I first heard you in the wake of a national tragedy, then rediscovered you a handful of months later in the midst of my own. I was sixteen and could already feel my world spiraling out of control in a hurricane of hormones and teen melodrama and the relentless march of time. Your voice pulled me out of the maelstrom, your words spoke to my core. I had never felt so understood.
Over the two long decades that followed, you became the soundtrack to my emotional evolution. I’ve lost count of the months spent listening only to you, poring over your expansive catalogue like a beachcomber with an embarrassment of riches underfoot. Where most artists gave only a handful of brilliance per album, yours were fit to bursting. I remember the year you put out the equivalent of four albums in a matter of months, and how the industry dismissed you as if each pressing didn’t contain multitudes. I saw you just before the first came out, at a surprise show--my fourth of yours, because every one of them was a gift and I had quickly become addicted. You sat down at a piano and sang about sinking into the ocean with a raw passion that made my heart weep with melancholy joy, like so many others that could only have come from you.
You were there each time I fell in love, and everytime I found myself scrambling to sweep up the scattered pieces of my broken heart. You were there when men used me and made me feel so very small. Time and time again, it was your voice that pulled me from the darkness. You were my sonic shoulder to cry on.
The last time I found myself obsessing over your work, I leaned into a fandom I had long resisted and through it met some of my closest friends in the world. Our lives couldn’t have been more disparate, our locations far flung, but we came together as women united by a common thread: a shared love of one man’s music--yours. We shared stories of heartache and loss, manipulation and trauma, and found that we all turned to you to get us through it. Sure, we’d heard stories that you weren’t who we hoped you were, but how could we believe it when your words and melodies made us feel the way they did?
And then something shifted, and it became ever harder to ignore the red flags springing up all around. Maybe it was the culture finally changing, opening our eyes to the abundant horrors that so many of our sisters had shared but never spoken aloud. Maybe it was your public meltdowns, and the growing pattern of you groveling in their wake as if throwing the tantrum of a child was dismissible in the light of day. I know that, for many of us, the last straw was your treatment of those you once claimed to love, unhinged reminders of experiences we all knew too well. Either way, one by one we found the veil lifted, and we hated what we saw.
So when the news broke and years of inklings were proven horribly true, many of us were saved only by the distance we had already created. But that didn’t save us completely. It didn’t save me. Not from the sharp pang of betrayal that hits anew each time a song of yours pops into my head. Not from the anger at myself for choosing to ignore the myriad signs that you weren’t worth defending. Not from the complex web of emotion that surrounds the realization that someone who was such an integral part of my life, my very being, now makes me ill.
I’ll never get my money back for the twenty-odd shows, or the albums I bought twice over after I’d worn the first copy out, or the books and magazines and posters and the like. I’m left with scores of memories I’d rather now forget, memories held so dear for so long. The times I watched you from the front row, spinning magic from your lungs and fingertips. The times we met and you were so much kinder than the rumors about you would have suggested. Like a love affair turned sour, these precious, joyous moments have been forever tainted by your monstrous actions, and I’ll never forgive you for that.
Years ago, I turned to one of your songs to help me finally let go of a man who had done me wrong time and time again. “I think,” you crooned over a delicate wash of guitar, “that I’m falling out of love with you.” Today I can honestly say that, when it comes to you, I have.
There was a garden. Maybe she’d always been there, or maybe she had just appeared out of thin air, but here she was. Flowers of every color, trees of all shapes and sizes, and warmth, so much warmth. Everywhere she looked, she was surrounded by life.
There were people, as well. All around her, people shuffled slowly along the winding paths, a natural ease between them, deep in conversation. Speaking their private thoughts softly to each other, their smiles modest but sincere, so lost in each other that she slipped between them like a summer breeze.
And then, suddenly, there he was. Tall and broad as she remembered from her childhood, when she’d throw her tiny arms around his waist and only make it halfway around. She felt the relief wash over her as she staggered towards him now.
“Daddy?”
There was a sadness in his smile, but he didn’t let it linger. He wrapped her in his arms and held her close as she laughed into his shoulder.
“But I thought--”
“Nope,” he said, “I’m right here.”
She beamed up at him, drinking in every detail of his face, it had been so long. “I never thought I’d see you again,” she said, softly. “I have so much to tell you.”
Together they ambled along the meandering paths. They reminisced about the old days and all of their traditions. She told him what was going on in the world and all the books and movies she wished she could share with him. She told him about her career and her travels, about the breakup, about her life. She told him of her doubts, her fears, of all the ways she felt like she’d let him down.
“Come on,” he said, stopping to take a seat on the stone wall, “you could never let me down. You’re my star.”
She felt the tears come before she could stop them and sank down next to him. “I miss you so much,” she sobbed.
“I know. I miss you too. But you don’t belong here.”
She looked up then, at the garden with its too-bright flowers and the light that shined just a little too gold. She could feel the edges of her vision fogging. Everyone was staring at her. Everyone was gone.
