The Prettiest Feathers Read online

  He put on his best puzzled expression.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

  “What I mean is that you deceived me. You let me tell you all about someone that you already knew inside out.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You. And the games shrinks play. I thought you were different from the others, but you’re just as much of a bastard as every other shrink I’ve ever known. You’re all jerks. I think it’s a prerequisite for the job.”

  “Sarah, I don’t know any John Wolf.”

  I felt as if a trapdoor had opened, sending me crashing to the basement. I hadn’t yet made up my mind about Dr. Street’s competency as a therapist, but I had been certain of one thing: his decency. He had been my ideal, the proof I pointed to whenever telling myself that, yes, there really were kind and honest men in this world. But there he was, lying to me. My god, he even looked as if he believed what he was saying.

  “Sarah, it isn’t a matter of confidentiality or privilege or anything else. I’m telling you that I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  “I’m talking about the man I met,” I said, carefully articulating each word to ensure that there would be no misunderstanding. “The one who came into the bookstore, John Wolf. He told me he turned to you for help when his marriage fell apart.”

  Dr. Street shook his head. “No, Sarah. I don’t know the man.”

  I stared at him, hating him—and hating myself for ever having trusted him. That first time I went to see Dr. Street, I had settled into his huge leather chair, certain I had no reason to be there, nothing to say. But then I heard myself talking about Dr. Mena—our family doctor when I was a child. Mother had taken me to him that spring when I began napping every day, not wanting to be with my friends, refusing to eat. I was eleven.

  He was a large, reddish-skinned man with pure white hair. He laughed a lot, even when nobody had said anything funny. He suggested to Mother that she should let him speak with me in private.

  “Children Sarah’s age, especially female children, sometimes have secrets they don’t wish to share with their parents,” he told her.

  Then, looking at me, he added, “But Sarah and I are good friends. We can tell each other anything, can’t we, Sarah?”

  He took me into his examining room and helped me up onto the cold, stainless steel table. He pressed gently on my belly, asking if it hurt. When I told him no, he moved his hand up under my skirt and down inside the elastic band of my panties. As he moved his hand lower, he kept asking, “Does this hurt? This? This?”

  Nothing that he did was painful. Some of what he did felt good. Strangely good. So when Mother announced, a week later, that I had another appointment with Dr. Mena, I felt a mix of dread and anticipation. But that time, when he took me off for another private talk, it didn’t end up the same way.

  I don’t know if Dr. Mena put his penis inside me. What I do know is this: he put something inside me. His finger? A tongue depressor? I don’t know what it was, but it hurt, and it was large enough or sharp enough to make me bleed. His game wasn’t fun anymore. I squirmed away, pressing my legs together. He didn’t pursue it; he let the moment pass. But when he walked back out to the waiting room with me, he told my mother there were a few more tests he needed to run. He gave her a slip of paper to take to the lab.

  Dr. Mena knew how much I feared needles; how they made me cry. But even so, he ordered the blood tests. I knew that was his way of getting back at me for not letting him do whatever he wanted. I had been bad, and I was getting what I deserved.

  One afternoon when I came into the house, my mother was talking to Dr. Mena on the phone. I sneaked upstairs, to listen in on an extension.

  “Mono is nothing serious,” he was saying. “It just takes time and rest, and then she’ll be good as new.”

  “Thank you for letting me know,” my mother said.

  “And there’s something else.”

  “Yes?”

  “Remember those private chats I had with Sarah?”

  “Yes.”

  “I learned quite a bit about her,” he said. “She has a very active imagination.”

  “I know. We’re proud of that.”

  “I understand. But it is a fine line between fantasy and lies. I think you should be aware, so you can watch for any signs.”

  “Are you saying that Sarah lies?”

  “Oh, no, no, of course not. Only that she is so bright, and given to storytelling.”

  “She wants to be a writer,” Mother said.

  “Well, then, I wouldn’t worry. I just thought I’d mention it—in case she starts telling tall tales. Be aware that it’s just the sign of a good imagination, but one that should be redirected. Into her writing, for example.”

  The last thing I heard Mother say was, “Thank you, Dr. Mena. I appreciate all the effort you’ve gone to.”

  I knew that I must have been a very bad girl. First Dr. Mena had subjected me to needles, then he had told my mother that I lie. I didn’t like displeasing him so much. That’s why, a year later—when a boy from my class put his hands in those same places that Dr. Mena had touched—I didn’t stop him.

  There were other boys after that, but none of them mattered. Until I met Robert. He was lifeguarding at the beach that summer between my senior year and my first semester of college. Once I spotted him perched up there on the lookout tower—all tanned and muscular and serious—I started hanging around, asking him questions. Being a pest. Flirting.

  “Look,” he said, “I’m working.”

  “I know. Maybe I should go way out where it’s over my head. Would you rescue me?”

  “This isn’t a game.”

  I reached up and tickled the bottom of his foot.

