Disconnection (9 page)

“Are you there yet? It’s freezing where I am.”

It was Chloe.

S
ela sat in her kitchen with her feet propped on the table, a Diet Dr. Pepper can in one hand as she went through the
Times Picayune
website on her lap top. Her eyes scanned the front page while she sipped her soft drink.

Chloe Applegate’s oversized picture stared back at her.

She and Chloe looked alike, Sela was willing to agree. The two girls had the same brown hair, same dark blue eyes, same heart-shaped face. Chloe, however, looked better kept, and younger. Her ride through life, her face suggested, had been smoother. Up until last night, anyway.

“Fourth Victim,” read the headline. Sela perused the paragraphs. Goose bumps formed on her arm as she read each blaring key word. Chloe Applegate. Asphyxiated. Mississippi River. Fishhook sign.

Sela leaned back in her chair and gulped down her Diet Dr. Pepper as if it were a can of beer.

Weird things had happened to her before. That her parents had died in a preventable house fire when Sela was just a child wasn’t exactly the normal way to start life. And she
did
live in New Orleans, which had been known for centuries as the crème de la crème of primordial freakiness, gothic strangeness, and front-stage center for the occult.

But today had hit the bizarre jackpot. How many people could say they had talked to a dead girl over the phone?

It had to be a joke. Sela was convinced. A sick joke indeed, but a joke all the same. If Chloe, or whoever was pretending to be Chloe, called again, Sela was going to give the bitch a piece of her mind.

As if on cue, the phone rang.

Sela shivered, frozen in the chair. Why did she still have the damn thing? She should have just given the phone to Uncle Harold, or thrown it out the window, or…something. Anything other than what she
had
done, which was stick it back in her purse after she had hung up on Chloe right there in front of her grieving uncle. “Wrong number,” she had told him.

She reached for the phone and pressed the “on” button. She heard Chloe ask, “Sela? Are you there?”

“Nutcase!” Sela banged the phone like a hammer against the table. She screamed, “Fuck off! You sick person! The girl’s dead, do you hear me, dead! And you’re trying to be her, what is your problem? What are you, some kind of mental case? Stop calling!”

“Stop screaming.” Chloe’s voice sounded shaken, confused. “I don’t understand,” she said. “What happened? Why did you never come? I waited.”

Sela stood up and paced back and forth along the kitchen floor. “Oh, I went to your house all right, Chloe. I even met your uncle with the bad tie. But I didn’t see you. No, I couldn’t see you. You want to know why? You want to
fucking
know why? Because you’re dead! Chloe Applegate is dead! So stop calling. I know you’re not her!”

Sela threw the phone into the wall, and then leaned against the kitchen cabinets and slid down, holding her knees, resting her head on her shoulder and closing her eyes.

Think of something
, she told herself.
Think of something else
—
anything but Chloe Applegate
.

Sela inhaled deeply and willed herself to remember. When she was a young girl, she loved to watch her father shave. Sela would sit on the bathroom counter and observe as he slid the razor over of his skin with one delicate stroke after another. He often played Mozart’s
Le nazzo di Figaro
during this routine because he said it relaxed him, made the shave smoother without nicks.

Shaving was just an example of how her father carried himself in life, even in the most mundane of chores. He was a classy guy. Sela often wondered what he would be like today, if he were still alive, if she were to stop by her parents’ house on an early Saturday morning, if she would still catch him at the mirror, a shaving cream brush in his hand, a face turned to look at her, half soaped, half clean, smiling as he welcomed her home.

Sela thought about him now because she wondered what her father would do in this situation. How would he have reacted? Whoever was on the other line was definitely insane. It was obvious to Sela that they actually thought that they were Chloe Applegate, that it was more than just a joke to them. They truly
believed
their lie. Should she report the girl to the police? What would her father have done?

She knew what her mother would say.

You have nothing to fear
.

Minutes passed before the phone rang again. Sela opened her eyes and stared at it from its position beside the wall. Finally she crawled over to the other end of the room like a groveling dog and, against her better judgment, picked up the phone and turned it on. She did not answer. She merely sat and waited.