“Dad,” she said uneasily, “where are we?”
He sighed and stood up. “It’s time to go.”
“But--” She looked up at him, startled and stammering. “But I only just got here!”
“I told you, sweetie, you can’t stay here.”
“No!” she shrieked, like a child. “I can’t leave you! Please don’t make me leave you.”
He drew her in close, and suddenly she was a little girl again, maybe three, maybe four, rising before dawn to pull herself up to her windowsill where she’d tap on the glass as he crossed to the garage below her and on to his second job delivering donuts in the wee hours of the morning; he’d look up and see her waving excitedly, and he’d wave back, and she couldn’t know then what it meant to him to see his little girl so bursting with pure, innocent love for him that she somehow woke up in the dark every morning for an extra glimpse of her daddy as he walked out the door.
He was walking away from her now. She didn’t scream, she didn’t cry, she didn’t run; she simply raised a hand and waved like a child as she watched him go, taking the sunlight and the garden and so much of her with him, and she woke up.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: I wrote this five years and change ago and, while it has gotten easier over time, or at least easy enough that I don’t have to take the whole anniversary off every year, I can’t quite bring myself to write something new about it today. So here are my words from when it all still felt so raw.]
A year ago today, my dad said goodbye.
He had been in the hospital for two weeks and a barrage of tests had failed to give us any definitive information that might explain what had landed him there, in the first place. We knew it was cancer, and that the months of not eating had taken chemo off the table; what we didn’t understand was why the hospital kept insisting that he needed to eat, then preventing him from doing so for 12 hours at a time in order to subject him to more meaningless tests. The cycle was maddening.
That Friday morning, he had awoken in recovery from surgery the night before and, in a fit of terrified confusion, had managed to yank the breathing tube from his throat in spite of the restraints that were supposed to have kept him from doing just that. By the time I arrived at the hospital, blissfully unaware of what had occurred (I had finally had a full night’s sleep in my sister’s hotel room, after spending a week in a cot by his side), I found him sedated, defeated, beaten down by the hopelessness that surrounded him.
Softly, he said, “I think it’s time to say goodbye.”
The tears came before I could stop them. Alone with him in the ICU, I held his hand and begged him to stay strong. Through desperate, choking sobs, I reminded him of the countless times the tables had been turned, when it was I who was ready to give up and say goodbye, and he who had pleaded with me to hold on for just another day (knowing full well that the darkness that had overtaking me would pass again in due time). It was my turn, I said, to keep him here.
And then I started making plans. I wanted to set up a camera and some lights and finally get all of his incredible stories on film, from his idyllic adolescence in the Chicago suburbs of the 1950s to the decade-plus in Saigon and Jakarta and everything in between. I wanted to drive with him up the Pacific coast, past San Francisco and up through Oregon and Washington and maybe even up to Vancouver, simply because we’d never been and he always was my favorite person to drive with. I would come visit every weekend, I told him—he couldn’t get rid of me if he tried. It all boiled down to one indisputable fact: that hope was far from lost. The doctor would be in soon to tell him definitively that the surgery had worked. My sister was on her way down from the airport, his grandson in tow. He would be fine if he just didn’t give up.
“Okay,” he said finally, though the conviction was gone from his voice and he seemed to be placating me more than anything. “I didn’t realize the surgery had gone well.” It was several days later before I realized that he hadn’t taken back his goodbye. Not really.
We spent three more days with him. On Friday, he played with his grandson, still too small to understand why grandpa couldn’t get out of bed and hold him. We made preparations to bring him home: my sister and mother shopped for a fancy new bed, and my boyfriend cleaned his bathroom (a mighty feat, to be sure). I simply stayed with him, keeping a watchful eye and continuing to lie to myself that everything would be okay, that it would all be back to normal soon. I drove my boyfriend home on Saturday and was halfway back to the hospital when my sister called, telling me that Daddy wanted me to stay home and get a real night’s rest. He had kicked everyone out of his room, she said. I think he hoped to pass peacefully in the night, without burdening us with having to watch, but things never work out quite as we plan, I suppose.
In the end, it all felt like borrowed time. He had meant it when he’d said goodbye. That was the day he had let go.
You stand before me, raindrops dripping from your hair and clothes, smiling as if there’s anything to smile about. “I had to see you,” you say.
We’ve been through this before, so many times it makes me dizzy. Every time you forget about me, I convince myself that I’m finally over you just in time to fall all over again. Are you the fool for coming back every time, or am I the fool for taking you?
My friends never cared for you. They told me you’re an asshole, that I could do better. But they aren’t there for the quiet moments when it’s just us, sitting so close that the noise of the party is a distant buzz in our ears. They don’t hear our wild plans to elope in the desert (but only because Gibraltar is too far away). They don’t feel my heart click into place every time our eyes lock and your hand slips into mine.
