The Night Before(43)

Jonathan places a hand on my shoulder. “Why? Because you were young and in love and couldn’t make the best decision?”

“It’s more than that. Most girls would have run away in tears, cried to their friends. Got shit-faced, puked, then gotten on with their lives. That’s what Rosie would have done.”

I’m not digging for sympathy, or for one more person to let me off the hook for my self-destructive behavior. I hate this part of me, then, now, and at every moment in between. She is undeserving of sympathy.

I look at Jonathan Fielding and wonder if it’s this part of me that has drawn me to him. That let him inside my head, which is the straightest path to my heart.

I’ve paused to drink and ponder. Jonathan is eager for the end. He says nothing, but stares at me with that serious expression.

“But I’m not like those other girls. Not like my sister. I rattled off things I could do with him—using as many obscenities as possible—and then I asked him if he knew what he was doing because I didn’t want to waste the night on him if he didn’t.”

“Jesus,” Jonathan says. He smiles. “Ballsy move.”

“It was some strange game we were playing then. I was waiting for him to blink. He was waiting for me. Neither of us did.”

“Did he answer the question?”

“No. He just smiled and said something slick like Don’t worry; you’ll enjoy it.”

“So that’s why you went to his car? He called your bluff?”

Jonathan treads carefully. He wants the end of this story. And I want the end of our story. Me and Jonathan Fielding. I want the journey to be over. I’m so tired. And now my head spins from the scotch.

“You don’t have to tell me the rest,” he says.

But he doesn’t mean it. I am so close to opening my mouth and rendering my confession. I don’t want to break the spell of intimacy that pulls us together.

I smile sadly and look away. I think suddenly about the notes. The threats. If someone wanted me to pay for that night, why am I still here? Why am I not in jail or lying in a hospital bed? Why am I not dead and buried? What are they waiting for? To torture me?

“Laura,” he says, his hand on my cheek now, turning my head to face him. So gently. “I don’t care about that night. I can see that it still upsets you.”

Liar, I think. He would have to be an idiot not to care about that night. And Jonathan Fielding is no idiot.

Notes, notes, notes.

I’ve been home for five weeks. I’ve received three notes. And now I’m on a date with a stranger who’s been asking me about that night in the woods.

I stand up from the couch. My head spins and spins. Scotch and confusion.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

I don’t answer because I don’t know. Except, perhaps, one small thing.

“Laura? Tell me what’s wrong.…” He grabs my hand as I turn to walk away.

I stare at him and think something. Something is very wrong.





TWENTY-FOUR


Rosie. Present Day. Saturday, 8:30 a.m. New York City.

Rosie sat at a small table, a fresh cup of coffee in front of her.

“Do you take milk?”

Laura’s roommate, Kathleen, worked as a graphic designer for a marketing firm downtown. Laura had found her through an advertisement. They had not been friends, but there had been no complaints, either. They shared a two-bedroom walk-up on Jane Street. Laura worked long hours. She rarely ate at home. Kathleen had a boyfriend in New Jersey and was gone most weekends. That was all Laura had said about it. Rosie had been there a few times before when she’d come to visit her sister, and every time her roommate had been gone.

“Yes, thanks,” Rosie answered.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday. It didn’t sound urgent—your message,” Kathleen said apologetically as she walked back into the kitchen.

“I didn’t know what was happening. I wasn’t sure … and I didn’t know how close you were to my sister. That seems strange now—that I didn’t know. You were never here when we came to visit her.”

Rosie could see Laura’s room through the small living space next to the kitchen. The door was open. The room bare.

“Did she take everything when she left?” Rosie asked. The day she’d picked Laura up, the boxes had already been packed and moved to the street.

Kathleen returned with a pint of milk and she sat down. Her eyes followed Rosie’s through the adjacent room to the open door.

“She did,” Kathleen answered. “That’s how I knew she wasn’t coming back. The furniture is mine. Just a bed and a desk. The closet has built-ins so she didn’t need a dresser. You can look if you want, but I went through it after a few days. I’ve been showing it again.”

“If you don’t mind—I might just walk through.”

Rosie’s hand was shaking when she picked up the coffee. She set it back down, drew her hands to her face.

Kathleen looked at her with caution, as though she didn’t want to be pulled into the storm. “So what’s happened, exactly?”

“I don’t know what’s happened. That’s the problem. She went on a date with a man she met online and she never came home.”