No One Tells Everything (9 page)

“Thanks for talking,” she says. “And if you think of anything else…” But she knows this is the last she will hear from him.

“Promise I’ll get an autographed copy of the article?” he calls out in a singsong flourish over his shoulder, less to Grace than to the whole bar.

Not waiting for a response, he rushes out into the stream of bodies and the forgiving darkness.

###

“People are so sad, Jimmy,” Grace says, swirling the last sip of ginger ale around in her glass.

“Not me,” he says, cracking his knuckles. “My life’s a laugh a minute.”

She smiles. “Nice haircut.”

“Thanks,” he says, turning his head both ways so she can see all angles.

Chances is crowded and groups of young people press against the bar.

“Are you checking IDs?” she asks.

“Don’t hate them for their youth,” Jimmy says. “You were like them once.”

“I was never that young,” she says.

“You forget I was a witness to it,” he says. “To Grace, the early years.”

A thin girl with a ginger mane knocks into Grace and apologizes with the gravitas of having accidentally cut off her arm. She has a genuine sweetness about her that Grace imagines Charles would have been a sucker for, while at the same time knowing that he couldn’t possibly be that lucky.

“It’s okay,” Grace says to the girl, who gently touches her shoulder before going back to a conversation with others who look just like her.

What hope Charles must have had to believe that the cheerleader liked him, even as his life played itself out against him over and over and over again.

“Are you okay?” Jimmy asks, leaning forward to cut through the noise.

That is a question, Grace thinks. Even back in kindergarten she refused to smile for the class picture, the photographer a greasy man with thin lips, because she wanted to look serious, because she didn’t think any of it was funny. She didn’t understand how everyone could just smile on cue.

“You know, Grace, it’s okay to talk every once in a while. We humans are social animals.”

Sometimes she’s not so sure.

“So what about this kid they’ve got? Your kid.”

“I don’t know. Maybe the girl was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I think he was a troubled kid.”

“I’ll say,” Jimmy says, pouring five tequila shots for the rowdy guys watching the Mets on TV.

A man takes a seat next to Grace. He is in his forties, with silvering hair and a Roman nose. Behind round glasses, his eyes are close together and watery blue. Maybe it’s the fraying tweed jacket, but there is a slight air of gentility and defeat about him. He glances at her and catches her staring, then orders a scotch on the rocks.

Sometimes Grace would dance with her father. Not like in one of those sentimental commercials, where a girl in a pink dress stands on her dad’s feet, but enthusiastically, with real spins and swing steps. The last time she can remember was when she was thirteen. And he was drunk. Drunk in the way that she was used to, louder, redder, wistful, his breath tinged with that warm antiseptic smell. Her mother wasn’t there but they were in the kitchen and spaghetti sauce was on the stove. There was a John Coltrane record playing, coming from the living room, and her father took her in his arm without a word and grasped her other hand and held it straight out, with mock seriousness, sweeping her through the room until they reached the refrigerator, where he spun her around and then headed in the other direction. She laughed. She laid her head on his chest and let him lead.

But during the second pass, he tripped on the edge of a stepstool that she had left out, and he started to fall. She tried to hold him up, to hold him with all she had, to spare him the moment of his crash. But her will wasn’t strong enough to support his weight and he went down with an awkward thud onto the terra-cotta tile floor. When he got to his knees he swayed a little, confused. To lessen his embarrassment, she didn’t ask him if he was all right. He got to his feet without saying anything, and then retreated to his den.

“Hello,” the man next to her says with clipped formality.

Grace has been staring at his drink.

“Hi,” she says.

“Michael,” he says, extending his hand. Small fingers. Short, bitten nails.

“Grace,” she says, taking his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“May I buy you another one of those?” He points to the watery remains of her ginger ale.

“I think I’ll have what you’re having.”

Jimmy looks hard at her but he doesn’t say anything, setting out a glass.

Grace drinks it down fast and Michael orders them each another. She feels languid and warm, poured into her seat. He is a lawyer from Cincinnati. Visiting his mother. Or so he says. He doesn’t rush to fill the silences and he doesn’t seem to be trying too hard, which she appreciates. She downs two more.

