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“Yes?”
“Something’s the matter, I can tell.” He came toward me, and in that instant, I wanted to melt into his arms and never leave that safe and warm place. I wanted him to make everything okay. I wanted to forget that the girl on my computer screen had ever existed.
A tear winked at the corner of my eye. I blinked rapidly. Greg touched my face. “What is it? A bad e-mail? Something from school?”
I shook my head. “No.” That wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t from school. It was definitely not something from school.
He took my hand, led me back to his desk. “Come here, babe. Let me show you something that’ll cheer you up. I almost forgot. You have to look at this before you go.”
I followed him to the desk like a puppy dog. What else could I do? He opened his laptop, clicked through a few links and then said, “Ta da!” He turned the screen to face me.
For one horrid moment I thought he was going to show me the photo of the girl. He didn’t. It was our church’s brand-new Web site and there was a picture of me, front and center.
“The world’s most beautiful singer. In all her splendor,” he said.
I blinked. There I was, holding a microphone in one hand, raising my other hand toward the congregation. The lights had picked up the glints in my strawberry-blond hair. My skin was so pale, I looked like a ghost.
I said, “Is this new? I didn’t know I was on the Web.”
Greg nodded. “Stuart’s done an amazing job. You remember that sorry-looking old thing we called a Web site? It’s gone now. This is our new, professional Web site—it even has pictures of the youth group. You’ll get a kick out of this one.” For the next few minutes we clicked through the various links. “Stuart’s even arranged it so that there’s a blog. It’s mostly for the youth group, but anyone can post if they want to.”
“Stuart did this?”
“Yep.”
I always felt a bit unnerved around Stuart—the church’s projectionist-slash-soundman-slash-resident sci-fi expert, and now apparently, slash-webmaster. He works in the projectionist booth here in the church and is always in black: black T-shirts, black jeans, black boots.
A few years ago, before Greg moved here, Stuart and I went out. Once. We went to a movie, some classic sci-fi film that he kept raving over. The whole thing bored me to pieces with its continual chase scenes, and aliens oozing green and killing people by breathing on them.
Later over coffee, he had seemed almost angry when I said it wasn’t really my thing.
“But it’s a classic!”
Since then, our relationship has been cordial, but that’s it. There are times, though, when I find him gazing at me with those intense, dark eyes and I have to look away. So, he put me on the Web site, did he?
“A blog. Cool,” I said, without enthusiasm, attempting a cheerfulness I didn’t feel. “Well,” I said, “time for me to get going.”
Greg walked me down the back stairs, through the basement with its cobwebby rooms and out the front door of the church, holding my hand the whole time. Even though we were in front of the church, and it was the middle of the day, and there were construction workers all around, he kissed me for a long time. Then he said quietly, “I know things have been hard for you, Lilly. I know the things you’ve gone through, but I just want you to know that everything is going to be different now. You’re with me. And with God. I love you, Lilly.”
When he left, I caught my reflection in the window of the front door of the church. My face looked pale and watery in the glass, like it would melt.
I knew that girl in the picture. I knew her all too well.
TWO
I somehow managed to get through my work at the music store and my guitar lesson with my student Irma who, like she did every week, arrived early with foil-wrapped treats from her kitchen. Today, almond brownies. When she handed them to me she said, “You’re not as happy as I’d thought you’d be. Isn’t tonight a special night for you?”
I blinked. Had I told positively everyone?
“I’m fine,” I said. “Let’s have a listen to that chord progression you’re working on.”
“I practiced every day,” she said.
I’m convinced Irma spends whole days practicing the guitar her late husband used to play in a country band. It’s a beat-up Martin with a fantastic sound.
After the lesson, I put my head inside a cheerful bubble and finished the day. I attended my afternoon music-history class and made myself smile a lot. But later in the practice room, I couldn’t get my fingers to obey my brain’s commands on the piano. And as the clock moved steadily toward evening, I was slowly coming undone. I gave up on Beethoven and pulled out the notebook where I’d jotted down the lyrics to my unfinished worship song. I took my classical guitar out of the case and began. But as I went through the now-familiar melody, I paused midphrase. What did I think I was doing? How could I possibly think I could write worship songs to God? I tried to resolve the chords, but my fingers refused to find the final notes in the sequence.