“I had to see you,” you say. “Nobody knows me like you do.” So why do you let me down every time? Why do you forget our plans like they don’t mean a thing, when you know damn well they mean everything?
I’m the fool who believes your friends when they recognize me before we’ve ever met because you’ve talked so much about me. I’m the fool who looks Mike in the eye as he’s telling me, “No, really, he always called you the one that got away” and doesn’t shed a tear even while my heart is in a maelstrom. I’m the fool who’s waiting at your beck and call even when you go home with someone else.
Should I just move on, or will we just find our way back to each other and do this dance all over again? I already know the answer before I’ve even asked the question, and I hate you for the hold you have over me even as I fall back into your trap every time.
“I had to see you,” you say. But you never apologize, and I never ask you to. We’ve fallen in and out of love so many times that I can’t even call it that, and yet my heart still beats out of my chest when our eyes meet across the room. We’ve been here so often now that I almost think it’s normal. It almost feels like love.
I’m the fool who doesn’t know how to forget about you. We toy with each other time and time again, and yet it’s still my hand you reach for as the party winds down. It’s still your breath in my lungs in the dead of night. It’s still your arms I find myself in when morning comes.
I tell myself that I’m done with you, that I can finally see through your bullshit and move on, that I finally believe my friends when they say you don’t deserve me. Yet here you are once more, and here I am falling into you, like always.
“I had to see you,” you say. But you didn’t have to do any such thing, and I don’t have to take you back.
Her phone buzzed to life, sending her heart sinking into her stomach because she knew full well who it was.
“u up?”
He couldn’t even muster the effort to capitalize, let alone actually spell out a three letter word. Her chest burned and she fought the urge to chuck her phone across the room.
It had been like this for so long now that she could almost pretend that she couldn’t remember how it started, but of course she could. She thought of it too often not to. Drunken hookup at a party turned into vague plans to get together for a drink that somehow always turned into a late night rendezvous instead. Every time, she got that same terrified twirl in her stomach at the thought of seeing him again. Every time, she hated herself after. Every time, she told herself this would be the last but knew it wouldn’t be.
She stared at her phone, heart pounding and thumb hovering over the reply field with its blinking cursor. She ran through the most obvious scenarios in her mind, one by one:
She could answer as usual, play it casual as if she wasn’t waiting for him to text her at midnight on a Thursday. He’d respond with an “omw” and she would scramble to shower, shave, and doll herself up in the half an hour it took him to arrive. He’d barely say hello before kissing her hungrily, sloppily, all tongues and hands and carelessness. He’d waste no time leading her mouth to his unzipped trousers, then he’d fuck her quickly and fall asleep for an hour or two. He’d be gone before she woke up for work the next morning, and she’d swear again that next time she wouldn’t answer, but the cycle would continue whether she wanted it to or not.
Or she could ignore him. She could let the message go unanswered and settle into her bed alone. Maybe she’d read that book she’d been working her way through for the last two years. Maybe she’d fall asleep to the dim light of the television. Maybe she’d masturbate to the thought of him, as was routine on the nights he didn’t need her. The only certainty was that, before too long, she’d hear from him again.
He’d had a girlfriend almost as long as she’d known him. He thought he hid it, but they had too many mutual friends for that. Not like her friends would have approved either way, but she didn’t need them to state the obvious. She knew damn well that he was never going to love her--he already had someone for that.
She wondered what the girlfriend was doing tonight and felt a tinge of guilt for spending so much time as a glorified mistress. She wondered if she should say something, try to reach out and warn some poor stranger that her man was a cheater. But what would that accomplish? He wouldn’t change, and she’d still be the other woman and add another’s hatred to her own.
Her finger still hovered, the blink of the cursor beneath as threatening as an accusation. She thought of what she liked so much about him and found herself coming up short. He was like an impressionist painting, pleasing from afar but a mess up close. That scruffy beard was just laziness masking a weak jawline; his band wasn’t even that good. Suddenly the swagger and the boyish smile made her nauseous. She still felt that annoyingly persistent stir in her abdomen, but now she couldn’t figure out what put it there. She was lonely, to be sure, but he wasn’t doing much to fix that and deep down she knew he never would.
She seized that too-brief moment of self-assurance, tapped on the text field and typed a quick response before blocking his number for good.
His phone buzzed in the dark; his girlfriend barely stirred in her sleep at his side. He turned away from her, enjoying the feel of his hardening erection against his boxers at the thought of his side piece, of her ample ass and so-so face that he didn’t have to look at if he took her from behind. He unlocked his phone and tapped on unread text with an expectant smile on his face.
The smile faded fast as he registered the message.
The heat clung to the crumbling pavement; their bikes sliced through it like a knife through a peach pie, kicking up gravel around their balding tires. It was the four of them, like old times. Like always. Mary, with her golden locks pulled back in an effortless ponytail; Jojo, who would deck you if you dared call her Josephine; Poppy, who still kept dolls lined up neatly on her windowsill; and Kit, whose dark skin made her quieter than she wanted to be. Four girls on the edge of womanhood, in a small town at the end of the world.
