THE GHOST ALWAYS REMAINS
In a thousand universes, there are a thousand girl detectives. In a million universes, there are a million. They solve cases with names like The Roller Rink Mayhem Murders, The Case of the Pilfered Pearl Necklace, The Mystery of the Missing Milk Money. They get medals and ribbons and twenty-dollar gift certificates to local restaurants where their parents will never go. They get an honorary sheriff’s badge that they keep in their thin-strapped pink purse, that they rub with the sides of their thumbs till the shine goes brassy and dull. They get their pictures in newspapers and area magazines. They get 20,000 Instagram followers and letters from eight-year-old girls in pretty purple ink, I love you, Girl Detective. They put the letters in a small locked box under their bed with all their precious things. Only the housekeeper knows it is there, bumps it with the vacuum mouth where it hides. They get permanent marker notes on their lockers at school, rich and snitch and bitch, and they get soap and water to clean it off, but the ghost of the letters always remains, and they rub their thumbs over the lowercase b when they open their locker, they think bitch, I’m a bitch, a rich snitch bitch; they think I wish it weren’t so crowded here. They get math assignments and hang-up calls from spoofed numbers on their cell phone. They get to say goodbye to their father as he leaves for the airport, as he always leaves for the airport, with a driver waiting at the curb, with grey Italian suits and prim silk ties and a leather briefcase in his hands. They get to eat quiet dinners with their mothers on dishes the housekeeper has laid out. They get to put a cloth napkin on their laps, run their fingers back and forth over it. They get to sing in the middle row of the choir, they get to stand too close to a boy with red hair that they don’t even like, they get to sing All the Pretty Little Horses. They pinch and twist the hem of their skirt between their fingers while they sing. They get to go home right after school, they get to walk home with Thomas from chemistry class who is always talking about the scent of apples, who is always offering to carry their books, always nearly but not quite touching their hands. They get kidnapped before their fifteenth birthday, they get stowed in the trunk of a long black car, stowed like luggage, they get to scream and scrabble and disappear before Thomas’s unblinking eyes.
There are a thousand girl detectives in a thousand universes, there are a million universes, they are blinking like stars when the girl detectives look out their bedroom window at night, universes and universes and girl detectives looking out, out, out in every one, and thinking I am not alone, I am not, I am not alone.