For several minutes, I forced myself to work on it. I hit wrong strings and played chords that sounded like my life today—jarring, off key and dissonant.
I jutted out my bottom lip, blew my bangs out of my eyes and tried again, but no matter how much I pursued that piece, I could not finish it. I looked down at my trembling hands as if they belonged to someone else.
Why was someone sending me a picture of that girl? Why, when everything was just beginning to get good again? I sighed loudly. I can’t go out with him tonight. I can’t see Greg.
I had the feeling that Greg was going to ask me to marry him tonight. All the signs were there. Even Bridget, my roommate and best friend, had heard things. A few weeks ago, he’d taken both my hands, looked me in the eyes and said, “Two weeks. The night of our anniversary, we’ll go out. I’ve got it all planned. Don’t let anything interfere.”
I had looked into the depths of his blue eyes and said, “I don’t intend to.”
And why would I? Greg and I been going out pretty much exclusively for six months. I was twenty-nine, he was thirty. We were madly in love. So what were we waiting for?
I had already started picking out wedding colors. If he asked me tonight, we could be married in the spring. I’d even bought a Brides magazine—one—which I’d shoved into my top dresser drawer. I brought it out every once in a while to flip through it and dream, but it always made me feel a little like an impostor. I just couldn’t believe that could be mine. And now I knew it wouldn’t be.
I placed my guitar back in the case and closed it. I couldn’t marry Greg Whitten. I couldn’t be with him. We would have to break up. I sat there. I listened. Through the muffled walls, I could hear the other students practicing. Somebody was playing something darkly discordant, another was working on a classic Beatles tune, and still another was playing a blues number. I smiled. That was probably my new classmate Neil Stoner. A pale complected, serious young man, he plays both piano and cello—he transferred this year from a school out west. Neil and I—plus two bright-eyed sophomores named Tiff and Lora—were working on a music-history project. Sometimes I felt like a big sister to all of them.
Since I’d seen that picture on my computer screen, I’d thought about it a million times. It occurred to me that I could ask Stuart—he might have an idea how to find out where the e-mail had come from. I knew there were ways to do that but I didn’t know how. If anyone would know, Stuart would.
I dismissed that idea as soon as it came to me. I didn’t need Stuart nosing around in my business. Earlier, I’d Googled the e-mail address, but came up with nothing. I knew enough to realize that anybody in the whole world, good guy or bad guy, could sign up for a Hotmail account. And then get rid of it just as quickly. It could be someone clear on the other side of the world—or it could be someone living right next door. That thought chilled me as I looked at the closed door of my practice room. Was I vulnerable in here? Was I vulnerable everywhere?
I thought about Greg. My love was probably making plans for tonight, maybe even getting flowers. Greg is very romantic. I shut my eyes, bent my head and leaned my cheek against the cool white piano keys. Suddenly I was remembering a man from a very long time ago who wasn’t so romantic.
“Stop it, please! You’re hurting me!”
“If you and Moira would listen to me for once instead of always trying to fight me on everything, I wouldn’t have to keep you in line like this.”
I closed my eyes, trying to quash those thoughts, but they simmered on the surface. Stop it, I told myself. Think about good things, about pleasant things. Doesn’t the Bible encourage this, after all? I’d been trying to live by its precepts since I’d become a Christian seven years ago.
So why should this happen now? It just wasn’t fair.
