Afterlife. Part 7

1.

It was nearly four-thirty when she stepped out onto the street in Manhattan, and just began wandering. She felt as if the woman named Julie Hutchinson had been hollowed out, and now she was someone else. She walked down to Sixth Avenue, and cut east over to Was.h.i.+ngton Square. The great arch was fenced off, and the circle within the park had some acrobat pa.s.sing a hat after a brief show. Dogs in the dog run were barking, and she almost wished she were a drug addict so she could buy some drug from the dealers at the edge of the park, some drug that would just put her further away from reality. Then along the streets, again, past NYU, past the windows of shops full of shoes or books or pastries or trendy clothes. She stepped into Shakespeare & Company, a bookstore that had been a favorite of hers from her student days. She browsed the shelves, wondering what she should be looking for.

Then, she remembered the conversation with her mother, after Mel had done a three-way phone conversation when the news of Hut's murder had arrived: her mother had recommended a specific book. What was it?

Something about The Life Beyond. The Life Beyond.

She touched each book on the shelf, as if it would speak to her. None of them did.

"Can I help you?" a young woman asked.

Julie smiled, shrugged a little. "I guess I'm looking for a book. I thought it would be in self-help. It's called The Life Beyond The Life Beyond. At least, I think that's the t.i.tle."

"Let me look it up," the clerk said, and then retreated to the cash register counter. She emerged a few moments later. "I'm afraid we don't have that one in at the moment. Michael Diamond's books are a little hard to get these days. We could order it for you, if you like."

Julie felt normal for the two minutes or so it took to order the book, but when she was on the street again, it was as if she were afraid to run into her old self. The sky, seen between the overhang of buildings, was shadowy with clouds. She smelled rain in the air. Rain and the exhaust of taxis and buses.

2.

She wandered neighborhoods, remembering how it had felt to be younger and living in the city. She glanced in shop windows along Greenwich Avenue, crossed over to Ninth and pa.s.sed by Electric Lady Studios, thinking of Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, the legends who had recorded there, past the Barnes and n.o.ble that had, when she'd lived there, been a B. Dalton's, past Gray's Papaya and moved through other stops along her memory's lane, and there she was, outside her old apartment building. It was as rundown as it had been then, when she and Hut had their trysts, when she had just finished getting over a heartbreak of her twenties and decided that there was no such thing as romantic love, and then, suddenly, she had met Hut, and she believed in things again. She believed that love and romance and happiness were in the world for her.

She sat down on a stoop outside a junk shop on Breton Street, which conjured a scene from her twenties of buying funky lava lamps and scratched-up coffee tables, and she thought of her old friends-Alicia and Joe, whom she used to go to hang out with, see movies, explore the city, cry over relations.h.i.+ps that didn't work, and laugh when life just became too absurd, or the time Joe asked if she'd be the "Best Woman" at his ring ceremony with his husband, Rick, and she had stood on the corner of Bleecker and Cornelius and just wept with happiness for him because she felt someone should be happy and in love. Those were her old days, and then, Hut had come along, and she'd left it all behind. She'd called Joe and Rick less and less, and then Alicia had grown cold (or had it been me? (or had it been me? Julie wondered). Alicia had an art studio somewhere now, and Joe was writing novels about the gay community. She had meant to read them, meant to follow up on Alicia's shows and installations, but Hut had brought her out to Rellingford, and they had quickly built a life, which seemed at times beyond their means. She glanced up at the window that had been her apartment, across the street. Then down the windows to the Chinese laundry, and the overpriced Ethiopian Restaurant next door to it, and beyond that the best deli within three miles. She had loved this neighborhood. She had loved her too-tiny place with its weird neighbors and elevator that worked twice per year (the holidays, because the owner of the building got it inspected then), with its inner walls that Joe had called "birth ca.n.a.l pink," and the crumbly ceiling in the bathroom. Julie wondered). Alicia had an art studio somewhere now, and Joe was writing novels about the gay community. She had meant to read them, meant to follow up on Alicia's shows and installations, but Hut had brought her out to Rellingford, and they had quickly built a life, which seemed at times beyond their means. She glanced up at the window that had been her apartment, across the street. Then down the windows to the Chinese laundry, and the overpriced Ethiopian Restaurant next door to it, and beyond that the best deli within three miles. She had loved this neighborhood. She had loved her too-tiny place with its weird neighbors and elevator that worked twice per year (the holidays, because the owner of the building got it inspected then), with its inner walls that Joe had called "birth ca.n.a.l pink," and the crumbly ceiling in the bathroom.