“What kind of law do you practice?” she asks.

“I’m a defense attorney. White collar.”

“Have you ever defended someone who’d signed a confession but didn’t do it?”

Michael leans back a little to take her in.

“Uh, no. Confessions aren’t really in my line of work. But I’d probably advise this person to plead it out and cut a deal. How come? Signed any confessions lately?”

“Just curious.”

“Do you live close by?”

As she follows this man out the door, Jimmy catches her eye. He mouths, “Goodnight Gracie,” and she turns away.

###

Michael’s body is pale-skinned with sparse dark hair. A slight paunch is all the rest Grace can make out in the low light. They don’t talk. It is a relief to go through the motions.

The professor rarely spent time in her bed. He preferred they had sex in his office, amidst his books and dying spider plants and the dated photos from when he had a full head of hair.

Grace takes off her clothes, not looking to be seduced, not looking for romantic gestures. His mouth has already turned acrid from the alcohol but she imagines hers isn’t much better. He moves to her neck.

“What do you want?” Michael asks. “How do you like it?”

As if sex is a steak, she thinks.

She keeps her eyes open in the dark to minimize the spinning, and she doesn’t answer. She encircles his back with her arms and hopes this is enough encouragement. She doesn’t know why she bothered. It’s not entirely unpleasant, but she’ll be left a little more depleted than when she started.

Michael’s breath quickens. Grace doesn’t feel much but she helps him along.

He finishes and pulls away. He has one leg in his pants before she even realizes what’s going on. She appreciates his economical performance.

Was it as good for you? she wants to ask.

“Thanks,” he says, zipping up.

“Have a good visit,” she says. “With your mom.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

She rolls over to her side, her head perched on her hand, watching him maneuver his extrication.

He mistakenly opens a closet before he finds the door.

“Well, good night,” he says.

He has already forgotten her name.

She barely makes it to the bathroom before she throws up. She slides over into the bathtub and feels the cool, smooth enamel against her body. She wonders if Charles lies awake at night in his cell or if he sleeps like the dead.

———

Nassau County Police believe a kidnapping and sexual advance led to a struggle, which ultimately claimed the life of 20-year-old Emeryville College freshman Sarah Shafer.

“He had this party for graduation and everyone from the class was invited. They rented one of those blow-up bouncy things. We all went as a joke.”

“His sister was super-cute and totally normal. We couldn’t believe she was related to him.”

———

B
rian picks up the phone when Grace calls in to play hooky.

“Hey,” she says, her voice gravelly, weak. “It’s Grace.”

He sighs. She’s lost track of how many times she’s been a no-show in the last month.

“Don’t tell me,” he says bitterly.

“I’m feeling under the weather,” she says.

She sees something on the floor and inches over to the side of the bed. It’s a watch, a man’s watch with a black leather band, unfamiliar. Funny, she thinks, that he bothered to take it off.

“Grace, you have to at least show up,” Brian says. “I can’t keep covering for you.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She rests her leaden head back on the pillow and hooks her elbow over her eyes. He has some kind of techno music on in his office and even at this remove, it makes her feel a little sick.

“What’s going on with you?” he asks, quieter.

“Nothing. Really. I’m fine.”

“Grace, you can talk to me. I’m your boss but I’m your friend, too.”

What could she possibly say? You like me because I don’t make sense, remember?

“Maybe we can talk tomorrow,” she says.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think we need to talk.”

She feels bad for making his life more difficult when all he has ever been is nice. She wants him to throw her another life preserver that she can let float by.

“What about tonight, after work? We could meet for a drink,” she says, wanting to appease him.

“Yeah?” he says. “Okay. Great. You think you’ll be feeling better by then?”

“Yeah, I think so,” she says.

She reaches from the bed for the watch on the floor, barely keeping herself from falling on her face. It’s a Piaget with a square face and roman numerals. Thank you Michael from Cincinnati. She slides back under the covers and tries the watch around her wrist, which looks bonier than usual, breakable in one snap. On its smallest setting, the watch spins around like a bangle.

