The Disappearing Act(85)

I shift in the bedsheets, my whole body aching as if I’ve been in a car crash, which makes sense because I have. I bat my eyes open. Sunlight streams in through the edges of the bedroom blind, and everything that happened last night floods back into my mind.

I lurch up into the empty room, nausea crashing through me. She tried to kill me. Marla tried to kill me like the girl who leapt from the sign. She tried to get rid of me using my own Google history, and fevered imagination, as a weapon. My hand flies to my burnt-out throat as I launch into a cataclysm of excruciating coughs.

Images of Marla’s white-knuckled hands and her face as she fell back disappearing from sight. I repress the urge to retch—the pain too intense for my battered throat. I stumble out of bed, lumbering my way out to the pile of clothes and the ringing phone.

Leandra at Audi. Oh, fuck, the car.

I decline the call.

They already know I destroyed their beautiful car. I wonder, vaguely, how they found out so quickly but then assume Miguel must have called them again after last night. He was pretty angry about the Audi mechanic giving me back a “faulty” vehicle. But then it’s just as likely that the garbagemen have informed their insurance company of the accident.

I notice the time and bolt upright. It’s four-fifteen in the afternoon on Tuesday. I’ve been unconscious for twelve hours. I only meant to rest my eyes.

Marla’s body has been up on that hillside for over twelve hours. Another wave of nausea overtakes me and my head swims as I let it pass.

My thirst, already extreme last night, is now uncontrollable and I scramble to my feet heading to the kitchen and gulping greedily from the tap. Next I open the fridge and sit cross-legged on the cool kitchen tiles as I gorge myself on cheese, cold cuts, and whatever else I can reach. I haven’t eaten in over seventeen hours and those seventeen hours have been the most traumatic of my life. I let snapshots from last night flash through my mind as I stuff cold olives and leftover salad into my mouth.

The cold breeze at the top of the sign, the smell of Marla’s cigarettes, the shimmering surface of Lake Hollywood in the darkness. And then the blood, my blood, dripping down onto the gray marl of my sweater, the uncontrollable shuddering inside me. Marla’s face inches from mine, her eyes, the warmth of her breath on my cheek before she disappeared into the void. The sound of her soft body hitting the earth forty-five feet below and tumbling, twisting down, down, down into the dusty valley, unable to stop, unable to save herself. I pause, a chunk of Brie halfway to my mouth. Could she have survived it? Should I have gone back? Should I go now?

I try to think rationally, morally, legally. Was it my responsibility to save her if the impact didn’t kill her?

She tried to kill me but I certainly didn’t intend to do the same. I only pushed her because she was trying to drag me down with her. I could feel my own feet slipping and I knew she’d never stop. Even if it killed us both. I let her fall to save myself. Is that okay?

Lost in thought, I finally pop the waiting chunk of cheese into my mouth. It will have to be okay, I decide, because that is what I did.

But I didn’t call the police, did I? I didn’t call an ambulance. If I was so sure I did the right thing…wouldn’t I have called someone to help us afterward? I could have even called anonymously but the thought never crossed my mind at the time.

I don’t think calling an ambulance would have helped her, a quiet voice inside me answers.

No, but that’s the way things are done, isn’t it? If someone has an accident you call an ambulance.

You did what you thought was right at the time. You did the best you could, the quiet voice answers. That’s all you can ever do.



* * *



—

After showering I examine my damaged body in the mirror. The swelling around my nose has gone down; in its place a sickly green-yellow bruise now runs horizontally from under one eye straight across the bridge of my nose to under the other eye. An eye mask of bruising. Another livid purple-and-red contusion under my right eye, a small cut in the middle of my lower lip. I don’t remember when, but I must have bitten down hard on it at some point. My unremoved makeup is now clogged under my eyes, my skin sallow, and my freshly rewashed wet hair adds to the horror show. I push my hair to one side and look at my aching neck, the skin blood-blistered and bruised, scabs already forming where Marla’s thumbnails broke the flesh. I rifle through my washbag and pull out a tube of antiseptic cream, too late by far but the act of gently applying the cool cream gives me the illusion of clawing back my own body. Across my left shoulder and running diagonally over my chest is the blood-blistering and bruising caused by the seatbelt last night.

I cover my neck with my hand. Without the neck injury everything can be explained by my car accident last night, if it comes to that.

I dry my hair and put on a high-necked sleeveless top and jeans in silence as I work through a plan in my head.

Basically, I have three options now.

One: I go down to the station and I tell them everything that happened, beginning to end, and face the possible consequences of what happened to Marla.

Second: I call the police anonymously and say I saw something in the ravine under the sign. Just like the hiker who found the actress that jumped did in 1932. Then I would leave them to find Marla’s body and construct a narrative themselves.

Or third: I pack, make my excuses, and go home. After all, I’ve been involved in a car accident; no one would begrudge me leaving LA on the basis of that. I’m sure even Kathryn Mayer and the studio will understand.