Kelly Link - Get in Trouble - Stories

The demon lover and Pilar get dressed in case Juliet shows up.

“Well,” Pilar says, from her bunk bed, “good night.”

He gets Juliet’s bunk bed. Lies there in the dark until he’s sure Pilar’s asleep. He is thinking about Fawn for some reason. He can’t stop thinking about her. If he stops thinking about her, he will have to think about the conversation with Meggie. He will have to think about Meggie.

Pilar’s iPhone is on the floor beside her bunk bed. He picks it up. No password. He types in Fawn’s number. Sends her a text. Hardly knows what he is typing.

I HOPE, he writes.

He writes the most awful things. Doesn’t know why he is doing this. Perhaps she will assume that it is a wrong number. He types in details, specific things, so she will know it’s not.

Eventually she texts back.

WHO IS THIS? WILL?

The demon lover doesn’t respond to that. Just keeps texting FILTHY BITCH YOU CUNT YOU WHORE YOU SLIME etc. etc. etc. Until she stops asking. Surely she knows who he is. She must know who he is.

Here’s the thing about acting, about a scene, about a character; about the dialogue you are given, the things your character does. None of it matters. You can take the most awful words, all the words, all the names, the acts he types into the text block. You can say these things, and the way you say them can change the meaning. You can say, “You dirty bitch. You cunt,” and say them differently each time; can make it a joke, an endearment, a cry for help, a seduction. You can kill, be a vampire, a soulless thing. The audience will love you no matter what you do. If you want them to love you. Some of them will always love you.

He needs air. He drops the phone on the floor again where Pilar will find it in the morning. Decides to walk down to the lake. He will have to go past Meggie’s trailer on the way, only he doesn’t. Instead he stands there watching as a shadow slips out of the door of the trailer and down the stairs and away. Going where? Almost not there at all.

Ray?

He could follow. But he doesn’t.

He wonders if Meggie is awake. The door to her trailer is off the latch and so the demon lover steps inside.

Makes his way to her bedroom, no lights, she is not awake. He will do no harm. Only wants to see her safe and sleeping. An old friend can go to see an old friend.

Meggie’s a shape in the bed and he comes closer so he can see her face. There is someone in the bed with Meggie.

Ray looks at the demon lover and the demon lover looks back at Ray. Ray’s right hand rests on Meggie’s breast. Ray raises the other hand, beckons the demon lover closer.

The next morning is what you would predict. The crew of Who’s There? packs up to leave; Pilar discovers the text messages on her phone.

Did I do that? the demon lover says. I was drunk. I may have done that. Oh God, oh hell, oh fuck. He plays his part.

This may get messy. Oh, he knows how messy it can get. Pilar can make some real money with those texts. Fawn, if she wants, can use them against him in the divorce.

He doesn’t know how he gets in these situations.

Fawn has called Meggie. So there’s that, as well. Meggie waits to talk to him until almost everyone else has packed up and gone; it’s early afternoon now. Really, he should already have left. He has things he’ll need to do. Decisions to make about flights, a new phone. He needs to call his publicist, his agent. Time for them to earn their keep. He likes to keep them busy.

Ray is off somewhere. The demon lover isn’t too sorry about this.

It’s not a fun conversation. They’re up in the parking lot now, and one of the crew, he doesn’t recognize her with her clothes on, says to Meggie, “Need a lift?”

“I’ve got the thing in Tallahassee tomorrow, the morning show,” Meggie says. “Got someone picking me up any minute now.”

“ ’Kay,” the woman says. “See you in San Jose.” She gives the demon lover a dubious look — is Pilar already talking? — and then gets in her car and drives away.

“San Jose?” the demon lover says.

“Yeah,” Meggie says. “The Winchester House.”

“Huh,” the demon lover says. He doesn’t really care. He’s tired of this whole thing, Meggie, the borrowed T-shirt and cargo shorts, Lake Apopka, no-show ghosts, and bad publicity.

He knows what’s coming. Meggie rips into him. He lets her. There’s no point trying to talk to women when they get like this. He stands there and takes it all in. When she’s finally done, he doesn’t bother trying to defend himself. What’s the good of saying things? He’s so much better at saying things when there’s a script to keep him from deep water. There’s no script here.

Of course, he and Meggie will patch things up eventually. Old friends forgive old friends. Nothing is unforgivable. He’s wondering if this is untrue when a car comes into the meadow.

“Well,” Meggie says. “That’s my ride.”

She waits for him to speak and when he doesn’t, she says, “Good-bye, Will.”

“I’ll call you,” the demon lover says at last. “It’ll be okay, Meggie.”

“Sure,” Meggie says. She’s not really making much of an effort. “Call me.”

She gets into the back of the car. The demon lover bends over, waves at the window where she is sitting. She’s looking straight ahead. The driver’s window is down, and okay, here’s Ray again. Of course! He looks out of the window at the demon lover. He raises an eyebrow, smiles, waves with that hand again, need a ride?

The demon lover steps away from the car. Feels a sense of overwhelming disgust and dread. A cloud of blackness and horror comes over him, something he hasn’t felt in many, many years. He recognizes the feeling at once.

And that’s that. The car drives away with Meggie inside it. The demon lover stands in the field for some period of time, he is never sure how long. Long enough that he is sure he will never catch up with the car with Meggie in it. And he doesn’t.

There’s a storm coming in.

The thing is this: Meggie never turns up for the morning show in Tallahassee. The other girl, Juliet Adeyemi, does reappear, but nobody ever sees Meggie again. She just vanishes. Her body is never found. The demon lover is a prime suspect in her disappearance. Of course he is. But there is no proof. No evidence.

No one is ever charged.

And Ray? When the demon lover explains everything to the police, to the media, on talk shows, he tells the same story over and over again. I went to see my old friend Meggie. I met her lover, Ray. They left together. He drove the car. But no one else supports this story. There is not a single person who will admit that Ray exists. There is not a frame of video with Ray in it. Ray was never there at all, no matter how many times the demon lover explains what happened. They say, What did he look like? Can you describe him? And the demon lover says, He looked like me.

As he is waiting for the third or maybe the fourth time to be questioned by the police, the demon lover thinks about how one day they will make a movie about all of this. About Meggie. But of course he will be too old to play the demon lover.

Dear Paul Zell.

Dear Paul Zell is exactly how far I’ve gotten at least a dozen times, and then I get a little further, and then I give up. So this time I’m going to try something new. I’m going to pretend that I’m not writing you a letter, Paul Zell, dear Paul Zell. I’m so sorry. And I am sorry, Paul Zell, but let’s skip that part for now or else I won’t get any further this time, either. And in any case: how much does it matter whether or not I’m sorry? What difference could it possibly make?