###

She finally hears back from Kelly, Charles’s other high school lunch mate.

“I don’t have anything to tell,” she writes. “But I guess it doesn’t surprise me that Raggatt could be one of those whack jobs that goes postal.”

Grace drives out to Long Island, the day humid and gray, the sky like rough cement. First stop, the donut shop where Charles made his daily morning excursions. The woman behind the counter, auburn-haired and white-skinned, is as soft and abundant as an overstuffed chair. Her nametag says Charmane and her eyes are pleated with crows’ feet, warm and inviting. Grace imagines she gives a great hug.

“Hi, I’m Grace,” she says. “You responded to my campus posting a while back about Charles Raggatt?”

Charmane’s green eyes fall.

“Oh,” she says. “Yes. Everyone was saying such mean things about him and I just thought…Well, I don’t know. I thought he was a lovely customer.”

A man comes in and orders a dozen assorted while yakking into a cell phone. Grace steps to the side as Charmane serves him with a smile. He pays and leaves, still on the phone.

“You know,” Charmane says, “it’s rare that people interact with me as a person and not just the donut lady.”

She smiles and wipes the counter.

“You said he was always alone.”

“Always. Charles sat there,” she says, pointing to a small plastic table near the counter. “He put more sugar in his coffee than anyone I’ve ever seen. I just don’t see how he could be the same person that killed that girl.”

Charmane has powdered sugar on her lip but Grace doesn’t want to embarrass her by pointing it out.

“Did I say how polite he was? Always ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ He would clear his table and wipe it with a napkin even when there was nothing there to clean up.”

“Did you see him during the time the girl was missing?” Grace asks.

Charmane looks at her for a moment and then shakes her head.

“One day he just stopped coming in. I remember wondering where he was. I wanted to ask him if he knew her. I guess it hurt my feelings a little that he never came back. There are some things you count on.”

She is over forty, but Grace senses she may have entertained romantic thoughts about Charles. They had a certain rapport, and maybe he came to this donut shop every day because of her.

“Did he ever talk about himself?” Grace asks.

Charmane thinks for a moment, deciding whether to tell her anything.

“He said once that his parents were dead. That I remember. Died in some sort of sailing accident. He was vague about the whole thing.”

“Oh,” Grace says. “His parents actually live in Cleveland, I think. Maybe he wasn’t very close with them.”

She spins her new watch around her wrist to avoid seeing the other woman’s disappointment.

Charmane moves a row of jelly donuts to the front of a tray and sniffs. She doesn’t want to hear any more.

“You could use a little meat on your bones,” Charmane says. Take a few with you.”

She puts three donuts—two glazed, one chocolate with sprinkles, the same order Charles used to get—in a white bag and hands it to Grace, waving away her money.

Grace drives slowly by the diner near campus, hoping to see the teamster again, wishing now that she had taken him up on his offer to take her to the motel. But he isn’t at the counter. She drives south past the gas stations and a crumbling mall, and west under the highway and into the next town, Hickton, noticeably seedier than Emeryville.

Kingston Road turns into Route 6, and after a couple of miles, she comes upon the Econo Lodge surrounded by scraggly trees, a few low-slung ranch-style houses, and little else. The day has darkened and as she pulls into the lot the rain starts. Sporadic drops turn to pounding sheets and she turns her wipers on high, taking in the rusting aluminum siding of the shabby, loveless motel, its neon sign visible in the storm. No wonder the night manager didn’t report anything. No wonder he didn’t think much of a sticky dark stain matting down the musty carpet.

A few cars are parked on the side of the two-story building but most of the rooms appear unoccupied. Grace runs through the rain to the chilly office that smells of coconut air freshener. The counter is pink Formica, and there are two mauve plastic chairs pulled up to a small coffee table fanned with brochures about all the shopping adventures Long Island has to offer. A TV babbles from somewhere in back but no one comes out. $49.99 a night. HBO. A safe in the office for valuables. She rings the bell.