Don't I Know You? (20 page)
Authors: Karen Shepard
The teacher that Lily had recognized came over carrying a pair of slip-ons, and asked the woman, “Are these yours?”
Lily could see that the woman was the kind of woman who attracted behavior of this kind. But she took a breath and tried not to be unkind. What did she know about men and women and the behavior between them? The teacher's patience felt like a rebuke. Maybe this woman was doing her best. Who was Lily to judge?
S
teven had thought he knew which way the park was, but he'd walked for three blocks and then turned around and walked back the way he'd come. He sat on a stoop near a busy corner. Busy was safer, his mom said. If you looked like a chump, the world would treat you like a chump. He tried not to look like a chump.
A guy said, “Hey.”
The guy looked up and down the block. He was pushing a kid's bike. He was wearing jeans and a dressy shirt. The sleeves were rolled up. He was tan. His hands looked like the kind of hands that could make things.
“Where's your mom?” the guy asked.
“In the park,” Steven said. He looked at the bike. “That yours?” he asked.
The guy laughed. The sun was behind the buildings.
“I found it,” the guy said. “I figured someone could use it. Like it?”
Steven got hot. He shook his head. “No, thank you.” He didn't know how to ride a bike. “Nice sneakers,” he said. They were green and white Adidas with gold lettering.
The guy looked down and rocked back on his heels. “Days aren't days without them,” he said.
“Mine are Converse,” Steven said.
The guy gave a low whistle. “Nice,” he said.
Steven thought maybe he was making fun of him.
“Are you okay on your own?” the guy asked.
“Not really,” Steven said.
The guy nodded as if agreeing with something wise. “I'm Matthew,” he said.
“Okay,” Steven said.
“So how about we find your mother?” he said.
His mother had told him about strangers, but he was going to find his mom anyway. He stood up and they started walking, the bike between them.
Everyone was still there. The sun was low over the river. It was
hard for him to make out who was who in the group. Someone spotted them, pointed, and shouted. His mother broke free and came running toward them. It was like TV.
She dropped to her knees and hugged him, saying things. He was embarrassed, but glad to be there, and he put his arms around her, his cheek knocking into her shoulder.
He introduced her to the guy. She was grateful and nice. Matthew looked at her. Everyone stayed out a little longer. It was a celebration. It got dark, and still they stayed. Matthew promised to teach him how to ride a bike, and Steven knew he really would.
His mother said, “Let's raise a glass.” She didn't have one, but said it anyway. She raised a hand.
He looked around. They were all there: people he knew and people he didn't. They'd been worried, and now they weren't. He'd been scared, and now he wasn't. It could happen that easily. Everything wasn't already the way it was going to be. Things could happen. Things could change. It was a good thing to know.
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Detective Larry Adams, Trudy Ames, Ellen Biben, Jason Clark, Cassandra Cleghorn, Sean Griffin, Sandra Leong, Robert McGuire, Dr. Paul Rosenthal, Marsha Recknagel, Geoff Sanborn, Eric Simonoff, Harold Takooshian, Sarah Towers, Claire Wachtel, and Gary Zebrun.
And to my husband, Jim Shepard, and our children, Aidan, Emmett, and Lucy.
KAREN SHEPARD
is the author of the novels
An Empire of Women
and
The Bad Boy's Wife
. Her work has appeared in
Atlantic Monthly, Self, Bomb
, and other publications. She teaches writing and literature at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where she lives with her husband, writer Jim Shepard, and their three children.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
RAISE
FOR
Don't I Know You?
“[T]he most suspenseful and moving novel I've read in many yearsâ¦. This is a book that haunts and tantalizes and possesses us long after the last page is turned.”
âTim O'Brien, author of
The Things They Carried
“Riveting and deeply felt and true.”
