Hide & Seek: Chapter One

I first saw Melanie Carson at one of my Great Aunt Grace's costume balls that she hosted at her old brownstone mansion on Beacon Hill. All Boston's glitterati came to these parties, including Grace's old dowager friends up and down the hill, although they never condescended to come in costume--unless you call wearing yards of pearls and inches of face powder a costume. Aunt Grace always wore a costume, though, being a game little thing, small and spare and with that old New England no-nonsense way of talking and thinking, independent and self-assured. Uncle Ralph had long ago died--I barely remember him, although my sister Dots and I were raised at their house, our parents having both died when we were young.

Twenty-two years ago, then, when I was three and Dots was five, we went to live on Saint Botolph Way in the tall 18th century dark brown building, partially hidden behind wrought iron gates that protected a short circular drive from the slanting cobblestone street running up the hill. Our playground was the Boston Common, two blocks away, and we splashed with the ducks in the pond at the Public Garden in the summer and when older sailed knockabouts on the Charles River. In winter we skated on the duck pond and ventured timidly onto the frozen Charles River.

Uncle Ralph was a banker and spent most of his time at the office, and as he died a few years after Dots and I came to live with him and our aunt, I never really knew him. Dots remembers him better and reminds me that I seem like him, dark and brooding. He was our mother's brother, Ralph Draper of the New York and Boston Drapers. Distant and inscrutable (so Dots tells me), he died making money, slumping in his great leather chair behind the mahogany desk, dead at 61 from a heart attack.

Aunt Grace was kind enough to raise us herself, with the help of the Philippine cook and the Korean maid and the Mexican chauffeur. She oversaw our schooling--Dots to Radcliffe--she is five years older than I--and I to Boston College up on the hill, and then tapped her foot watching and judging as we came of age, moved out and set up for ourselves. At twenty Dots was ready for life--had always been ready for life, and seemed while young just to be passing time waiting until she was old enough to strike out on her own. She went into finance, refusing to take a good position at Draper Investments, Inc., instead preferring a no-name firm hidden away in one of those musty old downtown buildings. She lived in Cambridge and didn't date much, so that I wondered for a while if she might be gay. She had a fearless look about her, tough and strong, and had inherited the Draper straight washed out brown hair and round jaw line. Her skin was fair and she was certainly no beauty, though I loved her dearly.

I got luckier and although I had the same round jaw, my skin is darker and my hair curly. When my turn to move out came, I moved to a nondescript apartment in Dorchester, just south of downtown. I didn't have much in mind to do with my life. I wrote poetry and published in some local journals, nothing to brag about and nothing to make much money at. I began to work as a carpenter and so kept myself alive, although Aunt Grace had provided for both of us. When she died we were to get the real money, but for now she parcelled out a skimpy allowance month by month. Dots politely refused the money, but I was dependent on it, and thought Aunt Grace a bit of a cheapskate for keeping the purse strings so tight. Not that Aunt Grace really was cheap with us; she simply knew that what was best for our characters was not to spoil us off the bat, but to make us work for our money, like anyone else. As if we were just like anyone else! But there was no getting around Aunt Grace, no wheedling even a couple of extra bucks out of her now and then. At times I resorted to bumming a couple of dollars from Mrs. Thi, her housekeeper, or from Carlos the chauffeur. I couldn't ever ask Mrs. Kim, since I knew she would tell Aunt Grace and I wouldn't see my allowance for a couple of months. It was a good idea to keep on Aunt's good side, though, and so I never ignored an invitation to one of her balls. I couldn't have refused anyway; all of Boston knew that when you were summoned to one of Grace Draper's parties, you went.

Aunt's influence ran well beyond Draper Investments, which she had taken over when Uncle Ralph died. She never would talk much about her business dealings, but I discovered from putting bits of information together here and there that she had a hand in most of the large investment firms and most of the large deals that were struck in the city, and was even rumored to be the famous "silent" eighth member of the elite group of investment bankers, brokers and politicians, The Firm, who were said to make policy behind closed doors for much of Boston. Uncle Ralph had never been a member; if Aunt Grace really was a member, she had accomplished more than establishing herself at the heart of the city's finances; The Firm was known to be a fiercely sexist group, and even the idea that a woman might become a member was considered by some sycophants, who made their living by sniffing the gossipy entrails of the Firm in order to divine Boston's financial future, to be sacrilege.

Her parties were always full of the brightest people in Boston, those with money and those with talent. There were writers and painters, dancers and musicians as well as stodgy old bankers and bland and highly polished politicians. Aunt Grace was a smart hostess; she knew you had to have some colorful artist-types to liven up a costume party, and that the way to incite conversation was by mixing people from different worlds. That is how I came to meet Melanie Carson, an upcoming actress on the local scene, on a Saturday evening in August.

The place was jammed to the ceiling rafters when I entered, about ten o'clock. My Aunt liked a lively party, and didn't give a hoot who thought it was a scandal. The place was lit with candles set on every available surface, candles in ornate silver candelabra and candles jammed into empty wine bottles, throwing a golden and somberly freakish glow over the whole scene. A band blared jazz from around the corner in the sitting room, now with furniture pushed back turned into the dancing room. The main hall, where I stood nodding and smiling to Mrs. Thi, was full of people milling and dancing and drinking, and the roar of laughter and conversation filled the dim air. People conversed and danced on the stairs and on the landing above, drinks swaying precariously in drunken hands over the heads of the crowd below. Fauns and satyrs, vampires and tramps, witches, goblins, fairies, French queens and Colonial musketeers, someone who looked like Hitler wearing storm trooper boots and a dunce cap dancing with a woman dressed as a Hasidic Jew, all in black and with an awful plastic wig, her long robes pulled up around her polished and shapely thighs. Santa Claus spilled a drink on a wisp of a half-clad fairy, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee stood arm in arm smiling and nodding as various revelers approached and gave obeisance in the form of elaborate and ridiculous bows and scrapes.