They knew every dusty inch of this little town, heard all the stories from generations that never left. They didn’t remember exactly when the stoplight went in on Main Street, but they were ambivalent as their parents all the same. They knew to be polite to the soldiers who flooded the bars on weekends, but not too polite as to be unladylike. Funny that anyone even considered them ladylike--they’d been covered in a layer of childhood grime since the day they were born.
That summer, they turned 13 in rapid succession. Mary was first, just as she’d been the first to get her monthly and the first to kiss a boy. Jojo threatened to beat up Marlon Johns for getting “fresh,” but Mary assured her that she’d wanted it. Kit wondered how you knew if you wanted it or not, because when her stepbrother snuck into her room at night, she hated the weight of him on top of her and doubted that she’d ever change her mind. But she didn’t ask; she often felt like the baby of the group, and her cheeks burned just thinking about Mary’s patronizing response. She’d ask Poppy about it later, she decided. Poppy never laughed at her stupid questions.
But Poppy was around them less and less that summer. Her grandmother was a battle-ax of a woman who hated the way her only granddaughter seemed to prefer traipsing through the woods to taking tea with her. Every afternoon, Poppy was stuck in a stiff dress, Peter Pan collar buttoned tight at her neck, her rust-red hair smoothed to a shine. At first, her friends would peak in through her grandmother’s window and make faces at her until she giggled and her grandmother rapped her on the knuckles with a walking stick, but then Poppy showed them the angry red lashes that striped her hands and they felt bad and stopped bothering her. They tried not to discuss the hole she left behind, but it stung all the same.
So today was extra thrilling, with Poppy emancipated for the first time all week while grandmother ventured to Raleigh for some errands. They took the dirt roads at a faster clip than usual, relishing in the pierce of hot air through their lungs and the freedom of an afternoon to themselves. They could hardly hope to articulate the feeling they shared, that their easy summer days were numbered, that this was the last time things would ever be this simple. Instead, they rode on into the encroaching dusk without a care in the world.
The woods were there sanctuary. Under the thick canopy of leaves, they could be anyone they wanted. Their elaborate make-believes transformed their surroundings into palaces and pirate ships and far away planets. They took turns playing hero, villain, and damsel in distress. Their games snaked through the makeshift footpaths, across the brook and all the way out to Randolph Farm, but they always ended up back at the Hideout. This was their true home, the one their parents knew nothing about. The rusted, wheeless car frame threatened to disappear completely under layers of vines and overgrowth, but they found their way there every time like pigeons flying home. To the rest of the community, it was an eyesore that the county refused to deal with. To Kit, and to the others, it was a haven from a world that got a little more confusing, a little more sinister, everyday. In short, it was everything.
They made their way there now, bikes soaring towards the tree line, lighter than air. They dismounted gracefully and laid their bikes in the tall grass just off the road as they followed the familiar path to the Hideout. Poppy and Mary chatted excitedly about the coming school year, their first at the small high school. Mary was boy-crazy as ever, her coyness a well-honed trick to keep them asking more. Jojo rolled her eyes and kicked a rock ahead of them. She swore loudly and often that she’d never fall for a stupid boy; no one yet realized how right she would be.
Kit kept her mouth shut, as usual. She liked that the others never pushed her to talk--she preferred to listen anyway. Listen and learn.
Mary was asking Poppy to come to a movie on Friday. “What are we, chopped liver?” Jojo said in disgust.
“It’s double date,” Mary replied. “With boys.”
Jojo wretched. “Which boys?”
“Ryan and Steve.”
“Steve Anderson?” Jojo wretched again. Poppy giggled as Mary gasped in exaggerated indignation.
“What’s wrong with Steve Anderson? He’s cute!”
“He smells like dog food!”
“Don’t mean he’s not cute.”
“Would you guys stop it?” Poppy said, shoving them playfully apart. “Let’s talk about something else.” She started prattling on about the etiquette class her grandmother had signed her up for and how nervous she was about the upcoming cotillion. Mary made a joke about taking her place, and Kit found herself wondering when they’d stopped playing make-believe. She missed their flights of fancy, missed the simplicity of their rural girlhood before boys came crashing in. She was just about to ask if they wanted to play a game when Jojo held out a warning arm, stopping them in their tracks.
“Did you guys hear something?”
They paused and strained their ears against the soft din of the forest. They were nearing the Hideout, and soon Kit could make out the steady, stifled cries of what sounded like a wounded animal. “Maybe we should go get someone,” Kit whispered.
“And do what? It’s probably just an injured raccoon or something.” Jo charged onward, and the girls followed.
When she stopped just shy of the Hideout and ducked down behind a fallen log, they fell in line beside her. “It’s not a raccoon, is it?” Poppy breathed. Jojo shook her head and peaked up over the log. Kit copied her until she could just make out the car frame.