The voice spoke. “I am Chloe. I can prove to you I’m Chloe. I don’t know what’s happening. It’s so cold. And dark. I think I’m home, my heart tells me I’m home. But this isn’t like any home I ever remember. I can prove to you I’m Chloe.”

Sela asked, “How?”

An hour later Sela found herself once again outside the Applegate home. She knocked on the door.

Chloe’s mother answered. Sela knew it was Chloe’s mother because she was exactly the way Chloe—or the Wannabe Chloe—had described her, a woman short in stature with closely cropped, silvery blonde hair and a double piercing in one ear.

Lines around the eyes suggested that Mrs. Applegate was a woman used to laughing a lot, though she did not laugh now, and did not spare a smile as she studied Sela from head to toe. “You look like my daughter,” she concluded. “You look very much like my daughter.”

What could she say to that? Sela decided to ignore the comment. She took a deep breath and said, “I know it’s late.”

Chloe’s mother answered, “Yes, it is.”

Sela ignored her. “I know it’s late. I heard about Chloe. I’m so sorry. I knew Chloe from Tulane. She was a great person, Mrs. Applegate.” Sela paused, waiting for her words to sink in. She had never been a good liar. She only hoped Chloe’s—or Wannabe Chloe’s—plan worked. “I know she was a great person, Mrs. Applegate, which is why what I’m about to ask is hard.”

Chloe’s mother folded her arms over her chest. “Then don’t ask it.”

Sela gulped. This was not getting any easier. “But I must,” she said. “Chloe and I were study partners at Tulane. We have a big test tomorrow, and she has the book I need. I’m on a scholarship, Mrs. Applegate. I can’t fail, not even once. All I am asking is just may I please go upstairs and get this book? I will only be up there a second.”

“The police took all her notebooks.”

“It’s a textbook I’m after.”

Chloe’s mother was under some heavy medication, Sela could tell. She had spent enough time around Mandy to know when someone had been pill popping. Besides the obvious physical attributes of a mother who had just lost her child—the red eyes, the puffy face, the dry lips, the bruised, lifeless expression—was the stillness with which Mrs. Applegate carried herself, the frozen compartment of the body in which she resided, the lock of knuckles and knees that kept her solidly by the door. The essence of this anguished woman was not visible tonight. She was a mere statue of tissue and blood, an echoing shadow of a woman.

With the most remote of gestures she allowed the door to open just wide enough for Sela to walk through. “Don’t be long,” she said. “And don’t take anything else. The police have a hands-off policy. Her room is second on the left upstairs.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Applegate.”

The scent of sympathy flowers—white gladiolas, carnations, daisies, lemon leaf bonders and red roses—filtered through the air as Sela walked up the long and winding wooden stairs. When she reached Chloe’s room, she paused.

The room was immaculate. Framed pictures of the pretty Chloe were everywhere. Stuffed toys and books were scattered along the bookshelves. Cosmetics and creams adorned her dresser table. A violet bedspread matched the color of the room.

Sela held the cell phone to her ear and said, “I’m in.”

Chloe asked, “Is it painted purple? Like I said?”

Sela answered, “Yes. But that’s nothing. You could have seen her room from the road. By the way, I feel like the most insensitive person in the world, asking some mother of a murdered girl if I could come inside her house to look for a fucking school book.”

“It worked, didn’t it? My mother was all about academic prowess anyway. My closet’s on the left side. Open it.”

Sela walked to the closet and opened the door. “Okay.”

Chloe said, “My high school cheerleading uniform is the last outfit on the right.”

Sela looked to the right of the closet and saw the uniform. “It’s there,” she said. “The cops went through your room pretty good. It’s bare.”

“Really?” She paused. “Well, I know a place they probably didn’t look. I have three shoe boxes under a loose floorboard on the right hand side of the closet, just under the cheerleading uniform. They’re all silver Nine West boxes.”

Sela bent down and reached her fingers into the slits between the wooden panels. After a few seconds, the floor panel gave. Three shoe boxes sat in the hole left by the missing floorboard. Sela confirmed, “Yep, I see them.”

