From The Dots
That same evening, Dot felt drunk as soon as she opened her eyes. The room wobbled vertiginously, and her stomach burned with acid. She was in her old bedroom at her parents’ house. She couldn’t quite remember how she’d gotten here.
Something was happening outside the house. She pushed back the curtain on her window. A police car rolled into the driveway.
She cracked open the bedroom door and listened as an officer stepped into the foyer and talked to her mother. The cop said Dorothy’s name. Dot’s throat tightened, everything she’d done tumbling back to her. This was it. She had to confess.
She opened the door wider and readied herself, but then her stepfather appeared from out of nowhere and clapped his hand over her mouth. “Shhh,” he whispered, widening his eyes in warning. Dot stared at him, puzzled. He pushed her back into her room.
Downstairs, soft murmuring: “Can you describe your relationship with your sister?”
Dot’s mother answered, but Dot couldn’t make out what she said. The conversation lasted another minute or so, and then the door shut.
Her mother appeared up the stairs, her head bowed. Dot’s stepfather moved aside to let her into Dot’s room. Dot scrambled back to her bed, afraid of what was to come. But Dot’s mother’s face was kind when she entered the room. She walked up to Dot and took her hands.
“That was the police,” she said evenly. “About Dorothy. They have her body at the morgue.”
Dot breathed in. She searched her mother’s face, but her mother wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Oh,” was all she could think to say.
“The police wanted to talk to you, but I said you hadn’t seen her in ten years.” She finally looked up at Dot. “Do you understand?”
Dot licked her lips. “But that’s not true.”
“Yes it is.”
“But I—”
“No buts,” her mother said steadily. “We talked about this.”
Dot swallowed. She watched as her mother and her stepfather exchanged a glance over her head.
“But people saw us,” she said softly. “People at the restaurant. That steak house.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem.”
Again, Dot tried to catch her mother’s gaze, but she wouldn’t look in her direction.
“Can I see her body?” she asked. She needed to prove to herself it had really happened, that Dorothy was really gone. It was still unthinkable that any of it had happened. The poisoning, the manipulation—to her, Dorothy’s alleged favorite. How could she have done such a thing? How could Dot have let it go on for so long? Would a smarter girl have caught on sooner?
Her parents exchanged a shocked glance. “Absolutely not,” her mother said.
And then her parents stood up and left the room. Stay here, they told her. Don’t you dare leave.
To Dot’s horror, there was a memorial held for Dorothy, and Dot’s family insisted she go. Not going would arouse suspicion. Just act normal, they told her. Don’t talk to anyone.
It was held at M&F Chop House. There were steaks for all, and unlimited drinks. The mood was buoyant and Hollyweird. Bartenders in white jackets and turbans mixed martinis. Someone circulated with a platter full of Cuban cigars. There was a woman walking around with a monkey on her shoulder; both were wearing tiaras. A couple of Vegas showgirls performed, and then a burlesque dancer, and then a Frank Sinatra impersonator. The place was crawling with writers, but some of them Dot had been sure were already dead—James Joyce with his little glasses, Oscar Wilde in a topcoat, a ghostly Virginia Woolf. There were people there who looked as though they might be dressed up for Halloween: a leathery-skinned man in a cowboy hat and with a handlebar mustache, a large-eyed woman in a peacock-colored caftan with a crystal ball under her arm, a huge black man with a tattoo on his face and a bone through his nose.
Dot wandered through the crowds of revelers double-fisting drinks. Just being confined between these walls made her skin crawl with guilt. The only respite was that Bernie the bartender and all the other normal staff members were nowhere to be seen. Oddly, when she dared to ask the bartender on duty where Bernie was that day, he looked at her blankly as if he’d never heard of him.
Eerily, there was no body in a casket. Dot asked and asked, and finally her mother admitted that Dorothy’s will stated that a friend pick up her body from the morgue and dispose of it as she wished, and apparently those instructions didn’t include putting her body in a casket for a funeral. Dot wondered if Dr. Singh was the one who’d retrieved Dorothy from the morgue. She peered through the crowd for him, hoping to get some answers. But he hadn’t come.