Inside was a girl, not much older than they were, laying on her stomach with a man on top of her. Her dress was scrunched up around her waist; they could see the white of her thighs peeking out from under the man’s legs. His pants were around his ankles, and he thrust rhythmically, grunting each time. Kit felt a wave of bile rise in her throat and focused on the girl’s face, the tears streaming down her cheeks and the blankness in her eyes. She stared so hard into their empty depths that she didn’t see Jojo leap up and over the log.
“Hey!” she screamed. “Get off of her!”
The man looked up, startled, but instead of moving he just laughed. “Oh yeah, you little shit? Whatcha gonna do?”
Jo squared up before him. “Why not get up and come find out?”
“Looks like this little bitch wants a taste of me too.” He laughed mirthlessly and smacked the girl on the ass; she winced, sending a fresh wave of silent tears streaming. Kit’s heart hurt from looking at her.
The man climbed off and out of the car, but didn’t bother pulling his pants up. Mary and Poppy stood beside Jojo now, trying not to stare at the swinging protrusion hanging between his legs. Jojo didn’t even look. She kept her eyes locked on his, her brow furrowed and fists clenched.
He laughed again. “You gonna punch me, girlie?”
For a moment, no one moved. Then he took a sudden step forward, grunting like bear. Jo flinched.
“Ha! Fucking kids.” He turned to climb back inside the car, but he didn’t make it that far. In a flash of movement so fast that no one could be sure just what had happened, he was suddenly on the ground, the side of his head gushing blood thick as stew onto the bed of dead leaves below.
Kit dropped the branch and took a nervous step back. It was Jo who stepped forward and kicked the man with her toe.
“What the fuck, Kit?” Mary said. It wasn’t a question. Kit ignored her and went to the car, where she offered the girl her brown little hand and helped her out of the car. The girl pulled her dress down bashfully and wiped her tear-stained face. She didn’t say a word before she ran into the trees.
The girls never spoke of it, then or ever. They backed away from the body and left their Hideout for good. It was the last day they would ever venture into the woods together. It would take weeks for the body to be found, and no one kicked up much of a fuss for the stranger. He was someone else’s boy, some other town’s problem.
Before too long, their nerves subsided and the day drifted into a distant memory, fuzzy around the edges and only scary if they thought about it too long. If they thought about it at all.
The school year started, and the girls grew further apart. Mary and Poppy found a group of girls with hair and chests as big as their own, but by high school some perceived slight drove a wedge between them that would last a lifetime. Jojo joined the girl’s softball team; she smiled at Kit in the halls but they rarely saw each other outside of school. Kit floundered for a while before the school insisted she skip a grade. She graduated early and left the little town behind.
Years later, in another city far away, she would wonder how she found the strength to take that grown man down. The branch had been nearly as big as her, and her scrawny arms shouldn’t have allowed it. But then the mysterious girl’s empty eyes swam into view, and she knew exactly how it happened. She’d had that strength in her all along, a coiled snake just waiting for the time to strike.
She smiled as she thought of Jacksonville now. She thought of the dusty roads and the hopeless street light that never wanted to change. She thought of the woods and the hideout and endless worlds of make-believe, of the dumb boys and the heat of summer and four girls against the world. She wondered what they were up to now.
The room is a sea of pristine white. White walls, plush white carpet, supple white leather sofa and chaise. Clean; virginal; funereal. She blinks in the biting light, such a stark contrast from the dull gray concrete that’s been her entire world for longer than she can be sure of.
The guard clears his throat. “There is a bath ready for you,” he says gruffly, then turns on his heel and marches towards the door. She nods imperceptibly, but the lock is already clicking into place; she is alone once more. No, not alone--she glances up and to her right, where a camera stares back. To her left, another. Not alone, she thinks. Not really.
The white marble tiles of the bathroom warm her dirt-blackened feet. It pains her, deep down where she’s forever civilized, seeing the footprints left behind. She has always preferred cleanliness, perfection. Did they realize how they’d tortured her by taking these away?
The bath is a perfect temperature, just this side of scalding. She dips her broken body bit by bit, letting the fragrant water rise over her sun-starved skin. She runs her hands over her torso, counting the pronounced ribs under each fingertip, and wonders if her mother would finally be satisfied with how thin she’s grown.
She lets her eyes flutter shut, then snaps them open again to drive the visions away. With her eyes closed, she’s transported back to her unforgiving concrete box, to abject terror of being taken in the night and feeling like she’d never be warm again. The panic rises in her chest until she feels the water stirring rough as a hurricaned ocean with each hyperventilating breath. Through her building tears, the too-white bathroom swims back into focus, though its sight does little to assuage her fears.
A sudden pounding on the door sends bathwater lapping up over the porcelain rim. “Time’s up,” a guard commands. She throws her skeletal arms over her chest as the door bursts open and two uniformed men march in. Before she can eke out an objection, they’re flanking her with a rough hand under each of her armpits, pulling her from the bath. She stares down at the rivulet that seeps across the carpet, following as they drag her to the bedroom. She’s determined not to let them see the weakness in her eyes.
