Chapter Nine

All in one place

I didn’t pass out. That is, I don’t think I passed out, but I definitely lost time to a fugue state of sorts. I sat on the kitchen floor, listening to my breath rasp shallowly in and out of my mouth, my palms flat on the cold tile floor, the ache at my tailbone gradually receding.

Sasha never moved. I couldn’t bring myself to keep my eyes on her face; it was clear from the start that she was far past help. So I looked instead at her feet, encased in well-worn sheepskin slippers, and her ankles, swollen and gray. And somewhere between when I hit the ground and when I finally fumbled for my phone, now lying half underneath the fridge, she became not only my almost-mentor, not just Maggie’s dear friend, but also the Body in the Kitchen, as though we were in a bad episode of a British mystery show.

It took me three tries to dial 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?” The operator’s voice was clipped and businesslike, and I nearly hung up.

“I have to report a dead body,” I finally said, my own voice wavering just a little. “She’s dead. I just found my friend dead.”

“Okay, ma’am, we’re going to need a little more information than that, and then we’ll get somebody out to you right away. Can you tell me if your friend is breathing?”

I blinked. “No, she’s not breathing. She’s dead.”

“Right, but have you checked to see whether her breathing has stopped? Sometimes it can be hard to tell.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s dead. So that means she’s not breathing at all, right?”

She stifled a sigh. “Yes, ma’am, it would, but we do like to check to make sure. Can you check to see whether your friend is still breathing? Maybe feel carefully by her mouth or nose?”

I quickly glanced back at Sasha’s face. Her lips were gray, in stark relief against the yellow and red vomit.

“I don’t think that there’s any chance that—”

“Ma’am, this is your friend here, and if we can determine that she’s still alive, you’ll be the one who’s saved her life.”

“Aren’t you supposed to ask for my address?” I said, my voice pitching higher. “What can I do for her even if she is breathing anyway?”

“We have you located. CPR. I’ll talk you through it. Just. Please. Check to see if she’s breathing.”

“But her eyes are rolled up in the back of her head!”

“Are you the expert here? Ma’am! I’m giving you two seconds to get it together and check her breathing!”

“Fine! But I’m not taking the phone. I’ll be right back,” I said, “and you can wait right here.” I slammed the phone down on the floor, but I could still make out her calling for me. “And fuck you.”

I wobbled to my feet and inched closer to the table and the body. The stench grew stronger. There was no way. There was no chance that this corpse was a real live person who was my friend Sasha, there was just no chance. All I had to do was hold out one hand just in front of her face, just for a moment or two, just long enough to not feel anything.

But my legs wouldn’t move. I stared at the corpse’s left arm instead, dangling down by its side, encased in what was certainly once a gorgeous, if dated, blue linen jacket, embroidered around the cuff. Then I stared at the coffee cup on the table. It had a fancy painted European looking chicken on it. I stood on my tiptoes to peer into it. Coffee, with cream. Mostly full. One torn stevia packet and a spoon. Half a banana, still in the peel, to the side of the cup. An interrupted breakfast? An afternoon snack?

“Just touch her hand,” I whispered. “Fuck the breathing. Just touch her hand and tell her you did the rest.”

I flexed my fingers and stared at hers. Maroon nail polish. White, white skin, but she’d always been a little pale. If I didn’t think too hard, if I didn’t breathe, I might think that she was just asleep, just like they always told kids in movies, and I extended my arm, took another tiny step closer, reached out just a little bit further—

Her skin was like refrigerated rubber. Tight and chilled and with no give, none at all.

But instead of stepping back, I found myself sliding my fingers around hers until I was holding her hand. The stench didn’t go away. The more I breathed, though I tried to keep my breath shallow, the more the rot and shit smells burrowed into my nose. But I kept on holding her hand.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling tears begin to run down my cheeks as I collapsed to my knees at her side. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here earlier. I’m sorry I didn’t make it in time.”

I was still there, her hand in my own, when the police and EMTs knocked carefully on the open front door and came up beside me.

*

A woman cop eventually wrapped me up in a foil blanket and walked me outside. She steered me towards the nearest bench, wiped down my hands with disinfectant wipes, and placed my bag at my feet.

“Your phone’s in the side pouch,” she said, and then handed me a juice box. It took me about a minute to finally angle the flimsy white straw into my mouth. But the sharp taste of the apple juice was worth the struggle. I sat there quietly on the bench, crinkling with each movement, chewing and sucking on that straw, the portrait of an abandoned kindergartener.

