by William Brasse
High tide came in the early dark hours, so when it brought Emily back to the shore, her
arrival was unnoticed. They found her later. The news report said she was at the edge of the sea,
but the sea has no real edges. The waves’ restlessness keeps the shoreline moving. It is a
quantum thing, the sea’s edge, never allowing itself to be pinned down. Like Emily. Flighty,
people called her. Which is a word that doesn’t necessarily have a negative connotation, but it
always did when used to describe Emily. The timeline of her past was dotted with moments when
she had disappointed this person or that, had let down her friends, had made choices so obviously
wrong as to appear perverse.
She came back nearly whole. The sea had nibbled her fingers, but the damage was minor.
Their condition will help the medical examiner calculate how long she had been in the water. He
will go on to determine the cause of death. That is, in the medical sense. What made the heart
stop, the brain waves go flat, the lungs give up their search for air. The real cause was different,
but it was over now, and the sea would be the last thing to slip through her fingers.
I met Emily at a party. I was sitting away from the crowd, alone on a sofa looking disgruntledly at a glass of red wine. I’ve never liked wine, even good wine. But I needed alcohol to function at a party, especially one where I was something of an outsider like this one. In college I developed a taste for bourbon. It started as a way to set myself apart from my beer-swilling friends, but it didn’t really work. With time, I drifted away from those friends, but bourbon stayed with me.
I was thinking I should leave when Emily sat down beside me. She stared at me
ostentatiously but said nothing. I searched for a conversation gambit. “Nice scarf,” I said.
She took the scarf in both hands and spread her arms. “It’s plum,” she said. “Silk.” Then
she wrapped it back around her neck. “Don’t I look like something from Vogue?”
She didn’t. She had nothing in common with the flashy models in flashy magazines with
their lithe bodies and sophisticated beauty. “Well, no,” I said.
“Of course not,” she said. “What a silly idea. I am Emily, by the way. I know who you
are. You’re Parker. Which is a last name except in your case it’s first. As if you had to be kept in
alphabetical order. You’re supposed to be really smart or something.”
Rather than sort out whether that was a compliment or an insult, I gave her a non-
committal answer. “I’m a history professor at the college,” I told her.
“College,” she said, staring into space as if groping for the word’s meaning. “I did college once. It wasn’t one of my best performances.” She turned her head slightly toward me and looked at me from the corner of her eye.
“It’s not for everybody,” I said. It wasn’t a very good answer, but I had yet to come to terms with Emily’s oblique style, her elliptical sentences accompanied by sidelong glances that might have hinted at deception in someone else.
“I was a teacher,” she said, not turning her head any farther toward me, keeping her eye
on me with the same askance look. “For a while. High school.”
“And how did that go?”
“Really well for the most part. My students thought so anyway. But I have this problem. I have this problem with clocks. It’s not a good thing to have when you’re a teacher. I’m not sure why they make quite such a big deal out of it, but they do. So they asked me to move along. And I did. Not one of my best performances. But not a bad one either.”
Once again, I was at a loss, but this time I decided just to remain silent.
“You’re not drinking your wine,” she said.
“No. I don’t like wine. Would you like it? I haven’t touched it.”
“No. I don’t drink.” She looked over at the other guests. “A lot of these people are sloshes,” she said. I didn’t know if that was a mistake or a neologism, but it was clear what she meant. “What was it that somebody said about drinking?”
At that moment, a woman in the crowd called to her.
“That’s Joann,” she told me. “I’d better go talk to her. If I don’t, she’ll come over here and bore you to death.” She stood up. “How much fun it was being with you,” she said. Then she left to talk to Joann, and I didn’t see her again that night.
A few days later I was in my office grading papers. I heard a noise and looked up and was astonished to see Emily.
“Hi there,” she said. “Remember me?”
“Of course I do. Yes.”
“It’s Emily. You’ve forgotten I’m sure.”
“No, I remembered.”
“That’s nice. I’m glad you remembered my name. If it’s true. A girl likes to be remembered. So why am I here? That’s what you want to know right? Why did I just come into your office out of nowhere?”