The guards toss her into a waiting chair, where she struggles to keep her modesty though they haven't spared her a second glance. Another guard flings a silk dressing gown onto her lap, which she rushes to wrap around her shoulders. Her arms are barely through the sleeves before the guards grab her wrists to strap her into place. With the leather secured, they nod to another, stationed at the door.
In the mirror before her, she watches as the third guard pulls the door open and two women enter wearing crisp white smocks and clutching cases in their demurely clasped hands. Heads down, they take their positions at her side and nod once to the guards beside them, who click their heels and march out of the room.
Without a word, the women set to work. One begins to methodically brush and dry her hair while the other paints the decorum back into her face. The beauticians work methodically, eyes never quite making contact with her own until the makeup artist bends close to do her eye shadow. For a moment, they are frozen there with words stuck to the their lips until the artist’s quiver into a weak smile that speaks volumes. People have worried, the smile tells her, but maybe not enough.
There’s something terrifying about how easy it all comes back to her, the sitting and the waiting while strangers primp her into an elegant doll. She thinks back to Cannes, so long ago now that it feels like a beautiful dream, and has the sudden urge to flee from it all in a hurricane of powder and hairspray. It’s futile, she knows before the urge moves into her legs. The cameras keep her in place, even without the straps to bind her. No matter how familiar its trappings, this is as much a cell as anything.
The ritual finished, she looks almost like herself again. The violet bags under her eyes have been dabbed and powdered away, the gauntness of her cheeks filled in with strategic contouring. Her hair has been degreased and fluffed until the curls cascade down one shoulder in a seductive splash. The women step back to admire their work, then pack up their cases and rush out the door without so much as a pleasantry exchanged with their fragile charge. For a brief, horrifying second, as she tugs at her restrained wrists and avoided her own reflection in the mirror, she wonders if this is indeed a part of her torture. To come so close to her old life, only to be left here to starve, lonely and forgotten at this cruel vanity. But then the guards return, followed by two new women bearing simple white dress and a small case of sophisticated pearls. Once the guards have freed her from her restraints, the women help her into the dress with the practiced ease of handmaids dressing royalty. It wasn’t unlike riding a bike, stepping into couture like this. Muscle memory at playing the beautiful star.
The fabric hasn’t yet settled into place before they’re whisking her into the living room once more. The white expanse has undergone a stark transformation in her absence. She blinks into the too-bright lights that surround the sofa now as the guards hurry her into place. Before her stands a camera; beneath it, a gangly kid clutched a stack of cue cards to his chest. A severe man in a suit stands beside the camera, barking orders at the crew around him. She knows in an instant what they want from her, and straightens her posture to wait for her cue.
The red light of the camera blinks to life. She clears her throat and reads dutifully from the cue cards without a second thought, the poise of a seasoned performer guiding her every move.
“I am ashamed of what I did, and I sincerely apologize.” What had she done? She had taken the advice of sycophants who claimed her best interests. “I have been tempted by indulgences.” Was this true? The glamor had indeed been tempting, but it had never felt like a choice. “I realize now that, as a public figure, I am not above the law.” Of course, she had known this could happen, that she could face severe consequences for her actions, but it had always felt like a necessary risk for the life she so desperately craved. “I am safe and well taken care of, and I do not require your pity, only your forgiveness.” She feels a rise of panic in her chest but fights through it, ever the professional. Just say the words, she tells herself, struggling to still the tremor in her voice. It’s only acting.
When it’s done, when the camera has clicked off and the lights darkened, the guards steer her back into the bedroom where the beauticians wait to undress her and rub the makeup from her face. Standing there, naked as the day she was born and much more vulnerable, she wonders for the millionth time if it was worth it. She can tell herself, over and over--that she simply did as she was told, that the money was hers by right, that she’s merely a pawn in a greater game--but as the rough chambray once again drapes her thinned limbs, she isn’t so sure. She isn’t sure of anything anymore.
She blinks into the gray darkness of her cell, rubbing the welts on her arm where the guard gripped her tighter than strictly necessary as he pulled her down the long, desolate hall past the endless sobs of the unseen. The concrete is cold underfoot, and she suddenly misses the buttery tile and plush carpet of that fancy apartment with every fiber of her being. Not the five-star hotels or sun-warmed beaches, not the film sets that so often felt like home, but that white room where she’d felt the last of her agency slip away. Silly, she knows; she’s no freer there than here.
And here, as she curls up on the freezing ground with nothing but her troubled thoughts to calm her, at least she’s finally, truly alone.
Betty released her curls one by one, carefully unraveling the tight rolls until they sprung free with a bubblegum bounce. Her cheeks flushed with rouge, eyes rimmed with a thick line of kohl, lips a cherry gloss. She pulled on her most conservative dress, thankful for the full skirt and the extra inch around the waist. After a quick final glance in her dressing mirror, her mouth teased a smile and she skipped downstairs to the rhythm of her beating heart.
