The Complete Collection (3 page)

Today, I stay at home and clean.

I shower for almost an hour after waking
up in the graveyard.

I always do after a night like that.

Sam tries to call me, but I can’t talk
to him. I feel that familiar mix of shame and satisfaction that no one would
ever understand. Not even Sam.

I mop the kitchen floor three times. I
scrub the bathtub until my fingers are raw. I strip the bed. I do all the
laundry. I nap for a while. After my nap, I take Paul’s car back to the bar
parking lot.

Paul’s car is fast. Too fast. I enjoy
the ride. After being certain I have left nothing of myself behind, I take the
train back home again, an entirely different Ainsley now.

After dinner, I put on
Night of the
Living Dead
. It is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. I can
relate to the monsters. I sympathize with their hunger. Their lives are so
simple. No matter what the obstacle, they lurch forward, seeking to fill their
emptiness. Their loved ones look at them as strangers. They move in packs, but
each has a lonely existence.

I think about Sam. In some ways, the
zombies’ hunger reminds me of how I feel about him. All they want are brains.
They are fixated on them. All they say is “Brains, brains, brains.” They’ll do
anything for brains.

I love Sam the way a zombie loves
brains.

Horror movies are therapeutic for me. I
feel healed and renewed after watching them. Fear is so pure. I love to be
afraid. It is thrilling.

I always relate to the wrong characters.
Like Jason in
Friday the 13th
. Or Michael Myers in
Halloween
;
especially Michael Myers. I feel an almost sexual attraction to him. There’s
something about his patient walk. His big knife that he draws without taking no
as an answer.

There’s something hot in submitting to
the inevitable.

I spend some time talking to the younger
Mrs. Brown in the graveyard.

Poor thing. She died so young and had
such a difficult life. Her mother-in-law hated her.

She was just a young woman in an
unfriendly and unhealthy household. All she wanted was a baby to love.

Mother Brown would spill things on her
freshly laundered clothing. She would turn up the flame on the stew simmering
for her husband’s dinner. She tried to stick up for herself, but Mother Brown
was a formidable woman.

When she had the baby, things got worse.
Mother Brown would pinch it when she walked by, causing her to scream and fuss.

Mother Brown was always telling her son
what a poor wife and mother he had chosen. Mrs. Brown’s husband always deferred
to his mother. Soon his mother’s bullying got the best of both of them. They
started to fight. The baby got crankier.

Then, Mother Brown killed their baby
boy.

Of course, the young Mrs. Brown had no
way to prove this. She sits, silently weeping on the bench next to me, holding
her ghost baby. They are transparent, but they are more alive than I am. At
least they can love.

Late one night, she put the baby to
sleep in her cradle. Mrs. Brown was exhausted from doing and redoing chores all
day, and she fell asleep next to the cradle. She slept deeply.

When she woke, the sun was high. It felt
wrong somehow. Her baby lay unmoving in her crib. In the night he had pulled
the pillow over his face and suffocated. Or, someone had smothered him.

Mrs. Brown screamed and screamed. She
fell to the floor and prayed God would take her instead. Mother Brown stood at
the doorway, a smirk hidden in her expressionless face.

Mr. Brown shunned his young wife from
then on. At the baby’s burial, he stood at his mother’s side, leaving her to
grieve alone, in silence and shame.

But Mother Brown, after destroying her
son’s marriage and isolating her daughter-in-law, was not satisfied yet.

She told anyone who would listen that
her daughter-in-law’s laziness and neglect had caused her grandson’s death. All
the elders of the town patted the old woman’s hand. Young Mrs. Brown was
ignored. Or clucked at disapprovingly. She took to staying home alone in her
room. She ate less.

She found solace only in the Blacksmith,
visiting him as he worked. She liked the sound of the clanging metal. The spray
of fire. He did not talk to her. But he did not look at her with disgust. He
just worked. And sometimes, he listened.

The younger Mrs. Brown eventually died,
alone in her attic room. No one found her for a week. Mother Brown and Mr.
Brown had not noticed she was gone.  Or they had known, but didn’t care.

But after death, she was reunited with
her son.

I ask her what it’s like to have a baby,
and what it feels like to love a child. I want to know what it’s like to be a
mother.

I tell her about my broken womb. My
babies also died, but inside of me. For this, she is able to find some sympathy
in her heart for me. I think she can sense my isolation.

She holds out her baby son for me to
take in my arms. I hesitate.

