Dwellers (6 page)

Fade to black. White words on black:
Meryl.

Fade in to—

Joanne, BS Economics, petite girl with hair dyed brown: “She and I are both applicants to the Econ Circle, but she didn’t go through with her application.”

The students were interviewed separately, Ivy just cutting from one talking head to another. The student’s name and major appear at the bottom of the screen.

Jeffrey, BA Journalism, lanky guy with rimless glasses:
(rubs his chin)
“I can’t remember if it’s PE or Math.”

Kayla, BS Business Administration, tall girl with a face scrubbed clean, her unlined pale lips fading into her skin: “I definitely remember. I was a grumpy SA. I snapped at her when she
brought me an incomplete form for enrollment and she burst into tears right at the counter.
(listens to Ivy, who is unintelligible behind the camera)
I know!
(laughs, covers her face)
It’s a horrible ‘How did you meet her’ story. I apologized, of course. I felt guilty the entire sem.”

Leslie, BS Business Administration, round face, long wavy hair that keeps blowing into her eyes, blue eye shadow: “We were classmates in several Econ majors. My electives, you know?
Elements of Mathematical Economics, exciting subjects like that.”
(laughs)

Arman, BS Economics, short guy with close-cropped hair: “She was my seatmate at Freshman Orientation. I remember because when the host asked us to dance in place, she looked at me and we
were like, ‘Are you kidding me right now?’”
(Ivy: “Did you dance?”)
“I’d rather not say.”
(They laugh.)

Joanne: “Sweet—”

Jeffrey: “Very smart—”

Kayla: “—just talented and—”

Leslie: “—she drew this funny caricature in like ten seconds—”

Arman: “—and I asked her what the hell are you doing studying Economics?”

Fade to black. White words on black:
Last encounter.

Joanne: “I don’t remember. Isn’t that awful? I think I asked her if she had copies of the 109 readings.”

Jeffrey: “We were supposed to go drinking. With you!
(points to somewhere off-camera; Ivy says, “Yes”)
But she flaked out, and we ended up drinking with the other guys.
That was the last time I spoke to her.”

Kayla: “She asked me if I had a book for her BA class. I gave her an earlier edition. That book was found in the—“
(gestures with her hands)
”—you know. In
the bag. With the—”
(Ivy says, “Yeah.”, and Kayla drops her hands and sighs)
“Yes.”

Leslie: “She was my partner, for a paper. For Money & Banking. I invited her to my house so we could talk about it—also hey, free
merienda
from my mother—but she
never showed up.”
(listens to Ivy)
“I live with my family, yes. In Ortigas. That was in mid-January, then she was reported missing and I just felt terrible because I was so
annoyed with her for missing our meeting.”

Arman: “She was a classmate of mine in Quanti. We talked a bit before class, but I didn’t see her after and that’s the last time I was able to speak to her.”

Leslie: “She was quieter, I suppose. I don’t know. I didn’t notice anything alarming, really.”

Kayla:
(thinks)
“No. I don’t—She seemed
herself.”

Joanne: “A package for her arrived at the department.”

Arman: “It was in a box, like the size of a book.”
(gestures)

Jeffrey: “It was addressed to her. Probably hand-carried. Nobody knows how long it’s been in the Inbox tray.”

Kayla: “Package?”

Leslie: “I didn’t know about a package. She never mentioned.”

Jeffrey: “It’s probably been there a while. Remember that time I had an Incomplete because our dick of a professor didn’t see my paper in his pigeonhole? I wouldn’t be
surprised if that package has been in there since the last curriculum change.”

Joanne: “The Secretary discovered it after the Christmas break and gave it to her.”

Arman: “Joanne, Jeff, some other batchmates. We were all pestering
Ate
Malou for the projector.”

Joanne: “She didn’t open it at the office but I did ask her about it the next day. She seemed flustered. Like she was lying but couldn’t get the facts straight.”
(Ivy
asks something.)
“A Moleskine, gift from an uncle. It
was
the size of a notebook, but I don’t know. She seemed nervous about it.”

Arman: “No, I never asked.”

Jeffrey: “Did she tell you about it?”
(Ivy replies.)
“See, and you practically live with her.”