“I’m heading to Diane’s to study,” she chirped as she passed her parents in the living room. Dad was buried in the paper, a plume of smoke from his pipe snaking out from behind his newsprint shield; Mother was focused on her knitting. They said good night, not a hint of curfews for their golden girl.
The night was thick with possibility. She skipped down the empty road and out of the neighborhood, her pace quickening with each step. At the movie theatre, she hooked into the alley and quickly shimmied out of her dress to reveal the skin-tight pedal pushers and baby pink sweater beneath. The dress she stashed gratefully behind a dumpster, for later. For now, she tugged the knot on the scarf at her throat and continued on her way.
They were congregated at the old reservoir, as usual. Betty found her girl gang sucking nicotine from slim cigarettes and swigging whiskey from an open bottle. They greeted her brightly and passed her the drink, which she accepted gratefully. She tucked it back, savoring the burn that climbed down her throat and settled deep in her belly like no milkshake ever could. She looked up in time to see the boys staring and let her eyelashes flutter in their direction. They enjoyed the attention as much as she enjoyed giving it, but it wasn’t them that she was waiting for.
Before too long, the crowd migrated towards the sound of revving engines. She scanned the faces for the one, the only one that mattered, but came up short. She took a long drag on her cigarette and joined her friends at the starting line.
Two hot rods stood at the ready, tailpipes oozing exhaust into the evening air. Johnny Boy stood at the open driver’s side door of the red one, the one lined with garish painted flames, and shoved his tongue down his girlfriend’s throat. Betty felt a wave of nausea as her mind flashed back to that terrible night, not so long ago, and she tamped it down like a cigarette butt stubbed out on the pavement by a steel-toed boot. She’d promised herself that night that no man would every ruin her again.
And then she saw her.
It was something out of a dream, like always. Like the first time Betty had laid eyes on her, all lithe limbs and dark eyes and effortless cool. It was the same every time, the girl appearing like an apparition as the door of her gleaming black chevy swung open and she stepped out into an aura of smoke. A cigarette dangled from her lips, from the pack tucked in the folded sleeve of her madras shirt. “Are we doing this or what,” she said, a touch of boredom in her voice, paying the crowd no mind. Betty couldn’t help but stare.
Johnny rolled his eyes and gave his girl one last grope before climbing into his car. Before Betty had time to blink, they were off; Johnny never could wait for permission.
She suppressed a cough as dust clouded in the air and wished she could follow the action from the girl’s passenger seat. But she was here, and they were flying, so she dampened her impatience with more booze. The kids around her joked and flirted while she stood sentinel, thinking back to this time last year, before she’d ever set foot in the reservoir, when she was still the good girl who kept her grades up and went to bed by 9. Before she was tempted by grease and depravity. Before Johnny took things too far. Before her.
As if on cue, a squeal of tires pulled all eyes back to the hot rods that spun around the corner and back to their starting place. Betty couldn’t help herself; she rushed towards them just in time to see Johnny burst out of his car, smoke billowing under the hood, to the black car that had just beat him to the finish line. He was yelling now, puffing his chest and letting his broad shoulders draw an imposing figure in the headlights’ glow. In a frightening motion, he yanked open her door and pulled the girl from her seat by the collar.
“You fucking cheat!” he screamed, flecks of spit flying at her face.
“Like I’d have to cheat to beat that hunk of junk.” The girl moved to light a cigarette but he was faster. He pushed her, nostrils flaring, but her reflexes were just as quick as they were behind the wheel and her switchblade was at his throat before he could pull his arm back.
He stammered something that was almost words as her steely gaze bore into him.
“Take one more step and this is headed right into your jugular.” Her eyes narrowed further, and he flinched as if to throw a punch but the blade dug into his sweaty skin. “Nuh-uh,” she clucked, hand steady.
“I’ll fucking kill you,” he breathed.
“Not if I beat you to it. Wanna try?”
Suddenly Betty was flinging herself between them before she had the good sense to stop herself. Her back was to the monster, her eyes locked on the girl’s.
“He’s not worth it,” she whispered. They stared into each other’s souls and their panting breaths slowed until a calmness overtook them. The girl nodded and was just turning back towards her car when Betty felt a thick, hairy arm snake around her shoulders.
“Thanks, sweet cheeks,” Johnny sneered, “but I only need a broad for one thing.” His apelike hands moved to Betty’s chest, and for a split second she was frozen all over again, a scared little girl accepting her fate just as she had before. But then the girl’s eyes flashed into her mind, and in one swift motion Betty spun around and planted a knee so hard into Johnny’s groin that it left the giant was writhing on the ground in the fetal position. His girlfriend came running, cooing at him like he was gentle as a puppy and cursing the cheats who had done this to him, but Betty paid her no mind.
