“Hey!” A hand on my elbow. A voice I recognized but couldn’t place. I turned to see the man from the library.
He smelled like cigarette smoke and salt air. When I’d first arrived at the bar, the night had a cool edge to it—a hint of fall. I remembered the way it used to make me so melancholy, how hard I used to try to ignore that chill. August had only just started, but I could sense summer shutting down, autumn turning everything gray and brown. I’d noticed that already the grass at the edges of the marsh was going pale, that soon it would be the color of heather. Seeing it, I had to confront that I, who had called this a break, a stopover, a pause, was still here. And by choice, of all things. I’d chosen this. I was drunk by then, but I was also thinking that maybe, maybe I was okay. I had survived the summer. I had resisted Matthew and his offer—well, his trick.
“Can I buy you a drink?” the man from the library asked. He leaned on the stool next to mine. I focused on his hands, the tiny cuts around his knuckles.
I knew I shouldn’t drink anymore—one more might make the room slide, make my thoughts slippery and words too large on my tongue. But I heard myself ask for a Maker’s on the rocks.
“I talked to my grandma about those paintings,” he said.
“Huh.” There was something familiar about him that I couldn’t place. I had the feeling I had seen him before, not at the library, but that he had been at the edge of my life in some way. He had a brawny, short body, an athletic stance, a sports watch perched on his wrist. A substitute teacher I had in high school? Someone from the beach patrol? I was too drunk to figure it out.
“She said you can come see them whenever we want.”
“How ’bout now?” I asked. For the first time that day I felt a jolt of hope.
“Sure. She’s a night owl. And she’s excited to show them, I think.” Something perked up in my chest. I was slurry, my makeup smeared, my hair a tangled mess. But the thought that the day could be redeemed, the promise of seeing more of the painter’s work, was irresistible. I kept forgetting to ask the man his name. That thought and others rose and slipped, the way the strap of my purse slid from my shoulder. He had a heavy, square jaw, eyes that were both attractive and disconcerting, so pale and clear, giving his stare an incisive, pointed effect. I felt a jolt between my legs—that old confusion Matthew liked, between art and sex—and wondered if sleeping with someone else might, like seeing more paintings, be another kind of cleansing.
“Where are you parked?” I asked.
He smiled, his blue eyes gray in the dull light. “Just around the corner.” I couldn’t decide if I liked the way he looked or not. “I can pull around and meet you.”
I paid my tab and met him out front, trying to ignore the way I wobbled from the stool. As soon as I got in the car I regretted it. I was going to be sick soon; I wanted nothing more than to get it over with, my knees braced on cold hard tile, my face on the rim of our toilet at home, drink a tall glass of ice water, and crawl in my bed with its cool, clean sheets.
As we made our way down Pacific Avenue, I asked him to tell me again what the paintings looked like.
“I told you earlier. A guy in a hat.”
“What about the colors?”
“What about them?”
“The colors are what make them stand out. At least the ones I’ve seen.”
“I can’t describe them. I’m no expert. Besides, you’ll see for yourself in a minute.” I could tell I was annoying him, but I didn’tcare. He had been the one to offer to take me anyway. He rolled down the window and lit a cigarette. I wanted to ask him to stop, but I was so, so tired. My thoughts dripped.
At a stoplight, I glanced out the window. “I thought you said she lived. In. Longport.” I was alert enough to know we were driving in the opposite direction, toward the city. We were on the Dorset Bridge, the water black below us. The streetlights looked hazy and huge, globes of smeared light. I thought I remembered something Clara had said. One of her visions: blurry streetlights.
“I want to go. Home,” I said. “Please turn around?” He was silent. There was a strange drag on my words. I tried again, but my speech was worse. I felt ashamed, then afraid.
“I can’t wait till that stuff really kicks in. You’re getting on my nerves. You know, I was going to leave you alone. You weren’t like the others.”
“What? What stuff?” I tried to inventory the last hour in my mind—had I left my drink alone? But my thoughts were too slippery, my memory of the bar already full of black patches.
“You made an honest living, at least. You might drink a little bit, but you’re not out there selling yourself, dipping into drugs. Running this place into the ground. But you seem to like sniffing around in things you don’t understand. Making phone calls you shouldn’t make.”
I closed my eyes. Phone calls? Did he know about me calling Julie Zale’s aunt? Had Emily heard more than she let on when she came back from lunch that day? Had she told someone? And then I remembered, the man in the windbreaker. Baseball cap, sunglasses.That wide-legged stance. How had I not realized he was the same person? It must have been so easy for him—I was so eager to blow him off at the library, I never even looked back. It would have been nothing for him to follow me to work, to watch and wait. And what about that night, when Clara and Iswam on the beach. Clara—where was she? Why couldn’t I find her? Had he gotten to her first?
“Pull over,” I said. “Let me out.”There are no paintings, I realized. The words unwieldy and slow. My vision blurred at the edges. My eyes shifted to the floor, my purse on the ground. I hadn’t turned my phone on again. I kicked it closer to the seat, ignoring the way he laughed. I kicked it again, and the floor mat shifted. Something bright, almost wet-looking, caught my eye. A silver cross necklace. Just like the one Emily wore. Emily, who had pulled that no-show at work. Who hadn’t answered any of my texts or phone calls. My skin burned. “Em … Em …” I tried, but couldn’t force out her name. I tried to picture her, but her face was blurring with Clara’s. Emily’s eyes, Clara’s red hair.
I reached for the door handle, weak, my fingers missing it by inches. I tried to grab it again. I had the sense that I’d just seen something important, but had already forgotten what it was. Slippery, slippery mind. I reached for the door handle once more and felt a burst of pain against the side of my head. Dampness on my face. I looked up at the hazy streetlight, the moths wobbling in the glow. I tried to open my mouth to say Emily’s name one more time but instead I sank. To a place very quiet. And very dark.
CLARA
THE HOTEL SUITE WAS SOquiet that I could hear birds outside. Speedboat motors. The slam of lids on the metal garbage cans, even the occasional laugh. I don’t know if that made it easier or more difficult. People were still laughing, somewhere. He had tapped a single pill onto the dresser. Looking at the perfect white pearl of it, I wondered if there were more. If I could take a whole bottle for my grand escape from this place. Not to California, but slipping out of the world, easy as a piece of silk sliding through someone’s hands.
I was standing in the middle of the room. Had it been three hours? Four? I hadn’t had anything to drink but had to go to the bathroom anyway. What had started as a general throb from holding it now ribboned through my torso, a sharp twinge of heat. I would ask him if I could go, but I wasn’t supposed to speak. I wasn’t even supposed to think. He told me that I was a terrible person, a bitch, a slut. That I was lucky all he did before was burn me, that I deserved so much worse. If I wanted to avoid being punished again, the only thing I could do was ask for forgiveness. Repent. That word was like a hammer, pounding the inside of my brain.Repent repent repent.I was sorry that I had been such a fool about my mother. I was sorry that I believed those visions,that I dragged Lily into it, when maybe the problem was me all along. I was sorry for all the times I stole from people who didn’t deserve it for a goal that had always been impossible.
He sat in front of me reading a book. I couldn’t tell what it was—something from a library, a bar code along its spine. Had he stolen a book from the library?What aboutyoursins?I thought. He looked up at me as though he could sense my doubt beamed his way. He unpeeled a chocolate poker chip so slowly that I heard every crinkle of the wrapper. I listened as he ate it, the chocolate gumming his mouth, moving down his throat.
