Burning September (26 page)

“Sure, yeah.  Anytime.  Caroline’s stuff is upstairs, under her bed.”  I could tell the prospect of entering Caroline’s bedroom thrilled him to pieces, he couldn’t have done a worse job at hiding it.  The giddiness in his eyes stared out at me, undeniable even behind his glasses.  I should have pitied him; I knew it wasn’t his fault—how many other guys had I seen wearing that same look whenever Caroline came around?  But all I felt was disgust at how pathetic it all was, revulsion swelling like a greasy balloon in my stomach. 

He didn’t know her at all.  That was the thing about a pretty face.  Beauty was blinding, so bright it cast no shadows, obliterated all the negatives and red flags.  It made men construct a picture of Caroline that was so far off base it might as well have been on Jupiter.  No guy wants to believe the girl they love is anything but sunshine and picnics with unicorns.  They loved the image they’d projected over the canvas that was Caroline, and nothing she could do would shake the foundation they’d built.  None of them knew her, and none of them would.  How could you convince the horrifically deluded that their hallucinations weren’t real?

“You want anything to drink before we head up there?” I asked, mainly just to have something to say.  “I made some iced tea earlier.”

“Iced tea sounds great.”

“You got it.”  I pointed up the staircase.  “You know where her room is, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll meet you in there, then.”  Maybe I’d take my sweet time getting that tea, too, the better to avoid his initial wave of lovesickness as he stood in the bedroom of a girl he loved but would never have or understand. 

He plodded up the staircase, hand grazing the banister.  I watched him for a moment, his heavy plodding steps, and I couldn’t help but notice the Vans logo stamped onto the backs of his shoes. 

My gaze bounced up and down, following his footfalls, until he disappeared around the corner.

As if on autopilot, I turned slowly, heading toward the kitchen. 

Lots of people wore Vans.  Jeff may have had a pair, but so did every other twenty-something in California.  You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting ten people wearing them.  Southern California was the land of Vans, the breeding ground of active wear shops, you couldn’t be on the boardwalk five minutes without finding a Roxy bathing suit, a Hurley shirt, skateboarders wearing Vans, O’Neil, Osiris. 

Caroline still lived in my head, though, and it was her voice I heard that said
never
trust, always verify.
 

So I grabbed a few sheets of leftover carbon copy paper and hid them beneath the welcome mat before I headed upstairs with Jeff’s requested iced tea. 

***

My poker face left a lot to be desired, but I hoped Jeff wouldn’t notice, being incredibly awkward himself.  Dithering in the doorway, he tried his hand at clumsy small talk, skin slowly staining redder with each passing moment, until I finally forced a yawn, simply to be done with it all.  I wanted his footprints, not a stilted, never-ending conversation about weather and art magazines. 

“Sorry, I’m just really tired,” I said, covering my mouth with the back of my wrist.  “But I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He waved and turned on the heel of those suspicious Vans, planting both feet directly on the welcome mat, leaving what I knew would be perfect footprints to compare to the ones I’d already seen on the carbon copy paper over three months ago. 

Once he’d disappeared around the corner and I heard the cough of a car engine, I whipped the paper out from under the mat and brought it into the kitchen, where I’d left the other ones. 

And like Kyle, I didn’t have to be a professional footprint examiner to see that they were identical.  Same chevron tread, same shoe size, same odd way of standing, with the right toe turned slightly in.

I couldn’t tell if I wanted to laugh or scream, the weird way my throat constricted.  What in the world could his motivation possibly be?  Always hanging around, calling and texting, inviting me to soirees I couldn’t possibly care less about, asking for pieces to contribute to his magazine.  How could he do all that and then threaten me with cat kidnapping and interrupting
The Bachelor
? 

For the first time ever, I used the same scary words that had set my heart aflutter not very long ago, but this time they were directed to Caroline’s email: 
We need to talk.
  