How could she, when the girl was smiling at her like this, easing the tension of the moment with a dazzling smile. And then she was pulling Betty towards her, and then kissing her so deeply that the whole world fell away. As the girl’s lips pressed into her own, Betty knew that no man could ever make her feel this good.
The longer you live, the harder it becomes. To grab them. Each little moment as it arrives. To be living in something other than the past or the future. To be actually here.
A thin blanket of fog snaked over the pavement, the sky a quiet indigo in the hazy predawn light. Ariel rose with the grace of practice, set the coffee to brew, and manned her post at the kitchen window. Ready, waiting.
My love must be a kind of blind love
She took her time as always, a reserved but contented smile on her face. Rounding the corner, free from the hustle of the day, she swung her arms like a child one step away from a twirl.
I can’t see anyone but you
Ariel couldn’t remember the first time she’d seen her. A handful of months? A year? Maybe she had always been there, waiting for the watchful eye of another. Maybe she only existed right here, on this little city block. An urban aurora, her own goddess of the dawn.
Sha bop, sha bop
In the before time, in the way way back, Ariel’s days had consisted mostly of aimlessness. Waking late in the day; writing the bullshit that paid her bills; staving off the depression and insomnia with greasy takeout and cheap wine. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d left her basement apartment--thanks to delivery services, there was nothing to combat the voice in her bed that told her to ignore the tightness that formed in her chest at the mere thought of stepping out into the world. She wasn’t happy, per say, but she was comfortable.
And then, one morning so long ago now, she’d awakened to a drip in the kitchen faucet that forced her out of bed and to the tiny window above the sink. In her half-conscious daze, the girl outside could have been an apparition. She strolled past Ariel’s window with that beguiling smile on her face, a smile unlike anything else on this grey and weary block.
It took her all of five minutes to cross from one end of the block to the other. Five minutes to embed herself into Ariel’s life forever.
Her routine had coalesced quickly after that. Rise before dawn, make a fresh pot of coffee, and wait for the girl to appear. Soon Ariel was spending her days digging through the dusty records she had inherited from her father, looking for anything that might capture the flutter in her heart at the very thought of her. Before long, The Flamingos had joined her routine, their tight, dreamy harmonies floating out through that tiny kitchen window to spread the gospel of Ariel’s love for her.
Are the stars out tonight?
I can’t see if it’s cloudy or bright
She found herself increasingly fascinated by her mystery woman’s story. Where was she going at this early hour? What was her favorite color, song, movie? What were her hopes and dreams? Ariel wanted to know everything, every deep, dark secret that that smile contained. This woman was multitudes and Ariel wanted to wrap herself up in every ounce of her humanity.
Sometimes she drifted to the door, emboldened by the girl’s very presence for the briefest of moments, only to draw back as soon as her fingers brushed the doorknob. She had to remind herself that, in her mystery woman’s world, she didn’t exist.
Sha bop sha bop
Weekends were the lonely time. Before, Ariel couldn’t have told you the day of the week without cheating and checking her phone, but now she could feel Saturday barreling towards her from the dread that preceded it. Weekends meant no girl, no five minute dream. Ariel spent those mornings dreaming of their life together: late breakfasts at the cafe on the corner, evenings spent reading side by side on the couch. The girl would stick to true crime, Ariel had decided. She imagined reaching a steadying hand across the back of the sofa to calm her when a passage made her scared. They would drink cheap wine and eat greasy takeout and fall asleep in each other’s arms.
The girl would wake before dawn and return with fresh flowers or warm bagels or groceries from the farmer’s market. Maybe they would cook together--Ariel had always been miserable in the kitchen, but her love would guide her hand on the knife and toss flour at her when they baked cookies together.
On summer days, they would picnic in the park. In the winter, they’d string lights across the tiny kitchen window and read by candlelight.
I don’t know if we’re in a garden
Ariel stood at the window, breathlessly awaiting the girl’s approach.
Or on a crowded avenue
She would soon be close enough to touch.
You are here
And so am I
Maybe millions of people go by
Later, the street would fill with faceless masses, hurrying towards their own busy days, and Ariel would be left here in the afterglow, waiting for another dawn. Another glimpse of what could be, another morning hiding in the dark watching the light pass her by.
But they all disappear from view
In a flash, she rushed to the door. Her hand hesitated on the handle, but the girl was so close now. In a moment, she’d be gone.
And I only have eyes…
The street was pin-drop quiet. Ariel barely glanced both ways before skipping across the pavement. The girl looked up at her.
...for you
“Hello, hi. I...I’m Ariel.”
The girl smiled, and suddenly the world lit up and shifted into focus. Ariel’s heart skipped a beat.
The past is not one separate place. It is many, many places, and they are always ready to rise into the present...It is all the accumulation of time. It builds up and builds up and can catch you violently off guard at any moment. The past resides inside the present, repeating, hiccupping, reminding you of all the stuff that no longer is.
