What the Hell Did I Just Read

10. A FLASHBACK TO AMY’S TRAUMATIC WAFFLE EXPERIENCE

Amy

About nine hours earlier, Shawn had dropped Amy off at the Venus Flytrap and she had gone upstairs to have that momentary weird sensation that David had frozen in place. But then he started talking and Amy didn’t give it a second thought. That’s because there was something far stranger going on:

David, for the first time in months, seemed genuinely happy.

She had asked, “Did you solve the thing with the little girl?”

“We did,” David had answered, whisking his waffle batter. “She’s back home safe and sound. Turned out there was nothing clown dick about it, it was just a local creep. We got the cops to track his phone and found his van. Whatever he was going to do, he never got a chance.”

They had taken a moment to revel in the victory, Amy of course ignorant of the fact that at that moment, John and the real David were still out trying to solve the case, and Maggie was still missing. Then Amy had noticed the roof leak was fixed and had been shocked to her core to hear that David had done it himself.

“I’m making you waffles. You hungry?”

She wasn’t, but said, “Starving!”

He said, “Then have a seat. With what I’ve got planned, you’ll need your energy.”

“Oh, really?”

“You’ll see. How was work?”

A question David hadn’t asked her in probably a year.

“Boring. Had an old lady who kept calling saying her dead husband was trying to break into her house, but it turned out it was her alive son. She had Alzheimer’s. No monster stuff. So … how’re you feeling?”

“Great. I mean, we solved the case.”

“You had a rough night last night…”

He shrugged. “Nothing some waffles can’t fix.”

She wandered over to the window. “Hey, where’s the car?”

“Oh, it’s in the shop. Brakes started making noise.”

Of course the car was not in “the shop,” the actual David was out driving it, heading toward the little church in search of John. But again, Amy had no way of knowing that.

“Can we, uh, afford that?”

“Don’t wanna drive without brakes, Amy. What if the guy working the drive-through mistimes his throw? Have a seat.”

She sat. The card table had been cleared and dishes had been set. Real ones, not the paper plates David had started buying when he decided he didn’t have enough energy to wash dishes anymore.

“But that’s what I want to talk about,” David said. “John and I got paid for this one, parents had a lot of money and they wouldn’t take no for an answer. And the father, he said something to me that really hit home, he said that all he could think about while his daughter was missing was how if he had known his last day with her had been the last, everything would have been different. He’d have taken time to read her a story before bed, he’d have told her he loved her in a way that showed he meant it. He said if he got her back, that he’d treat every day from now on like it could be the last, because it could. And, I thought, that’s exactly what I haven’t been doing. So then I thought, what would I do if I knew it was my last day on earth? The answer was easy. I’d go away with you somewhere, just the two of us. So, I figured, why not just do it? You’re going to decline Saturday overtime tomorrow. Today, you and I are going on a little getaway. A place with no TV, no Internet.”

“Uh … okay. You’re not going to get bored?”

“Bored? The moment you walk in that door, I’m going to strip you naked, and by the time I’m done with you, you won’t be able to move. If I ever get bored with that, maybe you should just put me out of my misery.”

Amy folded her arms on the table. “Oh, really?”

“Only thing I ask—Shawn doesn’t bring you home anymore. You don’t go anywhere with Shawn anymore, not even in a group. Not that I blame him, he’s acting how any man would act in proximity to one of the most beautiful women in the world. But if he threatens what we have, I’ll lose control, you know I will. And I don’t want to lose control. For my sake, or his.”

“We can talk about that later.”

“No. We can’t. Waffle iron’s hot, let’s do this!”

And so they chatted, and ate their waffles, and Amy couldn’t stop smiling.

She had suggested waiting for the rain to stop or at least slack off a bit before heading out, but as soon as they’d eaten, David insisted they go.

“It’s just water. Your clothes will get wet, but you won’t be needing them the rest of the weekend anyway.”

She asked if they needed to call a cab, since the car was in the shop and all, but David said nothing, just walked out and headed down the stairs, toward the store’s parking lot. She followed and found him unlocking a red sports car from the 1960s.

“What’s this?”

“This is a 1967 Chevy Impala. Given to us by our grateful client. Title is in the glove box, it’s ours free and clear. Get in.”

She did. David twisted the key and the engine rumbled to life. He turned to her and smiled. “You hear that?”

Amy smiled back. “I feel like we should both have varsity jackets on, and at least one of us should be smoking.”

“Then we’ll go join a Vietnam demonstration. In favor of the war.”

