The Day I Killed James (2 page)

TWO

Shark Bait

Randy was planning something. How did I know? Because I knew him. Because after seven months, you can see things coming. And I knew it was going to be soon, because things were way too good between us. That always made him nervous.

And also, he’d been extra sweet lately, which is a bad sign.

I figured probably he’d tell me he was thinking of trying for a college out of town. Case Western in Cleveland or some shit like that. Or he’d say he needed more space, not quite so trite on the wording but that’s what it’d add up to. Or maybe he’d say we should take a vacation from this thing. Or, God forbid, start seeing other people.

He does this now and then. All hell breaks loose. I spend a few weeks crying and asking him to reconsider, and that convinces him that I still care. When things are too quiet between us he forgets that I care.

So he backs off. He isn’t really going to college in Cleveland. He only thought he needed a vacation until he realized how much he needed
me.

Then things are good for a while, like they are now. Which is a really bad sign.

Yes, of course there’s part of me that wants to get off this ride.

Along which lines I made a decision. I was not going to play the game this time. I even talked it over with Frieda. Who said, “Oh, whoa. This should be totally interesting. Tell me every detail. Whoa. Big stuff.”

Maybe she didn’t think I had it in me.

This time I was going to say, Okay, Randy. Fine. I will e-mail you every day in Cleveland. And as far as seeing other people, James will be happy to hear we’ve made that decision. James. You do so know who he is. My cute, older next-door neighbor. You know, the one who’s so crazy about me? I can’t wait to tell him the good news.

How Randy would handle all of this, I honestly didn’t know. But this whole pattern of his, it was beginning to smack of a bluff. And what is a bluff for, if not to be called?

And besides, now Frieda was so hot on the idea I couldn’t very well back out.

So anyway, on the morning in question I was still asleep. I was having this dream about a shark. I was just minding my own business, floating around in the ocean on my surfboard.

Actually, I don’t have a surfboard. Actually, I’ve never surfed in my life, but dreams are like that.

I was sitting up on this thing, straddling it, my legs hanging into the water. Feeling the slight roll of the ocean. All very serene.

Then I looked down and saw it roaring at me at hundreds of miles per hour. About the size of a bus. I could only see a shadow of it, a gray outline, which actually made it worse. Ducking was out of the question. No time. Also no place to go. If he wants you, he’s got you.

Then something propelled me out of sleep. Almost from there to the ceiling.

Well, probably at no time did my body leave the bed, but that was how it felt.

I sat up a second, trying to breathe. Full flight response, my heart pounding. And then it happened again, and I realized it was the phone.

It was only about seven a.m.

It was Randy.

He said, “You know that party at Frieda’s? Don’t get weirded out. But I thought I might go with Rachel Lindstrom. I mean, I know you figured we’d go, but it was just sort of an assumption, right? I mean, we didn’t talk it out or anything. And we always do, so this’ll just be sort of…different. You know?”

Long silence on the line. I just sat there on my surfboard like a sitting-duck fool. Here’s what he said next. This is the shark attack in a nutshell.

“We never really talked about seeing other people. So I figured it wasn’t…like…if we didn’t say we couldn’t, then…”

Well, not a concise nutshell. But that’s the short version.

There was something I was going to do about all this. When it happened. What was that great plan again?

“Um…can I call you right back?”

Another very weird silence, and then I gently set the phone back in its cradle. Why gently, I don’t know. I just remember thinking how bizarre it was, that even in my sleep I had seen that one coming.

I called Frieda right away. Knowing her, she might even have been up. I just hoped I didn’t get one of her parents. They were both heavy drinkers. Maybe they’d be in a bad mood if I woke them. Then again, maybe waking them was an impossibility.

Three rings.

“Oh, pick up your damn phone, Frieda!”

She obeyed immediately.

Frieda’s voice, like a glass of cool water. “Hi, sweetie. How are you?”

“He says he’s coming to your party with Rachel Lindstrom.”

“Whoa. How long has this been going on?”