“Are you ready to answer some questions?” she asked me.

Though I wasn’t, I told her that I was.

I’ve watched enough crime shows to have expectations about what a witness interview looks like. My expectations were largely met. They wanted to know who I was, how I knew Sasha—now the corpse in the corner—and why I’d decided to come to her condo in the first place. It was all straightforward enough. The officer who talked to me had a reasonably kind demeanor. She even let me accept a juice box once the EMTs rolled up and, finding little to do, wandered over with shock-reducing snacks.

I suppose I was in shock, after all, but I didn’t realize it, and so I simply proceeded as I figured I should, staring down at a patch of grass just a few feet away most of the time so that I didn’t risk accidentally looking back towards Sasha’s door, even though the bench where we sat faced in a completely different direction. I stayed calm, relatively cool, collected. I gave clear answers. No one seemed to suspect me of murder, though I suppose that that would be the idea. Letting someone know they’re suspected, at least at first, seems counterproductive.

Finally, the cop told me that I was done. “You might have to come back in for further questioning at the station,” she told me, capping her ballpoint pen and clicking off the recorder. “It’s usually pretty easy to get that scheduled and done.”

I nodded several times, likely several more times than strictly-necessary. “Can I go at this point? I mean, am I free to go?”

“Sure. Do you have someone who can come pick you up?”

I shook my head and kept moving. There was no way I was staying in that courtyard any longer than officially required. “No, I’ll be fine. I parked just around the corner.”

It was only when I sat in the front seat of my car, my seatbelt dutifully buckled, one hand at ten and one hand at two that I realized that, in that particular moment, I was incapable of getting anywhere under my own steam. I switched off the ignition and sat in the dark as the key-in-the-ignition alert sound chimed. A dull raindrop hit the windshield, sloughed off from the naked branches overhead. It was technically still dry, in that the clouds weren’t actively opening up onto us, but there was a deep chill to the night air. I watched a hooded, umbrella-covered figure skip across the street and vanish down the sidewalk into the gloom, and I realized, maybe really for the first time since I’d left the apartment I’d shared with Sam in the city, just how alone I was.

But I wasn’t going to call Sam. And I couldn’t call Jess, not really. Had I been anywhere north of 280, then sure, without hesitation, but she had to be home in Mountain View by now, or at least very much on her way in the complete opposite direction. Even if she wanted to come to where I was (and if I called her and told her what was going on, she’d make it happen), even if I did end up needing someone to drive me and my stupid car home, it would take her hours to reach me at this time of night. It was—I double-checked, glancing at my phone again—only 6:45. On a Thursday. Rush hour would still be in full swing.

Maggie was dead. And now Sasha was dead, too.

I seriously considered, even if only for a moment, sleeping there for the night, in my car, on the side streets of Los Gatos. I might have done it, too, had it not been for the cat, who still would need to eat. Or my own growling stomach.

I fumbled for my bag, praying for a miraculously-manifesting granola bar somewhere in the bottom that I just hadn’t noticed before.

As it turns out, I didn’t have a granola bar. But what I did have, however, was a Company business card.

I stared at the name, the corresponding email address, and then at the hand-written number. It all looked normal, almost boringly normal. I ached to slip into normal.

Before I could think about it any longer, I unlocked my phone and started typing.

Hi. Is this Colin? It’s Katie from the coffee shop. With the bad day. Remember me?

The response bubble appeared within five seconds.

Hey Katie! I do remember you. How are things?

My thumbs hovered over the keypad as I took a deep breath and tried to compose myself. My panic felt strong enough to leak into letters, but I couldn’t let it, not yet, not if I wanted him to respond.

Not bad. And I finally have some free time.

He didn’t text back to that one right away. I’m not usually the type to get antsy if people don’t respond immediately. There have been too many times when I’ve suddenly found myself in the middle of something and dropped a conversation by accident.

But that night, the delay stung, because there was no Plan B. I rubbed my eyes and squinted through the windshield down the street, trying to come up with one. I could walk to downtown. I could walk slowly. I could find something highly overpriced to eat. I just wasn’t sure I’d ever bring myself to walk back along those same streets to the car again, alone.

My phone buzzed again. I looked down.

Me too. Want to meet up?

Sure. Downtown Los Gatos ok?

Perfect. I know a good spot. My treat. Be there in fifteen. Text me when you’re there.