A tear fell onto the piano keys. I put my music books back into my bag, got out my cell phone and, before I could change my mind, called Greg at his home, a place I hoped he wouldn’t be. The phone rang once and I had a horrible feeling that he might answer it. What if he’d gone home early? I was counting on him not answering. It rang twice. I held my breath. Three times and I began to relax. On the fourth ring it went to the machine, and I said as pleasantly as I could, “Greg? It’s me. Sorry I missed you.” I coughed a bit for effect. “I’m so sorry, but I’m going to have to cancel tonight. I know, I know, but I am just so totally sick. I don’t know what’s come over me, but you really do not want to be around me tonight. You might catch it. I’m surprised I can even talk this long on the phone without running to the bathroom. It came on me so suddenly. So, hey, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. We’ll reschedule.” I hung up and very carefully and deliberately turned off my cell phone. Then I bent my head into my hands. I’d just told another lie in a long string of lies to the person I wanted to spent the rest of my life with.
When I got home to my apartment, I went into my room, and closed the door. I pulled my two big suitcases out from under my bed and haphazardly began stuffing clothes and books inside. When one suitcase was filled with my music books and composition papers, it became obvious that I couldn’t take everything. But when I got to where I was going, wherever that was, I wouldn’t be able to send for my stuff. Because I would have disappeared. Like I had eight years ago. Except I hadn’t, had I?
My mistake, I thought, as I crammed in T-shirts and jeans and socks and sweaters, was in ever thinking that I could have a normal life—get married, have children, go to church and pick out china patterns—like a regular person.
If I got in my car right now, I could miss rush hour maybe. I looked out my window to the street three stories below. Bridget and I live on a semi-busy avenue lined with old brownstones like ours. It’s also a pedestrian street with lots of ancient trees and people who walk dogs or jog or push baby carriages along the cement sidewalk. The church spire towers on the left, and I confess to often sitting right here, just to catch a glimpse of my beloved. I sat at the window and cried for all that I was about to lose.
And this is the way Bridget found me an hour later, sitting on my bed, clutching a book of poems that Greg had bought me, crying. I quickly dried my eyes on the ends of my sleeves and said, “What are you doing home so early?”
“Oh, Lilly!” She dropped the high heels she’d been holding and raced to my side. “You look so sick! Greg called me and told me you guys aren’t going out tonight. Do you want me to stay home with you? Was it something you ate? Why don’t I make some of my chicken soup?” She sat beside me, placed her perfectly manicured fingers on my forehead and looked at me sadly. Then she noticed the mess on my bed. “What’s all this?”
If there is another person I didn’t want to lie to, it’s Bridget, but again, I didn’t think I had a choice. We’ve shared this apartment for four years, and I value her wisdom and her friendship more than I can say. I could never lie to her and yet—and yet—I had and I would continue to do so.
I said, “I thought maybe of going home…I don’t know.”
“Are you that sick, Lilly?” Her eyes were wide as she sat beside me in her mauve designer suit. She pulled her stockinged feet up underneath her. Bridget works in a downtown Boston office. The first thing she does when she walks in the door from work is pull off her heels and groan about sore feet. She does this absolutely every day, even before she removes her coat.
Four years ago, when the rent on this place went up, it became apparent that with my music-store salary, I wasn’t going to be able to afford a somewhat pricey, top-floor walkup on my own. It has basically three rooms: two bedrooms and a large living space which is a combination living and dining room with a kitchen nook in the back. It’s a cute place, and even though it’s as expensive as the sky, I didn’t want to give it up. Plus, I love the location.
I let it be known around the church that I needed a roommate, and Bridget came and saw me. We’ve been best friends ever since. She seems so very sleek and sophisticated, but she bakes tollhouse cookies on the weekend, knits socks for her nieces and nephews and knows the names of all our neighbors.
She was sitting beside me, a worried look on her face as she raised her flawlessly waxed eyebrows. Even at the end of the day, her auburn hair shimmered and fell into place like in a TV commercial.
“And you’re going to need your music books there? A whole suitcase full of them?” She looked at me and then something seemed to register. “Oh Lilly, you really are sick, aren’t you? Does Greg know? When did you find out?”
I put up my hand. I had to stop her. “No, no. I’m not dying. I’m okay. Well, sick, but okay. I’m just organizing. I was feeling a speck better, so I decided to organize.”
“And you’re going home?”