âDave Eggers, author of
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
“I generally feel skeptical when someone says they've read a book in one sitting. Don't you ever get thirsty, answer the phone, or want to check on the basketball scores? But
Don't I Know You
? truly is one of those books you tear through at a tremendous clip, driven, I believe, by the anxiety-ridden delusion that if you can get to the end in time you can save Karen Shepard's delicately drawn characters from their fates. Shepard's gritty, sympathetic evocation of the pre-boom Upper West Side and a handful of its haunted inhabitants is as logical and troubling as a dream, and even when its central mystery is more or less solved, the larger mysteries it evokes remain chillingly intact.”
âScott Spencer, National Book Award finalist for
A Ship Made of Paper
“In spare, elliptical, dispassionate prose, Karen Shepard drops the stone of murder into a pond and watches as the widening ripples affect even those far removed from the victim.
Don't I Know You
? is a chilly, disquieting mystery in which the answer is always âno.'”
âRon Hansen, author of
Mariette in Ecstasy
and the National Book Award finalist
Atticus
“[An] intriguing mystery in four partsâ¦the reader is led to sort through disparate strands to discover the connections and to wonder what happened and whyâ¦making for a nicely paced story.”
â
Library Journal
“[In this] masterful third bookâ¦Shepard's narrative unravels Gina's murder obliquely, through her characters' layered relationships, leading to a conclusion that's satisfying, haunting, and well deserved.”
â
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
“Karen Shepard's
Don't I Know You?
unravels the mystery of a single mother's death obliquely, through the poignant gaze of the victim's twelve-year-old son and the layered relationships of unnervingly familiar characters.”
â
Vogue
Don't I Know You?
is both a literary novel and a mystery, but its mystery is less who committed the grisly crime on which it centers than the mysteries of human psychologyâ¦. [It has] precise, perfectly pitched prose and deep psychological insightsâ¦. And although each of the characters in this complex book comes fully alive, the reader is left with more questions than answers, a powerful reminder of the ways in which our knowledge is always limited.”
â
Houston Chronicle
“
Don't I Know You?
is a brilliantly understated and hauntingly evocative whodunit powered by characterization, an addictively intimate narrative, and an ultra-complex plot that will have readers guessing until the very last pagesâ¦. Easily one of the most intriguing mystery/thrillers of the year.”
âBarnes & Noble.com
“Shepard carries out this fascinating premise with exquisite skill, offering a trio of distinctive voices, doubting perspectives, and the small acts that build to momentous consequence.”
â
New Orleans Times-Picayune
“[This] cunningly crafted jigsaw puzzle is colored by vibrant prose and capped by a you'll-never-guess conclusion that's not the least bit gimmicky. You might want to read it all over again.”
â
Entertainment Weekly
“Shepard has found a voice here that is strong and confident and full of wise observation.”
â
O, The Oprah Magazine
“The author of this extraordinary whodunit does know you: She knows how a heart has misgivings. She also knows New York in the 1970s in every gritty detail. And she knows how to tell a good story. We read it in one standing.”
â
More
magazine
“Karen Shepard's gripping whodunitâ¦has a unique format: The story unfolds through the distinct perspectives of three characters, reminding you that reality is in the eye of the beholder.”
â
Marie Claire
“The suspense only grows as the rippling effects of the murder are closely observed. Meanwhile, Shepard is almost offhanded in giving up the actual killer, thereby ensuring that the disclosure has stunning impact.
Don't I Know You?
is both subtle and disturbing in just the right proportions.”
â
New York Daily News
“
Don't I Know You?
will no doubt be marketed as a hybrid form, a literary thriller or literary mystery or literary suspense novel, but in fact it adheres much more strenuously to straight-up literary realism. This is the way we live now: never knowing for sure the contents of another's heart. Shepard's haunting novel proposes the alluring mystery of a particular murder and its specific repercussions, but in doing so she also summons the larger mystery of human character, the multiple and complex circuitry that knits together the community in which unsolved violence occurs. The book is an insightful psychological thriller, but it's also thrilling psychological insight.”
âAntonya Nelson, author of
Talking in Bed
and
Female Trouble: Stories
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DON'T I KNOW YOU
?. Copyright © 2006 by Karen Shepard. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition September 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-196985-0
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