  “Why don’t you act your age?” he said, and I could tell that he was truly angry. But when I started to walk away, he jumped down and came after me.

  “Hey,” he said.

  I kept walking.

  “I said hey.”

  I stopped, but didn’t turn around.

  He came around to the front of me, but I kept my head down. He put one hand under my chin and urged me to look up at him.

  “How old are you, anyway?”

  “How old do you want me to be?” I asked, smiling.

  “At least twenty-one.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “I’ll be twenty-five in seven years.” “I was afraid of that.”

  I reached out with one finger and touched his belly, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked. “Yes.”

  “Oh,” he said, looking disappointed. You.

  He smiled, slow and sweet.

  That’s how it began. We were engaged by Christmas—and married the following June, about three months after my nineteenth birthday. We didn’t have sex until our wedding night. I liked that about Robert—his restraint. It made me feel that he valued me even more than I valued myself.

  I thought no one would ever give me that feeling again. Then I met John Wolf, and my stock rose to a record high. That day at Harrington’s he brought back memories of how it once had been with Robert. He asked me about my marriage, my work, my daughter. He even volunteered to go with me to the cemetery on Liza’s birthday. And he didn’t make advances, physically, at all. Not even an accidental brush against my leg. While that was refreshing and flattering, it was also frustrating. I was powerfully attracted to the man. I got wet just looking at him. But I trusted him to know what was best. I willingly let him set the pace.

  The day after our lunch date, I was at the bookstore, doing what I always do at closing time. I was carrying the day’s receipts up the outside stairway, to Harry. The safe is in the massage parlor, and that’s where he keeps the money from both businesses. Just as I reached the top step, I heard a shot.

  I went down the instant I heard it, flat on the wooden landing outside the door. Then I heard two more
shots. They sounded like they were coming from the alley across the street.

  The massage parlor door inched opened and Harry said, “Gunshots?”

  “Over in the alley,” I told him.

  He opened the door a little wider so I could crawl inside. Right away Sheila started screaming. She thought that I had been hit, and said so into the phone. I found out later that she was talking to the dispatcher at 911. That’s why the police headed directly for the massage parlor, not the alley.

  When I told them where I thought the shots had originated, one of the officers said, “Nobody else called this in.”

  “I know a shot when I hear one.”

  “You got a gun?” the officer wanted to know.

  “I was married to a cop.”

  While Harry argued with the officers about whether I would know the difference between gunfire and firecrackers, Sheila and I led everyone over to the alley—and that’s when we found them: two black guys. Dead.

  In under five minutes, the scene was crawling with cops. Radios crackling, yellow tape strung everywhere—it was a zoo. I had recognized both dead guys, and knew that John Wolf would want to know their fate. So as soon as everything settled down, as soon as I had answered each investigator’s questions twenty times, I returned to the bookstore and dialed directory information.

  “What city, please?”

  “Landgrove.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’d like the listing for John Wolf, please.”

  The operator was silent for a moment, then said, “Still checking.”

  After another pause, she said, “I’m sorry. We don’t show any listing for that name.”

  “Then it must be unlisted.”

  “No,” she said. “We don’t have anyone by that name.”

  John

  When that other Sarah—the one that was my sister—started dating, I used to follow her. She’d get into a Ford or Chevy with a pimply-faced sixteen-year-old who couldn’t wait to get both hands in her pants, and they would head for town. I’d get in my pickup and follow.

  Sometimes they’d just drive around, stop at the shopping plaza for ice cream, or drive up to the overlook at the power dam and make out. I’d park out of their view, then walk through the darkness—to stand next to the car and watch.

  She’d slap his hands away. He’d heat her up with another kiss, then go groping again. She’d say his name in a whiny voice, then slap his hands away again. It was a curious way for all of us to pass the time.

  One night, though, she and her bacterial boy of the evening drove up onto the mountain access road. I followed as far as the first parking lot, grabbed a bottle of beer from the case beside me on the seat, and hiked up the switchback trail.

  By the time I reached a clearing above them, they had a blanket spread out on the ground and were taking their clothes off. She wasn’t pushing his hands away.

  The beer bottle exploded against a rock directly behind them. There was screaming, then he was in his Ford, headed down the mountain—and she was fumbling around in the dark, trying to find her clothes, and muttering, “Please don’t hurt me.”

  “It’s me,” I said, walking slowly toward her.

  “What are you doing up here? Jesus,” she said.

  In her relief, she had stopped wrestling with her clothes and just stood there, naked. I had never seen her like that before.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked again.

  She looked like a woman, and she had been doing the things that women do. As I walked closer to her, she became aware, once again, of her nakedness and started getting dressed.

  The jagged neck of the broken bottle was on the ground next to her. I picked it up, looking at her face, her neck, her breasts. She pushed her hair away from her face. That gesture, and the way her breasts moved when she did it, caused me to become erect. She didn’t notice. She was staring at my hand.

  “What’s that for?” she asked.