A location image followed, a point on a map, and even my 20^th century phone was able to display a rudimentary map and restaurant name, miraculously. A point on the map that indicated an actual restaurant where I would be able to sit with another human being who was apparently curious enough about my company that he would pay for my meal. I started sobbing. Messy sobs. I fumbled for a napkin and held it firmly to my eyes,. I bent myself over the center console and swiped at the snot dangling from my nose so that it didn’t fall on my pants. It fell on the emergency brake. I left it there, dangling and glinting in the lamplight like so much ectoplasm.

When I was finally still, and able to wipe my hands dry, I texted back.

Ok. Sounds good.

*

I met Colin at the bar. It looked pretty much like every other place on the street—California casual, old wood and brushed metal, funky hanging lamps, people outside in thousand-dollar jeans, and a menu that listed prices as whole numbers, no cents. I didn’t care. It wasn’t on me, and I was too far gone for any shame about that. When I walked in, he was already there, in fitted dark jeans and a forest green sweater. His laptop bag was on the bar stool next to him, and he smiled and removed it when he saw me.

“Hope you don’t mind the casual approach. No tables to be had for at least half an hour, and you,” he said, pressing a drink menu into my hands, “have probably been working since way too early this morning.”

I didn’t quite bury my face in the list of craft cocktails to cover up my sudden well of tears, but it was close. Instead, I tried to blink them back as slowly and naturally as I could. I was getting to be pretty good at covering up tears, no matter how fucking tired I was of the entire process.

Fortunately, the bar menu was baffling enough that my moment of emotion passed quickly. I kept skimming the list of cocktails, over and over. Grapefruit. Cucumber. Uzo. Seasonal clove-infused sugar syrup. So many things listed that weren’t booze. It wasn’t like I was a complete newbie—one can’t live in San Francisco for as long as I did without knowing her way around a cocktail menu. It was more that, on that particular evening, I simply needed to cut to the chase.

“Katie?” Colin said, raising his voice a little over the noise of the restaurant. “Know what you want?”

“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “Long day.” I looked up at the bartender and attempted a perky smile, but I could feel that my eyes weren’t into it. “Whiskey, please. On the rocks.”

The bartender gave me a half smile and slid another menu towards me. “That’s our whiskey list, miss. I’d recommend a blend if you’re not used to trying different things.” He had one of the tiniest mustaches that I’ve ever seen on an actual live human being, and when he half-smiled, all I could pay attention to was the fact that his face looked like it had three eyebrows.

When I remained silent, he raised two of them. I could feel my own face flush.

“You know what, never mind. Just give me a jack and coke.”

“Same,” Colin said.

The bartender turned to get on with it, and if he were judging me, I have to hand it to him; I couldn’t tell.

“That’s kind of you,” I said to Colin. “Humoring the novice.”

“You don’t usually drink whiskey, I take it?”

I shrugged. “There aren’t usually fifteen choices.”

“It’s not my thing either,” Colin said, just as our drinks appeared. “Not straight, anyway. But lately it’s everybody else’s.”

“Cheers,” I said.

We clinked our mason jars together. I squeezed the lime, took a pull from the straw, and nearly coughed on the fumes. “Oh my god, this is amazing.”

“I know, right? Big and strong. Actually worth the money. And just to clarify up front, I meant it over text. You’re a teacher, so I’m buying.”

I took another long sip. “You know, there have been points in my life when that would have offended me. And I would have insisted on paying.”

“And now?”

I held the jar in both hands and shrugged. “Now? Thank you. Thank you very much. This is the one thing that’s gone right for me today.”

“That bad, huh?”

I shook my head. “It sounds like a bad movie line, but you have no idea. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Like that patch of blood on your knee?”

“Patch of…”

I looked down. It could have been mud, a reddish mud, to be sure. It could have been a deep, dark tomato sauce. But my gray skirt wasn’t dark enough to completely obscure the color. I touched it, carefully, with two fingers. When I pulled them away, they were a faint pink.

“Oh fuck,” I said, scrambling for a cocktail napkin. “It’s still damp.” I dipped the corner into my drink and began to scrub at my fingertips.

Colin watched me silently for a moment. My fingers gradually returned to their normal shade, but I couldn’t bring myself to look back up and examined my nails instead.

Finally, he placed his hand over my own. “Blood,” he said. “Actual blood. Real blood?”

I nodded.

“Your blood?”

