Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls

  I wish I hadn't been at Ellie's house, walking to school and talking about Cheryl and stepping in her blood that we never saw, never knew was there until Billy asked me if I'd seen it. And no I didn't see the blood and yes I must have stepped in it and yes I was jealous of Cheryl because she had blond hair and boyfriends and wanted to fix Bobbi Jo up with Don, the boy I loved even though he thought of me as a nice kid and who likes nice kids? I was someone to tease in art class, not to date.

  Why couldn't she have fixed me up with him? But Bobbi Jo was much cuter than me and didn't act silly and immature and goof off and snort through her nose when she laughed and wasn't almost six feet tall and skinny as a broomstick and just about as curvy.

  But still alive, every inch of me—at least right now.

  But they're not. They're both dead and I have to see them at Hausner's Funeral Parlor tomorrow and go to their funerals the next day, and I don't want to see them, I've never seen a dead person. Or been to a funeral. When my grandmother died, Mom said I shouldn't go to the funeral, I was too sensitive, it would upset me, I'd have bad dreams. Guess what. I had bad dreams anyway.

  I don't want them to be dead and I don't want to die and I'm so scared my heart might stop beating right now, which is why I can't lay me down to sleep. I might die before I wake and the Lord my soul will take—but maybe not, maybe he won't want my soul.

  The mockingbird keeps singing and my room is hot. I kick off my sheets but then I feel so unprotected lying there and I pull the sheet over my head and curl up small and close my eyes and think of darkness, unending darkness, of rocks and stones and trees, of being caught in the roots, roots holding me tight, rocks and stones pressing against me, and I can't sleep, can't sleep, I think I'm going crazy, I think I am crazy, and I start crying and I cry so hard my pillow is wet, and I stop crying and throw the pillow on the floor and the mockingbird keeps singing.

  I lie on my back again and stare at the shadows on the ceiling, I lie on my side and stare at the Virgin Mary on my bureau, she stands there, her head down, her arms by her sides. My mother gave her to me one Christmas. I used to pray to her for all sorts of things—Hail, Mary, full of grace, don't let me have impure thoughts, don't let me flunk chemistry, let Don ask me to the junior prom. I passed chemistry but I think that was because Mr. Haskins thought I couldn't help being dumb. The other two prayers she didn't answer.

  I can also see the photos I keep in the frame of my mirror, mostly Ellie and me acting silly, some I took at parties at Paul's house, down in the rec room. There's one of Buddy and Cheryl grinning at me, their arms around each other. I should burn that one, I don't want to see it. I should put all the pictures in a shoebox and hide it on a shelf in my closet. They belong to a time that doesn't exist anymore.

  Will I ever sleep, will I ever forget the blood, will life ever be the same as before...?

  Part Four

  What If He Didn't?

  Just Suppose

  Monday, June 18

  Nora

  TWO days before the funeral, the police release Buddy. They held him for forty-eight hours. They gave him two lie detector tests. They questioned him, but he said he didn't do it, he was looking for the girls, that's why he was at the bridge. And he kept on looking for them, driving up and down Forty-Third Street, back and forth between Eastern and the park, looking looking looking.

  "And all along, all the time he was looking," Ellie says, "he knew exactly where they were. He shot them, he hid them in the bushes, he left them there. How could he do that?"

  "How could anyone?" I ask. I'm wondering if I should say What if it wasn't Buddy, what if it was somebody else?

  We're sitting on my back porch, drinking cherry Kool-Aid and eating Oreos. It's more hot and humid than yesterday—if that's possible. Insects buzz in the maple tree. Mom has gone to the store. Billy is playing with his friends. We're all alone. Just us and our ghosts.

  "I can't believe the police let him go," Ellie says. "We saw him on the bridge, he has a gun, he was mad at Cheryl. What more do they need to charge him?" Her voice is bitter.

  I wrap my arms around my knees and draw them close to my chest. "Buddy's gun wasn't the same as the murder weapon," I say. "The Sun said it was just an air rifle."

  Ellie narrows her eyes. She's getting mad, I can tell. "Are you on his side or something?"

  "No, of course not." I stumble over my words. "I just don't understand it. No one in his right mind could do something like that and then sit there on the bridge in plain sight, drive us to school—"

  "He's crazy," Ellie interrupts. Her mind is made up: Buddy did it, he did it, he killed them. "He should be locked up forever."

