Whisper to Me (30 page)

Thin mist hung over the town. I followed our street to where the asphalt began to break up, sand pushing through the cracks. The road just became the shore at a certain point. Then I stepped from the sidewalk down onto the scrub and dunes of the beach.

I walked the beach until I found something I wanted to draw—an old Coke can, it looked like it might have been seventies even; the font was weird, and it had washed up, faded out, on the sand. Trash. I loved to draw trash—that was my thing, remember? Neglected things. Ugly things.

I took my pencil and pressed it to the paper and—

Nothing. I couldn’t draw it. I couldn’t draw the ugly old squashed Coke can. It held no interest at all for me, its folds, its little holes, its faded lettering. It was just a dead, broken object, and the pencil wouldn’t move.

It was like … like it was something I used to like to do, but now it was just gone. Like a switch had been turned off. It wasn’t even the voice saying no, it was just me. Losing interest.

I shrugged and put the sketch pad and pencil in my back pocket. Then I went to the spot where Dad taught me to swim, south of Pier One. I slid off my jeans and took off my T-shirt. The late morning air was cold on my legs and arms.

For a second I thought,
Really
?

But then I smiled to myself. Yes, really.

I ran straight at the ocean, my legs crashing through the low waves, the salt water freezing, and then I dived down; my face and hands scraped the bottom and I surged up, grabbed the water in my hands and pulled myself out, stroke after stroke. I swam the crawl, only occasionally lifting my head to breathe.

Silky water embraced me, held me up, the feeling like a promise. A promise of buoyancy, of not letting me fall. A promise you never get from the air. If you lose your balance in the air, you always fall.

The taste of the ocean was in my mouth: salt, sand, small creatures. Water was all around me, containing me, shaping itself to my contours.

What I mean to say is:

It was amazing.

I swam all the way up to the first pier, then turned and swam back to the little pile my clothes made on the sand. My movements were stiff at first, forced, but got smoother as I swam, the feeling coming back to me. I felt free and I thought about nothing except the waves and timing my breathing and my strokes.

As I neared my clothes, I saw your truck. You were driving onto the sand where the road merged with the beach. The way you took me, that time. You drove a little way down the long, wide stretch of beach, toward the shore, and then you turned in the direction of Pier One.

I swung my legs down, planted my feet in the hard wet sand; it compacted around my toes. I stood and waved with both arms.

The white pickup slowed, then turned and drove toward me. You parked up by my jeans and T-shirt.

I walked slowly out of the water as you stood by the pickup, your arm on the open door. You raised a hand as I got close.

“Venus exiting the sea,” you said with a smile. You were wearing Ray-Bans.

“You’re letting him see your body,” said the voice, because you were too far away to mute it. “You’re letting him see your disgusting—”

“Yeah?” I said. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Kidding,” you said, thinking I was speaking to you, raising your hands in mock defense as I neared you. “I’m not looking.”

The voice disappeared. I was too close to you now; I was in your force field.

“What do you mean, you’re not looking?” I asked.

You raised your sunglasses. Your eyes were closed. “See?”

I laughed. “Okay, keep them closed. I’m going to get dressed.”

“You didn’t bring a towel.”

I looked around. “Oh.”

“I have one in the truck. Hang on.” You turned, put up a hand to shield your eyes, and felt around in the cab of the truck. Then you were facing me again, eyes closed, holding out a towel.

I hesitated.

“It’s clean. I always have one. So I can swim after work.”

“Thanks.” I reached out and took it. “You swim?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” You paused. “You looked good out there.” You flushed. “I mean, your stroke. ****. I keep doing that. Your stroke looked good.”

He thinks I look good? So maybe he does like me.

But how am I supposed to know?

“Dad taught me,” I said, trying to ignore the thoughts racing in my head. This was true. When I was a kid, I was always in the ocean with my dad. I mean always. Every evening, every weekend. I loved it, sharing his passion with him, learning from him. My mom called me her water baby—she would come too, swim with us, though she was never as fast, would get left behind, joke-cursing us.

So many of my memories of my dad have the texture of water. And they evaporated, too, like water. Dried out, leaving the ocean behind, and him washed up in front of his bugs, and me left stranded in my room, alone.

“Oh yeah,” you said. “He was a SEAL, right? That’s hard-core.”

“Was,” I said. “He’s not so hard-core these days.”

You smiled, your eyes still closed. “Yeah, he showed me his bugs. Creepy. Like, literally.”

I had finished drying myself now and quickly pulled on my clothes. “You can open your eyes now,” I said.

You did. “Truth is, I’ve had them open a crack the whole time.”

“You—”

“Kidding! Kidding.”

He is. He’s totally flirting.

“You swim a lot?” I asked, to change the subject.

You shrugged. “I was on the school team.”

“Oh! You told me. Sorry. You must be good.”

You shrugged again.

“But you left the team?”

“Huh?”

“You said you
were
on the school team.”

“Oh. No. I’m going to college. In the fall. On a swim scholarship actually.” You looked a little embarrassed.

“Then you must be really good.”

“Hmm,” you said. “Anyway, I’d better get going. These Angry Birds are not going to deliver themselves.”

“Okay. Thanks for the towel.”

“You’re welcome,” you said. Then, “Oh!” you added, as you put the towel away. “Hey, I forgot.” You pulled a pile of books from the footwell of the truck. “I got these for you. From the library.”

“But I never cleaned the apartment.”

“Well, no, but still. I got them. Vonnegut, Carver, Austen. Kind of a random selection. I didn’t know what you liked.”

I looked at the pile.
He brought you books. Still think he likes Paris?
Idiot
. That wasn’t the voice, that was just me. “Thanks,” I said. “Really.”

