Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls (28 page)

I hope you're having a good summer, better than mine. Maybe when I come home on leave we could go to a movie or something but it's okay if you don't want to.

Well write soon and tell me how you are and what your doing.

As Ever,
your friend Buddy

 

I read the letter a couple of times. The parts about Cheryl are so sad I feel like crying. Poor Buddy, I think, oh, poor Buddy. I wish I could stroke his fuzzy head and make him forget Cheryl.

If he asks me to a movie when he comes home, should I go? I start worrying, My parents will have a fit. Ellie will hate me. Susan and Nancy and Julie will think I'm crazy.

I feel like I'm breaking out in a rash just thinking about it. Prickly heat maybe.

But I also know I will go if he asks me, even if I have to lie. And if he kisses me again, I will kiss him back.

T
HE
week before school starts, Ellie calls. She's back, she's sorry she hasn't written more often, she wants me to come over and spend the night like I used to.

"Why don't you come here?" I ask.

There's a heartbeat of silence. "I asked first," she says with a laugh.

How can I tell her I don't want to go to her house? I don't want to see Bobbi Jo's mother or her little sisters or her father, I don't want to see the park. I just don't, don't, don't. I try to think of something to say, but nothing comes to mind. Except Cheryl and Bobbi Jo and this is the first time I've thought of them for days, maybe even weeks, and I feel terrible. Awful.

"You don't want to come here, do you?" Ellie sounds a little mad, a little sad.

I twist the phone cord. "It's, I, well. I really want to see you, I've missed you so much, but, well ... it's just..." My face burns with embarrassment.

Ellie doesn't say anything for a while. I breathe, she breathes. Finally she says, "School starts next week. I'll be at St. Joseph's. We'll never see each other."

When Ellie starts crying, I cry too. If we could just go back to the night before they died, if we could just figure out what was going on and change something, maybe everything would be the way it used to be. But deep down inside, I know we can't go back. No matter how much we want to.

T
HAT
night I sit up late reading
A Certain Smile
(or, if you know French,
Un certain sourire),
Françoise Sagan's newest book, which I checked out of the library despite a disapproving look from Miss Snyder, who knows my mother and probably thought if I were her daughter I wouldn't be allowed to read French novels.

When I'm too tired to read, I turn out the light and stare into the darkness. I wonder what it's like to be twenty years old in Paris and have an affair with an older man. I wonder if my life will ever be that passionate. Somehow I doubt it.

I want to sleep but my room is hot and the cicadas are thrumming and the more I try to relax the tenser I get.

I think about Ellie's phone call. I should go over to her house. Maybe I'd get used to being there, maybe I'd stop thinking about the murders. After all, we've been best friends since tenth grade-two years. In and out of each other's houses, going to parties, hanging out with kids in her neighborhood. I'll miss her when school starts and she's not there. I'll miss her parents, too. I'll miss eating dinner at her house and spending the night there, sharing secrets in the dark, wondering what we'll be like when we're grownups. Will we get married, will we have kids, will we still love Elvis. What if a war starts, what if the Russians drop the bomb, what if the world ends.

But deep down inside I know we can't go back to the way we were. Neither can Buddy. Neither can Charlie or Paul. What happened in the park has changed us. The things we know now are things we can't forget.

I turn on my side, I flip over on my back, I curl up, I stretch out. I lie on my stomach. But I can't sleep.

Downstairs, Mom and Dad are arguing. I hear her say, "You never think about the future, you never take any responsibility for this house or your children. I'm at my wits' end." Dad mumbles something that sounds like, "Oh, honey." A door slams. The bathroom, I think. The only place in this house anyone has a speck of privacy. The kitchen screen door creaks open and slams shut. He's gone out in the yard to sit in a lawn chair and smoke, drink a beer or two. He probably hopes she'll go to bed and wake up tomorrow in a better mood.

