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  Tammy

  She wrote it in magic marker and left it under the rainbow.

  THE NEXT MORNING Tammy woke up when her mother and Nick walked into her room, through the separator door, and into Steffi’s room. They woke Steffi up and told her she didn’t have to go to school if she didn’t want to, but they thought she should. The weirdest thing was that Nick was crying. He was already dressed in a suit for work. He wasn’t crying all the way, but he had a Kleenex folded up into a square and he was dabbing his eyes with it and his mustache was damp and shiny.

  Tammy and Steffi got ready for school. Steffi put on jeans and a bright red sweater and brushed her long hair. Tammy said Steffi could borrow her ribbon barrettes if she wanted to. Steffi said okay and Tammy snapped them on for her.

  After their mother and Nick left for work, Tammy, Steffi, and Hugh sat on the front porch and waited. This is what they always did. They always waited for Gretchen and Kirin. Tammy had a hard time remembering what had happened yesterday morning. She didn’t remember Kirin not being there because Kirin was always there. She sort of remembered Gretchen coming by herself and saying something like Kirin was coming later, or her mother was driving her later, or she was sick. She couldn’t remember what it was, but she didn’t remember it being anything weird.

  The three of them sat there on the porch for almost thirty minutes, until it was ten to nine. It took them that long to figure out Kirin wasn’t coming.

  “Let’s just go,” Tammy said.

  Steffi and Hugh stood up and followed Tammy. It was the first time since they moved to DC that they walked to school together, just the three of them. When they got to school, the bell was already ringing. The three of them split up and went their separate ways.

  In Mrs. Perkins’s class, everyone was talking in hushed voices. Everyone knew. Everyone had called everyone last night. Kenny said a news reporter had knocked on his door and asked if he had a picture of Kirin from the school portraits. He said it was going to be on the evening news tonight. Colin said a camera crew had interviewed his parents. Monique said there were lots of cop cars on their block all night. She said she watched the cops from her bedroom window and that Kirin’s dad didn’t get home until late and he didn’t know what was going on. Gretchen came in a few minutes after the bell rang. Her dad had driven her to school.

  The class spent the whole morning talking about it. They were supposed to have a vocabulary test, but they didn’t have it. The principal came in and talked to them about it too. The kids were given freshly mimeographed memos to take home about a parents’ meeting.

  During recess they talked about it some more. Someone asked why her mom did it. One of the boys answered, because she was probably psycho. At one point Tammy turned around and looked across the playground. Steffi had turned into a tomato. She was crying out loud and her pink face had turned red and matched her sweater. Tammy left her class group and walked over to her. She put her arm around Steffi and asked if she was okay. Steffi didn’t say anything. She just kept crying and shook Tammy’s arm off her shoulder. Steffi walked back inside the school. She wasn’t supposed to do that during recess. Everyone was supposed to stay outside on the playground. Tammy followed her sister as she walked through the small door that went to the gym. Steffi walked across the wood floor and the big room made her cries echo. She left the gym and walked across the hall to the girls’ bathroom. Tammy followed her inside, but Steffi immediately went into a stall and locked the door. Tammy stood by the sinks and waited for her. Steffi stayed in there for the rest of recess.

  Tammy hadn’t thought about her party all day until Heather asked her about it in the coatroom as they were getting ready to leave. She wanted to know if it was canceled or not. Tammy said she didn’t know. Her mother didn’t say. Tammy said she would call everybody after school.

  That evening, Tammy, Steffi, and their mother watched the five o’clock news. There was a report and they showed Kirin’s house with cop cars in front of it. They showed Kirin’s mom being lifted out of the house on a stretcher and put in the ambulance. Tammy’s mother said she looked different. She didn’t look like herself.

  Tammy asked her mother if they were still having her birthday party tonight. Her mother blinked a few times and said, “Let me talk about it with Nick.”

  Tammy pretended to be reading a magazine in the living room while her mother and Nick spoke in the kitchen. They couldn’t decide by themselves so they called around to see what the other parents thought was the best thing to do. After a couple of calls, Tammy’s mother told her that people seemed to think it was a good idea to have the party tonight as planned. It’ll give you kids something to do and take your minds off of it. Plus, it would be good for Steffi. She needs to be around people, her mother said.