  I had never felt that kind of lust before. I wanted to throw my sister down on the blanket and rape her. I wanted to take the ragged edge of broken glass and slash her open.

  “I didn’t want you to step on it and get cut,” I said.

  I could feel myself drifting away, slipping off to that place in my mind where I could watch the two of us fuck on the blanket—where I could see myself killing her after I was finished with her body.

  “Why are you cutting yourself with it?” she asked. “Stop doing that.”

  I looked down. I’d been pulling the neck of the bottle across my hand, repeatedly, drawing a new trail of blood with each rip of my skin.

  She had pulled on her shirt and was buttoning it. “Please don’t tell Dad,” she said.

  I moved so close to her, I could smell her hair. It was just an instant. I threw the glass into the trees.

  She brushed past me on her way to the trail.

  “Is the truck down in the parking lot?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said, following behind her, watching the rhythmic sway of her ass.

  That night on the mountain was the closest I’ve ever come to reacting. There is no need, ever, to do that. It’s better, by far, to simply mold reality into whatever shape I choose.

  What I chose for my sister Sarah was entirely visual, not at all tactile. Had I raped her, I would have had to kill her. Otherwise, she would have told her father—our mother’s husband. It would have been messy, very messy.

  Also, it is contrary to my nature to mix sex with murder, though I do find thoughts of murder titillating—and the act itself an aphrodisiac.

  But there was another consideration, one even more compelling than the others. Had I murdered my sister, the earlier incident involving the knife and my family would have been remembered; accusations would have followed, swiftly, and they would have been difficult to deflect. I’ve always made it a point never to call attention to myself; never to kill too close to home.

  But now I have broken my own rule. I’ve stepped too close to the spotlight. The police will check around the neighborhood. No doubt they will question Sarah—and, no doubt, she will recall our first meeting in the bookstore. While it is unlikely that she knew either of the gentlemen I eliminated, she had watched me level a .38 in their direction. That was something she wouldn’t forget. She would describe the episode in Emily and Others to any cop who cared to listen. Perhaps she had already phoned Robert-regaled him with every detail. If the police weren’t already looking for John Wolf in Landgrove, I knew they would be soon. And they would be thorough.

  Any other man might run, but for me the risk is part of the attraction. It is peaking now, and I find it exhilarating. It has never been better than it is now, with Sarah.

  Sarah

  When I opened my door and found Robert standing there, I didn’t say a word, not even “Go away.”

  “It’s business, Sarah. May I come in?”

  I sighed. “Sure. Why not?”

  He looked wonderful, and I said so—instantly wishing that I hadn’t. Now that he didn’t have me, Robert behaved just as I used to wish he would: interested, appreciative, flirtatious. I didn’t want to give him any encouragement. I had no interest in replaying that old sad song that had been our marriage.

  “You don’t look so bad yourself,” he said.

  Searching for a way to change the subject, I asked if he wanted something to drink.

  “What I want is some information. You were there at the shooting yesterday,” he said.

  “Wrong. I was across the street from it, headed up to the massage parlor.”

  “Tell me what you saw.”

  “Nothing. I heard three shots. That’s it.”

  Robert flipped open his pocket-sized notebook and wrote a couple of words in it. “The shots,” he said. “Were they one right after the other, or was there some time between them?”

  “They weren’t boom-boom-boom. But there wasn’t much time in between. Maybe a little more time between the second and thir
d shots.”

  “About how long?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. When that kind of thing happens, time is different. It slows down. I thought someone was shooting at me. Sorry I’m not much help. But there is something you might find interesting. Those guys came into the shop the other day. I think they were going to rob us, but there was a customer in there, a man. He picked up on the body language right away. He pulled a gun.”

  “Who did—the customer or one of the dead guys?”

  “The customer. It was all over in a matter of seconds. The two punks just backed on out of the store. End of problem.”

  “Who’s the customer?”

  “I’m wondering the same thing. He said his name is John Wolf and he lives in Landgrove, but there isn’t any phone listing in his name.”

  Robert’s eyes narrowed. I knew that look; knew what it meant. “You tried to call him? Is this guy a boyfriend of yours?”

  “Jesus, Robert. Do you think I get involved with every guy I meet? I was trying to reach the guy so I could ask him to contact you. I thought maybe he’d remember something about those two guys that I don’t.”

  Robert looked truly apologetic. “Sorry …”

  “Forget it.”

  “If this Wolf character comes into the shop again, ask him to call me.”

  “Of course.”

  • • •

  John Wolf called me the next day at work.

  “I tried reaching you the other day,” I said. “Didn’t you say you live in Landgrove?”

  He paused before responding. “Yes. But I don’t have a phone. I know that’s unheard of in this day and age, but I love the peace. That’s why I moved to Landgrove—to get away from the world. But I already told you all that, didn’t I? How I hate the city, I mean.”

  So that was it. Directory information had never heard of him because he didn’t have a phone. For the hundredth time I thought what an interesting, exceptional man John Wolf was.

  “My ex wants to talk to you,” I said.