Innocent Monsters (21 page)

24 January 2001

THE NEXT morning Jessica found herself standing uncomfortably by the kitchen window waiting for him.

Lisa had a large excited grin on her face running from ear to ear. She had begun grinning the day before, when Jessica had told her William would be coming to get her and they could all have a coffee together before they set off. She’d kept grinning, sitting on the bed while Jessica packed a bag for the weekend. Anybody entering the room would have thought Lisa was the one going and Jessica the idiot left behind wondering what her stupid husband was doing back home.

Jessica found her friend’s growing enthusiasm hard to bear, stressful even. She just wanted to get going.

When the doorbell rang, Lisa was standing in the kitchen with her. Jessica went to open the door for William, a cigarette already smoking between his fingers, completely dressed in black, a weird plastic smile on his face, something in his eyes betraying how little he wanted to be doing this.

“Here he is,” she said, her voice overly cheerful.

Jessica shut the door and took a deep breath, tried to relax, told herself to stop being so tense, there was no need. But she stood there in silence while Lisa waved her hand with that grin firmly pressed on her lips. She looked like an idiot, and Jessica was beginning to feel like one herself. A total idiot.

“Sorry I’m late, traffic is terrible out there today.” William kissed Jessica on the lips. “What were you thinking, coming to live over here?”

He winked at her and turned to look at her friend, a long blond poodle perm framed a round pale face and a pair of large olive green eyes. She was staring at him and he stared back, smiled nervously.

“Well, Lisa, this is William.”

“Nice to meet you William.” Lisa moved closer to him, shook his hand, inspected him a second longer. “Y’know, this is gonna sound bizarre but... Have we met before? Your face looks very familiar.”

“Sorry, I really don’t think so.” But she kept staring at him anyway. He turned back to Jessica, “All packed up?”

“I can’t believe I finally get to meet you. Should we have a coffee before you guys head off?”

“Coffee, uh?” He was still looking at Jessica. “Why not.”

Jessica started off for the kitchen and he followed her closely, like an anxious puppy. Then the three of them were crowded awkwardly in the middle of the room, Lisa so close to him William could smell her, he could see the powder set in the lines on her face, a spot on her chin badly covered with foundation. Her lipstick matched the colour of her nails. Pink. Pink Panther Pink. And she smelled of lavender, a scent that brought him back in time in a place where he didn’t want to be, somewhere in one of his childhood houses next to his mother. Stephanie Blaise always wore lavender, everyday. The more stresses she felt, the more lavender oil she would rub on. The more desperate she felt, all the more lavender she would rub on, as if lavender was the cure for madness, the cure for depression, until it was enough to suffocate, until it was impossible to smell anything else.

“Jessica is good at keeping her life a secret from her friends, y’know? God knows how much longer I would have had to wait if I didn’t come over here.”

He tried to get hold of Jessica’s hand for support, but she moved away from him to make the coffee and she smiled at him, winked. William could only smell lavender.

Once they all had a mug in their hand they sat around the table and Lisa started asking stupid questions, one after the other, giggling and still grinning, relentlessly. It felt like an embarrassing and pointless third degree.

“So where are you guys going?”

“Down the Bay. We’ve got a room booked down Stinson Beach.”

“Wow. Sounds great.” She yelped, although she had never been to Stinson Beach and it meant absolutely nothing to her. “Isn’t it a bit cold to be down at the beach?”

William shrugged. “Nature is beautiful whatever the time of year, isn’t it? We’ll just wear extra layers.”

Jessica nodded, smiling.

“So what do you do?”

“I’m a graphic artist. I draw.”

“Gosh,
reeeally?
Like cartoons on TV, that kind?”

“No, not that. I draw... More like comics.”

“Exciting! Have you got an office?”

“No, I work from home. I try to avoid people.”

Lisa giggled. William smelled lavender.

“So, where do you publish them? Your comics?”

“San Francisco Post, mostly.”

“Mhm...” She turned to look at Jessica. “Do we get that in Croker Amazon?” Turned back to William. “Have you even been there?”

“Where? Crocker Amazon? No, never.”

“Strange. I’m so sure I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

Lisa kept yapping endlessly about Crocker Amazon, about the way it used to be when Jessica was still there and Kaitlyn was still alive —
Did you tell him about her? Does he know?
— On and on until her coffee got cold and she was the only one talking at the table.

Then Jessica stood up, left her mug in the sink and announced it was time to get going. But it was too late by then. All William could smell was the overpowering lavender scent. All he could taste was lavender when he should have tested coffee and he started worrying whether his smile was convincing enough, wondering if he looked human enough. Would Jessica still love him if he stood up and left without her, if he told her he couldn’t go anywhere? Was there any place he could run where he didn’t have to smell lavender?

“Wiliam, are you ok? You don’t look well.”

