Once Upon a Time, There Was You

  “Yeah!”

  “Can I give you a lift somewhere? Looks like you’re freezing out there! Tell you what: How about I buy you some breakfast?”

  “No thanks,” she says, but she’s thinking, Such thick hair, great eyes.

  “Just a coffee? Maybe you could give me some other recommendations for good diners.”

  Again she declines, but as soon as the man drives off, she shouts after him and he stops. Sadie walks quickly toward the car. What the heck, she’ll go to Sally Ann’s and have some of their famous hot chocolate and warm up. Let Ron sit and wait for her, and see how it feels. She figures when she comes back, he’ll see her getting out of the guy’s car and ask, “Who was that?” and she’ll just say, “A friend who came by and saw me standing there. We went for coffee.” She doesn’t like that kind of game playing and she hadn’t wanted to do it with Ron, but maybe men really are all alike, at least in some respects.

  When she reaches the car, she pokes her head through the open window, aware that, as she does so, the top of her blouse falls away to reveal her breasts; aware, too, that the guy is classy enough not to look directly at them but still sees them. An older guy, who knows about not being so obvious; and he is hot. “If you don’t mind, I changed my mind. I’ll go to Sally Ann’s with you. There are other diners I can tell you about, three really good ones, all close to here.”

  “Great! I’d appreciate it. The locals always know best.”

  Sadie looks up and down the street for Ron one more time. Then she says, “Just one thing, can you bring me back here right after? I’m supposed to meet someone.”

  “Absolutely,” the guy says, and he actually gets out of the car to open the door for her. At least someone is taking care of her, respecting her.

  “I’m Seth Goodman,” he says, as they drive away.

  “Sadie.”

  “Sexy Sadie.”

  “Yeah, right. So, you turn left at the next corner.”

  He goes straight.

  “Uh-oh, missed it. You did want to go to Sally Ann’s, right?”

  He laughs.

  “You know what?” she says. “I’m sorry. I changed my mind. I really shouldn’t leave when my friend is coming. I’d better go back. Or you can just let me out here.”

  But he says nothing, keeps driving. She looks ahead to see if there are any stoplights coming up. No. But there is a stop sign at the top of the hill. She puts her hand on the door handle, ready to leap out when the car stops. Only it doesn’t stop. He blows that stop sign, then the next, then guns the engine and heads in the direction of the Bay Bridge.

  “I can’t do this,” she says. “I have to meet someone.”

  He checks the rearview and accelerates.

  “Can you let me out?”

  “Relax.”

  “I said I want out! Stop this car! Right now!”

  He looks over at her. “Don’t make me mad. Really don’t.”

  “Come on,” she says, lowering her voice, changing its tone to annoyed but mostly friendly, as though they are friends just joking around with each other. As though he has her in a loose head-lock at somebody’s keg party.

  He doesn’t answer, drives on.

  She tries the door handle, despite the speed they’re going. It’s locked, and apparently under his control. “Please let me out.” She keeps her voice low, calm.

  “In time,” he says. “Relax.”

  He is not relaxed. His knee is jumping like crazy. He’s wearing black jeans, a white shirt, a brown leather jacket. His eyes are a light blue, slightly asymmetrical. High cheekbones, black hair. She thinks, Remember everything. Black Nikes. Little ears. Thick wrists. A large circular stain on the floor mat. She looks away from him and tries to calm down.

  When they are on the bridge, she asks, “Where are we going?”

  He takes one quick look at her. “What did I say? I said ‘Relax.’ ”

  Her phone rings: Ron’s ring tone. She grabs for it; the guy pulls the phone out of her hand and throws it out the window. She sees it briefly flash in the sun before it hits the pavement.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” she says. It’s true.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I really do.”

  He shrugs. “Piss yourself.”

  “You want me to ruin your car?”

  “Be my guest.”

