Blonde Cancelled

The first thing I noticed was the smell. Not rot, not exactly. More like the inside of a violin case, that trapped breath of old wood and resin and something animal. It was coming from the closet.

I stood in the doorway of apartment 3B with a dead man's key in my hand and the landlord's words still wet in my ear. *He was a quiet one. Paid on time. You can keep whatever's in there, I just need it empty by Friday.* The key was warm from my palm. Brass, unremarkable, the kind you could copy at any hardware store for two dollars.

The hallway behind me smelled like someone had been frying plantains. The building was in Washington Heights, six floors of brick and fire escapes, and I'd walked up because the elevator had a handwritten sign taped to it: *OUT OF ORDER. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.* The *sorry* was in different ink, like someone had added it later out of guilt.

I should've turned around. I had a job interview in two hours, a suit that didn't quite fit, and a sister who was expecting me to show up with good news for once. Instead I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The apartment was small. One bedroom, a kitchen the size of a closet, a window that looked out onto the brick wall of the building next door. But the walls. The walls were covered. Photographs, hundreds of them, pushpinned in overlapping rows like scales. Black and white mostly. A few in color, faded to that orange tint of old film. I moved closer. They were all of the same woman.

Blonde. Not the kind of blonde that comes from a bottle. Pale, almost white, the color of dried corn silk. In one photo she was laughing, head thrown back, a cigarette between her fingers. In another she was asleep on a couch, mouth open, one arm dangling. In another she was walking down a street I didn't recognize, looking over her shoulder like she'd heard something.

I didn't know her. But I knew the feeling of that look. I'd worn it myself, more times than I cared to count.

The closet door was the source of the smell. I opened it.

Inside, on the floor, was a suitcase. Leather, cracked at the corners, one latch broken. Beside it, a shoebox. And on the shelf above, a row of glass jars, the kind you'd use for preserves. Each one was filled with a different color of hair. Blonde, mostly. But also red. Brown. Black. The labels were written in a cramped hand: *March 1987. June 1989. November 1991.*

I didn't touch anything. I stood there in that closet with the smell of old wood and something animal, and I thought about my mother. She used to keep her own hair in a jar. After the chemo, when it came out in handfuls, she'd collect it from the pillow and the shower drain and put it in a mason jar on the windowsill. She said she wanted to remember what it looked like when it was hers. When she died, my sister threw the jar away. I never forgave her for that.

The suitcase was unlocked. I opened it.

Clothes. A woman's clothes, folded neat, the way you'd pack for a trip you were looking forward to. A blue dress. A pair of jeans. A sweater the color of oatmeal. Underneath, a passport. I flipped it open. The photo was the same woman from the walls, younger, her hair pulled back. *Margaret Ellis. Born 1962. New York.*

The expiration date was three years ago.

I put the passport back. I closed the suitcase. I stood up and my knee cracked, loud in the quiet, and I laughed. Just a short one. The kind that comes out when you don't know what else to do.

The kitchen had one drawer. Inside, a phone bill, a stack of takeout menus, a single key on a ring with a rabbit's foot. The rabbit's foot was gray with dust. I put it in my pocket. I don't know why. Maybe because it was soft. Maybe because it was the only thing in that apartment that felt like it belonged to someone who was still alive.

The phone rang.

I jumped. The sound was so loud in that small space, so sudden, that I felt it in my teeth. The phone was on the wall, an old rotary model, beige, the cord coiled like a spring. It rang again. I stared at it. Nobody knew I was here. Nobody except the landlord, and he was in his office three blocks away, probably eating a sandwich and watching a soap opera.

Third ring. I picked it up.

"Hello?"

Silence. Then breathing. Slow, deliberate. The kind of breathing that's meant to be heard.

"Who is this?" I said.

A woman's voice. Low, a little hoarse, like she'd been crying or smoking or both. "You're not David."

"No," I said. "David's dead."

A pause. Then a sound I couldn't place. A laugh? A sob? Something in between. "When?"

"Last week. I don't know. The landlord found him."

Another pause. Longer this time. I could hear traffic in the background, the distant honk of a cab, the rumble of a bus. She was outside somewhere. Somewhere loud.

"Did you find the jars?" she said.

I looked at the closet. The door was still open. The jars sat on the shelf like a row of eyes. "Yeah."

"Don't open them."

"I wasn't planning to."

"Good." Another pause. "There's a box in the back of the closet. Behind the suitcase. It's taped shut. Don't open that either. Just take it to the address on the label. Tonight. Before nine."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because you're already involved," she said. "You picked up the phone."

She hung up. The dial tone buzzed in my ear like a trapped fly. I stood there for a long moment, the receiver still pressed to my face, my heart doing something complicated in my chest. Then I hung up. I walked back to the closet. I moved the suitcase. There was the box. Brown cardboard, taped with packing tape, a label on top in that same cramped handwriting. An address in Queens. No name.

I picked it up. It was heavier than it looked. Something shifted inside, a soft weight, like fabric. Or hair.

My phone buzzed. A text from my sister: *Interview. Don't forget. You promised.*

I looked at the box. I looked at the jars. I looked at the walls, at the blonde woman laughing, sleeping, walking, looking over her shoulder. I thought about my mother's hair in a mason jar on a windowsill. I thought about the way my sister threw it away, how she said it was morbid, how she couldn't stand to look at it. I thought about the dead man's key in my pocket and the rabbit's foot and the voice on the phone saying *you're already involved.*

I had a suit to put on. I had a job to interview for. I had a life that was already complicated enough, thank you very much, what with the rent and the student loans and the ex-boyfriend who still texted me at two in the morning like I was some kind of emergency contact.

But I also had a box with an address on it. And I had a question that wouldn't leave me alone: who was Margaret Ellis, and why did David keep her hair in jars?

I put the box in my bag. It fit, barely. I locked the apartment behind me and walked down the stairs, past the plantain smell and the broken elevator and the *sorry for the inconvenience.* Outside, the sky was that flat gray you get in New York in November, when the city can't decide if it wants to rain or just be miserable. I checked the time. I had an hour and forty-five minutes.

I walked to the subway. I got on the 1 train. I rode it all the way to Queens.