Pretty Is (27 page)

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” I wonder about the need for a recap of the plot.

“Don’t you remember—well, maybe not, you’re probably a couple years younger than I am. But there was an actual case in the midnineties that was exactly like this. It could be a coincidence, but the details are awfully similar.” I’m still trying to figure out how to handle this, but he plunges ahead, not noticing that he’s thrown me for a bit of a loop. “And the reason I happen to remember is not just that it was on the news so much, although it was, but because one of the girls involved was from Connecticut, which is where I grew up, and then the next year she actually showed up at the school I went to. It was a private boarding school,” he adds, sort of apologetically. “And she became a celebrity, in a weird kind of way, because everyone knew she was the abducted girl, although she was very discreet about it. She had a reputation for being brilliant and a little strange.”

I am trying very hard to picture this without letting my face reveal that this story affects me at all. But in my mind I see a New Englandy private school that I think I must have gotten from some movie: posh red brick, grassy quads, preppy kids. And there’s Lois, a little older than she would have been when I knew her, and Jake, a couple of years older than that. “Did you know this girl at all?” I ask, trying to sound casually curious while gathering enough details to fill in my picture.

“Not well,” he says. “But it was a small school; I knew her a little. I actually had a slight crush on her for a while. Practically everyone did, though. She was dramatic looking, and she had a kind of mysterious quality, and she kept very much to herself. Yeah, we were all fascinated by her, in a way.” I can picture this Lois, but I feel pretty sure that I know one thing he doesn’t: if people knew who she was, it was because she wanted them to. There are all kinds of ways she could have kept her past secret if she had chosen—which I know better than anyone. Leaking her identity was part of her game, part of the role she had designed for reasons of her own, Lois-reasons. I understand her motivations the way I would a character I was playing—intuitively and beyond doubt.

Of all the gin joints
. Coincidence is a funny thing. I decide that I’m okay with this one. But it does make this Jake guy seem like yet another puzzle piece, somehow—not completely random. Is that a problem? Could it be a problem? Would Lois remember him? What did she think of him? I don’t consider telling him my story; that’s just a little too much weirdness for a one-night stand, if that’s what this is. I’m
tempted
to tell him—dying to, really. But it would take so long, and it might change everything. I don’t want to risk it.
Sorry, Lois,
I think, and push her away.

In the morning, after he has left and I’ve had a cup of black coffee and a bowl of fruit in the restaurant downstairs, smiling crazily because I feel really happy for the first time in a long time, and actually sort of half wishing I could take Jake on the road with me, I suddenly feel strong enough to open the letter. How could Gail possibly hurt me now? Fat, stupid old witch. I get the letter from the glove compartment and sit on the little balcony outside my room, the sun beating happily down on my recklessly SPF-75-free skin, pretty Arcata spread out below me.

And that’s when I learn that my father has died. I have killed him, says Gail. But I would bet that’s her work.

Lois

Brad calls and invites me to Nicoletti’s. Classes have ended and exams are about to begin, and he wants to talk about summer, wants to talk me into going on some kind of trip with him—for my own good, he says.

“I can’t do it tonight,” I tell him with genuine regret. I could use a real night out, though I don’t want to encourage him to think we could be traveling companions. “I have plans.” I hit the backspace key, erasing the last few words I typed. I hope Brad can’t hear the keyboard. Gary is approaching a crossroad.

“You have
plans
? Since when do you have plans? Do you have a
date
?”

I note the tiny pause that precedes my reply, and I realize that he’ll notice it too and probably misconstrue it. Oh well. “No—just plans. Something I have to do. Look, it’s not that interesting, okay? Do I really have to tell you every little thing I do? I don’t need a big brother, for God’s sake.”

“No, of course not,” he says, his voice suddenly stuffy. “Forgive me for worrying about you when you act like a complete lunatic. Which is what you’ve been doing lately, if you haven’t noticed.”

I type a restless row of asterisks. “Listen, can we do it tomorrow night instead?” I use my most conciliatory voice. I don’t want Brad breathing down my neck, but I don’t want him to abandon me, either.

“Sorry, I have plans,” he says, and hangs up.