“I am curious about that.”
“Do you know any lawyers?”
“Not really,” I said. Then I thought about it and realized that I didn’t know any lawyers at
all. It seemed odd.
“You see, I don’t know any. I don’t move in that sort of circle. The people I hang around
with are mostly just ordinary.”
“I think most lawyers are pretty ordinary. They just went to school longer than you did.”
“I wonder if that’s true. Anyway, I thought you might know some. Or one anyway. Since
you’re a college professor and all. But then I guess this college doesn’t have a law school. Does
it?”
“No. No law school.”
“So maybe this was a fool’s errand.”
“I guess there’s no harm in asking.”
“That’s a good principal to live by,” she said.
“Why do you need a lawyer?”
“It’s because of my boyfriend.”
“You’re not suing your boyfriend are you?”
“No. I would never do that. You see, he thinks I wrecked his car.”
“Why would he think that?”
“He left me his car to use when he took this job teaching English in Japan. Since he was going to be gone for a long time, he said I could use his car.”
“So who wrecked it?”
“I did. But it wasn’t my fault.”
“Whose fault was it?”
“Fault like in the legal sense. You know, beyond a reasonable doubt. I think if we went to court, it would be very hard for them to prove. Beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“So are you going to go to court? Is the insurance company suing the other driver?”
“Not exactly. If I had known I was going to have an accident, I would’ve kept paying the insurance.”
“So you let the insurance lapse and you wrecked his car and it was your fault and you don’t have any money?”
“Not one of my best performances. That’s why I thought a lawyer might be useful.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful about the lawyer.”
“Oh, one will show up. I’d better go in case she’s waiting at my door right this minute.”
“Good luck,” I said as she started out. “And Emily,” I added. She stopped. “Feel free to come by again if you’d like.”
“I didn’t need a formal invitation,” she said. “But it’s nice of you.”
That was how she came into my life. Appearing now and then without conscious action on my part. If my door was open, she would stand in the doorway until I noticed her. Although I thought I became aware of her presence quickly, in retrospect I realize that I never had any idea how long she had been there.
Her next visit came a couple of weeks later. I looked up and there she was.
“I’m just checking to be sure you’re still here,” she said.
“I’m here,” I answered. “Come in.”
She walked slowly into my office. “You look so intellectual.”
“Do I?”
“You even have ink stains on your fingers.”
I looked down at my hands. “That happens a lot.”
“Do you write with a fountain pen?” She took my hand in hers and examined my fingers.
“No,” I answered. Her fingers on mine brought a pleasurable sensation, borderline erotic. “I don’t know how it gets there.” As I spoke, she released my hand, moved away.
I’d never given it much thought, but I didn’t know how a ballpoint pen could make the blots on my first two fingers. Some unconscious habit. My fingers wandered when my mind wandered. At the moment my mind was very focused. I didn’t want Emily to leave.
“I should go,” she said. “You’re so busy.”
“I’m not that busy,” I told her. It was a desperate lie.
She moved toward the door, turned back. “You should be,” she said as she went out.
On her third or fourth visit, she made a suggestion. “We should have lunch.”
“Now? It’s 3 o’clock.”
“Lunch is a state of mind. It doesn’t have to follow the clock.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then tomorrow. Shall we be conventional and go at noon? Mingle with the crowds? I don’t think you like crowds. One o’clock is more your time. Am I right?”
She was right, but I didn’t answer.
“Why are you hesitating?” she asked. “You can bring your wife if you’re worried that she might be jealous.”
I was slightly taken aback. “Belinda wouldn’t be jealous,” I said.
“You’ve never mentioned your wife, but you didn’t have to.” She gave me one of her arch, sidelong looks. “I knew you were married and that you want to be faithful to her. Otherwise you would have thrown yourself at me. But your loyalty was stronger than my fascination. It’s touching really. I think she’s probably unworthy of you. Ignoring that, it’s a pretty story. You and your wife. How many children?”