I knew almost no one there, couldn't see Dots or Aunt Grace, and started to weave and push my way to where I knew the drinks would be, around the corner to the right, at the far end of the sitting room. The sounds of the band, blaring away some raucous New Orleans jazz, hit me in the face like a blast from a furnace as I rounded the corner. I reached the bar and nodded to Carlos, looking uncomfortable in a tuxedo and with his black hair slicked back, but doing his best. He licked his wet lips and shook his round brown head good-naturedly; Aunt Grace regularly impressed her servants into double-duty. Carlos poured a glass of champagne without asking and handed it across the dampened table. I drained it and Carlos refilled. Behind him bristled magnums of Moet in mounds of white ice. Aunt was not afraid to spend money, either. I was being jostled by some men in military garb, and not wanting to be jabbed by their dangling swords, I grabbed the bottle out of Carlos' hand and moved away to a corner of the room to take stock.

People were masked and unmasked, wearing everything from period costumes that must have cost a mint just to rent, to makeshift costumes of no specific definition that simply showed off the wearer's body or face to best advantage. I leaned against the wall and brushed off my black pants. I was dressed as Zorro (minus the sword, which seemed a waste of time) and wore a black mask (no hat--Aunt Grace was a stickler for manners, even at parties) which apparently hadn't fooled either Mrs. Thi or Carlos. I started looking, as I always do at these things. Some very interesting and enjoyable women friends have come from these parties. My eyes wandered in the deafening roar and settled on a woman on the far side of the room, dressed in a long white gown that lay well off her shoulders and showed the bulging flesh of her breasts. She had blond hair just brushing her creamy shoulders and pink lips. She looked shy and her eyes swept the room as if looking for someone. "About time you got here," a voice at my elbow said. I turned and smiled at my sister Dots, leaned and gave her a kiss.

"Don't you have a date?" I asked, looking over her costume. She wore a cowgirl outfit, complete with hat and boots, Dale Evans skirt and a shirt with more rhinestones than the whole state of Texas. I considered it was interesting she and I managed to come in similar costumes. She had seen it first, though. My older sister.

"You look like my date," she smiled, her ruby red lips parting. Amazing, the effect of wearing lipstick! I'll have to try it sometime, I thought.

"Who's the lucky fellow tonight?" I asked. "Roger?"

Dots sighed. "Yes, Roger Barton, the boring one. Look at him over there, dancing with Lucy Stone," she said, indicating a monkey dancing with a fairy princess. "He thinks he'll get somewhere with that cleavage," she snorted. I noticed she glanced quickly down at her own.

"You've got the better costume. I notice Roger wearing a mask on top of his monkey face."

"Afraid someone will recognize him. He was nervous the whole way over that he'd be seen with me. Rival firm, you know. I asked him why he bothered, and he had the gall to say that one had to come to Aunt's parties."

"Quite the gentleman," I said, feeling a little sorry for Dots. She picked wrong, that was all, and I couldn't figure out why she couldn't figure out how to pick right. She was sharp and quick, warm hearted and experienced. A woman for a man. She knew enough not to go after simps like Roger, who would spend his life sucking up to the directors of some financial firm, only to work his way into an assistant Vice President's office when he was seventy. When he was not at work he spent his time chasing women with deep cleavages. One day he would get unlucky and marry one. Vacations in Cancun, California chardonnay. That was the extent of his creativity. I smiled ruefully at Dots. At least Roger made no pretensions of being a lover to Dots, and so saved her that. The one thing I could grudgingly thank him for.

"I'm going to try my luck before I'm too drunk to speak," I said, nodding to Dots. I had downed three glasses in quick succession and was feeling lightheaded already, and as if my body weighed a ton, pressing into the wall. I pushed off the hand-painted wallpaper and sailed into the sea of dancers, intentionally jostling the monkey with the mask as I passed, spilling some champagne on him. He turned and tilted his head at me. A good imitation, I thought. I raised my glass and bottle aloft, keeping my eye on the woman across the room. The nearer I got to her the better she looked. Someone grabbed my arm.

"About time, David." I spun around and looked down. Aunt Grace was dressed as Marie Antoinette, her silver wig piled high on her head, silk down in thousands of ruffles falling gracefully around her, red lips and a black beauty mark under her left eye. For the evening she had forsaken the silver headed cane she habitually used to help with her slight limp. She had fallen some years ago and ruined her hip--she was rushing to get a deal with the mayor done, and in her haste had tripped on the marble steps of the capitol. As the medics were installing her in the ambulance, she was said to have insisted to the mayor's aide that the mayor wait for her.

Ever after she had a vestigial limp--I always thought she insisted on her little limp because she never wanted to forget that she had lost the deal that day. The mayor hadn't waited around for her to have her hip replaced. But she was good-natured withal, and not a bad looking woman for her late sixties, as she smiled mischievously at me. I leaned and pecked the white powdered cheek she proffered.

"Be a good boy and help me host this. I've had too much already," she smiled wickedly, holding up her glass in my face and waving slightly. I nodded and smiled back, barely able to make out her words in the din, and poured her more. But she pulled away and frowned.

"Where's your sister?"

"I was going to ask you," I said casually, looking back at the woman on the far side of the room. I should have known better. Aunt Grace misses nothing. She grabbed my arm.

"Let's go meet Miss Carson," she said, taking my arm and imperiously guiding me through the crowd that magically opened before her as before the queen that she was. Everyone nodded and smiled at Aunt Grace, and she, majestically, smiled back and even let a few of the dancers kiss her cheek, the same one she had let me kiss, until the cheek was smeared red and pink.