***

I held up the carbon copy papers wordlessly as Kyle opened his apartment door at half past ten that evening.  He stood there just as silent for a few beats, eyes darting from me to the papers, then back again.

He gave me a blank look.  “I have no idea what to say to this.  Is this a performance art?”

I shook one of the papers.  “This is from months back, the day you came over, when I wound up calling the police.”  I waved the other.  “And this one is from tonight.  When I noticed Jeff had on a pair of Vans.  I put another sheet beneath the welcome mat so I’d get the footprints as he left.  Look at them!  They’re the same.”

He opened his mouth, but I cut him off with a particularly violent shake of the papers.

“And I don’t want to hear any I told you so’s, so let’s not even go there.”

He grabbed my shoulder, steering me inside.  “I just thought he was the media snitch, not a stalker.”

I peeled off my hoodie and hung it on the rack near the door.  “I must have hit the lottery, because it seems like he’s both.”

“Dumb asshole.  Didn’t seem like he had the balls to pull something like this off.”  Kyle took the papers from my hands, studying them for himself.  I’d looked at the damn footprints so long they were engraved on my retinas, so I studied him instead, his plaid pajama pants and fraying T-shirt I assumed had been white in another lifetime. 

“Well it’s not hard evidence or anything, so calling the police would be fruitless.  Does he know you know?” 

“Not yet.”

Kyle bit into his bottom lip.  “You want me to talk to him?”

“I’ll talk to him myself.  I’m not afraid of him.”

He gave me an almost-frown, his forehead creasing as he handed the sheets back.  “You think that’s wise, talking to him alone?”

I almost laughed.  As if I was afraid of Jeff.  He couldn’t even formulate sentences properly half the time.  “He’s a pathetic little weasel, I’m not worried about it.  I’ll do it at school.  Tons of people around.”  I followed him to the couch, sighing as I fell into a heap beside him.  “God.  I could kill him, I really could.”

“Don’t.  I don’t want to have to defend another Smirnov on murder charges.” 

“I can’t understand any of this.”  I slapped the papers on the coffee table.  “What his motivation is.  It makes
zero
sense.”

“Well, you said he’s always calling, sending messages, inviting you out,” Kyle said,
wearing an isn’t it blindingly obvious?
expression.  “Making it pretty plain that he wants to be a part of your inner circle.  Maybe he thought you’d come running to him with your ‘stalker’ problem and he could be the gallant white knight, swooping in to comfort you.  If he really is in love with Caroline, it would only endear him to her, him taking care of her little sister in her absence.”

I rolled my eyes so hard it felt like they would get lost in the sockets. 

“Men are stupid.  Especially when it comes to impressing a woman,” he said with a shrug.  “They do all kinds of things for attention.”  He crossed his thick arms over his chest, sending me a sideways look.  “It went predictably bad with Caroline, in case you wondered.  I sent you an email.  You never answered.”

“Sorry, I was too busy seeing red to check my inbox.  I swear, I heard that
Kill Bill
murder music in my head.”

“Well, I got a resounding
hell no
.  I don’t know where her mind is half the time.”

“It’s never anywhere but her head.  She’s never where her body is.  Always somewhere else.  I used to think it’s what made her a great artist, but now I’m not so sure.  It makes her impossible to deal with sometimes.  I love her, but…she can be a nightmare.”  And that was the tamest way to put it.  More like hell on wheels in a lace vintage dress.  “I’ll talk to her tomorrow. I’m going to tell her what trying to make friends with Jeff has done.  That should be a nice smack in the face.  She was always going on about how
he’s so lovely, isn’t he nice, why don’t you try to get to know him better
?  I can’t believe she was so wrong.”  I snorted, shaking my head. It had to happen sometime, didn’t it? “I can’t even remember a time she’s been wrong.  Exempting her current predicament.”

“I’d say don’t sugarcoat when you talk to her, but I get the impression that won’t be on the agenda.”

