I count backwards from ten before answering. “The choking was your idea.”
She nods, her eyes still, unblinking.
I have a sudden image of crows, a field of crows. Like in that painting by that lunatic.
She says, “Yeah. But would you do it on your own? If I said something that really pissed you off? If I told you something horrible? Or not horrible, just, um, something that could potentially cause a violent response?”
I don’t know what she’s talking about, but my body seems to. The thing slithering down my back grows colder, expands. I think how the scarf wrapped around her neck is not one solid colour; there are thin red lines popping out of the yellow – it looks like a splash of egg yolk with bloody threads dissecting it. Her hand flies to the scarf as if my eyes made it burn.
“What’s going on, Bride?”
“Guy. It’s not Bride, actually. Why would you even think that’s a real name? Seriously. Come on.” She bites on a cuticle and spits it out. She kicks a small pile of dirt with the tip of her pointy flat.
“What is your name?” I ask, my back too stiff, hardened with ice.
Her eyes on me. “In a moment. But it’s not Bride. First, I need to tell you about why we’re here. I’m about to tell you something that will make you want to hit me, which would be okay since it could only help me further, or rather further my cause, but I don’t want that. Contrary to your impression of me, I don’t like violence. Can you have a look?” she asks, and sticks out her throat so I can open the scarf.
As soon as I graze the flimsy texture with my fingers, she thrashes her head and screams. She screams and then she stops. Then she laughs. The laughter right after the scream. It doesn’t fit.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I say, but my voice breaks and it comes out in a squeak. I’m shaking. I’m suddenly unable to stop shaking.
“Bride. It’s the name of a character from Quentin Tarantino’s movie Kill Bill. Look it up.”
I lean against the picnic table. She turns her face toward the water again. We probably look like a nice couple, up so early, so healthily, out for a nice walk, taking a break.
She turns back to me. “Listen, in a minute I’m gonna leave. I’m gonna walk all the way to town and walk right into the police station. It’s not a far walk, but it’s far enough and it’s important that I get there looking a little beat. I’m gonna to go in there and tell them that I’ve been sexually assaulted and that you did it. I haven’t taken a shower yet because I figure we’re gonna have to go to the hospital to work up a rape kit and all that. I’m gonna call my daddy and my mommy and tell them what happened, and I’m gonna cry on the phone. They’re gonna tell me it was a bad idea to work at the smoothie shack in this shitty little place, but other than that, they won’t say anything mean because they’ll feel very, very sorry for me. As they should. I may or may not suggest that you were trying to kill me, I haven’t decided yet. I’ll probably have to –”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I squeak again, and I can’t come up with anything better than this. My mind is a field of crows pecking and pecking and cawing, cawing, cawing. I feel nauseous.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve always been a bit unusual, I guess.”
“But why? Is this a game?” I say, and the cawing is so loud now I can’t hear my pathetic squeaking. Everything around me becomes strangely large, towering over me. She’s a monster, a Godzilla with red eyes, and she’s asking me to choke her and my hand is on her throat and her eyes open and then it’s not her –
She says, “Dolores.”
– and so it’s not her, it’s Dolores, Dolores underneath me, and I’m choking Dolores, and she thrashes and her face is a grimace, a death face. I can’t stop choking her and she dies, and her eyes open wide, round, wide sugar eyes, and it’s too much to look at.
Dolores?
“Dolores?” I say.
Bride nods and says, “Yeah, Dolores. My friend Dolores,” and her face softens. She transforms from Godzilla back to a girl, a child. Her face – I don’t know, whatever beatific is, this is it. So young, so sweet, almost glowing from the inside. Holy. Beatific. Not like last year.
Because now I recall her, her other face – her scorn and the long, dark hair when I met her for the first time. Her name is Emily. Em. I try to remember if we talked then, but we didn’t because I would’ve remembered it.
I want to say something, but what could I say?
I just watch her. I watch her and say nothing.
She gets up and walks away. Walks all the way to the police station, I guess. Maybe she crawls there for all I know, to appear even more beat up.
Maybe I should run after her to stop her, stop this craziness, but I don’t.
I feel like throwing up, but nothing comes.
31
I DON’T REMEMBER STAGGERING HOME, BUT I MUST’VE STAGGERED home. It’s not a far stagger. Once I get there, I fall through the front door and close it and lean on it as if that could actually fortify me against whatever is coming. I should call my lawyer.
I don’t call my lawyer.
I think about getting in the car and driving far away. But I’m no match for the officious, angry cops in every shit town across this state. I picture myself flooring the gas, sweating despite the a/c, crying and cursing her name (her real name), only to get stopped by Officer Fuckstick in Buttfuck, South Carolina, population 1,000. How appalling.
I picture myself falling out of the car, babbling on, unable to control myself like a little bitch. What am I supposed to do when they come? What is the appropriate thing to do if you’re an innocent person accused of a crime? If you’re a person who will never actually get proven innocent because of the victim’s superb acting abilities? And I have to give it to her, she is a wonderful actress, putting on movie monologues just like that, with the right intonation and look – my little Taxi Driver, calling herself a crazy film-related (too!) name, convincingly enough that I keep forgetting to ask for ID, pretending to work in a crap job just to trap me.
I count from a hundred down to one and then from fifty. The nausea doesn’t subside, but at least it feels as if I’m trying to help myself. I have no clue what else I can possibly do, so I decide to cook.
I will make a summer vegetable ragout with curry sauce, which is not a complicated dish, but it requires an array of ingredients.
As I prepare the ragout, I begin to relax, settling into the familiar choreography of opening, pouring, stirring, chopping, mixing.
I mix two tablespoons of oil in the saucepan. I pour in carrot juice and briskly stir the mixture until it achieves uniform consistency. I don’t have some of the vegetables the recipe calls for. I’m missing fresh corn and summer squash. I only have enough for one cup of arugula, slightly past its best-before date.
I could call my delivery guy, but I don’t want him interrupting the police.
At this time, my curry sauce is ready to be turned off and drained. I pour the mixture through a fine strainer over a bowl, squeezing all the solid matter. I season the curry with salt and freshly ground pepper and set it aside.
The phone rings.
I put down the eggplant I’m holding. I like the feeling of its slick, rubbery skin.
I pick up the phone. The police say I should come over.
Clever girl.
The two cops are unfriendly but polite. Just like cops are in the movies. The first cop is short. He has a moustache. (There must be a rule that requires a certain percentage of cops to grow moustaches, one in five or something like that.)