Megan MIRANDA - The Perfect Stranger

I opened her fridge and thought I should probably throw out the milk. It was pretty barren in there otherwise, and the same went for her pantry. I figured I should take out the garbage, at the very least. I opened the cabinets under the sink, found a stash of cleaning supplies and, behind those, a brown paper bag. The bag was not full of trash, as I’d assumed it would be, but opened envelopes bound with a thick rubber band.

The letters were each addressed to Bethany Jarvitz, care of the state correctional facility. The return addresses varied by state and name, ebbing and flowing over time. I sank to the linoleum floor, sifting through the envelopes. The closest I had come so far to Bethany Jarvitz.

The letters moved backward over time, from a few months before her release to the beginning of her incarceration.

Her only contact with the outside world. One-sided conversations that marked the passage of eight years. The one thing that truly belonged to her.

Mixed in with the opened letters were ones she had sent that went undelivered, Return to Sender. They were all unopened, ink on the front bleeding or smudged, the envelopes weathered and mishandled. They were addressed to various places but all nameless, like she was on a wild-goose chase, searching for someone. They had all been sent within the first year of her incarceration.

I slit one open and read the note inside. I could sense the rage simmering off of it, the handwriting slanted and angry.

You left me here. You’re going to pay. It was your idea. IT WAS YOUR IDEA. You don’t get to just walk away from me.

I opened the next, and the next – all more of the same. Accusations sent to a nameless person. I could tell at any moment. I could. Keep that in mind, wherever you are.

I wondered if any of these had reached the intended recipient. If they knew.

At the end of the stack, the beginning of her time served, there was a letter with no return address. The postmark was dated from July, eight years ago, from Boston. Inside, the letter was short and unsigned. I’ll be there when you get out. I’ll help. I promise.

I wondered if that was Emmy. It had to be. The date and location matched. Her promise held. My fingertips tightened on the letter. She’d come to this place not on the whim of fate but for Bethany. I wondered if she realized that, meanwhile, these letters had been making their way in the ether, bounced back, returned again. Nothing had reached her, as Ammi at least, in that basement apartment. Was she aware of the rage, of what was owed? Had she not seen the danger at all? God, Emmy, what have you gotten yourself into?

I stood and retrieved the plastic bag Zoe had given me from the front hall. Then I tipped it over on the kitchen counter, letting Bethany’s mail fall out. Zoe was right, there were more than a few bills. A rent notice, an electrical bill. As with Emmy, there didn’t seem to be a phone bill, and there wasn’t a phone hooked to any phone jack in the apartment that I could see. As I was rifling through the stack, I felt a few new credit cards. I flipped past them, mindlessly processing the sender info – and froze.

I went back, looked at the front again, at the name and the address in the plastic envelope window. It was sent to this address, and I could feel a credit card inside. But the name on the front said: Leah Stevens.

I dropped the envelope to the counter.

I heard my heartbeat inside my head, the pace ramping up. I stared at the closed apartment door, felt a hot wave of nausea, felt the ghost of Bethany in this apartment, becoming other than who I thought she had been.

Then I started tearing through her things, desperate and angry. Not just at Bethany but at Emmy, for bringing me here to begin with. For doing this to me. To me . Opening and closing dresser drawers, kitchen cabinets, searching for something I couldn’t identify. Under the bed, between the mattress and box spring, in the bathroom cabinets – I caught sight of myself in the mirror, wild, and I had to look away.

I stood in the middle of her bedroom, breathing heavily. The jewelry box on top of the dresser, the only thing in sight. I slid my finger into the handle, opening the door. A few pieces of costume jewelry, two rows of foam material to hold rings at the bottom. But all her rings were gathered on the row to the right.

I picked at the edge of the foam on the empty left row, and it peeled away easily.

Underneath: two slivers of paper, pressed down into the wood. My Social Security card. And a photocopy of my license. Ink bleeding through from the other side, a list of facts: my mother’s maiden name; a practiced signature – so, so close to my own and yet subtly not.

No, I thought. No no no.

I crumpled up the copies, slipping them into the back pocket of my pants, my hands trembling. I took the envelopes with my name on them, stuffed them in my purse, and searched every corner of her place once more.

When I was satisfied there was nothing left, I knocked on Zoe’s door, waited for her to answer. “Did you know her friends?” I asked when she opened the door. “Anyone I could talk to around here?”

“Well, there’s Liam in 1C, though I wouldn’t call them friends anymore. But they were seeing each other for a while earlier this year. I think her friends were mainly from work. She kept to herself most of the time, other than the thing with Liam. I’ve been here longer than any of them. The rest, they come and go. Oh, there was a girl who would stop by sometimes. It’s not that I was keeping tabs on her or anything, it’s just hard not to notice things when you live next door.” She smiled, again somewhat apologetically. I knew her type, making it her mission to know everything about everyone, the ins and outs of a place. She was the person to hit up for information. She would make a great source. “Liam might know more,” she added.

“Thanks. I’m done in there for now,” I said. I noticed her looking me over and realizing I hadn’t taken a bag of clothes or anything with me. I didn’t care.

I took the steps quickly to the first floor, followed the letters on the doors until I hit C, and knocked. There was music inside, and I had to knock twice before someone answered.

A man with unkempt – and, it seemed, unwashed – hair opened the door, his eyes bloodshot. I could see another man sitting on the couch and noticed that the music was part of a video game. The man in front of me said, “Yeah?”

“Are you Liam?”

He looked me over again, narrowed his eyes – I wondered if he, too, saw the resemblance. Or if it was only there when you went looking for it. “Yeah.”

“Zoe said I should talk to you, that you might be able to tell me some more about Bethany.”

He shook his head, closing the door, but I stuck my foot in the gap.

“I already told the police,” he said. “I hadn’t seen her in months. It was, like, four months ago. I can’t be the last person who saw her. The last one to know her.”

“Did you know her friend? A girl who sometimes stayed with her?”

He laughed. “No, I didn’t know her friends. I didn’t know anything about her. She never even let me in her apartment. Always said it needed to be cleaned or something. I barely knew where she worked, only that she did, that she never stayed over and didn’t like to go out.” He looked into his apartment, then back to me. “I can’t be all you have to go on,” he said, as if the responsibility were just too great, too outside his frame of reference.

“I told you,” the other guy called, not looking up from the screen. Then he faced me, paused the game, fixed his eyes on mine. “I told him, but he didn’t listen. There was something off. Something wrong with that girl.”