Don't You Cry(56)

Is Esther a murderer?

Suddenly I’m scared.

And still, none of this explains the identity of My Dearest. Who is My Dearest? Who, who, who? I demand to know, needing the answers now.

I think desperately of the men Esther has brought home over the months we’ve been together. There weren’t many; that much is for sure. There was the one who liked to cook, some hottie with high cheekbones, a strong jawline and large sweet-talking eyes. There was a secret admirer who sent her flowers, a dozen red roses without a card.

Were either of these men My Dearest? I don’t know.

And what do any of these things have to do with me?

One thing I know for sure: something sketchy is going on. Tornado sirens start screaming silently in my ear. Air-raid sirens warn me of an impending nuclear attack. Everywhere I look, I see a giant red flag. Danger, Will Robinson!

I’m scared.

The evening commute has come and gone. The bus isn’t as crowded as it often is, which is both a blessing and a curse. I would welcome the noise, for a change—bodies pressing into mine, reeking of their noxious breath and body odors. I’d embrace it for one reason and one reason alone: the fact that there is safety in numbers.

But not tonight. Tonight I am alone.

I slide into a ragged seat all by my lonesome and look out the window into the shadowy night. I pull my coat around me to help keep me warm. No dice. Thanks to the LED lights on the bus, it’s hard to see much of anything. The lights of the city burn ablaze in the distance, our Great Lake nothing more than a blackened abyss. A bottomless pit. I wonder what lies on the other side of that big, black lake. Wisconsin. Michigan.

Beyond that, there is nothing. Just darkness.

But it doesn’t stop me from imagining the things I can’t see.

I see Esther here and there, standing on the side of Lake Shore Drive, concealed behind a leafless tree. I’m overcome with this sudden, uncanny belief that she’s out there and that Esther, my dear friend Esther, is after me. I’m sure I catch sight of her in the driver’s seat of another car on LSD, a red, two-door coupe, a woman who stares in through the bus window at me, her eyes menacing and hostile and mean. I spy Esther’s coat at a bus stop we soar past en route to the Red Line station: her black-and-white checkered pea coat, her black beanie set atop a head. I twist in my seat, desperate for a glimpse of the woman who wears these things, but when I turn around, she’s gone. In her place, where I imagined her to be, is coily black hair on the head of a teenage girl. A zebra-striped sweatshirt. Jeans.

My eyes scan the riders on the bus one by one by one—not Esther, not Esther, not Esther. I mentally check them off in my mind. I inspect them all as they drop in their fare and climb on board. I do this at each bus stop—eyes scanning the hair, the eyes, for traces of Esther, reminding myself to look closely; she could be in disguise. Some middle-aged woman glares back at me and says, “What are you looking at, girl?” and I avert my eyes as she walks by in a huff and takes a seat behind me.

When I don’t see Esther, I tell myself that maybe she’s hired someone to do away with me. It’s silly, and yet it’s not so silly when I put two and two together in my mind. Esther killed Kelsey and then she found me. Kelsey with her food allergies was an easy target. Esther could kill her with her eyes closed and both hands tied behind her back. Step one: do away with EpiPen. Step two: peanut flour. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

But not me. I have no allergies.

And now Esther is on the hunt for a new roommate, Megan from Portage Park. Her time with me is coming to an end. That’s what I tell myself, anyway, as I sit on the bus, all but paralyzed now in fear. Esther is trying to kill me.

My rationalization leads to this: Esther has hired a hit man to kill me. She can’t kill me herself, so instead she’s hired someone else to do the job. Why else would she have all those withdrawal receipts from the ATM that I found in the kitchen trash can? Three receipts over three consecutive days, five hundred bucks each, totaling fifteen hundred dollars.

Is my life worth fifteen hundred dollars?

It is to me.

What does a hit man look like? I wonder as I make my way off the bus and into the Red Line subway station. There, it’s poorly lit and dingy, my view of passersby bleary and vague. Everyone is in a hurry. They whiz by me with places to go, people to see. I stand, in a daze, trying hard to find my fare card, but instead appraise those around me, my feet frozen to the filthy concrete. Someone bumps into me, and barks, “You’re holding up traffic,” but still I can’t move. What does a hit man look like? I wonder again, growing more and more scared. Is he big, gruff, his voice guttural and rasping? WWF wrestlers come to mind. But so, too, do skinny men with facial piercings and a million tattoos. Drug-addicted, emaciated men. And then there are the balding, fat men with glasses. They, too, come to mind. Is a hit man any or all of them, some combination of these traits? Is he always a he, or can he sometimes be a she? Is there some sort of rule for how a hit man should look or behave, or is it better that they be unassuming like the nerdy, awkward man, dull as dishwater, standing ho-hum, reading a newspaper in the center of the platform as I pay my fare and make my way down the steps. Is it possible Esther hired this man to take my life?

His eyes rise up off the newspaper as I appear and he smiles. I’ve been waiting, say the eyes. I look closely for a weapon in his pocket or hand, for something that will kill, and then it comes to me: the “L” train will kill.