“One of them has all the love letters from every boy who’s every tried to get in my pants. Including stuff from the Internet.”

Sela opened one of the boxes. It was filled with folded pieces of paper, some yellowing, some stark white and smelling like Office Max. Sela unfolded one. It read,
“I love you, you sexy, sexy girl. When are you gonna come over
again? Love, Chris.”
Sela grabbed more of the notes and placed them in her purse. She put the box away.

Chloe said, “You can take them if you want.”

“I did. You’re really good at this, you know?” Sela grabbed another box.

“I’m not good at anything. I’m just me.”

“Whatever you say. And the other two boxes?”

Chloe answered, “One has old report cards.”

Sela opened the box and found the report cards. She put the box back in the crevice and grabbed the last one. “And what’s in this third one?”

“The other one has matches. I collect matchboxes from places I go to or I used to, anyway.”

Sela hesitated.

Sela, Sela, went quite mad. Burned her house, her mom and dad
.

(there is no fear there is no fear there is no fear)

Chloe asked, “Is something wrong?”

Sela said, “I don’t like matches. I don’t like anything that has the ability to burn something else. Even holding this box is giving me the heeby-jeebies.” Sela’s shaking hand placed the box back into its hole. “Matches,” she mumbled. “I’ll take your word for it. I don’t see why you had to hide all this stuff in the floor.”

“My mother is extremely nosy. If she saw the love letters, she would read every one. The report cards are hidden so she won’t see some of my less-than-perfect grades. I’m not saying I wasn’t smart, because that’s not the case. I was smart in school for the most part, you know? But some classes, like especially math classes, I just fudged through—I didn’t really get it.”

“You and me both. But why would you hide the matches?”

“If she saw the matches, she would think I smoked.”

“Do you? I mean, did you?”

“I did, yeah. Do you believe me now?”

Sela took a deep breath, anger and frustration overtaking all other emotions. “Look,” she began, “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe any of this. Chloe Applegate can’t call me. Chloe Applegate is dead. I don’t know whose cell phone this is, but it’s going in the garbage as soon as I get out of here. So just forget about calling. I’m turning off the phone.”

“Wait.”

Sela closed the closet and sat against it. She pressed the “off” button on the phone. She waited a moment. If she was going to lose contact with the pseudo-Chloe, then she might as well go all the way. She opened the battery and ripped it out, and threw it under the bed. Sighing with relief, she stood and walked downstairs.

No one was around. In another room, in another section of the house, Sela could hear piano music and the sound of crying.

Sela stood by the staircase, deciding whether or not she should tell the Applegates that she was going. Of course, it would look suspicious that she did not have a book with her, but she could just say that she hadn’t been able to find it. What was one more lie?

Sela walked toward the door. She recognized the tune playing on the piano. It was
The Dreamy Fish
, by Eric Satie. She had heard her father play it many times on the tape player while he worked odd chores around the house. Sela closed her eyes and listened. To hear the familiar music again felt like coming home.

The Applegates without a child. Me without parents. God, whoever He was, seemed hell bent on keeping people lonely forever
.

Chloe’s cell phone rang.

Staring down at the glowing green screen, Sela felt the blood drain from her body. Weakness spread to her limbs. Her hands shook with disbelief as she lifted the phone out of her purse.

The phone was ringing. The phone was ringing without batteries.

“Hello?”

There was a long pause before Chloe said, “Don’t hang up on me again, bitch. If I really am dead, you’re the only one I can talk to. Do you hear me, Sela? It’s
you
and
me
. Just you and me.”

Sela dropped the phone in her purse and ran out of the Applegate home and into the dark night.

L
ewis Kline felt his daughter’s warm hand on his shoulder. He looked over at her and she smiled at him. She was a teenager now and not prone to affection, but sometimes she pulled through for him.

“It’s going to be all right, Daddy,” Clarissa said. Her mocha-colored eyes held hope.

The tension in his body eased. His hands left their clutch on the steering wheel as he reached over to his daughter’s soft cheek. “You’re getting more and more like your mother,” he said.