller. “Everyone who had ever known Charmian Carr started contacting the school. She still had parents and at least a pair of siblings – all of whom said they were comfortable with her lifestyle. But she ran away without letting them know! Nobody seemed to know where she had gone.” “Odd,” I said.
“Very odd. Now Pearleen always wanted to see Europe. She wanted to go on a millionaires’ cruise. Maybe they went there.” She leaned forward. “But you know why didn’t they come back?” “Why?”
“There was money missing. That’s what Mr. Butterbatch said. He was dead at the time.”
Mr. Butterbatch? I was willing to bet that name was slightly off, but otherwise Mrs. Greenbelt’s facts were irreproachable. No more Pearleen Purdy. Just a Charmian Carr with no right to the name. I longed to tell Mrs. Greenbelt the rest of the story, but I didn’t dare. Loose lips sink ships. “So where’s the Heights?” I asked.
“It’s The Heights.” She corrected. “It’s just a dinky little hill but things are so flat hereabouts. It’s a cul-de-sac with Miz Carr’s old house at the top. It was sold at sheriff’s sale. Not too long ago, neither.”
“I’d like to see that house,” I said thoughtfully. I stood up. “I’m sure I can find it. Thanks for the tea.” I waved the book at her. “May I make a copy of this? I’ll bring it right back down.”
“You may NOT,” she said fiercely, glaring at me. “These are my own personal Firewalkers. You put that back. They have their own set in Reference.”
I mollified her somewhat by shelving the book carefully in its appropriate space. Thanks a lot,” I said. “You have been really helpful. You really do know everything.”
She glowed. “Now you be careful,” she recommended. Whether she was referring to the perils of hockey or missing-person investigation, I couldn’t say. She walked me back to the swing doors on her way back to work.
“I love libraries.” She sighed. “Libraries are where it’s at.”
She hadn’t even noticed they’d relegated her to the basement. Maybe she thought crypts are where it’s at. Maybe she couldn’t see well enough to know where they’d put her. I wondered if she lived down here.
I had my foot on the third step when I heard her holler, “Number twelve! Get it right!” She-Who-Knew-Everything was quite correct that Reference had Firewalkers. Lucas and Mindy allowed – even expected – me to Xerox one. For a price. They would have sold me a frame – any size – if I had wanted one. They seemed to be operating a nice little side business in memorabilia for people whose lives had been a straight slide downhill ever since the excitement of community college. But I wasn’t into recalling school triumphs to impress my friends. I wanted to impress a trustee into voiding my father’s will.
I enlarged Pearleen-Charmian’s face but it didn’t come out too well. Some people might have said it wasn’t her. Maybe she would say it wasn’t her. And what would I do then? I sighed. Contacting the Absent Miz Carr’s relations seemed the obvious next step.
In order to escape and find you I had first to peel Lacey’s clutching fingers off my life.
“In my day children cemented a marriage,” Lacey was saying in such an alcoholically disconnected way that I was certain her “prescription meds” had to be some kind of downers. Making her even more easily manageable. Complainers are only looking for agreement. “Every marriage is shaky till there’s children. Without them there really is no reason on God’s green earth for any couple to stay together after the thrill is gone. I mean, don’t you think that’s what explains why gay people are always moving from partner to partner?”
All the gay people I’ve known were in a frenzy to find The Perfect One and settle down, but whatever.
“Sorry, Lacey,” I said. “You know the big problem with grandchildren? They’re constantly having events. Gotta go.” “Well, “ she called feebly, “If you ever need a “plus one – “
I nodded and smiled, but really! As if! I separate people into two categories in life: driver’s seat or backseat passenger. You can imagine what category poor old Lacey’s in.
Moralists say “criminals” – whatever those are – long to be caught. There’s a comforting belief. Can’t be true of all of us. But risk and exposure opportunities for those of us who exercise permissionless power are out there, so it’s well to be aware.
We had been told not to investigate the crime, so of course that was what I was setting out to do. No less. But I would exercise appropriate care about it.
They’ve proved that the heads of major corporations all rank highly on the so-called “sociopath” scale. What’s that mean? It means that ruthless risk takers with a grandiose sense of self do a lot better in the world than bleeding hearts and sob sisters. So what else is new. It’s the law of the jungle. Evolutionary science. Survival of the fittest, as my husband used to say.
Power changes everything. That’s my motto. To seek power, you need control. You must know that already. Obviously this woman needs to be convicted. She’s going up, Haymaker’s going up, your dad is going up. That’s what’d got to happen to leave you free.
Here’s today’s horoscope for me: “Line up priorities: what was lost will be retrieved. Do not equate delay with defeat. Play waiting game: time is on your side. Rules, regulations prove irksome, but red tape ultimately lines up in your favor. Creative urges will be fulfilled.” First I needed to see the place where you were “born.”
The rest stop itself was easy to find because it’s right before the bridge. More of a layby than a real rest area – it has no amenities, not so much as a picnic table. No chance mistaking the place: I knew it was the right one because wreaths of fading flowers were heaped there. Who had loved this pathetic Zanelli person so much? He sounded like a born loser to me.
I stepped out of my car to check out the offerings. Yellow and white roses, from “Your Wife”. A huge white heart of carnations with a bleeding slash of red. Ribbon said, Beloved Son. They did know he couldn’t be buried there, right? Some people are so primitive. Those flowers, those offerings, should have been for you. I saw what you had left there.
What would have happened if you’d shot your father too? The mentor must be destroyed so you can truly live. No, you played that exactly right. The courts have to dangle your father before they can convict Karen Sivarro because they want him to testify. After that, he’ll go down. As trigger man, though, he probably won’t get the death penalty.
There’s your problem. It drags it out. We’ll have to give you something to take your mind off it, that he’s plotting against you every second, sending waves of hatred to the one who was too strong. The one who got away. It’s so much more satisfying to smash them yourself. To see the expression on their face when they realize their example “Took” too well. He’s the one who set you free. The King is Dead, Long Live the King. You stopped being a victim that day, and again the day you first spoke to the police, and once again today in court when you said about your father, “He knew what he was doing.” That was your message to him.
From my bag I took the Knight of Swords card and flipped it on the pile. At an angle I set the Justice card because the dead man had been tried in the Midnight Court and found wanting. Let those who have eyes, see.
Yet still I lingered. Your spirit had been freed from that place, yet something of you still remained. The connection between us is so strong. I have never felt the slightest impulse towards motherhood –in fact have taken care to dampen that possibility several times, and yet sometimes I am jealous of the power of the bond.
Was what I was feeling now something like what a mother feels, an emotion so physical, like a global positioning system has been permanently planted in my gut and tuned toward you? Or is it because I’m a beginner at love? I have so much to teach you, but you can teach me too. In that way, the vulnerability of need, I admit I am a beginner.
It was starting to get chilly. Felt almost as if it might rain. Bought a sandwich from a drive through and set my GPS for your address. Was I surprised to see the mailbox read Zanelli!!
What’s this? What is going on? I think I sat for twenty minutes in my car. Didn’t I say you had so much to teach me? About my own business, too, apparently! The Zanellis had lost a son. I knew from reading the newspapers that Rafe’s wife and the Disputed Child had actually gone back to live with the Sivarro family. So Karen Sivarro had achieved her end and she should quit her bitching. But that meant the “shed” behind the Zanelli home – the one the social workers bitched about because it had no running water – was available. What better way to master the universe than to adopt your victim’s identity? It’s perfect.
The mark of my youth was longing. And the Empress – my mentor – had everything. She liked me. That was the first thing that amazed me. I took it for granted that she wanted me sexually. Everybody did. She was the first to take out the tarot deck and give me a reading. She was the Empress. I was the Queen of Swords. She’s the one who introduced me to my rich, dark heritage. She treated me like the two of us were allies, two people exactly alike from different universes. She worked for a college that licensed nursing home aides. She made fun of the other staff members, he made fun of the students, and when we went to nursing homes, she made fun of the patients and their visitors. She knew how to make giving enemas or inserting catheters secret maneuvers and meanings in our own private games.