“I don’t know. I’m just not thinking. I…” And then I began to cry deep, heaving sobs. I just couldn’t stop myself.
Bridget hugged me. “I’ll stay with you. I don’t have to go to that stupid company dinner tonight. I’ll call right now and cancel so I can be with you here. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“No, Bridget, you don’t have to. Really. Don’t miss your dinner on account of me.”
“My dinner is nothing compared to the welfare of my best friend.”
I looked down at my hands. Quietly, I said, “I lied to Greg. I’m not really sick, Bridget. I’m just afraid.” I looked at her. “I can’t go into it. It’s complicated and has to do with a whole lot of stuff that happened to me before I came here, before I met Greg.”
“But honey, everybody gets afraid. Everything is different for you now. You’re a Christian. The past is in the past and you and Greg love each other.”
I shook my head. Oh, if it were that simple. And as I looked up into the pretty face of my best friend, I thought about the pretty face of another best friend from a long time ago. Her name was Moira Peterson. At a time in my life when no one was my friend, we two clung to each other as if drowning.
THREE
I finally persuaded Bridget to go to her dinner when I told her I needed a bit of alone time to work through my thoughts and that I hoped she would understand. She left, but not without me promising that I’d call her on her cell if I needed her to come home. She’d come immediately, she said. Even if she were in the middle of a conversation with the owner of the company—even about a six-figure raise—she’d drop everything and skedaddle home. Bridget, who grew up in the country, freely uses words like skedaddle.
I couldn’t wait for her to leave so I could cry in private, but when she did, I felt lonely, afraid and desperate. I was actually getting a stomachache. At this rate, I really would be throwing up. That thought gave me a peculiar sort of comfort. At least then I wouldn’t be lying any more. I closed my eyes and snuggled down deep into the blankets on my bed.
I’d told Bridget I wanted to go home, when actually that was about the last place I wanted to go. Maybe I should go see Moira. I closed my eyes and it was ten years ago again—I was under a sheet in another house. It was muggy and hot, and mosquitoes whined at the broken screen. He had just left the room.
Mudd.
His name was Michael Binderson, but everybody called him Mudd.
My arm burned where he’d twisted it, and the back of my neck hurt from where he’d hit me. When I’d put my hand to that spot, there was blood. It had happened when I asked for my rightful share of the money. He told me I was no good, I’d messed up again, I was never good enough—Never. And then he raped me.
It happened all the time. When he was gone, I would lie under the hot sheets in the humid air and sob. Moira would hear me and come from the kitchen to hug me until my gasping tears settled.
“Mudd,” I whispered his name in the darkness of my room in Boston. Mudd was the only person who would send me that picture. But he was dead. He’d been murdered eight years ago in a drug deal gone bad. Or so I thought.
I needed to leave. But where would I go? I couldn’t go home. Once upon a time, a dozen years ago, I had a promising future but I walked out of my family’s house and away from a college music scholarship. I thought I knew better than everybody; my parents, my guidance counselors, my music teachers. Five years ago, I reconnected with my parents, but we’re not close. My mother still thinks I’m wasting my talents. She feels I should be studying classical guitar at a prestigious music school rather than at a local community college. And singing in a church? She really can’t understand that one.
I couldn’t go to Moira, either. Eight years was too long to wait to ask forgiveness.
My mouth felt dry. I reached over and checked that my cell phone was turned off. Bridget and I don’t have a landline in our apartment so if my cell was turned off, no one could reach me. I sat up in bed.
Heaped around me were the clothes that I’d ripped out of my closet when I’d gotten home. On the floor, my music books and composition papers spilled out of one suitcase, and some of my clothes were piled in the other. My guitar was in its opened case. I got out of bed, picked it up and cautiously began to pluck out a melody and sing. I put it back. I couldn’t get anything to sound right.
I glanced at my clock: 8:16. If I hadn’t gotten that e-mail this morning I quite likely would be engaged by now. Maybe I’d be wearing a sparkly diamond and we’d be walking hand in hand on the sea wall, our favorite place. Or perhaps we’d be wandering through the mall picking out dishes and kitchen furniture.
