LITMIR.BIZ

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that was before.

      And now . . . half a year later, sitting in the unassuming, well-appointed blue, a sitting room neat as a pleat, across from Lt. Colonel Charles and his fair wife, Dorothy . . . they might as well have stapled their belly buttons to their spines. Rot gut. A blushing guilt.

      There she was, offering cookies or tea or maybe a sandwich. There he was, the crewcut haircut now gray, the black-and-white soldier photographs framed behind resting on the nook. The blue-and-green curtains, the doilies on the side table, spick-and-span, the sepia wedding photograph on the mantel, the kind words . . .

      No, there would be no crying today. In fact, there would be no crying at all. No dramatics.

      They were not dramatic people, the Krauses. No, the opposite. There was an effortless grace. In her ivory sweater set and onyx hair . . . there was a quiet resilience that condemned even as it enthralled.

      They would not break down. There would be no Jerry Springer moment, no taking out their baby’s old tokens and weeping, no references to “before the accident.”

      They were matter-of-fact. They were transcendent. They were everything that Danek, Lars, Brad, and Katy were not. They were the old time. The old way. The Greatest Generation.

      It wasn’t until leaving, after the third afternoon of filming, walking down the walkway, gliding past the white picket fence and into the horrible now, that Danek had ever truly realized the meaning of the expression.

      The Greatest Generation.

      (There will never be another.)

      It was a drive due east, past the Hampton Inn, to get to Shauna. It was a drive where there were a million things to say but better not say them. Brad mentioned something about the Packers, met with a dull nod.

      They had known they were young but they had not known they were foolish. Until now. They would not forget it. They would make it up to the Krauses. This imaginary crime. They had wanted to take advantage of them. Yes, it was before they knew them. Yes. But that had been their motive. To make them cry. To stir up drama. To get a good grade. The thought now, a lump in the throat.

      Pulling up to the curb, the apartment complex, apologizing from the pavement.

      And inside . . . look here, Shauna Boggs.

      There she sits, must be sitting anyway, in the living room slash dining room slash . . . bedroom? What exactly is this place? This crappy little shit-hole in the middle of town yet not here. You would walk past it and never know it was here. Seeing it and not seeing it at the same time. A bland oasis.

      Beige, what is it, stucco? Or a form of stucco? Faux stucco? An apartment complex built in the ’70s, maybe late ’60s. Tame as a Twinkie.

      And there she sits, three-hundred-pound Shauna Boggs with her not-blonde, not-brown hair, somehow greasy at the scalp and dry at the ends. A cautionary tale in split ends.

      She is wearing a sweatshirt. With a dog on it. The dog stares plaintively from her gloppy, overflowing chest. Below that, jeans, stretch jeans with an elastic waist. Shmoo jeans. Shmoo sweatshirt. Shmoo look. Her skin, a lightless sort of beige. A paste. Her eyes, swallowed by her cheeks. Her mouth, thin and dry and blending backward into her face.

      From her: dramatics.

      As difficult as it was, the students, to see themselves, to be themselves, at the Lt. Colonel’s house, here they were like kings. Although she didn’t offer them anything. More like she sat and waited, waited for what . . . them to like her? Them to accept her. Them to tell her she was there.

      How could they turn off the camera when . . . when behind her there is a sink full of dishes, sideways on a slant, and at her feet is a cat toy and she has the kitty litter right under the table. No, it was too good. Keep the camera running. Let’s get this.

      And the tears. The blubbering. Slobby, sniveling tears into the Kleenex and the snot, too. A lesson in Americanism. Now. Hysterics. Drama in a stucco complex. Sadness the depth of a cereal box.

      So, there she is, for all to see, forever, sobbing into the camera, saying, “I just . . . I just can’t understand who would do such a thing. . . . And how . . . even now . . . after all these years . . . they could live with themselves.” Snivel. Blow nose. Blot face.

      “I know I couldn’t.”

EIGHT

      The motel clerk who’d hired Beth all those centuries ago had a taut stretched face from smoking and stretching and smoking and stretching her skin. Pull pull pulling it tight tight and over her ears, sewing it, bolting it down. It seems she’d hit it big, this banana-haired lady, married an auto exec, moved to Bloomfield Hills. Those coupon days back in Muskegon, a thing of never-talking, a thing of leave-behind.

      Here, at the Radisson Lobby Bar in Bloomfield Hills, you would not believe she had been the one to actually hire Beth. But Danek and Katy had driven out here, three hours, to get it right.

      It wasn’t drinking time but black roots was having a drink. The white wine spritzer set down before her at the lobby bar, guilty, on the tiny circle table, had prompted her.

      “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

      Danek and Katy had smiled politely, not wanting to seem snooty, wanting to take off this college kid armor, leave it at coat-check, don it later. Now we are investigators. Now we are friends.

      Danek had typed up the list of questions. Katy would ask them, of course, she’d be better. Put the lady at ease. Girl talk.

      “Do you remember the afternoon you hired Beth Krause? At the Green Mill Inn?”

      “Barely. Honestly, look. It’s been awhile.”

      Staring nervously into the camera. How do I look? Fluffing up her hair. Danek behind the camera . . . fine . . . you look fine. Great even. Don’t change a thing. Just try to focus on the questions. Try to remember.

      “Even just a small thing?”

      “Well, I . . . I remember she seemed kind of out of place, you know? She seemed kind of like . . . well, I was thinking, What do you want this shit-ass job for? A pretty girl like you.”

      Katy laughed with her, a casual we’re-in-it-together laugh. Keep her happy. Keep her comfortable.

      “I guess I worked there, so why not, right? I wasn’t that bad to look at. Not then anyway.”

      “Oh, c’mon, you look great, are you kidding?”

      Keep her cozy. All is well.

      She shrugs now, “A shitty job’s a shitty job, you know. No matter how you slice it.”

      “That is for sure. I’ve had my fair share.”

      A lie, of course. Katy had never had a job, other than babysitting her cousin over summers in Saginaw. A family job. A job to say you’ve had a job. Teach the value of a dollar. But not really. Not a crapsicle french fry job, not a frazzle-brain, answer-twelve-phone-lines front desk job. A kid job, no danger of an accidental brush with humanity. That cement block future of toil.

      “You have?” Blondie looks relieved. We’re peers. “Oh good. Well, that’s what this was.”

      “And what did it entail?”

      Danek behind the camera, Danek thinking about ordering a drink. Maybe a gin and tonic. Maybe a Pimm’s. No, too summery. Maybe a whiskey and Coke. Maybe one for Katy, too. That might work.

      “You know, we had to check people in, check ’em out. Simple stuff.”

      The tiny circle table gets emptied. A replacement drink gets set down. No questions asked. Guess she’s a regular.

      “Was there ever any weird people coming through? When you were there? Anyone you’d suspect?”

      Slurp.

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