Jason Pinter - The Mark

As long as I stayed in my own little world, looked at everything rationally, it seemed manageable. Cleaning my leg would be simple. Finding somewhere to go tomorrow would be hard. A few nights sleeping at bus stops would be a humbling experience, but one I’d have to stomach. But what then?

Two linen cabinets and one door to the basement later, I found the bathroom. The white tiles were freshly cleaned and I smiled at the quaint seashell-shaped hand soap. On a metal rack hung hand towels monogrammed with three letters-HSJ.

I opened the medicine cabinet, swore under my breath. Nothing. Not even a goddamn Band-Aid. What kind of people were Amanda’s parents? What if a dinner guest accidentally swallowed a turkey baster? Shouldn’t they at least own some Pepto-Bismol?

I closed the chest, ran a trickle of warm water from the faucet. I wiped away the dried blood with wet tissues. I gritted my teeth, tried to ignore the stabbing pain as my blood turned the water red. I threw the bloodied papers in the toilet and flushed.

Creeping back upstairs, I couldn’t help but peek into Amanda’s empty bedroom.

She was in the shower. What the hell.

I took an old yearbook off the shelf, flipped to Amanda’s page. There was an aerial shot of her, the photographer standing on a roof or a ladder looking down. Amanda was cross-legged on a bed of grass, smiling. The picture was so happy, so serene, but there was sorrow behind Amanda’s eyes, as though she wished that moment had perhaps occurred at a different time and place.

I noticed the covers on her bed had been pulled back a bit, revealing a small trunk underneath the mattress box.

The shower was still running. I knelt down and slid it out. The top had plenty of dents and dings from years of being yanked from dark places. The Master Lock was undone. Without hesitation, I removed the lock and threw the cover back. When I looked inside, my breath caught in my throat.

Dozens, no, hundreds of small spiral notebooks filled the trunk nearly to the brim. They were all different shapes and sizes, some with pages torn and falling out, some looking like they’d been read a thousand times. I plucked one from the top of the pile, felt the small indents where her pen had pressed hard on the paper. When I flipped it open, I saw that every single page had been filled top to bottom. The same kind of notes she’d been writing in the car. Immediately I knew the other books were filled as well.

My fingers shaking, I read the first page:

July 14, 2003

Joseph Dennison.

Probably early 30s but dresses like he’s 60, lots of beige sweaters and windbreakers, goofy grandpa hats. Kind of cute in a skinny, Tobey McGuire way, but older. Thin, but not a stick figure. Worked as a librarian for three years, says he wants to be a screenwriter. Helped me find that old V.C. Andrews book that the store in town didn’t have. Wears too much cologne. I don’t think he has a girlfriend and he’s definitely not married. Says he’s seen over a thousand movies and can remember the best lines from each one. I quizzed him once and he got them all right. It was kinda scary. Not attracted to him, but curious. Can’t imagine there’s much room for advancement at the library, so why work there when you’re 30? Some people’s motivations are strange.

I read another entry.

August 29, 2003

Gas station attendant, likely late 40s, early 50s. Looks like he hasn’t bothered to shave in four or five days. His workshirt is covered in oil and he looks miserable while he fills up my tank. There’s no name tag, but someone who I assume is the manager calls him Ali. He says “thank you” when I tip him two bucks, then stuffs it in his shirt pocket. He gives the tip money to the guy behind the counter, who pockets it. I wonder how much Ali makes per year and if he has a family. I didn’t remember to look for a wedding ring. I wonder if he’s happy.

I put the notebook back, took another. Read six entries. Each one described a different person who’d crossed Amanda’s path. Some were random, some familiar-an old boyfriend who dumped her the day after they exchanged I-love-you’s for the first time. Some she’d only met for seconds and some she’d known for years. I’d never seen anything like it.

Then it hit me. Somewhere in the room was the notebook she’d used in the car with her first impressions of Carl Bernstein.

I dug to the very bottom of the trunk until I scraped bottom. I pulled out a notebook and flipped it open.

February 3, 1985

I miss Mommy. I don’t know anyone else at school. The kids laugh when we sit in a circle and I don’t know who to sit next to. Jimmy Peterson poured milk in my hair. I hate Jimmy. He’s an ugly boy and his hair is too long. I pulled it once and Miss Williams sent me out of the room. Lacey and Kendra laughed when Jimmy poured milk on me. I hate them, too. Lacey has a pretty purple dress I wish was mine. Jimmy’s house is two streets away from my new one and I see him some mornings. I don’t like to look at him. Sometimes I hide behind trees. I wonder if his mother knows what a stupid boy he is. Maybe she’s stupid, too. If Mommy and Daddy were here nobody would laugh at me.

I quickly closed the book and put it back in its place. The large, childlike handwriting, so heartfelt and pained, heralded a life that had been interrupted, deeply scarred.

What sort of insecurities did this young woman have, that every person she met needed to be catalogued?

I scanned the notebooks at the top of the trunk, found nothing about me.

Then I noticed Amanda’s jacket thrown over her desk chair. I checked the pockets. Nothing. I gently opened her drawers. Nada. Sweat beaded down my neck. My leg ached.

The clothes she was wearing in the car. Maybe in her pockets.

I checked under the bed, only found dust balls and bent plastic combs. About twenty of those elastic ponytail holders.

Could Amanda have brought her clothes into the bathroom? It was possible she already put them in the wash. But then she wouldn’t have left the notebook in her pocket. She’d been doing this for too long to be careless. It had to be somewhere.

I started rifling through her shelves, picking books off and searching behind them.

Then I noticed that the shower had stopped running.

I froze.

Panicking, I closed the trunk and slid it back under the bed. I straightened out the bookshelf, praying she hadn’t caught me snooping.

Then I heard a noise by the door.

She’d seen me.

I held my breath, waited for a sound, afraid to look at her. How long had she been there? Had she seen me going through her notebooks?

I turned around slowly, fully expecting to see Amanda in the doorway, arms folded, ready to kick me out of her house and out of her life. I tried to sponge together an explanation. It was pointless. I had to come clean. I had to tell her the truth.

Yet when I turned around, the image that burned itself into my mind wasn’t Amanda-who was standing in the doorway-but the man standing behind her with a gun to her head.

The look of absolute terror on Amanda’s face froze me instantly. Her body was rigid, her mouth pursed shut. She was too scared to scream.

The man’s countenance was calm, relaxed. He wore black jeans and a dark jacket, covering everything up to his lightly stubbled jaw. His eyes were cold, perfunctory. He was in his early thirties, with high cheekbones, short hair, sinewy forearms. His gun hand was firm, his posture steady, not rigid, ready to strike. He spoke in an even tone, but through gritted teeth. There was a faint trail of mist coming from the hallway. The shower. Jesus. He was in the bathroom with Amanda, using the shower as subterfuge. She was still wearing the same clothing. I even noticed a slight bulge in her pocket. The missing notebook.