Love Is Red (21 page)

It takes ten days for them to return the items they took from the apartment. They were looking for evidence: prints, DNA. I guess they didn't find anything because they're finally giving me back Andrea's stuff in a Ziploc bag.

I am staying at my friend Leigh's place. I'm passed around carefully, like a ticking bomb. I could have remained at David's but I thought that I had trespassed enough. Leigh is away for two weeks with her husband, so this works out. I don't have to make conversation, act like a human being.

I sit on their bed and let the contents of the Ziploc bag fall out. Here on the duvet covers are Andrea's bracelet, Andrea's ring, Andrea's phone. Her bracelet is gold, a charm bracelet, although I guess if we're talking about being charmed it's defunct. Her ring is thin and silver. She always wore it on the middle finger of her left hand. I never asked her about it. Now I'll never know. And finally, the thing that defines all of us, the thing we can't live without, her phone. She had a work phone but this was her personal phone. It has a small crack on the screen but she wouldn't get a new one.

“It still works!” she had protested. “It has character. It will be around forever.”

At any rate it outlasted her. I turn it over and see the stickers on the back. It's been decorated by Lucas. There's a small yellow smiley face and a purple monster, also smiling. No wonder she didn't want to throw it away. It does have character and—since they charged it, presumably to search her messages and address book—a full battery life.

There are many messages that she'll never hear. I don't want to listen to those. There's a chance I'll hear my own voice, which always sounds higher than I think it's going to be. I don't want to hear myself talking to a dead woman, don't want to hear myself asking my murdered friend if she'll pick up some household cleaner, or wondering if I should cook dinner for all of us tonight.

But I do want to hear her voice again. I want to hear her laugh.

Andrea had the best laugh I've ever heard. One of those laughs that make the tellers believe that the tales they are telling are hilarious, even if they aren't. I crave her laugh as other people crave drugs or drink.

I see the voice memos app. She was always using it—a habit from law school, perhaps. I'll settle for this; at least this way I'll get to hear her voice, if not her laugh.

There are only five voice memos. The first two are brief, legal stuff, something about some documents, check the McKlean deposition, call Alicia at Vonex Corporation.

The third voice memo turns out to be a shopping list. “Milk,” she says, “cottage cheese, dishwashing liquid, apples, toilet paper.” There's a pause, then, “Sex toys, whips, chains,” but I can hear the smile in her voice. The fourth is another legal note, and then there's the fifth. This one is longer than the others; it's one minute and four seconds rather than the usual thirty seconds. I press play, and Andrea says:

“Katherine?”

I scream and drop the phone on the bed.

The voice is muffled on the recording, but it continues:

“Okay, missy, you wanted me to prove—”

I reach out and press pause. I stare at the phone, at the crack on the front screen. I feel the stickers beneath my fingers. Eternity passes. I take a deep breath in. I let it out. The silence is deafening. Her phone lies on the duvet, waiting, waiting.

C'mon, you chickenshit,
I think to myself,
c'mon.
I summon up all my will. I hit play.

“Katherine? Okay, missy, you wanted me to prove that you talk in your sleep. Here it is.”

Her voice is low; she sounds amused.

“Date: Saturday the ninth. Time: 12:15 a.m. Location: outside your bedroom: Why? Because a certain someone said that she never talked in her sleep and then a certain other person had to go to the bathroom and realized it was an opportune moment.” She snorts, pauses, then, “Okay, back to the business at hand. Listen closely.”

In the darkness of Leigh's bedroom, I close my eyes and listen.

There's a voice, a female voice. It's very faint. I can barely hear it. It must be coming from behind my closed door and now through this machine back to me. I hold the phone, press it tightly against my ear. Then I hear it.

“Thanks, I'm just waiting for my date.”

Pause.

“Well, okay then . . . not too strong.”

Another pause, I think it's over, and then, shockingly, giggles. It's a light flirtatious sound.

“ . . . I bet you say that to all the girls.”

A long silence, then it's Andrea again. She is trying to keep her voice down, but it's hard to whisper triumphantly. “You owe me a drink. Case closed!”

There's another pause and I think she's turned it off when she says, more to herself than to me, “Jesus, I really need to get laid.”

And finally, the sound I've been craving: a brief, rueful, honest laugh.

Click.

The recording is over.