She was so witty and well read. She wasn’t a snob like my husband. She reassured me that I could become whatever I wanted. Assume any mask or guise.
When I moved in I was so impressed by her house. It was full of artwork – not originals, but big and tasteful paintings in wonderful gold frames. She loved William Blake especially. All her furniture and rugs were the best quality. Not so good as I have now but still, better than anyone around there had reason to expect. She didn’t care for clothes and jewelry for herself but she would give me anything I wanted. She was going to take me to Europe. Take me all around the world. When she told me she was stealing from the college I knew I had to kill her right away. It was so stupid! She was begging to get caught and I wasn’t going down with her.
One of her scams was a fake laundry company. All she did was drive the sheets from the nursing home to the cleaning plant – you wouldn’t believe what she charged for that. But she used her own car! So stupid. I got her to borrow a van from the college.
I gigged her with a box cutter. She died so fast. Her eyes were open but there was nothing behind them. She wasn’t special after all. It was kind of a disappointment actually, because I wanted her to realize how dumb she’d been. But I had to get her from behind and bleed outs go so fast. There was all that blood but I was ready for it. Her whole body emptied out on piles and piles of sheets. But I was ready for that. We’d carefully lined the van with plastic! I undressed the corpse and separated the sheets and clothing into “medical waste” bags. Off to the “medical waste” dumpster. No one ever looks in there!
For the body I had just as good an idea. Better, maybe. The college had this tree-planting thing going on. Catalpa trees lining the entrance road, each given by a different owner. We got a little plaque! I got the Empress to buy one in honor of my stepfather! Of course she didn’t know what the secret meaning was.
Robert Garvin Junior. The backhoe digs a gigantic hole and tree sits in a bag beside it. I told them we’d fill it in ourselves. The Empress thought I was all worked up because my stepfather meant so much to me, and that was true! The best lies use the truth as well as the expectations of the victim. Line ‘em up and shut’em down. Nobody knew I’d ill the hole in at night with the Empress at the bottom of it. It’s just shovelfuls of earth. I’ve done harder jobs.
I bet it’s the healthiest tree in the line, because the Empress enjoyed her food. I threw away the plastic and my clothes in the college dumpster and then returned the van. Off to new horizons. I had new identity, jewelry, gorgeous clothes and plenty of cash.
Not enough cash. I needed a nice millionaire with a hole in his life and such are my life skills, I found one. I’ve got plenty now for the both of us.
It feels so good writing all this down. I never thought I’d find someone to tell. Now I have told you all those spirits are released. Up, up and away. Gone forever.
My husband was very into Jung, the psychoanalyst philosopher. Basically the man said we are all figments of our own imaginations. Our desires give us birth. My poor husband liked the concept, without understanding its hidden meaning. We are all subjects or objects. Not both. In our short term across this planet plain, we must ordain our own beings as well as our own lives. When I needed you, you came.
Walking through the little East Texas airport was like entering a time warp. It was one of those Sputnik-inspired sixties buildings whose a sloping ceiling was presumably meant to suggest “flight”; walls of randomly colored, randomly spaced tiles meant, I guess, to represent “art” and massive, bowing, tinted plastic windows meant to suggest “cost-savings.” I had a light truck reserved – you can rent those without having to be twenty-five. Armed with a suitcase and a Map Quest printout I was all prepared to get myself to Cold Creek Community College.
About an hour’s drive. Fortunately I brought along I Hate My StepMom CD so I could listen to Congratulations, I Hate You by Alesana and Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold on my way there. Cold Creek Community College is yet another poorly planned, unsightly mess; mushrooming its way out of a partially abandoned industrial park. As a freshly minted member of the intellectual elite I felt a ripple of concern about what they were passing off as “education” in this place. They had enough parking to satisfy the Pentagon, and a library the size of a laundromat. The gaudily huge entrance sign beneath rotating floodlights did not prepare me for a compound of cattle trailers circled like covered wagons against the sciroccan blasts.
The “main building” might have once been somebody’s private home. The inside of the residence had been enthusiastically gutted; I had to negotiate my way through a maze of fabric-covered cubicle dividers, with no other guide than a series of handmade signs designed to assist students in locating the dean; presumably so they could complain. I felt pretty secure in my cover story and proud of the way I looked. Small black-rimmed eyeglasses, a blue linen pantsuit, and a briefcase; two can play at the game of Let’s Pretend identities. I was an Insurance Official.
The woman seated outside the Dean’s office looked as if she had once majored in animal husbandry, or was even, considering her big bones, the product of some such union. The words “blusher,” “foundation,” even “mousse”, were utterly alien to her. Charmian had not learned her wiles here. But she was friendly enough. She came to me blinking and smiling as if my briefcase contained gold bars.
“I’m looking for someone who can tell me about Charmian Carr,” I said in my most confident way. “I believe she was a student here about a decade ago.”
She stepped backwards under this barrage, her face wiped clean of memory or thought. After a moment she said, “Well, Dean Inglesleeve has been here forever. He probably knows everybody.” I looked a tad less confidently at his barred door; what would it take to get inside? But instead she plucked at the sleeve of a bearded, bespectacled, Birkenstocked man scuttling past with a cup of hot coffee, and queried, “Dean? Someone to see you.”
He sucked me into his wake as he entered his office, threw up his blinds, pressed the button on his blinking answering machine, and swung his gladiator sandals up to his desktop.
“Coffee?” he offered first, and at my denial said, “How can I help you?” in a folksy way. I figured he couldn’t be more than fifty but he certainly looked like a refugee from a very different era. Somewhere hidden around this room there must be a pair of bongo drums.
“I’m looking for Charmian Carr,” I said, “She graduated from the Allied Health program. She’s due an insurance payout and this is the last address I have for her.”
He was listening out of one ear to a considerably less interesting stream of complaints from his answering machine, all of which appeared to concern the failures of “the boiler plant”. He turned it off.
“Charmian Carr?” he echoed. “I’d like to know where she is myself.”
We looked at each other across his messy desk. I didn’t know where to take that one. So I sat down. He helped me out.
“We usually don’t lose track of people,” he said, rubbing his balding gingery head. “She worked right here, in this office. We offered her a faculty position. After she called in sick I discovered she had sold her house on the Heights and moved away. We discovered some – er – financial improprieties in her accounts. I’m not making any accusations, you understand,” he looked hungrily at my briefcase as if to suggest that any “payouts” must belong to him – “But it would be helpful if she could explain. I assumed we’d at least be contacted as references for future employers, but nothing. Hasn’t been a peep out of her. Our alumni department is very clever at keeping track of everybody, and we are the beneficiaries of a great deal of loyalty and enthusiasm from our graduates – but nobody’s been able to find her.”
We blinked at each other. It seemed incumbent upon me to say something. I said, “That’s weird.” Then I added, “Maybe she got married and changed her name.”
An odd expression flickered over his face. Cynicism? Maybe some kind of private joke. Was he really another of her victims? I tried to remind myself, when you’re lying to other people, you always have to assume that it’s at least possible that they’re also lying to you.
He said smoothly, “Maybe she’s in jail. Maybe she’s in a monastery in Tibet. People change. Who can possibly know the heart of another?” He picked up a rubber band and played with it, wrapping it round and round his stubby fingers. I watched mesmerized as he shut off his own circulation; the fingers swelling. Reddening.
I had the strongest sense that he telling me she was gay. Of course, with Charmian, who could be surprised? Charmian would do anything – if it was worth her while. What had she said to me?