“One. A boy.”
“He isn’t like you, of course. Bring him too if you’d like. So. Tomorrow. See you then.”
I went back to work, but I couldn’t concentrate. I was thinking of Emily. And of my
family.
I met Belinda on the rebound, as they say. I had been tossed carelessly aside like a substandard tennis ball and left to bounce to smaller and smaller heights until at last I stopped bouncing at Belinda’s door. She took me in, and I was grateful. She suggested I stay, and I saw no reason not to. I am not by any means a ladies’ man. The sexual game annoys me. It takes so much time and effort, and I generally lose. Another man would have seen the limitations of the relationship and of Belinda and at least tried to move on. I didn’t. When she mentioned marriage, it didn’t seem like such a big step. A child did seem like a big step. A huge step. But I let her convince me, and now I am a married man with a young son. I expect he would be a delightful boy if I could meet him without the backstory.
These were the thoughts that interrupted my ivory tower routine. Later when I reviewed my notes, I found that they were rather thin in content and that Emily’s name appeared over and over again on each page. Emily. Emily. Emily.
The next day we went to lunch at an on-campus café. The place was drab, but Emily was obviously happy. She finished her sandwich and pushed her plate away.
We should do this every month,” she said happily. “Set aside one day to see each other. We should always come here. This place is totally unappealing, and the food is awful. But it bustles with youth. Is that what you like about teaching? Every year you get older, but the students remain eternally youthful.” She surveyed the room. “A host of Dorian Grays,” she added. “How lucky they are.” She turned and pushed her plate an inch or two closer to the center of the table.
We had reached that level of friendship where silence was no longer uncomfortable, so I said nothing.
“My landlord wants me to move,” she said.
“Why?” I asked stupidly.
“He’s all bothered about rent. He sent me this dull official notice. I responded with a charming letter pointing out that money is not all there is to life.” She didn’t seem at all concerned as she told me this. Her expression was as innocent and as charming as her letter must have been.
And what did he say?”
“He ignored it,” she answered with a flick of her eyebrows. “After all, what would he say? My points were not subject to rebuttal.” She exhaled a small sigh. “The apartment’s too expensive for me,” she said. “I didn’t have to worry about it since Justin was paying the rent.”
“Who is Justin?”
“My boyfriend until a couple of months ago.”
“The one whose car you wrecked?”
“Oh no. That’s Alex. He’s not speaking to me. Of course, neither is Justin. I’ve got my eye on somebody new,” she said.
“Will he pay your rent?” I asked her.
“Probably. Does that shock you?”
“Does it shock me that you’re a gold digger? Yes.”
“A gold digger is someone who is aggressively sexy. That hardly describes me, now does it?”
It didn’t.
“Wouldn’t it be easier just to get a job and not depend on these men?”
“I’ve had jobs. In my last one, I worked in an office. For a company. I’m not sure about what sort of company. They sold stuff, I think. I was very gung-ho, but nobody seemed to like me.”
My relationship with Emily had been self-contained. The outside world did not really enter into it. I had assumed that away from me, she functioned more or less normally. I saw now that was very far from the truth.
I helped her find a small apartment. And I helped her pay for it. I also helped her move, which was the easiest part; she had essentially no furniture. “Did you know,” she said, as we positioned her mattress on the floor, “that beds were invented because people thought they would be sleeping closer to the stars?” She handed me one end of a fitted sheet. “People have such peculiar beliefs, don’t you think? We are an agglomeration of superstitions and lies.” She spread the sheet on the mattress. “Of course, you already knew that from your studies.”
Of course,” I said, grappling with the sheet. The presence of the bed between us made me uncomfortable. Was this the opportunity that I so wanted and so wanted to avoid? A move now would change so many things and bring so many difficulties. Nothing about her demeanor was either inviting or off-putting, and my desire for her was making me weak. Suddenly she dropped her end of the sheet and walked to the window.