Then I take him. I hold the gurgling
baby. He is so happy to be reunited with his mother that he even shares a smile
with me.

And I cry. For the first time in many
years. Tears drip heavily from my eyes, through my ghostly charge, and into the
dirt below. The things buried there will never grow.

Last night I dreamt I ate Sam.

The emptiness inside me was like a hot
air balloon, filling me from head to toe. Nothing could invade that emptiness.

I felt my heart. It died for certain
years ago, but in my dream I could feel it again. It was hanging on for dear
life. Kicking and screaming. Trying to get me to do something, anything, to
relieve its pain.

My heart was no stranger to pain. In
fact, the existence my heart knew, before its death, was of more pain than
pleasure. Even pleasure itself was painful because it was so fleeting. I tried
to hang onto it. Feeling pleasure is like wearing your little sister’s wedding
dress. You know it isn’t your size. You can look in the mirror in faded light,
but it won’t ever fit you or be yours. Eventually, you have to take it off.

If your heart’s dead, are you really alive?
I don’t know what a soul is anymore, but if I had one, I’m sure that it’s dead,
too.

So I dreamt of eating Sam. Biting
through his flesh, his bones, his organs. Feeling his blood wash down my face.
Swallowing the life that I can’t have. We were together, for a while. I owned
him.

I dreamt I issued my invitation
formally, through a note.

I dreamt I put out my clothing for our
dinner. The oven was cold because I was not cooking anything. I wanted Sam raw
and warm. I didn’t want anything to affect the taste of his blood running down
my throat. I wanted his heart to pulse and beat while I chewed. I wanted his
life inside of me. Maybe it would warm me for a few minutes.

You can’t tell I’m dead just by looking
at me. I still look normal. I’m not one of those
Night of the Living Dead
zombies, all caked up and bruised and glazed over. My eyes are not dead. My
skin looks alive. Looking alive makes me more dangerous. I am a monster in
disguise. Sam doesn’t know to run from me.

No, the only thing that’s twisted and
ugly about me is something you can’t see. My heart. Its jaw opens hungrily for
living flesh. It’s malformed and starting to decompose, rotting. It groans with
a hunger for all that lives. No one can see that, though.

I dressed in a fine evening gown. I had
much to celebrate. Sam would be mine, finally. The long black gown hugged my
body. My makeup was exquisite. Full red lips and dark, Cleopatra eyes. I was
the seductress. The temptress. Come closer.

As the time approached for our dinner, I
grew excited to see Sam.

Excited to kill him.

Excited to eat him, slowly.

I don’t hate Sam. My heart, that
grinning, dead thing, was in charge of the feelings department. When it died,
my emotions died with it. Now, I’m just hungry. I’m driven by my biological
needs alone. Once, those needs might have included kissing Sam. Fucking Sam.
Now, they just involve chewing Sam until he slides down my throat.

In my dream, my only dilemma was whether
I should keep Sam alive while I ate him. If he remained alive, I’d need to
incapacitate him. That could be fun. I decided to see how the mood struck me.

The doorbell rang at seven thirty. Sam
was due at seven o’clock. I was relieved when he showed up.

Sam arrived at the door bearing roses
and his effortless charm.

If my heart still lived, it might have
been tempted to let him live. But, my heart is dead. And hungry.

Dream Sam was suitably impressed by my
gown.

I showed him to the couch and got him a
drink. I fawned over him appropriately so that he suspected nothing. I sat
demurely before him. He was so trusting, like always.

Sam asked me what was for dinner.

“You,” I answered without missing a
beat. He smiled.

In my dream, I finally decided it would
be best to have Sam alive, but not awake. I wanted his heart beating when I
started eating him.

He was still smiling when I knocked him
unconscious with the cast iron pan I had hidden behind my back.

I didn’t bother with an apron before
making the first incision. He started to bleed. I used my big butcher knife.
That cast iron pan was really hard. Sam was probably dying. But not yet. He was
still breathing.

I tasted Sam’s blood on my fingers. I
felt such a rush, finally swallowing him, owning him.

I am experienced with finding the heart,
even in my dreams. I want to eat that most of all. I tasted Sam’s skin and his
blood, and I will eat the other parts of him. But then, I wanted his heart.

When my heart was alive, he wouldn’t
give his to me. I couldn’t ask for it.

I cut out a large part of the heart, and
brought it to my lips. His blood was up to my elbows, and all over my face. My
gown was trashed. I was crying, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t feel anything:
a ghoul, feeding my hunger.

