I rolled over and popped to my feet, stumbling toward the door and heading for the kitchen, Kelly following a few strides behind as I crashed against the baker’s rack and wobbled toward the sink, the blood rush rabbit-punching between my eyes, my body shaky and dizzy—except for my erection, still on alert.
“Are you okay?” Kelly asked, unnerved but not panicked since after a blackout I did weird crap like this all the time.
I drank cold water straight from the faucet, the heavy stream sluicing my lips.
“It’s nothing,” I said, pulling away from the sink. “Just, you know…dry mouth from being asleep.”
Kelly folded her arms and stood by the stove, watching as I dotted my face with a paper towel. The kitchen was a wreck from last night’s meal prep; I’d made stuffed shells with an arugula and gorgonzola salad, her favorite, and we hadn’t bothered to clean up before heading to bed. I started filling the dishwasher as Kelly watched, her feet crossed as she tugged the hem of the white T-shirt she wore over yoga pants. I handled each knife and fork as if it were fragile, and if I could have crawled into the dishwasher to escape, I would have gladly surrendered to a wash and rinse, even the heated dry. I had never been unfaithful in any relationship, or perhaps it was the opposite; my long-standing whatever-the-hell-it-was with Amy had made fidelity to any other woman moot, crushed by the weight of my first love and its resilient habit of popping up at the worst of times.
“I’m not having an affair,” I said. “She lives in New Jersey.”
“Who said anything about an affair? Is she an old girlfriend or something?”
“Something; in high school—sort of. It was nothing.”
A lie—it was everything.
“She said you were flying out to visit her tonight.”
“I haven’t decided yet,” I said, though part of me was already checking luggage, buckling my seatbelt as the flight attendants stalked the aisles. Amy was my caffeine, my double-shot of espresso with a Red Bull chaser. Whenever I thought of her, everything accelerated.
“Well, of course you’ll go,” Kelly said. “She needs your help—you have to go.” She walked over and pecked my lips, side-stepping my wilting erection. “I think it’s sweet…you’re a good guy, helping out an old friend. It’s one of the reasons we love you.”
She often said it that way—we love you, as if there were a committee involved, perhaps four cats and several dead relatives. Kelly believed in ghosts.
“We love you, too,” I said, my “we” restricted to the personal council of me, myself, and I. I felt like a jerk, then reassured myself that it was possible to love Kelly and still love Amy, too; there were different strata of love, Kelly at the surface, bright and in bloom, Amy a more structural love, woven deep into the primordial ooze.
“Hey, maybe I’ll come with you,” Kelly said, setting the kettle on the front burner as she switched on the stove. “It’s not like I’m doing anything these days.”
Budget cuts had killed her job as a music teacher. She’d been out of work since we’d met, scraping by on unemployment and the few private piano lessons she gave on the side.
“You don’t want to…”
“Yes, I do. I’d love a change of scenery. We could go into Manhattan, visit Central Park. I could meet your Uncle Dan. I’ve got a bazillion miles on my credit card—I’m sure I could get a free flight. Your Uncle…he’d let us stay with him, right?”
“Probably, but…it’s a small house…outdated…the carpeting will scare you. Won’t it be awkward?”
“Not if we don’t want it to be,” she said. “This has nothing to do with your visiting an old girlfriend. I’m just coming along to check out New Jersey. You know I love The Sopranos.”
She sprinkled some loose tea into the infuser and poured the hot water, the steam rising from the mug in twisted wisps. “You have a past. So what? Who doesn’t?”
True, but most pasts didn’t include an armed and unstable ex-girlfriend with a nervous trigger finger.
Most pasts didn’t include a dead four-year-old girl.
“I’ll check with Steffi to make sure she can watch the cats,” Kelly said. “It’s been such a crappy year—I deserve a trip. Unless you don’t want me to come …”
“Of course I want you with me,” I said, surprised by how gut-level true it felt, how much our lives had become intertwined.
“I’m glad.” She smiled. “We’ve got a good feeling about you.”
She grabbed her tea and padded off to the bedroom, leaving me flattered but a minor wreck, certain that whatever council of spirits had signed off on her good feelings would turn on me the second she learned the truth—I’d be cast out of our little Garden of Eden, no snake or God required, just the sad ugly facts of what I’d let happen. Avoiding this seemed possible in California, but in Holman Beach three-quarters of the town would see my face and think dead little girl.
I bit into an apple and struggled for ideas. Nothing came, except the urgency of a ringing phone; “Lithium” again, as if Amy, in the hospital three thousand miles away, had sensed my feelings for Kelly and was reeling me back home like only Amy could.
There was no hello, no greeting, only Amy’s voice, soft and ethereal.
“Do you ever dream about her?” she asked.
There was only one her. Sarah Carpenter.
“Sometimes.”
“I do—constantly,” she said. “A few nights back I dreamt I found her body underneath the boardwalk. She was all bloated, and her skin was grey, like ash. There were all these little bite marks along her legs, and there was a hole in her stomach, like in Alien, and this doll’s head was peeking out …”
“Amy, don’t do this to yourself …just stop thinking about it.”
“I can’t not think about it, Duck. All these years—how could they never find