“He didn’t say it was going on. He didn’t say anything was going on. It was more like…a potential something. Like something…maybe could. Go on. He didn’t say it was. Already.”

It was dawning on me—the more I denied this—that I was in denial about this.

“And you said so be it and thanked him for his honesty. Right?”

“Not exactly.”

“Oh God. What did you say?”

“I said, ‘I’ll call you back.’ And then I called
you.
”

“Call him back and tell him to do whatever he needs to do.”

“But then he will.”

“And if you tell him not to, he will anyway.”

“God, I hate you, Frieda.”

“I love you, too, sweetie. Good luck.”

He picked up on the first ring.

“Okay, Randy. Thanks for your honesty. What do we do now?”

“Um…” I could tell that was not the onslaught he had been prepared to counter. “I guess we try being apart for a while.”

I could hear in his voice that this was hard for him, which made it hard for me. If he had done these things toyingly, like a house cat that’s caught itself something helpless, that would be one thing. But this obviously came from such a depth of sincere pathology that I felt sorry for him, and for a moment I almost forgot to feel sorry for myself. Almost.

“So we’ll both just be seeing someone else.”

“Excuse me?” His voice changed. As if someone had slapped him for a transgression not yet identified. “You met someone, too?”

“Well, you know. James.”

“James?” he said. Loudly. I had struck a nerve. Good. “James? How could you be interested in James? He’s about
twenty.
”

“Twenty-two.”

“He’s older. He’s like…twenty-two? He isn’t even your age. He’s like…”

“Here’s a lesson for you, Randy, since you’ve obviously been out of touch with the dating scene too long. An older guy is not the liability you make it out to be.”

He sulked for a moment in silence.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” he said.

I laughed out loud. Probably just a release of tension. “You forgot who started this.”

He hung up the phone.

Frieda would be proud of me. On the outside, that had looked pretty good. On the inside, life as I had known it was at least seriously wounded. Bleeding
and
on fire. If not DOA.

Okay. There’s a lot to know about Frieda’s place, her parents. Her living situation. It’s a lot to fill in as I go, but here’s trying.

Frieda lives at the end of my street, but the end of my street is nearly a mile down. The houses on my street are just that. Houses. Not ranches or farms or acreage. But when you get to the end of the street, there’s Frieda’s place. And it’s a ranch. We live close to the edge of town.

It used to be a working horse ranch. Frieda’s father used to be a successful horse trainer. Now he’s only successful at drunkenness. Good thing the place is all paid for.

There are no longer any horses on this ranch. But there’s a barn. A very big, empty barn. With a little room upstairs that I guess was designed to house a stable hand. And about twenty stalls that always seem lonely to me. I think stalls get lonely without horses.

This barn is where we intend on having our party. And the theme of the party is ever so simple. No more high school. Ever. We are graduating and getting out and that’s good.

This barn is also where I got drunk on tequila shooters following Randy’s shark call.

We were not in the barn to hide our drinking from her parents. This time of the evening you wouldn’t need to hide a herd of elephants from her parents. They go into their own little country early on. It’s sad.

So we were up on the bed in that little upstairs barn room. Frieda’s dog, Leevon, was lying in between us, on his back, with all four feet sticking up. He’s a cool dog, Leevon. Kind of like a border collie, only not really. All white except for a patch of black on one eye. He’s my bud.

I said, “Why are we not in the house again?”

She said, “Because there’s no phone out here.”

“Oh. Okay.” So far there was no alcohol in play. “Why is that a good thing again?”

“Because I don’t want you to call Randy.”

“I’m not going to call Randy.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. Why did you do that every time before?”

This is when I felt myself suddenly overcome with depression. The whole world felt very hopeless. This is also when I said the following regrettable thing. “I want to get drunk.”

She looked at me like I was from Mars. Normally I knew I was not. On that particular evening it was not outside the realm of possibility.

“You don’t drink.”

“I could make an exception.”

“You hate people who drink. You think drinking is stupid.”