Arman: “It’s probably nothing.”

Joanne: “You know how, when you desperately want the answer to something, your brain just snags on the stupidest details? I was thinking what was different about her before she went
missing, and that package is what I remembered.”
(Ivy says, “I do remember her *unintelligible* I even told her, “You’re so grumpy nowadays”.)

Leslie: “Do you think it’s really her, though? The one in FA?”
(Ivy replies.)

Kayla: “I can’t imagine what her family’s going through.”
(Ivy says, “Sometimes you wonder if it’s better to know for sure, instead of ending up with what
we got, you know, a body no one can positively identify.”)

Joanne:
(crying and sniffing; wipes her eyes with her fingers)
“Sorry, Ivy.”

12

THE VIDEO ENDS. Louis and I stare at Ivy. She is crying as well, like Joanne, BS Economics.

“Thank you,” Louis says, “for letting us see it.”

She takes a deep breath and smiles. “Thanks for watching.” She shuts down the laptop and returns it to her bag. “It still looks shitty.”

“They mentioned a package?” I say. Louis gives me a sharp look. I frown at him.
What? Someone has to ask.

“I looked through her stuff and didn’t find anything suspicious,” Ivy responds. “I’ve probably already seen what the package held and didn’t know it was what
it was.”

“Does she have any enemies?” I ask, and Ivy laughs through her tears.

“This is some real hardcore CSI questioning,” she says. “But yes, I’ve thought about it. The police asked the same thing. The students who die in school? They die in
fraternity initiations, in accidents. In crimes committed by strangers. Suicides. Meryl was not interested in sororities. And she wouldn’t end up in the FA building because of an accident,
would she? So it’s either a crime. Or a suicide.”

I take a deep breath. “The body was already decomposing when they—”

“So we can only guess at this point,” Ivy says. “And I’ve seen those prints. She was not happy.”

But she was not the girl in the building.

BEFORE LONG, IVY and Louis are clearing the table, talking about lighter things: gardening (“Everything I plant dies,” Ivy says), cooking a chicken breast without
drying it out, and the hidden charges in college tuition.

“Oh, speaking of which,” Ivy says. “Why didn’t you tell me you used to teach at the University?”

I look at her and at Louis, wondering if this oversight will lead to a suspicion of some sort. But Ivy looks at us with a pleasant smile.

“I told Leslie about falling off the bike and she asked for your names and where the house was,” Ivy continues. “She said you used to teach Investments and Fundamental
Accounting. She was actually classmates with Meryl and Arman in Accounting when they were sophomores.” She looks at us, hoping for an anecdote or a look of recognition. I am trying my hardest
to keep a poker face but I must have looked lost because she says, “You probably don’t remember them.”

“The classes were big,” Louis says.

“But I suppose you remember Kayla?”

Our faces show a big fat
No.
“Oh,” Ivy says, looking confused now. “I thought you’d remember her, Louis. She was SA for several sems and she said you emailed her
early this year asking if she knew a student who’s interested in house sitting.”

“Ah, Kayla,” Louis says. “Of course.” It is a lame attempt; I don’t know if Ivy catches on.

“Yes, she said you were going on a long vacation with your brother and you were worried about your plants.” She smiles wider, as though the detail amuses her. “Then later on
you said its okay because Jonah’s already found someone.”

I almost asked,
Who? Who did I hire?

“For the record,” Ivy says, “I can be an excellent house sitter.” She and Louis share a laugh, and Louis says, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

IVY LEAVES THE house with the Pyrex bowl, already washed and dried by Louis. She holds it against her stomach as if it were a book. She says she’ll be using her
brother’s car for the rest of the month, with her poor bike out of commission. Louis tells her it’s probably for the best. “Bye,” she says cheerfully when her cab arrives,
and we raise our hands, wave a desultory wave.

“You hired a house sitter,” Louis tells me, facing the departing Ivy with a rigid smile on his face, even before he can lower his hand.

I WAKE UP in the middle of the night and the knee immobilizer is gone.

I flex both legs and swing them over the side of the bed. I accept this all, I accept this even as my lucid mind tries to tell me this makes no sense. I tell my body to wake up, but my voice is
pathetic. It hums too softly, like an animal beneath the floorboards, like a body in the basement.