I was going to protest that I hadn't been going to see the woman, but I knew it was useless. I sighed and let myself be dragged along, until we stood before the woman, who turned, and surprised at seeing my Aunt blushed right up from bosom to forehead. It was a ravishing sight. Miss Carson dipped very slightly and shook my Aunt's hand.

"Mrs. Draper, thank you so much for inviting me," she said, and her voice was soft, even in the din.

"Bosh--you're the sort who should be here, my dear," my Aunt said, speaking loudly enough to be heard. "Artist sorts are my favorite people; these fat bankers," she continued sweeping her heavily jeweled hand around the room, "are for show. You are the real substance, what holds the whole city up."

"Aunt Grace!" I exclaimed, smiling. "They'll be calling you a radical."

"Don't make a fool of yourself, David." She turned back to the woman. "Miss Melanie Carson, I want you to meet my nephew, David Draper, whom I've told you about. He's been eyeing you and I thought I should make it official. I know how young people these days won't speak unless properly introduced," Aunt Grace said drily, making Melanie blush more. I was stunned and felt myself leaning back and away from her, awed and reveling in the pure pleasure of simply looking at this woman. Her hair was silvery blond and her eyes broad and blue, which made me think blue is a warm color. High and wide cheekbones, nearly oriental, as if some long-forgotten Mongol had dreamed her in ages gone by, lingering delighted in the image he had wrought. But she was so fair! A beautiful creature, I thought. Melanie turned to me and held out her hand, eyebrows raised expectantly. Her lips were a curious color of pink, almost orange, that I have seen only once since. It turned out that was the only color of lipstick Melanie ever wore. She parted her lips as she smiled, and her teeth parted too and I was looking into blackness there, and a sudden unreasoning fear gripped my chest; I thought she might eat me. She could if she wanted to; I wouldn't have stopped her. I was afraid because I wanted her to devour me.

"David, take off that stupid mask and let Miss Carson look at you--you've had the advantage till now," Aunt Grace insisted. Melanie's hand was still out, hesitating a bit, as if I was not going to take it. I reached for my mask, then afraid her hand would drop, grabbed it suddenly and shook it too roughly, and it was warm and small and smooth. I pushed my mask up on my forehead, then thinking it looked silly flattening my hair up there pulled it off altogether. Now my hair was a mess. Oh, well.

"Miss Carson is an actress, and a rather good one," Aunt Grace was saying, making my nymph blush yet again, though less deeply this time. "David, did you see Miss Carson in 'The Winter's Tale' at the Colony? You played Hermione, my dear, wonderfully. Which is why I've taken you under my wing. I like artists, but they must be good ones. David, say something. I'm about to wander off and take care of the rest of the city."

I stammered, but managed to eye Melanie carefully, gulping in great draughts of her as I stood there. I was suddenly very thirsty, and offered the bottle, looking at the empty glass she held. She raised it and I poured, though a little shakily.

"I--I am a poet, a writer," I managed, speaking loudly to be heard over the noise surging around us.

"Oh? Have I read anything of yours?" She asked, as if it were up to me to tell her what she had been reading. It was odd--she didn't try to compete with the noise, shouting like most people do in a din, but rather spoke underneath it, and in a normal tone. I could hear her fine, as long as I kept looking at her. But there was something in her voice that sounded as if it lacked intelligence--no, not lacked intelligence; rather, her voice came from a great way off, half distracted, as if she were listening to another world and not quite certain about this one. I often noticed it afterwards, and thought it was the voice of one doomed. Yet it didn't matter; she was gorgeous.

"I don't know; have you?" I countered.

She laughed, and her mouth showed black again between her parted teeth. Odd, I thought, half high from the champagne and the noise. She said something; I couldn't make it out. As I get drunk, the first sense to go is hearing. As if the alcohol were a little invisible man slowly and methodically wadding my ears with cotton. I leaned my ear closer, catching a whiff of her perfume, distant and musky. She leaned very close to me, so that I felt some of her hairs against my neck. I was amazed and enraptured. She didn't know me. Then I reasoned she was an actress, and they were all affectionate types. But as I leaned closer I glimpsed the crow's feet around her eyes; she was older than I.

"I said, have you published?"

I straightened. A fair question, but she was supposed to be an artist, after all. I was a little put off. Was publishing what made one a writer? I was so in love with her looks that I wanted to prick her a bit. "Yes, but probably not in journals that you would have seen," I yelled over the noise.

Her red mouth formed a small 'o', and she looked at me questioningly. I wondered if I had hurt her.

I pointed to the back of the room and nodded my head in that direction; she nodded, and I led her through the crowd to the French doors that opened into the garden. The doors were open and the crowd had spilled outside, but I continued on past them, deeper into the garden to a little nook hidden down a winding path in the far corner of the dense overgrowth, an old hiding place of mine as a child. The music was far off now, and the laughter of the crowd came like a dream. There was a mossy and cracked stone bench here, and I motioned her to it with the bottle. She swept her skirt to the side and sat, leaning back and without looking at me taking a long drink to drain her glass. I refilled and sat beside her.

"Easier to talk," I laughed, nodding back to the house, where we could see the revelers through the heavy foliage. My ears were ringing, and I couldn't tell if it was the music or the wine. Or Melanie.

"It's true I don't know much about poetry," she began, looking suddenly straight into my eyes. Her look was staggering. I felt for the second time as if I were off balance, tipping backwards. I insisted to myself it was the wine and tried to smile casually.

But she was already close to me, leaning and looking into my eyes, her mouth slightly open and showing black deep inside. Nearly swooning, I dropped the bottle, put my arm around her shoulders and leaned to kiss her.

"You are poetry," I murmured into her soft lips.