“I think I might have been waiting for just such an occasion.” A pause. “I might not be able to come to your party.”

“You can’t miss the party. It’s going to be the biggest thing ever. Don’t let Randy make you miss that.”

“I don’t think I can handle it.”

“Invite James. That’ll teach him.”

“I don’t want to do that to James. It would be using him.”

“From what little I know of James, he might see that as a good thing.”

“I need more time to think about this.” What I needed was everything back to normal. And/or a stiff drink. “I was serious with what I said about the drunk thing.”

She shrugged. Then she went off in the direction of the house to see what her parents had lying around. In retrospect I can tell you it was tequila. At the time it could have been anything. And everything.

The minute she left, I slipped my cell phone out of my pocket. Called Randy.

“Randy, listen,” I said. “I can’t keep doing this. This is too hard. This just hurts too much every time. If you want to be with me, be with me. Call her right now and tell her it’s over.” But that was a shock to my careful system of denial. I didn’t want it to be over, I wanted it to never have begun. “I mean, tell her it’s not going to start. That there’ll never be anything. If you do that, come over after. Come over tonight so I can look into your eyes and see you really did it. If you don’t come over, then I don’t want to see you or talk to you again.”

“Theresa, I—”

“I mean it, Randy. I can’t keep doing this. I’m sorry.”

“Do I get to say anything?”

“Only after I hang up.”

And I did.

I looked over at Leevon. He was doing that thing he sometimes does, where he puts one paw over his muzzle like he’s trying to cover his eyes. But I have no doubt that this was purely coincidental.

Or not much doubt, anyway.

Journal Entry _________________________

Day I’m writing this: Twenty-two days after “The Day”

Day I’m writing about: Today

I found another clipping. A teenage girl in Utah. Had her driver’s license for three weeks, and she was driving down the highway, changing the radio station. Before she could look up again, she drifted over and killed a cyclist riding on the shoulder.

It’s still not quite what I’m looking for.

I mean, nobody would say, You son of a bitch, how could you do something so callous as to change a radio station?

I’m still looking for somebody who was guilty of something really bad when it happened. Somewhere in the world, just one person as awful as me.

We could form a support group.

They have those “Women Who Love Too Much” groups. We could form a “Women Who Blame Themselves” group. We could help each other blame ourselves.

Dr. Grey is no good for that at all.

Speaking of Dr. Grey, today was my fifth session.

I asked him a question.

I said, “Did love become very dangerous that day? Or did it always have that potential and I just didn’t notice?”

It seems to please him, that I ask questions now. It’s almost like talking. Almost like therapy.

“It always had the potential.”

“Then why do we all use it so lightly?”

“We drive cars lightly, and cars kill people all the time.”

“Not that teenage girl in Utah. She doesn’t drive lightly. I bet she doesn’t drive now at all.”

“Maybe she drives carefully. Maybe she’ll drive carefully for years, and nobody will get hurt. And after a while she may relax a little bit.”

“Not completely, though.”

“No,” he admitted. “Not completely.”

It seemed potentially significant to me that Dr. Grey and I agreed about something.

Journal Entry _________________________

Day I’m writing this: Twenty-three days after “The Day”

Day I’m writing about: “The Day”

Right after I killed James—before I knew I had yet—I spent a lot of the day thinking what I’d say to him when he got home.

Maybe he wouldn’t have been speaking to me. He might have been furious with me, or just depressed with himself in general.

I would have applied for his forgiveness in triplicate. It might have taken a couple of years to come through. But, eventually, we might have been friends again. Or for the first time, I’m not sure. But then the Highway Patrol showed up and I slowly realized that he’d just frozen all that.

Now we’re locked in that moment forever, like breaking a clock at one-fifteen, and no matter how much time goes by it’s always one-fifteen according to that clock. That whole process of understanding has been taken out of my reach.

How is that fair?

THREE

Bringing Your New Puppy Home

A young man in love has no soul. Of his own, I mean. No substance. I’m not saying a young woman is any different, but how about if we take things one at a time?

