Please Ignore Vera Dietz(53)
Author: A.S. King

WE ONLY MADE ABOUT $100 FOR THEM. IT WAS NEVER ENOUGH FOR JENNY. JOHN TOLD ME THAT HE WASN’T GOING TO DO IT ANYMORE, AND I WANTED TO GET AWAY FROM JENNY, SO I BROKE UP WITH HER. SHE WENT FUCKING CRAZY. SHE SAID SHE’D GET ME ARRESTED FOR WHAT WE DID. SHE SAID SHE’D PUT ME IN JAIL. SHE SAID SHE’D GET CORSO TO KILL ME. THEN SHE SAID SHE WAS GOING TO BURN DOWN THE STORE BECAUSE SHE HATES HER STEPDAD FOR MAKING HER WORK THERE. SHE SAID SHE WAS GOING TO TELL PEOPLE THAT I DID IT. SO I CAME TO YOU. I NEVER THOUGHT YOU’D ACTUALLY GO TO ZIMMERMAN’S. I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO, VERA. I NEEDED SOMEONE TO KNOW THE TRUTH.
HISTORY I’D RATHER FORGET—AGE SEVENTEEN—AUGUST (LAST ONE)

I lied to Dad and told him I’d forgotten to go to the office store for school supplies. Because he had to find a coupon from the morning’s paper, I was a little late.

It was 7:03 when I arrived. Zimmerman’s looked normal from the outside. I drove past first, and then parked between two pickup trucks. I didn’t see Charlie’s bike anywhere.

The “open/closed” sign on the door read CLOSED, even though they closed at eight on Sundays. The two sheltie pups in the front window seemed agitated. When I opened the door, the smell of gasoline overwhelmed me and I was instantly nervous that the whole place was going to explode any second.

“Hello?” I yelled. “Charlie?”

I took two steps in, but my legs refused to take me any farther. Then I saw Jenny, a small red gasoline canister in hand, ranting behind the glass in the reptile area. She tipped the spout into each cage and poured a trail of gas through the room. Then she saw me and her eyes bulged with the kind of insane evil you see in horror movies.

Right then, as my stomach moved into my throat and the gallons of adrenaline took over, everything went into shock mode. Everything looked different, everything sounded different. The animals even seemed to know what was going on. The birds to my right squawked and pecked on the bars of their cages. I heard the cats in the back hissing and the adoption center dogs barking danger barks. I’m pretty sure a lot of the fish were already floating. I didn’t see the usual darting of neon tetras, and the guppy tanks were all dark.

“Get out!” she screamed.

“Where’s Charlie?” I yelled.

“Charlie’s f**king dead.”

“Is he here?” I pictured him tied to a chair or something. The way she stood there, like a character in a Stephen King novel, she was capable of anything.

I’d been in the store for less than a minute so far, and it felt like an eternity. My whole body was shaking and I felt like throwing up. From what I saw, Charlie wasn’t there, but that didn’t stop me from worrying. (Only for a second did I think maybe he sent me on purpose. Only for a tiny millisecond did I imagine that he wanted me burned alive along with the multitude of helpless animals. Only for an itsy bitsy nanosecond did I suspect that they were working together to frame me for the whole thing.)

I was steps from the door and ready to bolt when twelve-year-old Vera kicked in. She reminded me that my mother abandoned me. She showed me pictures in my head of abandoned, charred puppies. She froze my legs.

I said to twelve-year-old Vera, “I can’t do anything for them! I don’t even have keys!”

Twelve-year-old Vera said, “But you have to do something!”

I said, “We have to get out of here!”

She said, “We have to save the animals!” and wouldn’t let my legs move.

I said, “Stop being so crazy! Can’t you see? I can’t do anything to save them!” It was true. I felt horrible about it and it sucked, but I couldn’t save them. I just couldn’t.

Twelve-year-old Vera sobbed in my head. I tried to mentally hug her. I said, “Sometimes there are no choices, Vera.” She answered by making me think of my mother again.

Before I could argue, I heard the backroom door slam shut, loudly, and it snapped me back to reality. Jenny Flick was about to burn the place down—and she didn’t care if I was in it or not.

Twelve-year-old Vera finally allowed me the use of my legs, and I pushed myself out the door.

When I got out, I felt dizzy from the fumes. I ran to my car and started it.

Shock warped time. When the clock on the stereo lit up, it said 7:07. It had only been four minutes since I parked, but it felt like an hour. I backed out of the parking space, drove to the farthest corner of the parking lot, and thought about calling 911, but called Charlie instead. The first two times it rang out and went to his voicemail, and I started to panic. (That would be panic inside of panic inside of panic.) The third time, he picked up.

“Dude!” I said. “She’s burning it down!”

“What?”

“Zimmerman’s!”

“You went?”

“Yeah!” My diaphragm was so jumpy, I had to catch my breath. I reached for a tissue. “Where are you?”

“Hiding.” I heard him cover the phone and heard muffled talking.

My concern for him turned into a mix of anger and embarrassment and disappointment and pretty much every bad emotion I could think of. Charlie Kahn had just dragged me into something so awful, I’d gone nearly schizo from it—and he wasn’t even in trouble. He was fine. Probably driving around, drinking beer.

“Are you still there?” I asked.

He was silent but for heavy breathing.

“Are you drunk?”

“Not yet.”

“Charlie, I—”

“I didn’t tell you everything, Vera.”

“It doesn’t matter. You need to go to the cops before she does.”

“Maybe I belong in jail.”

“Don’t say that.” What I meant was: Oh my God, stop being such a drama queen.

“No, Vera. Maybe I do. You don’t know what I’ve done.”

This just pissed me off. “Fine, Charlie. Do what you want.”

“I’ll write you a note or something. I’ll leave it where only you can find it.”

“What?” I said. What I meant was: Say that again so you can hear how stupid you sound. Because that’s going too far, isn’t it? I mean, there’s a line between pathetic and dangerous, right?

“I’m going to leave you something,” he repeated—without an ounce of noticing how stupid he sounded.

I said, “Whatever,” and hung up.

I looked at the clock. 7:12. It felt like I’d been gone at least five hours already. I looked over at Zimmerman’s. So far, no fire. Still time to call 911, but rather than dial those three little numbers, I drove toward the mall exit because I wanted to get away from it all first. When the light turned green, I took a left and drove a minute up the strip, to the car wash. When I got there, I put the car in park and picked up my phone to call, but then I heard the fire station’s sirens, followed by fire engines and an ambulance racing down the main strip. Rather than get more involved than I already was, I rummaged through my purse to find a five-dollar bill, fed it to the machine, and drove my car into the auto wash until the buzzer sounded and the red light came on, directing me to stop.