This man is trying to impress me, Sarah thought.
“—right? So basically I bet fifty on the US bombing Iran that weekend. Insane how they just let you do this kinda shit now.”
This man is trying hard to impress me. “Really? Then it happened!”
“YES!” He nearly knocked over his glass of wine. The middle-aged couple at the next table paused their conversation and glanced. “Yes, it fucking happened. That weekend!” He laughed and leaned back in his chair, vibrating, clearly aroused by himself. “I bet fifty and got seventy-five back!”
Whatever, she thought. He’ll do for tonight. “Woah. How did you know?”
“I’m just in tune with this shit, man.” He drew forward and almost stained his button-up with chocolate lava cake. “I just know when all these powerful, like, men will make their decisions. Like Trump – fuck him, right? Fuck him – but I can get into his head. I just know.”
“Wow,” Sarah replied. She sipped her wine and peered at him over the top of the glass; set it down, the fragile thing, and rolled her shoulders back. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Good idea,” he said, smiling and placing his credit card on the edge of the table. “Great idea.”
The sky was dark on the way to her house. Streetlights glistened on the windshield in patches. He drove with one hand. The other was placed firmly on Sarah’s left thigh. God, but he’s hot, she thought, He’s really hot.
Sarah – unlike the man next to her – lives in the suburbs. Twenty miles out from the city lay the house she rents, rigid and spotless. Bushes trimmed, grass cut. Floors scrubbed and surfaces dusted. The inside smells warm, slightly ashen, pleasant. Candle aroma seeps out from the tiny perforations in the walls she hasn’t found yet. But she searches.
Nearly every weekday, Sarah drives forty minutes into the city, both hands on the wheel and defensive. In her high-rise office she approves expense reports and paid time off for the higher-ups. She knows her presence is merely a justification for their existence. She goes home in the evenings and sits in the house she rents (alone) and reads her books (alone). It isn’t so bad, she thinks. She went to college for literature. It isn’t so bad. She gets to work from home on Fridays. And most Fridays, she goes on a Tinder date and saves on dinner. It isn’t so bad.
They arrived. Sarah led him through the front door, then locked it. With her back pinned against the inside of the door, he started kissing her. He pressed his body against hers, and she could feel him through his jeans – already.
She had to push him away slightly. “My room.”
Sarah led him through the living room, past the clear coffee table and shiny, leathery couch. Once she got up the stairs, she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. She was surprised to see the look on his face – strained, like he had smelled something awful. Then he smiled back abruptly, clearly caught off-guard. Weird, Sarah thought, and hoped she had imagined it.
He reached the top of the stairs and hesitated. “Wait. Ah – I need to – Can I hop in your bathroom real quick?”
“Sure. It’s right here.” She pointed toward the door nearest the stairs. “I’ll just be waiting in my room. Down the hall.”
“Thanks,” he grunted.
In her bedroom, she sat on the edge of her bed, wondering. Then a yell startled her upright.
“My god!” the man screamed. She could hear him run out the bathroom and down the stairs. “Holy shit holy shit holy shit,” he was repeating in complete terror.
“What? What the hell?” She ran down the hall and saw him grabbing his jacket and unlocking the front door.
“You’re fucking crazy, my god, you’re crazy, bitch!”
“What?” Sarah yelled back at him – but he was already gone, the door slammed in his wake.
His fear saturated the air and settled onto her shaking hands. She stood for a moment, eyes wide, stunned.
Then, she began to giggle. “What the hell was that?” she said to the empty house. Then giggled harder. “What?” Clearly, he saw something in the bathroom. And she was slightly afraid to look. So she just stood there and laughed at the absurdity.
She ran through the possibilities. Was it dirty in there? Did she somehow forget the bathroom every time she cleaned the house? Did she forget to flush? Was this man afraid of unflushed shit? Did she shit on the floor by mistake?
Slowly, she pushed open the bathroom door. It was a large room; a wide mirror sat along the left wall above a sink. A white tile floor, nearly glimmering. It smelled like cinnamon apples and candle wax in there, just as she intended. There was nothing unusual. She walked to the toilet and peered in: nothing. Behind the shower curtain: nothing.