The only problem with this apartment is that it’s so far from the sea.” She stared westward through the glass. The Pacific Ocean was over two thousand miles away. “I think you should always live near the sea, don’t you?”
“I think it could be nice, but not really necessary. Lots of people don’t.”
“But they should. They’d like to if they could. It’s the rhythms you see. The changes. The ebb and flow of life. It’s profound. People need profundity in their lives. Don’t you think?”
“I think most people are pretty happy without any profundity.” I gave up waiting for her to return her attention to making the bed.
“You may be right. That might actually be a very astute observation. It’s unlike you. Every time I think I’ve gotten to know you, you do something that surprises me. It’s quite charming really.”
I’m glad you see me as charming.”
Do I, do you think? I’m not sure. It’s not good always being unsure of things. That’s why I want to live by the sea. The tides you know. They’re very predictable.” She was still looking out the window, her back to me. “Without the sea,” she said, “I have to rely on you. You’re such a straight arrow.”
Am I?” I asked.
She turned around. “It’s not an insult. It’s a good thing.”
I was a bearded history professor at a liberal arts college known for controversial political activity. Could I really be a straight arrow?
“I guess for you I’ll be a straight arrow.”
“And one day, when I’m in terrible trouble, I’ll pull you out of my quiver to save me from my enemy.”
Suddenly she turned back to the window and spread her arms wide and held them there, waiting to embrace the distant sea.
Obsession, as popularly portrayed, is a fast and furious thing. A speeding locomotive that will obviously leap its tracks at the next curve. But now I see there is a gentler version of obsession. Like a tourist attraction trolley, it moves slowly to the soft accompaniment of a bell that rings welcome. So you step inside, and it’s only when the doors close that you realize there is no way out. The car moves at a gentle pace and the bell tinkles in a pleasing tone, but you are still on your way to a bad ending.
My son was six. My marriage seven. My wife was a plain woman who was often difficult to get along with, but I had accepted that. It was part of what I had to admit was a straight-arrow existence. I knew I would give it up in an instant if I could have Emily. She was no more attractive than my plain-Jane wife, had failed at college and had several screws loose, yet she had a terrifying hold on me.
The next day, I began to apply desperately for jobs in other states.
I’m moving to California,” I told Emily. We had just ordered lunch at our usual café. I had arranged the meeting for two o’clock so it would be quiet.
Emily raised her head. “Why?” she asked.
New job,” I answered.
When?” she asked brightly.
When the semester is over,” I told her.
She nodded. Her look was inexplicably mischievous. “So many people go to California,” she said. “I went there once myself. Did I ever tell you that? For about three months. After…college. I dropped out of college and went to California. There was a man involved somehow. It rained a lot. Not one of my best performances, California.”
I had expected more, but that was the extent of our discussion. A few months later, I moved, with my family in tow, to the West Coast. Emily called me every few months. Cell phones were common by then, and she would call me from shopping malls and buses and noisy sidewalks. Our conversations were fairly ordinary in an Emily sort of way, which is to say that she often had not very ordinary problems. At one point, she told me there was a warrant out for
her arrest. She had ignored a traffic citation.
It was just a traffic ticket. You should have paid it,” I told her.
That’s what I mean. It was just a traffic ticket. Why would they put so much effort into
it?”
What was it for?”
Running a stop sign. Supposedly.”
So you didn’t run the stop sign?”
There was a stop sign there. But I didn’t think they really meant it. It was in the middle
of nowhere.”
The next time she called, she didn’t mention going to jail, so I assumed someone took care of it for her. I dreaded her calls, yet I longed for them. I had distanced myself and thought I was out of danger, but the power that she had over me had not lessened. My wife and I were not getting along well at this point. We seethed and fumed over God only knows what, and in our prickly silences, I had fond memories of Emily and our comfortable meetings.
