After Krull left, I sat in the restaurant for quite a while, staring at his empty chair and shoving Indian food in my mouth. What evidence? I kept thinking.
“Would you like something to read?” said the host.
“No, thanks.”
“I must insist,” he said. “A young woman alone at dinnertime needs a place to put her eyes.”
“Oh, okay.”
Carefully, he placed that copy of Soap Opera Digest in front of me. “Please be gentle with it,” he said, pointing out Nate Gundersen’s fresh signature at the bottom of a cigarette ad.
Nate himself was on the cover of the magazine, which I imagined was a pretty common occurrence. I looked at the picture—shirtless and scowling, his chest glistening with fake sweat.
I read the block letters that ran across the leg of his tight black jeans: L&LL: LUCAS IS ALIVE—AND HE WANTS REVENGE! The print was red—like a Valentine, like wet blood. In his left hand, Nate clasped a large hunting knife that glinted under the studio lights, and didn’t look like a prop at all.
I got the host’s attention and gave him back the magazine. “Thank you,” I said. “But I don’t feel like putting my eyes here tonight.”
I looked at my watch. Nine thirty. If I took a cab, I could make it in time for the end of Shakespearean Idol and get Nate to call Krull personally. Jenna too. She owed me one for showing up at Sunny Side so late and bitchy. And he owed me three years and three thousand miles.
I hurried out the door and grabbed a taxi.
I squeezed into the back of the theater just as Corky and Juliana were singing their climactic final number, “’Til Death.” Since the audience was in complete darkness, I couldn’t discern faces. So I was forced to stand there, behind all the cheering fans, watching the star-crossed duo sing their long and brassy duet, before finally falling on top of each other’s sword-shaped microphones.
Okay, stop clapping so we can get to that damn finale.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” announced the actor portraying the sexy/sinister emcee. “As you can see, our two finalists are…disqualified. Everybody say, ‘Boo-hoo!’”
“Boo-hoo!”
“But listen up, people! This dark and tragic cloud has a solid-gold lining! One of you, yes, you, will be chosen as the next…idol of Verona! Houselights!”
As usual, the audience went wild. It was a tough task—scanning this collection of screaming faces and waving arms for two slender soap stars. Maybe he’ll choose Nate or Jenna as the idol. He loves to pick celebrities.
Suddenly, the emcee straightened his dancer’s body, made his mouth into a tight O.
The crowd completely lost it; they knew what was coming next. Most of them began stomping their feet or clapping in unison.
You’d think that outfit of Nate’s would reflect the light.
“The judges have made their selection. All the Capulets, all the Montagues have cast their votes. And the waiting is over. The next idol of Verona is”—he paused for a packed moment—“someone who’s already a star!”
Thank you.
“The most fabulous fan we know, profiled in this week’s New Yorker…Tabitha Meeks! Come on up, Tabs!”
Oh, great.
As Tabitha approached the stage, I looked for Nate’s face in the crowd, running my gaze across every row, until finally I picked out Jenna’s gold chignon. She was sitting at the center of row three, next to an empty seat. He never showed. He lied to me.
“I’ve never been chosen before,” Tabitha said. “This is the best night of my life.” As I started to leave the theater, she started singing “’Til Death” in a voice so bell-like, so strong, that even from the beginning I knew it would be her version—not Corky’s or Juliana’s—that this audience would remember for the rest of their lives. A star is born.
I couldn’t help it, I felt a little jealous. Not of Tabitha’s startling voice or how she glowed under the kliegs, not of the way the entire audience jumped to their feet and cheered before she’d even finished the song—but because tonight really was the best night of her life. And for me, it was turning out to be the worst.
I was on the sidewalk trying to hail another cab when I heard a female voice behind me. “You’ve got some nerve, bitch.”
I spun around. Under a streetlight stood Jenna, her skin smooth and beige as a mannequin’s, her eyes bright with anger. This is all I need.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“I said, ‘You’ve got some—’”
“By ‘excuse me,’” I said between my teeth, “I didn’t mean, ‘What?’ I meant, ‘Why?’—a.k.a. ‘Why are you assaulting me?’ a.k.a., ‘Why don’t you go away?’”
“You’re having an affair with him, and don’t try to deny it,” she said. “And in case you even care, he’s being treated for chronic sex addiction. So you’re not only a slut; you’re an enabler.”
I had a near-desperate urge to punch her in the face, but I managed to refrain. “Jenna,” I said, as quietly as I could, “I am not sleeping with Nate. I have a boyfriend. And even if I didn’t have a boyfriend and Nate didn’t have a girlfriend, I still wouldn’t sleep with Nate.”