Not like Brad. This exchange leaves me shaken. I am, to be honest, often a little shaken these days. I’ve been lying low since the department party, slipping in and out of my office like the ghost I sometimes think I am. Meanwhile, Sean has stepped up his textual assault. Every day he sends newspaper clippings or file photographs or neatly typed passages from the library books I brought with me to the cabin (
The Once and Future King
,
Dracula, Wuthering Heights
). Like the reporters at the time, he has mined these books for resonant material, lines that might be reframed or twisted to apply to the abduction, the so-called rescue. But he has been more thorough, and his selections are more disturbing. They appear in plain white envelopes in my mailbox at school, the mail slot at my house. I don’t see him in my neighborhood these days, but I know he’s there, lurking. Tonight is our final meeting. I will tell him one last story, and I will demand a story in return.
Tell me about him. Tell me what you know. What did your mother tell you, your grandmother?

That, I truly hope, will be the end of it. I have been funneling the energy from this perverse dalliance into Gary, and Gary is almost ready to make it on his own. It’s exhausting, this game I have been playing. And it’s hard thinking so much about Zed, being confronted so regularly with the past. This is not a relationship I want to preserve; I want to take from it what I need and then package it up neatly and move on. If that means one of us has to leave, fine; I’m guessing it will be Sean, who doesn’t seem firmly anchored here. His presence at this school, in this town, seems wispy to me, like a sinister fog that has no choice but to lift when the sun is high. It may be absurd to assume that Sean will disappear when I no longer need him, but that’s exactly what I expect.

Tonight, at any rate, is the payoff. Tonight I find out what he can tell me: how he can help to flesh out a portrait that’s imperfect, damaged, but haunting nevertheless; that refuses to dim or age or cease to matter. I think of the eerie Victorian practice of photographing the dead, often propped up and posed with the living. Maybe I am after something like that: the illusion of resurrection, an image solid enough to bear the weight of my regret, my longing. Only Sean, of all people, can help me.

On the far side of town there’s a footbridge that crosses the railroad tracks. It’s charming enough in the daytime in spite of the decrepit factories along the river, but at night it’s a place I’d ordinarily avoid. It was his idea, and he insisted. I finally gave in when he asked if I was afraid of him, to which I could only say no. I am the one in control here; I have nothing to fear. He said he had something to show me, something I would want to see.

I am curious in spite of myself. I park my car under a streetlight on the most populous side of the bridge and make my way across. There are a few white Christmas lights strung from the suspension wires—a bright idea on someone’s part—but most of them have burned out, and the others cast a pale bluish glow that’s almost worse than nothing.

He’s late, and I am both impatient and irrationally angry when he finally appears at the opposite end of the bridge, slouching along as he always does, apparently in no hurry. There is no one around. The swollen river below us drowns out what little traffic there is on the streets at either end of the bridge.

“I was about to leave,” I say as he approaches. It’s both untrue and unwise; he’s always less pleasant to deal with if he is on the defensive. “It’s your turn to tell me a thing or two,” I announce, before he can speak. “I’ve given you more material than you could possibly use. Now I want to ask some questions.”

“Material?” he repeats. “Spare me,
Professor
. How stupid do you really think I am? Do you think I don’t know you made that shit up? The runaways in the basement and all that? You really thought I bought that? I mean, I can use it, sure. It’s pretty good stuff—more of a real thriller than what you actually wrote. But I believe, like, two words of what you told me, just so you know.”

I’m surprised by his tone. It’s been a while since he sounded so contemptuous, so hostile. There have been moments, I admit, when I thought we’d developed something almost like a friendship—and I liked that, in a way. For Zed’s sake. I’m also surprised by his disbelief. He hid it well. For the first time I feel a hint of fear stir, like a cold wind on the back of my neck. Fear of what? It’s not a question I can afford to explore just now. I make my voice indifferent, casual, trying to put us back on our usual footing: “Fine. Believe what you like. I gave you what you asked for.” Why is my voice unsteady and pitched too high? “And now it’s your turn.”

“Go ahead, ask me whatever you want,” he says, and I don’t like the touch of amusement I detect in his voice. It seems entirely inappropriate to the occasion, as I understand it. The possibility that he might understand the occasion differently sets up an unpleasant kind of dissonance. It sets my nerves more on edge than they already were, if that’s possible.