It was like kissing a cloud, as if I held something magical and dangerous in my arms, for suddenly both my arms were around her, the wine swimming in my body rocking it wildly back and forth. She was in my arms! The miracle every man feels when it happens, as different as life and death. Five minutes ago there was no connection; now there was a connection that cut like a knife down deep through my whole existence. Five minutes ago your friend was alive; now he is dead forevermore, and there seems an infinitude between life and death. Only I was miraculously alive!

We left and went to her place in the North End, a small walk-up on the fifth floor of a dilapidated old building on Garden Court Street, in the atmospheric Italian section of town. We walked down narrow cobblestone streets, between buildings of sagging old brick full of thousands of little Catholic bambinos and mamas, and the smell of oregano and frying calamari in the air.

She pushed open the downstairs door and led the way up dimly lighted, rickety stairs to the top floor. The stairs left me out of breath, but the climb was worth it. Melanie unlocked her door and led me into the living room and we stood there in the dark with the lights of Boston's downtown buildings shining into the windows. Melanie silently pointed out where Faneuil Market glimmered darkly, all ocher brick, alongside the Union Oyster House, the two old buildings surrounded by spiny new glass office buildings who leaned in to get a good look, their own vertical rows of lights delineating their dark and looming monoliths. Everything was quite beautiful there, and Melanie took me silently by the hand and brought me to her bed, a mound of comforters and pillows.

There was something floating and distant about her which left me puzzled and distantly on guard, though I spent my time falling in love and struggling to catch up with her fleeing soul. She was affectionate and kind, but only half there, it seemed. I passed it off to her acting and to her dreamy nature, but soon found that it was simply how she was in the world. In my naive love I wrote her a long poem telling our story in a strange and half-world myth, pouring out my heart to her, unaware of how much more important it is for a lover to shield and hide his heart than for any other. I was surprised at how touched she was by the work, and she hid it inside her script for Romeo and Juliet, and then tucked the script into the brocade folds of her Juliet costume worn years ago, and laid it in the bottom of a cracked cedar trunk. It became our secret, and I thought for a short time I had won her heart. I was wrong.

For all that I was utterly devoted to Melanie, she did not belong to me. They say you feel jealousy to the degree that you are not committed to someone; I was committed, all right; I was drowning in her sex. We seemed to make love all the time. Melanie would smile out of the corner of her eyes at me and go to her bureau, open the drawer, and take out her blue glass rosary with beads that looked like cat's eyes. She draped them around her neck, loosening the buttons of her blouse, and lay back on her bed, with that cat smile and wisps of her silver blond hair floating in her face. She pursed her orange-pink lips. Come, she said, and it seemed that all I saw of her was the vision of her lying back on the bed.

It went on so much that it scared me. It left me in a panic when she was gone, I didn't know where, and she disappeared some times for days at a time, and would not tell me where she had gone. She had men friends, from the theater and elsewhere, but she would never tell me anything more. I was suspicious she was sleeping with them, but Melanie kept me ignorant. I flew into jealous rages, and cried out my anxiety. She listened and stroked my face, chiding me and reassuring me like a child. Nothing worked; I couldn't stand on my own feet; I had given too much to her, and I saw that she accepted it that way. Always it was I who waited for her, never she for me. She took her time returning calls; I felt I was tearing apart.

I began to accompany her everywhere she would let me, to rehearsals, to the office where she worked, on shopping trips and errands. Anywhere she would not let me accompany her I tried to follow secretly, though with little success. Although at first ashamed of what I was doing, I soon become callous to my own indiscretion, and learned how to dissemble when she asked. But I had to hide, especially from Melanie; I was drowning in her, and she remained distant. The hurt was so great that had it been in the open it surely would have destroyed me. So like a wounded animal I took my wound into a cave of artifice, and struggled not to let her know how desperate I was.

It soon became clear to me that although she welcomed me into her bed, she would never love me. She told me all about herself--how she had grown up in the North End, and had changed her name from some Italian one she wouldn't tell me. Northern Italian, she was, though only half. Her mother had been Irish Catholic, which I suppose accounted for her fair skin and hair. She still went to mass at a scenic old church in South Boston, which I found charming if a bit old fashioned. It was odd--in one breath she told me about never missing a sunday mass, in the next about her past lovers--cops, body builders, actors. Always they were from the past, but I wondered. The list was endless, and she spoke and laughed about her past as if it were nothing, as if I were not standing there listening, my heart and guts lying in bloody heaps on the floor. To her it was all just words.

She was open to me, but she didn't love me. I didn't know what I lacked, I couldn't see it since I loved her so passionately. If she was perfect for me, how was it that I could not be the same for her? As I looked at her I became more and more acutely aware of the blackness that lay between her teeth when she smiled, and I felt it was the maw of death dragging me down.

I do not mean to sound melodramatic; yet if you have felt jealousy, really suffered from it so that it crowds out all other thought, like a boa constrictor, you will understand the fear that lurks inside of it, the fear that one is losing oneself to the other, the fear that if the other happens to notice your vulnerability, they will be able utterly to take over your soul, right down to the marrow.

I began to have nightmares, waking sweating from visions of demon women who sped through space, white hair flying. Everything seemed to accelerate, from my pulse to the traffic outside. I was tense and nervous, and could do nothing but be with Melanie, unhappy anyway, or at those rare times when I had no idea where she was--for more and more she began going out intentionally, I felt, without telling me--leaving me pacing and muttering in my Dorchester apartment, unable to read, to write, to think. At last I would run out of the apartment and wander the working class neighborhoods, or wander into a bar smelling of stale beer and urine, there to sit and get drunk, tv blaring in the background.

Of course she was right to feel anger or disgust with my possessiveness, and I felt sorry for her for that. Yet I couldn't help myself, and she seemed to do nothing to help. I knew all my jealousy was for naught; was the expression of a terrified child. Melanie grew frustrated and impatient, finally furious with me. We fought, and it seemed all over. I was devastated, ready to leave, broken. She softened as I turned the doorknob; she beckoned me to her; we went to the bed. Yet afterwards she was hard again; this couldn't go on; I mustn't stay the night.