They both laughed. David threw it in gear and they took off, rain lashing the Impala’s cherry-red hood, drops breaking and splattering against the layers of gleaming wax. A car that had been someone’s baby.

Amy said, “The storm is getting scary.”

David shrugged. “A whole bunch of noise and not much else. Scary if you’re in a plane or a small watercraft. If you’re looking to go two miles in a kickass muscle car, not so much.”

“Where are we going, again?”

“Part of our payment from the grateful family of the victim was one free weekend at their cabin at Mine’s Eye. Got a screened-in deck overlooking the pond. We can listen to the rain and the local wildlife can listen to me screwing your brains out.”

“Calm down there, cowboy.”

“Ha! Sorry. This thing, with the missing girl … when I saw her parents, the look on their faces when we brought her back safe and sound … I don’t know. It’s like all at once, I realized that we do real good in the world. The detective on the case was there and he shook our hands and it’s like, well, like we were legit. You know? Like we deserved to be there, that we had done what the cops couldn’t.”

“Well, yeah. You should feel great about that. I’ve told you, over and over.”

“I know. But you know how I get, that cloud that forms in my brain, so that no sense can get through. Today, I just saw a break and a little bit of light came spilling in. And I can see the look on your face right now, you’re trying not to get your hopes up because this is what I do, I get up for a while and then I crash. But that’s the other thing. I called the doctor. I’m going to get a prescription, try to regulate these moods. Appointment is next Tuesday.”

“Oh my god. David.”

“It’s just time, you know. All this bullshit in my past, this fucked-up childhood and those rough high school years, there’s a point you’ve just got to let it go. Nobody is going to rewind and give me functioning parents. Nobody is going to flip a switch and make it so that I’m suddenly just like everybody else. I’m never going to fit in. But that’s okay. All of this, it really can be okay.”

She reached over and held his hand. He looked over at her. “Are you crying?”

She said, “No! Of course not.” She laughed, through her tears. “How can you even see where you’re driving? All I see is flying water. I can feel the wind pushing the car around. Are you sure you shouldn’t pull over until this passes?”

“No need. We’re here.”

They sat in the car for a bit, waiting for at least a momentary break in the rain. The cabin standing in front of them was a modest but clean little place, perched over the mine pond. Then David put a hand on her thigh and leaned over and kissed her. She could feel him breathing, trembling. Barely containing himself. It was getting close to Green Stripes territory, she thought.

Amy had been known to read Cosmo from time to time, and in every single issue they’d do some variety of a BRING OUT THE ANIMAL IN YOUR MAN! headline. David had once pointed out that every woman can remember the first time she got legitimately frightened by pushing the wrong button—or the right one—and actually saw that “animal.” Maybe it’s heels in the bedroom, maybe it’s a little bit of pain, maybe it’s dressing up in a schoolgirl outfit and doing baby talk. Every man, said David, has something, and sometimes even the man doesn’t know what it is until he sees it. Amy had stumbled across David’s “animal button” when she showed him the Ulala costume she’d made for the game convention.

There was nothing particularly scandalous about it, a flared white vinyl skirt—maybe a little too short—with a hoop sewn into it to give it a retro futurism look. White boots, the dumb pink wig, the gloves. Part of the costume she had added without David’s knowledge, though, was a modest pair of green-and-white-striped underpants. This was another inside joke, meant only for him. In the racier anime (Japanese animation, if you’re too old or cool to know that word), half the time the girls are wearing these green striped panties—some kind of culture-specific fetish, apparently. David thought anime was ridiculous, and Japanese fetishes even more so. She figured he would get a good laugh from them.

David had been on his way out the door when she walked out of the bedroom to show him the finished outfit. He gave her a cursory compliment and, right before he would have closed the door, she had playfully lifted the skirt to show him the striped underwear. She laughed. David did not. He had gotten this look in his eye, then came back inside and closed the door behind him. What followed had been … frantic. The underwear actually wound up with a little rip in them. She had found one of his animal buttons.

That was the vibe she was getting from him now.

David pulled back, looked out at the rain, and said impatiently, “We’re going to be waiting all weekend. Let’s just make a run for it.”

So, they ran through the rain and bumbled their way inside the cabin, giggling like teenagers. There were animal heads on the walls and the sound of the rain on the metal roof was deafening. Predictably, the moment they were inside, the winds died down and it was just rain again. Across town, John was investigating the trunk of Nymph’s car, their pursuit having ended with it getting sandwiched between the Jeep and a utility pole.