  A car pulls up even with them, and Sadie leans forward slightly and tries to engage the driver. But he is staring straight ahead, bobbing his head to music. She reaches over to try to lean on the horn and Seth slaps her hand away, hard. “You know what? You sit there and you don’t move. And you don’t talk anymore, either.” He pulls a box cutter from his jacket pocket and shows it to her. “Perhaps you recall the power of such a seemingly innocuous instrument.” He makes a small cut on his own wrist. “Ouuuch,” he says. He smiles. “See, the thing about me? I don’t care. I don’t care about anything.”

  She watches small beads of blood rise up at the incision line. She does not move. She does not breathe. Her heart drums inside her, her mind races, she feels herself growing dizzy. She takes in a breath, holds it.

  There. Better. And now some outrageous force rises up in her: Do something! But what? What can she do? She feels her eyes fill and rapidly blinks the tears away. She rubs her lips together, rubs again, again.

  Don’t cry, she thinks. Pay attention. She is starting to shake, and she’s aware of some slight grunting sound coming from her with every exhalation. She sneaks a look over at the guy, to see if the sound is annoying him. He seems not to notice. He’s driving along as though he’s preoccupied with his own thoughts now, as though she isn’t even there.

  She stares straight ahead, thinks of herself standing at the corner, only minutes ago. She thinks of Ron pulling up there, looking for her, and a small sob escapes her. She clears her throat to cover it, and makes herself go blank.

  In the hills of Berkeley, he pulls over at an isolated spot. She turns to face him. “Now comes my favorite part,” he says. “Take off your blouse.”

  “No,” she says, and he slaps her face, then slaps her again. She gasps at the sting, feels an earring come loose and fall.

  She grits her teeth and pulls her blouse off over her head, then holds the fabric against herself. She’s wearing a bra her mother doesn’t know she has, a lavender one she bought at Victoria’s Secret, and she is wearing matching panties. She preened in the mirror when she tried them on, imagining what Ron might say when he saw them.

  “I’m going to wrap your blouse around your head,” the man says. “If you fight me, I promise you’ll regret it.”

  He yanks the blouse from her and ties it tightly over her eyes. She opens them when he is done, to see if she can see anything. No. “It’s too tight,” she tells him. “It hurts.”

  The car takes off again.

  “Are you … Why are you doing this?” she asks. Her voice is small, tremulous.

  “If you let me out now, I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

  He says nothing, but she can feel him listening. Emboldened, she says, “I can understand how you might get this idea and—”

  “All right, that’s it!” He slams on the brakes, and she feels the cold of metal against her throat.

  “Don’t, don’t, don’t,” she says. “Please don’t.” Her voice is trembling; her chin, too.

  “You don’t want me to cut you?”

  “No.”

  “Then shut the fuck up!”

  She shuts up. She sits still. At first, she tries counting turns, but then she gives up. They can’t stay in the car forever. When he shuts off the engine, she’ll scream bloody murder as soon as she gets out. And then she’ll run.

  When he does cut the engine, though, he grabs her arm so tightly she cries out. Then he half-drags her to a building and thrusts her inside. “I’ll be back with your new best friend,” he says. “I want you to be really, really nice to him. Creative. You do that, and then I’ll let you go.” The
re is the sound of what she guesses are locks, two of them. She hears footsteps, then the engine turning over and the car driving away. And now there is nothing but her own ragged breathing.

  She takes the blouse off her head and puts it back on, her hands shaking so bad she can hardly work the buttons. “Oh, God,” she keeps saying. She stands trembling, weeping, looking around at the dim space she is in.

  It is a shed no more than ten by ten with a concrete floor, no windows. A bare mattress on the floor, nothing else. She goes into a far corner of the shed and stoops down to relieve herself, watches the little river of urine forming and considers that this might be the last time she ever pees. As she is finishing, a spider descends before her on a quivering strand of silk, and she cries out, leaps up, and quickly zips her pants.