The basement. I go down to the basement with a ratty bed sheet. Maroon, the color of old blood. I spread it on the floor of the basement like a picnic blanket.

I open the chest freezer and look at Meryl through the haze of freezer fog. I marvel at the sight of her, but only for a second. I lift her out and place her in the center of the maroon sheet.
Her arms are folded over her chest. She is as light as a bird.

I bundle her up like dirty laundry. Like garbage. I bury her in the backyard. I feel the sweat on my back and arms and the strain in my legs and biceps as I dig a hole for her.

I feel relief.

I feel relief.

I WAKE UP in my own bed, in the dark, and feel the relief leave me, like a blanket sliding off on a cold night. I turn my head and see a naked girl, her arms folded over her
chest, standing in one corner of the room.

I WAKE UP, for real this time. The sunlight looks stronger than usual. The clock says 10:30 AM. Louis has let me oversleep.

He barges into the room. I push myself up against the pillows, blinking against the light.

“You didn’t wake me up,” I say.

He ignores me, and strides to the window to fix the curtain.

“Come on,” he says, turning to me with the wheelchair. He glances at the curtain again, makes sure the windows are covered. “Someone’s coming.”

“Who?”

“Students,” he says.

I wheel myself to the doorway of my bedroom, straining to hear them through the open front door. I hear a put-on disappointed groan. Soft laughter. Louis appears at the door, turns back to wave
goodbye—
“Bye! Tell him to get better!”
someone calls out—and finally enters the house.

“They heard from Ivy that you were in a wheelchair,” Louis says. “They heard about the accident but didn’t know where you were staying. They said they went to your
apartment building, but the guard said you weren’t there. Otherwise, they said, they would have visited right away.”

He is carrying a small plant in a white ceramic pot, the leaves white-edged and triangular. English Ivy. Ivy snaking her way into our lives by telling everyone everything. “They brought
this for you,” Louis says. He hands the plant to me and wheels me back into my room. I place the ivy on top of the study table.

Something he just said shakes me awake. “Apartment building?”

“Yes. I actually asked them about it, pretended I didn’t know.” Louis tells me the name of the building, and the apartment number.

“I’m not familiar with the place,” he says, “but I can look it up. Hopefully it’s reachable by cab.”

“Did they tell you their names?”

“They didn’t have to,” Louis says. “They’re the kids from Ivy’s video. Leslie, Kayla, and Arman. I told them you were sleeping. Maybe you’re good with
students, made an impression on them. They’re genuinely worried about you.”

I lift the pot and examine it. The ivy is in a mix of potting soil, sand, and peat moss, the top layer covered with smooth white pebbles. It looks like an expensive arrangement.

“Do you think they would know about our house sitter?” I say.

“I asked them about that, too.” He lay back on the bed with a grunt. “They don’t know. They looked at me funny. They probably think I hit my head too hard during the
accident.”

“So no one knows who we hired,” I say. No one but us. “Do you think it’s a student?”

Louis sits up. “I asked the guy who brings our groceries and our old cleaning lady. They don’t know, either. They just started working for us when we got back from Cebu, apparently.
Would you like me to put that near the window?”

He reaches for the plant and I hand it to him. Louis stands up and walks to the window. He pushes the curtain aside to let sunlight in, and places the ceramic pot on the low bookshelf. He stands
there for a few more seconds, just looking at the plant.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

Louis rushes back to me, carrying the pot with both hands. “There’s something here.”

It must have glistened with the white pebbles, reflecting the sunlight. I pull it out. A small glass tube, about an inch long, has been pushed into the potting mix. A tiny part of the smooth end
is visible through the loam, peeking through when it changed hands and the movement upset the soil. Inside the tube is a rolled-up piece of paper, which falls on my lap.

I roll it out and feel blood rush to my head when I read the words.

hope you got rid of the body

13

THE MESSAGE IS typewritten. Premeditated, yes, but also desperate. Desperation leads to dangerous measures. Dangerous measures are reckless. What if someone else saw the glass
tube? What if it was never discovered? Whoever sent the message didn’t care; the message simply had to be sent.