Chapter 2

He didn't think about her much anymore. The memory of her mismatched eyes was dim and corrupted. He had clipped out the police record and stuck it to his apartment refrigerator, a reminder that he couldn't win every time.

The bar had been dull these last few months, the same night over an over. A night before She came, a quiet night, when the only things that stuck out in his memory were the times he ran out of one or another liquer and had to improvise.

Tonight there was a slut sitting where She had sat, defiling the stool he had come to consider a haven. Even when he wasn't thinking of Her, he was still aware of Her, or rather, of Her absence. He still nursed the wound Her death left on his soul.

As any bartender will do, he studied this whore with a critical eye. At one time, she may have been appealing to him, and maybe if she'd sat in a different place he'd have still thought so. Not tonight, she'd destroyed herself by sitting at Her place. He compared her to his memory of the girl with mismatched eyes--what was Her name?--and lost track of time. This sorry excuse for a woman was augmented, trashy, fake-n-bake, a typical bar rat who likely worked street corners to pay for her needles and chain-smoking. A perfect contrast, he mused, to Her.

He even knew this bitch's name--she wore "Kaylee" in stamped gold on a chain around her neck, tacky and superficial and nestled seductively between disproportionate mounds on her bony chest.

The bouncers cleared the place for closing, and he cleaned up without realizing it. His coat was on, his key was in the lock on the outside when he looked back at Her barstool. For the first time in many months, he watched in his mind's eye as She slid off the cusion, standing smoothly, with grace, but not pride. She stood tall, but in defiance, not strength; he could still see that She was broken. Shrugging Her coat on, more black, more shadows swallowing Her beauty. He whispered to the empty room, repeating the conversation in his mind as he at last locked the door. The way Her lips held the cigarette, the timbre of Her voice, the short, precise statements She gave him, he remembered it all.

He found himself staring up at the apartment building She'd lived in. The early morning was far colder than that morning months ago, but he didn't feel it. He thought he saw her shadowy form walking up the stairs again, but he knew it was only a trick of the absence of light. On a whim, he knocked on the office door, and wasn't surprised at silence. He sighed, his breath crystallizing before his face as he strode back into the cold. Two-thirty? Three? He didn't bother to look at his watch, he just walked back to his Honda and drove to his own apartment in the opposite direction.

He openned his front door and looked into the darkness. He flipped on the lamp on his end table, splashing a sick yellow light over his worn couch. The door behind him latched, his coat fell off its peg, his keys clattered on the counter, the fridge openned, bottles jingled.

The memory of Her eyes flashed before him and his mind grabbed at it, clutched nothing. His fingers took the newspaper clipping off the fridge, folded it lovingly, and slipped it into his wallet. Theres not really much to say, she whispered, and he slammed his hand onto the counter, drowning her out. This was too much, he'd been in a gang when he was a teenager for god's sake. He harbored secrets of drugs, murder, loose women, everything, why the hell was he concerned with a girl he'd never seen before or since one night in his distant memory? She didn't even resemble anyone he'd ever known, and She was dead.

Was She dead?

He realized he couldn't call up any memories of Her appearance, other than Her eyes. Another piece of him was gone, maybe the victim of the crystal he'd tried when he was sixteen. He'd never really been the same after that line, he knew that, he tried to shrug it off.

She persisted. He openned a dark beer and draughted long, all but pouring fire down his numb throat. Again and again until the room spun, but he didn't pay attention. He'd had nothing to do with Her death, but Her eyes with no name skated over his anundance of painful memories, the death he'd witnessed, the wasting away of flesh from drug use, he tried to shut out Her ghost, but everything else, even the spinning room, paled as he fell asleep drunk, all but weeping for lack of Her name.

He woke to a sunbeam slicing an axe though his skull. His hangover could have slaughtered enough cattle to feed Zimbabwe for a month, but he dragged himself to his feet. Foggy memories of the stupor he'd drunk his way into clogged his head. He had dreamed a little towards waking, for the first time in months. He should have been annoyed that She had been his dream. A few memories of her face came back, blue and grey set into ivory, fine cheekbones, a mane of gold tamed into a bun low on the back of her head. He prefferred brown hair and matching eyes, , but he'd always been aware She was pretty. No, he shook his head, wincing at the daggers racing over his skull, She was--no, had been beautiful. Like an angel, maybe an angel of death, or a ghost, or a tiger, purring, she was as alluring as she seemed dangerous.

The clock told him it was already mid-afternoon. He had only a few hours before he had to be back at work, but he had no desire to face the bar and the people again. He picked up the phone, biting back coarse words to describe his hangover.