Something about “containing legions”. Like those demonically possessed creatures in the Bible. I tried not to fall out of “character”. My persona would be focused on one goal and not into character assessment. “You’d think she’d have some friends she’d keep in touch with,” you know, building up to asking him about them, but he said, “Or her family. But they keep coming to us. Last time I spoke to them they were thinking of having her declared legally dead.” He stopped with the self-torture and gazed at me strangely. I think I may have been open-mouthed at that point. Then he turned and raked the wall with a glance.
I followed his gaze. The wall was covered with eight by eleven color photos, dates beneath. “Are these staff pictures?” I inquired, standing up.
“They are. Staff and faculty.” He shot his rubber band at one of them. “That was her last year.” He had good aim. I stood up to look at it. 1997. There were a couple of white haired women but no blondes. I didn’t see her anywhere. I peered closer, as if I might find her peeking out between others’ shoulder blades.
He came up behind me. “There she is,” he said. “Sitting in the front row.”
I gasped. This dumpy creature with the dark waterfall of Gina Lollobrigida hair and all the jowling couldn’t be Charmian. Even if she won the lottery and had every one of her bones and all of her skin replaced, this woman was just too short. It was impossible.
He was regarding me with wild surmise because of my gasp. I had to stop giving myself away. Focus. I was good at selling advertising because I was all about win-win. Figure out what they want and give it to them. Like a beginning con artist I couldn’t stop worrying that he would see through my interpretation. But he wanted Charmian too. If I had money – if she had money, and I knew she did – he wanted it. To keep the conversation going I said, “We only have a driver’s license photo but it doesn’t look anything like this woman.”
“Leave me your card,” he said. “We’ll make some inquiries.”
I hadn’t thought of that. I was planning to use my own name but my card doesn’t say anything about insurance. I felt I had lost him forever. I said stupidly, stiffly, hearing myself obviously lying, “I’ll get you one. They’re out in the car. ” And I got the hell out of there. Damn. I was bad at this. Was Charmian just naturally better at this kind of thing? Or was it simply because she’d had so much practice?
I checked in to the Sleep Inn along the highway and asked for the library. The desk clerk said the college had a library – except now I was scared of the college. But the nearest public library was in Kirkup, twenty-two miles away. To the soundtrack of Death of an Interior Decorator by DeathCab for Cutie, I drove there.
There had to be another record of community college doings other than their own. The librarian told me the local newspaper was the Hornet but everything was already on microfiche. Still, it was cross-referenced by subject matter. That could help me, right? I didn’t have to pretend to be anybody special. She didn’t look at me funny or even ask what I was up to. When I said I was searching for Charmian Carr, she taught me how to enter the name, then look up the resulting stories.
There were a lot of them. More than twenty. Some were only a mention, but others had pictures. Two stories were about her exclusively. Wow! I should have come here first!
“Turkish Vacation Turns Into Archaeological Dig,” read a headline. Here was a photo of the real Charmian, sitting in her office at the college. I scrolled down, searching for I don’t know what. This woman was never the Charmian I knew. It was impossible that there could be two Charmian Carrs out of Cold Creek Community College. My growing excitement was threatening to get in the way of my detective work.
It sure looked like Charmian had stolen somebody else’s identity, and that someone else had subsequently disappeared.
“Cold Creek Faculty Tackles Ionesco Play,” said the other headline, and there was the real Charmian Carr, dressed up in drag with a Groucho-like moustache and a tailcoat, bowing deeply for the camera. Behind her, laughing, stood my stepmother. Oh my God!
But who was she? The article gave the cast list but of course it meant nothing to me. I pored over the names, but nothing leaped out at me.
I asked the librarian if there was any way to get a copy of the article. Just like my father always said, as long as you’re willing to pay, you can get anything you want.
And some think the universe is random! You looked so different in a suit. It couldn’t actually belong to you; you would never choose anything so greenish and old-fashioned. Your colors are power; black and red, sunset and midnight. Had I worn purple, you might have recognized me. Purple is the Queen’s color.
The suit’s padded shoulders made you look huge, hulking. Was your lawyer trying to conceal that mercenary’s roll I saw in your walk? He identified himself by lurking fearfully just at the edge of the prosecution table; a narrow man narrowly restraining his urge to dart forward and give you one final lick. If he asked you to take the six gold studs out of your right ear, you ignored him. Under the harsh court lights the scars on your shaved skull stood out like crop circles.
Who had scarred you with what horrid runes? I knew it for a message of possession in an ancient, forgotten language. You spoke in a deep, gravelly, rumbling voice. I cocked a fascinated ear. I had never heard more than your whisper. “Zachary Tobin, T – O – B – I – N. 882 Spruce Court, Colorado Springs.”
I was stabbed by a stiletto of jealousy. You lived somewhere, slept in a real bed, perhaps with – some other one. Even mentally, I can’t bear to share you. But you looked at no one in particular as you gazed out over the audience with your sad, soft eyes. When you finished speaking you set your strong jaw with its dimpled chin as if waiting for the blow. “How old are you, Mr. Tobin?”
“I’m twenty.” You looked older. But you are an old, old soul.
“And how old were you at the time of the crime that is the purpose of this trial?” “I turned fifteen the week after.”
I was having difficulty concentrating on your words because your mouth is so beautiful. You drank root beer that night, don’t you remember? Root beer flavored vodka. Sassafras-scented kisses. “What is your connection with this case?”
Your voice fell to a whisper, concealing its raw, coarse edge of power. Did you think you would frighten us? You were always so considerate. You offered me a condom. Only one! I have always regretted allowing you to use it. “My father is the murderer.”
The courtroom swelled like the sea and expelled the seas’ gusty sigh. “Do you mean the man who—“
“No leading questions, Mr. Wilmot,” barked O’Hara, pacing like an angry panther. Bypassing the astonished judge completely. Justice blinked at us helplessly with its flattened, flounder eyes. You spoke again. “Barry Tobin is my father. He pled guilty to shooting Rafe Zanelli.”
Mr. Wilmot patted his pockets as if congratulating himself that his sleek, racecar construction had already bypassed a bump in the road. “Were you living with your father at the time of the murder?”
“No. I stayed over some nights but I never really lived with him. My parents never married, and although I only lived a few miles away from my father, I hardly ever saw him. But he did pay some my Mom some money and he always said he wanted me to have his name. When I entered high school, that’s when he really started taking an interest in me. He began lying in wait for me after school, giving rides home and offering me dinner.”
“What did he talk about on these trips?”
Such a slow lift of your sardonic brow! You looked straight into the prosecutor’s eyes as if you were alone with him. You never looked at us, the people you were sent to sway. Your body must remember me.
“He said I was a sucker to stay in school. That there was money to be made, things to do.” “What was your reaction to this?”
“Mostly I tried to ignore him.”
“But you liked spending time with him, isn’t that right?”
“Sometimes. He wasn’t so bad when he was alone. He complimented me the way I looked, how big I had gotten, although he didn’t like it that I was taller than him. Said people would think I could take care of myself even if it wasn’t true. But get him around other people – ” A raggedy breath prevented you from saying more. My stepfather was just the opposite. He was awful all the time, but at his worst alone with me.
“How would he behave around other people?”
“Like he always had to put me down, like I was threatening him just by existing. Like he had me under his thumb. Then I’d find my own way home.”
Rebel! Told you!
“Did he ever actually offer you a job?”
“He did.” “And what was it?”
“He wanted me to find someone.”
“Find who?”
“Rafe Zanelli. He had a picture and some addresses, but he said the guy was being elusive.” “Did he tell you why he wanted to find Rafe Zanelli?”
“Yes. He said someone had put a contract out on him.”
“To kill him, do you mean?”
“That’s what he meant.” “Did he say why?”
“Yes. He told me the guy was a dangerous child abuser and he said people like that never change and the child’s family wanted him dead. He said that when you have a pest, you come to the Exterminator. That’s what he called himself, the Exterminator.”