Sarah started laughing again. “Whatever,” she said aloud. The guy was just weird. She went into her room and threw herself on the bed. Now that he was gone and not touching her, she could admit it to herself: the guy gave off weird vibes – like, the whole time.
A moment later, while she was still staring at the ceiling and adjusting to the empty air, Sarah heard sirens outside the window. At first, it was ambient noise. Then she realized she was hearing sirens from several different cars. Many, many cop cars. All outside her window.
Heavy, abrupt knocks on the front door, a booming voice: “Police. Come out with your hands up. Come out now.”
Oh my god, she thought, Oh my god, and stumbled out of bed.
Sarah had been sitting in the white, sterile interrogation room for three and a half hours. Her arms were folded around her body, left leg shaking, eyes heavy and staring at the clock on the wall. The only sounds were the clock’s tick – now showing twelve AM – and her own confusion.
A bald man finally entered the room. He wore a lanyard with a badge – “Mike” – and carried a manilla folder and a clear plastic cup filled halfway with water.
“Sorry, uh… Miss Engstrom – sorry for the wait.” He placed the water cup in front of her and sat across the table, blocking the room’s only exit.
“What the fuck is going on?” She was frantic. The cops hadn’t told her anything.
“I understand your confusion, ma’am. Look – I’m Detective Mike. I’m just going to ask you a few questions.” He placed a sheet and pen in front of her: Know Your Rights, it read at the top in bold script.
“Oh my god,” she mumbled while signing the paper.
“Okay, thank you, uh, Miss Engstrom. Can you tell me how you know David?”
“Tinder. I just met him today. What did he say? Why am I here?”
“Well, uh.” He cleared his throat. “Let me be honest, Sarah – can I call you that? – David told us some real concerning things about your house there.”
“What the fuck did he say?”
He opened the folder and put on a thin pair of glasses which he pulled from his shirt pocket. “Well, let’s cut to the chase.” His finger ran across text on a sheet of paper. “He stated – and I’m reading directly here – he told us there was, quote, ‘A body hanging from the ceiling in her bathroom. A body. It was rotting.’” He glanced up at her. She sat there, mouth open, stunned.
He looked back down. “He said there was, uh, quote, ‘Maggots all in it. Maggots crawling all around.’ Then there’s a note that he gagged...”
Mike traced down the page, clicking his tongue, then flipped it over. “Yeah, and here it says, quote, ‘It was hanging upside-down from its ankles. It was wet – still dripping. God, the smell.’”
He snapped the folder shut and looked up. “Now, Sarah,” Mike said, leaning in, “Any idea why he would say something like that to us?”
Sarah just sat, unable to move her mouth. Her mind was yelling at her: No no no. But there was a brief flash – that simple thought: Could you really have done it? And she closed her eyes, shook her head, and started to laugh – hard. Hysterical.
“Sarah?” There was genuine concern on Mike’s face.
She settled down and wiped laughter tears from the edge of her eyes. “What? Are you serious? Is this a joke?”
Mike leaned back. “This is no joke, Sarah. He sounded pretty… distressed. Sounded like he really saw something.”
“Yeah – something. Not a fucking dead body in my bathroom! Are you serious?”
“Alright, alright. Let’s work this out.”
Mike questioned her for an hour. He asked what her days typically looked like. He asked her to recount, in detail, where she was and what she did for the past two weeks. He wanted to know if she’d been feeling angry. If anyone had wronged her. Is she on any medication? Has she been sleeping well? And, he asked, how about your relationship with your family?
Sarah sat there with crossed arms and answered curtly, exasperated. “I go to work and I come home and I read.” “My sister is my only friend.” “I don’t get angry.” “I only speak to my sister – no one else.”
But, at times, her mind wavered – slightly, gently. Could you really have done it?
An hour of questioning had passed. “Alright, Sarah.” He gathered his papers. “You sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
She put her face in her hands. “Jesus Christ.” At that moment, Sarah realized, she was feeling pure misery.
She was alone for half an hour before he returned. He came in with another man – a tall guy with gelled up hair. He wasn’t wearing a badge.
