It took a few moments to register. The memory was an old one, for one thing. The face, or what I could see of it, had changed. She looked different. What gave it away, what helped me recognize her, was the way her hair had fallen in front of her face during our tussle. That was almost more familiar than the features—the vulnerability of the pose, the way she now avoided eye contact. And of course, living in that house, that house I had always so closely associated with her, had kept her image in the forefront of my memory banks.
The woman pushed her hair to the side and looked up at me. I fell back to school days, the brick building barely two hundred yards from where we now lay. Now maybe it made some sort of sense. The mystery woman had been standing in front of the house where she used to live.
The mystery woman was Dina Levinsky.
Chapter 11
We sat atthe kitchen table. I made tea, a Tazo blend of Chinese green I’d bought at Starbucks. It was supposed to soothe. We’d see. I handed Dina a cup.
“Thank you, Marc.”
I nodded and sat across from her. I had known Dina my whole life. I knew her in the way only a kid can know another kid, the way only elementary-school classmates know each other, even—bear with me here—even though I don’t think we ever really spoke to one another.
We all have a Dina Levinsky in our past. She was the class victim, the girl so much an outcast, so often teased and abused, you wonder how she stayed sane. I never picked on her, but I stood on the sidelines plenty of times. Even if I didn’t reside in her childhood home, Dina Levinsky would still live in me. She lives in you too. Quick: Who was the most picked-on kid in your elementary school? Right, exactly, you remember. You remember their first and last name and what they looked like. You remember watching them walk home alone or sitting in the cafeteria in silence. Whatever, you remember. Dina Levinsky stays with you.
“I hear you’re a doctor now,” Dina said to me.
“Yes. And you?”
“A graphic designer and artist. I have a show in the Village next month.”
“Paintings?”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“You were always a good artist,” I said.
She cocked her head, surprised. “You noticed?”
There was a brief pause. Then I found myself saying, “I should have done something.”
Dina smiled. “No, I should have.”
She looked good. No, she had not grown into a beauty like those ugly-duckling-swans you see in the movies. First off, Dina had never been ugly. She had been plain. Maybe she still was. Her features were still too narrow, but they worked better on an adult face. Her hair, so drippy in her youth, had body now.
“Do you remember Cindy McGovern?” she asked me.
“Sure.”
“She tortured me more than anyone.”
“I remember.”
“Well, this is funny. I had an exhibit a few years back at a gallery in midtown—and Cindy shows up. She comes up to me and gives me a big hug and kiss. She wants to talk about old times, you know, like ‘Remember how dorky Mr. Lewis was?’ She’s all smiles and I swear, Marc, she didn’t remember what she’d been like. She wasn’t pretending either. She just totally blocked out how she’d treated me. I find that sometimes.”
“Find what?”
Dina raised the cup with two hands. “No one remembers being the bully.” She hunched over, her eyes darted about the room. I wondered about my own remembrance. Had I just been on the sidelines—or was that, too, some sort of revisionist history?
“This is so messed up,” Dina said.
“Being back in this house?”
“Yeah.” She put down the cup. “I guess you want an explanation.”
I waited.
Her eyes started darting again. “You want to hear something bizarre?”
“Sure.”
“This is where I used to sit. I mean, when I was a kid. We had a rectangular table too. I always sat in the same spot. When I came in here now, I don’t know, I just naturally gravitated to this chair. I guess—I guess that’s part of the reason why I was here tonight.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“This house,” she said. “It still has a pull on me. A hold.” She leaned forward. Her eyes met mine for the first time. “You’ve heard the rumors, haven’t you? About my father and what happened here.”
“Yes.”
“They’re true,” she said.
I forced myself not to wince. I had no idea what to say. I thought about the hell of school. I tried to add on to that the hell of this house. It was unfathomable.
“He’s dead now. My father, I mean. He died six years ago.”
I blinked and looked away.
“I’m okay, Marc. Really. I was in therapy—well, I mean, I still am. Do you know Dr. Radio?”
“No.”
“That’s his real name. Stanley Radio. He’s pretty famous for the Radio Technique. I’ve been with him for years. I’m much better. I’m over the self-destructive tendencies. I’m past feeling worthless. It’s funny though. I got over it. No, I mean it. Most victims of abuse have commitment and sex issues. I never did. I’m able to be intimate, no problem. I’m married now. My husband is a great guy. It’s not happily-ever-after, but it’s pretty damn good.”
“I’m glad,” I said, because I had no idea what else to say.
She smiled again. “Are you superstitious, Marc?”
“No.”
“Me neither. Except, I don’t know, when I read about your wife and daughter, I started to wonder. About this house. Bad karma and all that. Your wife was so lovely.”
“You knew Monica?”
“We’d met.”
“When?”
Dina did not reply right away. “Are you familiar with the termtrigger ?”
I remembered it from my medical school rotations. “You mean, in terms of psychiatry?”
“Yes. You see, when I read about what happened here, it was a trigger. Like with an alcoholic or anorexic. You’re never fully cured. Something happens—a trigger—and you fall back into bad patterns. I started biting my nails. I started doing physical harm to myself. It was like—it was like I had to face down this house. I had to confront the past in order to defeat it.”
“And that’s what you were doing tonight?”
“Yes.”
“And when I spotted you eighteen months ago?”