I lie in the dark. It's a warm night but I am cold. I press play and listen again to the whole thing. Then I try to fast-forward it, but my thumb slips and I go too far.

“ . . . because other people have to go to the bathroom . . .”

I rewind and there it is:

“ . . . Date: Saturday the ninth. Time: 12:15 a.m. Location . . .”

I pause it.
Saturday the ninth around midnight. Saturday the ninth . . .
I snap upright. I throw back the covers.

I run but barely make it to the toilet.

Finally I press my cheek against the cool floor.
Saturday the ninth. Time: 12:15 a.m.
My head throbs and throbs; bile burns my throat. I want to lie here forever. I don't want to get up.
Saturday the ninth at 12:15 a.m.
Maybe I will never get up. How can I ever go home?

On Saturday the ninth at 12:15 a.m., I wasn't in my bedroom.
I was at Liz's bachelorette party. I think about that poor male stripper she hired and all of us, drunk and raucous. The guy barely made it out of there in one piece. Liz laughed so hard I thought she was going to wet herself.

Whatever voice Andrea heard in my bedroom, whatever voice she recorded, whatever voice that was speaking . . .

It wasn't mine.

The Sotriakis Funeral Home is a pale gray brick square with a low, flat roof. Apparently the circle of life stops here. Maybe circles are too confusing. With flat lines and angles you know there's an ending; you know what you're getting.

You get out of the taxi and walk through the small but serviceable parking lot. The funeral home offers the only private parking lot in the area and Greg Sotriakis is proud of this. He's also proud that it's been in the family for three generations. Both of these important facts are on his website, which his nephew made. Still, it's not enough, not bringing in traffic, and his business is, as most people would say, “dying.” (Greg Sotriakis wouldn't say this, though, because he hates puns, the death ones especially.) It's impossible to fight against these corporations. That's why he was so excited to get the call. A victim from the Sickle Man—of course God knows it's terrible, especially because everyone thought the whole business was behind them, but still. Andrea Bowers, the Sickle Man's newest victim, and a mother too.

Greg is planning on a crowd, has told Janet, his long-suffering wife, to put in extra seats in the blue room. He could understand not having an open casket but had to swallow his disappointment.
Well, yes. Although Maria had done her best after the forensic department. Now he's preparing for the deceased's friends, the curious, the onlookers, and a few reporters. Just needs some decent shots of the place, a reporter standing outside with his home in the background, maybe even an interview.

It's a Tragic Day
, they'll say,
here at the Sotriakis Funeral Home . . .
with him looking respectful, somber, shaking his head.
A terrible loss.
And then there will be a flawless service so that people can say it was a beautiful tribute to her memory, and think about their own aging parents, think how, yes, this is a day that counts. So he's standing in the doorway, gazing at the half-filled parking lot and wondering why there aren't more people, more trucks, more reporters.

Katherine has asked for a private funeral, “out of respect for the family's wishes.” By “family” she means Lucas; she can only imagine how reporters and flashing lights and cameras might further affect him. The hungry stares of onlookers, the gawking, the comments, the needless attention. And so she begged for privacy, and people listened.

They listened because this time it was a single mother. They obeyed because they are beaten. They had thought it was over; they had thought you were dead. They ran rejoicing through the rain, dancing and singing, and woke up hungover to the headlines.

A public defender. A single mother. A four-year-old son.

Andrea Bowers was thirty-five; she had a child. She didn't fit the profile. The mayor will have to resign over this one; the police cannot be trusted. There is talk of rioting, of marches. It is advisable to leave town. No one can be trusted. Everyone is alone. Everyone is vulnerable. The rain is over. And the heat is rising again. The humidity is off the charts.

You have broken the pattern of your hunt and now there is nothing to hold on to, no rules, no guarantees. All the voyeuristic exhilaration, the sick excitement that might have come in the beginning deep in the darkest heart, has turned, because this is not a movie. There will be no happy ending. The city is sick of this sickness. It wants to cut the cancer out. It is weary and defeated and done. It will listen to Katherine's plea for mercy because it longs for mercy too.

Today the living wear white ribbons—white, a symbol of peace, a symbol of hope, and the people need hope.

If only they knew your true purpose, that these women are not victims but martyrs. That each one sacrificed saves millions. They will never know.

You walk up to where Greg Sotriakis is standing. “Terrible loss” you murmur, echoing the words of his fantasy interview.