“Hi.” He sat across from her. Mike stood by the wall.
Sarah glared at him. “Can I go home?”
“Let me explain some things to you,” he said. “While you were sitting here, we executed a search warrant on the property. An extensive search.”
Sarah held her breath. Extensive? She imagined men swarming around her home, opening doors and drawers. Their gloved hands exploring inside.
“We found nothing to corroborate David’s claims.”
Sarah breathed out hard. Mike glanced at her.
“We looked into him. Apparently he has a… history. With mental health, you know – issues. We think he might’ve been skipping his meds.”
“Thank god.” Her body felt limp.
“You’re free to go.”
“Okay. What – do I get a ride?”
The tall man chuckled. “Call an Uber, ma’am.” On the way out the door, he mumbled to himself. “Damn waste of time.”
The sky glowed a pale blue when the car dropped Sarah off outside her home. She gazed at the façade. A body. A rotting body. Maggots. Exhausted, she stepped inside. Ridiculous.
The cops had left a mess: bootprints on the hardwood floor, and everything felt out of place. Her skin rippled. She opened her phone and deleted Tinder. Ridiculous.
Sarah spent the weekend cleaning. On Monday, she called out of work and lay in her bed, still exhausted, and called her sister.
The phone rang three times, then Maria picked up. “Hi!” Her voice was characteristically bright.
“Hey, girl. You won’t believe what happened to me on Friday.”
By that evening, Maria was inside her home and sipping tea from a white ceramic mug. And she was only laughing because Sarah was.
“God, can you believe it? These men I find.”
Maria smiled. “Or the men that find you.”
Sarah wavered. What does she know? Her sister had married early, like their mother had wanted; her sister had a normal husband who worked construction; her sister went to H&M every weekend and bought new polyester blouses that seeped microplastics in the wash; her sister was pregnant.
“How’s mom?” Sarah asked, changing the subject.
“She’s good. But, you know… not great. She misses you.”
Sarah winced. She changed the subject back. “Do you want to look at my bathroom?” Her head was buzzing.
Maria’s face was steady. “The police searched it, didn’t they?”
“Yes, but…” Could you really have done it? Sarah laughed, sipped her tea. “I don’t know. It – It’s just so ridiculous. Right?”
“Yes. It is.” And soon her sister gathered her things and left, leaving her alone in that house, empty and stagnant.
That night, she opened the app store. Her finger hovered over the download button for Tinder. She hesitated a beat, thought it over, then downloaded Hinge instead.
Sarah was more careful scrolling through the profiles. It took her two weeks to find another guy.
She took him out to dinner at a taco place. He was shy at first, but by the end he was rambling on about Quentin Tarantino. He wasn’t as hot as the last guy, Sarah thought, but he was sweet. So she finished her horchata and invited him back to her place. She drove while he sat in the car with legs drawn together and smudged glasses, clearly nervous. Sarah thought it was a nice change of pace.
At her place, he hesitated in the doorway. “Come in,” Sarah said. “My room,” and smiled.
He smiled back, then stepped through and followed her up the stairs. At the top, she could see that his hands were shaking.
“I – um… Bathroom,” he stammered.
Sarah paused. Her mind was racing now. “Yeah, right there.” She pointed toward the door, slightly ajar.
He went inside and closed the door behind him. A moment passed before she heard a loud thud, then the doorknob shook wildly. The click of the door unlocking and swinging open.
He stood in the threshold, eyes wide. Sarah couldn’t see anything past him; at his back was only darkness. He looked down, slowly, and vomited – all over her floor.
“Jesus.” She stepped back as her own throat filled with nausea.
Without a word, he walked down the stairs with deliberate steps and opened the front door. Then he ran – full speed, away from her house. The door hung open.
Sarah just stood there, at the top of the stairs, staring at the puddle of vomit. Her fingers were numb. The inside of the bathroom was dark and vaporous. And then the sirens came.
In the interrogation room, Sarah and Mike sat staring at each other, the tick of the clock filling the air.
Mike spoke first. “It appears, Sarah, that we, uh, find ourselves here again.”