“Had your father ever killed anyone before?”
“He bragged a lot. He said he’d killed people for the Mafia.” “None of this is binding on my client,” protested O’Hara.
“I’m getting there, your Honor,” said Wilmot. “Obviously the witness can repeat what his father said to him about murder. I don’t offer it for the truth of the matter.”
“Just don’t range too far, Mr. Wilmot,” said the judge, determined to assert whatever control remained to him.
Wilmot asked, “Did he ever mention the defendant in this case?” You looked at her, I thought with some coldness, and she gazed piteously back at you.
“Not by name. But there was one time we stopped outside The Walnut Brewery. He pointed out Mr. Haymaker through the window. He was having dinner with a lady.” “Can you identify that lady in court today?”
You gave her a long deep look, as a man who takes his obligations seriously. You did not make love to her with your eyes, the way you celebrated my naked body on your birthday night. I am still proud of what I have to offer.
“It was the defendant. My father said, “That’s the lady.” And I asked him, “What lady?” And my father said, “That’s the lady the hit is for.” Then he used a – vulgar word about her relationship with Mr. Haymaker. What she was to him.”
“We can imagine what he said. How long had you known Mr. Haymaker?”
“All my life. He was a good friend of my father’s.” “Did he ever come over to your father’s house?”
“No. Not when I was there. They always met out somewhere. Sometimes when I was along.” “Were you ever actually introduced to the defendant?” “No. “
“So did you accept the job he offered you?”
“No.” “Why not?”
“Well, I thought it was fake. And I didn’t want to get in trouble. What I told him was, I had no wheels. He gave me a motorcycle. But it was pretty unreliable. And I still wouldn’t look for that guy.” “Why not?”
“I just didn’t believe him. He bragged so much.” “What other kinds of things had he bragged about?”
“He had his girlfriend believing he’d been trained to kill by the Special Forces, but I knew they’d never take him because he was a felon. Once he told Mr. Haymaker he had offed two men who cheated him in a drug deal, but later I found out those guys were still alive. He told different stories all the time. It was hard to trust anything he said. He was high a lot.” “You knew your father sold drugs, didn’t you?”
“Yes. He never made any secret out of that. He thought it was cool. He was wheeling and dealing the whole time we were driving around.”
“But you didn’t report him?”
“Me? No.” “Why not?”
You shifted uncomfortably, and for the first time looked up at the exit. The marshals stood against the doors as if you might suddenly make a dash for it. They judged you guilty solely because of the way you look. That’s how important looks are. They make us think we know what’s going on. Welcome to the universe! It must be your size making everyone afraid of you, because you have such a sweet, sweet face.
“Because he was my father.” “Did you use drugs with him?”
“He never gave me any. I guess that turned out to be a good thing, because I probably didn’t have the self-control then to turn him down. But at the time I thought it was all part of his ragging on me.” “You saw your father use drugs?”
“He always kept reefers in the glove compartment, and sometimes, if we were at what he called “a stakeout”, he would light one. If I went to his house at night, he and his girlfriend used coke. Sometimes crack. Then they would get crazy. He would have sex with his girlfriend in front of me. Once he took me to a devil worshipper’s club. He said he was a devil worshiper. I kept trying to stop him hitting his girlfriend; but then she would hit me. He’d also get very paranoid. His slogan was, “Get them before they get you.” I learned if he took me to his place I’d have to get the hell out of there, even if I walked ten miles.”
“Did he ever hurt you physically?”
“When I was smaller. I was seven when he had a friend of his hold me down so he could carve this pentagram into my head. He called it the mark of Cain. It bled like crazy.”
“Did you go to the hospital?”
“My Mom took me to the emergency room. They said the scars could be lasered but the hair would never grow back. That’s why I keep it short.”
You rubbed your head as you spoke. I remember the feeling; like a blurred brand on an animal’s hide.
“What did your mother say about it?”
“She said not to have anything to do with him. Take money. Nothing else.” “You didn’t listen, did you?”
“Nah.” Said sheepishly.
“So what was his reaction when you wouldn’t take his “job”?
“He took my motorcycle away. Got mad.” “Did your father ever pull a gun on you?”
“Lots of times. He’d say, “I brought you into this world and I can take you out.” He had plenty of guns.” “Did he carry guns in the car?”
“Always. He had guns everywhere. He loved going to gun shows. He was always buying and selling guns with sketchy people. “
“Tell me about the guns he kept in the car. Can you remember any specific ones? “ “He had a Tek9 he was very proud of, but it never really worked right. Kept jamming. A couple of Colts – one was a .38. A pearl-handled .22 he said belonged to somebody famous.” “Who?”
“Some bad-ass. I forget. He wanted me to handle all of them, get a good look at them, try them out. It never occurred to me that he was trying to get my prints on them. He could be devious.” “So you found yourself along for the ride while he was looking for Rafe Zanelli?” “I didn’t really know he was doing it. He talked about it for so long before he did anything I figured he was just bleeding Mr. Haymaker. He would drive by a house and say, “There’s his house.” And I said, “Who?” And he said, “That guy we’re going to kill.”
“What did he tell you about the planned hit in January of ’09?”
“He told me Haymaker cancelled it.” “Did he say why?”
“He said Haymaker wasn’t getting along too well with the ladyfriend. He said Haymaker was too smart a guy to risk everything for a girl who didn’t put out.” “Then what happened on March 20, 2009?”
“He picked me up after school and we went driving, like usual. Stopped for some dinner.”
“Where?”
“Turley’s.” “Did you stay in or takeout?”
“We took sandwiches out, so we were eating while he drove. When he was finished he lit a joint. I asked him to drop me at the Mall where I was supposed to meet my friends, and he said he would after he had an appointment with a guy.”
“Did he say what that was about?”
“An appointment about selling a motorcycle. I said “My motorcycle?” He said, “I got rid of that one.” He said I hadn’t done nothing to earn it. He said maybe he was going to buy another bike. Might give it to me. Like an idiot, I said, What do I have to do? I was getting sick of his rides and I wanted to be free of him. He clopped me on the side of the head and said, “Watch and learn.” So we pulled up at the Radisson just off I-25. A guy in a ratty green car was waiting for us in the parking lot.”
“What can you tell us about the car?”
“It was a green Yugo with the back seat missing. It had the battery out where you could see it. The outside was spattered with rust primer.”
“Did you recognize the man?”
“He looked familiar, but I didn’t place him at first. He stuck his head in my father’s window and said, “Want to see the bike?”
My dad said, “Let’s go.” He didn’t hide from the guy that he was smoking a reefer. The guy said, “Follow me” so we started driving down 25 south.” “Had you figured out who he was?”
“As we were driving I put it together. I said, “That’s the guy. Isn’t that the guy you’re supposed to kill?” He just grinned at me. Didn’t answer directly. We were driving along the road – the guy’s car was making a hell of a racket, and suddenly my father pulled into the rest area, flashing his lights. So the Yugo stopped and backed up to us. The guy got out of the car. My father took out his gun.” “Which gun?”
“The Colt .38. I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “I’m going to do him here.” Then he turned to me and asked, “You want to do it?”
“What did you say?”
“I said no. He called me a name.”
“What was it?”
“Can I say? Pussy.” “Then what happened?”
“My dad got out of the car with the gun behind his back. I heard him say some words like “gas station.” Then he lifted the gun and shot Zanelli. Zanelli turned and my father shot him a lot more times. He fell.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t know. A lot of times. I think he unloaded the gun.” “Were there cars driving by?”
“Not then. I’m sure nobody saw. He got into the car and handed me the gun.” “Did you take it?”
Anyone could see the slow flush burn across your skull.