  I hug my knees tighter. "But he was in my photography class. He signed my yearbook." I lift my head and stare at her so hard, everything behind her goes out of focus, just a green blur of grass and leaves. "What if he didn't do it?"

  Just asking the question makes me dizzy. Everyone believes Buddy did it. They want him in jail so they don't have to be scared someone's still out there with a gun. Solve the case, get the killer off the streets, make us safe. I want to believe Buddy's guilty for exactly that reason. But he says he didn't do it. What if he's not lying? What if he really was looking for Cheryl and Bobbi Jo? Maybe he wanted to say he was sorry for getting mad, maybe he was still hoping she'd give him another chance. Isn't that what he asked us in the school parking lot?

  I remember a picture he took of Cheryl sitting on a picnic table in the park, her jeans rolled just right, wearing her Eastern warmup jacket with her name embroidered on the front, her blond hair backlit by the sun, flashing a big, toothy smile. It was a good photograph. Buddy had a nice camera, a thirty-five millimeter, he told me, not a Kodak Hawkeye like mine. You need a good lens to take a good picture, he'd told me.

  "What do you mean, 'What if he didn't do it'?" My question has shocked Ellie. "We both had the same dream," she reminds me. "Cheryl and Bobbi Jo told us Buddy did it. Everyone thinks he did. My parents, the Boyds, the Millers, everyone."

  "But what if he didn't?" My voice comes out small and whiny, a kid's voice. "What if it was that guy he says he saw in the woods?" "Good grief, Nora." Ellie stares at me as if I've lost my mind. "He never saw anyone, he made that up."

  I crunch the last piece of ice in my glass. Maybe he did make it up, but I'm thinking of last winter, in Paul's rec room. Buddy's dancing slow, swaying with Cheryl, his arms around her waist, her arms around his neck, their bodies so close you'd think they shared the same heart. The lights are low, the song is "Only You." Cheryl's wearing his class ring on a chain around her neck. He's whispering in her ear, she's smiling.

  I'm sitting on the couch drinking a Coke and watching them, wishing I had a boyfriend who'd dance with me like that. Love me like that. The Platters' voices blend. They sing of love and destiny and dreams. My heart aches with loneliness.

  That girl smiling in the photograph, that girl kissing Buddy ... how can she be dead? How could Buddy have killed her?

  I start crying again. I can't stand it.

  My tears set Ellie off, and she cries too. We're back in that day, that endless day in the park.

  Mister Death

  Monday, June 18

  HE reads the morning Sun. They've let Buddy go. They think he's innocent after all. Forty-eight hours of questioning and lie detector tests, but no murder weapon. No confession. No witness.

  He's never liked Buddy, tough guy with his greased-back ducktail and Levi's riding low on his skinny hips. Not smart, probably never read a book in his life. He knows the type—a hot rod magazine is his idea of literature. Or the lyrics to something like "Blue Suede Shoes."

  No, not lyrics. Words, the words to "Blue Suede Shoes."

  He thinks Buddy's not feeling so tough now.

  To shake things up, he decides to make an anonymous call to the police. He tells them he saw a teenage boy in the picnic grove that morning firing a rifle, at least ten shots, maybe more. The police ask him to come in a
nd talk to them in person, but he hangs up, amused by his own daring.

  The next day the phone call's in the paper: "Though the anonymous tip led to the discovery of a dozen .22 shell casings near a forked tree, police weren't able to get the caller to come in, and they suspect it might have been the killer himself."

  He can't help laughing when he reads it.

  The Viewing

  Monday, June 18

  Nora

  AFTER a while, Ellie and I get up and go inside. It's four thirty, time for The Edge of Night. When I was little, I listened to soap operas if I was sick and felt too bad to read. Most of them were about love and hospitals, but The Edge of Night is more like a detective show. It takes place in a small town where crime is an everyday sort of thing. Nancy Drew would have felt right at home in Monticello. At any rate, it's just unrealistic enough to take our minds off our own edge of night.