I knew this couldn't last, and that if I loved her at all, I must change. I was a fool, driving her away from me with my craziness, I thought as I paced and fretted back in my apartment. How could I change? How had it happened that I had become such a drowning man? What could I do to get her back?

In exhaustion I came to understand that it was my own fantasies that were creating my jealousy, that there was no basis for the feeling except my own insecurity. And did I not love her? Or was it just passionate and devouring sex that drew me like a crazy moth to her, again and again, inexhaustible and unending? I must learn to love her, to let her go, leave some space for her to breathe--all that I knew--and so I drilled myself on this lesson, unable to stop pacing.

It was difficult, but slowly I managed not to call her everyday, but to wait for her to call. Slowly, changing as slowly as the earth changes, I forced myself not to pursue her in such panic, to trust her to come to me.

For a time it seemed to work, and I began to feel quite noble about myself. I had done the right thing, done something wise and good not only for Melanie, but for me. For both of us. Surely she would see that and appreciate it, love me finally for being such a mature lover. Some days went by without us talking. I had to admit feeling itchy, though I bit my hand each time it began to reach of its own accord for the phone.

The weekend came, cold and dreary November. Months had flown by since we had first met. I had written no poetry for weeks, had barely seen Dots or Aunt Grace. Melanie and I never visited with anyone; her friends in the theater I didn't like or else she kept me away from, and our times together more often than not were spent in bed.

I did introduce her to Dots, and they had lunch together. Dots was a great one for women friends, believing greatly in sisterhood. I don't think Melanie knew the meaning of the word. Their friendship never really got off the ground--as it turned out, Melanie was one of the few people my sister didn't take to. I was just as glad--I wanted her to myself, and was jealous even of the time she spent with my own sister. I had after all not gotten over my jealousy; I had merely learned to control it, to force it underground.

Friday night, and my hand reached for the phone. The jitters were still there, the nervousness that she was with another man, and the demon visions of my sweet Melanie entwined with someone else began to rise like brimstone in my head. I pushed them down, trying to smile to an invisible Melanie, managing only to grimace.

I decided to drop by her place with flowers, a peace offering. At the corner store near my apartment I bought purple tulips and took the Red Line to Haymarket, got out and strode under the elevated expressway and down into the narrow streets of the North End, legs stiff, rehearsing the simple and proper things I would say. A cold mist hung in the air, not really rain, yet soaking everything, the kind of weather that goes on for days in the fall in Boston. I turned down Garden Court, my heart pounding, checking my watch. Eight-thirty. Early enough for a movie, if she wanted. Maybe she hadn't eaten yet. I knew she would be home, for she was such a homebody when not performing, and tonight she was off.

I came to the downstairs door of the tall narrow rowhouse where she lived and pushed it open; it was never locked. I was already breathing hard, but took the stairs two at a time, my sneakers making no sound on the old wooden treads. Maybe it was the soundlessness of rising that put the idea in my head of getting to her door without making a sound; however it was, I got the sudden idea I must approach quietly, listen through the door to see if it was ok that I knock. I was at the top landing, and hesitated for a second in the wan light of a twenty-watt light bulb hanging bare in the hall. I could hear voices inside. Melanie's and a man's. I stopped stock still, shocked. I listened for the quickest thing to orient me--her tone of voice. The hair on the back of my neck stood up; it was the soft, seductive one she was speaking in, the one she used following a fight, when she softened and the lights went hazy. My eyes swam and my heart pounded in my temples. I held my mouth open so I could breathe soundlessly, like a corpse, and turned and retreated down the stairs, more quietly than I had come.

Outside I tried to think calmly, my head in a swirl, then walked to the next house, also an apartment rowhouse and built against Melanie's building, similar to it but a storey higher. I pushed the heavy door open and walked quietly up the back stairs, passing doors smelling of spaghetti sauce, hearing an occasional Italian voice. Up to the top floor and then up the stairs to the roof, I pushed the sliding brace aside, dropping it quietly to the floor, and pushed the heavy metal door outward. It opened with a loud squeak, and I grabbed it and held it still for a moment, listening. No one stirred. I stepped over the high threshold and out onto the tar and gravel roof. Mist swooped in and wetted my face. The wind blew fog and soft rain in my face. All about me was the soft white glow of city lights. I was above them here, in a ghost world of mist and darkness. Across the way and down one flight were the windows to Melanie's apartment. I could see two windows to her apartment, the kitchen and the bedroom. Blinds were drawn in the both rooms, though left half slatted. The lights within were dim.

There were two people in the kitchen, standing close together and swaying as if to music. I dropped the bent tulips and pushed hands into my coat, waiting, breath coming hard. I crouched in the lee of the stair shed, certain I was invisible to those inside. She was kissing him, and then she pulled away. He looked at her questioningly; I couldn't see his face, only that he was a tall man, dark haired and older than I. As I watched, fearful, Melanie reached her hand and drew him, oh no! I quailed, into the bedroom, and then down onto her bed. They lay together, kissing. He began to undress her, and she sat up, pulled off the sweater she wore. Then she came to the window and pulled the curtains.

I was trembling and felt in shock. My head shook. What was going on? Hadn't I convinced myself that it was my own screwed-up nature that had created my jealousy? Hadn't she reassured me, over and over, that there was no other man? Hadn't that happened? It was shock I felt, my senses numb, brain barely able to work, yet trying fumblingly to work out the hollow logic of what had been said by whom about what to whom. The words did not add up. Something was missing. The ground was falling away.