He shook his head, stood up briskly. “I’m sorry. Can you excuse me for a minute?”

Lisa watched him disappear along the hallway into the toilet. “He really doesn’t look too hot, Jessy. Is he ok?”

“I don’t know, Lisa. Did you not hear me ask?”

“I bet he doesn’t like me. Bet he thinks I’m an idiot.” True. A boring idiot to be exact. “He doesn’t talk much, does he?”

“He’s not feeling very well. That’s all.”

“He really looks familiar, y’know? I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

Jessica sighed impatiently slammed a fist on the worktop. “It’s not possible, Lisa! You heard him, he’s never been to Crocker Amazon and you’ve never been anywhere so just give it a rest, will you!”

Lisa looked down at the mug between her hands, half full of cold coffee, the hurt puppy expression back on her face and Jessica began to feel sorry on top of annoyed. A sorry idiot. It was definitely time to leave.

But when William returned in the kitchen he didn’t say,
you want to get your bag then?
but, “Jessy, can I talk to you for a second?”

They moved out into the corridor leaving Lisa in the kitchen. He looked suddenly drained, pale and exhausted and she felt even more sorry, for him, for Lisa, for herself, for the whole goddamn stupid situation.

“Everything ok?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

“Don’t worry. We can go now. You don’t have to answer any more questions.”

“No, I mean today, this. I can’t do it.”

“This? What?”

“I need to go. I need to be alone.”

“
What?
What are you talking about?”

She knew exactly what he was saying, she’d known the moment he had left the table, but a part of her hoped that if she asked enough times he might just see how crazy it all was, he might just change his mind.

“I can’t. I don’t feel well. I need to go home.” He said flatly, his voice craggy, the way it sounds in the morning, after hours of silence.

He tried to think of other words to tell her, of another explanation but he couldn’t think of any, he wasn’t sure there was anything he could say to make her understand without showing her what a freak he really was. He couldn’t he tell her how uneasy her friend’s stare made him feel, how people in general made him uncomfortable; he couldn’t tell her how the smell of lavender made his stomach churn, how he couldn’t breathe, how he needed to hide away, not without revealing sordid details of his past. So he didn’t speak.

Jessica stared at him, disappointed. Behind her, standing in the doorway, Lisa was still staring at William and he waved at her, tried to wave her stare away.

“Nice meeting you,” he heard himself saying.

He forced himself to smile both at her and Jessica but his lips didn’t seem to move. She looked at him expectantly.

“I need to be alone, Jessica. I’ll give you a call later sometimes. Please forgive me.”

As he leaned over to kiss her she saw tears in his eyes. She tried to stop him, to catch his hand, but he was already out of reach, closing the door behind himself.

“That’s it? He’s gone? What about the trip?”

Lisa’s voice came from over her shoulder and just like that long gone day outside the cemetery, this simple woman seemed a convenient target, the ideal recipient for Jessica’s anger. She was there, her voice was irritating and it had to be her fault; after all if she had never turned up none of this would have happened.

“Yes, he’s gone. Do you see anyone else here apart from you and me?” Jessica barked in exasperation. “Are you happy now?”

“Happy? What are...”

“Shut up, will you? Just shut up. Two seconds, is that too much to ask? My boyfriend just walked out of the door. I’ve got a packed bag and nowhere to go. Can you not just shut the fuck up and let me think about this without the commentary?”

She wanted Lisa to say something back just so she could shout at her some more, blame her for everything, but true to form she didn’t. She just turned on her heels and left her standing there, disappeared into the bedroom and slammed the door. Jessica knew she needed to wait before going in, pull herself together, she needed to wait for the anger to subside.

No doubt things would have turned out differently if she wasn’t here, but Lisa could not be blamed for William’s sadness, madness or whatever it was that had just driven him away. Not entirely.

Inside the bedroom, Lisa was crouching over the bed with her back to the door, stuffing things back in the bag she had arrived carrying.

“Lisa, what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Stop. Just stop for a minute.”

Lisa turned around, a resolution in her eyes Jessica couldn’t remember seeing in a long time. “Stop? What for? So you can treat me like shit a bit more? I get plenty of that back home, remember?”

She was right. She had become Bobby. “Please don’t say that.”

“Why not? Don’t like the sound of it, uh? Who’s the asshole now, Jessy? You were right, I should have called you before I came over, then you would have had the chance to tell me that you didn’t want me to come and spoil the
atmosphere
over here.”

Jessica took a step out of the room, pondering the idea of just letting her go, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t bear the thought of being like Bobby in anybody’s eyes. This wasn’t who she was, who she should have been. It wasn’t what Kaitlyn would have done.