“You might have everybody else fooled with the heroic-schoolteacher act, but not me. You’re nothing more than a sympathy vulture!”
“I swear to God, if you weren’t Ezra’s mom I’d do you such physical damage right now—”
“Listen, sweetheart. I know how to run a recent search history on a computer.”
I stared at her. “So?”
“I know he Googled you. And I know he went to see you because I found dark brown hairs on his shirt. And he called me Sam during sex. He didn’t think I heard him, but I did.”
“First of all, those weren’t my hairs.”
“Well, whose were—”
“You have to ask him.”
“You expect me to believe—”
“Second, he did come and see me, at Sunny Side for his idiotic twelve-step thing. To ask for my forgiveness so he could move on. That’s all. If you don’t believe me, you can talk to Terry. Or the other teacher, Veronica.”
“But—”
“Third, do you have any idea how many Sams—male and female—Nate could have been referring to?! I mean, Christ, he doesn’t even call me Sam! He calls me Samantha!”
Jenna visibly cringed. “Shit. He does, doesn’t he?”
“Fourth, I am having a really terrible night right now, mainly because my boyfriend also seems to think I’m sleeping with Nate, so I just don’t need any more—”
“Oh, God. I…”
“What?”
“I think I might have jumped to conclusions.”
“You think?”
“I…I…don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s probably the soap. All that insanity and drama every day. I’m too much in character as Blythe. Too deeply in the moment…”
I sighed. “Nate has a way of making real life into a soap opera, doesn’t he?”
She nodded.
“Sorry he stood you up tonight. But I’ll tell you what—he really, really doesn’t want to lose you.”
“Hey,” Jenna said. “Can we just…like…take two? Pretend I never acted like a horrible bitch to you and talk about—I don’t know—Ezra?”
“Sure.” A cab turned onto our street. “You want that?” I asked her.
“You take it. My limo’s picking me up.”
As the cab edged closer and pulled to a stop, I saw the ad with Sydney’s face. I wished I could “take two” on today, at least.
Krull had to be home by now. Maybe he’d be sitting in front of the TV, watching replays of some Yankees game, unable to go to bed for worry, with Jake sleeping in his lap. I would walk in and turn off the TV. “Talk about not giving me a chance to explain,” I would say. And I’d tell him everything Nate had said to me outside the restaurant.
Then Krull would understand why I’d lied to him—after all, my ex’s “whole fucking life” was on the line—so he’d promise to be discreet when he called Nate in for questioning. And we could go back to that distant, soft-focus past of five hours ago.
Maybe he’d let me know what he’d been trying to tell me over dinner, maybe not. It didn’t matter. All I wanted to do was glue the two of us back together.
On the ride back, the cab driver said, “Anybody ever tell you you look like Sydney Stark-Leiffer?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, it’s a compliment. She’s hot.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I’d put her show on, but my radio’s fucked up.”
“She’s a terrible mother.” I hadn’t even been thinking that—not in those words, at least.
“Really? Man, you’d never know it. She’s always talking about her daughter, how close they are.”
“Bullshit!”
“Jeez. Mellow out.”
We didn’t say anything for the rest of the ride. I even paid in silence, let him keep the change. Serves me right for taking another cab. I can’t afford to take cabs all the time. Who do I think I am, anyway? Sydney Stark-take-cabs-everywhere-stay-at-the-fucking-Plaza-get-three-face-lifts-a-year-and-love-your-hairdresser-more-than-your-daughter-Leiffer?
But she wasn’t worth thinking about.
I’ll go into that apartment and say, “First of all, I’m sorry for not telling you the truth in the first place….”
By the time the elevator doors opened on our floor, I’d rehearsed everything I was going to say to Krull, from start to finish.
I sprinted down the hall, practically throwing my key into the lock. But when I opened the door to our apartment, I saw nothing but darkness inside, heard no baseball play-offs, no TV at all—just the thud of Jake’s paws on the floor and a hoarse, hungry “Meh.”
I turned on the lights, then poured Jake a bowl of dry food and some water. “Hello?”
No answer, and even before I did a quick walkthrough of the small apartment on the chance Krull might have passed out in some remote corner of it, I knew I was alone.
He would’ve fed Jake, for one thing.
I saw the three Sterling roses he’d given me. I’d placed them in a vase on the kitchen counter. One for “I,” one for “love,” one for “you.”
The cordless receiver was still lying on the floor, its tiny battery pack hanging out, attached to wires thin as nerves.