“You don’t have to take them now. If you don’t want to carry them. I can bring them to your—”

“No,” I said. “Better not. That’s kind of why I never cleaned the apartment. My dad doesn’t want me … um, hanging out with you.” I reached out and took the books.

Looked away.

A long moment.

Looked back and you were watching me. A small smile on your face. Like: intrigued, and amused. “Star-crossed!” you said. “A dramatic turn.” In my defense it was not always obvious that you liked me. You had a habit of making everything into a joke, if it turned too serious. I know it’s hypocritical of me to say that.

“It’s not funny,” I said, and it came out harder than I meant.

Your face sank. “Oh. Yeah, of course. Your dad’s strict?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Bummer.”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“Um, well, then. I guess, ’bye,” you said.

“Um, yeah, ’bye.”

→
OUR ROMANCE, STILL SCRIPTED BY SHAKESPEARE
←

You pulled yourself easily into the cab, kind of swung yourself. I …

Okay, I’ve been sitting here at Dad’s PC in the study trying to think of how to describe you, the way you moved then, the way you always move. And I think I have it, finally. It’s …

So, you have to start by thinking of the word “fitness.” I mean, thinking of what it
really means
. We use it all the time—that person is fit, that person isn’t fit, he’s doing fitness training, whatever. But think about the root word. Fit. To fit. To be
fit or apt for a purpose
.

That’s you. You’re fit, yeah, in the obvious sense that you’re healthy and have a slow resting heart rate, and all that stuff. From all the swimming. But you also
fit
, your movements fit with the world, you interlock elegantly with it.

You fit into the world like a key in a lock.

Anyway.

So you swung yourself into the cab like your body was meant to fit into that sweep of air, that motion, at precisely that moment, and then you started the engine and drove off, waving.

I thought:
I wonder if life gets any better than this. The voice has no power over me and he moves like that and …

I don’t know. I was happy. I reached into my pocket and took out my phone to check the time; I had left my watch at home. That was when I saw that I had a missed call, and a message. I hadn’t looked at my phone in the morning. I mean, I know people do that, but I’m not people; I’m someone used to having no friends. All of which is to say that I had not looked at the thing until I saw on the screen:

    
Paris. MISSED. 1:24 a.m.

I dialed the number for my messages, and put the phone to my ear. There was a beep, then a click, then a hiss.

“
Kccccchhhhhhh … Kccccchhhhhhh …
—” And then a scream.

And then:

Click.

I held out the phone, held it far from my body, like it was contaminated.

Fear flooded through me; freezing water. I had been in the ocean and now the ocean was in me; rushing, merciless.

Cold.

As I walked home I dialed Paris’s number.

No answer.

I dialed again.

No answer.

Come on Paris, come on Paris. Answer your phone.

But nothing.

It was eleven thirty. I paced up and down in the kitchen until twelve thirty, and then I nearly ran to the theater where
Toy Story
was showing. There were a few people waiting outside—a handful of hipsters, some parents with young kids. The theater was old, art deco, like the motels. There were old posters pasted on the walls—
Back to the Future
;
American Gigolo
. The facade was dirty, the posters peeling. It was fading, rotting, in need of investment—but with beautiful architectural lines underneath. A microcosm of the town.

I stood there for twenty minutes, hoping. The hipsters and the kids went in. A couple of old people I figured were just looking for an air-conditioned place to spend the hottest part of the day. The sun was high in the sky and sweat was trickling down the back of my neck, pooling in the small of my back.

I looked at my watch: 1:10.

No Paris.

In my mind’s eye, terrible scenarios played out. A john slitting her throat, letting her bleed out. Then dumping her body at sea. Someone cutting her up in a shed. Submerging her in an acid bath. I couldn’t see the man’s face in my imaginings. But it was always a man.

I felt like the sky was gone from above me. I felt like everything beautiful in the world had been stabbed to death and thrown in the ocean, weighed down with concrete blocks or whatever it might be.

At one thirty I left the theater and walked to Paris’s condo. It wasn’t that close; it took me a while. And the whole time I was seeing these awful images. Seeing her screaming for help as a knife entered her stomach. That kind of thing.

“Just what she deserves,” said the voice. “******* whore.”

“Oh shut up,” I said.

Amazingly, the voice did shut up.

I turned the corner onto Paris’s street and what I saw there made my heart clench like an oyster closing. A cop car, pulled up at an angle to the curb, like it had been parked quickly, carelessly. I started running, then. I entered the building and took the stairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator.

I got to the front door out of breath. Julie opened it before I even knocked; she must have heard my footsteps in the hall. She was wearing a pink sweater and a short skirt, polka-dotted, a headband in her hair—like she was going to a dance in 1959. But she had been crying; her eyes were red rimmed.

“Cass,” she said, and her voice was a hand desperately reaching for the side of a boat, to pull itself out of dark sucking water.

“Julie, what—”

But she launched herself forward and put her arms around me. I hugged her tight. “Julie, is she … is she …”

“We don’t know.”

She pulled back, straightened her hair. I looked past her and saw the young agent from after I found the foot.

“Horowitz,” I said.

“Cassandra. You knew Ms. French?”

My mind was blank for a second. “Oh. Paris. Yes. I knew her.”

Wait.

“You said
knew
.”

Horowitz looked down. “Slip of the tongue. Agent’s habit. At the moment she’s just missing.”

“What happened?” I asked.

It was Julie who answered. “She had a … a bachelor party last night. Or maybe it was a birthday party, I can’t remember. I drove her. I always drive her, if she goes out to an … engagement. For safety, you know?” She started crying; wiped her eyes brusquely with the sleeve of her sweater. “When she started … I didn’t want her to get into it. But she was Paris, you know? She always got her way. In the end, I said she could only do it if I drove her to every … appointment. I said it was the minimum safety requirement. But I … I …”