  Ellie's been here all day because she can't stand to be home alone. Her mother dropped her off on her way to work and she's picking us both up on her way to Hausner's Funeral Home for the viewing. Viewing—people enjoy scenic views, they express their views, they change their views, they take dim views, they view the dead.

  When the show's over, we go up to my room and peel off our shorts and blouses and change into black skirts and white blouses, what we wear when we sing in glee club. Our bodies are damp with perspiration. Our clothes stick to us.

  We hear Mom come home and go to meet her. "Do I look all right?" I ask Mom. "Is my skirt too tight?" I tug at it, thinking I've drunk too many milk shakes, eaten too many french fries this year. "Should I iron my blouse?"

  "You look fine." Mom hugs me.

  "My hair, though. It's frizzy. My bangs are too curly."

  "Nora, stop thinking about yourself," Mom says.

  I blush and look at my feet, sure my white Cuban heels are wrong with my black skirt. Doesn't Mom know how hard this is? I've never been inside Hausner's. I don't even like to walk past it. It sits there like it's waiting for you, a big white house on a green lawn with flower beds and a fountain, right there in plain sight on Delaney Avenue.

  It's not a house, though, it's a home, which in this case means a home for the dead. Temporary quarters, a rooming house without bed or board, just a coffin. It's horrible to walk by and know what's in there, who's in there—people who used to walk past just like I walk past. Now I have to go through the door. I have to see what I don't want to see.

  A car pulls up out front. Mrs. O'Brien goes into the kitchen to talk to Mom. They both look at Ellie and me from time to time. I can't hear what they're saying, but I know they're glad Ellie and I are here and not at Hausner's. We're safe. Just because Ellie couldn't get her pin fastened. She's wearing it now, I notice. A charm against evil.

  In the car, we squeeze into the front seat, Ellie in the middle next to her mother, me by the open window, trying not to think about what the wind is doing to my hair. I remind myself I am not the one who will be viewed.

  Mrs. O'Brien makes idle conversation, asking about our day, commenting on the weather, the hottest summer she can remember, pointing out a new jewelry shop on Delaney Avenue, waving to someone she knows. Neither Ellie nor I have much to say. I'm aware of how tense my body is, even my fists are clenched. I try to relax, but next to me, her shoulder touching mine, I can feel the same tension in Ellie.

  All too soon, Mrs. O'Brien is parking her car in the lot behind Hausner's. It's packed with cars already. Everything from new Buicks to ratty old cars, the kind kids drive. Buddy's black Ford isn't there. I don't think he'd dare to come.

  I walk up the brick sidewalk on shaky legs. The fountain splashes. Flower beds line the walk, blooming with bursts of red and yellow. Bees buzz around the blossoms. The lawn is green, freshly cut, not a weed to be seen. Birds sing in the neatly clipped shrubbery. The heat of the day hasn't cooled, but a little breeze ruffles leaves and flowers and bushes, releasing the scent of roses.

  "Come on, girls," Mrs. O'Brien says softly. Taking us each by the arm, she leads us gently inside. After the brilliant sunlight, the green grass, the bright flowers, the hall is so dark I can't see for a moment. Everything is quiet. Thick carpet mutes our footsteps. A strange scent fills my nose—funeral flowers and something else. Furniture wax, maybe. Mrs. O'Brien hands Ellie a pen and she writes her name in both books, Cheryl's and Bobbi Jo's.

  I take the pen and write my name beneath Ellie's. I remember signing Cheryl's yearbook just last week—Good luck to a good friend, may you always be as happy as you are now! Don't forget chemistry and how we almost blew up the whole class! See you this summer! Nora.

  How stupid, I think, to have written such a silly thing.

  Paul, Charlie, and Walt come in just as I lay the pen down. Sun blind like we were, they almost bump into us. They're wearing suits, white shirts ironed stiff, tightly knotted ties. They look like little boys in someone else's clothes.

  We whisper hellos. Mrs. O'Brien gives all three boys a hug. We wait while they write their names in the two books and then we walk down the hall to a sign that says BARBARA JOSEPHINE BOYD and CHERYL LOUISE MILLER. For a moment, I think there's been a mistake. They've put a stranger in the room. Then I realize that Bobbi Jo's real name must be Barbara Josephine. It doesn't suit her.