His hand was long and pale, paler than mine, with a light splatter of freckles, nails short and clean and knuckles not too knobby. Warm, without being clammy. It was a nice hand. I shook my head. “No. Thank god.”

“Is this…normal for you?”

I saw Sasha then, the slack line of her jaw. My stomach turned and I quickly took another long sip.

“There’s not a whole lot lately that is normal,” I finally said. “But I think it’s fair to say that this is not any approximation of normal.”

He released me and leaned back. “You know, it’s usually the girl who worries that the random guy she meets is going to turn out to be a serial killer.”

“I’m equal opportunity.” I finished my drink and rubbed the condensation from the glass onto my fingers. The whiskey was beginning to loosen muscles in my arms and shoulders that I didn’t realize were tense.

“Hands clean?” he said.

I nodded and carefully did not think about my skirt.

“So let’s just lay it all out there. Why blood?”

“We can’t just say I tripped and skinned my knee?”

“Not if you want another round. You look like you might need one.”

“Fair.” I took a deep breath. “This evening I found my coworker—fine, my friend—dead. Don’t worry. I didn’t do it. I was supposed to meet her at work, she didn’t show up, no one knew where she was, and so I went to knock on her door. And there she was. Bartender?”

“Call the cops?”

“Of course.”

The bartender walked over, and I gave him quick nod.

“Foul play?”

“They don’t think so. At least, they didn’t say they think so.” But they wouldn’t say they thought so, I realized as I spoke. They hadn’t actually said anything, and there was no reason to think that she would have naturally collapsed at her kitchen table in quite that way. “I don’t really know. They let me go, anyway.”

We sat quietly. I poked at the melting ice with my straw. The bartender returned with two fresh drinks and I pushed my first glass, now simply ice and a lime rind, away.

“I don’t know how to ask this without sounding like a jerk,” Colin began, “but…what exactly happened to her? I mean, did someone shoot her?”

I shook my head. “No, no gun. At least, no gun that I saw, and no gunshot wounds. She was just…collapsed. On this dining room table. And I don’t know why there was blood, but there was. I didn’t see any knives or anything. Maybe she vomited it? I don’t know any more than that. I really don’t.” It’s funny how the mind works. When I was in the moment, in Sasha’s condo, I couldn’t have told you anything that I saw. Now, though, there it was, in vivid technicolor, right in front of my mind’s eye, threatening to become real enough to obscure my view of the rows and rows of liquor bottles before me.

Colin was silent. I forced myself to read every single label that I could make out from where we sat, just to keep my mind in that moment. Gins. Tequilas. Vodkas. Rums. All neatly sorted, bottles shined.

“You usually a drinker?” he finally said.

“Not unless the occasion calls for it.”

He gave a short laugh. “This one might just count. Want to get hammered?”

“Oh god, yes.” I squeezed my new lime so tightly my fingers mashed and slipped together. “But wait,” I said, suddenly anxious. “The way my week’s been going, I have one more question. Have we established that you’re not a serial killer?”

“I don’t know,” he said, looking just a little flustered as he brushed his hair back from his forehead. “It’d be appropriate, wouldn’t it? Two random bodies, and then yours as the third.”

I shuddered. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about that. It’s always in threes.”

“Wait, though. Haven’t there already been three? I mean, counting your boss, or whatever she technically was to you…” he trailed off. My face must have fallen. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring that up.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s all right. I just hadn’t thought about it that way. I guess there have been three then.” Maggie, Aurelia, and then Sasha made three. Aurelia wasn’t dead yet, at least, not as far as I knew, but close enough. I gave him a half smile. “I must technically be safe.”

He raised his glass. “The best kind of safe. Want to eat?”

I did.

“You know,” I said, some amount of time later that had held two more rounds for me, a move to a table, two dense, medium-rare burgers, one side of mac and cheese, brussels sprouts fried in bacon grease, and truffle fries, “at this point, I only sort of care if you do turn out to be a serial killer.”

“That’s how they get you,” he said, pointing a fry at me. “Truffle oil.”

I leaned over the table and took a bite. “I have no regrets. I didn’t really need to practice my interview anyway. What I do is such a small part of whether they want to hire me.”

“Interview? With the police?”

I laughed. It was funny now, how much I thought I cared. “Monday morning. I was supposed to be meeting my friend to practice my teaching demonstration. That’s why I was so focused on finding her. Which I guess,” I added, with an inadvertent giggle, “I did do. Find her, I mean.”

