‘Contact you?’
‘We never … I just don’t think he would do that.’
‘Would you like him to?’
Emma shrugs. ‘I mean, I miss him. I miss … the partnership. Teamwork. But I don’t think he would contact me unless it was some kind of emergency.’ She presses her lips. ‘Not like some other people.’
‘You’ve had another postcard from Simon Gutmunsson?’
The last card had been addressed to her care of the psychology department at Ohio State University. It read,Dearest Emma, Are you still shining? Thinking of you, Simon. Emma put her winter gloves on, took it downstairs to the basement incinerator, and burned it. Then she burned the gloves.
Remembering the handwriting now, she sets her glass aside and wipes her palms on her jeans. ‘I don’t want to talk about Simon.’
‘No, and we don’t have to. Let’s talk about something else, then.’
‘Okay.’ Emma knows what’s coming.
‘I know your birthday was last week. If you’re feeling vulnerable on the tenth, you know you can come see me, or call.’
‘I want to try something different this year,’ Emma says. ‘I’ve got a good schedule on Fridays, lots of classes. I’m going to try to keep real busy.’
‘Sounds good. If you need me, though, I’m right here.’ Audrey makes the offer seem casual.
Emma knows that Audrey clears her day on the tenth of September – the anniversary of Emma’s abduction – every year, justfor her. The knowledge makes her feel grateful but also pathetic. She eats one last raspberry to get rid of the feeling.
After the session, she lets Audrey gift her a small container of raspberries. Then she walks out of the turreted house, down the steps, heading for her car. The Rabbit is parked by the curb, getting some sun. Audrey’s street in Mount Vernon is lovely: double-lot blocks, plenty of grass around the houses, graceful, widely spaced trees. The dogwoods are starting to change color.
Emma turns her face toward the sky. Her parents will be out in the yellow leaves, thinking about harvesting apples and cutting pumpkins. It makes her consider growth, and whether she’s really evolving. She’d like to think so. She’s been seeing Audrey for almost three years now. But there are no real markers with therapy, nothing to say,Here, I’ve reached this point, I’ve made progress. It’s just a gradual shift so that one day you wake up and realize you don’t think like that anymore, or you’ve slept through the night for a while now, and maybe this is the new normal. Emma wonders if she’s plateaued, and if such a thing happens, or if she would even know if it had.
She gets in the Rabbit and takes it out past Sears to the Texaco on West High Street, gases up the car. It runs better since her father replaced the carburetor in August. She eases onto Old Delaware Road toward Route 71 for the trip back to OSU. It’s about an hour of potato and corn fields, peaceful rolling country. She could drive like this all day. Then the concrete and asphalt of the highway, and she’s finding her way home.
She manages to get a parking spot under one of the old ornate streetlamps on West Tenth Avenue. When she gets up to her dormroom, she discovers her roommate, Leanne Frome, is painting her nails with some kind of disgusting glitter polish that makes the whole room smell like sour lemons.
‘There’s mail on your bed, I think it’s from your sister. Oh my god, isn’t this the worst? Open the window for the stink, I’ve still gotta do the other hand.’
‘That stuff reeks.’ Emma puts the raspberries on the dresser – she’ll share them with Leanne later – throws her knapsack on the bed, and grabs up the mail, checking the sender addresses. Since Simon’s postcards, she always checks the addresses.
‘What I get for buying cheap.’ Leanne shakes her hand and blows on her fingers. ‘I don’t know why I’m going all out, we’re only going for coffee.’
‘You got a date?’
‘Yeah. But I haven’t had a date in, god, a while.’
‘Then … congratulations?’
‘Thanks.’ Leanne’s a redhead, and pleased embarrassment looks good on her. ‘Hey, how were your folks?’
‘Oh, fine.’ Emma shucks her jacket and pulls sweats out of her drawer. ‘Gonna run. Maybe do a wash when I get back. You got anything?’
‘In the hamper.’ Leanne waves at it. ‘Thanks – you got change?’
‘I’ll check the jar.’ Then Emma has her running shoes on and she’s gone.
She runs for three miles, just to take the edge off. Talking about her running habit with Audrey always gets her like this. She reminds herself to slow down and walk the final quarter mile back to HanleyHouse, but it makes her feel twitchy. She’s hoping to channel that into a study session later this evening.
When she gets back from putting in a wash load downstairs, she takes a shower, scrubbing her scalp and thinking over what Audrey said about physical feelings. She’s nineteen. Hot-blooded as any teenager. It’s not her body that’s stopping her, it’s something in her mind. She’s had a few offers in the last three months from guys in her classes who aren’t put off by her buzz-cut hair. The girl who works behind the counter at the grocery store sent out tentative vibes, too. Emma doesn’t even know if her reluctance is confusion about her sexual preference, because she’s never let herself date, and how fucked up is that? Maybe she should start saying yes. The idea is slightly terrifying.
She towels off to dress, dumps her shower caddy in her room, pulls a robe on over her pajamas to go shift the laundry into the dryer. When she returns with the basket, Leanne looks up from where she’s piling all her things into a shoulder bag. She’s wearing jeans, but her makeup’s done and she looks nice.
