All The Pretty Dead Girls. John Manning
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what she’d seen—what she thought she’d seen—out of her mind.
I must have imagined it, she told herself as she rolled her suitcase down the hallway on the second floor, looking for her room. My mind was playing tricks on me, that’s all that was. I’m more tired than I thought from getting up early and the long drive up here. It’s my first time away from home, and I’m nervous and a little jumpy.
But still, she couldn’t get the image of that face out of her head.
Ahead of her, to the left, was Room 227. The door was already open, and dance music was playing loudly. Sue walked in, and saw her boxes and luggage stacked in one corner, near a window. The room was larger than she expected, with two twin beds set out on opposite sides of the room. Each side of the room had bookshelves built into the walls, and there were matching closet doors on either side of the room. Another door on one side led into what she assumed was the bathroom. That had been a reassurance for her when she’d read the material sent by the college. All the rooms in Bentley Hall had their own bathrooms. She wasn’t sure how she’d managed to get a room in Bentley—her grandfather’s influence most likely—but she wasn’t going to question her luck.
“Hello?” she called out. “Anybody home? Hello?”
A dark-skinned girl walked out of the bathroom wearing a pair of low-riding jean shorts and a tank top. She was drying her face with a towel. Her hair was in long braids that hung down her back almost to her waist, and she had dark eyes and a large forehead. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall.
“Are you Sue?” the girl asked. Her voice was soft, low, the intonation almost singsong. She smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Malika.”
“Hi.” Sue shook her hand and looked around the room. “Is this my side?” She gestured to where her boxes were piled.
“I hope you don’t mind.” Malika said. “I got here Friday—and so I picked this side of the room. I like to be close to the bathroom.”
“That’s fine.” Sue gave her a smile before wheeling her suitcase over to the pile of boxes. She climbed onto her bed and moaned. “I don’t even want to think about unpacking.” The bed was comfortable. She stared up at the ceiling for a moment.
Malika sat down at her desk and folded the towel. She closed her laptop, and the music stopped. “I understand you’re a freshman,” she said to Sue.
Sue rolled onto her side. “Yeah. Aren’t you?”
Malika shook her head, her braids flapping vigorously. “I’m a sophomore.”
“I kind of figured I’d be with all other freshmen.”
“No. Bentley is mostly sophomores and juniors.”
Sue smiled. “Wonder how I got in here then.”
Malika’s dark eyes seemed to study her. She didn’t reply.
“Well,” Sue said, sitting up on the bed. “I guess I should just be glad. So what’s your major?”
“Poli sci,” Malika told her.
“That’s going to be my major, too.” Sue grinned. “Prep for law school.”
Malika shrugged. “You and about half the girls here. Me, I want to go work for the United Nations, work in under-developed countries.”
“Well, that’s noble of you. Where are you from, Malika?”
“Tanzania.” The other girl’s chin went up proudly. “My parents both work for the United Nations, helping countries put together systems of law and develop their economies. It’s God’s work.”
God’s work.
Malika kept talking, but Sue wasn’t really listening. The phrase had kicked up some memories for her.
“God’s work” was a favorite phrase of her grandfather’s, one he used so frequently, it had seemed to lose its meaning. The Barlows were regular churchgoers, devoted parishioners of Saint Matthew’s Lutheran Church on the Upper West Side. Sue never remembered ever missing a Sunday service. Even when they were on vacation, they managed to find a place to worship. “God’s work” to Granpa meant pretty much going to church, paying your taxes, voting in every election (for a Republican), and saying grace before meals. Sometimes, Gran would joke about it. “What’s Granpa doing?” Sue would ask, catching her grandfather nodding off in front of the television set. “He’s doing God’s work,” she’d tell her.
“Did your parents drop you off?” Malika asked.
Sue smiled. “No. I drove up from the city.”
“New York?”
Sue nodded. “My grandparents gave me a car. I’ll have it here on campus, so if you ever want to get away for a bit—”
Malika smiled. “As if the deans would ever allow that. You’ll see, Sue. It’s pretty strict around here. They’ll let you keep the car—but they just won’t let you drive it.”
An image of that tall brick wall encircling the campus flashed through Sue’s mind. “I’ll find ways to drive it,” Sue vowed.
“So if your grandparents gave you a car, you must be a little rich girl,” Malika said, smiling. “What did Mommy and Daddy give you?”
Sue felt numb—the automatic reaction she always felt whenever anyone asked about her parents.
“My parents are dead,” she told Malika.
The other girl’s face instantly became sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Sue. I didn’t—”
“Of course you didn’t. How would you know?”
She stood, moving from the bed to the window. She could see the tinting on the glass, but from the inside the windows didn’t seem nearly so black. They let in the sun, for which Sue was glad. She gazed down at the green campus, the fountain bubbling in the center of the yard, watching little groups of girls moving across the grass.
“My parents died in a car accident when I was very young,” Sue told her roommate. “I don’t remember them at all. But my mother went to school here. I suppose that’s the biggest reason why my grandparents sent me here as well.”
“Do you have brothers and sisters?” Malika asked.
Sue shook her head. “Just Gran and Granpa. Only family I have.”
“I can’t imagine. I have three brothers and two sisters and I grew up with cousins and aunts and uncles…” Malika’s voice faded away as she seemed to catch some sadness in Sue’s eyes.
“Not me. My mother was also an only child, so there are no cousins.”
“What about your father?”
“I don’t know. My grandparents rarely speak of him.”
But of her mother, there was plenty of evidence. Given that she had been Gran and Granpa’s only child, she was pretty much enshrined in their apartment on Central Park West. Pictures of their darling Mariclare were everywhere. In one room were photos of Mariclare as a young girl. In another, dozens of snapshots captured her graduation from high school. There were pictures of her on beaches and in boats, in convertible cars and at the top of the World Trade Center, always laughing and looking happy. As a little girl, Sue had been jealous of this Mariclare, who had seemed to lead such a more outgoing life than she did. Mariclare—the apple of Gran and Granpa’s eyes.
Studying the photos of her mother, Sue didn’t see much of a resemblance to herself. Mariclare had thick red hair and wide blue eyes. She was model-pretty, with none of the flaws Sue saw in herself. Yet for all their devotion to their departed daughter, Sue’s grandparents rarely spoke about Mariclare directly. It was too painful, Sue understood. On the rare occasions Sue got the nerve up to ask Granpa about Mariclare, his eyes would glaze over and he’d shut down completely. Her only source for information