Her next communication was an email. She had never written to me before, and I was surprised to find her writing very cogent and organized. Without preamble, she told me that she was getting married and moving to California. At first I only took in that she was getting married, and I felt a lurch of despair. Even though we all know that nuptial bonds are no stronger than an old rubber band, we still attach significance to these vows. I envisioned Emily as a bride, as a wife, as part of a solid, straight-arrow family. I also envisioned her being forever lost to me, subsumed by marriage obligations, forever beyond my grasp. It was my fervent desire and my worst nightmare. Then I went back and reread the sentence. She was moving to California. Did my presence here have something to do with that? I grasped that hope, then realized what it meant. My thoughts and feelings swirled first one way, then another, like the waves in a stormy sea.
She had sent me her new address. I looked on a map and found that the house sat right at the edge of the ocean on a cliff. A few miles from the city where I taught. She also sent me a picture of Harold, her betrothed. His receding hairline made his age hard to judge; I guessed mid-forties. He looked serious enough to have the money to buy an oceanside house in California. I wondered if the small mustache was supposed to temper the seriousness, since he didn’t look capable of a smile. All in all, I took him for a straight arrow, one of her better performances.
A month later she had moved, and a week after that she came to my office. It had been several years since I had seen her. She was beginning to look a bit haggard. Like so many of Emily’s characteristics, the wear and tear on her face was perversely attractive. We talked as we’d always talked.
She visited every few months through that academic year and into the next. The following spring she sent me an email telling me she didn’t know when she’d be able to get out of the house. That sounded odd, so I emailed her to ask what she meant. I didn’t hear from her for a month, and when I did she ignored the question.
We continued to email back and forth. Her letters began to ramble, her sentences fragmented. She talked a lot about the future and how happy she was going to be, but she didn’t tell me much about her life in the here and now. Her life with Harold in the big house on the cliff.
Sometimes when we have unpleasant thoughts, we put them aside not knowing how to deal with them. Certainly it had occurred to me that Emily’s spacy charm might have dark origins, but I set that thought aside. And now things had changed. If I had held any doubts, they were dispelled by this email:
Parker, I wish I could see you, but it’s too dangerous for me to
leave the house. Also for you to come here. The weapons cache at
the The weapons they go by the house every day. I sent letters to
the city I guess that’s how they found me but I never go out. I’ll be
glad when it’s over. Remember that café on the campus. We’ll go
there again to celebrate I can’t come now. Harold gave me a car,
but then he sold it. Every day they go by and they know I’m when
it’s over, we’ll meet. The café. So happy.
Now I could no longer put the thought aside, but I still didn’t know what to do, and her
next call only exacerbated the problem.
“Can you come here?” she asked. A note of desperation chimed in her words.
“I can’t, Emily. What’s wrong?”
“I’m worried. I’m scared. There’s been a break-in.”
“At your house?” I quickly opened my calendar to see if I could make time for her. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
“No. I was asleep upstairs.”
“What did they take?”
“Nothing. This was just a warning. They turned over the furniture and kind of messed up the place.”
“That’s terrible. What do you mean…” I paused to consider. “Can you show me what they did? On your phone?”
“You’ll have to tell me how,” she answered.
I told her what to do, and after some fumbling, we were connected and I could see her usual cheerful face peering sadly at the phone. For a moment all I could think of was the many ways I wanted her and wanted to help her.
“Okay,” I said. “Show me.”
She had been in the kitchen. She got up and walked into the living room, holding the phone in front of her. I saw a coffee table that had been upset, its contents dumped on the floor. Two of the six dining chairs were on their sides. Nothing heavy had been moved. Nothing had been broken. In a brightly lit tank, a school of tropical fish swam obliviously.
“All right,” I said. “I’ve seen enough.”
“What if they come back?” she asked.
“I don’t think they will. You said they just wanted to warn you, and they have. I can come there if you want me to.”
“No,” she said sharply. “It’s too dangerous. God only knows…. Don’t come.”
She had the phone focused on her face again. Her eyes darted this way and that. “You have to help me,” she said.
“You know I’d do anything for you,” I told her. “But you have Harold. You don’t need me any more.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
Did I believe that? Did I want that?
The phone still showed her face, and she smiled as she said, “I’ll always need you.”