Amy and David went through to the screened-in porch, the rain now falling straight down in a steady, peaceful rhythm. Across the pond there was a little chapel perched up on a grassy hill. David kissed her and pawed at her and she asked if they could slow down a bit.

She said, “We have all weekend, right?”

“I’ll try to control myself, but I make no promises.” He looked out toward the pond. “Do you like it?”

Today, there was no hint of the shimmering teal water that could look at times like a setting from a fairy tale—flood water runoff had turned it into a swollen, muddy puddle, waves of fizzy drop splashes rolling across the surface.

“It’s beautiful.”

David sat down on a wicker sofa and patted the seat next to him. “I would say that I wished it was a nicer day, but I know better. This is Amy weather.”

“Yeah. Well, when I have a roof over me—I’m sure I wouldn’t like it if I was standing out in it all day. And, you know, if the whole town wasn’t under a flood warning. But yeah, this amount of rain right here—fat drops, falling straight down, just a cool breeze wafting in … makes me want to just curl up.”

David put an arm around her. She leaned into him, felt his warmth.

She said, “I know this isn’t your thing. The cabin, all that. Aside from, you know, a private place to have just tons of sex. But this right here, just sitting here and melting into each other, us under a roof while the rain falls out there. This is Heaven, for me. These moments, like this.”

“Do you believe in Heaven, Amy? Like a literal place?”

“I just meant it as a figure of speech.”

“Still. Serious question.”

“I don’t know. But if it’s real, maybe you get to pick what it’s like. Maybe everybody gets their own. Some burly biker dude, he gets to ride his Harley forever with his gang, maybe the warriors go to Valhalla. But I just want this. Not the rain or the cabin but … just for all the distractions to go away. The money, the work, having to constantly stick food and pills into your body to keep it functioning. All that stuff that puts distance between us, all those boundaries, all those fears, it all goes away until it’s just us, together. For as long as we want. Not even saying anything if we don’t want to. Just … being together.”

“What would Hell be like?”

She hesitated. “Well that took a dark turn.”

“You’ve never thought about it?”

She considered, then said, “In Auschwitz, they used to have these little cells called stand-up cells. There would be a door about a foot tall on the floor, you had to crawl into it, and once you were inside you were in this little space about the size of a coffin but only about four feet tall—not enough room to sit, or lie down. You can’t sleep or relax, you’re just hunched over, in like this vertical, airless concrete box. Then they closed that little door at your feet and it was pitch black—no window. And you just stood like that, hunched over and cramped, alone, in pitch darkness, for months. So I guess it would be like that, only forever.”

“Jesus.”

“You asked.”

“But you don’t believe in that, do you? Like any kind of Hell.”

“I know you do.”

“Yeah, because I say Heaven isn’t Heaven if you’ve got Hitler and rapists hanging around, just soaking in Jesus’s swimming pool and chatting up their former victims. And that wouldn’t even be Heaven for them anyway—some people aren’t happy unless they’re victimizing somebody. Their only possible Heaven would be everyone else’s Hell. So, do you believe in it? A place of eternal suffering?”

She said, “No.”

“Why?”

“How did we get off on this subject?”

“Bear with me.”

“I don’t believe in Hell because it would make Heaven impossible.”

“Because you couldn’t enjoy Heaven if you knew those people were suffering.”

“I think if you’re capable of enjoying an eternal paradise while millions of other people are screaming in agony, forever, you’re a sociopath.”

David said, “That’s my point. Right there. The assholes throw themselves into a fire, but then your happiness is ruined because they get burned. They use your sympathy against you. That’s the final trick of Hell—its fire burns everyone.”

Amy said nothing, because she wanted this tangent to end, already not liking where it was going. David thought for a moment, as if he was finally getting to what he really wanted to say, but having arrived there, wasn’t sure how to say it.

Finally, he said, “Do you remember when we were first talking about getting married, uh, seven or so years ago, and I said I wouldn’t do it until you had gotten your degree? Do you remember why I said that?”

“You wanted me to be self-sufficient. You didn’t want me to be getting married because I was scared of trying to make it on my own. Because then I’d be stuck with you even if I was unhappy later.”

“That’s right. But I want you to know … it works the other way, too.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think you do. I’ve done something awful, Amy.”

“Uh-oh. What’s her name?”

