Ten
“Hey, East!” The box at my feet is piled high with books and journals. The textbooks from the same shelf as my course notes for Phil of Death teeter atop the stack; I presume my course notes are under them somewhere. “Look in this box!”
“You poor baby,” Esther coos to my husk of a purple oxalis as she crouches next to it. Her finger traces the dried stems, breaking several off that crumble onto the pavement. “No one has taken care of you in a while, have they? I’m sorry you had to die because I’m a coward.”
Her phrasing startles me into a frown. “How are you a coward?”
Esther, of course, doesn’t answer. Instead, she talks to my plant. “Still, I feel like I should try to revive you. Maybe you just need a little water.”
“Yes! It’s just dormant. It’s not like I could take care of a plant that can’t go months without being watered.
” My chuckle is self-deprecating. “I didn’t even take care of myself, you think I can be trusted with a needy plant?
Honestly, it’s a miracle I didn’t die sooner.
” I scoff, more at the situation than my flat attempt at humor.
“But forget the plant, Esther, I’m trying to help you! Look in this box!”
I ground myself as hard as I can and kick the box.
I don’t know what I expected. I obviously don’t make contact with it.
My foot passes right through. But if I’m allowed to be optimistic—or perhaps delusional—it does appear as if a draft blew by at the exact moment I failed to kick it.
One of the flaps on the box waves ever so slightly in the breeze.
Esther looks up.
“Yes!” I ground myself again, so I can clap my hands in excitement.
They don’t make a sound, like Harriet’s do when she claps, but at least they don’t pass through each other.
Baby steps, but I’m getting better at this ghost shit.
I kick the box again. The cardboard waves for Esther’s attention. “Look at this one!”
“Would there be anything in here? These books are on the syllabus, so that’s promising.
” Esther gets up to dig through the box, fishing out a well-worn copy of The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, which I borrowed indefinitely from my middle school library.
She flips through it, settling to sit on the curb, when the page falls open to a stack of pictures. “Oh, jackpot! Photos!”
“Are you serious? Photos? That’s what you’re looking for?
!” I rub my forehead in frustration, careful not to accidentally untie my veil; I’d have to wait until I saw Harriet again to fix it.
I haven’t figured out how to find the ends of the shroud yet.
It’s not really fabric, or matter, yet there is a definitive end to it that Harriet can touch.
Not just touch, but roll up and tie back in a cute, jaunty bow.
When Esther sits on the curb to flip through the pictures, I float down beside her. “What else is in the fucking box? I don’t know, maybe my course notes?! Do you not care about making your own life easier?”
With a soft smile, Esther holds up one of the pictures. “Aw, Luce, you look like your Dad.”
“I do?” I ground myself to sit on the curb next to her.
I’ve never looked at any of the photos I grabbed in my mad scramble to pack in the thirty-minute warning Mom gave me before she kicked me out.
They’ve been tucked in the book since then.
So few moments in my life were happy; I never imagined they would show anything I wanted to remember.
And yet, I took them with me. Kept them all these years.
The photo in her hand is one of us at the hospital—Dad holds four-year-old me, and I hold a newborn Angel.
I personally think all newborns are ugly, but somehow Angel was annoyingly photogenic, even at a few hours old.
But Esther is right; I look so much like him, from our strong cheekbones and deep-set eyes, to the proud set of our shoulders and lanky figures.
And even though my brother and I look nothing alike, Angel favors him, too.
“No wonder you turned out as gorgeous as you did. Your dad was, well, even as a lesbian…” Esther shrugs, puts the photos back in the book, and sets it on the withered plant next to the precarious pile. “I mean, I wouldn’t, but I’d consider it.”
“Thank you, East. That’s deeply uncomfortable to think about.” I shudder to clear the imagery. “Sorry to say Angel is your only hope of pulling any Monae now.” I wrinkle my nose. “And honestly, if you go for him, I will do everything in my power to move on so quick. You’re my Tie, not Angel’s.”
Esther almost smiles as she looks at the box next to her.
“I should bring this in and spend time going through it. I’m pretty sure your notes would be in here, wouldn’t they?
” For half a second, I worry that Esther is about to break into another monologue, overthinking a moral decision with a very clear answer, but she simply nods.
