Speak No Evil Read online

  But I can also forget. Yes, I will take your drink, I say to the man with an ambitious smile. He asks my name with his beer breath and beautiful face and his dark, frat boy hair. His hands touch the skin on my back and I look around the room for Niru. Yes, I will take your drink, because I am a senior—even if you can’t tell—and it’s a Friday and why not live a little in this strange space of irresponsibility before we become real humans. He says things about things that don’t register. My friend is somewhere here, I say. He’s coming back, I think, I say listening to myself struggle with simple words and phrases. But he keeps on talking and Niru hasn’t come back yet and I can feel my heart. I am always someone’s accessory, someone’s afterthought, the supporting actress in another person’s drama and that thought fills me with fire. My parents leave me alone for the weekends because they have each other. My friends want to use me for my house. Rowan wants me because he thinks I’m less noticeable and therefore easier to fuck on prom night. And this bro with his wavy hair and his pale outstretched hand and his fingers that creep up my back, he wants me and that scares me but I smile. It’s so loud. Maybe we can talk somewhere more quiet, he says as he pulls closer and his hands move lower. I can feel the part of him that wants more of me than I’m prepared to offer, but I wobble as I try to step away because I don’t often wear heels. There are other bodies in the flashing lights and loud noise that bump against mine and his, pressing us together. Then there is Niru’s hand on my shoulder and his body behind mine and his tearful eyes and that phone which he holds, still quivering. The frat boy notes the separation with a frown. Niru says, he’s not coming, we should go, like now. But I’m not ready to go, I say because now it feels good to know that I can make someone forget their manners.

  Niru grabs my wrist. I try to wave his arm away because I’m tired and with alcohol I feel better standing in place. Backlit and surrounded by the pulse and chatter, he seems taller than his full six feet two. He holds me tightly. Can we go, he says with eyes that say please and thank you. I’m not going anywhere, I say. Dude, she said leave her alone, someone says. Come on let’s go, remember Riverrun, he says to me softer now, in my ear, ignoring the bristling bro behind me. She said to leave her alone. Please don’t touch me, Niru says to this boy whose name I can’t remember, or maybe he never told me. Or what, the frat boy says, and I can’t believe this is happening. Niru, you’re hurting me. Meredith we need to go. There is a half-moon of bystanders around us now, waiting for something to happen so they can tell each other, remember that time when—he was like six four—dude, he looked like he just got out of prison—total thug—complete felon—yeah. There are no bouncers but there should be bouncers for moments like this or maybe I should just go with him, with his hard eyes and now terrible face, his clenched fists and set jaw that the room treats with extreme wariness. I watch him play through events, the push and then punch that will surely follow, the scuffle and then the bouncers and police that will surely come. Am I worth it? To him, I’m not worth it, so he stands down and says, fine Meredith, have fun before he turns and walks away.

  I should let him go and let this strange night be the end of a long and strange year that we will talk about when we are older at reunions when our lives are far enough apart that we can only share memories. But I can’t. It would be easier if he hated me, because at least then he would have to acknowledge me, the way he acknowledges Rowan. He always seems indifferent to me. He is unaffected by my naked body, unmoved by my years of silent longing, so unconcerned with my well-being that he would leave me here with these wolf packs of young men. I try, but I can’t let go of the fact that he left for Nigeria, and when he came back began to phase me out of his life. I pull away from the frat boy who clutches at me and asks if I’m okay. I start after my so-called friend, through doors on to a street filled with people and the smell of street food, pizza, alcohol, bodies. I see car lights, streetlamps and changing streetlights and it makes me dizzy. I hear too much happiness and laughter buzzing in the air around me and it makes me sick. Niru isn’t far ahead now, just a few paces with his steps still smug even after that momentary humiliation. I feel so unsteady that I think I’ll fall. I shout his name as he turns the corner into an alleyway and then I surge the way I do in a race or on runs when the competitive jerk in him picks up the pace and I don’t want to feel inadequate. When I catch him midway down the alley, I push him from behind with a force that carries us forward to the ground. He is on his feet in an instant. I feel the full strength of his hold as he lifts me up and pushes me against a wall just beside a Dumpster. The smell makes me nauseous, but the pulse and throb of the music blasting from inside feels soothing. It’s so loud I can’t hear myself screaming but I know I’m screaming. I try to scratch at him. I try to slap him. I try to knee him in his groin, but he puts his full weight into holding me still. His body presses against mine as he mouths, calm down. Meredith, calm the fuck down. He bleeds from his face, from the pavement burn.