“Nothing like that. What I’ve done … I’ve let you believe that if you ever left, that I wouldn’t make it. That either I’d hurt myself, or just crash and burn. I knew you believed that, and I let you keep believing it, on purpose. Because I wanted you to stay. Because I had come to believe that you were my little magical bubble of protection against all of the awfulness out there. All the awfulness inside me. But I want you to know I’d be okay. If you ever decided you weren’t happy and bailed on this, I’d be upset for a while but I’d move on, because I’m a grown-up and that’s what grown-ups do. They don’t hold people hostage.”

“I am happy, David. I love you.”

“That’s good. That’s great. But if that changes. If I change … go. Just, go. I saved your life once and now you’ve saved mine every single day after that, day after day, month after month, year after year. You don’t owe me anymore. In the grand scheme of things, I am an able-bodied white male with above average intelligence living in the richest civilization that will probably ever exist on this planet. I had every chance, and all of my problems are purely my own. But above all, I want you to be happy. Even if it’s with somebody else.”

“I know, you’ve said that before—”

“I never meant it. I mean it now.”

Amy started to answer, but instead let silence take over. They lay there together, a dry island in the rain, Amy feeling David’s chest lift and fall under her. She started to drift off to sleep.

He said, “There’s something else I need to confess. But I need to show it to you. So that you understand.”

“Oh. All right.”

“We have to go outside. To see it.”

“Can it wait?”

“It really can’t.”

* * *

David led her to the car again and drove them around the pond, to the church. Amy had a thought that he had arranged some corny marriage ceremony, but instead he parked and walked right past the church, to a winding gravel path that led down to the water.

Amy followed and near the bottom, David had said, “It’s here.”

“What’s here?”

“You’ll see.”

“You’re scaring me. Tell me what we’re doing.”

“Amy, I do things sometimes, and I don’t remember them afterward. But it’s still me. It has to be. It doesn’t make sense to think of it any other way.”

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Finally, he said, “John and I … we didn’t find the girl, Maggie. Everyone is still out looking for her right now. But I know where she is.”

Amy went cold. Without another word, David headed toward the water. He kept walking right into the pond, sloshing through until it was up to his knees.

Trembling, she followed him, her vision blurring as raindrops splattered off her glasses. David waded out toward the pile of loose rock that had been the mouth of the mine way back when. He approached a rusty NO SWIMMING sign that was now half-submerged.

She saw that tied to its post was a length of white plastic pipe, curved over at the top, as if to prevent rain from getting in. David stopped there and leaned his ear down toward the pipe, as if he was listening for something. Amy forced her feet to move, feeling like she was in a bad dream. The thought that swirled around her head was, You knew it was going to end like this. She waded out into the freezing water and arrived next to David, looked down, and screamed.

The pipe was connected to a hose and the hose was connected to a clear plastic bag about the size and shape of, well, the little blond girl that it clearly contained.

“She’s alive,” David said. “Sleeping. I gave her something.”

“You gave her something?” Amy thought she was going to throw up. But three seconds later, she swept that thought off the table and was up to her shoulders in freezing water, dragging up the bag, which had been weighed down with four cinder blocks. David was helping—knowing exactly how to disconnect the weights—and together they dragged the girl to shore.

David handed Amy his pocketknife and she sliced open the thick, watertight plastic. She cradled the little girl in the rain, Maggie’s breath coming and going softly. Amy muttered incoherent reassurances to the girl, and to herself, and to nobody in particular. It was just a noise she was making.

David said, “Amy, look at me. I need you to listen carefully. Are you listening?”

She didn’t answer, but met his eyes.

“I’m not David.”

Amy said, “We can … look, she’s unharmed, you didn’t hurt her, on some level you must have come to your senses, you must have—”

“Hey. Amy. This is not a metaphor. I’m not David. I look like him, I sound like him. I’m not him. David is at John’s house right now, still lost, still trying to solve this. You can call him. And in fact, I want you to do that, in a moment.”

“What? What are you talking ab—”

“I need you to acknowledge that you heard what I said and comprehend it. I know you don’t fully understand but I need to know you at least took in the words.”

“You’re not David. Then who are you?”

“I’m going to go now, I won’t harm or pursue you, and you’re going to make your phone call. Oh, and in all the excitement, you’ve forgotten to get your prescription refilled, you need to get David to pick it up today or else you won’t be able to move tomorrow morning when your back seizes up.”

“Uh … okay.”

“And Amy … you deserve better.”

“What? I—”

But he was gone. Vanished, like a popped bubble. The little girl moved in her arms. Maggie’s eyes were half-open, looking but not seeing, in a drugged haze. Amy pulled out her phone, called David, and he sounded frantic.

“Amy! Is that you!?!”