  Her mother said they could order a pizza for her friends. Tammy thought it was weird that someone had to die in order for her to get a pizza.

  Tammy’s friends came over, but all they did after the lights were turned out was talk about Kirin and what they saw on the news and how her mother was now in Psychiatrics at the hospital. They wondered if she was going to go to jail or if they would just keep her in the loony bin.

  It was 1982. Tammy was now twelve years old. It was like she didn’t have a birthday that year.

  STALKER

  Jeffrey loved the names of the DC Metro stops: L’Enfant Plaza, Farragut North, Smithsonian, Judiciary. They sounded dignified and European. Unlike the names proliferating his parents’ suburb: South Shore Square, Elm Tree Court, West End Lane; interchangeable names with no identity, no history. Who makes up those names? Jeffrey wondered. There were definitely guidelines for it somewhere. Pleasantview Drive, Overlook Terrace, Skyline Circle. Names made up to make people feel safe. Sell the prospective home-owning couple the American dream of property values skyrocketing. Buy your small starter house, sell it, buy a bigger house, sell it, buy a golf course. Oak Leaf Avenue, Maple Square, Sycamore Lane. All things nice and green. None of that city grime and crime. You’re not bussing our kids! We moved out here to get away from all that. And, of course, the patriotic: Liberty Court, Franklin Place, Washington Way. Doesn’t anyone live on a Street anymore? That must be someone’s job, Jeffrey thought, coming up with names for streets. Probably some civil servant sitting in an energy-efficient, sealed building working for some pseudo-government agency. Was the government in charge of that? Or was it a corporation? Either way, it’s the same loser guy sitting in an office with a window he can’t open.

  Washington was organized. It was elegant. Designed by French architects. A city whose existence was engineered to be the model home of the brave. Division lines sprung out of the Capitol dome separating quadrants, colors, and parties: Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest. Jeffrey liked the way streets were listed: “Connecticut Avenue, Northwest.” It sounded classy. Better than saying “Northwest Connecticut Avenue.” Every state had its own avenue. Even Hawaii.

  Washington felt like a foreign country.

  Jeffrey watched the Metro lights blink on and off indicating a train was approaching. He felt like he was in the movie 2001, waiting for his moon shuttle to dock. He loved watching the platform’s little circles of light begin to pulse. He stayed in the same station for an hour or more watching trains pull in and out along with the light show. DC was a white-granite Emerald City.

  Jeffrey splurged on an upscale hotel. He was feeling footloose and fancy and free. He was feeling groovy. His hotel had a lobby decorated with paintings from history books—the Battle of Gettysburg, Ben Franklin flying a kite, the “Give me liberty, or give me death!” speech, and Aaron Burr shooting Alexander Hamilton in a gentlemanly duel. The paintings reminded Jeffrey of children’s Bible illustrations: the kind that had Jesus with long, blown-dry hair looking like he just stepped out of a shampoo commercial. Jesus the Breck girl. Jesus healing the sick. Jesus in Heaven with all the children because he loves them so. The meek shall inherit the Earth. Jeffrey took comfort in that.


  Jeffrey ambled through the shiny lobby and dropped off his key with the front desk. The clerk asked if he was interested in a free tour of historic Ford’s Theater. There’s a group leaving right now with a few extra seats. The bus is right outside.

  Jeffrey was the only man on the Stars and Stripes chartered coach with the exception of an older Japanese guy sitting with his wife right behind the driver. The bus stopped at several other hotels to pick up passengers, all women, bored wives whose husbands were in town on business. Who knew what the men were doing? They could be arms negotiators or secret operatives reporting in. Except no one was supposed to know they were secret operatives or reporting in. That’s why they pretended to be tourists.

  At Ford’s Theater they watched a slide show of inky illustrations depicting Lincoln getting shot: Lincoln falling over backward in his rocking chair with his hands fluttering around his heart, big fat Mary Todd jumping out of her seat, and John Wilkes Booth making his getaway. All because they went to see a stupid play. Our American Cousin. A comedy.