She remembered Joe's number. She'd surprise him. It had been at least two years since they'd talked. And now, here she was, a block away from his place. Opened her cell phone. Tapped in the number.

He picked up on the third ring. "Julie?" he asked. Caller I.D. ruined her surprise.

"Hey Joe," she said, feeling as if she were not midthirties but mid-twenties.

"Well, we thought you'd dropped off the face of the earth. How the h.e.l.l are you?"

"I'm in the neighborhood."

"Want to come on over? Or we can go over to Starbucks."

"I just was remembering. Remember when we all got tickets for Phantom?" Phantom?"

"Oh yeah, that was great," he laughed. "We show up on the wrong night, miss the night we were supposed to go, and then Alicia manages to flirt with one of the ushers."

"And gets us the best seats in the house. Sneaking into a theater was never so fun. G.o.d. We used to have such adventures. Some of which are not befitting a properly married suburban wife."

"I know. I'll be able to blackmail you in a few years." As he said this, she could practically hear his good-natured grin on the phone.

"We were such good friends, Joe."

"Hey. I'll hear none of that. We still are," he said. "You don't sound so good. What's up?"

Should I tell him? No. If I tell him, it'll lead to a long sad story and I'll cry and he'll cry and he'll insist on coming down here to comfort me and I'd have to look at him and feel as if my life were nothing but sorrow.

"Just a bad day," she said. "And I've got to get back to the kids."

"Well, don't be a stranger. Rick mentioned you the other day. He said he thought he heard your name somewhere. Couldn't remember where."

"It's always nice to be remembered. I miss you, Joe."

"Ditto, Jules."

After a bit more of the "let's get togethers" and "be sure and call back soons," she closed the phone, reopened it and was about to call her sister. Two skinny girls of eighteen or nineteen, dressed as if they were Fifth Avenue fas.h.i.+on models, walked in Prada and Gucci along the cracked sidewalk in front of her. "And so I was like, he's gay you idiot, run for the hills," one girl said to the other as they loped along, uncertain in the stiletto heels.

Julie glanced at the cell phone, and then set it down on the step. She opened her handbag, dug down to her wallet, opening it up and digging through a few torn small pieces of paper.

When she found the sliver of paper she had been looking for, she stared at the phone number for a few minutes as if an entire world were within it.

Whomever her husband had been seeing, this was her.

This mysterious woman in the city who had some hold on Hut. She looked at it. Looked at the scrawl of it. Not Hut's handwriting. Did you have a lover, Hut? A woman whom you met in the city? The one who kept you there some nights, not sleeping on the Aerobed or the cots at the clinic-someone whom you burned to see when Matt or Livy or I got to be too much for you? Did you have a lover, Hut? A woman whom you met in the city? The one who kept you there some nights, not sleeping on the Aerobed or the cots at the clinic-someone whom you burned to see when Matt or Livy or I got to be too much for you?

She wanted to call the number.

Instead, she called up her sister, to come get her, to take her home.

3.

Mel had other ideas. "You need a meal in you, and the kids'll be fine with Laura. She said they could spend the night if need be."

They drove to Benny's Burritos, and Mel got them a table at a corner window so they could have a little privacy. Mel ordered a chicken burrito that they'd split, and a margarita for Julie. "A little tequila never hurt anybody."

"Except a drunk. You shop for anything?" Mel squinted her eyes, slightly, as she watched her.

"You really want to know?"

"Sure."

"I got a Pilates workout tape. I wanted some nice towels, but none of them seemed right. Some scented candles. They smell like blueberries. Oh, and I got you a gift. Just a little one. A bathrobe."

"Thank you," Julie said, managing a grin. She felt cold inside.

"Well, it's just a terry bathrobe. Don't thank me too much. I just don't want to see you wandering the house in your underwear ever again."

When the chips and salsa came, Mel pushed them toward Julie. "Start eating. I don't think you've had more than toast in two days."

Julie hesitated, then decided that appet.i.te or no, she needed something. "It's good."

"It's always good here," Mel said. "So, why'd you keep me waiting?"

"I needed a hike."

Mel grinned. "Good. First sign of life from you."

"I'm running on fumes right now," Julie said. "I am so angry. p.i.s.sed off. At the f.u.c.king cops."

"You never never swear," Mel said. "You kiss with that mouth?" swear," Mel said. "You kiss with that mouth?"