Greg must swallow hard, swallow his disappointment, and agree, “Yes, yes, it is,” because you're a good-looking man in a dark Armani suit and maybe you'll still have grandparents or at least one, if not two living parents, and you look like you have money and could afford to spring for the Copper Deluxe.

If he only knew that you've sent him some business already.

You enter the family-run funeral home. You spend so little time in places of the dead. You are a creature of the living, and of life. Still, you intend to enjoy it, now that you're here.

The funeral home's carpeting is tan and its walls are beige. Low ceilings, low chairs, air freshener. It even smells neutral. In the main waiting room, friends and family sit on couches with slippery cushions. Some check their phones; some stare into
space. They stare at vague prints of barns and fields. The tepid watercolors are the opposite of suffering. There is no pain here, no emotion of any kind.

On a nondescript couch is parked a nondescript woman, solid, squat, and knitting. A little boy in a too-big suit is planted next to her, legs swaying, kicking.

The living do not often think about the dead. The memories of their loved ones come at unexpected moments: driving, washing vegetables, seeing an advertisement.
Oh yes! Oh yes.
Now they think about themselves, their own mortality, their own loved ones, their parents.

Jesus, Mom's getting old. I'm getting old. When did I get so old?

I'd rather go fast, maybe a brain aneurysm, than lie about, suffering, shitting myself. The smell of hospitals, nurses being patient, I don't think I could take it.

I want to go home and fuck and fuck and fuck. I want to feel alive.

I wonder how much a funeral director makes?

Anxiety, sadness, arousal. Their colors blaze up, and you inhale. Delicious.

“Kat! Kat!” The little boy in the too-big suit is on his feet and calling. The squashed woman next to him drops a stitch in her knitting. She puts out a restraining hand, opens her mouth to admonish, but she is too late.

He runs toward your darling, your beloved, who has entered the room. She's dropped to her knees, her arms spread wide, and he rushes into them and for the first time in days and days and days he knows that he is safe.

She has lost even more weight in this last week and wears a thin black dress, low-heeled shoes. Her eyes though red-rimmed
were dry, but now once again the tears are coming. She squeezes her lids tight but the tears come anyway, running into his hair.

“Oh, Lucas, oh, honey, oh, honey, oh, hon,” she murmurs, crumbling words of comfort into his curls.

Comfort is a warm brown, the color of a nest, it feels like a faded leather couch, a cool hand on your feverish forehead, it melts like mashed potatoes, it simmers like chicken soup, it sounds like the rain when you are under a tent of blankets and safe, safe, safe indoors.

They are caught and safe and sound in this moment, sheltered in each other's arms. The squat woman has risen to come and stand nearby. Now she coughs dryly, indicating that this embrace has gone on long enough. Katherine peers up, blinking, as if coming out of a dream. She fumbles for a smile; the woman returns it briefly.

Since Lucas is not ready to leave the safety of her arms, Katherine hoists him up. His weight snugly tucked into her hip, as if she'd been doing this for years.

She's giving her credentials. “I'm Katherine Emerson, Andrea's roommate and friend.”

“Cheryl Kaskow. I'm from social services, and Lucas's assigned temporary guardian throughout this stage of the process. Nice to meet you,” Mrs. Kaskow adds, although from her expression, it clearly isn't.

“The process.” Katherine tries not to wince.

You know that they cannot find Andrea's will. It's unbelievable yet true. Hours online and on the phone and it all comes down to “during our recent move it must have been misplaced.” The state
has had to step in to appoint a guardian, a person willing to take on the responsibility of a bewildered four-year-old.

Katherine, still carrying Lucas, follows Mrs. Kaskow to the slippery noncommittal chairs, the unwelcoming shiny sateen. She sits, with him in her lap. He turns and snuggles up as best he can, presses his face into her neck, her chest. Mrs. Kaskow's lips tighten but she says nothing.

As Kat talks he can feel the rumble of her voice coming through her chest. It makes her real and safe.

You whisper his name without using your voice.

He twists around, looks up, sees you standing there. Near the other man, by the doorway. This alerts Katherine and Mrs. Kaskow, who look in your direction. They have seen you both, tall, good-looking men, nice suits, standing respectful and quiet. They wait for both of you to approach. Katherine's jaw clenches; a tiny vein throbs. She smells of apprehension, which clanks of empty ovens and roars like a plane preparing for takeoff. Only you notice.