As I swallowed a large part of it, I
felt it stick in my throat. Perhaps a sob had caught it. Maybe it was too big
to fit down my gullet.

I started to choke. My hands went to my
throat as my oxygen was cut off. I was choking on Sam’s warm heart.

My brain started to go black and join my
heart in death. My last thought, just before I choked to death and before I
woke up, was that Sam had finally killed me. All of me.

I work in a library because it’s quiet.
Books don’t talk back. Portia likes to talk, but I can hide among the shelves
and drown her out.

I have always loved books. When I was a
small child, I would sneak any form of light I could find into my room and read
as late as I could.

Because books are alive. They are more
alive than you and me. Books live forever. They live on in their own jackets.
They live on in the reader’s memory. They live on in their writers’ minds.

I can enter the world of Emily
Dickinson. I relate to her. I read her poetry and am transported to a garden in
Amherst, Mass. I visited her grave once. And I talked with her as only I can
talk to the dead. I took an etching of her gravestone to keep with me.

I framed it and hung it in my bedroom.

I descend into the depths of Edgar Allen
Poe and Annabel Lee, his black cat driving him to madness. Or I lose myself in
the magical and gothic worlds of Shirley Jackson.

I sort the books and feel their covers.
I run my fingers through their words. I flip through the pages. If I’m quiet, I
can hear them whispering to me without words, tugging at my insides, calling
me, seducing me into their world, opening themselves to me and inviting me
inside.

I am satisfied to be paid to swim in an
ocean of books. They are my friends. When they need something, I am glad to
provide it.

Since I am having dinner after work with
Sam, I take extra care with my appearance. I brush my dark hair back from my
face, and I put on a bit of makeup. I wear an oversized light sweater and
jeans. Sam wouldn’t know what to do with anything else. And my glasses, of
course. Always my glasses.

He is right on time, pulling up in his
convertible with the top down. So much for combing my hair.

“Hey, A.J.! Get in. I hope you’re
hungry.”

“I’m starving.”

At the casual restaurant, he orders us
some beers. We sit outside in the sun. My dead heart lurches as I gaze at his
soft hair and his eyes catching the light. Sam belongs in the sun.

“A.J., you’re too pale. You spend too
much time stuck in that crummy library. You need to come to the beach with me
sometime, or go hiking or something. Get out. Get some fresh air.”

I know he’s speaking out of genuine
concern. So I like it.

“I’m fine, Sam. How was your date?” I
want to get this part of our conversation over with.

“Honestly? I think I’m in love for the
first time, A.J.”

My insides split with the precision of a
goring hook that has been jabbed into my abdomen and yanked out again. Each
word in that sentence is the prong of a pitchfork thrust in my entrails. I blink
very fast, tilting my head back to finish my beer and get myself together.

Luckily, once Sam gets going, he doesn’t
stop for a breath.

“She’s amazing. Gorgeous. And so funny.
You would really like her.”

I close my eyes for a second to ride
this pain out like a wave. I remind myself it is only a phantom pain, grazing
by where my heart used to be. I feel it like an amputee feels an ache in his
missing leg.

“Are you all right?” He reaches out to
touch my arm. I pull away more sharply than I mean to.

“I’m fine. I just felt the beginning of
a migraine coming on.” I pretend to look in my purse for some aspirin. By the
time I look up, I have the mask back on. Instant, perfect friend. Just add
alcohol.

“So you were saying?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He sounds
confused.

“Yes, yes. I’m fine. Tell me more about
your one true love you met yesterday.”

“Ha, funny. Actually, I’ve known her for
a while. She works with me. But this was only our second date. Or was it
third?”

“Oh. Has she passed the ultimate Sam
test?” Sam has a theory that he can only really know a girl if he sleeps with
her. Bad experiences in the past.

“She did.” Sam smiled and blushes.

I’m not going to make it through this
dinner. I snap at the waiter for another beer.

“Wow! You finished that fast!”

Yeah, no kidding.

“You already slept with her? That’s fast
for you.” Why am I torturing myself?

“I know. It just sort of happened. We
couldn’t help it.”

The waiter returns. “Are you ready to
order?”

“I’ll have a cheeseburger and fries. How
about you, A.J.?”

I’m already full.

“I’ll have a small house salad. And
another one of these.” I hold up the beer. “And a shot of tequila.”

“That’s all you’re eating? I thought you
were hungry. And a shot of tequila? What’s up with you tonight?”

