This Must Be the Place: A Novel (7 page)

The postcard was dated August 18, 1993. It read:

Mona, I’m sorry. I should have told you. You knew me better than anyone—I think you knew me better than me. Don’t worry, I swear I’m happier dead. Anyway, I left you the best parts of myself. You know where to look.

It shocked Arthur silly. He had read it in the dark on the day Amy died, lying half naked on the floor in his closet, hands shaking after he plucked it from the depths of the pink shoebox. In the shoebox was the
collected detritus of Amy’s life: photographs, picture postcards, and greeting cards, ticket stubs and buttons and trinkets that, for her own reasons, she hadn’t been able to part with. It was a museum in miniature, teeming with memories, with the residue of the recently departed. Bursting with Amy, and with him.

The first thing he had pulled from the box was a bumper sticker:
MY CAT IS ON THE HONOR ROLL
. Beneath that were photos from their last trip to Catalina Island, bright sunny images of catamarans and ocean water blue-green as candy. An old cherry stem, tied in a knot, dried and tough and still smelling of sugar. A tiny clay Kraken—the monstrous sea creature that destroys the city of Argos in
The Clash of the Titans
—molded by Amy’s teenage fingers in green polymer clay, that had been her good luck totem. More photographs of Amy and Arthur at Catalina; at Knott’s Berry Farm; swaddled in a bright green blanket and illegally sucking down tequila behind the dunes at Point Dume (that day—oh, that day, he remembered
that
day). Amy defying hygiene, lying on her stomach on Hollywood Boulevard, lips pursed in a kiss for Harryhausen’s pink granite star. A ticket stub, faded and bent, from the Neil Diamond concert they’d seen at the Hollywood Bowl for their first anniversary.

Amy had warned him, on their first date, that she was the least sentimental person in the universe.
You lied to me
, Arthur whispered, and flattened the In-n-Out napkin from the day they met across his palm, his phone number at the motel written in red pen.

All pictures he remembered taking. All things he remembered happening.

Until Arthur broke through the top strata to the world beneath.

Only Amy could explain the significance of the wrapper peeled from a bottle of Red Stripe with
Don’t let the bastards drag you down
scrawled across it. Only Amy knew where she’d picked up the green Lucite-heart key chain, cracked through the middle. Only Amy could explain why she’d wrapped a set of perfectly round, silver-edged cuff links made of ruby-red stone in yellow tissue paper and tucked them safely in a plastic Easter egg. He held them in his hand. They were beautiful and heavy.

And then
the
postcard. To Mona Jones at the Darby-Jones House in
Ruby Falls, New York. The town where Amy grew up. The town Amy never talked about. To Mona Jones, who knew her better than she knew herself. Mona Jones, to whom Amy had willed something—the best parts of herself, of her (happier-that-way) dead self, with five simple words of direction:
You know where to look
.

Arthur had found Amy’s last will and testament: a postcard written over a decade and a half ago and never sent.

Run
, Amy told him, and pointed.
There
.

He would have to tell Mona Jones everything.

“I’ll tell her tomorrow,” Arthur said, and Harry half-wailed, half-hissed, which Arthur interpreted as
You lie
. It was true: he
did
lie. He didn’t know what to say to her. He didn’t know how to start. She couldn’t know that Amy was dead, and if Amy had meant something to her—even years ago—he didn’t want to be the bearer of that news. He didn’t have the stomach to tell anyone that Amy was gone.

He hadn’t told his parents. He hadn’t told his brother. He hadn’t told his landlord. He just—left. When he thought about Max or Manny or the fact that he clearly hadn’t shown up for work today, he heard the sound of crystal vibrating. It hurt. But when he stopped thinking about them, he felt fine.

Harry hissed again.

Maybe he wouldn’t tell Mona either.

Maybe he could
—

But that was selfish. He was doing this for Amy, not for himself. He was honoring her wishes. He was—

He felt sick. He couldn’t think. His rooms stank to high hell of cat piss, which didn’t help.

Harryhausen had woken up just as Mona was opening the door to Arthur’s rooms, and Arthur, spooked, had dumped the cat-filled backpack in the bedroom and hustled Mona out. In the ensuing thirty-second window, Harry doled out vicious retribution for his confinement. Arthur’s entire wardrobe was now soaking in the bathtub (thank God his rooms had their own private bath), but the only soap he could find was a pump bottle of Dial on the sink. He’d done his best to work up a
lather, but the bathtub was now a rank stew of urine-soaked T-shirts and cheap liquid soap. He would have to venture out tomorrow, no matter how painful the thought, if for no other reason than to buy cat litter.

Amy used to tease him about teaching Harryhausen to use the toilet.
You can train cats to do it—I’ve seen it on TV!

“Sure,” he’d said. “You can train
cats
to use the toilet, but the problem is, Harry doesn’t know he’s a cat. He thinks he’s your husband. Your husband who chooses not to use the toilet out of spite because of, you know—”

“You.”

“
He
never agreed to an open relationship.”

Harryhausen was now licking himself indiscreetly on the green love seat in the apartment’s main room, which was large and airy, with shining hardwood floors and trim and neat, if slightly shabby, furnishings. There were bright red curtains in the windows (currently all open) and a matching spread on the double bed; the walls were painted various shades of light green and eggshell yellow. The place was loved and a little Christmasy, which made Arthur feel safe and sleepy. He pictured Mona Jones and her daughter Oneida—what the hell kind of name was that?—with the radio on, dancing and singing, rolling paint all over the walls to the beat of an Elton John song: “Saturday Night’s All Right for Fighting,” maybe. That’s the scene this set was built for, an iconic scene. No: a cliché. Mona would sing into a paintbrush and Oneida, shy, would only dance when her mother grabbed her by the hands and spun her.