I recall being again outside Melanie's door, around the corner in the hall, quiet as death. The light was very dim and I could hide in the shadows easily. I recall my plan at the time; to wait until the man had left, then let myself in with the key I had. She would be undressing and would not hear me come in, would not see me until I had slipped into her bedroom. I needed to talk to her; I needed to see her. I recall my heart racing as I stood waiting out the hours, fearing someone from another apartment would come down the hall. I remember my hands moist and sticky, and a gulp of air I took as soft footsteps came to the door and hesitated. The door opened, a dark shadow of a man passed not five feet from me. There was a soft tinkling sound as the figure hesitated at the top of the stairs. I recall putting my finger on the second hand of my watch to follow it around twice, so as not to lose the time, then knocking on Melanie's door. There was no sound within. The door was open. I went in, my head full of a howling wind that made me deaf.

I recall being on the subway and feeling sick, looking about me at the derelicts who ride to Dorchester, the bad-tempered mothers swatting snot-nosed kids, thinking to myself that Dorchester women would be beautiful if their expressions weren't so full of hatred of their men, of men in general, for beating them and giving them too many children. A thin man talking to himself and chewing tobacco wadded into an unshaven cheek, his greasy hair matted to his forehead. A young black man wearing a black knit cap and daring anyone to look at him, managing to swagger even while sitting on the hard red benches.

I woke with a tremendous headache, and sat with a cup of coffee staring at the Globe. The story was there. Melanie had been strangled. I read the paper with a sinking feeling. For all I thought I couldn't remember exactly the moment of pulling the rosary tight around her neck. But I had done it, of that I was certain. I remembered then her body slumped on the floor, eyes bulging, face blue. The rosary lying like a twisted snake squeezed into the white flesh of her soft neck. My body was numb; the world was numb. I sat at the kitchen table. I didn't go out. Dots called.

She didn't say hi; she never did. I swallowed the last six ibuprofens, but my head ached as if I had a hangover. "See the newspaper? Weren't you still going out with Melanie Carson? She was killed last night!" It hurt my head to listen, but I made myself sound surprised.

"What? -Uh, yeah, we went out for a while. Not lately. Beautiful woman."

"Yeah, well, not anymore. The cops are going to be knocking on your door, you know. Need some help?" She sounded as if she enjoyed it, and in fact I knew she did. Both she and Aunt Grace were avid murder mystery readers. They loved the old LA mystery writers, Chandler and Hammet, Earl Stanley Gardner and Biggers. Dots and Aunt Grace agreed on everything, including their dislike of Parker.

"No, thanks Dots," I said steadily.

"You didn't do it, did you?" As if she wished I had.

"No," I answered wearily. "But I can pretend if it'll help."

"Don't be sarcastic; that won't go over well with the cops. Why did you break up with her?"

"What's it to you?"

"The cops are going to ask; just thought I'd give you a chance to get your story straight."

"I don't need a straight story."

"Silly! I just meant it will sound better if you have thought these things out ahead of time."

"You don't think that might make me sound guilty, do you?" I countered.

She paused. "Maybe you're right at that. "Oh, Dave, I'm truly sorry about Melanie! I didn't know her very well, and you know I didn't like her. But so what. Aunt seems really upset, but actually she's as excited to be implicated in a real murder as I am."

"Implicated? That's quite a word to use, Dots. Sounds as if she wished she did it, or thinks she did." I was trying to sound jaunty, but the conversation was beginning to wear on me. My stomach was feeling sick. "Look, I better go."

"Ok. Good luck. Don't let them put words in your mouth. Aunt told me to have you call her lawyer before you say anything. You know, Mr. Crittendon downtown, remember we met him at dinner at her house last year?"

"I remember," I said. I brought up the image of an old man, bent over with the weight of the law on his back. A kindly old Boston gent from a gilt edged firm. Probably ate dinner with the Police Commissioner. I hadn't thought of a lawyer until now. Maybe it was a good idea at that.

"Um--one other thing. I called you last night, and you weren't there." Dots waited.

"So?"

"So--where were you?"

"Maybe I was here and didn't want to answer," I said.

"You answering machine came on, and you always pick it up for me when you're there--you told me so."

She was right, I screened my calls via the answering machine, but invariably picked it up if it were Dots. Aunt I avoided from time to time, but never my sister.

"I was probably at the corner store buying heroin," I said flatly, rubbing my head.

There was a moment of silence, and I could hear the little wheels turning in her head. Let them turn, I thought. "Anyway, it's better not to have such an airtight alibi, you know," she said, as if trying to make the best of a bad situation. "Only guilty people have them. Normal people can usually never give absolute proof of where they were when the murder happened. Where were you when it happened?"

"Right here, all night, in spite of not hearing your call. No one saw me. That seems to make me innocent in your book. Now goodbye. If the police come, I promise to call you and tell you all about it," I finished, anticipating her request. We hung up, and I began to feel nervous, wondering if I should call Crittendon. Aunt Grace would have arranged everything, I knew. Crittendon would be on the alert, kindly and reassuring. Just the sort to make me feel guilty.

I heaved my coat on, but before going out went to the answering machine and erased Dots' message from last night. Then I went to the corner store and bought some more ibuprofen and orange juice, trying not to think about Melanie while walking slowly back up the street. The mist had gone, leaving a day overcast, windy and cold. Pewter clouds rolled along in a roiling mass. We wouldn't see the sun for days. I stopped. Suddenly it occurred to me. The tulips. I thought quickly; there was a large grocery store three blocks in the other direction, where they didn't know me. I hurried down the blocks and entered the store. Fortunately there were plenty of people about. I went to the produce section and smiled when I saw the buckets of purple tulips. Grabbing one, I picked up a few other items at random, and went to the speed checkout, explaining that I had already bought the orange juice elsewhere. The checkout woman frowned. Just the sort of thing I didn't need, I thought, and left hurriedly. She might remember me.

