“What?” I couldn’t follow his train of thought.
“Limitations, man. I couldn’t use my pinkie for four months. I didn’t think I was gonna be able to play guitar till it healed but I wound up writing three dozen tunes I’d never have come up with if I hadn’t lost the use of the pinkie.”
I didn’t see the connection he was making yet it still made sense somehow.
“It’s like when you bust a string on the guitar and you see all these different possibilities you never saw before on the fretboard.”
Lou walked into the bedroom, closed the door, then opened it and walked back to the living room. He stood right over me.
“One more thing before I forget . . .”
Here it comes. I knew it. He was going to ask about the money. I was about to apologize and promise him I would somehow repay him, but before I could open my mouth he mussed up my hair and said: “Your bass is in the closet. Make sure you take it with you.” Then he turned and went back down the corridor.
“Thanks, Lou.”
“Thank you, Matthew. Use it in good health.”
The stress on my real name was unmistakable. I heard him giggle behind his bedroom door, the bastard.
I watched the rest of the movie and let myself out.
thirty-five
Veronica and I hadn’t been in touch since we parted at Astor Place. I called her a few times but she was never home and any message I left went unreturned. More disturbing was the fact that she hadn’t returned to school. I went down to her building on several occasions and waited across the street for a few hours but never saw her come or go. I didn’t have the courage to ring the bell which made me question if I really wanted to see her at all. But why else would I have been standing outside her house?
The truth was I missed her terribly. I felt so close to her, closer than I’ve ever felt to anyone, and at the same time I felt so far away. I wanted to see her every day for the rest of my life and I wanted to never see her again as long as I lived.
But mostly I wanted to see her. Be near her. Next to her. That’s all. That would have been enough. I’d have been happy not saying any words at all.
The last day I stood watch, her building seemed different to me. I was suddenly struck by its extreme rectangularity. Looking up toward the roof from my post across the street, it loomed before me, long, black, and suffocating. It was only a five-story structure but the two buildings that flanked it were less than half its size. The two skinny trees in front were equidistant from the doorway, which was dead center, giving the whole picture a cold and formal frame. Something about the symmetry disturbed me. It was as if the building was alive and breathing and staring right at me. It made me feel like it didn’t want me there.
That same day I saw Sanoo come out of a taxi and go into the building carrying a big bag of groceries. I only watched her for thirty seconds or so but the difference between her and her sister was blatant and clear. Veronica’s face was both open and mysterious and her smiles came unexpected, like a warm afternoon sun in February. At twenty-one, Sanoo’s face had already set into a hardness that expected the worst in people, with a readiness to attack at the slightest provocation. She frightened me. There was no approaching her at all.
* * *
After three weeks of radio silence, I asked our history teacher Mr. Gorman if Veronica had switched schools. I liked Mr. Gorman and he liked Veronica. He called her “Countess,” with the accent on the second syllable. I think the nickname pleased her.
It was right after the 3:10 dismissal bell and Mr. Gorman was rushing out the front entrance. My question took him off guard but he didn’t break stride or even look me in the eye. He seemed very uncomfortable with what I asked him.
“I’m sorry, Matthew . . . ummmm . . . I don’t . . . I don’t have anything to tell you.” He patted my shoulder and darted into the street like he couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
A little orange car was double parked at the corner. Mr. Gorman’s wife got out of the driver’s seat and walked around to the passenger side as Mr. Gorman replaced her behind the wheel. He looked at me through the window and after a strange wave, he drove off.
This did not bode well.
* * *
I never figured out how my mother knew before I did. I assumed it was through the school but I am not 100 percent certain. She broke the news to me very gently, with a lot of compassion. I can’t say I went into immediate sorrow or grief or horror or shock.
The first feeling I remember was revulsion: a sickness . . . disgust. There was something obscene, something profane about the act itself. I felt it would have been better left a secret or an ambiguous “natural causes,” even if it was a lie and there was nothing at all natural about a seventeen-year-old girl being dead.
Then I realized that the disgust I felt was toward my mother. Her knowledge of what Veronica chose to do to herself was an invasion of privacy. Both Veronica’s and mine. I didn’t want to share that space with anyone, least of all my mother. It was mine, and mine alone, because she was dead and the dead have no right to privacy. The dead have nothing. They are nothing. They’re gone.
My mother of course did not go into any detail about the actual method my love