At one point, a woman in a fortune-teller’s turban holding a half-drunk martini teetered toward Dot.
“Oh, Dorothy, this is so like you to stage a funeral when you’re not actually dead.”
Dot had stared at her, sickened. “I’m not Dorothy.”
The woman blinked woozily. “Oh,” she said. “Of course not. You’re a few years too young. Still, what a wonderful party trick!”
Dot felt so disgusted. She broke away from her and ran, finding herself opening double doors into another dining area. Though the whole restaurant had been rented out for the funeral, this room was empty. The tables were set neatly with linens and napkins, but no one sat at them. Her footsteps echoed noisily as she crossed the wood floor to the bar.
She peered into the antique mirror behind the bottles. She had never looked more like her aunt in her life, maybe because she was guilty of something now, too. What would it be like if she went back to the memorial and pretended to be her, for real? How many people would buy it? She wondered what she might do in Dorothy’s name. Hideous things she’d never dared, or nice, sweet things to make up for her aunt’s transgressions?
Staring at herself, something new pressed down on Dot, a bone-shaking frisson she couldn’t help but peek at sideways. Even if Dorothy deserved it, someone was going to figure out what she’d done. If not the police, then Dorothy’s ghost.
In the mirror, as if in answer, a shadow shifted behind a curtain across the room. Dot whirled around, heart in her throat. “Dorothy?” she called out.
Shifting, shuffling. Dot crouched down, eye-level with clean glassware. “Dorothy?” she cried again, her teeth chattering. It had to be her over there. She was still alive. Maybe her body had never been in the morgue. Maybe her parents were lying. Maybe the police were confused. Maybe that was why Dr. Singh wasn’t here, either—he was keeping a secret. This was all a ruse.
The curtain shifted and fluttered. Dot pressed her hands over her eyes, knowing Dorothy was going to fling it wide and come for her. She bolted out from behind the bar, down the back hallway, and into the alley. But the scene was too familiar and haunting—this was where they’d had their fight. A few doors down was the pizza parlor, where Marlon had found her. Her gaze swung to the hotel on the next block. Out front, surrounded by a little gate, was a swimming pool for guests. At present, it was empty, the pool lights making the water glow a brassy gold.
Footsteps rang out behind her. Goose bumps rose on Dot’s arms. She could think of nothing but the pool and its welcoming water. She hurried toward it. The fence was high, but she was able to climb it without much problem. When she turned, a figure in silhouette rushed over the fence, too. She let out a yelp and stretched her arms out, falling headfirst into the pool. She sank so fast that her head hit the bottom.
She shut her eyes at first, but then rolled over and opened them. Someone stood above her on the pool deck. To her horror, the figure jumped in. Dot fought to swim away, but she was running out of oxygen. She felt her body being dragged to the surface. Her lungs gasped for air, and she gagged once she was on the concrete. Her hair made a wet fan around her face.
As soon as she saw her mother, she started to cry. “She’s coming for me. She’s coming.”
Her mother pressed a towel against Dot’s chest. “No one’s coming for you. I promise.”
“That’s not true. She’s not going to rest until I make this right.”
Her mother’s face broke. “You haven’t done anything wrong. Sit up. Look for yourself. No one is here. She’s gone, Dot. She’s really gone.”
Weak as she was, Dot did what she was told. The pool area was empty. The street was empty. She touched her face and wet hair. Her legs were so cold they were starting to shiver. She looked at her mother, something breaking inside her. “I can’t keep this to myself,” she blurted. “It isn’t right.”
Her mother’s eyebrows knit together. “You have to.”
“No. I can’t.”
“Dot. You have to.” Her hands clutched Dot’s forearms. “Promise me. Please. I can’t lose you.”
It was the kindest thing Dot’s mother had ever said to her, and through her sinking quicksand of panic, Dot felt a small flare of recognition of that. But it passed quickly through her, hardly making an impression. “I can’t go on,” she said again. “I can’t be haunted.”
“Then we’ll find a way for it to un-haunt you.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out. Together.”
Dot stared. She’d fallen prey to comforting words before. But she found herself leaning against her mother’s arms anyway, cradled, comforted, feeling, at least briefly, that she was safe.