“Or to be me.”
But then class started, and she turned away and the moment was over. We’d talk a little before class after that, though, and she’d tell me about her dreams each morning; she told me about her family and how her father’s mistress lived in their basement, though her parents were still married, an arrangement that struck me at the time as modern and practical, unlike my own father’s sneaking around. She was absent a lot, and each day I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding when she walked into the classroom. On the last day of school that year, she turned to me and said, right before she walked out of the room, “I finally figured it out. The dream, about the butterflies.” Then she tossed a folded sheet of paper onto my desk. “To be you,” she added, smiling slyly, “would mean I feel underestimated.”
Her phone number was written on the paper. I probably fell in love with her right then.
We got close fast, an undefinably intense friendship that quickly evolved into physical contact, her hand brushing mine, eyes flashing as if daring me to move away. She told me she had kissed a girl once, just to see what it was like, when she was at an art camp in Maine. And what was it like? I asked, of course, and then she showed me, and there was no going back.
Nothing about being with Catherine was easy, nor would it ever be. Even at age seventeen she was already committed to the story lines that would define her forever: she had a boyfriend but it was for some practical reason and he was generally inconsequential to her actions; she didn’t make plans and she didn’t extend invitations; she would routinely keep you waiting for hours or forever, but just as often she would be unexpectedly kind; no one had ever broken up with her; she always stayed friends with her exes and kept them around her in a harem of sorts, ready and waiting and all too eager to be summoned when she was lonely or bored.
And it was all still true. I should know. She had been spiraling toward me and then away from me for half my life, on and off and off and on, disappearing to move to Chicago or New Orleans or Los Angeles. After grad school, she said she was going to be traveling in Europe for a few months and she’d write me. I didn’t hear from her for three years and when she got back in town, she was married to a composer from Montreal and they bought a house in Bexley and she was so happy, but it only lasted for so long. It only ever lasted for so long. I knew better. But when Catherine was looking at me, I felt like the only other person on earth. It was all too easy to forget that the best anyone could hope to be was a character in a dream she had about herself.
*
I left the Evans house and pulled out onto Providence Street. Before I reached Clover, I caught a flash in my rearview mirror: another car starting up and edging away from the curb. My pulse quickened as the car behind me mimicked my left-hand turn toward the freeway, keeping a fair distance between us. But I only made it a few blocks east before my rearview mirror lit up red and blue. “Oh, come on,” I muttered. Three run-ins in as many days. This was getting old fast, although part of me was relieved that it was just a Belmont cop and not someone with a hunting knife. But between the police down here, these phone calls, and Camo Jacket sneaking around my apartment, it felt like the universe was trying to send me one hell of a message.
If only I knew what it was.
I pulled over to the curb and slid the car into park and waited. I didn’t bother looking for my registration because this clearly wasn’t going to be a routine traffic stop. Finally, a tall figure got out of the car and approached me.
I rolled down my window and peered out into the cold, damp night. The man who looked back at me was fifty-five or so, barrel-chested, with a grey-blond buzz cut and narrowed, hooded eyes. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but instead a windbreaker over a pair of khaki pants. “Good evening, Miss Weary,” he said. “I’m Jake Lassiter, chief of Belmont police.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Let me guess,” I said. “I’ve got a brake light out.”
He actually took a step back to check, and then he looked annoyed. “Listen, I believe you’ve spoken with a few of my officers before.”
“I have.”
“About paying the professional courtesy of announcing when you’ll be down here, asking questions.” He draped one arm over the roof of my car and leaned in. “And yet here you are, unannounced.”
I felt myself edging slightly away from the door. The air was frigid, and Lassiter was a bit too close to me for comfort. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t aware that the professional courtesy was necessary any time I set foot in Belmont. Can I just make a blanket announcement that I’ll be down here off and on for a while?”
“For a while,” he repeated. He looked over his shoulder, like he wanted to laugh at me with his imaginary backup. “The Cook case is solved. So you asking questions?” he added, turning back to me, his features harder now. “That stops now.” He tapped his hand against the roof of my car with each word, and the hollow sound made me jump a little.
I wanted to mention that he didn’t have the authority to tell me that, police chief or no. But there was very little point, not if I wanted to go home any time soon. “I understand,” I said.
“Good,” Lassiter said.
We stared at each other, cold air whistling in through my open window. The blue and red lights from Lassiter’s car cast an eerie glow against his stony features. His expression said that he was more than happy to stand here for hours.
“May I leave now?” I said.
He watched me for another few seconds, and then he removed his arm from my car. “You have a great night,” he said.
He retreated and got back into his cruiser, but he didn’t go anywhere, just stayed put with those blinding lights whirling in my mirror. I put the car in gear and darted back into traffic, eager to get away before he changed his mind.
*
When I got home, it was about eighty degrees in my apartment. I peeled off my clothes and lay in bed with a whiskey bottle and looked up at the stars. I wasn’t making any friends or any progress, and though I wasn’t tired yet, I wanted to be done with the day. I listened for the sounds of anyone else nosing around my building, but I heard nothing.
Yet.
I needed to think about something else.
I took a long swallow from the bottle and scrolled through the numbers in my phone, breezing past the streak of calls from the unknown number, not wanting to think about that either. Finally I paused on the listing for Catherine’s studio at home. She eschewed technology, including cell phones. I used to tell her she was nuts for that, but now I was starting to think she had the right idea.
I dialed the number and her husband answered.
I hung up.