The Tenderness of Wild Beasts, Third Chapter
The narrator stumbles upon her childhood friend, but something does not add up.
This is the third chapter of my novel, The Tenderness of Wild Beasts. It is a conversation. Between a daughter and her biological father. Between two people searching for the serial killer who has turned their lives and the lives of their loved ones upside down. Between two writers trying to find the words to exorcise themselves and reconnect. Their story begins in a fictional Californian town, Lucero, with the disappearance of two children during a wedding party. Who knows where it will lead them.
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The Tenderness of Wild Beasts
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Chapter 3 - Tear Down the House
I was encircled. An army of missing child flyers had invaded the whole street. I could not escape their anxiety-inducing parade. And to think that the street was so desperately empty when I stumbled on Judith the other day. Nothing to divert attention.
“Mary Jane, is that you?”
I had recognized her first, but as we had lost contact for more than ten years, I did not intend to spark a conversation. However, she did. She looked highly nervous, and I could not understand why she had to do this. It was embarrassing. Also, I was quite pissed that she chose to call me Mary Jane instead of Joan, as she used to.
Apparently, out of sight for ten years, out of mind even if we knew each other since childhood. She was even part of my life way before I even realized. Lurking around me in the shadow of the elementary school yard.
Picture it, with its rough asphalt devoured by the intense, bizarre light of a late spring afternoon. Floodlit sections were distinctly contrasting from thick parts of shadow because of the architecture of the building overhanging the playground.
She and I were at the limit, where the sun was meeting darkness. She was Eve. Not really a little girl, more of a doll. I wanted her to be my best friend, because everyone else had one. I was trying to convince her to come play with me, pulling her by the arm in my direction, toward the sunny place I was standing in. But she broke free to go with other girls. I watched her disappear in the dimness, leaving me all alone in this orange afternoon which was turning the scene into some kind of American Realism painting, with all its poignant melancholy. I remember shrugging. I was a girl from a peeling house, what use could I make of a friend, after all?
It took me many years to realize that Judith was one of the little girls who had stolen Eve from me on the dark side. Yet, to this day, I still do not know if it means something.
I am very bad at reading signs, no matter if they are shadow kids or missing flyer kids.
What struck me when looking at this little girl on the peeling poster, Fiona Garrison, was the fact I could not fully identify with her, in spite of her resemblance with my younger self. She reminded me more of the child Judith used to be.
In a way, this girl is a part of me you never met. And you will never, as the Judith I discovered in the street the other day did not seem to share the same essence with the old Jud. There were fractions of seconds where my memory seemed to catch something familiar, such as the way she tilted her head to laugh or the impatience that electrified her dangerously skinny legs. But all I had to do was blink for these recognizable mannerisms to vanish, and then, there was the new Jud. There was her smile and its incongruous shyness, that accentuated her sharp features and made her eyelashes flutter. Her arms were tightly wrapped around her frail torso, and she kept playing with her fingers, numbed by acrylic nails. The latter were white, which the old Jud would have considered a complete heresy. But above all, I barely restrained a hiccup of surprise at her short bangs. In our youth, I was the one with the good girl’s bangs and braids.
“I like your short hair,” said Judith, apparently undertaking the same examination.
Her blank voice put a stop to the destruction of the back side of my memory, flake of paint by flake of paint.
“Uh-oh, I don’t know if you’ve heard about it… I’m going to get married this weekend… Yes, I know! Crazy, right?”
Some unknown tension stiffened her shoulders, and she vibrated, at first imperceptibly.
“I didn’t know your address, that’s why I didn’t send you an invitation… I would have. Definitely! But now, you are here so… I would be delighted if you could come… You have to come!”
She talked too much, too fast. The shaking amplified with my absence of reaction. To hide my discomfort, I turned my eyes toward the woman behind her, who was carrying some garment bags. She looked like a grown-up version of one of Judith’s many horrible cousins.
My former friend went on, “It will be a casual party at my parents’ hotel, you remember it, right? Saturday, at 7 PM.”
Oh god, of course I remembered that damn place. I took a second look at the cousin; was she the one that had refused to share the hotel’s little pool with me because of my so-called poor swimming skills? I suddenly became absorbed by how much I was missing that deliciously shady pool, nestled in its lush, relaxing green setting. However, I did not miss Judith Lair’s family. Not a frigging second.
Politely, I looked at Jud again, and accepted her invitation. Her body’s tremor stopped dead in its tracks, and she laughed with a deep-throated, forced laugh I had never heard her doing before.
She almost screamed, “Oh, I will introduce you to my Sam, he’s amazing!”
After a long and unnecessary embrace, she continued her way, waving and smiling unnaturally until she was far enough away from me.
I remembered that, in 1992, we had made a pact about keeping in touch long enough to introduce each other to our respective husbands. We were watching the winter Olympics in Albertville. I was fascinated by biathlon, with those tough ladies handling rifles in the snow, and I wondered why Jud was suddenly talking about husbands. My eyes locked to the screen, I agreed to that promise without even understanding its meaning. Your husband. Nonsense, nonsense.
I wondered if she had this promise in mind when inviting me. I had nothing close to a husband in my life.
(To be continued.)
That last line hit me hard… what does it mean to keep a promise when time has already unraveled it? A very familiar setting like the moment of returning to a hometown you've grown estranged from.