I walked over—just stared at it for a few minutes, the same way you’d stare at a dying animal on your lawn. Should I try to save it, or just clean it up?
I restored the batteries to their proper position, then found the plastic cover and snapped it back on. Nothing else was missing, so I brought it back to the base and recharged for a lot longer than usual.
And, sure enough, when I put the receiver to my ear, I heard the dial tone.
“Fixable,” I said to no one.
Back in January, Yale and Peter had given me a bottle of twelve-year-old, single-malt Scotch for my twenty-ninth birthday. Knowing how much I appreciated the really good stuff, they’d practically gone into debt to buy it, saving up Peter’s tips and cooking their own meals for well over two months.
When I’d opened the package, I’d gone speechless for a good minute and vowed not to break the gold seal until I honestly had something to celebrate.
But at eleven p.m., with no one in this apartment to keep me company but Jake and the couple next door (who, I swear, had been fighting for the past half hour about a grocery bill), that seal was looking very breakable.
“I didn’t ask for turnips! Why did you buy turnips?”
“You said turnips!”
“I said parsley!”
“Well, fuck you, you got turnips now!”
At least they have each other. The fact that I’d actually had this thought was enough to make me crack the seal and pour myself a huge glass, straight up, without feeling a shred of guilt over it.
I took a long swallow. It was smooth and warm going down—and with a slight thrill to it—nothing like any Scotch I’d ever had—even Black Label. It made me mad I’d consumed so much cheap wine at the Indian place, because that had surely numbed my palate before this singular experience, and God, I was so lonely it hurt. Where was Krull?
“What the hell is this?”
“Marshmallow fluff.”
“What?”
“Marshmallow fluff, motherfucker!”
Before I could fully comprehend what I was doing—which, for the record, was getting shit-faced alone in my apartment—I’d drained the entire glass and was pouring myself another.
“I’m taking your churchin’ credit card!”
“You take my credit card, I take your fuckin’ balls!”
“You took those long ago, honey!” I couldn’t believe I had just said that—actually, shrieked was more accurate. Drinking and screaming alone in my apartment. Joining in on other people’s domestic disturbances. “And what the hell is churching?” I continued. “Speak English, asshole!”
I clamped my hand over my mouth. Jake had come out of the kitchen, and seemed to be staring at me as if I’d gone insane.
“Cut it out. At least I fed you.”
I noticed a sudden quiet all around me, and wondered if my neighbors weren’t calling the cops, whispering into their phone about the crazy, screaming bitch next door. Wouldn’t that be ironic?
I walked back into the bedroom and put an ear up to the wall, but still I heard nothing. No phone calls. Maybe I’d actually embarrassed them into shutting up.
Jake jumped up on Krull’s empty side of the bed. I sat down next to him, petting him until he purred, loud as a little outboard motor. “At least you still like me.”
The cordless receiver was on the bed, next to Jake; I’d been carrying it around like a security blanket. And without another thought, I picked it up, hit redial, and was immediately connected with my mother’s producer. “Dr. Sydney’s ‘Art of Caring’ on WLUV,” said the polished, professional voice. “Please tell me your name, and what you’d like to talk to Dr. Stark-Leiffer about.”
“She’s not a doctor.”
“Pardon?”
“Uh…my name is…Sarah Flannigan.”
“Only first names are necessary.”
“Sorry. Sarah. And what I’d like to talk to…the doctor about is…” My voice sounded wet and choked. I clenched both fists. Don’t cry…. “I feel abandoned.”
“Everyone. My boyfriend—”
“You will be the next caller. Turn off your radio if it’s on. Dr. Stark-Leiffer will be with you after the commercial break.”
“Shit, she will?”
All I got in response was a man’s voice, telling listeners how they could be debt-free within thirty days.
I took a deep, shivering breath. What am I going to say to her? Am I really going to tell my mother off, live on the air?
Is this going to make her lose her job?
Next thing I knew, I was listening to Sydney’s piped-in voice—soft and gentle, the same voice she used to read me bedtime stories as a kid. “Welcome back to Dr. Sydney’s ‘Art of Caring,’” she said, “I care about you.”
I was about to hang up when I heard, “Next up, we have Sarah from Manhattan. Sarah, what can I help you with?”
This is so weird.
“Sarah? Honey?”
Finally, I got my jaw working. “I…I’m calling because…my boyfriend left, and I don’t know where he is.”
A long pause. She recognizes my voice. Why didn’t I use a fake accent? I should have—
“Did you have a fight?”