Suddenly I had all this motivation to fall in love with James. Even a tidy case of lust would have done nicely. Because Randy had someone he felt that way about. It didn’t seem fair.

But I didn’t even remember James’s last name. And more to the point, I had no idea at all who he was. Every time he came near me he left whoever the hell he was behind in order to be whatever the hell I wanted. And all I wanted was to know who the hell he was.

So far this was not working out at all.

Even when he was in the Air Force and wrote me all those letters. I learned everything about the Air Force and nothing about him.

When I got home from drinking tequila shooters with Frieda, I missed my own door and ended up at James’s. It was an accident. I wonder why I just bothered to say it was an accident. I wonder if that means I’m not sure. Maybe it was one of those Freudian things. Or maybe it was one tequila shooter too many, and I’m investing too much significance in a simple drunken mistake.

I was fumbling around with my keys, and he came to the door.

I said, “James. What are you doing in my house?” I feel bad about the fact that I never just say, Hello, James. Ever. It’s always a question, usually about why he’s doing what he’s doing. I would have to do better with that. Sometime. When I was sober.

He said, “Theresa. Wow. We better get you home.”

And I guess we got me home, because that’s where I woke up. But to back up again for a minute…

When we got me to my door, I was trying too hard. I wanted it to be true, what I told Randy about him. I wanted James to be my special exciting somebody new. Otherwise Randy had one of those and I had nothing. So I guess I was pushing at it.

I threw myself at him, literally. But I doubt he knew that’s what it was. Fell into his arms and held him and felt his warmth and said to myself, There. I feel it. It’s right there. Really. I’m not making it up.

I was making it up. It was just like hugging my brother. I mean, if I’d had a brother.

I kissed his cheek and said, “You’re sweet, James. Really. I appreciate you.”

Meanwhile I was thinking, If I open the door and Randy’s not there, I’ll die. If he doesn’t come over tonight, if I know he’s with her, I’ll drop dead on the spot.

James waited while I opened the door.

Randy wasn’t there.

James said several more things to me, and I might have even said a few things back, but I’m not sure. I don’t remember. I was busy dying.

When I woke up the next morning, James was in the driveway, under my car. He had it up on jack stands, and all I could see was a mess of tools and his legs. But it had to be James. Who else would spontaneously perform an automotive repair for me?

I pulled on jeans and a sweater and took my coffee out to the driveway. I could have avoided all this by pulling my car into the garage last night. But it was a rough night, and the idea of getting out and opening the garage door had been too much for me. Actually, just making it home had been a stroke of luck. Good thing Frieda lived close.

James had offered to install an automatic garage door opener. Many times. I had yet to break down on that one.

I kicked his Nike lightly.

He said, “Good morning.” Without bothering to slide out.

I said, “James, I know I ask this a lot. But what are you doing?”

He said, “Putting a new pan gasket on your transmission. You said I could. Remember?”

“I said that?”

“Last night. You really don’t remember?”

“I was having a bad night.”

Amen to that.

He knew. He seemed to remember.

He said, “I had to help you find your front door. I asked again about fixing your car. You said no. I said what harm could it do? You said it pisses Randy off. Then you said, ‘Oh yeah. That’s right. I don’t have to worry about that anymore.’”

I should have worn my sunglasses. Out there in the bright old world. The inside of my head was not an attractive landscape, and shedding light on the subject hardly helped.

James grabbed the bumper and slid out from under my car, wiping his hands on a shop rag. Where did he get a shop rag? Not at my house. He must’ve brought one from home.

He said, “Did you break up with him?”

It’s possible that he was trying not to sound hopeful. But if so it wasn’t working. I didn’t really want to talk about it. But it seemed easier to talk about it than talk my way out of it.

I said something fairly noncommittal.

I said, “Hard to say. Call it the first draft of a breakup. Never know what’ll happen in the revisions.”