  The last slides were photos of Shakespeare productions and Nutcracker ballets they had at the theater today. After the lights came up, a woman raised her hand and asked if the theater was named after President Ford.

  A tour guide led them through the theater and up the stairs to Lincoln’s presidential box. This is where Booth shot him in the head straight through his stovepipe hat, stabbed the other guy, jumped down onto the stage, shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis!” and ran off with a broken leg. One by one the tourists each got to move to the front of the velvet rope and get a close-up snapshot of Lincoln’s rocking chair. Jeffrey imagined it must have been annoying having Lincoln there rocking back and forth making creaking sounds when people were trying to watch a show.

  The tour group shuffled back downstairs and across the street to the old boarding house where Lincoln actually died. Four men carried him over to this cruddy little room where they tried to lay him on the bed, but he was so tall he didn’t fit. He died an uncomfortable death with his legs hanging off the bed. Jeffrey thought the tour of this dead president was boring. He would have preferred the Booth tour. Actors know drama. Shimmy down the curtains and run off with Doctor Mudd to die in a tobacco barn shootout. Give me liberty, or give me death. You can’t make that kind of shit up.

  When the tour bus dropped him back at the hotel, Jeffrey could see the blonde hair shining through the glass-encased lobby. As he walked in he became hypnotized to the mane of glistening hair, the waterfall of shimmering yellow light. The blonde left the desk and drifted to the elevator. Jeffrey followed her sparkly wake several steps behind. The elevator dinged and opened and the blonde stepped in. When she pressed her button and turned around to face the lobby, Jeffrey caught her eye for a split second, the time it takes for a single blink, before the elevator doors were sealed.

  Amber Carrol.

  She was staying in his hotel.

  It was such dumb luck.

  Or, no, no, it wasn’t luck. Jeffrey didn’t believe in luck. He had never been lucky. He couldn’t believe it was a coincidence. It could only be fate. He had spent the past week trolling tourist traps looking for where she might be filming her movie, and here she was the whole time. Right here.

  Jeffrey finally noticed the world bustling around him. It was as if her glorious crown of blonde hair had lit up the entire building, changed all the light bulbs, and turned up the wattage. The place was full of actors. They were sitting in the bar next to the lobby. They weren’t famous actors, but Jeffrey recognized them from TV. They were the kind of actors who were always playing the same parts: “Dottering Professor,” “Crooked Cop,” “Overweight Office Boss,” “Nerd with Glasses.” They were all over Love Boat, Fantasy Island, or the TV Movie of the Week. Another group of men sat around a table drinking beer, guts hanging over their belts, tossing back peanuts, bitching about “crew calls” and “prima donnas.”

  Jeffrey felt his own light bulb glowing inside his body, transforming him into a human firefly. It was too good to be true. It was too unreal. He had walked through the looking glass and into a movie.

  He decided to search the hotel for Amber. He had to be subtle about it. He didn’t want her to think he was some crazy person off the street. He started waiting by the elevator on different floors. If someone caught him, he had the excuse of “Oh, pardon me, I forgot to push the button.” Then he would get off on another floor and start over.

  His second strategy was wandering through the hallways with an ice bucket. That way people would get used to seeing him. If anyone came out of their room before Amber appeared, he had a destination: ice machine, end of the hall.

  His third strategy was sorting through change by the soda machine. There was one on every floor right next to the ice. It was innocent enough, counting out exact change. That’s what he was doing when one of the beer drinkers from the lobby showed up. A fat guy wearing a tie-dyed Deadhead T-shirt with a multitude of colors spilling out of a grinning skull. His hair was long, wet, and combed back into a skinny, snake-like ponytail. Jeffrey couldn’t tell if the ponytail was wet from a shower or just greasy, and he didn’t want to get close enough to smell the guy.

  “Hey, man, you got a nickel for five pennies?” he asked.