  She moves to the other side of the shed and counts to one hundred to make sure the man is far enough away, then begins yelling, so long and loud she nearly loses her voice entirely. She hears nothing back but the faint sound of birds. She bangs with her fists and her feet on the walls of the shed, hoping that its small size and elementary construction will make it possible to knock the thing down. But no. She digs at the thin line of dirt at the edge of the concrete foundation with her fingernails, then takes off her bra and tries to dig with the underwire. She flings herself against the door so many times she fears she will break her shoulder.

  She still has her backpack; and now she sits beside it and looks inside for something that might be of some use. A wallet. Keys. A few pairs of underwear. Three PowerBars! Where did they come from? Sadie had fibbed when she told her mother she had one. Her eyes fill, thinking of Irene slipping them in, assuming she was just adding a little extra, just in case, as was her way. She must have done it while Sadie was in the shower. It seems miraculous to have food, now; she is so grateful. She digs deeper, and finds what she was hoping for: a bottle of water, also added by her mother.

  Sadie eats a PowerBar, has a bit of water, and then stands. She cries out for help with what little voice she has left again and again. Then she slams herself into the door again: once, twice, three times. Again. Again. Other shoulder, same thing. She kicks at the door with one leg, then the other. Then she lies on the floor and kicks with both legs.

  Finally, her body aching, she lies on the bare, fusty-smelling mattress and stares dully upward.

  All those times she read in the newspaper or online about women being abducted and later killed. She would stare into their faces and try to imagine how it happened, what it might have been like, if they were in some way responsible. She would look at them and feel so bad for them and for those who loved them. But she would also feel as though these events happened in some kind of parallel universe. Such a thing would never happen to her. She would look at those women’s eyes, their hair, the shapes of their mouths, the necklaces they might be wearing, and she would wonder, How did they feel? Well, now she knows. She is both terrified and angry, more at herself than at the man. She let this happen. She fell for a stupid ploy, she got willingly into the car. She lies there, alert for any sound, trying to think of what else she might do.

  He said he was going to get someone he wanted her to be nice to, and then he’d let her go. She doubts he’ll let her go. She wonders if he really is bringing someone or if he himself will come back. Or not. She knows nothing about him, really. She could not gauge the caliber of his personality, she did not know what kind of approach to take with him, what kind of psychology might work in her favor. She has a way with people, she can almost always find a way into their affection, but not this time. As soon as she got in the car, the man’s eyes went flat as a fish’s. She doesn’t think anything she might say or do will reach him. And what of the person he is supposedly bringing back? Anyone complicit with the man who took her will not be interested in listening to Sadie’s pleas for help.

  So it’s possible she will be used, and killed. She feels it as a horrible abstraction; she can’t imagine that it will really happen to her. But if it does, she hopes it’s quick. She hopes she can make a picture in her mind of something beautiful to see when everything happens. She hopes that, in her last moments, she will be able focus on what else there was in her life, things separate and distinct from this awful day.

  But she might survive. She might be able to convince them to let her go, when they are done with her, or even before. She’d read once in the newspaper about a woman who awakened from a sound sleep to a man who had broken into her house with the intention of murdering her (as he had several other women). She offered a simple question—What do you need?—and the man broke down before her, collapsed to the floor and began weeping, pressing his fists against a face over which he’d pulled a nylon stocking, and then he pulled the stocking off. She said she saw him then as a dangerous but wounded animal, and she spoke kindly to him, thinking that, if he killed her, at least her last act would have been one of compassion.

  “What a California reaction,” her mother had said, with some measure of what Sadie read as contempt, after she, too, saw the story. But Sadie felt she understood that woman’s response. When your life is so close to being over and you know it, isn’t it possible you might offer your greatest act of generosity?