“Anything else I don’t need, I’ll bring back to the alley for someone else to use.
That seems to be the best course of action, ethically.
Satisfies my needs and still might benefit others.
Right? Moral dilemma solved.” Getting to her feet, Esther pushes the box away from the rest of the pile and turns back to the rest of my belongings in the alley.
“What else would you want to keep safe, Luce?”
“None of it. I’m dead. I don’t care.” I look over her shoulder anyway.
I honestly didn’t have much stuff. I’ve moved around so much that my meager furniture easily crams into any rented van.
I would justify it by claiming to be a minimalist, by moving constantly, always finding a new place to stay—there has never been a point in settling in.
Even this apartment, I’d only lived there six months.
It was fine, but nowhere was ever home. Living out of boxes, assuming this studio would be yet another temporary place to stay…
it was always safer than unpacking. Than getting comfortable.
Esther digs through some boxes, bypassing dishes and towels. She opens a box stuffed with clothes—all black, of course. “Finally, something with some of your personality!” She holds up a silk A-line dress with a pussybow collar that I wore on my first day on campus. “You looked so elegant in this.”
“Thank you. Black is my color,” I reply with a chuckle. Normally, I’m not one to take a compliment, but she can’t hear me. And it’s coming from Esther. At this point, I almost believe her when she says nice things about me.
“What are you doing?” A stern voice comes from behind us.
Esther jumps up, stepping into me.
“Oh, fuck that burns. You gotta give me more warning, Esther.” I float out of her quickly, rubbing my chest as if it’ll do anything to soothe the inferno.
“Were you talking to me, officer?” Esther asks.
A white, middle-aged police officer, a little paunch under his uniform, blocks the mouth of the alley, and a chill runs through me.
Why is he blocking us in? What does he want?
I glare at him, just because I can. I wouldn’t have dared be so visibly suspicious of him when I was alive, but he can’t see me.
“Yes, ma’am.” The officer nods politely. “Just curious as to why you’re digging through these boxes.”
“Oh!” Esther visibly panics. “I uh…was looking for stuff Lucy might want to keep.”
“Oh my god, Esther. Couldn’t you lie?” I ground myself to rub my forehead. “You’re just gonna tell him all your business like that?”
“Lucy?” The officer prompts.
“Yeah, this stuff belongs to my neighbor. Or did?” Esther scratches her head. “I guess I don’t know where she is, or if she’s…you know. She hasn’t been at work in months.”
The officer looks at her suspiciously. “Is she your neighbor or coworker?”
Esther’s hand freezes mid scratch, seemingly realizing she’s fucked up by telling him way too much information. “Both? I live across from her apartment, but we’re both professors.”
“And you didn’t think to report her missing?” the officer asks skeptically.
Esther blanches, rushing to explain, “I did! I mean, I asked the head of the department about it. She said she’d handle it, and-” She stops then, eyes narrowing. “Sorry, who are you? Are you working on her case or something?”
The officer nods. “Detective Barrett. Someone named,” he squints at his notepad, “Gilda Frederick called us to do a welfare check on Lucy Monae a couple of months ago, and we’ve had a missing persons case open for her since.”
“She did?” Esther and I ask at the same time. I never expected Gilda to care enough to actually look into where I went. Every time Esther asks about it, Gilda acts like my absence is a personal insult.
“Yeah. Is that the head of your department?”
Esther nods. “Have you found anything about Lucy, or where she could have gone? There wasn’t…a body in there, was there?”
To my surprise and confusion, the officer shakes his head. “We haven’t ruled anything out, but we don’t have any evidence that this was a homicide.”
“Oh. Well, I hope she’s okay!” Esther’s mouth twists into a fragile smile, like she’s fighting against the hope that maybe I’m alive somehow. “I’ve been so worried about her!”
“You have?” I ask, turning to her. I don’t know why that surprises me. She has obviously been wondering where I am, but to hear her tell that to a stranger… I don’t know how to feel. I hate that I’ve given her cause for worry.
Detective Barrett shakes his head. “Nothing concrete. When’s the last time you saw her?”
