Emily Winslow - The Whole World

“Can I call someone?” he asked. “You’re friends with Polly, I could see if she can come around…”

I shook my head back and forth. “No. No, Polly and I aren’t really friends right now. You know,” I said, bringing it back to Nick.

He nodded, and looked away. Everything flowed back into place again, inexorable: This was the day they were dredging the Cam. Only Nick mattered today. And Polly, with both parents in jail. It had been years since my brother had raped me, right? It had been more than a week since Nick treated me like a whore. God, like ten whole days.

“Let me tidy this up,” Keene offered, about my art supplies. Isn’t that just his whole drive in life.

“And me do what? Go back to my room and feel sorry for myself? Or join a volleyball game on Parker’s Piece and pretend it’s all good? It’s not.” I bounced my giant paper hallucigenia from hand to hand.

Dr. Keene looked past me. Then Peter strode in, Nick’s friend. “Richard,” he boomed out. “Richard, it’s done. They didn’t find him.”

Dr. Keene closed his eyes and it was like his body melted a little. All the tension that had been holding him up slipped away. He and Peter clasped hands. The testosterone in the gesture made me laugh. Keene looked at me strangely.

Peter said to me, “He’s not drowned. He’s not drowned.” He didn’t say “He’s not dead,” because by that time we couldn’t be sure he wasn’t, some way or other. But, at least, there would be no body today.

Isn’t that a kick when that’s the best you can say about a day? That there isn’t a corpse in it, at least as far as you know? There’s no certain corpse. It’s like… Schrödinger’s corpse. Until we see it, it isn’t really dead. I laughed again.

“Peter…” Keene started, and in his pause I could tell he wondered about the wisdom of fobbing me off on a man with Peter’s reputation, what with me in such a vulnerable state. But he wanted to get rid of me. That was obvious. Teacher-student, etc. There was potential for a fabricated harassment accusation if things got too personal and he had to be stern.

“I’m all right,” I said, standing up. “I’m all right.” I said it without making eye contact, so he knew to keep worrying. “I’m going to go down to the river,” I said. “Now we can enjoy it again, right?”

I can only assume Keene gave some kind of nod or signal to Peter to follow me. It’s not like he would bother with me otherwise.

“How are you holding up?” he said, keeping pace beside me, awkwardly matching his longer stride to mine. The three tower cranes building the Grand Arcade at the end of the road dominated the view. Each was a huge, latticed capital T. One swung around at the command of a little man in the driver’s seat underneath. It wound up a cord to pull a massive load up over the tops of all the aged college buildings. It was making shops.

“They’re beautiful,” I said. It had been pouring since Nick left, but today the sun was out, shining on the cranes. “I’ll miss them when they’re done.” I would, really. They’re so tall, so aggressively enormous, and perfectly balanced. The completed Grand Arcade won’t be able to live up to them when they go.

“What, the cranes?” He sounded like I was crazy.

“Whatever,” I said, turning the opposite direction, to walk toward Trumpington Street instead.

“No, wait,” he said, and that’s how I was sure this was Keene ’s idea. Peter has better things to do than chase me.

“Look, you may not want to believe this,” I said, “Nick being your best friend and all. But he raped me. Just before he disappeared. I didn’t have anything to do with him going, but I do know that I wouldn’t care if he were in the Cam, because he’d deserve it. You can ask around at Magdalene. We were at a staircase party together, after Polly left his office. I guess he wasn’t finished, you know? He asked if he could crash in my room, you know, from drinking too much. He acted like he needed to crash. But when we got there, he wasn’t tired at all, I guess. He was plenty able to do what he wanted to do. That’s what I think of your best friend.”

I’m not sure why I went with that. It was completely different from what I’d told Keene, but it’s not like Keene would compare notes with Peter. It’s not like anyone even listens, right?

Peter put his hand through his hair. He scanned whatever was behind me, same as Keene. “Nick?” He put his hands on his hips and puffed out the word, as if winded from a long jog. He was so ridiculous I almost lost it and started laughing. “Jesus, Liv-”

“Yes: Nick. I haven’t told anyone because it would just make the police think I had something to do with him being gone. Which I don’t. It may have been karma that got him for it, but not me.”

“Jesus,” he said again. “Nick?”

Everyone acts so surprised that Nick would do anything wrong. Is what I was saying that much different from what he really did do?

“I don’t want to ruin things for his family,” I explained nobly. “He has a sister. I don’t want to ruin him for her, at least, not unless he comes home. But if they have to grieve I’m going to let them have it nicely. When my dad died, everyone said only nice things about him. I appreciated that.”

“I don’t really know what to do with this…” he said, holding his palms up.

“There isn’t anything to do.” I shrugged. “These things happen.”

“Maybe you should talk to Polly.”

I pushed him in the chest. “What the fuck does Polly have to do with this? Why does everyone think of Polly?”

“I’m just saying she’s been through a lot herself, maybe she would understand-”

“What the fuck has she been through? As far as I see it, she’s been treated like a princess ever since she revealed her traumatic, scandalous past. Jeez, I gotta get me some of that, right? Because everyone’s tiptoeing around her, all solicitous, all whatever-you-say, whatever-you-need. And anything she wants to be is okay, all of a sudden okay. If she wants to work, she’s being strong. If she wants to hide away, she’s ‘taking care of herself.’ And if she wants to act like a jackass and joke around like nothing’s wrong, then she needs her space, because we all have to breathe, right? And it’s all okay. If she turned around and went with some guy we’d all be proud of her for ‘healing,’ right, instead of thinking, ‘That’s awfully quick…’-which is what it would deserve. And if she never goes with a guy again, it’s not because she’s a coward, or stuck, or just stupid, but something profound. Something that has nothing to do with her choices, but all to do with life whipping her around. And that’s bullshit. We make like her dad made her in that moment, made in her the right to anger, and the right to grief, and the right to fear and frigidity. But I’ll tell you-all that stuff is already in everybody. Maybe her dad kicked it up a notch, okay, but it’s not like what he did invented anything inside her. But when she acts fucked-up it makes people want to protect her, and when I act fucked-up it scares people away.” He had stepped back. We were still on the street, just down from the pedestrian crossing. Periodic clusters of people waiting for the green light had heard parts of what I said, making Peter’s eyes shift from side to side, embarrassed.

One of the people waiting to cross the street was Polly.

Tears cut streaks down her face. “Liv?” she said, incredulous, before taking off back toward Trumpington Street.

“Shit, Liv,” said Peter. Acting out my entire point, he left me and ran after her.

I hadn’t told Dr. Keene or Peter-or anyone-about the letter from my dad.

After the divorce, Dad married someone else and had a baby. I’d told him not to do that. I don’t care who he’s married to but I told him not to have a baby. I remember this one time that I had a friend over, this was when Dad and Mom were still married, I had a friend over, and he said: “Excuse me, sweetheart…” as he passed by her to get to the patio. My head had snapped up. Because he always called me “sweetheart.” That was what he called me. But he used it for this stranger to him, just because she was a girl. I learned a lot about my dad. I learned that what I thought was a special name was just really the way he talks to girls. It’s just that I was usually the only one around, so I’d thought it was mine. I learned a lot about my dad. So I knew what would happen if he had another baby.