I hug my old bear and try to imagine myself in Paris, walking down the Champs-Élysées, passing sidewalk cafés, buying pastry, meeting a tall, handsome Frenchman. I wonder if you can buy Gauloise cigarettes in America.

Just before I fall asleep, I think of Buddy. Why, I don't know. He's about as far from a romantic Frenchman as you can get. But there he is, his hair shaved off for the navy, leaning across the car to kiss me. I wonder where he is right now and what he's doing.

 

A few hours later, I wake up with a jolt, stunned, not sure where I am or who I am. Slowly my room comes into focus. It's still dark, but I make out the Virgin Mary on my bureau, my collection of china dogs at her feet, pictures on the wall, no more than dim outlines of faces, moonlight spilling through my window. My room, my place, my things, everything as it should be but dimly seen, colorless.

The dream comes back to me, far more vivid than anything in my bedroom.

It's dark and rainy. Two girls are standing in an empty parking lot facing a rundown diner. Most of the lights in its sign are missing. Behind the girls is a dark road with a traffic light blinking red. The only building besides the diner is a boarded-up gas station. Not a car in sight. No noise but the rain and the wind.

I can't see the girls' faces. It seems to me I know them, but I'm not sure. For some reason, I'm glad their backs are turned. I don't want to know who they are.

The younger girl looks at her friend. "Where are we?" she asks.

The other girl seems as puzzled as she is. "I was hoping you could tell me." She starts rummaging in her purse and pulls out an empty cigarette pack. "Damn, I could use a smoke."

"Should we go in there?" The younger girl points at the diner.

"It looks deserted."

"The lights are on."

I know the younger girl wants to go inside. Her hair is wet, her full skirt drips water. She's cold. She'd like something warm to drink. Coffee, maybe. Hot chocolate. Tea. Something to cup her hands around and sip slowly. Something to warm her. Something to comfort her.

"They'll have a cigarette machine," she tells her friend, "right by the door. Diners always do."

I don't want them to go into that diner. I want to stop them, but I know this dream won't let me interfere. It's like a movie. You know the heroine shouldn't do something—open the door, go down in the cellar, get into the stranger's car—but you can't stop her. She's in a movie. She can't hear you. Her role is written and can't be changed.

So I watch the girls I may or may not know run across the parking lot. They jump over puddles, swinging their purses on long straps, eager to get out of the rain. Why do they look so familiar? Why do I think I've seen them do these things before?

The older girl gets to the door first. The glass is steamed up, but when she pushes it open, the bluish light inside makes her blond hair glow white.

They don't know it, but I'm right behind them, scooting through the door before it closes.

There's no cigarette machine. The diner is silent, but all the booths are filled with people. Their heads are down. They neither move nor speak. No motion. No force. Under a harsh light, the waitress scrubs the counter.

How did the people get here without cars? They must have walked, but from where? I didn't see any houses. They watch the girls seat themselves at the counter. Their faces are sad. As they whisper to each other, the diner fills with the dry, rustling sounds of their voices.

The waitress doesn't look up. Her hair is bleached. I can see her dark roots.

Without looking at the girls, she asks what they want. Her voice is gruff. The words sound like she's been chewing on them.

"Do you sell Winstons?" the older girl asks. Why is her voice so familiar?

The waitress shakes her head.

"Marlboros?"

She shakes her head again. She still hasn't looked at them.

"Well, what kind of filter cigarettes do you have?" The girl's voice has an edge I've heard before. She gets mad quickly. How do I know that?

The waitress lifts her head and scowls. She reminds me of my aunt Joan's Boston terrier. She's got the same broad face with droopy jowls, a short flat nose, a wide mouth, and bulging eyes. It wouldn't surprise me if she barked.

"Are you stupid or something?" the waitress asks the girl. "We don't have any cigarettes. Not with filters. Not without filters. Not mentholated either. None as in none. Zero as in zero."

"How about coffee?" the younger girl asks. Her voice has a desperate edge. "Do you have that?"

The waitress shakes her head and gives the counter another wipe. "No coffee. No tea. No sodas."

