It was January 28th
when Alice realized she’d been getting the words to her favorite song by The
Shins wrong. She was enveloped in her couch which was frigid, except for the
places where her bare skin was radiating heat and sticking mercilessly to the
leather. She let the music wash over her preoccupied brain. In a moment of
curiosity, she pulled up the lyrics and gazed at the top line that to her
dismay, read “Eyeless in the morning,” not, as she had believed for the last
five years, “Alice in the morning.” Private shame washed over her. The song she
thought was about her was in fact, just another song. It wasn’t that she was
vain, but she was desperately searching for meaning in everything. Isn’t that
the point?
Alice
was of Italian heritage not that you’d know it by looking at her. She stood at
5 feet ten inches when she stood up straight, which wasn’t very often. Alice
had light blonde hair that had bits of silver randomly dispersed through it. It
was always hanging like paper from her face, draping uneasily. She had brown
eyes and a penchant for World War II stories.
After
the disappointment of the morning, Alice wrapped a pink terry-cloth robe around
her pale white, purple, and sometimes green body. The fabric stuck to her
fingertips, which annoyed the hell out of her, but not enough to make her get
dressed yet. She walked out the front door and sat on the top stair of the
porch of the house she was renting. It was the perfect winter morning in
Providence. 62 degrees and windy. Providence was like that--- all snow and
frigidity one day, then balmy and amiable the next. She sipped her morning tea
(not enough honey) as she watched the garbage men do their work. She forgot to
take the can to the curb again. Her roommate would be pissed, but Alice didn’t
particularly care. It’s not as if she was ever around to worry about the smell
or the flies. Alice was only accountable to herself in this world of
strangeness and solitude in which she had sequestered herself.
She
opened her journal and began to write about love and lust and mistaken song
lyrics when she was interrupted by a UPS guy in his brown shorts. “Excuse me,”
he muttered. “Are you Hillary Cruz?”
“Nope. She’s not
home, but I’ll go ahead and sign for the package if that’s cool with you. She’s
my roommate.”
Alice
signed the electronic pad illegibly and accepted the parcel as she surveyed the
delivery man. He was tall and good looking, she supposed. He had blue eyes.
“Your
name?” he asked as he began to turn around.
“Lisa…Lisa
Brown.”
The
second the UPS driver was back in his truck, Alice raced inside forgetting her
tea on the porch. She grabbed her keys and massacred the tape on the box that
wasn’t for her. Violating her roommate’s privacy always got her excited. She
was flushed as she pulled out a box that read “Cannon Rebel T3i.” Alice thought
to herself, “Ah, so this is the package Hillary had been anticipating. No harm
in breaking it in for her, right?” She removed the layers of paper and
cardboard and bubble wrap and Styrofoam to find a smooth, black object that was
much heavier than she expected.
That
afternoon, Alice got dressed and walked to Thayer Street. She took pictures of
the simultaneously kind and creepy man that gave away free bracelets a the
thrift store, lovers sharing ice-cream, legs touching under tables, skinny kids
skateboarding next to the entrance of Urban Outfitters, a lost piece of paper
skipping down the road. She took in the smell of the incense above the tarot
card reading place. It was never a smell she particularly enjoyed in large
quantities, but diluted in the winter wind, the smell was soft and longing.
Walking
along, now bored with the new device and looking for new inspiration, Alice walked
into a shop that had yellow primrose curtains hanging in the front window next
to a sign that read “Esther and Olivia.” Inside, the store was cramped, poorly
lit, and full of treasures and oddities. Next to a bin full of lace doilies and
beetles frozen in amber, was a large, worn trunk with brown leather straps and
three rusting locks. The locks specifically captured her attention. As Alice
was admiring the trunk’s apparent age and beauty, a tall, lanky man with brown
hair and an almost-unibrow approached her.
“Ah. I see you’ve
met our newest treasure,” he said with a warm grin.
“It’s lovely. Does
it open?”
“Actually, no.
We’ve never had the keys to it, you see. Of course I wanted to see if there was
anything inside, but I never quite got around to it. For all I know, it could
be full of cash.”
“Or a severed
head,” she laughed. Her interest
growing, Alice’s eyes focused on the middle lock. “Do you mind if I take a
picture of it?” She gestured to the black weight around her neck.