Arthur’s head hurt. This room, this place, made him—he didn’t know what it made him.

He was tired in his bones. He hadn’t slept on the flight so much as marked time while he breathed. He hadn’t slept on the trains from the city upstate to Albany and points west, and he hadn’t slept on the long cab ride out to Ruby Falls, two towns beyond East Bumblefuck, just south of the End of the World. And when had he eaten? He sat on the love seat beside Harryhausen and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, it was late. It was night. Several years at summer camp in New Hampshire had taught him that night in the country feels different: it feels empty. Void. Alarmingly black and solid with silence. He turned to Harry.

“We should go to bed,” he said.

Harry licked his paw and brushed one ear flat to his head.

“That’s right.” Arthur sniffed. “Wash everywhere.”

He couldn’t smell the cat piss anymore, which was a very bad sign. It probably meant he was brain damaged, which would explain the static when he stood, the weakness in his legs and his arms, and the nagging sensation that there were things he should be doing or seeing or saying, important things, pressing things, that had nothing to do with his being in this—movie. This television show. This world that Amy, Creator of Worlds, Maker of Monsters, manifested just for him: her past still living, still breathing, still knowable. Her self. Her secrets.

You know where to look
.

He wanted them all to himself.

“Come on, Harry,” he said, because he needed to hear the sound of his voice. His good voice. Sounding like Arthur Rook, even if he wasn’t thinking like Arthur Rook.
You’ll go to sleep and wake up again and everything will make more sense; you just have to get to bed—just get to bed, Arthur.
Tomorrow it’ll make sense. Tomorrow, you’ll see.

“I’ll tell Mona tomorrow,” he told Harry, who scampered ahead of him into the bedroom. “I’ll tell everyone.”

Harry leaped to the bed and turned back.

“No, you won’t,” he said, with Arthur’s voice.

Arthur opened his eyes. Where was he and how had he gotten here?

He remembered.

Arthur gasped and shoved twenty pounds of feline off his chest and saw a framed poster beyond his feet, opposite the bed: a picture of neat wedges of pie and cake in meticulously ordered rows, the pastry equivalent of a military drill, and he thought, in quick succession:

I am wearing sneakers in bed.

This is the second time in two days I have worn sneakers in bed.

I am—

Amy is—

Amy is hiding. Amy is here.

You know where to look
.

He gasped again, for air, for anything. Everything sang out: his head and his arms and his wrists and his ankles and his hips and his back. His chest. His stomach. His throat constricted, and he heard himself give a strangled little howl that terrified him.

It was still dark. The clock on the dresser—an old-fashioned alarm clock, silver bells like double berets—told Arthur it was four-thirty in the morning. Arthur felt he could cut himself on this world; the air itself was sharp and razor-bright, and here he was: breathing needles into his body like a chump.
Well
,
maybe that wouldn’t be so bad
, he thought;
maybe it would feel good to bleed.
He shook his head and didn’t care that there were other people sleeping nearby and shouted, full voice, for Harry.

Harry didn’t answer.

“Come on, Harry.” Arthur swung his feet to the floor and stood up quickly and almost passed out. Running on fumes, he thought. When Amy worked late, she’d call on her way home from the workshop or movie set:
Tank’s empty, running on fumes—gonna hit the In-n-Out; you want?

Arthur stumbled into the living room. Harry was on the coffee table, lying on the pink box, his tail dangling over one side and twitching happily. He was asleep and dreaming, and Arthur was murderously jealous of this cat—this
cat
—who could sleep atop the museum of Amy and have beautiful dreams. Arthur wanted beautiful dreams. Arthur wanted Amy, the best parts of Amy, that were hidden here if only he knew where to look; he wanted them for himself. And Amy
wanted
him to have those parts. Otherwise she wouldn’t have shown him the shoebox in the dark, wouldn’t have pointed him at Ruby Falls and told him to run. She had had almost
sixteen years
to send that postcard to Mona Jones, and she never did. If she really wanted to name Mona her heir, she would have.

She didn’t. It was clear, it was so clear—Amy wanted Arthur to know. Amy wanted Arthur to use the contents of the pink shoebox to give himself beautiful dreams and, in dreaming, to solve the mysteries she’d left behind.
To know where to look.

No, Arthur thought. No, that’s insane. Amy didn’t know. Amy couldn’t plan—wouldn’t want—

Arthur Rook was good. But Arthur Rook was lost and shocked and more alone than he knew how to bear. When Amy, who hadn’t even said good-bye, spoke to him in signs and wonders, he grabbed onto them with both hands. He turned them over in his mind and saw that they were real enough, that they were what he wanted. They took away the red drone in his brain, the sound of crystal vibrating. Mona Jones, who had seemed so real for an instant on her front porch, was another clue, another sign, another wonder. He could use her to find what Amy wanted him to find—he could use her like he had used the postcard. Like he would use the photographs and the clippings and the bottle caps and the key chains. He would use them all to see.

Harryhausen yawned in his sleep. Arthur scooped both hands around Harry’s giant belly, up and off the box, and dropped him on the love seat. Hugging the shoebox to his chest, he bolted back into the bedroom and shut the door. He knelt and was just about to slide the box beneath the mattress (the better to dream beautiful dreams) when a light caught his eye—a light outside, through his window.