I was still not a hundred percent convinced that all of it was real. Any of it, for that matter.

I was ready to stop talking. I was ready to go inside. I was ready to die.

Hadn’t I meant to do that last night? When will I ever get that right?

James said, “Your car will be ready to go in an hour or two.”

I said, “Then it’s hours ahead of me.”

And I went back to bed.

Sometime later I heard his motorcycle fire up and fade away down the block. Which I took to mean my car must be ready. Which made one of us. Damned if there was any place I wanted to be.

Actually, I figured he’d gone to work. Actually, it was Saturday, but at the moment I was not in clear focus about that. Actually, if it had been a working day for James it would have been a school day for me. Clearly I was not in clear focus about a lot of things.

A few hours later he came home. He’d had the gas tank on his motorcycle repainted. It was now stark white, with a red heart top center, with a blue banner across it, on which was painted my name.

Journal Entry _________________________

Day I’m writing this: Twenty-four days after “The Day”

Day I’m writing about: Before “The Day”

Turns out there were other things I’m not good at. Probably had been all along. Could I really have been that blind to myself all those years? Or did circumstances conspire to help me recognize my own well-hidden shortcomings?

I hate it when that happens.

Either way.

I went to school as usual after the shark attack. Only not as usual. Because I wasn’t Randy’s girlfriend anymore. As best I could figure, I wasn’t.

Now, I’d been other guys’ girlfriend. And before being, and in between being, I knew who I was. All by myself and not contingent on my status in their lives. And even while I was other guys’ girlfriend, I was pretty much Theresa and that was okay. If memory serves.

But it was different somehow with Randy. Like I thought there would always be me and Randy, so now I had to start all my thinking over again. Like now I could be wrong about anything. Everything. But I’m getting off track. That wasn’t my big discovery.

I discovered I’m very bad at letting people see me hurting.

Everyone knew about Rachel Lindstrom. Everyone. Paris Hilton could do something stupid and get less press. My brutal and senseless murder might have made fewer waves.

I guess we’d been sort of an “it” couple. Which I’m not entirely sure I knew. Or noticed. Maybe I’d have known it if I’d stopped to think about it, but I never had. I’d had no reason to look at us from the outside. Who does that, anyway?

Reaction was mixed.

A couple of the unpopular girls, who never seemed to notice that I smiled at them every chance I got, smirked.

My friends were very supportive. Every single one of them. One by one, as the day painfully progressed, they ran to my aid and said one thing or another that was exactly what I did not want or need to hear.

Shanni said, “He’s a jerk.” I still didn’t really think he was. Or didn’t want to, anyway.

The Guyfriends, Harry and Bobby, approached me in the cafeteria like a two-man comedy team. Intertwined in their condolences. Said, “We always thought you were too good for him.” They seemed to mean it sincerely. I wanted to ask, Too good how? Why? In what way was I so good? I needed to hear that. But I didn’t ask.

Heather said, “Oh. I heard about Randy and Rachel.” In the voice one would use to say, Oh. I heard about your whole family being killed in that car crash. “You poor thing.” I wanted to tell her she was ruining my careful system of denial regarding R. and R. But saying so would have ruined it just as surely.

Ann pulled me aside in gym class and asked gravely, “Are you okay?” I was tempted to say, I might be, if everyone could just stop asking me if I am. But no point lashing out at those who are trying to help you. However ineffectively.

Johnna said, “You give ’em everything and they cut your heart out. Every time.” She was going through her own breakup, so at least I could console myself in knowing that she was really offering bad condolences to herself. Not me.

Christie just looked over her shoulder and smiled at me sadly in history. That, oddly enough, was the one that cut through the fog. Made me realize how bad I am at hurting in public.

Paulette was out sick that week, so I’ll never know how she would have tormented me if she’d been healthier and more present.

To each one of them, I said almost exactly the same thing: “No worries. None at all. Just wait till you see the twenty-two-year-old buff hunk I’m planning to bring to Frieda’s party. You’ll die.”