I lay back down and buried my face in my damp pillow. I tried to pray, but I felt as if my prayers reached no higher than my ceiling. In the middle of this most horrible night of my life, I heard the lobby buzzer sound to our apartment and then Greg’s voice over the intercom. “Lilly? Are you okay? I left you messages. I’m really worried.” And then more mumbling that I couldn’t hear.
I actually considered running out and letting him in, saying, “Greg! Come up and I’ll tell you everything.” But I couldn’t. I knew he would never be able to handle the entire truth about me. I barely could.
I kept my head under the covers and stayed perfectly still until I heard his car drive away. There is no mistaking the pattering engine of his old VW.
I dried my tears and started hanging up the clothes I couldn’t fit in my suitcase. How could this happen? I thought I’d worked all this through. When I’d come to Boston, I’d seen a counselor for a long time. I’d gone to that support group in the church. I thought I was over all of this. Obviously I wasn’t. It’s easy to get over something when nothing from the old life threatens. But when it does, all of the hard work—all of the working through everything and the long hours of journaling—are for nothing.
I needed to run, but how could I leave all this? Over in the corner was the dresser I’d bought at a garage sale and had stripped and refinished. Next to it, a beautiful antique wooden music stand. Hanging on the wall was a huge paper star light, a gift from Paige’s daughter, Sara. On the bed, the handwoven bedspread that I bought at the outdoor market. And on my mirror, photos of me with Greg, and with Bridget.
My thoughts were all over the place on that long and terrible night. Lord, I prayed at one point, let whoever it is lose my e-mail address. I prayed that the e-mail had been a mistake. I prayed that their hard drive would crash and they’d lose everything. Or they would leave their computer in Starbucks while they went to the restroom, and then when they came back, someone would have run off with it. I was coming up with all sorts of scenarios that God could use. It could happen, couldn’t it? God performed all sorts of miracles and I needed a miracle. Now.
At first, I thought the faint knocking was on the door of a neighboring apartment. I ignored it and stayed under my covers. But it persisted. Then I thought I heard someone calling. It wasn’t Greg—I had heard him drive away.
More calling. A high-pitched voice. Had Bridget come back without her keys? I roused myself and went toward the door.
More knocking, more calling.
“Yoo-hoo? Bridget? Are you there?” The soft voice sounded like it came from an older woman. Bridget’s mother? I put my eye against the peephole. The diminutive, round, ashen-haired woman was not Bridget’s mother. The woman outside my door wore an oversized, baggy gray cardigan that I was willing to bet belonged to her husband. Underneath that sweater was a smudgy, food-stained apron tied over crimson track pants. Her sturdy, square hands held out a silver metal cake tin that looked familiar. Curious, I opened the door.
“Yes?”
She looked past me, craned her neck, then looked back at me. “Am I at the wrong apartment?”
“What are you looking for?”
“Bridget.” Then she stopped and smiled widely. She was missing several top teeth along the side. “Oh, you must be the roommate.”
I was curious about something else. “How did you get in here, may I ask? How did you get in the main door without buzzing?”
“Oh, that,” she said, walking around me and into the apartment. “It’s the same with my place. People are always leaving the front doors of these places unlocked, or they’re propping the doors open. People just don’t want to be bothered with keys anymore so they leave a brick in the doorway. Around here it’s so safe anyway.” She placed the cake tin on the counter like she’d been here before. “You just tell Bridget, dear, that I loved the cookies, and that I do want her recipe.”
“Okay, then.” I just stood and watched her. She peered up at me with tiny, close-spaced eyes.
“You don’t look so well, dear. Is it the flu?”
“No, uh…” I put a hand to my face. Did I look that bad?
She pointed at me. “You know what you need? Some of Bridget’s chicken soup. She actually got the recipe from me, you know,” she said, aiming a finger at her heart. She shambled through the door, “Now dear, don’t forget to tell Bridget that I was here.”