  Jeffrey handed it over. He had more than enough change. He often bought several sodas a night and threw them out unopened when he got to the next floor.

  “Thanks, man.”

  The ponytail dropped his coins in the machine and punched the Mountain Dew pad with his fist.

  “I tell you, this bitch is going to be the end of me.”

  He pulled his soda out of the machine, peeled off the metal tab, and dropped it in his can.

  “This chick takes two-hour lunches and then complains that we’re behind schedule. Can you believe that?” He took a slurp of his soda and licked the fringe of his mustache with his bottom lip. “You can’t stop the fucking sun from going down, man.”

  Jeffrey usually didn’t like to look at people when they were talking to him, but he felt comfortable with this guy. He was into himself and didn’t expect Jeffrey to give much of a response.

  “That’s something you learn in life. What goes up, must come down. Know what I mean? Sun goes up,” he raised his Mountain Dew over his head, “sun comes down.” He lowered the can to his gut. “Any kid can figure that out.”

  He took a giant slurp from his can.

  “Do you know how many films I’ve made?”

  Jeffrey shook his head.

  “Thirty. Thirty films. Know how many she’s made?”

  He didn’t wait for Jeffrey to answer.

  “One. She’s made one. This is her second film. It’s like she’s a two-year-old. You know? She’s a baby and I’m a grown-up. I’m drinking beer; she’s still on her mother’s tit. That’s why she’s such a fucking prima donna, man. She’s a baby. She’s never been down. She’s only been up. That’s the problem with girls like that. They don’t get it. They don’t get that one minute you’re in the penthouse, next thing you’re in the doghouse. Or the cathouse. You know, I made a film once with this actress, same as this chick, you know, cute, young, trying to make a big splash. A couple years later I’m out with some buddies and there she is up on the triple-X screen. And let me tell you, that happens a lot. More than you would like to know.”

  The guy took another swig from his can. Jeffrey plunked his coins into the machine and pressed the Dr Pepper button with his fingertips.

  Try and act casual.

  “So she’s in the penthouse now?” Jeffrey asked as he took a dainty sip.

  “Yeah she’s in the penthouse. So’s the dipshit leading man. There are only two penthouse suites and they took them. Even the director didn’t get one. What a fucking pushover.”

  He gulped the last of his Mountain Dew and then crushed the can into a disc between his palms as he let out an elongated belch.

  “Okay. Gotta call the old lady.”

 
; He clamped a hand on Jeffrey’s shoulder as he headed back down the hall.

  “Thanks, man.”

  Jeffrey waited until he heard the guy disappear into his room before heading to the elevator. When the doors opened, Jeffrey stepped inside still holding on to his Dr Pepper. He pressed the PH button, but it refused to light up. Jeffrey gave it a couple more pokes, but it didn’t seem to be working and he began to feel naked standing in the elevator with the doors wide open. It must be a security thing, Jeffrey thought. They can’t have just anyone wandering up there. He pressed the button for his own floor and the doors politely covered him from view.

  JEFFREY SAT AT the desk in his hotel room and stared down at the blank stationary. He picked up the pencil, with its clean white eraser, and held it ready over the sheet. She was so close and yet there was an evil force keeping them apart, a devil playing mind games with him by keeping her in a parallel universe, just to torture him. But Jeffrey knew how to win. He had seen it plenty of times. True love wins in the end. Beats out the devil. True love conquers all.

  He touched the lead to the page and marked the fresh snow.

  Dear Amber,

  At first I thought meeting you in Hollywood at the Sunrise was a coincidence. We were two strangers on the edge of the world trying to hold on. But now as I look back, you were able to see the real me even then. I saw your movie and of course I thought you were amazing. Every movement of your eyes conveyed total truth. I’ve seen that movie so many times now. I feel like I’m right there with you. I feel like I’m inside your skin.

  I guess that was the second time I saw you (in the movie, not in person). Then the other day when I saw you standing in the lobby I knew it was no longer a coincidence. How can two people be at the same hotel again on the opposite side of the country? Isn’t that too much of a chance? There must be something else at work. A force bringing us together because we were meant to be together.