“Lucas, do you remember my friends?”

Lucas, staring, barely nods.

Mrs. Kaskow has taken note of the word “friends,” and is forming her own opinions about the flighty nature of young women these days.

You both step forward, a half step really. You murmur something and partially retreat. You do not speak to the other man, nor he to you. There's nothing left to say.

Lucas watches you across the room. Or rather, he is looking at the space just behind you. Looking at the specters who surround you like clouds of moths rising up after long-stored clothes have
been shaken out. Insubstantial and fluttering, unable to do any harm.

They are shadows. They will remain here as long as you remain here because you now possess their souls. Once you take a sacred color, she is bound to you. It's a necessary evil, part of the job, just as a tailor might be covered with the threads and shreds of the fabric he snips and tears and cuts. Not many realize that mortality is a gift.

They hate you but they have no substance, no weight; they are less irritating than mosquitoes because they cannot draw blood; they have no way to seek revenge. You have grown so used to their presence that you often forget them, just as in time their mortal selves will be forgotten completely.

But not by Lucas, who watches, who listens. You idly wonder if he can see his mother too. You wonder if she's here today.

Her death was really his fault. You knew it the moment you met him in the park. His cryptic little messages and notes and strange behavior were causing concern, and a good mother watches, a good mother listens, a good mother knows. She was smart. She was putting two and two together. What if she had said something to your beloved? Your beloved couldn't be disturbed just when she's on the cusp, when she is so close to turning red. It's a pity that she must lose her friend, but it had to happen.
Sometimes to make an omelet . . .
Isn't that how the saying goes?

You knew that once the mother was gone, the son would go too. You told her as much the day you harvested her rage. And he will be kept away from your darling heart, because material things in this material world have a way of working out in your favor. Documents disappear, names are forgotten, pens run dry, fires spark, electricity dies, lights blow fans still, wires wear thin,
lines go dead, calls are dropped, glass breaks, ice thaws, hell freezes over.

Odd how this always happens when you're around; then again you find it's the little things that matter. Like the little boy who stares up at you now. He's been watching you as you watched him. Watching you and the other man too. Watching as you both stare at Katherine with hunger, but the other man's hunger is mortal and yours is not. One of these things is not like the other.

You give Lucas a very special smile, one that only he can see.
I can see you too.

Katherine notices his thumb in his mouth. “Honey, where's your rabbit's foot?” He gives no reply.

She turns and looks at the older woman. “He has a rabbit's foot key chain. Bright green?” She's trying to keep her voice calm, trying not to accuse, just making an observation.

“Oh?” Mrs. Kaskow gives a halfhearted shrug, a cold smile. She hasn't seen it.

Mrs. Kaskow is well intentioned, but she lacks imagination. That is a dangerous combination. She has seen kids come and she has seen kids go and they will never be hers and that's fine because she never wanted her own. It's best not to get too attached because then you get hurt and she knows how not to get hurt because she's had a lot of practice over the years.

Repression is a steel gray, the color of filing cabinets, it smells like an unaired apartment, it smells like souring milk, it creaks like a door opening slowly in the night, it sounds like a key being turned in a lock, it tastes like blood from a bitten lip.

There, down by her uncle's pool a million years ago, Mrs. Kaskow lost the taste for imagination or empathy or joy. So she is
content to be of use, and be practical and purposeful, and the decor here suits her, right down to the tan carpeted ground underneath her sensible-heeled feet. She goes by the book. She plays by the rules.

Katherine begins to say something and stops. Not wishing to make trouble, she turns the conversation back to a safer place.

And now Greg Sotriakis, having assessed with some disgust that “yes, this is it, this is the showing,” asks all the visitors if they would like to follow him to the adjoining room for the service. Everyone gets up quickly, happy to be moving, to be doing something before sitting again. No one wants to be alone with their thoughts for too long.

Mrs. Kaskow and Lucas and Katherine get up too. He's off Katherine's lap but still determinedly holding her hand. The warmth of her hand gives him a small modicum of strength, and as they leave he looks back, and since there's no one else in the room you show your real self for just a moment, just in case he decides to try and tell Katherine anything else.

Just so he knows that you're around.

It's the self his mother saw on the day you came to visit her. And then you fold it away, put the mask on once again.