“What do you mean, yes and no?” Sydney didn’t seem rattled, didn’t sound like she knew me as anything other than another one of her fucked-up fans.
“Sarah, are you still there? I said—”
“I know what you said.” I coughed. “We didn’t have an actual fight because there was no yelling. He never yells.”
“And you consider fighting to be yelling at each other.”
“Yes.”
“Fair enough. Do you ever yell?”
“Sometimes.” I exhaled. “For instance, I just yelled at my neighbors.”
Another pause. “Why don’t you tell me what happened between you and your boyfriend.”
“I didn’t tell him the truth about something.”
“Was it important that he know the truth?”
“Isn’t it always important to know the truth?”
“No.”
“That’s your actual answer? Just, ‘No’? In other words, you’re saying lying is great.”
“Not great. But sometimes the best option.”
“You mean, like, how it says on your press materials you’re forty-five years old?”
She laughed. “Touché.”
“Touché?!”
“Sarah, can I ask you a question?”
“When my daughter was five years old, she asked if her daddy was a good man. You think I should have told her the truth?”
Daddy is good, and he loves you very much.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know whether you’ve read my books or not, but my daughter’s daddy left us when she was a teeny little kid.”
“I’m familiar with that story.”
“I understand he’d gotten all he needed from me. But my daughter. Not once did he try to contact her. Never sent her a letter, not a card for her birthday. Nothing.”
Look, Sammy-bear, your daddy sent you a birthday card. Isn’t that nice?
“He called once when she was ten. Asking for money. I said, ‘I won’t give you a dime, but would you like to know how your daughter is doing?’ He hung up the phone after I said I wouldn’t give him a dime. Does that sound like a good man to you, Sarah? Should I have told my daughter about that phone call?”
“He…didn’t…send her cards?”
“Not a nineteen-cent postcard, Sarah. Not a chain letter.”
Dear Sammy, I wish I could be with you for your birthday, but I hope you like this pony card. (Your mommy told me you love ponies!)
“But I bought her some cards. Did it four, five years in a row. Because I figured she should at least get a birthday card from her father. Was that wrong, Sarah? Should I have told her that I’d bought the cards myself?”
You’re my most special girl and I love you. Love, Daddy.
“He…didn’t love…your daughter. Did he?”
“Who knows?” Then her voice got softer. “I’m sure he did love her. In his own way.”
“What the hell kind of way is—”
“What I’m trying to say is, there’s a reason why people talk about ‘brutal honesty.’ If we all told nothing but the truth, all the time, the suicide rate would triple. There’s so much vulnerable, fragile equipment inside human beings. It’s why we have skin, and it’s why we build up emotional layers, too. There’s nothing wrong with protecting yourself. And there’s nothing wrong with protecting someone you love.”
I closed my eyes. “I wasn’t protecting anyone I love,” I said. “I lied to my boyfriend because…somebody else asked me to…to keep a secret.”
“Would it hurt anyone for you to keep the secret?”
All we talked about was Live and Let Live. I didn’t even know her last name…. Just give me twenty-four hours…. “I don’t think so.”
“Then your boyfriend has to learn that you are not an open book. This may surprise you, but there are probably lots of things about him that you don’t know.”
I stared at the ceiling. “It doesn’t.”
“Doesn’t what?”
“Surprise me.”
“Let me ask you something, Sarah. You said earlier that your boyfriend doesn’t ever yell at you?”
“Yes.”
“But you yell at him.”
“Sometimes. Not that often, but…”
“You know why people yell?”
“Ummm…because they’re angry?”
“Because they want to be heard, Sarah. Do you want to be heard?”
“Yes.” I felt a tear trickling down my cheek. “Yes, I do.”
“All human beings want to be heard. All of us want to be understood, to be valued, don’t we?”
“Yes.”
“If we’re not heard, we either scream at the top of our lungs, or we shut up completely. And both feel terrible, don’t they?”
“Yes…yes, they do.”
“Well, let me tell you something, Sarah. I hear you.”
“You don’t even know who I am.”
“Yes, I do, honey,” she said. “Yes, I do.”
And I started sobbing. I couldn’t help myself. I hung up the phone without saying good-bye to Dr. Sydney—to my mother—who had just spent more time talking about me, and only me, than I could ever remember her doing in my life.
And she didn’t even know who I was.
I kept crying until my whole face was wet and my muscles went lax and there was nothing left inside me but air. And then, without knowing it, I fell asleep.
Lying in bed, I heard the key in the door, heavy footsteps in the living room…thump, thump, thump.
