It’s time, Beck. Nicky emerges from the sober house and looks both ways like a good little white boy. He hangs his head and starts down the street and his wife must have laundered his Vans because they’re especially bright and white tonight. He’s a mouse in your house and I wish you didn’t want him. But of course you do, Beck. He’s like the father you never had and you want to break up his family. And that’s natural. That’s the cycle of abuse and it was Nicky’s job to help you overcome that desire.
But Nicky didn’t do his job. He is a pig. And there’s no possible happy ending to this mess. If I let him live, you will eventually get what you think you want. He will fuck you in the beige room and cry to his wife and beg for a divorce and he will go to you—because he’s right, you are sex—and the truth is, the second he becomes available, no ring, no more teeth whitening, you won’t want him.
He is leading you down the path to hell and he was supposed to keep his distance from you and he didn’t. And you were supposed to call me—you miss me—and you didn’t. And I know you so well, Beck. You are charisma, you are sick, and for some reason you are a magnet for weak, spineless people like Peach, like Benji, like Nicky. I pick up my pace and I hold my new nightstick. (I went to the Army Navy store to cool off after that bullshit with Officer Minty; it’s only fair that we all be armed against cops who think they’re above the law.) I clench my jaw. I am gaining on him and I can do this, one fell swoop. But then I feel a vibration in my pocket. I have no choice but to duck into an alley. Nicky will turn around if he hears the phone and I can’t make it stop and I can’t breathe and my hands shake and I look at my phone.
It’s you.
You are calling me.
You have, at last, decided to act on your feelings.
Your name looks beautiful in my phone, shining in the dark above the picture of you in your white bikini. I stare at you, aglow. I smile; I too glow. You surprise me, you delight me, and you miss me. I try to make my heart slow down and Dr. Nicky is already blocks away and I bring the phone to my head and I speak. “Well, hello, Beck.”
“Joe?” you say, soft as your skin. “Can you hear me?”
I lose my voice and cough. I’m not myself because I was just about to kill Nicky with a nightstick because he was trying to have sex with you. I am dizzy and you sound tipsy when you speak again. “Joe? Can you hear me?”
“Bad signal,” I say. “I’m waiting for the train.”
Forward as a dictator, you make your demand. “I need you to come over. Can you come over? Can you come over right now?”
I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life and I answer, strongly, “Yes.”
I hit END and I can’t believe your timing. I need a minute to get my head right. You called. I ditch the nightstick in a trash heap. My hand is still sore from gripping it and my heart hurts from the whiplash. You called. You’re back! I’m calmer now and I’m walking and it will be nice to get out of here and get to you. You called and I can’t help but believe that for all of Nicky’s idiocy, he might be good at what he does after all. Clearly, you are in a better place now; you called me, not him. I hop in a cab because I’m too happy to get on the subway. I wonder what you’re wearing and I can’t get to you fast enough. I leave When Bad Things Happen to Good People in the backseat of the cab. I don’t need it anymore. I have you.
41
OUR IKEA pillow is still tagged and it’s underneath your table on the floor. I hold you in my arms and you cry. You’re drunk and I don’t ask any questions. I will not let you and your pillow get me down. Besides, you feel as good as I remember, better. Your place is a mess, which makes me believe you really have been growing. There are curtains now—that’s progress—and you’re almost out of tears. I stroke your head and stare at our pillow and breathe you in, your scent, your apples rotting on the counter. I can’t stop smiling and the harder you cry the broader I grin and finally, you have nothing left and you stop, you whisper, “Sorry.”
“Oh it’s okay,” I say. “I can send you a dry-cleaning bill.”
If you were Karen Minty you’d laugh too hard but you’re you and all you do is smile. “I don’t remember the last time I laughed.”
“Just about two seconds ago, Beck.”
You stretch your arms above your head and twist, to the left, to the right and then your arms flop and you look at me. “You must think I’m nuts.”
“Not at all,” I say and I don’t.
“Oh, come on, Joe. I see you and we get together and then I just disappear off the radar.”
I make a joke: “Actually, I was in the south of France on a top secret mission for the FBI.”
You don’t laugh and you’re not in the mood for dumb jokes and I love you for being so honest, so present and all the hard work was worth it because all of it was leading up to this moment.
You speak. “I kind of do wish you were in the FBI.”
“Seriously?” I say and I don’t like where this is going.
You quiver. I don’t.
“Peach is dead, Joe.” And you sound exasperated and this isn’t supposed to happen. Peach is in Turks and Caicos, goddamn it.
“Are you kidding?”
“They found her body in Rhode Island.”
“No.”
“Yes,” you say.
No. Impossible. I put a ton of rocks in her pockets. When I walked her onto that jetty, she must have been a buck fifty. This is bullshit. I did my job. Did I zip her pockets? Fuck yes I zipped her pockets. Nothing is made well anymore. The zippers were plastic, now that I think about it, and they probably disintegrated. Fuck those zippers.
“I just can’t believe it,” you say. There are so many horrible things you could say right now and what if you led me here under false pretenses and what if the FBI is here, spying.
“Rhode Island?”
“Yep,” you say. “Rhode Island.”
I talked to too many people in that state. I was sloppy and friendly and there’s Officer Nico and Dr. K and all those junkies and the guy at the garage. What if they all got together? What if they know? The mug of piss flashes through my mind’s eye and what have I done?
“Her family has a place there,” you say. “We were there and I thought she took off. I mean she sent me a melodramatic e-mail, but that’s Peach. I didn’t think she was, you know, serious.”
“Jesus,” I say and would you visit me in prison or would you be afraid?
“I figured she took off because she does that sometimes!” You pick up your bottle of diet root beer and you take a swig and I wish you would just keep going. “And for the past few months, I haven’t heard from her, but you know those old friends that you can go ages without talking to and then you talk, and everything’s fine? Hang on.”
You bury your head in your phone and I don’t know what you mean because if I go more than a month without seeing Mr. Mooney, it’s super awkward, but how can I think about Mr. Fucking Mooney right now? Are you wearing a wire, Beck? Are you trying to get me to confess? Is that why you got curtains? I look at my watch. 10:43.
“Sorry,” you say. “It was just school stuff. Anyway, where was I?”
“She disappeared.”
“She didn’t disappear. She committed suicide.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Praise Jesus!
“I know,” you say and you finish your root beer. “How did I not see it?”
You’re heading to the kitchen, getting the vodka out of the freezer, the glasses out of the sink—Karen Minty doesn’t leave glasses in the sink but Karen Minty doesn’t have the capacity to cry like you do—and you’re gonna tell me a story and Karen Minty can’t tell a story. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“At the beginning.”
You sit down next to me and we won’t kiss for a long time but God did I miss the nearness of you, the anticipation of your words, your voice. “So we were in Little Compton, it’s this beach community in Rhode Island. She was pretty depressed but me too. Remember that guy Benji, my druggie ex?”
“I think so.”
“Well, he died. I mean that was always possible because he’s crazy. But still,” you say and you bite your lower lip. You are pretty. “He dies and then she dies. I’m Death Girl.”