  When her ancient cat, Shadow, died recently, Sadie asked her mother not to take him to the vet, since it was clear the time was nigh. “Are you sure?” Irene asked, and Sadie said yes, she was sure. She told her mother, who stood weeping in the hall, that she wanted to be alone with him, was that all right? Irene nodded. Sadie took the cat into her bedroom, under the covers with her. She spoke gently to him, petted him, rocked him. She felt a kind of shift as he started to go, and she watched as one of his pupils fully dilated. Before the other pupil dilated and he stopped breathing, he looked up into her eyes, and he lay one paw gently on her breast. All the pain he’d been enduring up to that point, and it was considerable, seemed to vanish.

  She hopes, if she dies today, she can feel the way he seemed to. Or like Meghan’s grandfather, who at the last moment of his life sat up in his hospital bed, looked across the room at something no one else could see, and said, “Is that you?” He smiled a glorious smile and died. Just like that. “It was like a movie,” Meghan said. “It was really weird but also really beautiful. It made me not afraid to die. I mean, for a while, at least.” She and Meghan had talked a lot about death that day, lain on the floor eating leftover fancy cheeses and crackers that Irene had brought home from a party and talked about what dying might be like for them, what it really meant. Could it be true, as some religions suggested, that life was only what you had to slog through in order to reach the afterlife? Sadie had always taken offense at such a notion, and so had Meghan. As her friend had put it that day, How can you look at a sunset and suggest that this life is meant only to be endured? Or, you know, a baby?

  Sadie stares at the ceiling, slows her breathing. In an odd way, relaxes. If she dies today, she got to live. And now she’ll see what happens next. She hopes she can come back and tell others not to worry.

  And if she is allowed to live, she … What? She imagines herself walking away from the shed, whole and uninjured, released back into her life. She imagines walking in the door to their flat and seeing Irene in the kitchen, imagines calling out, “Mom?” and Irene turning to see her, her face lit up like it always was when she came home, then changing when she saw that something had happened. Or maybe she wouldn’t tell her mother. Maybe she would keep it to herself instead of feeding Irene’s fears. Maybe there would be something noble in that, turning the tables and protecting Irene, for a change. And so now she imagines walking in, making excuses to her mother for her absence, making her believe that it was a mini-rebellion, and she was sorry for any worry she’d caused, then going into her bedroom and sitting at the side of her bed and holding her old stuffed animal rabbit against her middle, smelling her child self at the top of its head.

  She thinks if she does get to live, if she does get to walk out of here like
that, she will forgive the man, so that she can unburden herself as much as she can of everything that has happened today. She will forgive him so that he does not own any part of her life. She knows how to do that.

  When Sadie was in seventh grade, her best friend turned against her. It was for no reason Sadie could discern; the girl just chose suddenly to make Sadie’s life miserable. When Sadie visited her dad not long after all that abuse started, she told him about it. He listened, lying on the floor of her bedroom as she lay in bed. It was always her favorite time with him, when they talked before she went to sleep. And when she had finished talking, he told her about how kids could be really vicious at that age, especially girls, and that what her friend was doing had way more to do with her own self than with Sadie. He said, “I know you feel bad about it, but here’s what I want you to do. Create an imaginary box. Into that box I want you to put all the wrong things Isabel did to you. Put all those things in there, and put your hurt feelings about those things in there, too. And then put the box high up on an imaginary shelf. Just put it away. You don’t have to deny anything, but you don’t need to have it out, either. Just put it away, and maybe someday you can look at it again and see it another way. Most of all, remember this: You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just the way things worked out between the two of you. For now.”

  Once more, Sadie moves to the wall and strains to see something through the cracks of the little shed, but it’s no use; all she can make out is a narrow line of green. She goes back to sit on the mattress and puts her head in her hands. Her eyes are swollen from crying. She has no idea where she is. She has no idea what time it is, and regrets the fact that she no longer wears a watch, that she relied on her cellphone for that. She hears a noise outside and stiffens, but apparently it was an animal; there are diminishing rustling sounds, then silence. A mountain lion?

  She lies down and closes her eyes and waits, her body straight. Waiting is all she can do, and so she does it as well as she can.