Cemetery Girl

“Are you dating someone?”

“Here and there,” he said, his voice low. “So we’ll keep in touch and see what happens. Right?”

“Yeah. Right. I guess I need to work on my book.”

“Right. Idle hands and all that. Did I ask you what it’s about? Is it Melville?”

“Hawthorne. Remember?”

“Cool. The Scarlet Letter. Man, I hated that book.”

I heard the voice again in the background.

“Okay, okay,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or someone else. “Okay, Tom, I’ve got to run.”

“Okay,” I said, but he was already off the phone.

Chapter Fifteen

I went to my office in the English department-more out of obligation than anything else-but I couldn’t concentrate on anything. When I sat down at my desk, it felt as though I were sitting behind an unrecognizable wooden block, a piece of furniture whose purpose I no longer remembered or understood. The whole room felt that way. It smelled funny-different-and the proportions and angles of the walls seemed off, as though it had been years and not weeks since I’d been there. I made a halfhearted attempt to sort through the mail. I placed it into two piles: things I knew I would throw away and things I would probably throw away.

I turned on my computer and listened to it whir and grind as it booted. Occasionally a group of students passed in the hallway, their voices sounding like the chirps and calls of exotic birds. It was a mistake to come, I decided. There was no work I could do.

I checked my e-mail. More than eighty messages waited, most of them departmental and university announcements. I scanned the subject lines: Health Fair. Estate Planning. Sandy’s Baby Shower. Spring Teaching Schedules. I didn’t bother to go through them. They’d still be there later, and if anyone needed anything important from me, they could call. I might not answer, but they could call.

I looked at my overcrowded bookshelves. At eye level sat a pile of research materials for the Hawthorne book. I rolled my chair over and picked them up. The top page was dusty, so I wiped it off with the back of my hand. ThenI flippedthrough.A couple of photocopied articles and some notes I’d made on a legal pad. I knew it was my handwriting, but the thoughts on the page didn’t mean anything to me. I couldn’t remember what I was trying to say. “Wakefield,” it read, and the word was underlined three times. “Opacity.” It was underlined three times as well.

Someone knocked on the door, quick, tentative taps. I decided to just ignore it. But they knocked again, louder and more insistent.

“Shit,” I muttered.

I put the Hawthorne notes away and opened the door.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Stuart?”

“Yes?”

Something about her face seemed vaguely familiar, and at first I assumed she was a student from a previous semester, one of the anonymous multitudes who flew under the radar in an American Lit survey, knocking out the requirement with the same joy and gusto usually reserved for doing laundry. But then I noticed the limpness of her hair, the tiredness of her eyes. It registered.

“Tracy,” I said. “I’m sorry. Out of context, I-”

“You don’t expect to see a girl like me here on campus.”

I stepped back. “Come in. Sit down.” She looked uncertain. Her eyes roamed the room as though she were across a boundary and into another world. She settled into my extra chair, the one where students usually sat. I took my seat behind the desk. “Are you a student here?”

Her laugh possessed a bitter edge. “Yeah, I’d have to rob a bank and not just take off my clothes to pay for this. I didn’t even finish high school.”

“Thank you for talking to the police and working with them on the sketch.”

She didn’t respond. Her hand was raised to her head, and her index finger twirled a strand of brittle-looking hair. Her eyes were focused on the desktop.

“It’s going to help a lot, I think. The sketch.” When she didn’t answer again, I said, “Is there a reason why you’re here? Is something wrong?”

“I guess that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, all that stuff in the papers and on TV about your daughter.”

“It’s there because of you.”

“Yeah. .” She stopped twirling her hair and looked at me. “I’m sorry about that.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“You believe my story, don’t you?” she asked.

“Is there a reason why I shouldn’t?” I asked.

She shook her head slowly, and while she did I remembered Ryan’s comments about Tracy. Well detailed. Convincingly so.

“I saw what I saw,” she said. “I did.”

“Then there shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Have you thought about what you’d do if she came back?” she asked.

“You mean Caitlin, right? Have I thought about her coming back home?” I asked. “Of course. Many times.”

In great detail. Convincingly so. Caitlin running into my arms. Caitlin saying my name. Caitlin happy and smiling, a beautiful young woman ready to resume her life.

“I hope you get to see that come true,” she said.

She smiled a little, but it didn’t possess much warmth.