It was at this point I noticed that the room was spinning, just slightly. It was almost comforting.

“Wait. So you were looking for her to practice your teaching demonstration? I’m confused. Don’t you already have a job?”

“Yeah, but no. Not really. It’s all a joke,” I said. “It’s seriously all a fucking joke. Do you know how community colleges work?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“Most people don’t. So it’s like this.” I put the ramekin of house-made ketchup in the middle of the table. “This,” I said, “is all the work that there is for one professor. If they give you this whole thing, they have to pay you a good salary, benefits, all of that.”

“If you get all the ketchup.”

“Right. But what I am,” I said, pulling over an empty bread plate, “is an adjunct. So they do this.” I grabbed a fry and scooped the ketchup out onto the plate in three blobs. “They give the work to three of us.”
            “One thing of ketchup.”

“Yeah.”

“Three people.”

“Right.”

“So what do you get for that?”

“An hourly wage. No benefits. It’s part time, and you’re not allowed to have the bottle, either. This is all you get. If they’re feeling generous, they might give you a refill. But only sometimes.”

“I don’t think they get their ketchup out of bottles here.”

“You’re probably right.” I absent-mindedly put the fry in my mouth and took a bite. “Unless they just doctor it and tell us it’s house-made. Fucking hipsters.”

“So your interview then?”

“Oh, right. So. Every once in a while they can’t do this anymore.”

“Can’t do what?”

“These,” I said, waving a hand at the plate, my tongue beginning to fail me.

“Make blobs of ketchup?”

“Yeah.”

“So what do they do then?”

“Someone makes them get another cup.”

“Cup?”

“You know,” I said, frowning at him. “One of those things. A little cup for ketchup. One with benefits. And then we all get in line to fight over it, and one person gets lucky.”

“You want the cup?”

I sighed deeply. “I wish I didn’t. But yeah. I want the cup.”

“And on Monday, you’re interviewing for it.”

“Right.” I took the last fry from the basket and dragged it clumsily around the sides of the ramekin until it had collected the last dregs of the ketchup. Then I opened my bag and dropped the cup in.

“What exactly do you have to do in this interview?”

I waved a hand. “You know, interview stuff. They’ll ask me questions, I’ll answer them and try not to sound like I’m talking out of my ass.”

“Easy questions?”

“I’ve done it before. And oh yeah, you also have to teach them something. That’s the teaching demonstration part, which was the part I was going to practice, though they already all know me, or know someone who knows me.”

“Them?”

“The interview committee. You know, show them what a good teacher you are. Only it’s not that simple, because every decision you make is going to make one person happy, but piss somebody else off. So it’s not like you can really practice. But actually…” A giggle rolled up from my stomach, and I paused for a breath, shaking my head. “So this is actually kind of funny. You’re gonna love this. I just realized it. So my friend, the one I was trying to find and found?”

I pointed to my knee, the giggles now making me shake, no matter how hard I tried to hold myself still.

“The one who’s dead?”

“Right, her. And she…she was going to listen to my demonstration, right, and tell me what I could do better, and—”

I was wrecked, captive to peals of laughter, and I could barely speak, but in a near-whisper, I said “—and I just realized I could have still done it! Right there! Because it’s on the meaning of dead women in modern Asian-American fiction written by women, and there she was! A dead woman! My audience! My perfect audience!”

I gave in and doubled over, rested my forehead on the edge of the beautifully crisp cream tablecloth, and began to sob. But silently. If you had looked over from another table, I could have been looking for a pen. At least, this is what I managed to tell myself as I sat up just enough to drag my napkin across my eyes.

Colin waited until I was able to take a sip of water. I held my eyes wide and looked at the wall behind him and immediately to his left. There was a painting there of what looked like an abstract apple.

“Okay,” he said. “Now it’s my turn to tell you something, even though I don’t think you’re going to like it. I’m taking you home.” He waved at the waiter and pulled out his wallet. “Where’s your car? Where are your keys?”

“Why do you care about my keys? I’m not stupid. I won’t drive.”

“Doesn’t matter. Where do you live?”

“I’m not telling you that!”

“Then tell a cabbie.”

“But my car,” I said. “How will I get my car?”

“Come on then,” he said, standing and pulling at my elbow. “Let’s go.”

I stood. The room began to quiver, but Colin took my arm in his and held it tightly to his body, tightly enough to guide me out of the restaurant and back into the night.