“I can only tell you that I’m sorry. It’s not going to change anything, I know, but I’m sorry. It’s just that... It’s a bad time. I’d have to sit down and bore you with how I’ve been feeling during these past weeks to make you understand... I feel empty, everything is slipping out of focus.” She laughed at herself when what she really should have done was cry. “There is no atmosphere to spoil. There’s just me and him and nothing else. Absolutely nothing else.”

It was his emptiness. It was an extension of the void Kaitlyn had left which had been filled by his sadness, his desperation and her own. She had absorbed it, accepted it without really understanding it.

Lisa threw the t-shirt she was holding into the bag and zipped it up. “Empty? How can you talk about emptiness? Look at me Jessica, I don’t have a job, I still live in a shit hole and my husband is a...”

“Scumbag.”

“Yeah. And my husband is a scumbag. Doesn’t that make you feel better?”

Jessica offered half a smile. “It should do, but funny enough, it doesn’t. Not right now anyway... I shouldn’t have shouted at you like that. You always seem to be there when I need to let off steam.”

“It’s not my fault he left.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Don’t go, not feeling like this.”

She offered her opened arms and Lisa walked right in.

THE DAY should have ended like that, Lisa with just enough understanding of how bad her friend felt to stop feeling unwanted and Jessica sorry enough to stop feeling bitter about her being around. After all they were supposed to be friends, in Kaitlyn’s memory if for no other reason.

But the day wasn’t over.

Jessica had just finished rinsing the last mug in the kitchen when she heard Lisa give out a shriek loud enough to make the whole building think someone had stabbed her in the back. Then she heard her rushing towards her, her feet slapping the floor.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Are you nuts?”

“
Jeeesus
Jessy, I remembered.”

“Remembered what?” They were face to face by the sink when someone knocked on the door and Lisa jumped out of her skin, let out another shriek. Surely the police was on its way by now. “Will you stop doing that? Calm down, will you?”

“I can’t. You don’t understand, I...”

“Let me just get the door. Wait a sec.”

Jessica went to the front door half hoping it would be William —
I’ve changed my mind, let’s go
— but when she opened it she couldn’t believe what she saw. It was impossible, the day just couldn’t have gotten any worse. Bobby Stanson was standing a few feet away from her, a disgusting smirk on his lips, a four-day-old beard on his face. Fucking Bobby.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m here to take my wife. Got a problem with that?”

For God’s sake. Jessica wasn’t sure if she wanted to punch him, laugh in his face or laugh at both of them and their ridiculous relationship.

She threw both hands in the air. “Look, I don’t want to have anything to do with this, I’ve had enough. She’s in here. She’s all yours.” She just wanted it to turn dark outside, she wanted the day to end, she wanted to go to bed, fall asleep, wake up the next day and start again. “I’m sure you two can sort this out on your own. I’ll be in my room if anybody needs me.”

“Jessy, wait! I need to speak to you.” Lisa walked over to the door then stood there, oscillating from foot to foot, as if torn between her friend and her husband, looking at Bobby and looking at Jessica and back at Bobby.

“Let’s go home Liz, I can explain...”

Then suddenly, just as Jessica thought she was about to go to him, Lisa slammed the door on her incredulous husband’s face.

“What are you doing? He’s come to get you. I thought that’s what you wanted. Don’t you even want to speak to him?”

“It’s William, Jessy. I remembered, I remembered where it was that I saw him.”

Jessica felt her legs tingle. It was a sensation she knew very well, something she had carried on from the years spent with her father; her legs would shake whenever her father came back home late and drunk, it was as if this part of her knew there was going to be trouble, always felt something was going to happen.

Behind the door Bobby started calling out his wife’s name, demanding for someone to open the fucking door.

“What do you mean? I thought we settled this. You couldn’t have met him before.”

Lisa shook her head, started talking really fast, as if she was afraid she would forget again if she didn’t spit the words out fast enough.

“No. Not in Crocker Amazon. He came to see Kaitlyn when you were doing that show, remember? I was with her at that Hotel, what was it called? Can’t remember. Remember I was there with her?”

Jessica did remember. The Sarah Tyler show. It was the Windsor Hotel, Kaitlyn had rented a room for them there to celebrate, it would be a treat for all three of them. They had gone out for lunch all together the day after the interview, then shopping, then out for dinner, then for a drink. The last night the three of them had spent together.

“Yes, I remember, but what does any of this have to do with William?”

“It was him in the hall, he was the guy that Kaitlyn went downstairs to see, I wasn’t spying on her or anything, I just...” Lisa caught her breath. “It was him, I’m sure. Oh Jessy, you have to believe me.”

“Wait a minute.” Jessica grabbed Lisa’s arm while outside Bobby started punching at the door, and she tried to block out the noise he was making, tried to tell her legs to stop shaking, stop fucking shaking. “What the hell are you talking about? Tell me again. Just start again, please.”

And she did start again, slowly.