Seriously. It was pathetic.

It was also my one-way ticket into something I knew better than to do.

Journal Entry _________________________

Day I’m writing this: Twenty-five days after “The Day”

Day I’m writing about: Before “The Day”

Letting go is not a specialty of mine. In fact, it seems to be something I was born with. Or born without, I should say. Just a run-of-the-mill birth defect.

My mother used to like to tell a story. Before she ran off to Europe to rediscover herself without us. Or whatever the hell she did. It’s hard to judge by my father’s version of events. And, also, she may still like to tell this story. For all I know. Wherever she is. But I wouldn’t hear it anymore, even if she did. Because of that whole Atlantic Ocean thing.

I think she doesn’t think or talk about us at all now. But maybe I’m just being bitter. People say I’m bitter about her. I try not to be. But it’s tricky.

Anyway, she used to tell this story of taking me to see
Alice in Wonderland.
On the way home in the car I was all twisted because they never did say why a raven is like a writing desk. I was still twisted the next day. And the following week.

When I was about thirteen it came up again, more or less out of nowhere. I still wanted to know why a raven is like a writing desk. I mean, how can you open a can of worms like that one and then just walk away?

My mother said, “Let it go, Theresa. Let it go.”

Most advice comes without instructions.

Two days after I broke up with Randy, James took me for a ride on his motorcycle.

On the way up the coast together, I remembered that I didn’t even remember James’s last name. I mean, I must have known it at one time, because I wrote to him while he was in the Air Force. Not often, but I did. But in that moment it was gone from my head.

But we were riding up on his bike, the roar of the engine all around us and the wind whipping past our helmets, and it just didn’t seem like the time to ask.

He stuck his arm straight out on the cliff side. Pointing at something. I realized too late it was a pointing thing. Never saw what he saw.

We got off and took a break in Ragged Point. Got two cups of coffee and leaned on the bike and drank them.

I said, “I know how terrible this is going to sound, and I’m really sorry. Really I am. But I have this total mental block on your last name. I know it. It’s not that I don’t know it. It’s just one of those mental blocks. You know them, right? You know how they are.”

I may have gone on even longer than that.

I got the sense he was just waiting patiently for me to shut up so he could talk.

He was a patient guy, James. Another thing we didn’t have in common.

He said, “Stewart.”

I said, “James Stewart?” Because, really. James Stewart? How could I have forgotten that?

He said, “Please don’t make any of the obvious jokes. I’ve heard them all.”

I said, “Deal.” Then before I tossed my empty cup, I said, “What were you pointing at back there?”

He said, “A whale. Breaching.”

I said, “There was a whale out there?”

He said, “There was.”

I’d been so busy stressing about Randy and his new girlfriend, I’d forgotten to notice there was even an ocean out there. And, at least on this particular occasion, that is how I missed the whale.

Journal Entry _________________________

Day I’m writing this: Twenty-six days after “The Day”

Day I’m writing about: The morning after “The Day”

The morning after I killed him, all the way up the coast I tried to explain that I didn’t know enough about James. To the Highway Patrol guys, I mean.

I said, “He was my neighbor. But I don’t even know if he had family or who they might be.”

I said, “He lived next door to me for four years, but I didn’t pay enough attention. He was kind of older. I was just a little girl. I mean, not a little girl, but…too little for
him.
I mean, most of that time. I was. Too young for him. I’m not even eighteen for three more days. And he was twenty-two.”

I said, “It was a first date sort of a thing.”

But when he left the party and never ended up anywhere, I’d been the one to phone it in. So now I owned him. Somebody had to own a missing person. All of a sudden we belonged to each other.

I said, “How much farther do we have to drive?”

In a weird regression to childhood, I thought, Are we there yet?

The guy said, “It’s near Ragged Point.”

By the time we arrived at the scene, a crane had been brought down from Caltrans in Gorda. They were pulling James’s bike back up from the rocks below, onto the road. More or less in one piece, but not looking much like a motorcycle.