to bite the inside of her cheek so hard that she can taste the blood in her mouth. She wants to rip her vampire teacher’s tongue out. Instead she leaves quietly, with what remains of her family.
On the way out the door, she hears a female juror tell the media she hopes Knodel’s family will never have to go through this pain again.
Lina
Like clockwork: the second Lina isn’t thinking of him, he can feel it. Across a couple of Indiana state roads he can sense the reins loosening and he texts a frown face. She has just fallen asleep in her hotel room when the vibration jolts her awake.
Why the long face, Aidan, what’s wrong? she writes almost immediately. She thinks how good it must feel to be him. There must be a wonderful sensation of power in knowing that if he wants anything at all from her, all he has to do is touch a button.
Maybe you have a pic to send me, Aidan writes.
Lina does, in fact, have a whole album of prepared pictures for him. Two days ago in the tanning salon she stood naked on the carpet with its brown lotion stains and the lime glow of the humming beds seeping out from other rooms and held her broke-ass phone up above her head and snapped a picture of her body. This is what she sends him now, praying the phone won’t die before she gets a response and praying other people won’t use up her battery by texting her because everyone who isn’t Aidan is a barnacle on her leg.
Aidan writes, A new hot pic would be nice.
Fuck him, she thinks, but she’s laughing at the same time because the more he wants from her the better, and the more he is unimpressed the more she wants to impress him.
She sends him a picture of her haircut.
He writes, Sexy lingerie would be nice.
She strips down to her black lace panties and push-up bra that she bought for him. She lies down on the bed and takes a few pictures of herself and sends the best one.
Her mobile phone is dying, but she has an iPod with a decent amount of battery left. On the iPod she can use Facebook messenger to communicate with him. So she begs him to switch over. It’s easy for him. He can access Facebook from his phone.
Lina writes, Please get on Facebook, my phone’s dying!
She didn’t bring a charger. No matter how much she prepares to see him, the universe contrives to wreck something. At the last minute one of her children will need a certain stuffed animal she put in the wash, or her car won’t start.
She strips down to nothing in the hotel bed. If she’s naked he might sense her openness in the atmosphere. She closes her eyes and imagines that at any moment he will knock on the door to Room 517. She got the room, just in case. She was going to meet a friend in his neck of the woods for drinks, then the friend canceled at the last minute, but Lina already had the room and the kids were with Ed, so she stayed over. She told Aidan where she was, she told him it must be less than ten miles from his house. She knew it was a long shot that he would come and meet her, but it felt better to sleep closer to where he was sleeping anyhow.
Please get on Facebook, she repeats.
But he doesn’t, and he doesn’t write back. It seems the picture is enough. Lina tries to console herself with the idea that a picture of her is the last thing he looked at before he fell asleep. She tries to fall back asleep, but it takes her a long time. She’s upset about how much money she spent on a hotel room for nothing.
In the morning she packs up her things slowly, still hoping to hear from Aidan. That he might wake up and write, Sorry, fell asleep! Where u at?
At some point the hope fades and she checks out of the hotel. It’s a sunny day; otherwise she knows she would be tumbling into a depression. She’s driving through Mooresville listening to music and then suddenly, she can’t take it anymore.
Can I send you a message right now? she writes to him. What she means is, Can I say exactly what I want, or is your wife there watching?