Though her new landlord said a professional cleaning crew had given the efficiency a white-glove treatment, the dust gathered fast, like clouds in a thunderstorm. The noises had started on the second night, so hushed that nobody would have heard them who didn't know what to listen for. Every night louder, every night another ounce of substance incorporated, every night a new muscle to be flexed.
But the beggar had never been as loud as he was tonight. Her night off from work, she should have known better. If only she had a friend to stay with, but she was a stranger in this city, locked out of the social circles by her odd hours. But here she was, in the dark, a silver swathe from the streetlight the only companion.
Except for her beggar.
Even with the pillow wrapped so tightly around her head that she could barely breath, the muted clatter reached her, chilled her, cut like a claw on bone. Maybe if she held her breath…
She did, her heart a distressed timpani, thudding in a merciless race to some vague coda.
But it worked. The rustling died, the velvet fell in upon itself, the dust settled back into its slumber. All was still in the underthere.
Cynthia couldn't hold her breath forever. Every time she exhaled, slowly, the air burning through her throat, the noises came again. With each new lungful of darkness, the beggar twitched. She should have slept with the light on. Not that the light made any difference.
But worse than the fear, the tension in her limbs and stomach from clenching in anticipation of his touch, would be actually seeing that hand rise above the edge of the mattress, claws glittering amid the matted gray fur, the beggar made flesh.
Better to imagine him, because she was sure her imagination could never paint as terrible a picture as reality could.
Better to hold her breath and swallow her whimpers and bathe in her own sweat than to peek out from under the blankets and see if tonight would be the night of the hand.
Better to lie here and never dream, eyes closed, better to wait for morning, morning, morning.
The next morning came as always, the sun strong and orange this time, not sulking behind clouds. It was the kind of morning where she could sleep, and no sounds rose from that strange land beneath the bed. She slept until early afternoon, then rose, still tired.
Cynthia always felt silly in the morning. She wasn't a child, after all. As Mom was so fond of reminding her.
With the sun so bright and the world busy outside, normal people on everyday errands, Cynthia almost had the courage to jump out of bed, go to the other side of the room, bend down on her hands and knees, and look at the empty space under the bed. Because everyone knew nothing was there. Just an old story to scare children with.
But she wouldn't dare look. Because he might look back, his eyes cold amongst the velvet, his hand reaching out, wanting to touch.
Cynthia shuddered, her bedclothes damp from perspiration. She kicked off the blankets and stretched her cramped body. She rolled off the side of the bed, looking between her legs. But he only stirred at night. The floor was safe.
She showered, brushed her teeth, adjusted the angle of the cabinet mirror so that she couldn't see the bed.
"Why don't you put the mattress on the floor?" her reflection asked. "That way, there would be no underthere."
"No," she said, a froth of toothpaste around her lips. "Then I'd be in the underthere. Lying right alongside him, or on top of him, or him on top of me, or something."
"It's only dust."
"From dust we come, to dust we go. Haven't you ever heard that?"
"Only crazy people talk to mirrors," her reflection said.
"You said it, I didn't."
Behind the mirror were drab vials with small pills. Pills could talk, if you let them. She couldn’t trust pills, not with those strange runes scribbled across their faces. One therapist said they made you shrink, another said they made you grow tall. She wasn’t that hungry.
The telephone rang. Cynthia went into the living room to answer it, standing so she could keep an eye under the bed. It was Mom.
"Hey, honey, how's school going?" Mom was five hundred miles away, but sounded twice as far.
"Great," Cynthia said, too loudly, too assuredly.
After a pause, Mom asked, "Have you had any more of your… problems?"
"They told me I was so much over it that I didn't need to come in for a while."
"I know we shouldn't talk about it-"
Yet they did. Every time they talked. As if this were all the two of them had in common. "I'm fine, Mom. Really."
"He wasn't like that when I married him. If only I had known-"
Here it came, the Capital-G Guilt Trip, as Mom shifted the blame from the one who deserved it onto Cynthia. That way, Mom wouldn't have any share of it. "I know I should have told you," Cynthia said. "But it's the kind of thing you just try to forget about. You lie to yourself about it, know what I mean?"
"Yes, honey, you're right. He's dead. Let's forget about him."
Forget who, Cynthia wanted to say. But lying to herself didn't do any good. "So, how's Aunt Reba?"
They talked about Aunt Reba, Mom's new car, and Cynthia's grades. Somehow Mom was never able to turn the conversation back to that sore spot she loved so much. Cynthia could never understand her mother's fixation with the past. Let the dead be dust.
"Got to go, Mom," Cynthia finally cut in. "Got class. Love you, bye."
Cynthia locked the apartment, left the beggar to his daydreams, and caught a bus downtown. A fat man with an anaconda face sat next to her.
"Afternoon for the pigeons," he said.
Cynthia stared straight ahead. She didn't want to hear him.
"At the airport, cannonball to the heart,' he said, thumping his chest for emphasis.
He didn't exist. None of them did, not him, not the Puerto Rican woman with the scars on her cheeks, not the longhair with the busted boom box, not the old man asleep under his beret. These people were nothing but hollow flesh. Formed from dust, passing through on their way back to dust.
The bus stopped and she got off, even though she was two blocks from her destination. "Cigarette weather," the fat man shouted after her.
She bought a hot dog from a street vendor, after checking under his cart to make sure the beggar wasn't hiding there. She sat on a park bench, ate the hot dog, and threw the wrapper into the bushes. Pigeons pecked at the paper.
The bench was perfect for a late afternoon nap. The seat was made of evenly-spaced wooden slats, so she could occasionally open her eyes and make sure the beggar wasn't lying on the ground beneath her. He could have been hiding in the shadows of the tall oaks. But he was most likely in her bedroom, waiting.
Cynthia's back ached by the time she awoke near dusk. At least some of the weariness, built up over months of restless nights, had ebbed away. She hurried around the corner, ignoring the strange people on the sidewalk. Their faces were blank in the glow of shop windows.
The counter clerk at the Hop'N Go nodded when Cynthia walked in the door. They settled the register, Cynthia mumbling responses to the clerk's attempts at conversation. Her shift started at ten, and she rang up cigarettes, condoms, candy bars, corn chips, shiny products in shiny wrappers, taking the money without touching the hands of those giving it. At midnight, the other clerk left and the beer sales increased.
At around two in the morning, a young man in an army jacket came through the door. It was that point in the shift when the wild-eyed ones came in, those who smelled of danger and sweat. Cynthia wasn't afraid of being robbed, though. Compared to the beggar, even a loaded automatic was a laughable threat. But this customer had no gun.
He placed a can of insect spray on the counter. His fingers were dirty.