Back home I cut the tulip ends, stowed the cut bottoms in the bottom of the trash can underneath some trash, and arranged the flowers in a vase on the kitchen table. It was only then I recalled dropping the real tulips on the rooftop beside Melanie's house. Now was not the time to retrieve them, clearly. I sat down and made breakfast, reading the story.

The picture they used was her professional one, making her look even more alluring than she did, smokey eyes and half smile, screaming seduction all over. It was a good shot; there would be lots of outcry against such a heinous crime against such an innocent creature. I thought of how I would write a description of that sweet and mysterious face, and then remembered my poem to her, buried in the bosom of Juliet's gown. My heart began to race, but I realized it was no use. I read on.

The story was a hard knock on the head after the picture. Melanie had been strangled, but the article didn't say how. The police weren't saying much; there was some suspicion it might be a case of rape and murder, though the apartment showed no signs of a struggle.

Dots was wrong. It took two day for the police to call. By that time the Globe had run its usual Metro Section lament over the rising crime rate and the disintegration of the society, and the editorial page featured a local female psychologist from the Boston Psychiatric Clinic in Back Bay who wrote a lengthy analysis of Melanie's life and death. I read it all and thought it bunk, making a connection between Melanie's quick rise to local stardom and her quick descent.

When the police did make a call, it came in the form of a pleasant, even shy Irish voice who identified himself as Detective Sergeant Frances Gallivan. He politely informed me that they had found my name and telephone number in Miss Carson's phone book. Would I come down and answer a few questions?

I did, surprised at how distant I felt. I felt safe for some odd reason, and so never considered calling Crittendon, although Gallivan suggested I might want a lawyer. Or it was that I had already buried the jittery nervousness down so deep, underneath a great numbness that blanketed and overwhelmed it? I walked as if asleep down to headquarters and met the good Detective, a heavy-set, red-cheeked Irishman, surprisingly young and innocent-looking. A good Catholic, I reckoned, as I sat at his desk, a grey metal monster sitting over in a corner of a busy room. The windows behind Gallivan were dirty and looked out on the brick wall of another building, ten feet away.

"This will all be informal," Gallivan said, smiling at me and puffing a bit. "Can you tell me how long you knew the deceased?"

"Less than six months. I met her at my Aunt Grace's house, at a party."

"And you last saw her--?"

"More than a month ago, I think. We went out for a while," I said, shifting a bit in my seat.

"Your fingerprints were found all over the apartment."

"Which only makes sense," I said.

"Do you think so?" Gallivan asked softly, leaning two beefy arms on his desk. "It had been a month, you said."

"I suppose Melanie wasn't much of a housekeeper," I smiled nervously.

"Ah. And where were you the night of the murder?" he asked, leaning back and looking at a pad of paper. He looked up.

"At home. I went to the corner store, came back. Watched tv. Read. Went to bed."

"Witnesses?"

"None. Or- the man at the corner store, Mr. Doherty. He saw me, about eight o'clock."

"You're sure of the time," Gallivan said, eyeing me.

"Yes, I looked at my watch."

Gallivan made a note. "What did you watch?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"TV."

"Oh. A rerun of Star Trek." I was prepared, having established all the right answers beforehand.

"Anyone you know might have had a reason to kill Miss Carson, Mr. Draper?"

"None I know of." My heart was thudding in my chest. "I always thought she was well liked."

"There is an indication she possibly had a male friend at her house that evening."

"Oh?" I said as evenly as I could.

"Do you know who that person might be?"

"No idea."

"She had--other boyfriends, from what we've been able to gather. Know any of them?" he asked blandly.

"I--never heard of any. I mean, she mentioned that she had other male friends. I didn't exactly know what her connection--"

"But she never told you any names?" Gallivan asked.

"None," I said, wondering whether I would have given them if Melanie had told me any of their names. But she never would, no matter how I begged to know.

"Well," Gallivan said, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head. "No one has come forward to admit to having been there. I'm sorry to say this--I'm sure you've read it in the papers anyway, but we think it may have been a case of" his voice got lower and softer "--rape, and murder. Possibly someone followed her home, or it even could have been a friend." Gallivan eyed me again.

I shook my head.

"There's one other thing," Gallivan grunted, leaning over and pulling open a drawer. He drew out a white sheet of paper and handed it across to me. I took it, frowning. It was a xerox of a piece of paper that must have been crumpled, for the xerox was full of jagged dark lines. It was the beginning of a letter, clearly in Melanie's open, looping handwriting. It read: "Dear Elaine: I know you don't want to hear from me, but you need to be told something." That was all. I stared at it, imagining Melanie sitting down at her kitchen table, carefully arranging her writing things, bent over the page with furrowed brow, very serious, like a child. But who was Elaine?

"Have any idea at all about this?" Gallivan asked. "It was found in Miss Carson's wastebasket, crumpled up."

"None at all--I don't know any friend of hers named Elaine, and I don't remember her talking about anyone by that name."

Gallivan looked at me closely. "It sounds as if it were something pretty important. It could be why she was murdered," he finished softly, looking at me.

The dumb ox! I could have jumped in the air, shouting with relief and happiness. I was saved by some random letter, another one of Melanie's overdramatized efforts. She was an actress, forever making things intense and deep. A casual comment by a friend, only mildly critical, got heard by her as a tremendous affront on her very soul. She was always taking herself so seriously. At first it was exciting and different, but soon it seemed merely neurotic. After a while I got used to it, and simply tried to ignore it in her. There was no use arguing, anyway. She was always so certain of what she thought, unwilling to consider she might be wrong. Very beautiful, very proud, very talented. On stage. She was meant to be on stage always. Offstage she was a mess. And now--! I bit hard on the edges of my mouth and shook my head.

"Are you smiling?" asked Gallivan seriously.

"Just thinking about her charming nature," I said easily.

Gallivan kept staring at me, and his eyes seemed slightly disgusted. My smile went away.