“Yes,” you said, seeming surprised that anyone expected you to do anything else. “He threw it at me. I had to take it. It was hot and scorching. I had never seen anybody guy really shot before. Up until that last minute I just didn’t believe it would happen.” “Then what?”
“We drove right over the dude’s dead body. Two big bumps. My father kept driving, then when we got to the bridge he said, “Throw it out as far as you can.” “Did you?”
“Yeah, right into the river. I realized as long as I was holding it my father would act like this was something we’d done together. I was relieved to get rid of it.”
“Mr. Tobin, you witnessed a murder. Why didn’t you report any of this to the police? Why make them come to you?”
You looked away. You said, “Afraid of my dad. He says his friends are everywhere. And it sure could be true. Everyone uses drugs. Even in the police.”
My fingers hurt from clutching the rail in front of me. Why don’t you tell? They always want to know that, after. If anyone asked me, I would have given the same answer. “Did you see your father after that?”
“Not for a few weeks. I tried to stay away from him. Mr. Haymaker paid him and he went to–“ “Objection!” O’Hara up and shouting.
“Just tell us what you know of your own knowledge.” Mr. Wilmot purred.
“I didn’t see my father for two months. When he came back, he looked me up. He told me Mr. Haymaker paid him and he went to Miami. Then he lost the money and came home. At that point, I already knew I had to leave. I didn’t want him to know where I was going.” “Which was where?”
“I had a chance for summer work construction on a hotel in North Carolina. I thought I might be able to figure out a way to stay down there. Drop out of school if I had to. The next thing I heard was my dad was arrested. The police came out to see me in North Carolina.” “What did they say to you?”
“They told me my dad said I’d done it. I was scared to tell them anything. They brought me back in shackles. My Mom got me a lawyer through Legal Aid, and when I told him the story he made a deal; told them I was a witness but couldn’t say anything without immunity. Then I told them the whole story. I didn’t hold back. I didn’t have to turn my dad in, they already had him. And he is a very dangerous guy, so probably he should be off the streets. After what I said, they booked him.” “You told them about getting rid of the murder weapon?”
“Yes. They dragged the river but they didn’t find the gun.”
“And you have cooperated with the investigation all the way along?” “Yes.”
“Has anything you’ve said been revealed to be untrue?”
“No.” “Your witness.”
Had you really the shooter? You didn’t seem like such a smooth liar, but of course that’s the way the best liars seem. I couldn’t make up my mind.
O’Hara stood looking at you, playing his “I know who you really are” game. You looked back, very brave. I was so proud of you.
“Mr. Tobin, you’re aware that your father still says you did the shooting?’
“I believe he’s told everybody a lot of different stories.” “What’s your reaction to this current story?”
“He doesn’t like the jail he’s in. He’s trying to get out.” “Do you visit him there?”
You laughed incredulously. “Hell no.” “Why not?”
“Believe me, he doesn’t want to see me.” “Do you hate your father?”
People did ask me that question. Sometimes they said father, sometimes they said stepfather. Doesn’t make any difference to them. The counselor asked that at school. Do you hate your father? I said no. That was easy. Easy to stop hating someone after you’ve killed them.
You said, “Not now.” “But you did before?”
“I hated him when I was a little kid, when he hurt my head, when he went away. Later I tried to like him, because he seemed like he wanted to get close to me. When I realized he was just using me, that he used everybody, I hated him again. After the murder I was afraid of him. Now that he’s locked up, I feel sorry for him. I wouldn’t say I’ve forgiven him yet but I don’t hate him any more.”
I knew you must be lying then. What truck have we with “forgiveness?” That’s a bullshit word. Lucky for you O’Hara didn’t ask you what if your father was standing right before you now and you had the gun, what would you do then? What would you have said if he asked you that? You’ll never have to lie to me. I know how it really is.
“Have you heard your father thinks he should be judged insane?” “Yes.” “Is he insane?”
“Objection. Not qualified to answer.” Wilmot bristled forth. “I’m just asking for his opinion,” O’Hara pleaded to the judge. “He can give his opinion.”
“No,” you said flatly. That appeared to surprise O’Hara. “But you’ve described the actions of a crazy man.” “He knew what he was doing.”
“Let’s go back to the night you saw the defendant – ” he put his hand on Karen’s shoulder, “Dining with Mr. Haymaker. Did your father say at any point that she asked for the murder?” You shook your head. “He said the hit was for her. That’s all he said.” “And he never mentioned her again.”
“Just to say they were having a thing. An affair.” O’Hara sat down, seemingly satisfied. But Wilmot wasn’t. He rose back up. He had a sword to wield.
“In your signed affidavit, didn’t you use slightly different words? “ “I can’t recall the exact words I used.”
“I draw your attention to the highlighted portion of this document. Will you please read what you said here?”
“I said my father told me, “She has Haymaker by the balls. He’s completely pussy-whipped. He’d kill his mother for her.”
“Thank you.” Wilmot sat. But O’Hara rose again.
“You have immunity, correct, Mr. Tobin?” “That’s right.”
“What’s it predicated on? What do you have to do for it?”
“Tell the truth.” You shrugged. You were the only witness I saw during the trial that didn’t seem the least bothered or threatened by O’Hara.
“Not change your story, isn’t that it?” “That’s it. Because my story’s the true one.”
And then they freed you. As I watched you blast through the swing doors, I was in a fever to see you again. I wrote down your address, but it was burned into my brain. Because a piece of me went with you. I know you did it. You took that gun from your father and you shot that man and now you’re killing two birds with one stone. Pretty smart. Your father recognized you as a killer, someone who could act instead of brag. If your father had it in him to be a killer, he would have done it long before.
But your secret is safe with me. This so-called “justice” system can do nothing for you. I am the only one who can free you.
When she first moved in she certainly had a lot of very expensive clothes for someone with such a lowly job. Like she had cleared out an Escada sample sale. After she married my father, those clothes were thrown out and a Talbot’s and Saks thing were inaugurated as she tried futilely to impersonate my mother. Those were the places where we had accounts; that’s where my father thought women ought to shop. She learned those bills weren’t even looked at.
More regrets, more things to make up for. How can I be so young and have so much to undo? But I didn’t attend the funeral. I was still too angry. When my sisters tried strong-arming me, I went to Vegas. It was where Penn wanted to go. Even I had the perfect rationale; my father hated funerals and never attended if he could possibly get out of it. McKenzie gave the eulogy; she said something like “If my father were with us today he wouldn’t be with us today.” Meaning, I guess, that his mind was so destroyed he ought to be dead.
I know this because they posted the video online. I only came back when Charmian announced our childhoods were up for sale.
Penn and I were already on the outs. He had discovered upfront close and personal Texas Hold ’Em. Whoa! Something in real life he liked better than online! A step forward? I don’t think so. He’ll tell anyone it’s not gambling but a game of skill, and so I’d been alone in our hotel room anyway. Now I have a lifetime of pictures that are too painful to look at. Things I have to compensate for. My only friend was my diary. So I started in on these diaries. You have to have somebody to tell. I was twenty years old but I felt my life over.
Searing, almost unbearable pain chewing me up inside whenever I thought of my father or my mother. But why? That was the question that obsessed me. If I hadn’t done anything terrible, so why did I feel so guilty? My mother was probably in the heaven that rewards martyrs, some disembodied spirit loving everybody equally, and my father was lost in the oblivion he had always insisted was just fine with him. But they didn’t feel dead to me. They didn’t feel gone. In some horrible way, they were more alive than ever. Inside of me. I felt them, right there at my elbow, horning in between me and the blank page, gazing up in mute supplication.
I apologize for turning this into a horror story of the demonic and the possessed. But you have to tell the truth. What else is there? Penn said it was the fault of that “classical education” my father had insisted on. Everyone was guilty, guilty, guilty all the time.
