Stephanie Says
song sung by Emiliana Torrini
Note: Sorry in advance. I will try to come up with a continuation for this sometime. This song has been rattling around, refusing to go away unless I did something with it, so here it is. It isn't my best, but at least no one is self-medicating or slashing their wrists…
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Stephanie says,
That she wants to know,
Why she's given half her life
To people she hates now.
I slammed the door to my apartment and turned on Rex, who was running on his wheel. "My live sucks!" I told him. "No, wait, the people in my life suck. All of them!" My voice rose and trembled a little.
Rex stopped running and blinked at me, probably wondering what all the howling was about. I breathed deeply, trying to calm myself but it wasn't working. He needed water, and dinner. I could be a good hamster mommy, at least. Apparently I wasn't good for much else.
I had gotten chased by a pack of dogs, been hit with rotten tomatoes, and lost the drunken idiot who was supposed to be this month's rent payment. Lula had taken off when the cops showed up, like she always did, even though it meant I was on the border of fucking Slayerland without a ride home.
Morelli had shown up at the station while I was hauling Eulah in, and we had had a fight that might even have managed to rival my final fight with Dickie. And this one had been in a police station instead of a court room. Convenient.
Next came my mother holding up the reinstated Saint Valerie of the Blameless Life as she demanded to know what I was doing fighting with Joseph when he was my last shot at marriage. Who the else was crazy enough to want me, right? She'd finally managed to punch enough of my buttons that I committed a cardinal sin: I had left the dinner table. I'd given up any chance of ever getting pineapple upside down cake. So here I was, excommunicated from dessert and unworthy of love, fighting back tears because I didn't want my hamster to see me cry. I felt pathetic. I probably was.
But that didn't mean I had to think about it. Instead I stripped, showered, and slipped into bed, splayed out in my thinking position. I was so tired I couldn't sleep, and I was tense, keyed up into knots of Gordian proportions. I knew what was causing the knots: bitterness- cold, hard, aching, hurtful, razor-sharp bitterness.
Bitterness because the one person I loved in this crappy place had disappeared and I hadn't known it until it was too late. That I loved him… or that he was disappearing. He had said he was leaving, but not good bye. Never goodbye. It gave me hope in an odd way because maybe if he didn't say good bye then maybe he would be back, but the fact remained that it had been almost six weeks and not a word. I'd finally called his cell phone last night just to leave a message. I told him I was worried about him, and not to get shot.
I really am pathetic. The thought hit me like a linebacker, straight to the stomach and I curled into the fetal position, burying my face in the pillow as I began crying.
Stephanie says
When answering the phone
What country shall I say is calling,
From across the world?
Every time I picked up my phone I hoped it would be him. I didn't even look at the caller ID or the LCD anymore, just to feel that extra millisecond of hope. Where was he? Was he safe? Had he gotten my message? Did he not care? Did he care?
Of course he cared. He probably just didn't take his cell phone with him when he staged coups in Central America. Or wherever he was. A lump kept forming in my throat every time, because wherever he was he didn't know.
But she's not afraid to die,
The people all call her Alaska,
Between worlds, so the people ask her,
'Cause it's all in her mind.
It's all in her mind.
I was tired of being afraid. It was just too much effort now. Ranger had been gone for four months, and for all I knew maybe he would be gone four years. Maybe forever. Or maybe I had waited too long, as Lula predicted.
I was training now, and going to the gun range as often as my schedule allowed, taking my frustrations out on the paper men, though God above knew I'd been itching to take it out on a couple of my skips. I was coming to terms with what my mother had said. No one would want me, no one could possibly love me. It was okay. I could deal with that. In a way it helped, because it shut away so much emotional baggage, made it easier to do my job the Ranger had advised me to do it in the beginning: I wasn't a judge, I just brought them back.
Mom had more or less forgiven me, and didn't seem to notice I hadn't forgiven her. Still, going home every so often helped remind me the world wasn't all bail-jumping scuzzballs. It let me remember the Burg rules, kept me able to move between the two worlds I seemed to inhabit- the Burg world and the real world.
Stephanie says,
That she wants to know,
Why it is though she's the door
She can't be the room.
Even that was beginning to sting now, though. I felt like I was the door, keeping the scum off the streets, and keeping the (albeit ungrateful) Burg safe, but no one notices the door. I would have given anything to have someone, just one person, look at me as if I meant the world to them if only for a moment. To have someone focus on me, just me, for me to be their world for a heartbeat, would have meant so much. But it would never happen.
Just wasn't my lot in life.
Those were my thoughts as I dragged myself home from yet another apprehension involving disgusting substances. This time it was Vaseline. Was it bad when apprehending a person coated in Vaseline happened more than once in a person's lifetime?
The message light was blinking and I hit it, resigning myself to another round of my mother's shrill and disapproving voice. When the message played however, I was taken aback for a moment. Nothing. There wasn't anything on it… wait… there was…
Deep, even breathing that sent a shock of recognition down my spine and a feeling of warmth through my system. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to feel warm… I knew whose breathing it was, but anyone else would have thought it was another one of my stalkers. Didn't matter.
He was all right. He couldn't talk, but he was all right- this was his way of dropping a note. Some small amount of tension eased away from me and I almost collapsed to the floor in relief.
Stephanie says,
But doesn't hang up the phone,
What seashell-sea is callin',
From across the world?
When I was a kid I would hold the seashells up to my ears and listen to the sea, my eyes drifting closed as I would imagine the sea the shell was echoing. I always felt a rush of excitement, the thrill of coming in almost-contact with some other place. That's how it came to feel over the next few weeks every time I found another message on the machine. I would sit by the phone, listening to tape as if it would tell me more. I closed my eyes and concentrated, willing myself to hear something more, or to see it. Just once I wanted to have ESP…
But she's not afraid to die,
The people all call her Alaska,
between worlds, so people ask her,
'Cause it's all in her mind.
It's all in her mind.
It had been two months since the last message. I was beginning to feel cold again, and it was so much worse this time. I cursed myself for daring to hope. Probably it was just some stupid prank caller.
Everyone was beginning to comment on my improved skills at skip tracing and apprehension. They were also beginning to comment on other things. Mary Lou had called to see about having lunch, but I had canceled it in the end. Eddie had actually shown up the other night with a bag of food and a case of beer. He wouldn't take no for an answer, either.
"Steph, everyone's worried about you," he said quietly.
"Why? Just because I finally got my act together? They're just worried about their betting pools."
Eddie shook his head. "No, Steph, it's no that it's…" He sighed and ran a hand through what was left of his hair. "It's that I haven't seen you smile or laugh or anything in months now…"
"I've been pretty serious, I guess," I said shrugging, and offered a ghost of a smile, just barely tipping my lips upward- it was all I could manage lately. I was frozen too hard for a real smile, now.
They're asking "Is it good or bad?"
It's such an icy feeling.
It's so cold in Alaska!