Two hours, three Advil tablets, and one last beer later, he walked out into the frigid evening. He walked merely to keep from freezing, wandering out to a park near Nineteenth Street. A small T'ai Chi class was in session facing the frozen pond, led by a younger woman with European features and Asian hair and grace. He brushed the powdery snow off a bench and sat to watch.

The class was obviously advanced, flowing through the movements like music. Each of them had their own distinctive style, their personalities showing through. The taller of the two men flexed every muscle in his body as he moved, like a couple of the women, trying to tone themselves smooth. The shorter man was built like a block; he didn't have to prove his power, he tried to find his grace. Most of them just tried to keep up with the young leader.

The leader was something else, he mused. At first glance, he'd have thought her lazy, slow, and disinterested, but watching the rest of the class told him of her inhuman grace and strength. Her boredom made her movements all the more impressive.

Nothing in her demeanor was sensual, not even proud. Step, turn, bend, twist, step, back, spin, step, wave, lunge, step, all as though she were asleep. It reminded him of a whore he'd fucked, many years ago, bored routine, disconnected, as empty as beautiful.

Before he realized he'd been paying attention, the class dissolved, bowing respectfully to the young woman, thanking her for her time. She acknowledged engagingly, but with finality. When they left, he watched her just sit, facing the sunlight, soaking its feeble warmth into her body. He considered talking to her, asking what she'd be doing that night, asking her to teach him T'ai Chi, asking her anything so that he could drag himself out of his melancholy shell.

He sat there and watched her.

She shiverred, a tiny tremor down her spine and around her ribs.

At last he stood and approached her. Every step added to his nerves, but he continued. Her eyes were closed, her breathing slow and deep, he feared reproach if he disturbed her, but she shiverred again and looked so very cold. Well, she didn't look warm, at least. He shrugged off his coat and very gently draped it over her shoulders. It looked like he'd buried her in a pile of leaves.

"Thank you." Her voice surprised him, soft and strong and familiar but so beautifully alien. He collected his wits.

"You're welcome. I hope I'm not disturbing..."

"No. I was only listening." Listening? To what?

"To the silence," she said. "And then to you." He didn't really know how to continue from there. He hadn't meant to ask that out loud. She drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped his coat around herself.

He sat next to her and watched her eyes open, her dark lashes parting to reveal blue eyes. A common blue, not ice or navy, but out of place under dark, dark bangs. She gazed at the dying sun as it bled over the horizon's clouds.

"You really shouldn't be out here after dark. You're not dressed for it," he said, desperately trying to break the ice.

She glanced at him a moment, a fraction of a second and her eyes stabbed him, gnawed on him, tore meat from bone and found his quiverring, naked soul under all his cool. She looked at the ground in front of his knees, quietly assimilating her instant of knowledge. He stared dumbly, knowing with a boulder in his belly that in that fraction of a second, everything he tried to seem was dead, she knew him.

"No, I'm not," she agreed. Nothing had happened. She stood up smoothly, with the grace of a dancer and none of the care or pride. He scrambled to his feet and walked with her as she strode out to the small parking lot. She took the sidewalk down the avenue and he asked where she lived.

"Not far."

Not particularly talkative, was she? Maybe she knew he was trying to hit. The cold struck him as he wondered if she had a boyfriend.

She turned onto Fifteenth Street and his breath caught. Then she turned into the apartments he'd visited so many times since Her death. Is that why this girl's voice was to familiar? Is this Her?

"You live here?" he asked, worrying that his heart would break, being here int he vestiges of daylight. He reflezively looked up the stairs that She'd walked up months ago. He struggled to stay cool when the dark-haired girl walked toward them and stood before their door.

She paused, a moment of awkward uncertinty. He totally missed it, still astonished that anyone else as beautiful as She had been could live anywhere close to here. In a corner of his mind, he laughed at himself for romanticizing.

"Thank you," she said, giving his coat back. She seemed to soften a little as she saw he wasn't just following her to assault her. He knew she saw his wonder at something, but he was sure she didn't know his thoughts.

He took his coat and looked at the dark haired girl before him, searching for some sign of Her, something that would put his stupid obsession to rest. She turned to go up the stairs.

"Wait," he started. She looked at him over her shoulder. Great, now he had to say something else. The words tumbled out of his mouth. He asked for her name. She laughed a little. She told him her name, rolling the "r" and whispering the "h."

She asked for his name.

He told her. He listened to her voice say the proper things about the pleasure of meeting you and she'd see him around. He mumbled what he hoped was something not rude and she went up the stairs and he walked the long sidewalk back to his apartment in the late twilight.

Now he had a name, over and over in his mind he had a name. Maybe not the right name, but a name at least. Someday, he promised himself through his cynical scorn of himself, someday he would know who She had been. Someday he would know why he couldn't get Her out of his head.

Someday he would know why She had to die.