Esther straightens her shoulders. “June twenty-fifth at ten in the morning. I live in the apartment across the alley from her, and she used to water her plant after our department meetings on Fridays. After that, I didn’t see her, but she still signed into work until July first. She never signed in on July second, and she wasn’t at our department meeting that day. ”
“Damn, East. That’s…detailed.” If I wasn’t haunting her, I might be creeped out that she had my plant watering schedule memorized, when I didn’t even know we were neighbors.
But I’m a total goner for her, so my cheeks only burn with a bashful smile.
My dream girl has been this worried? About me?
After four months, I know she cares, that she still watches for me.
Yet somehow I still struggle to believe that she’s not just concerned because I’m the reason she’s drowning in work.
Perhaps it’s because I am far more obsessive than she is in this situation.
I’ve been her paranormal stalker for four months; I don’t exactly have the moral high ground here.
I have become intimately aware of her in ways I never expected and can’t stop thinking about, like her crooked bottom teeth, how she dances while she dries her hair and pretends the diffuser is a mic, and how she wears rainbow boxers every Friday. So, really, who is the creep here?
The officer nods as Esther talks, taking her name and contact information in his phone, along with having her confirm the dates again.
“That lines up. The last footage we have of her is at a liquor store on July first, then picking up a delivery in the foyer of her building, but the cameras never show her leaving her apartment again. There’s no sign of forced entry.
Nor any text messages or phone calls or any purchases, other than automatic payments coming from her bank account since. No body has been found.”
“Boxed wine and takeout are the last signs of my existence?” I wrinkle my nose. “No, that tracks. I don’t know what I expected.”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have told you all of that.
It’s internal only.” Barrett scratches his head.
“So, what of hers are you taking? If you don’t mind, I’m just going to document it in case her next of kin asks for it, whenever we find out who that is.
We tried to hold the apartment as evidence, but her landlord successfully filed an eviction, so there’s not much I can do since there’s no sign of foul play, and her case doesn’t fall under Pox protection laws.
You wouldn’t happen to know who her next of kin is, would you? ”
Esther shakes her head. “No. We didn’t talk outside of work. She was pretty quiet about her personal life.”
“That’s what that Glinda lady said, too.” Barrett tucks his pen and notepad into his pocket. “She said Miss Monae’s emergency contact had passed recently himself.”
“Gilda, but call her Dr. Frederick,” Esther and I correct him simultaneously.
Esther adds, “Also, Dr. Monae, not Miss.”
“Thanks, East.” I listed Cash as my emergency contact on my application for the adjunct position.
I couldn’t bear to take his name off when I applied for his old job, and it’s not like I had anyone else to list. He and his wife were so understanding; I don’t know what I did to deserve his friendship, but I’m glad he was there for me.
That he doesn’t have to deal with all of this.
That I’ll never have to figure out who else to put as my emergency contact.
“Gotta find the small things in death to appreciate,” I murmur.
“Right. So, can I take a couple of pictures of that box you have?” He gestures behind Esther with his phone.
Esther nods, stepping out of the way. “Sure. I might put some of it back. I just need her course notes and maybe save some personal mementos for her, in case she comes back. Or her family, if you ever find them. I was going to put the rest back out here. Oh, and I’m keeping this.
” She drapes my black dress on the box around the dehydrated purple oxalis.
The officer shakes his head with a sigh. “Ma’am, I don’t think she’s coming back. It’s been three months. She’s either dead, or she doesn’t want to be found.”
Esther looks crestfallen. I want to comfort her, but the best I can do is mimic patting her shoulder. “Don’t worry, East, I’m okay.” I pause. “Well, I’m dead, so ‘okay’ is a stretch. But honestly, it’s fine. I’m fine! I promise! Death isn’t that much different than life.”
The officer seems to realize he’s stuck his foot in his mouth again. He winces. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be callous, but I’ve been doing this long enough to have a sense.”
If I can read between the lines, he’s already given up on trying to solve my case.
I wish I was surprised, but I am a Black woman without any friends or family to advocate for me.
Esther can hope all she wants, but there was never any hope for my case.
There’s not even hope they’ll ever find my body, or that I’ll figure out what happened to me.
I’m honestly impressed he’s even pretending to try.