“I’m fine. Go ahead, tell me more.” I’d
rather him talking than focused on me.

“Well, we were out dancing, and she
kissed me. I didn’t expect it, but it was an amazing kiss. Just amazing.
Everything clicked. You know how that is?”

I nod as I take another sip of beer.
Under the table, my fingernails are digging into my palm, helping me to keep
the smile on.

“When I dropped her off, she invited me
in. The next thing I knew, she was on my lap on the couch. And that was it. It
just went from there. I didn’t plan on doing it that soon, but it seemed
right.”

“Ah.”

“Do you think I made a mistake?” He
seems genuinely concerned about my opinion.

“Well, Sam, it’s pretty easy to feel
like you’re in love with a girl who’s willing to give you a blow job and fall
into the sack with you on the second date. But, hey, I think it’s good that
you’re lowering your standards.”

“Hey!”

Oh well, fuck it.

“What? I’m telling you the truth. If you
want a lie, go somewhere else. You’re the one who always wants to give it some
time before you have sex so as not to cloud your judgment. You’ve decided to
lower that standard. Good for you. We’re all allowed to change. And she could
be a really nice girl. But I wouldn’t start picking out china. You’re still in
that after-sex high.”

“You’re right.” But he looks less happy
than when he first arrived. I feel awful. I want Sam to be happy. Even if he
isn’t happy with me. Don’t I?

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” I force myself to
say. “I’m not trying to rain on your parade. I can see that you’re happy. And
you should be. It sounds like you had a great night. I just want you to keep
that wariness that I love about you. Be cautiously happy.” I could be up for an
Academy Award at this point.

“I’m only saying this because I care.
You’re an excellent catch.”

He smiles at me. I’m in the shade, but I suddenly feel
warm all over.

“I know, A.J.”

I hold my beer out and toast him.

“And, yes, I realize you are surprised
that I know how girls think. Being that you don’t remember I’m a girl most of
the time.” I roll my eyes as I take a drink.

He laughs.

“Trust me, A.J., I always remember that
you’re a girl. Always.” He winks at me.

And just like that, my starving heart
finds something to eat.

After dinner, I’m pretty drunk. Sam
walks me to the car, arm in arm.

“I thought you used to be able to hold
your liquor?” Sam is laughing.

“How else could I get you to walk me to
the car like a gentleman?”

“All you ever need to do is ask me, A.J. I’ll do most
anything you ask me to.” He opens the passenger door for me.

We drive the short distance to my house,
and he shuts the lights off.

“It’s so dark. I don’t know how you live
up here by yourself. Why don’t you sell this place and get an apartment
somewhere?”

“I love my house. I love the dark. Plus,
there’s my garden. Who would take care of it?” I put my head on his shoulder.

“That’s right. I guess it’s too dark to
see it now?”

I think quietly about the dirt piles up
there.

“Not now, I’m too tired. I’d probably
fall on a rose bush.”

He laughs.

“You’re a funny girl, A.J. You know
that?”

“That’s my goal. To be the girl everyone
describes as having a great sense of humor.”

He laughs again.

He ruffles his fingers through my hair
and pulls me off his shoulder.

Sam looks into my eyes for a minute. He
takes my glasses off.

“Why don’t you get contacts? You have
such pretty eyes,” he said.

“Is that a line you used on your girl
from last night?”

I’m getting nervous. I don’t know where
this is going. My insides are still aching. I can’t handle it.

“Can you stop making wisecracks for one
minute?” he said.

We look at each other for a moment.

“What?” I ask, nervously. I feel my
walls going up.

“I just wanted to look at you. No one
would ever say you’re the girl with the great sense of humor. Although you do
have one. They’d say that you are the girl with the golden hazel eyes.” He
touches my hair for a second. “Who doesn’t realize how beautiful she really is,
inside and out, and hides herself up in this little house on a hill in the
dark. A.J., you have a beautiful heart. You should let yourself out of your
prison sometimes.”

Oh, Sam. My heart isn’t beautiful.
It’s dead.

“Sam…” I stroke his cheek for second.

Then I remember about the girl from last
night. The one he’s in love with. I can’t believe I let my guard down like
this.

“Thanks for dinner.”

For a second, Sam looks slightly
confused. And hurt. Then he kisses my forehead.

“Goodnight, A.J.”

I leave him in the dark with his
questions.

I sleep on my Blacksmith’s grave that
night with my fingers buried in the dirt and my cheek kissed by his rocky soil.