“Tough love, baby.”  Nicholas slunk into the room, slight shoulders undulating.  “Looks like I’ll be able to take him off your hands now.  You must be thrilled.”

He stretched out his legs, propped one foot on the coffee table.  I’d never seen his bare feet.  They were gnarlier than a ballerina’s.  “Actually, I’ve been thinking of getting one of my own.  Which may not be manly, but he’s good company.  It’s nice not to come home to an empty apartment.”

I knew what he meant.  Coming home to a condo sans Caroline had been an alien hell back in September, like her absence had removed my ability to function.  I’d never known a time without her.  Now I wondered if I’d be ready for the whirlwind that was my sister if and when she finally made it back. 

***

“My long-lost, famous sister arrives!  To what do I owe this very great pleasure?” Caroline swung herself onto the couch beside me in Breakthrough’s lobby, her smile brighter than the light panels above us.  “I think I might have a pretty good idea.  Does it rhyme with…” her eyes rolled up in thought.  “
Flea jargon
?”

“I think you’d be wrong,” I said flatly. 

Her eyebrows crashed into each other before one shot halfway up her forehead.  “Are you on your rag or something?  What’s your problem?”

“It’s about Jeff.”

“What happened?”  She shifted on the cushion to face me head-on.  “Did he try to hit on you?  Touch you, or whatever?”

“Of course not.”  I had to laugh, but nothing was funny.  “He doesn’t have the balls.”  I shook my head, suppressing an eye roll.  “Caroline, he’s the one who’s been stalking me.”

She stared at me for a few seconds and uttered a loud snort.  “Sure he is.  And I’m the queen of England.  Bring me my scones, Jeeves.”

“He is.  I may not have evidence that would hold up in court, but I know it’s him.”  Digging through the black hole of my purse, I unearthed the carbon copy papers.  I spread them out on the coffee table, pointing to the first set.  “These are the first ones I found, when I had to call the police that night because someone was screwing with the main breaker switch.”

She leaned forward, silky hair falling into a curtain, obscuring all but the tip of her nose as she examined the sheets.  “Okay…?”

I slapped the newest sheet.  “This is from last night, when he came over.  I saw his Vans, thought I’d err on the side of caution, and slipped a sheet beneath the welcome mat so I’d get his prints when he left.  They’re identical, Caroline, not just similar.  It’s him.  It’s
been
him this whole goddamned time.”

She sat back into the couch, arms snaring around her midsection.  I waited in vain for her to say something, anything, but she didn’t, just sat there silently, still but for one tapping finger.

“Well?  You have nothing to say, no input, not even a grunt?  This guy’s a fucking nut bag, Caroline.  He’s
your
friend, and he’s been
stalking
me.  Do you even care at
all
?”

“Lose the melodrama, okay?  If it
is
him—”

“It is!”

She cut me a poisonous look.  “If it
is
him, then rest easy, babe, because he’s tame to the last degree.  He’s all bark and no bite.  He’s probably doing it for attention.  It’s a pathetic ploy to get closer to you, that’s all.  You should be happy it’s just him, not some serial killer.” 

“As if that makes it all right.  Poor thing just wants attention, so what, get over it, that’s what you’re saying?  Give him some head pats and send him on his merry way?”

She tipped her head back, glaring at the ceiling.  “You’re deaf if that’s what you think I’m saying.”

“You were wrong about him.  You’ve been wrong about him this whole time.  You were wrong then, just like you’re wrong now, not accepting this stupid plea bargain.  Kyle told me you denied it.  You’re out of your mind.”

“So that’s what this is all about?”  She rolled her head to the side of the cushion, sending me a sideways deadpan.  “This is some attempt to guilt or strong-arm me into taking a deal I have no intentions of accepting?”  She nodded at the papers blanketing the coffee table.  “Then how do I know this isn’t all some elaborate ruse?  You could have doctored these.  They could all be from the first night you found the prints, you never showed me those papers.  It’s not like they’re time-stamped.”