  Through the open door, we see a crowd of people, kids from school, parents from the neighborhood, teachers, strangers. People are crying. The kids look bewildered, stunned. I'm having trouble breathing, I think I might faint, but I allow Mrs. O'Brien to lead me into the room.

  Two white coffins stand side by side, almost hidden by flower arrangements. The Boyds and the Millers stand beside their daughters, their faces pale and worn with sorrow. Mrs. O'Brien nudges Ellie and me forward. We speak our regrets to the Boyds and the Millers, our voices low and indistinct, blurred with sadness and uncertainty. Nothing we can say will ever be enough. Nothing we can say will help. Nothing we can say can make anyone feel better.

  "We're so sorry, so sorry." My throat closes up. I can't say anything else.

  Mrs. Boyd squeezes our hands, so does Mrs. Miller. "Thank you for coming," they both say, speaking in unison as if they've practiced.

  Then we pass the coffins. Cheryl on the right, Bobbi Jo on the left. They look at peace, their faces smooth—too smooth, I think later, and wonder how the funeral parlor hid the bullet wounds. Bobbi Jo has a slight frown on her face, just as she had in life when she was puzzled about something. Cheryl has no expression. Their eyes are closed. They have secrets they'll never tell, they know what we don't know. No motion now, no force. They neither hear nor see—but they know, they know.

  We back away, Ellie and me. It's not right to look at them too long. Do we expect them to open their eyes and laugh and shout "Fooled you!"? And then Hausner's will bring in a cake and the party will start and the music will play and we'll all dance, even old aunts and uncles and grandparents.

  Next to me, a man is talking to another man about an accident that held up traffic on his way home from work. A woman turns to her husband and says, "Don't forget, we have to stop at High's and pick up a quart of milk."

  Her husband lights a cigarette and nods. "Do you have enough cheese and bread?"

  Ellie and I move away from the smoke, but most of the adults in the room are smoking, so it's useless. It seems disrespectful to smoke and talk about ordinary things like traffic jams and groceries when two dead girls are lying a few feet away in a bower of flowers.

  Nearby a group of women compare vacation plans. One's going to Ocean City, another to Atlantic City, a third to the mountains. Don't they realize Bobbi Jo and Cheryl are never going anywhere again?

  Just when I think I might start screaming at people to shut up, Charlie grabs my hand. "Come on, let's get out of here."

  I look for Ellie. She and Paul are talking to her mother. "But you haven't had dinner," Mrs. O'Brien says.

  "It's too hot to eat," Ellie says. "The flowers, they're making me feel sick to my stomach. T
he smell..."

  "We'll grab a hamburger if we get hungry," Paul says.

  "Don't stay out late," Mrs. O'Brien says.

  Outside, I take a deep breath of fresh air. Early evening sunlight stretches across the grass, crisscrossing the lawn with shadows. Birds cartwheel across the sky. A car drives by, leaving a trail of music in the air—"Maybelline." The driver doesn't look at Hausner's, doesn't wonder when he'll be inside mourning someone's death.

  We get in Paul's old Plymouth and drive away. I can almost hear Cheryl and Bobbi Jo crying "Wait for us, don't leave us here." I imagine them running along beside the car, their fingers reaching for the door handles, but you can see through them, they can't hold on to anything, they fall behind.

  "Where to?" Paul asks.

  "Maybe Ellie's not hungry," Charlie says, "but I'm starving. How about Top's Drive-In for a burger?"

  "Sounds great to me," Paul says. "Any objections?"

  We all agree and head down Route 40. The radio blasts "Midnight Special," summer air blows through the car, and we all try extra hard to act like it's an ordinary evening and we're having a great time. We sing along with the radio, we laugh at Paul and Charlie's dumb jokes. "Why did the little moron tiptoe past the medicine cabinet?" Paul asks. "Because he didn't want to wake the sleeping pills," we all shout. "Why did the little moron drive his car off the cliff ?" Charlie asks. "Because he wanted to test his air brakes," we all shout again, laughing like we never heard these jokes a million times, laughing like they're actually funny.

  By the time we place our order at Top's Drive-In, Charlie has moved on to sick jokes, like the mother who tells her kid, "Stop running around in circles or I'll nail your other foot to the floor." After two or three, Paul says, "That's about as funny as a truckload of dead babies."