“Yes,” she said blankly.
“Interesting circumstances, isn’t it? Another body.” He chuckled.
Sarah’s lip twitched. She put her face in her hands – felt the tears coming; pushed them back, pushed them deep. Her voice came out muffled. “What the fuck is going on?”
The door opened. The same tall man with slick hair entered, and Mike gave up his seat for him. “Hello,” the tall man said gravely.
Sarah just looked at him. “What the fuck is going on?”
The man cleared his throat. “Sarah, we’ve searched your home… again. Quite thoroughly. More extensively than the last time.”
Sarah’s hands shook and she gritted her teeth.
The man continued: “We need more information. You understand that, right?” He stretched his arm across the table, palm upturned. “Your phone.”
Sarah exploded. “My fucking phone? Are you people serious? This is bullshit. I’ve never killed anyone! I’ve never done anything!” A single tear fell down her cheek. She wiped it, slammed her fist on the table. “I’ve never done anything!”
The tall man did not flinch. His palm was still there, waiting. “Settle down, Sarah. We have a warrant to search your phone.”
“No. No – you can’t search my phone.” She was deciding if she could afford a lawyer. Could you have really done it?
“Let me explain something to you, Sarah.” The man rose out of his chair. She looked up at him with eyebrows curved in pain.
“My job,” he said, “is to search. It’s what I do.” He leaned down, slowly, until his mouth was right next to Sarah’s face. She could feel his breath hot on her ear. He whispered: “And I’m going to search you. I’m going to search you however the fuck I want.”
He sat back down. Sarah reached into her pocket and placed her phone on the table. The man took it, put it in his own pocket, and left the room. Mike walked after him.
She sat in that room for three more hours before Mike entered again. “You’re free to go.”
Sarah gave up on the apps. She sat at her desk, approved expense reports, and drove home. The façade loomed, beckoning but neat. She read and filled her library with horror paperbacks. On Fridays, she made dinner and went to bed early. The bathroom lay open beyond her bedroom door, insidious. She emerged restless every morning and crossed that threshold and thought: Could you really have done it?
About three months after her last date, there was a new face at work. He passed by her cubicle and stole smiling glances. She smiled after him, thinking him cute. But in her mind flashed images of bodies and writhing insects, and she recoiled from herself and continued staring at her computer screen. Then at home, she’d scrub the bathroom violently to the ringing in her ears: No no no…
The new face at work caught her reading at her desk. His obligatory smile turned into genuine delight. “Hey! Shirley Jackson! I love that stuff.”
Sarah looked up. He had warm, friendly eyes that wrinkled at the corners. One side of his smile was higher than the other. And he smelled like patchouli and cedar. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, I read all her books in college. I’m Louis.” He put out his hand, then pulled it back. “Sorry, uh…”
“I’m Sarah,” she said, interrupting his anxiety and putting out her own hand. He shook it and smiled.
They began to talk about books at work. After a few weeks, he asked her to lunch. “At my favorite spot in the city,” he said. “Then to the park on the lake.” And she realized she hadn’t been out in the sun with a man she liked in quite a long time.
Louis was kind, smart, and stable. He lived in an apartment in the city with two roommates, a cat, and a wall full of books. She’d sit next to him close while watching nature documentaries in his living room. He’d drop her off outside her house and she’d go to bed and dream deeply of nothing. On the phone, Maria said she was proud of her.
After two months, Louis asked about her family. The weather was beginning to turn, but it was still warm enough to sit outdoors and slurp oysters. Louis placed down an empty shell and asked: “Do you talk to your parents much?”
Sarah gazed across the table and anticipated the threads fraying. “No. I don’t.”
“Why not?” His eyes moved across her face rapidly.
She turned away. “They don’t like the person I am.”
“What happened?”
Sarah’s breath held a moment. Her hands lay in her lap, left over right, then right over left. “Louis, I… it’s complicated.” Fingers running through her hair. “My parents thought I’d be someone I wasn’t. And our house, you know… we always had a full house. There were always people going in and out.” The sun was setting, and she gazed at the dimming pink above. “There were just so many people in that house. So many people.”