  Then I hear it and he hears it—the heavy whomp of a siren. The light from a police car shines brightly against us and a metallic voice booms a tinny instruction. Step away from the woman and put your hands in the air. I can’t see fully into the light but I know there are people there behind the open doors, crouching low for protection. Niru steps away from me with his hands held high. There is so much space between us now. My hands reach out across the space. Then he hears it and I can just hear it but the person behind the lights can’t hear it because of the noise from the club and the noise from the street drowns out the Satie melody that says someone is calling you. He reaches reflexively, and they reach reflexively and he hears it as I hear it but he feels it and I don’t.

  He lies there in my father’s shirt, limbs askew, sneakers still pristine white as his black blood pools in potholes and his hands slap against the ground.

  You’re safe, a voice tells me. He can’t hurt you. Don’t look, it’s all over, it says. Shots fired, shots fired, requesting ambulance to alley between S and T Streets for suspect down. I feel cold. I become a series of shivers. Then I can’t feel myself even as all the pizza and the beer, and whatever else frat boy decided we were drinking erupts from my mouth onto the pavement before me. I have no words now, only piercing sounds.

  3

  Mom is already awake when I come downstairs in my spandex shorts and sports bra. She stands in the center of the room surrounded by boxes, holding an old book in one hand and her glasses in the other. Oh hi, sweetie, she says when she looks up, Dad and I didn’t want to wake you, you were just passed out on your covers. Her eyes drop to the silver bar in my belly button and her jaw tightens. I pierced it the summer before my senior year of high school and it has been a sore point ever since. Mom can’t articulate why she doesn’t like it and I can’t say why her discomfort pleases me so much, but we have learned to live with each other. You’re up early, I say. She spreads her arms wide to the room and says, so much to pack up, so little time. I thought that’s what you pay movers for. They can’t decide what you take with you, what you put in storage, and what you throw away, she says. She folds her hands over her stomach. Her ring catches the light while her glasses hang loose from her fingers. She has more splotches on her arms and more wrinkles now despite the creams and cleansers she uses. Everyone says I look exactly like her when she was my age, the same large eyes, the same dark hair, the same skinny, long-legged frame, but we can’t be more dissimilar. We are an experiment in nature versus nurture. She is from Texas. I am not. She has five siblings. I do not. She paid her way through college and law school. I did not. She is methodical. I am not. We used to snap at each other without end, criticizing and reacting until Dad made jokes about being Switzerland. Now we agree that distance is better for some relationships. Mom says, you’re sure it’s not too cold outside, the mornings are still a little chilly. I’m going for a run. I know but—Mom I’ll be fine. She opens her mouth and sighs. I can feel her eyes on me as I slip out of the front door and down the fr
ont steps.

  The streets are empty and quiet this early in the morning and I can hear my own footsteps as they fall. I can never forget the imperfections in these brick sidewalks, where they rise and dip around tree roots, where loose segments can make you stumble and fall. Mom is right, the morning is cooler than I expected, but I am committed to the cold air sting that will soon turn to an unbearably soggy heat. Such is the way of a city built on a swamp. My boyfriend doesn’t understand my obsession with running and I can’t explain to him why I take a pair of running shoes with me wherever I go. He used to pout when I told him that I like to run alone. He said, you don’t think I’m fast enough? No, I said, but we ran through Central Park together all the same and I purposely pushed the pace to prove my point. Abuse is what he has called it and it wouldn’t be too strong a term, but I crave the feel of burning air struggling up my throat, the feel of my heaving chest. I pay special attention to each breath. He understands now and settles for kisses before I leave and when I return, but he always wants more. He says he will train for the New York City Marathon this year. He wants me to run with him.