“Tell me about him,” I say. “Tell me … what you know. What you heard. You were too little to remember, but … there would have been stories. Your grandmother’s memories…” My voice sounds more tentative than I would like. For the first time it occurs to me that he might know nothing at all. He was only two, after all. The family might never have spoken of his father, might have wanted to protect him from that knowledge. He might know his father only as an absence.

He laughs unpleasantly. “Yeah, I figured we’d get around to that eventually. I knew that was your real game. I bet you did a little background check, right? Found out I’d gone to school in Utica? And then everything just fell into place?” He thrusts his hands in his pockets, pulls his coat tighter. “You started looking at me different around the time you came up with that theory. I could tell what you were thinking. I knew what articles you’d been reading. I could see how it would make sense to someone as crazy as you.”

He thinks
I’m
the crazy one? No, it’s obviously an act. I expected him to deny it at first. Doubt is his only weapon. All the same, I place a hand on the cool steel railing, steadying myself.

At that he takes a sudden step toward me. “Did you tell anyone you were coming here? I’m just curious.”

It’s colder out than I realized. And we are far from anyone who might hear—say, if I called out. This is not going as I planned. “Of course,” I say lightly. “Professor Drake knows I’m here.”

“Lying again.” His face is in shadow; I can’t read it. “Anyway, whatever. You want me to tell you what I remember? Little personal details about the nutjob who kidnapped you when you were a kid? That’s kind of fucked-up, Professor Lonsdale. More fucked-up than you know. Hey, can I show you something first? Do you mind? I said I had something to show you, remember?”

What could it be? I think quickly, trying to catalog possibilities. A photograph, another article, some artifact. It could be the very thing that will answer all my questions. It could be something unspeakable. A stray beam of light from somewhere behind me flickers across his pale, not-quite-handsome face, his unsmiling eyes. I realize that I am afraid to see what he has brought.

He reaches into the deep pocket of his loose, flapping coat. “Here,” he says. “It’s just like the one you told me about.”

It’s a knife. My knife, the one I took the picture of. It lies casually enough across his palm, but his thumb loops loosely around the handle. He’s not gripping it now, but he could be with the slightest adjustment. “Yes,” I agree. I’m surprised to hear my voice, apparently calm, utterly rational. “That’s it, all right.”

His fingers curl around it and he speaks slowly. “I’m not who you think I am, Professor Lonsdale. I’ve just been going along with your crazy fantasy. I had my reasons. But I’m not that kid. I kind of wish I was, though. That would be pretty fucking interesting.” At some point he has taken another step toward me. A wall goes up in my mind. This can’t be true; I won’t consider it. I have put the pieces together so very carefully. Everything fits. I have to be right.

But if I’m not …
A small voice whispers a warning. If I’m not, I should be running.

I don’t run.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be who you wanted me to be,” he says almost gently. “But I can still help you. See, I’m not as dumb as you think. I know a way to help you. And you’ve taught me so much that I really
want
to help you, believe it or not.”

There is something dark and unfamiliar in his face. I do not know him, I don’t know myself, I don’t know anything. “I don’t think I’m the one who needs help here,” I say. I try to infuse my voice with my usual scorn, but I don’t hear it. I hear someone else’s voice, almost childlike, defiant in defeat. I try to summon my strength, send urgent messages to my strangely paralyzed limbs.
Flee
, I think.
Run.
But he’s too close. I feel as trapped as if I were chained to the bridge.

“Oh yes you are,” he says. “Because this isn’t
Pamela
, with its stupid happy ending. You definitely need help.” He looms ever closer. His eyes are cold and ugly, dark and deep—so unlike Zed, who was beautiful and kind, among other things. “See, you’re not the only one here with a theory,” he continues, standing so close he could easily grab me. He’s half a foot taller than I am, and then some. His shadow swallows me. “And my theory is that your kidnapper guy—not, I should remind you, my dear dad, sorry to say—was severely fucked-up. He had you guys, everything went according to plan, and then he lost his nerve. He couldn’t, like, act. Something was wrong with him. The whole thing was a total failure. But once he had you, what could he do? He had to keep you, right? There was no going back. Hey”—he interrupts himself suddenly—“are you listening? Do you get what I’m saying? You know I’m right, don’t you?”