“Well, I like you.”
Sarah looked at him. And there his eyes went, scanning her. “I think you’re a very nice girl, Sarah.” He picked up an oyster, slurped it, and wiped his hands.
When she thought of him that night, the buzzing in her mind receded. She woke up and wanted him next to her. This could be her life, Sarah thought, she could build this life; and she’d lay in her bed and look up at the ceiling and see a small fissure there. And she’d smile.
After dinner one cool night, she said, “Louis, let’s go back to my place.”
He just looked at her, eyes darting around her face as if trying to take in every part at once. He leaned in and kissed her and said, “Yes, okay.”
They pulled into her driveway for the first time. Sarah held his hand and led him through the front door. She glanced up at the house – once. Just once.
She stepped inside with him and suddenly felt ill. Images of broken bodies projected on her eyelids. She pushed them away. No, she thought, I’m doing it right.
She led him upstairs. Louis seemed astonished. “Wow, your home is beautiful.”
Sarah managed a giggle. “Thank you. As beautiful as you, I hope.” He smiled, blushed, and she noted that he liked being called beautiful.
Sarah paused at the top of the stairs and noticed that her own hands were shaking.
“Sarah,” Louis said gently, “What’s wrong?” His hand curled over hers.
“Nothing, um… I just – Can you –” She stopped, took a deep breath. “Do you mind just taking a look in the bathroom?”
Louis formed a confused smile. “Your bathroom? Is everything okay?”
Bile rose in Sarah’s throat. “Yes, the bathroom. Just take a look, please.”
The bathroom door was slightly open and let out no light. He took one last look at her, then turned toward the door. He pushed it open and flicked the light switch.
He stood there for a moment. Sarah remembered that vomit pooling on the floor. How it soaked through the floorboards and dripped out into the kitchen underneath. She clutched her stomach. Could you really have done it?
Louis turned around. “You have a very nice bathroom, Sarah.”
She let out a sigh. Oh my god. “Thank you, Louis.”
“Is that what you wanted to show me? Your clean bathroom?” He smiled and took her hand again.
“Yes.” And then she laughed – hysterical. And Louis laughed with her.
She led him into her bedroom and turned on the light. There lay her bed, neatly made. And before he could say anything more she kissed him, insistent, and at that moment the only thing running through her mind was, I love this man.
Louis returned her kisses and placed his hands on her waist. And then he stopped. He looked past her. For a moment, she could feel his breathing heavy on her ear.
Sarah turned toward him, hoping he would express what she was thinking. “What? What is it?”
But he was looking at a full-length mirror that lay against the far wall. She turned around and saw the two of them reflected in it, and she smiled. But Louis was not smiling.
He pulled his body away from hers. Slowly, he began to turn around. And he saw something there that made him stumble backward.
“Louis? What is it?” No no no. Her mind was alight with it, blaring like a siren. No no no.
“Sarah.” He was staring wide-eyed straight at the spot the mirror reflected – the blank, clean wall.
“Louis?” Sarah was crying now. She couldn’t stop the tears now.
There were tears in his eyes, too. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“Louis.” Her voice was breaking. “Please, just tell me what you see. Please.”
And he turned and ran out the door, and she never saw him again.
On her way home from work, Sarah stopped at a Target. She sat there and looked out her windshield across the parking lot. She saw a woman walking by with a small child, hand-in-hand. She saw a cop car. She saw an elderly couple loading groceries into a van. She looked up and saw a turret of surveillance cameras pointed in all directions.
She closed her eyes and her hands shook. How many of these people, she thought, hold secrets like that? A tear fell into her lap. How many of them are hiding things like that? She looked at herself in the rearview mirror. Could you really have done it?
Sarah went inside the store and came out with a rope.
In her bedroom, Sarah is staring at the mirror. She is upside down, naked, tied by her ankles from the ceiling fan, and she is staring at herself – there, in the mirror. Her arms are splayed above her head; her hair cascades toward the shimmering floor; and she stares at her own body in the mirror.
From this position, she can see it.
-- Natasha Mardare is a writer from Chicago. Her other work can be found at natasha-m.com.