  In this section of the city, all the streets are corridors between pretty houses sloping towards the Potomac River. I peek into first-floor living rooms and kitchens and the lives just beginning at this time of day. That my parents are leaving, that they have sold their house, is all the more remarkable in a zip code where people cling to even the smallest property as their lifeline to relevance. It’s a statement about how things have changed. This was once a city of possibility and hope. Now it’s a society of fear no matter how colorful its row-house faҫades. I run to the sundial at the end of Thirtieth Street and watch the river churning this early morning. I love the Georgetown waterfront in the summer—especially the mornings when the only other people here are die-hard runners hell-bent on exercise before work. I follow the water’s edge as the sun rises over Mount Saint Alban and flashes against the skyscrapers in Arlington on the Virginia bank. I run past the empty outdoor tables at the Sequoia and the Washington Harbor, thankful for the quiet and the cool breeze off the silver-blue water. Farther up, the river gurgles and makes petty rapids against slick rocks where small sticks struggle to keep above a white froth. There is already traffic on the Whitehurst Freeway heading from Maryland into downtown. It provides a steady background hum to which I time my breathing. I can feel the breeze against my stomach, and my thighs. My legs feel stiff and they tingle but I push forward towards the C&O Canal.

  The first time we ran here Niru and I made plans to meet halfway between our two houses. It was a weekday in June the summer before senior year, long enough after the end of school that the novelty of boredom was wearing thin. That’s like more than six miles for each of us, I said. You scared, slacker, he texted me. I hated his taunts. He said, you don’t think you can make it, do you? Oh I can make it. Well prove it. I ran faster than I should have through the streets to the crushed-pebble path along the canal. At the ancient locks, water poured over carefully placed stones smoothed by centuries of flow. In the long stretches between, the water became stagnant and covered by a film of bright green algae. The sun that day was unrelenting. I wanted to stop but I pushed because Niru wouldn’t stop halfway, and he wouldn’t let it go if he overran me. He was the perfect partner during track season, always pushing the pace but making sure that his legs matched my legs stride for stride as he pulled me along by some invisible tether. I’d become a better runner because of our friendship, maybe even a better person. That was one of the things I’d written in the letter I’d planned to give him at graduation. But that never happened. As I ran farther into Maryland I picked up speed and brushed by other runners, people in pairs or with animals on leashes, all moving at a slower pace. I could feel my legs grow tired, but I kept pushing, my steps timed and rhythmic. I think up a song, Niru told me when I asked how he ran so steady, how he ignored the pain, and I play it on repeat in my head until I can’t think of anything else. Then I don’t feel and I’m free.

  You tried, Niru said to me when I finally reached the halfway. He sat on a log by the path in the small shade of a scraggly tree. Here, drink up, he said and he gave me a bottle with water sloshing around a frozen ice core. You ran here with this, I said. Of course he did. Sometimes being friends with Niru was annoying. His deliberateness and conscientiousness stood in such stark contrast to my impulsivity that I had to remind myself that we were actually the same age. That’s when I realized I’d left the house without my keys. Those who forget are often forgotten, Mom would say to me in the multiple text messages she used to send to make certain that one thing or another was completed at the house. I hated proving Mom right, but more often than not I proved Mom right. You can just come to mine, Niru said. He had never asked me to come home with him. My house was so much closer to school, and my parents were almost never around, so we had the run of the house most of the time. We sat at the kitchen table drinking juice and crashing through homework. Sometimes we watched YouTube clips on our phones—Niru liked Thug Life Animals—that was the only thing that could reliably get him to break focus. When my parents came home, they treated Niru with the politeness of functionaries used to meeting people they wouldn’t remember but knew they would see again. He responded in kind with a timid formality, never speaking unless spoken to, and then mostly in Yessirs and Yesmaams before quickly slipping out the front door. I met his parents briefly after an orchestra concert where they sat in the front row with their eyes intensely focused on Niru and their arms folded tightly across their chests. His mother wore a loose blue Nigerian dress with elaborate gold embroidery along the cuffs and collar. His father wore a suit and tie. I didn’t bother to search the audience for my own parents because I knew they wouldn’t be there. After we finished, they congratulated us on playing as we stood together by the table of cookies, pastries and plastic cups of sparkling water, sparkling cider and juice. Niru’s mother’s eyes were half-closed behind her glasses. His father smiled at everyone but generally kept his conversations short. Your parents couldn’t make it, Niru’s mother asked when I followed them to their car after they offered to drop me at home. Will there be anyone at home with you, his father asked when we pulled up in front of my house. It was the only building without lights on. I could hear real concern in his voice. I liked him immediately despite Niru’s tales of his strictness and intransigence. Your parents pay attention, I whispered to Niru. He shrugged.