That was her penultimate call. A few days later, I saw her name appear on my phone. With considerable misgivings, I picked it up.
“You have to help me,” Emily said before I could even say hello.
“Of course,” I answered. “What’s happened?”
“He came back,” she told me. “The intruder. I shot him.”
What she said couldn’t possibly be true. And yet. I composed myself and tried to be systematic. “Is he dead?” I asked.
“I think so. He’s not moving.”
“Where did you get the gun, Emily?”
“Harold has guns. I used one of his.”
“Have you called the police?”
“No.” She sounded horror-stricken. “They’d just arrest me.”
“I think you should call them.”
“I don’t need the police. I need you.”
My thoughts were scattered. I hadn’t believed the first break-in. Was this one also a fabrication? Or were they both real?
“Okay. Before I come, use your phone to show me the intruder.”
“All right. What do I do again?”
I gave her the steps and waited until I saw her face. She looked desperate. She turned the camera away from herself and moved into the living room. I could see someone slumped on the couch. She very slowly moved closer until I got a good look at him and the bloody hole in his chest. I had never seen Harold in person, but he looked just like his picture, with his receding hairline and his small neat mustache. He must have died quickly; there was hardly any blood.
When I got there, I found her in the kitchen on a stool. Her hands lay on the counter in front of her. Next to her right hand lay her phone. Near her left was a pistol.
She didn’t call out when I came in the front door. I could easily have been a real intruder, but I guess she knew it was me. Or she was beyond caring.
I knew you’d come,” she said. Her back was to me. “I knew I could count on you.”
She turned then, and when our eyes met, she smiled. A beautiful smile. Beatific I would call it even though there was a murdered man in the next room.
“Are you sure you don’t want to call the police?” I asked her. I had to give her this lastchance.
“I can’t go to the police,” she said helplessly.
“All right. I think the first thing we need to do is get rid of this gun.”
She glanced down. “Whatever you say.”
I picked the pistol up carefully and looked it over. Pistols, I think, are dangerously simple. I gripped it by the handle, making sure to keep my fingers away from the trigger.
“I think the smartest thing is to throw it over the cliff,” I said. “Into the water.”
She nodded.
“You’ll have to show me the way,” I said. “Put your coat on.” She retrieved a coat, and I
helped her into it. “Which way?” I asked.
She led me out the back door and across the yard. I had my arm around her and she pressed close to me. She put her head on my shoulder, and I could smell the soft scent of her above the strong scent of the ocean.
“Everyone should live near the sea, don’t you think?” Her voice was low and sad.
I began to hear the surf. A soft rumble, the waves’ force muffled by distance and the night fog. As we walked, it grew louder. It is a fearsome sound, but one that holds poetry in its roarsand hisses. Like so many dangerous things, the waves surround themselves with beauty.
At the cliff edge, we stopped and stared into the dark distance. We were holding hands. “Emily,” I said. There was an occasional moon and some light from the city. “You know that I love you?”
She squeezed my hand. “Of course,” she answered. “I’ve always known. All my life.” She
freed her hand and took a step forward, right to the edge. She stretched her arms wide. “The
ocean is so beautiful, don’t you think?”
My mind is not clear, but I think it was at that moment that I shot her. It was dangerous to
risk it. The bright flash. The explosive sound. But I didn’t want her to experience a moment of
fear as she tumbled toward the sea.
The next year I found another job. Inland. Far from the coast. Many years have passed.
My wife is middle-aged and overweight and dissatisfied. My son is doing battle with college, a
battle I fear he will lose. I cannot help either of them.
I teach at a small college where I often find myself in the midst of heavy books, turning
their pages with ink-stained fingers.
About the Author:
William Brasse has forayed fearlessly into a variety of literary forms and genres. Plays, novels, short stories; comedy, drama, history, biography, myth. He has even ventured into essays but freely admits that poetry is beyond him. Like so many people, he lives in California. Like fewer people, he is originally from Tennessee. Like essentially no one, he has been a vegan since 1979.