"Pardon me, Mr. Draper, but you don't seem very upset about this. Were you and Miss Carson not close?"

I looked at him steadily, wondering how honestly I should speak. "We had been somewhat close, but that was a little while ago. She was beautiful and a good actress, but as a person I found her a little cold. I'm sorry to hear she's dead, but by now I don't have any great special feeling for her."

"You speak as if it had been years. Yet you two went out last month, according to your own words."

I sighed. That seemed effective. "Well, it seems like it's been years since I've seen her," I said, looking out the window. "Maybe I wanted to forget her, forget all about it, and made it seem longer that it really was."

"Forget what?" Gallivan asked, looking at me evenly.

"What?"

"You said, 'forget "it",' not 'her'. Did you want to forget something upsetting?"

I narrowed my eyes. "I guess I just meant--forget the whole thing. Her. That we ever went out."

"Do you usually do that with your girlfriends?"

"What is this? I thought you wanted information about Melanie." I was getting nervous.

"I am getting information about Miss Carson, sir. If you had some especially upsetting episode with her, Mr. Draper, that might give us some sort of lead on what happened to her."

"I don't follow you," I answered uneasily.

"Let's say for example that you two had an argument one night, and she suddenly pulled out a handgun and threatened you. Or else you found out she was dealing drugs. Or hooked on drugs. Forgive me if I seem insulting, but it's my business to pry. But those things might be something you would want to forget about, especially if it had upset you greatly, or destroyed your image of your beloved-"

"She's not my beloved!" I nearly shouted.

Gallivan looked at me strangely and spoke softly. "Just a manner of speaking, Mr. Draper. No offence meant. Only if there had been something of a surprising nature, that information might help our investigation."

"Well, there was nothing," I said finally, making it clear the interview was over.

He wasn't finished, though, and folded his hands and rested his elbows on the desk. "Did you know Miss Carson to be a religious person, Mr. Draper?"

"Religious? I knew she went to church..."

"I mean, did she seem particularly close to her religion. Did you two ever speak of it?"

"Where's this all leading?" I asked, annoyed now.

"The newspapers didn't carry the full story, Mr. Draper. Your friend Miss Carson was strangled with a rosary." Gallivan looked at me closely as he spoke.

"Whew!" I said, expelling air. I shook my head. "I don't see the connection. I don't remember her as particularly religious."

"It's very curious, Mr. Draper, your way of speaking of the deceased as if you hadn't seen her in a year or more."

"You've said that already. Is there some point?"

"No point, none at all," he smiled. "In this business you get an interest in people's little peculiarities. I'm a bit of a character study as a result of my work."

"I see."

"For example, we had a woman in here six months ago who spoke of her husband, dead ten years, in the present tense, as if he were still alive and talking to her. 'George says this' and 'George does that' she would say. Very interesting, don't you think?"

"I suppose so. Can I go now?" I asked.

Gallivan frowned at me. "I don't think you're in the spirit of this investigation," he said, and it seemed he had a hurt look on his face. I was startled speechless. He shrugged and rose.

They took a blood sample, of course, to compare with the sperm found inside of Melanie. There was no match. The stranger's fingerprints led the police nowhere. No one had seen him; an old Italian Mamma who lived downstairs said she had heard voices, but couldn't be sure if it might have been the tv. No witnesses placed me anywhere near the North End on Friday evening, and Mr. Doherty verified that I had come into his store after dark. He didn't remember the time nor what I had bought. So much for the tulips. I never went to fetch the ones I had dropped on the roof. The story slipped off page one the day after it happened, and stayed on the front page of the Metro Section only a day longer. Boston is a big little city; there's too much going on. The following day a woman killed her abusive husband, and that made much bigger headlines than the simple murder of an aspiring actress.

Winter wore away like an old hated pair of shoes, long and cold and damp, though without much snow. The skies stayed gray and overcast, and the sun didn't shine for months. The air was moist and hurt it was so cold, and it went right through however many layers I wore. I felt compelled to take long walks, sentenced like Cain to eternal wanderings. Yet I was trying to walk out, or away from, the nightmare of Melanie. My face was raw as I walked along the Charles, frozen into a grey white sheet that looked treacherous. Some student had tried to walk across it, drunk no doubt, and had broken through and died. There seemed to be death everywhere, as if in the deep stillness everything was falling. I panted, wiped my runny nose with a wet glove, and hurried on, head down before the endless wind.

The cold echoed the numbness in my heart, though I was relieved at least not to feel the jealous torment of the Fall. I became reclusive, and Aunt Grace and Dots blamed it on Melanie's death. Aunt Grace blamed her death on me, claiming that if I had been better for her (as distinct from better to her) this would never have happened. I would have been there to protect her. Dots mothered me, bringing me rich and gooey brownies she baked and sitting and drinking earl gray tea with me. Her attention touched me, but I couldn't muster the strength to answer her questions. Dots rattled on for a while about work and travel, finally looking me in the eye.

"You're really grieving over Melanie, aren't you?" she said sweetly, and it hurt that I couldn't answer.

I shook myself. "It's just the weather, Dots. And feeling getting older. I need to get down to work. There's not much time left."

Dots looked alarmed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I laughed it off. "Nothing. I'm tired. Like the Furies are pursuing me. Nobody's immortal. I have to write more."

It was late April before Winter gave up and a cool Spring edged its way in, wobbling in on wet and pale green feet, until at last even the grey city trees on Adams Street outside my apartment sprouted leaves. The sun shone at last, and the heavy clouds dispersed. The whole horror of that time seeped away, and Melanie's face became dimmer in my mind, though in my dreams I was overwhelmed with a sense that I had done something so extreme that things would never be the same. Strange dark figures pursued me down long black corridors, and I ran.

Read excerpts from my latest novel, Memoirs of a Shape-Shifter, now available through Kepler Press.