  We walked back to his place from the canal and I forgot my fatigue as soon as I saw the swimming pool in his backyard. I dashed to the wrought-iron fence, swung through the gate and catapulted myself towards the water. The cold made me gasp, but it felt good to have something wash away the film of sweat and salt from my skin. The chlorine stung my eyes and nose and my running shoes grew heavy with water. I kicked to the pool’s edge and pulled myself up against the warm brick edging. Niru’s bare feet hopped on the hot pavement before my eyes. You’re crazy, he said. Then he jumped in.

  We chased each other around in the pool despite our fatigue and dehydration. We splashed each other and took turns trying to see who could hold their breath for longer. We challenged each other to see who could lie for longer on the sun-heated bricks. I don’t have sunscreen, I said to him. I don’t need sunscreen, he said. We laughed and dripped from the patio to the basement bathrooms where Niru pulled large plush towels from the linen closet. We wrapped ourselves up to dry against the blasting cold from the central air. His house was immaculate with thick carpets on the stairs and brightly polished wood floors and wood cabinets in an expansive kitchen. Piles of mail stood in neat stacks on a low kitchen counter next to small picture frames of his family in various places around the world. He scurried about nervously, adjusting this and that to make sure everything was in its place, sweeping a plate of uneaten toast into the sink, replacing an orange that had rolled off a stacked fruit bowl. I lifted lids from the two pots still on the burner. One contained rice and the other a thick vegetable st
ew that smelled of fish. Niru pounced and covered the pots. Then he lifted the stew and carried it to the stainless-steel fridge. Yo, I’m hungry, I said. You wouldn’t like that, Niru said, we can just order a pizza.

  You have a very nice house, I said to his mother when she came home from work. The artwork is beautiful. I ran my fingers over the embroidered tablecloth on the kitchen table. This is very cool. Niru’s mother chuckled and smiled. I like her, where did you find this one, she said to Niru, who stood awkwardly by a small indoor tree fiddling with its leaves. On the path by the river, I said, we went for a run earlier. People’s parents always liked me. I knew how to charm adults. Because I’m an only child, I told Niru, because I’m more sophisticated. I loved the political conversations that swirled around Mom and Dad’s dinner parties. I would lodge myself at the top of the stairs when their friends stopped by and listen to them talk about their marriages and divorces and mortgages and second homes.

  You must join us for dinner, Niru’s mom said as she retrieved pots and pans from her cabinets and vegetables from the fridge. She wore shiny red flats with her long light blue skirt. She had a playful band of colored hearts on her right wrist. When Niru’s father came home, we all sat at the kitchen table and ate large plates of jollof rice and plantain. I was hungry so I dished myself a second helping, careful not to spill anything from the platter onto the deep-purple tablecloth. His father was astonished. It’s not too spicy, he asked. He removed his tie and rolled up his sleeves. His mustache held on to tiny drops of water from his glass. Niru shifted in his seat when his father asked me about my father and the president. He stroked his beard when I talked about the Oval Office and the White House grounds. Niru’s mom offered me more water and asked if I wanted ice cream. I always wanted ice cream so we ate dessert while the sun unraveled above the shifting trees in the backyard, until Niru’s father asked, do your parents know you are here? His shirttails had slipped out from his pants. I said, no. I don’t have my phone, I said. Niru’s father shot a glance across the kitchen. Ngwanu, give her a phone so she can call her parents, he half shouted. It’s getting late, Niru can take you home. I didn’t say anything, but I didn’t want to leave.