Still Lives

Yegina lives in an Evergreen Queen in Silver Lake. She rents from the crazy old hippie who paints all his hilly East Side houses the same shade of deep pine and undercharges his tenants in exchange for underfixing things. Yegina’s place has hardwood floors, a built-in washer-dryer, views east toward Hollywood, and free parking for her canary-yellow Mazda.

But the Mazda is not in her driveway as I race up her winding steps, so shaky on my feet that I trip three times on nothing and almost fall flat on my face. Where is Yegina’s car? It’s clear she’s home; I can see the wooden inner door open behind the screen door. The threshold beckons: a portal to safety. Beside me, Yegina’s terraced gardens of cacti have silhouetted to menhirs in the fading light. I gasp for breath, reaching the top, when a man speaks inside the house.

I recognize the voice but can’t place it, not with this tearing in my chest. I’m about to ring Yegina’s bell when I hear softer sounds, little smacking, breathy noises. Yegina is kissing someone. He says, “Wow,” and now I recognize the depth and treble, though the voice is stripped of its usual heartiness. I peer through the gray scrim: Bas Terrant is sitting on the leather couch, and Yegina is sitting on him, her dark hair falling in his face. They are both still fully clothed, but his hands are probing under her shirt, his knuckles pushing out the cotton. I stare, paralyzed, watching the way Yegina arches and presses into him.

A black car drives slowly, slowly down the street below, the windshield shining. Didn’t I see that car behind me on Sunset? I can’t make out the driver.

Fear is like an itch all over my body. I must emit some sound, because just then Yegina looks up from Bas’s lap and sees me. Her eyes narrow.

I take the stairs two at a time.





22

Greg’s key fits into the deadbolt in the back entrance of his gallery. It turns easily. I always wondered if it would still work, or if he’d change the lock on me. More likely, Greg forgot that he ever gave me a copy. In case you need it for any reason, he’d declared with a magnanimous air. On many lonely nights that casual offer loomed in my mind, and I would come up with a thousand reasons to arrive at Greg’s place. They all dissolved by morning. In case you need it. Translation: You may need me. I assume you will.

I hated the key, but I kept it. And now I want to search his apartment before it’s too late.

Yet as soon as I push Greg’s door in and shut it behind me, all willpower deserts me. I slide to the floor, hug my knees, and sit there a long time, unable to do anything but catch my breath. I can’t think about the killer, or Yegina and Bas; I can’t think about anything but staying safe. I’m safe here. No one will guess I’m at Greg’s. After a while, my breath slows, but not the trembling. It’s as if a two-by-four is slamming around deep inside me, the vibrations reverberating out. Even the veins in my wrist throb and twitch.

Beyond my knees, the dimensions of the rooms materialize, the white-painted walls of two galleries, artworks, a metal desk with a laptop on it. I stagger to my feet. A series of black ropes hangs from corner to corner; a TV monitor sits on a pedestal. Postcards dot the walls at intervals, odd messages on them, part of some conceptual project in which the artist did not stop walking around Rome until he collapsed. I stroll the galleries for a long time, examining every object, until the shaking ebbs.

There is a lone door at one end of the room. I open it and see plywood stairs down to a dark basement that smells of mildew. Somewhere down there, the police found a cloth with Kim Lord’s blood on it. The killer must have sneaked into this space—how? Through this entrance or a separate opening below? The blackness of the space reaches for me. I’m too tired to meet it. I shut the door.

Another staircase rises behind the metal desk. I know where it goes. I know Kim and Greg must have taken these steps many times, and that in the silent room upstairs, their love bloomed, and a child was conceived.

By the time I get to those stairs, there is another Maggie in the gallery, moving with dragging steps. Her purse swings from her shoulder. She looks like me, but she is outside me and inside me at the same time. I am inside and outside, too, but we aren’t combined. I don’t stop her as she takes off her shoes, as she climbs, her bare feet whispering on the slats. When she reaches the small apartment above, the photograph of Greg’s mother is the first thing she sees, propped on the nightstand. Young Theresa Ferguson, dark head cocked, in a long sheath dress. Young Theresa Ferguson leaning against old Parisian stone, hiding her hands.

The other Maggie stares at the picture and slowly unzips her skirt, pulls her blouse over her head, bends to drop her bra and panties. Then she walks naked to Greg’s king bed and climbs into it. The sheets are freezing, but her prickling skin feels distant. She lets her head sink on one plump pillow and pulls the other to her, hugging it. Her body feels heavy and quiet now, and fully alone. The rest of the world is far away.

She lies there, staring at a blank wall until it wavers and vanishes.


When I wake, the room is dark and I have to grope around the bedside to find a lamp. The shade, made out of an old detergent bottle, casts a mellow orange glow. Scanty furniture unfurls along the walls. The whole apartment is one room, with a sink, an oven, and a fridge in one corner; a wardrobe and a mirror in another; the bed in a third; and a lime-colored sofa and a coffee table in the last. Low walls part the spaces. Three paintings on the wall follow a ball bouncing. Skylights in the ceiling reveal a cloudy, reddish night sky.

The room feels staged. Despite the carefully chosen decor, or perhaps because of it, the space has the air of a display. No messiness, no dust bunnies or stray hairs. Didn’t they strew things like Greg and I did? I was always picking up his damp towels, wiping his coffee stains from the counters.

I sit up and look down at my naked breasts and thighs. And blush. My cheeks and face are soaked. I was crying in my sleep. What did I dream of? I don’t feel any better, and I don’t feel any more like myself, but I know I’m running out of time to search this place before one of Greg’s assistants finds me here.

I wind the sheet around me and patrol the room, finding no possessions that look like Kim’s. Greg’s checkbook. Greg’s socks, paired in his drawer. A curled rubber glove in the trash can, which makes me curious. Probably left by the police, who’ve been here already. The oven looks unused. The fridge holds a few apples, a brick of cheese, and a can of expensive lemon soda, which I crack and drink.

Theresa Ferguson watches me as she always has. Her photograph sat by Greg’s bedside in our bungalow, too. Theresa is eighteen and wearing curled hair and a hat, a tube of a dress, and an expression of guarded triumph. Her hands are hidden behind her. Greg told me this was because they were burned and scarred; she was learning to be a glassblower.

I toss the soda can, go to the wardrobe and open it. Finally, some evidence of Kim’s life: his side, her side. Greg’s shirts and pants hang straight and pressed, like uniforms; Kim Lord’s billow and sag, so many different sizes and shapes. Her items are fewer, but they dominate the closet, these ludicrous-now-tragic costumes that didn’t protect her. The pale-pink Ann-Margaret dress; the high-waisted straight skirt and suit jacket straight from Vertigo. A navy trench coat. Two wigs, one coarse and black, one brown and curly. A few paint-spattered shirts and jeans. I check the pockets, all empty. She didn’t own much. Or she didn’t intend to stay long.

For several minutes I stare at the clothes, puzzling. I let my hand drag down the waist of the dress, squeezing its cool threads. Then I shut the wardrobe.

Maria Hummel's books