Penn didn’t feel guilty. Not when he stole my PIN number and cleaned me out. Not when he cheated and got kicked out of the casino. Penn is not better off. It’s better to have behavior mean something. Otherwise you’re just clawing your way up in the crab bucket. Like Charmian. At least I did some things right. I hadn’t legally tethered myself to this jerk. That’s because my father said it’s smart to rent before you buy.
Our childhood house was cold and empty. My room had long since been eviscerated. Charmian tossed “some items” for each of us in cardboard boxes labeled with our names, but what I needed wasn’t there. Justice. That’s what I wanted. Just the facts, ma’am. Nothing but the truth.
Who was this woman who stood so confident, shining like a goddess before us? Was she really even my father’s wife? I had some vague hope that if she had married him under a fake name, I could have the marriage set aside. Declared null and void. All that time I was studying psych I should have gone pre-law. There was way too much I didn’t know.
I couldn’t even hint to my sisters; they might try to block me. I went through my father’s desk but she’d cleaned out everything. I was too late. If there was any evidence left I’d have to drag it up out of my own brain.
Dad and I interviewed candidates for “personal care assistant” together. I’d looked right at her resume. What had it said? I struggled to dredge it up before me. My psych professor assured me everything – everything we saw is locked somewhere in our memory. Should I get myself hypnotized? Would that unlock the secret?
That night, the night Charmian closed on both houses she took us out to dinner before driving us to the lake to gloat over her new abode.
I spent the entire meal trying to assess her difference. She looked younger. Maybe she had had “work”, she was definitely letting her hair grow up. Instead of streaks, it was flat-out blonde. The upper-class wife was gone; suddenly she looked like a graduate-level art student in one-of-a-kind batik and handmade jewelry. Alone in the restroom, my sisters said it was the Boulder look. Charmian didn’t come with us. Charmian must have known that we would talk about her, but Charmian is superior to our girlish bodily needs. Charmian never steps from behind the curtain; she wants us to have no idea how the magic is done.
She was leaving Colorado Springs behind, they said. I thought I was looking at a satisfied vampire reveling in her victim’s blood. She had given herself new life by sucking my father dry.
I tried getting her to talk about her past, to give me anything to go on, but she was more than a match for me. All she wanted to talk about was me. She needed a new victim now, and she wasn’t subtle about it, either. Rebelliously I ordered Alfredo sauce for my shrimp; I got the lecture on The Ten Foods You Can’t Ever Eat. (All of them my favorites, of course. Mine and my father’s.) My sisters failed to back me up. They’re all for being skinny. I ordered dessert to spite her, but I was depressed. Who’s the loser here? The oinker with the whipped cream moustache or the goddess with the Centurion Amex card? My sisters exchanged that maddening “older-sister” look. Once again I was just too, too, outré.
But we were all shocked into silence by the new house; a battleship of wood and cedar lording it over the silent lake. All admit that I was jealous. That view, those windows, that dock, the privacy – why would you ever leave? She had done very well for herself. Charmian Carr, whoever she was, had arrived.
After a walk-through of the luxurious, marble-bathroomed chalet (it was filled with boxes and a jumble of new-looking furniture but not, I saw, my father’s desk) she insisted on driving us back to her hotel for a “nightcap.” If her plan was to amuse herself by getting me slobbering drunk, she failed. I had one lousy cognac, and then asked her what she was doing with my father’s desk. She said she’d sold all the furniture “nobody wanted” to an auctioneer. I wanted to yell at her that I hadn’t been given a chance but that would just get everybody started on the Daughter Who Skipped Her Father’s Funeral.
Alone at last in Darby’s car, McKenzie turned down my musical selection (Gone Daddy Gone by the Violent Femmes) and said, “Our only hope is if she marries again.”
“Why would she?” demanded Darby. “Why sacrifice all that money?” “Because she might meet somebody richer,” said McKenzie. “Plenty of people are richer than Dad. There are billionaires out there. Somebody young and handsome.”
“You are both crazy,” I said. “She’ll never marry again. She can pay for all the men she wants as long as she doesn’t marry any of them.”
“This is Charmian we’re talking about, right?” Darby said, deadpan. “Greed-crazy Charmian? She’s only forty-three years old. I say she’ll marry two or three more times.”
“She says she’s forty-three,” I sneered. “Why believe anything she says? She’s probably a tranny.” “Give it a rest,” said Darby, giving me a strange look. “You’re only going to become more like her.” Sisters say the meanest things.
That night I had a terrible dream. I was making out with this hot guy. I was so aroused; I well recall the lubricious richness of my own bodily fluids bubbling and boiling. His hands were everywhere, aggressively manipulating me, compressing and expanding, bending my previous stiffness into fantastic shapes. And I, who have always been so shy in bed – I mean, I don’t want anyone to catch some deal-breaking visions of my folds and layers – was just a helpless panting mass of “do me-do me-do me.”
He rolled me over on my back and – I don’t know how else to explain this – the top of his head fell away and Charmian’s face came spilling out. She grinned wolfishly like she had caught me out, as if she knew who I really was and had demonstrated to the universe than I was way, way, sicker than her.
I could re-experience that cold horror again right this minute, but I refuse. A dream so terrible you either die or you wake up.
But sisters aren’t a total loss. Trapped in the horrible meeting I was called to on the day I saw Charmian disguised as Harmless Old Lady Offering You An Apple in a Disney Pic, I texted both of them (under the table) Remember anything about Charmian’s resume? Where she came from? Anything? And braced myself for the storm of personal “get a life” abuse that was bound to follow.
They couldn’t say anything worse than what this guy was telling us now as he explained how print journalism was totally in the toilet. I could tell from the stricken faces all around that this was Unwelcomely Horrifying News, but I’ve never felt trapped in any one world. I sell advertising. That will never go away. Even in a nuclear winter we’ll all be selling each other gas masks. My sisters are so old they hate to text. So I was not surprised to be trapped in a three-way conference call on the way out to my car.
“She had a degree from some funky community college in East Texas,” Darby said. “Don’t you remember, McKenzie? You said something about how they probably operated out of a pizza box.” “Cricklewood,” suggested McKenzie.
“Too Dickensian,” said Darby.
I could have wept with joy. Three’s a charm. “Cold Creek,” I remembered. “Cold Creek Community College.” Shared Brain compensates for years or ridicule and childhood abuse.”
“They probably don’t exist anymore,” said Darby. “Some Fly By Night Correspondence School Like You’ve Seen on TV. Otherwise you could sign up and go back to school.” “Get a degree in Mortuary Science,” McKenzie suggested.
“For pets,” said Darby.
But what I did was sit down in the front seat of my car, my laptop and start looking up flights.
The state’s first witness was the dispatcher who had taken the anonymous 911 call. She, the preposterously pink-haired sedentary with pitted cheeks of ghostly adolescent acne. A tape of the call, of such poor quality I was amazed it could be introduced, was played for us. We were given transcripts so that we could follow every word. The court reporter, a mousy blonde with a hawk-like profile made a hash of it on her laptop.
“Scratch – scratch – report a man lying by the side of the highway.”
“Has he been hit by a car?” the dispatcher wanted to know. “Is he conscious and able to speak? Are there the cars still at the scene? Who is this speaking, please?”
There was one car at the scene, said the caller, besides his own, but this man was very dead. He had been shot in the face.
The dispatcher had tried her best to keep the caller on the line. But when police arrived at the scene, Mr. Good Samaritan had moved on.
The next witness was a policeman, a large uniformed man obviously comfortable with appearances in court. He produced a miniscule notebook and flipped aggressively through the pages. The victim was “shot multiple times”, then sprayed with gravel as if by a fleeing vehicle. Three shells were recovered and two weren’t. A deep wheel trench was photographed in the grass verge but it was too muddy to take a formal impression. The Yugo found at the crime scene had its back seat missing and its driver side door ajar. Registered to Rafael Zanelli, who was subsequently identified as the corpse.
