31

MEGAN WAS LOOKING DOWN at her fingers when the woman approached. “Hey. Remember me?”

Megan looked up. Large. The ubiquitous big-boned. Cute face under a Louise Brooks cut. She was wearing orange jeans and a black T-shirt with a William Wegman dog on it. A Weimaraner. This one wasn’t dressed up in a costume like they usually were. It was sitting on a white box looking terribly cute and perplexed. Megan wondered if that was how she was looking. Cute, she couldn’t say. Perplexed, definitely.

“I’m sorry. Uh. I’m waiting for someone.”

The woman showed her a classic ear-to-ear. “I notice you’ve been waiting for a long time. Maybe you’re being stood up. Do you mind if I join you?” She didn’t wait for an answer but pulled back the chair opposite Megan and made herself at home. “What are we drinking?”

Megan had been staring at a Scotch and soda for forty minutes.

“You want me to freshen that? What is it?”

“It’s Scotch, but-”

The woman called out. “Two Scotches!” She turned back to Megan. “You really don’t recognize me, do you? That’s okay. I’m not offended.”

Megan didn’t know where to put her eyes. This was ridiculous. She had no business coming back to this place. Why not? a voice in her head demanded. What the hell’s wrong with getting on with your life? It’s just a place.

“Ruth,” the woman said.

Megan looked up from the table. “I’m Megan.”

Ruth skidded her chair back from the table. She lifted her shirt slightly while tugging down on her jeans. Megan leaned forward. Part of a tattoo showed just below the woman’s belly button. A dragon of some sort. Most of it remained below the belt.

“You don’t remember?”

Megan shook her head. She did, vaguely. Like in an uncomfortable dream. “Maybe it wasn’t me.”

Ruth grinned. “Oh, it was you, sugar. I don’t forget a face like yours.”

The drinks arrived. Megan could feel her first sip travel to the tip of each limb. It felt good. Ruth touched her lightly on the wrist, then pulled back sharply, as if she’d received a shock. “You need to smile, little girl. Nothing can be that bad.”

Two hours later, Megan switched on the overhead light and stepped aside. The keys slipped from her hand and fell to the floor. She didn’t dare lean over to fetch them. Instead, she kicked at them with her foot. It didn’t even feel like her foot.

Ruth followed her into the apartment with a slight stumble. She laughed, holding her arms out from her sides like a high-wire artist. She turned around as Megan closed the door. “I’d kill for a place in the Village.”

Megan kicked the keys across the floor. “You want it? It’s yours.”

“Yeah, I should be so lucky.”

“Serious. I don’t give-” Megan had to grab hold of a chair.

Ruth started forward. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

“Fine.”

“Look. Do you want to get high?”

As Ruth reached into her pants pocket, Megan grabbed hold of her arm. “Don’t.” It was a fleshy arm. Megan closed her eyes tightly. She was afraid she was going to be sick.

“I’m just thinking of a little nightcap.” Ruth began singing: “‘Nothing could be finer than a little mariwhiner in the eeeeeeevening.’”

Megan squeezed the woman’s arm. “Don’t.”

Ruth shrugged. “Hey. Okay. That’s how you want it. I’m just trying to be a good guest.” She grinned, reaching down and hooking her fingers into Megan’s belt loops. With a jerk, she brought their pelvises together. Megan’s hit Ruth’s below the hips. She stumbled. Ruth cooed, “Don’t worry, I’ve got you, sweetheart.”

Megan couldn’t remember putting away such quantities of alcohol since forever. She could taste the bile in her throat. Ruth was holding her close. She cupped her hand on Megan’s ass. “I think we can loosen you up.”

Megan’s head lolled forward onto the woman. She felt as if she were being drawn into a cave. A cave with a dragon hidden in the darkness. This was wrong, all of it. Megan told herself this was not what Helen would have wanted her to be doing. Soft, silly Helen. Where was she? Dammit, why wasn’t she here? Why wasn’t she coming in the front door right now and telling this Ruth woman to kindly get her big bones out of here? Ruth was kneading Megan’s ass with her fingers. Megan couldn’t breathe. Where the fuck is Helen!

Ruth nuzzled forward and tried to kiss her. Megan jerked her head away.

“Hey!” Ruth tightened her grip on Megan’s ass and pulled her closer. “Let’s just start relaxing already, okay? Come on, now. I remember you were a real sweet kisser. Let’s be friends here.”

Megan worked her arms up between the two of them and pushed with all her strength, twisting her torso as she tried to squirm free. The women’s feet tangled. Ruth stepped on her own foot and with a cry fell backward onto the floor. Megan managed to shake free and remain standing.

“Jesus Christ!” Ruth crawled onto all fours. “Honey, you’ve got a very fucked-up…” She stopped. Megan saw her eyes grow wide. “What the…fuck is that?”

She was staring at Megan’s bookshelf. Displayed one next to the other were three black-and-white framed photographs. Eight-by-ten. The first one showed a woman with a scarf of some sort knotted at her neck. Clearly dead. The woman in the second photograph-a blonde, Ruth recognized her from the newspapers-had had her slender throat cut open. The woman’s eyes were open and staring off into space.

“Oh my God.”

The third photograph was the most horrible. It didn’t appear that there even was a neck. The cheeks looked like they’d been raked by a wild animal. Ruth scrambled to her feet. Megan had not moved but stood shaking in the middle of the floor, pale as a sheet.

“What the hell are you into, little girl? Where the hell’d you get these?”

“Go.” Megan’s voice sounded hoarse.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m changing my plans right now.” Ruth brushed past Megan, pausing at the door. “That’s not good form, honey. You want some advice, you put those pictures away, or you’re going to stay awfully lonely.”

Ruth left. Megan’s feet walked her to the door, and her hands locked it. Turning from the door, she confronted the three photographs across the room. They were swimming. Megan made it halfway across the room before she got sick.

FOR NANCY SPICER, foreperson on the Marshall Fox jury, life had been reduced to a tiny hotel room, the pine-paneled jury room, the van that shuttled her from one to the other, and to those eleven other hateful people whom Nancy didn’t especially like and who definitely did not like her. She was either too white, or too indecisive, or too religious, or too scared. Too something. Too anything. Too nothing.

Nancy Spicer decided to see what would happen if she swallowed twenty-seven barbiturates in the space of something like fifteen minutes.

Over the past several months, Nancy had come to fear that the eleven other jurors were right. The world is a brutal place. It takes courage and strength and conviction in order to maneuver, in order to survive. Nancy had none of these. There might have been a time-she could recall having a thin grasp on conviction once, though this seemed a lifetime ago-but in the large scheme, not really. Never enough. Bruce was the provider. The rock. Bruce had always filled in where Nancy came up lacking. He had the conviction and the strength and the courage. Bruce knew his place in the world, and he surely knew his purpose. He knew right from wrong, black from white, and he knew sin when it made its inevitable appearance. Nancy’s husband was clear on all matters, a man of unshakable resolve. If he were foreman of this jury, there would have been none of this contentiousness. There wouldn’t be the sniping and the hostility and the disgust. Bruce could have pulled everyone together; he was a leader of men. He saw things with a razor-sharp clarity, and he knew how to put people in their place.