"I'm sorry. They're incompetent. I didn't want him moved from Rellingford anyway. Why can't they just do their dirty work at the Rellingford Morgue? And that stupid sheriff out there, just...signing off on this...not even asking..."

"Can you just calm down a second?" Mel asked, dipping a tortilla chip into the salsa, dripping a little on her sweater. "Look. I'm the one who told him it was okay to move the body. You were down for the count, and needed sleep. Julie, it's a murder murder investigation. This is some psycho who is out there killing people. Four people so far. They need help in this. And do not give me that look-you were out cold or crying, and when I talked to that detective, and the sheriff, they both made it clear that my permission or yours didn't count. This is something that just had to be done." investigation. This is some psycho who is out there killing people. Four people so far. They need help in this. And do not give me that look-you were out cold or crying, and when I talked to that detective, and the sheriff, they both made it clear that my permission or yours didn't count. This is something that just had to be done."

"And so, they lost his body," Julie said, grabbing her margarita practically out of the server's hands.

"They what?"

4.

"Apparently, it's an ordinary screw-up," Julie said. "Ha."

"I can just picture you with those cops. Reading them the Riot Act."

"I don't know," Julie's voice grew faint. She looked out the window and saw a crowd outside the Tea Shop across the street. A lesbian couple walked by, arm in arm, looking as if they were happier than Julie had ever felt in her life. An elderly woman in a mangy fur coat walked an equally mangy little Yorks.h.i.+re terrier, pausing at the window of the restaurant as if gazing at her reflection. "I don't know. I think I was too stunned to react. I should probably call Andrew."

"h.e.l.l, yes," Mel said. "The threat of a lawsuit might just do something. You know, if they don't find his body in the next twenty-four hours..."

"Maybe it's what Donati said."

"Who?"

"One of the officers. She said it happens now and then when bodies get transferred. They think all that happened is that he ended up in another morgue in the city. They're blaming the driver, who had several pickups and deliveries. It's all very...complicated."

"Well they d.a.m.n well better find him, that's all I'm saying," Mel said, biting into a slice of avocado.

"It's all too much for me. Too, too much." Julie continued to look over her sister's shoulder, to the world outside, the world of smart young women parking their cars, a group of men in suits talking excitedly as if they just made some corporate deal that would make them all millionaires, the woman in the ratty fur coat, picking a newspaper out of the trash can on the corner.

Then, she re-focused on Mel's face. Mel looked at her as if trying to read her thoughts. You can't get inside me, Melanie. You can't. I'm not that easy-to-see-through little sister you once had. Not anymore. I am made out of stone. I don't feel anything anymore. I am impenetrable. You can't get inside me, Melanie. You can't. I'm not that easy-to-see-through little sister you once had. Not anymore. I am made out of stone. I don't feel anything anymore. I am impenetrable.

"It may be something else, though, Mel. It may be about the killer. The killer may come back somehow, to collect the bodies. One of the other victims also went missing. It's just sick. It's disgusting. I don't even want to think about it anymore. I don't. I can't."

5.

A rundown Volkswagen Jetta was parked on the street in front of her house when they got home that night.

"How does she do it?" Julie asked, shaking her head. "She runs that crafts store in New Hope, gets her master's in psychology and does crystal therapy...and has that awful boyfriend...and she still manages to get here this fast?"

Mel shrugged, as she turned the car into the driveway. "Toni Marino. AKA mom. What more is there to say?"

6.

If she were ever to draw her mother, it would be with nothing but circles and squiggly lines. Her hair was a bird's nest of jet black with glimmers of gray, her face was round, and round gla.s.ses upon her round nose. Even the word "mom" seemed to be a round word. She somehow had lost the angular half-Italian look of her Connie Francis-inspired youth and had transformed into Earth Mother by the age of sixty-four. "I picked up the kids from your sitter," her mother said, too quickly, as a shadow crossed her face. Her voice still with a strange hybrid of the Jersey sh.o.r.e and Pennsylvania clip, hugging Julie while at the same time glancing around at the living room as if about to give one of her famous critiques. Livy was practically attached to her grandmother, clinging to her skirt like it was a security blanket.

"I am so sorry my baby," her mother whispered, kissing the edge of her ear.

Julie fought back tears as she felt the intense warmth of her mother's cheek pressed against her own.

7.

Mel made some coffee, while Julie and the kids sat around the living room as if they had to entertain her mother. "The one thing I've learned about life," her mother said with that wiser-than-thou voice. "The only thing, really, is that it's about accepting loss."

"We were talking about that in my coffee group,"Mel said.