State medical examiner was a huge man over six feet tall, garbed in a strangely double-breasted shiny suit of yesteryear. Was he hanging on to it hoping it would return to style? He improved my boring morning with the crime scene photographs. I studied each for a good long time. My stepfather died in the dark with a bag on his head; he was my only gunshot victim. What would I have seen if I’d removed the bag?
Both were slight, dark men with an addiction to tattoos and hair gel. This victim lay on his back on the pavement, his blue no-iron shirt unbuttoned to reveal a t- shirt that once doubled as a shop rag. His eyes were open, giving his face an expression of surprise. Of course he was surprised – according to what I’d read in the newspaper someone he thought wanted to buy his motorcycle suddenly opened fire on him. He probably died wondering which casual act in a lifetime of unthinking rudeness could have triggered such a vengeance. The wheel of fortune says that progressing souls might be chosen for reincarnation, but those who scrape through a lifetime of denial will be turned away.
There were multiple full-color close-ups of scorched entrance wounds in the chest and the side of the victim’s head. You could see where part of his jaw had been blown away. The blood was as gaudily red and as sticky looking as the paint on a Mexican Jesus. Several jury members barely glanced at the photos. The Gray Panther peeked through a handkerchief. Some woman from the bench behind the prosecution (obviously a Zanelli) hurried from the courtroom choking, swing doors banging loudly behind her.
I felt the touch of a hand. Ron Roccam was trying to give me something. Glad of any excuse to touch me? I welcomed the chance to read his palm. Knuckle hair suggests an ugly nude; his long headline says he’s risk-averse and has trouble making decisions. His typical answer to any question would be “It depends.” Such a man could be managed. He handed me a bullet. With so many levels of awareness, I was in danger of falling behind.
The bullet was a .38, one of two recovered from the body. Both seemed very small and squashed looking; unlikely to have caused so much damage. My stepfather wouldn’t have accepted them even for sinkers; he would have struck them from my hand and sent me searching for something better.
After the shot to the chest, the victim turned as if to flee. “Drop shot” to the spine. Neither shot was fatal. The head wound did the worst damage, entering the back of the head and exiting through the mouth, smashing his jaw and splitting his lip in half, pulverizing several teeth (we saw their chips littering the pavement) in the process. Then as he lay on the ground two more shots, head again, chest again. Bruises consistent with the possibility that he had been run over by the fleeing car, but the victim had been a miracle of strength and health and so there were no broken bones. That was our morning. The judge announced that it was time for the lunch recess.
Back in the jury room, several fellow jurors announced they were not in the mood to eat after seeing all the crime scene photographs. Personally I thought they all looked as if they could afford to skip a meal; skipping several would have served them better. A weeklong cleanse wouldn’t be too much.
We seemed divided naturally in two camps; smokers and eaters. The thrill of free restaurant food, (paid for by the state), lent our congress an excited, almost festive air. Red Roccam actually raised his arms and chanted, “Field trip!”
I suspected the “strong stomach” gang would prove to be the power jurors. This was the gang I would need to get close to. Lacey declared herself too affected by the photographs to swallow a morsel, but she had given up smoking twelve years before and was terrified of re-infection. Addicts also are easy to manage.
We chose an Italian restaurant named La Trattoria because it was the closest to the courthouse. I recognized members from the courtroom audience already ensconced when we arrived. They pointed at us and whispered just like we were celebrities, and one member of the press actually moved to a closer table as if to overhear anything we might say. Wish I could have given him an earful!
Actually, I have a phobia about eating with others. Too many hungers stir up at once. My mother used to bring special treats home from the diner but they were only for my stepfather. The smells leaking from tinfoil packages laughed at me as they danced around the room. When I succumbed, it was only to see how many crumbs I could steal unnoticed from the edges. Restaurants also remind me too much of dates. The dating scene. The nerve of some hawk-eyed stranger daring to appraise me. Counting every morsel that I eat and weighing up the cost. Easier to eat alone so that I could pick publicly like a bird. Now I would rather have sex with any stranger than eat with the man who bought me dinner.
I am impatient too, and restaurant meals take far too long. What does a woman who has labored all her life to maintain a svelte physique want with all those courses? If you do indulge, you end up with that pressured feeling that can only be relieved by vomiting. And there’s no way you can guarantee having the ladies’ room to yourself. Phobia number two.
The Empress, my old mentor, warned me about letting others see my vulnerability. Virtually everyone you meet has a motive for controlling you; (even if all they want is to turn you into their assassin); you just don’t know about it yet. According to her, King Louis XIV’s mistresses, vying for his favor, loaded his tea with menstrual blood and sprinkled fragments of aborted fetuses into his food. So amusing that the poor King of France, the Sun King, was eating the worst food in Paris! I ordered a salad. Lacey went for the Mediterranean individual pizza, the men chose the lasagna and spaghetti special (no hand-torn pasta here) and Luna was drawn to the beer-batter shrimp as a moth to flame.
Lacey’s eyes look shadowed and sad and her skin needed ironing. When she saw me studying her she began picking reflexively at the moles on her neck. She’s one of those tragic women who has bought the cultural whimsy that society can’t see a woman past breeding age. That her best years are behind her. I would see if taking her in hand could benefit either of us. A night at the sex club dressed in dominatrix gear would be the making of her.
My salad was slimy with dressing, virtually uneatable. God knows what spume they attached. I sent back for a side of plain lettuce. Iced tea with plenty of lemon helped. Dessert was “included”, so Howling Woodchuck ate mine, a thick wedge of “Mud Pie.” I could visualize him actually making and eating many mud pies in his childhood. We agreed to try Harvey’s next time, a chophouse with a buffet where you don’t wait to be served. I was going to have to coat my stomach lining with zinc to hang out with this pack.
If only I had known what witness was awaiting us, I would have run back. I would never have left at all.
The prosecutor Wilmot himself addressed us. “The state calls Zachary Tobin.” We all turned our heads to the swing doors. They split apart, and there you were. My beautiful Knight of Swords. Time stood still and the universe became clear to me in that instant. I saw you last at the convenience store, buying scratch lotto tickets for derelicts, but I had seen you once before. You are my perfect match, a Gemini. We met on your birthday. Don’t you remember me? Your father brought you to our club as your birthday gift. I told your fortune before I relieved you of your virginity. The Twins that battle within you must rebel against earth and its limits. Change jingled in your pockets as you walked but I heard spurs. Here in the courtroom you looked right at me – you’d never recognize me without my mask – but I like to think something within you – your manhood, probably – stirred. You seated yourself in the witness box. Within touching distance. So the Wheel of Fortune turns.
I was the Lady in Red who welcomed you into the universe of passion five years ago. Your father wanted to watch but I could tell you longed for me to get rid of him, so we were alone in our velvet cave. Only the Goddess saw you pour your spirit into me. I often wondered about you in the seven years since. How could you forget me? You belong to me.
I saw how cannibalistically my father looked at her. Like he wanted to eat her. Like he wanted to absorb those young eyes, young legs into himself any way he could get them. Charmian tease him, livened up his day. She made dressing and toileting flirtatious, erotic experiences. Practical pragmatist, he was happy to pay for it, only concerned to block her freedom. He was terrified she would someday “trade up”. With that reasoning, he had to marry her. And who can blame him? chorused my sympathetic sisters. What else does he have? Probably somewhere deep inside, he actually misses Mom.
But Mom was an “ux”. Mom was a fungible. Mom was a slot anyone could feel, the more youthful and sexier the better.