Well, it’s about time.
I wondered if I should let Krull know I was awake. Maybe confront him in the living room, ask why he hadn’t trusted me. How can he have evidence? What the hell was he talking about?
I inhaled sharply. Actually, I think it would be a better idea if I pretend to be asleep.
Thump, thump, thump…
He was making more noise than usual. No ninja-lawman routine this time. He wanted to be heard. For him, this was yelling.
I was aware of him now, moving past the bed, opening the closet door, working the combination on the safe. Why didn’t I know that combination, anyway?
Is that it, really?
I sat up in bed, opened my eyes and saw him hunched over the safe. He wasn’t taking off his gun; he was putting something inside.
“Hiding a present from me?” I said.
Krull turned around. His hair was sopping wet from rain, and drops rested on his nose and cheeks. He smiled broadly. “You bet I am!”
He threw Nate Gundersen’s severed head in my lap.
“What did you do?” I said. But the tone of my voice was strange; it didn’t fit the situation. “Tell me what you did right now, John Gabriel Krull,” I said, like I was scolding a student. My “voice of authority.”
The phone started ringing. “Telephone!” Krull said cheerfully. It kept ringing and ringing.
I wrenched my eyes open. Dreaming, thank God that was a dream, thank—
Riiing. I looked at the pillow next to mine, then the clock. It was six a.m. The phone was ringing, and I was still alone in the bed. But the closet door was open.
Riiing.
I reached down beside me and grabbed the cordless receiver off the floor. The caller ID screen read PRIVATE NUMBER. “Hello?”
“Sam…” It took me a few moments to identify the voice, choked as it was with tears, with panic.
“Yale? Are you—”
“Please come to the theater now,” the voice said. “And bring John. Oh, God…please!”
Yale’s cell phone went to static before I could ask what was going on.
Still in the clothes I’d been wearing the night before, I slipped on a pair of flip-flops, ran down the hall, rode the elevator downstairs and took a cab to the Space.
I saw him sitting on the curb out in front. Dressed to rehearse in a leotard top and sweats, he was rocking back and forth with his arms grasping his stomach, as if he were literally trying to hold himself together.
Yale’s face was pale and wet, and when I put my arms around him, I could feel his whole body trembling. In shock.
“Where’s John?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What happened, Yale?”
He didn’t reply, but he did stand up. This was something of a strange relief—knowing he at least had that much strength in him. Then he said, “Peter’s guarding the door.”
I followed him through the courtyard to the theater. Peter stood out front, staring, his usually olive complexion a bloodless white. “Where’s John?” he said.
“She doesn’t fucking know.”
“All right,” I said, as slowly and calmly as possible. “Why do you guys think you need John?”
Wordlessly, Peter opened the theater door.
The first thing I noticed was how bright it was in the theater. Every houselight was up, every worklight backstage, every klieg on the catwalk, blazing. Why? I started to mention it—but then I noticed the next thing.
Facedown, stage center, was the body of a man, blood pooling out beneath him like a slick red mat.
“Who is that?”
“We have absolutely no idea,” said Yale. “We just unlocked the theater, and saw all the lights on and…him.”
I took a deep breath, steadied myself. “Okay. We need to call the police.”
“That’s why we wanted you to bring John,” Peter said.
I moved closer to the body. “Either of you guys have a cell phone that works?”
I didn’t bring mine,” said Peter. “Yale called, and I ran.” He was wearing shorts and an I 
QUEBEC T-shirt, both inside out.
Yale said, “My battery died.”
“That’s all right.” I moved closer, until I was standing directly in front of the stage. “We can call from the box office.”
The body looked to have been stabbed repeatedly in the back, and there was so much blood I couldn’t even tell the hair color.
“Okay. The important thing to remember is not to touch him, and…” Suddenly, I felt myself stop, as if the rest of the sentence had somehow gotten lodged in my throat and I might never speak again.
Clutched in the dead man’s hand was a fresh Sterling rose.
“Do you think he was killed here, in the theater?” said Yale.
“I…don’t know.”
“Who do you think he was?” Peter said. “A fan?”
Slowly, I nudged his face away from the stage.
“Sam, you said you’re not supposed to—”
His eyes were open and vacant as two huge, black marbles. His mouth was open too, in some kind of final, silent scream. It was hard to imagine that overpriced accent coming out of this mouth, hard to imagine these blue, bloodless lips, tightening elegantly around an O.
“He was,” I said.
Peter said, “He was what?”
“A fan. He was a fan.”