This place is like a park during the day, with families picnicking on the immaculately trimmed lawns, and guided tours pointing out the more famous interred. Now it’s dark and suffocating. I duck behind the brick archway of a memorial and cup the phone to cover any light from the screen. The battery icon is flashing red. I dial 911 and raise the phone to my ear, trembling.
A low voice answers, “Hello?”
I whisper, high-pitched hiccups escaping between sobs, “I need help. There’s someone after me and I think she killed my girlfriend. I’m in the cemetery—”
“Hi, Maggie,” the voice replies.
I jerk the phone away as if it were alive.
Sarah’s picture is on the screen. 911 is on hold. I frantically press the button to hang up. The battery icon flashes one more time, then the screen goes black. I can’t hold back the choking sobs. Suddenly a firm hand grips my shoulder.
Screaming, I leap up and start sprinting blindly, cold tears streaming down my face. I weave between monstrous weeping angels and huge marble headstones gleaming in the moonlight; I run until my lungs burn and I cannot feel my legs. I scramble uphill through narrow stone pathways, past a pyramid adorned with an eagle and an obelisk jutting from the ground. I look over my shoulder: no one is behind me. I reach a crumbling mausoleum with a broken wooden door. Inside, it smells musty and damp. Things are crawling on the ground but I try to stifle the panic. As my eyes adjust I see a stone tomb in the center of the cramped room. I crouch behind it, covering my mouth to steady my breathing, letting my nose run and tears roll silently down my cheeks.
What the fuck is happening? Sarah, I’m so sorry. Time slows down. I can’t complete any thoughts other than, I’m sorry, I’m sorry... I’m consumed with fear, guilt, and regret. Will this be the last thing I feel? Is this what happened to Sarah?
Footsteps crunch in the gravel outside. Louder now, heavier. The sliver of light from under the mausoleum’s door is broken by a shadow. I hold my breath, and the shadow retreats. I allow myself a glimmer of relief.
Then the brittle door is kicked open, coming off its hinges. I whimper pathetically as the figure ducks inside.
“You bitches just don’t know how to let things be.”
“What the fuck do you want?! Who the fuck are you?” I kick out my legs, cowering farther into the corner.
“All she had to do was back off,” the voice continues, coming closer. “The same with you.”
Through the shadows, I can make out her face. “Sandro?” I stammer.
I’ve seen her dozens of times as I walked past her shop. The bulging, oversupplemented muscles and henna tattoos are unmistakable. Her nose ring glitters and I see dark scratches across her face. Sarah...
“That fickle bitch,” Sandro spits. “Helping that fucking yoga studio take over my space, driving me out with all that Divine Singularity bullshit.” She says the name in a mocking sing-song voice.
“Wh-what?” I am genuinely shocked. “It’s her job, Sandro!”
“She was a motherfucking double agent!” Sandro screams. Then through clenched teeth: “I work. So. Hard. I paid Sarah good money to write the health blog. I order the supplements from China myself. I make my interns keep perfect inventory. Then I find out she’s helping some yoga shithead take over my place? Do you have any fucking idea how impossible it is to find decent commercial space in this city?”
“You’re crazy! You don’t do anything! You throw money at other people to do your work for you! You’re a fucking lunatic!”
“You people are all the same. You want handouts but have no loyalty, no vision. I gave Sarah an opportunity — and she betrayed me.” Sandro’s eyes are wide with rage. She lunges forward.
I try to fend her off but she slams my head into the stone wall, over and over. I think of what I saw last night, through the window, my last glimpse of Sarah.
Over and over, I think of Sarah.
White Horse
by Katie Gilmartin
Bushrod Park
Two women walking down the street together doesn’t make sense to anyone when one of them is Negro and the other white. Unless the Negro woman is carrying a bag of groceries or pushing a carriage with a towheaded baby inside. But even then, not after dark. And certainly not if both are dressed to the nines, she in her smart hat and neatly pressed gloves. We always felt eyes on us. The way a hook trolling through water looking for a fish catches on some weed or stump and holds fast, those eyes snagged on our dark and light bodies as we passed. Trying to figure out: what was the relationship between these women that led to the two of them walking down a street together after dark? They don’t like the answer they come up with. Or they like it too much. Roll it around in their minds, caress it with their tongues, till they resolve that the right thing for them to do, the only thing for them to do, is to join us.
So we always walked alert, careful. Quickly and with determination, making it clear we had a place to be and it wasn’t here on this sidewalk explaining how we came to be walking together. We walked side by side, but not too close, and we never held hands. One day, a year or so ago, we’d gone for a walk up in the hills, where redwoods tower so high they were once used for navigation by boats in the bay. It was a sweet afternoon of dappled sunlight, and when she was sure there was no one to see us but those trees, Mabeline slipped her hand in mine. As it settled in, palm against palm, fingers nested, there was no comfort in it; no home there, the way our bodies felt when we slid against each other, the curves familiar and essential. Our hands were strangers to each other. After seven years of loving, I didn’t know her hand inside mine.
On the sidewalk we kept walking when men offered to take us home, bristled when we politely declined. Our place was in the Bushrod neighborhood. The men that followed us were eager to make jokes about bush and rod. There were three or four variations, you can figure them out yourself. We kept walking, as they told us what they believed we did together and then prescribed a remedy for the ailment they presumed we had. We kept walking, hoping to get where we were going before they’d grab an arm — Mabeline’s usually, if he was a white man; mine, often, if he was a Negro, trying to tug us toward a shadowed doorway or dark alley.
That particular night we were headed to the White Horse, so our stroll was brief. Sam greeted us at the door with a curt nod, a nod that warned us not to allow our alert caution to relax down around our shoulders as it usually did when we entered the welcoming warmth of the dark bar. The subdued murmur as we moved inside confirmed it. We’d heard there’d been two unfamiliar visitors the past weekend, with collars buttoned a little too tight for our comfort.
The crowd was thinner than usual, though not by much. Storm clouds led some to flee, but the regulars planted ourselves firmly for the night. We had too few places to let go of any one of them easily. Mabeline and I made our way to the bar, nodding at familiar faces, sizing up the ones that weren’t. The two men in tight collars weren’t among them. Henry, usually a warm bath of friendliness, served our drinks with a thin-lipped smile and we settled at a table with two couples we knew. Mabeline and I sat facing the rear of the bar, where we could watch the passage that led to bathrooms and the back door. Barbara and Lou had eyes on the entrance. Lester and Evan viewed the bar. We were each other’s eyes.