"What
do
you have?" The girl is close to tears.

"Water." The waitress fills two glasses and sets them down in front of the girls. "That'll be twenty cents each."

"Twenty cents for
water?
" The girls stare at the waitress.

She shrugs. "Take it or leave it."

"At home, water's free."

"Well, you're not home. Are you?"

The girls open their purses and pull out their wallets. "I could have sworn I had a dollar," the older one says. "How about you?"

The younger girl shows her an empty coin purse. "I thought I had fifty cents from babysitting for the Morans, but it's gone."

The waitress snatches up the glasses, dumps the water in the sink, and moves away from them.

"My God," the older girl says. "I can't believe this. Is she crazy or just plain rude?" She sounds angry and scared. Before she does it, I know she's going to give the waitress the finger.

The waitress is too busy scrubbing the counter to notice.

"Let's get out of here," the younger one says.

A woman who's been sitting silently at the counter turns her head to face the girls. "If you leave," she asks, "where will you go?" Her voice is soft and kind.

The man beside the woman says, "Don't get involved, Stella. Let them figure it out for themselves."

"But they're so young," she says. Her eyes linger on the girls, taking in their wet skirts and blouses, their soggy white moccasins, their rain-soaked hair. "Almost children."

He shrugs. "Have it your way. You always do."

"Where are you girls from?" the woman asks. She's not ancient but too old to call by her first name. She has the same sad look everyone in the diner has.

"Elmgrove," the older girl says, "near Baltimore."

I must know them, I
know
I know them, but I can't remember their names.

"How long have you been here?" the woman asks the girls.

"In the diner, you mean?" the older one asks.

The woman nods.

"We just came in."

"From the rain," the younger girl adds. "We were in the parking lot and we were cold."

"Do you remember how you got here?"

Without looking at the woman, they shake their heads.

Why can't they remember? Why can't I remember?

The younger girl looks down to hide her tears, but they splash on the counter, one drop after another.

"What were you doing before you found yourselves in the parking lot?" the woman asks.

"There was a party," the younger girl says slowly. "And we danced and—"

"No," her friend says. "That was the night before. This morning we walked to school together."

Yes, that's what they did, I remember now. They walked to Eastern High School. Ellie and I were supposed to walk with them but we overslept.

"Yes," the younger girl says, "that's right, and it was already hot and the sun was in my eyes."

"But something happened." Her friend frowns. "Something horrible."

I'm scared now, so scared so scared so scared I can barely breathe. I know why, I know everything, but I don't want to know.

"It was dark all of a sudden," the younger girl says. "Dark like an eclipse."

"Yes," her friend agrees, "that's just how it was. Then there was roaring all around us and I was reaching for you."

"Me too, I was reaching for you because, because if we, if you and me ... I'd be alone in the dark."

The woman reaches over and pats the girl's arm. The younger girl shivers as if the woman's hand is cold. "Were you in a car?" she asks the girls.

"We could have been," the younger girl says. "We might have been. Maybe we got a ride."

"No," her friend says, "we were in the park, we were walking across the ball field, we were laughing, you were swinging your purse and the sun was in our eyes and there was someone in the woods but we couldn't see who."

I put my hands over my ears. I don't want to hear any more. I want to wake up.

"And then we were running," the younger girl says. "Running and running and running."

"Did we run all the way here?"

"We must have."

"No," the woman says, "you were running from something you couldn't escape. Don't you see? Don't you understand?"

"Stop it," the man says to the woman. "Let them alone. You're making it worse."

"Yes," another woman says. "You're scaring them, Stella."

"I want to go home." The younger girl stands up and pulls her friend's arm. "I want my mother."

"Poor baby," the woman says. She puts her arm around the girl. The girl pulls away, as if the woman's touch has chilled her bones.

She tugs at her friend and begs her to come along, but her friend just sits there shaking her head. "For God's sake, don't you get it?"

"These people are crazy," the younger girl shouts. "We have to get away from them."