“If you buy it,
you can do whatever you want with it,” he half-joked.
“Okay then. How
much is it?”
“I was going to
charge $400 for it, but you have a nice look about you, so I’ll take $200.”
“I could maybe do $100. I am a poor college
student after all,” Alice said with what she hoped was a sparkle in her eye. An
attempt at flirting that just seemed hollow. She never was sure if she was
doing it right.
The man agreed.
After the payment
was transacted, Alice realized with a thud that she had no means of transporting
the massive trunk home. At that very moment, the man said, “Listen, I’m about
to close up shop. Can I give you and your new trunk a ride home? I noticed you
don’t have a car with you.”
“Are you serious?
That would be amazing! Thank you so much!” So with a little bit of sweat and a
lot of clever maneuvering around taxidermied rabbits and racks of smoking
jackets, the trunk was loaded into the back of the shopkeeper’s truck.
“I’m Alice, by the
way,” she said, holding out her right hand with chipping emerald polish on the
fingernails.
“Good to meet you
Alice. I’m Alan Hart,” he replied, and with a strong, powerful hand
reciprocated the handshake. Alan opened the door for Alice like any gentleman
would, then went around to the driver’s side. He hopped in and they began their
drive. He pushed in a CD. It was The Shins. Alice turned to her left with a
queer look in her eye. “That’s funny,” she said to Alan. “I was just listening
to this song this morning.”
“Aren’t the Shins
the greatest?” he replied. “Every time I hear this song, I always think they’re
singing the words ‘Alice in the morning’ instead of ‘Eyeless in the morning.’”
“Me too…” Alice
said, now a little unsettled and relieved to be arriving home. “Oh, take this
left. I’m the third house on the right. That one, just up ahead.”
It was already
dark. That’s the thing about Providence. Even in 60 degree weather, it still
gets dark around 5:00 in the winter. Tonight seemed especially dark. The homes
next to Alice’s, normally lit up and boisterous with frat boys and the
occasional family of 9, were all dark. It was like outer space. Black and
silent, punctuated by street lights and the odd set of headlights every now and
then.
“Okie dokie. Just
let me know where you want me to put this thing.” Alan motioned to the trunk in
the back.
“Actually, I think
I’ll just have my roommate help me. She should be home in a few hours. If you
could just help me get it to the porch that would be great.” She wasn’t sure
what it was, but steadily a rising panic was growing inside her. She could feel
her heart rate quicken, though she tried to reassure herself. “It’s happening
again,” she thought, fearfully.
“Now really,
Alice. What kinda guy, let alone businessman, would I be if I didn’t help a new
friend and customer carry a trunk into her home? It’s no trouble at all. I’ve
got time.”
Going against her
better judgment, Alice agreed as she compulsively smoothed her skirt against
her thighs, a nervous tic she’d had since her Catholic school education. She
grabbed her purse and walked cautiously to her front door, the enormous camera
hitting her body with each step, like a heartbeat. Alan followed her every step
toward the dark house. He could see that there was no one home. It would just
be the two of them. Once they were inside, he could make his move. Alice
struggled to find the brass key with the square top amidst her unused gym
membership tags, the key to her parent’s house, and the other miscellaneous
fungi that gradually consume a key ring.
She inserted the
key into the lock with certainty. It was this certainty that assuaged her
fears. Her decision was made. She knew how to protect herself. She held the
screen door open for Allan, who could barely see over the top of her purchase.
“Where do you want me to set it?”
“Right in the
living room is great,” she almost whispered.
As Alan bent down
to place the trunk on the floor, he thought he smelled roses. “So Alice, I was
thinking,” he said nervously as he straightened himself and began to turn
toward the door. “Would you maybe wanna get dinner some ti---” With a loud
crunching, Alice felt Alan’s skull give beneath the deer-shaped brass bookend in
her clenched hand. His face hit the hard wood floor (original to the 1920s
style home) with a deaf smack. Alice thought the scene looked like a heap of
corn syrup and crumpled paper.
“Well.” She said
out loud to no one. “Better him than me.” She moved toward the door, looked
back once at the unopened trunk, the heap of human next to it, and strolled shaken,
but sure, out the door and into the Providence darkness, the black camera still
hanging from her spindly neck.
