Under My Skin. Lisa Unger
let this eat whatever’s left of your life.
“You called me, though,” says Grayson. He takes the file that sits open in my lap and closes it, tucks it under his leg. I’m glad that face is gone. “So...what’s up?”
I almost tell him about my dream, the one in the nightclub, that maybe—maybe—could be a memory. It’s why I called him, because of Layla’s suggestion that it might be a memory. But he’s so pragmatic and the images seem so strange and nonsensical now, especially in light of what he’s told me. And I don’t want to recount the part where I kiss some strange man. Even in a dream, it’s shameful, sordid, isn’t it? There’s shame, too, about those missing days. I imagined myself stronger than that, not the person who shatters in the face of tragedy.
But I am that person; I did shatter.
Instead, I just tell him about the hooded man, how I think I’m being followed.
He digs his hands into the pockets of his pants, listens as I tell him about the encounter on the train.
“Big guy?” he says, looking down to open the file again. “Six feet, heavy?”
“I think so.” Bigger than Grayson, taller, broader.
“You’re sure?” He pauses and looks up at the sky, which is a bright blue through the red, gold, orange, of the leaves above, the gray of the buildings. “Of what you saw.”
He knows my history.
“Not completely,” I admit. “No.”
“You couldn’t see his face?”
“The hood.”
“Yeah,” he says, drawing out the word. He dips his head from side to side, runs a hand through his hair, considering. “But his face was completely obscured by the hood? That doesn’t seem right. You can usually see something.”
I shake my head, pushing into my memory. “No.”
Then I remember the pictures on my phone, scroll through the shots and show him the clearest one, which isn’t clear at all. He takes the device and squints at it.
“Hard to see his face, you’re right. Email it to me,” he says. “I’ll have our guys work their magic. Maybe we’ll get something.”
He hands the phone back to me. I quickly forward the image to his email address. We sit a moment, both of us lost in thought.
“So, look,” he says, dropping a hand on my arm. “The next time you see him, call me right away. Linger if you can safely. I’ll get there fast or send someone.”
“Okay,” I agree.
We talk awhile longer. He promises that he’s following up this lead with everything he has. He must have other cases, other priorities, but when I’m with him he always makes me feel like Jack is the most important thing on his mind. He’s convinced his superiors not to close the case, won’t turn it over to cold cases, even though he’s hinted that there’s pressure on him to do that. It’s been nearly a year.
“This new information,” he says. “I have a feeling about it.”
I do, too. Why does that make me feel worse instead of better?
“I’m not letting this go,” he says. “I promise you that.”
* * *
Though I’m not really dressed for it in heels and a pencil skirt, I walk up Fifth Avenue. My head is vibrating, thoughts spinning—Detective Grayson, and killers for hire, how maybe for a thousand dollars someone ended my husband’s life. A thousand dollars. And if that’s true, is the man who killed Jack the same hooded man following me? I swallow hard, there’s a bulb of fear and anger stuck in my throat.
I let the current of the city take me. Its energy pumps and moves; it doesn’t stop for any reason, ever, not even the death of the most important person in your life. It just keeps pulsing, pushing, a flow that you have no choice but to follow.
At the light, I dig into my bag and find that amber vial Layla gave me—not the sleeping pills, but the pills she said were for nerves. I dry swallow a white one. No idea what it is. I really don’t care as long as it quiets the siren of anxiety in my head.
Then I put my headphones in, and listen to my go-to, a David Bowie playlist. I keep walking, heading toward the office. I’m just getting into it, feeling lighter, less mired down, when the music stops and the phone starts ringing. Dr. Nash returning my call.
“Poppy?” she says when I answer. “Everything okay?”
Still marching up the street, I tell her everything—the dreams, Layla’s ideas, Detective Grayson’s revelations. I always think it looks crazy, when someone has her headphones in, gesticulating, walking, talking to someone whom no one else can hear. The modern age has turned us all into ranting schizophrenics.
“That’s a lot,” Dr. Nash says when I’m done. “Why don’t you come in on Thursday? We can talk it through.”
I almost tell her. That I’ve been mucking with my dosage, taking mystery pills, drinking, that last night I took Layla’s stronger sleeping meds, two of them. That I just took something else without even knowing what it is. But what does that make me? I stay quiet.
“Okay,” I agree. “Why am I dreaming more?”
It feels disingenuous to ask this question when I know she only has part of the information she needs to answer it. Still I’m hoping for an answer that makes me feel better.
“You’re probably not dreaming more?” It sounds like a question. “Perhaps you’re just remembering more, which—could be a good thing.”
How? I wonder. How can it be a good thing to lose Jack again night after night? I know her answer about dreams being the gateway to our subconscious, how it’s a place where we work out the things our conscious mind presses away. That pain is a doorway we must pass through to get to the other side of grief and loss. She’s saying something to that effect as I flash on the filthy bathroom floor, the heat of that stranger’s kiss.
“I’d like you to stay on this lower dosage,” she says.
Here again I almost spill it, then don’t. I silently vow to give Layla back her pills, stay on the dosage Dr. Nash prescribed. I’ll tough out any hard nights ahead. Because I want to get off the pills, too. I don’t want her to know how badly I need them, how painful is the night. Daytime is easy; I can busy-addict myself into constant motion. It’s when dusk falls, and energy lags, that the demons start whispering in my ears. When the sun goes down, darkness creeps in, coloring my world gray.
“If you dream vividly again, don’t forget that journal,” Dr. Nash is saying. “Write everything down for our session. Poppy, I really do want us to think of this as good news.”
“Good news,” I repeat, not feeling it.
“If your memories of that lost time are coming back, it means that you’re stronger. And if Detective Grayson has a lead, you may be closer to closure on what happened to Jack. I know you don’t think it matters, but it could be so healing to finally understand.”
That sketched face swims before me, just a drawing of someone who may or may not be real. Was that the last face Jack saw? The thought gnaws at my stomach, cinches my shoulders tight. Why wasn’t I with him?
I want to argue with her. How would it be healing to think someone hired a man to kill Jack? Who would do that? Why? A thought, something dark, tugs at me, something from one of my dreams last night. When I chase after it, it disappears.
“Maybe,” I say instead.
“I’ll see you Thursday,” she says. “But call me if you need me. Day or night. You know that.”
Then, just as I end the call and stop to put my phone in my bag—there he