Dad had always introduced me to his girlfriends. It was “our little secret.” At first I enjoyed knowing something my sisters and my mother didn’t know. I knew where he really went on Saturday nights. I know who really sent the coded letters, phone calls, email. It gave me a certain sardonic pleasure as I stood stolidly through Mom’s endless lectures on compassion, temperance, sobriety, honor, honesty, self-denial, the fruits of the spirit, blah blah blah. The brutal truth of the matter is that there are those who have the facts and there are the clueless ones living in a cloud castle and the latter are supported by the former. Dad grumbled about the expenses of his double life but I could see he was really proud of it. It was an entitlement, a tribute to his station I life. He knew he had arrived when he could support both an Angel in the House, and a Slut in an Apartment.
The problem with the Angel in the House is that good mothers, clever hostesses and efficient housekeepers aren’t very sexy. Maybe the need to “clean up as you go along” that Mom was enthusiastically recommended to me was too ingrained. Yes, my father told me all about it. I was flattered when my father forgot I was a little girl. He refused to choose girls’ names for any of us (and of course my mother had no say). Mom said he always because he always hoped for a boy. He said he didn’t want to see us sidelined, marginalized, discriminated against. Not his daughters. I was named after his own father.
My father’s tastes ran to busty blondes with names like Honey and Ginger. When I became a teenager I despised him just a bit. He was too dismissive of modern art and music, telling me an “educated my taste” would favor timeless treasures; the things he liked. But in women his taste was decidedly third class.
I would have bet you anything Mom didn’t know a thing about his secret life. I thought she was happy; ensconced in her dream world until cancer came calling. I thought she must have been, to recommend that life to her daughters. Now that I’m older I see things are more complex. Maybe she just needed us to justify her life. McKenzie and Darby were happy to oblige.
After her death when we sisters were going through her things I found that letter Ginger had written Mom. I’m sure neither woman ever told Dad. It was a nasty letter. Dad had told Ginger he never loved Mom and that his marriage was a soulless sham. He said he would get a divorce if his wife would only step aside. Ginger concluded that my mother refused to let him go.
This is the part that haunts me. I get the sex thing; but why did he have to pretend for a moment – to anyone – that it was a love affair? He prided himself on logic and organized; he jeered at “emotional messes.” Did the love angle make it sexier, or did it just make it cheaper? To me he called her his “bit of fluff” as if she was so much static electricity picked up accidentally by contact with the carpet.
Another expression of his concerned the problem of undesirable eventualities: “cost of doing business.” That’s what they were, those women, the Ambers and Heidis. Quotidian lubricant and the cost of doing business.
Some things about the dead we’ll never know. We agreed to destroy the letter. None of us mentioned it to my father.
He explained why he hadn’t married Ginger after Mom died. Some women you just don’t marry. Our mother was the last of such a wealthy family that as far back as anyone could recall their sole means of making money was having money. (My father described himself as a clever immigrant upstart. An “arriviste”.) Mom was interesting but odd-looking; with a greyhound’s face and body and the kind of aristocratic education Dad signed us up for. That’s the sort of woman that gets married. My father wanted to forget how she’d endowed him, and she had so much money had always had so much money, she didn’t care about money. Yours, mine. Whatever. A man has to feel like a man. If that makes him a little raging tinpot lord, it’s your cross to bear.
When he invited my sisters to Sunday brunch and I saw Charmian wearing my mother’s jewelry, I knew what he was going to say.
What did we say? We said Congratulations.
The most awful thing was that he accepted her plan that I should become like her. He was totally happy with her dramatic upgrade of her tastes (and her expenses). He thought it showed how “classy” she really was. All it showed was how much money he had. Life at home got so bad I was relieved to go to boarding school. Makes me feel pretty guilty now.
I yearned for that thrill of a “new life”. Starting over, completely fresh. Of course it’s never really new because you drag your bad old self along. At least she’d have to stay out of my love life. I found her assumption that anybody’d have to be paid to take me was pretty insulting, especially since she was the one requiring payment. Any romantic distress she ever found me in, she threw in my face. Sometimes I wonder if I’m stuck with Penn because of her. To find someone new I’d have to venture out into obviously hostile terrain, and even though Penn is an online addict of everything you can be addicted to, he looks presentable. At least.
Coming home from school was so scary after a few months I didn’t even want to do that. Fell right In with her plan, unfortunately.
Things began to disappear. Charmian always had a “new look,” with my father in the background purple with bruises (“he’s so clumsy” ) yet glowing with pride over her. What a great student she was. Ambitious. Such a credit to him.
She sneered at poor Mom’s Early American antiques acquired at such cost. All that had to go. But it was what my father knew. How would he know where he was? Of course he was clumsy. She threw away all mine and my sisters “juvenilia” – she was certain we wouldn’t want to be reminded of how embarrassing we’d all been. She dropped plenty of conversational hints, letting me know she’d read my diary: “Is that the one that stood you up for prom?” That kind of thing. “Was he your third grade crush?” It was excruciating.
My father yelled at me to treat her with respect. He actually said, “She’s your mother.” I shudder to recall. Fungible. It meant I no longer had a home. I was effectively disinherited.
But I know, deep in my heart, he might have mixed up Darby with McKenzie and McKenzie with Darby, but to him I was not fungible. To him I was always different. He was cruel to me the way we’re sometimes cruel to our own selves. He needed me, wanted me, trained me to protect him, from himself if necessary, but I only acted on the “selfishness” memo. I failed him.
Was she secretly hating on him while sitting all fake-adoring at his knee, showing him catalogs, getting him to buy her this and that? He was such an eager instructor when he thought he had a captive audience. Was she planning his death while she pushed his wheelchair through art shows and fundraisers? I’m think he had been brought so low he may have loved her right up to the end, astounded that anyone so luminous would deign to change his catheter.
She must have thought she’d won the lottery when she found out about the will. Everything in trust to her for life. Scraps for us if the Queen ever acts like a mortal and dies.
But she had an Achilles heel. They always do. My father taught me that. One battle does not make a war. Flashy, overconfident generals forget about the backdoor where they are vulnerable to attack. Pain, guilt and rage are valuable allies that can be channeled into planning and strategy.
She never wanted to talk about her past. If I questioned her, my father barked at me to lay off. He thought he knew what I was getting at, attempting to degrade her. But I wanted facts, the way he taught me. Something actually happened, and it matters what it really was. That’s enshrined in law, in our very Constitution. The Constitution says its what you really did is that matters, not what you wanted or what you thought. Dr. King said we are the “content of our characters” and on that we can be judged.
But in his pathetically dependent way I think my father, poor foolish, naked Emperor, wanted her to have appeared from nowhere, as if she sprang fully grown right out of his need. But was that a capital offense? His desperation and his longing? He didn’t deserve to have his life snuffed out. She had an irritating manner of answering questions with another question, cocking her head on one side and saying, “I wonder why you need to know.” Under that thin mask of superiority I thought I saw a lot of ill-concealed envy and hostility – often towards people she’d never even met, people who’d done nothing to her.
She was always status-checking too. The angriest I’ve ever seen her was when I told her gold lamé was out of date. That’s when I saw the visible scars of some desperately hardscrabble upbringing. To her, life’s a game called “who’s on top”. There has to be a winner; and the fastest way to get up there is to create a lot of losers. My poor patrician mother would have said that someone like that is insecure and we need to have compassion for her limited vision. Her suffering.
Because my sisters refuse to talk about her I had to use Penn as a sounding board. He’s a child of multiple divorces. Whenever he got close to a step-parent or sibling, his mother would dump that family. I thought he was being supportive when his contribution to my despair was usually, “I hate my parents too.”
I thought it was better than nothing. Both of us were psych students. Every personality disorder I read about smelled of Charmian. Narcissistic Personality Disorder? Check! The “not quite real” disorder. All her interactions with others are so ritualistic I got the feeling we are like ghosts to her. Figures on a chessboard. Sometimes I thought that creature looking out at me from behind her varicolored eyes was barely human; some demon who had killed, dismembered and eaten the real Charmian a long, long time ago.
Alysse Aallyn 