I Only Have Eyes for You

By Susan Savage Lee

Karla kept her eyes on the lined page of her Language Arts notebook, the scent of Brittany’s CK One perfume almost making her gag. 

“The only reason they found my next-door neighbor after he died was because of the smell,” Brittany said, her voice tinged with a hint of pleasure. Her cheerleader friends leaned in closer, eager for the lurid details of Gary Newcastle’s death on Winter Street. “He had hanged himself in the garage.”

           Karla glanced at Brittany and instantly regretted it as the girl’s gaze swept over her in distaste.

          When the bell rang, Karla couldn’t shake the image of Mr. Newcastle hanging in the garage on Winter Street.

In the bathroom before sixth period, Brittany pinned Karla against the wall. Unable to free her hands, Karla watched as Ashleigh approached her. She opened her mouth, produced a wad of gum and then pressed it into Karla’s hair. When Brittany laughed, Karla broke free and ran into the hallway, rubbing at the impressions left behind on her wrists and forearms from Brittany’s fingers.

Around the corner, she collided with Danny, the boy with the pretty eyes. They stared at each other for a moment before she backed up, unable to speak.

“You have really beautiful hair,” he told her.

   “With or without the gum?” 

Before he could reply, she hurried down the hallway toward the door that led to the bright, sunny day outside.

At home, Karla’s mom lifted her daughter’s arm to examine the bruises now shaped like yellow fingerprints. 

“Oh, honey,” her mother exclaimed before letting go. “Who would do such a thing?” she asked as she moved to the kitchen sink to pick up a dish. As each minute passed, she scrubbed it harder and harder, water splashing over the sink’s edges. “Next time they do that to you, tell them to stop,” her mom suggested over her shoulder, her voice sharp and trembling. 

“Why is everyone so glum?” Richard asked as he entered the room, his gaze darting between Karla and her mom. His eyes traveled to Karla’s chest, then paused at the bruises. 

Richard leaned in, his frown deepening as his gaze lingered on the bruises. “Now what on earth did you do to deserve that?” he asked, hands planted on his hips, his eyes dark and empty. 

“N-nothing,” Karla murmured, running her hand over her injuries. A burning lump rose at the back of her throat as she fought back tears.

“Just be a good girl from now on,” Richard said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “Time to eat!”

He rubbed his hands together as Karla’s mom pulled a ham from the oven. She turned, holding the dish with two mitts, beaming at them both. But her eyes looked empty and lost, as if she’d forgotten where she was. 

***

The next day, in Language Arts, Karla looked up just when Mr. Carlton cleared his throat to get the students’ attention. “Let’s get started so your classmates have time to give their speeches.” He rubbed his hands together as he glanced at a piece of paper on his desk. “Brittany? Do you want to go first with….?” He checked his paper again. “Your speech on Joan Didion’s ‘On Morality?’”

“Sure, Mr. Carlton,” Brittany beamed, smoothing her skirt as she stood. 

As Brittany turned around to walk to the front of the class, Karla stuck out one leg. Brittany’s foot caught, she stumbled and went down. When she hit the floor, her skirt hiked up, and the class erupted in laughter. Only Ashleigh appeared grim, as she met Karla’s gaze with two eyes glittering like sapphires.

***

In sixth period, the other girls hurried out of the locker room almost as soon as they entered it. Karla kept tying her shoes, her hands slow and deliberate, knowing what would come next. 

Brittany and Ashleigh approached, their steps heavy on the tiled floor. A yellow bruise had already started forming on Brittany’s shin, vivid against her pale skin. 

“Now you’re going to wish you’d never been born,” Brittany hissed, leaning in close, her long blonde hair falling forward.

“I already wish that,” Karla replied. 

She didn’t remember thinking or deciding. Her fist simply flew, landing against Brittany’s mouth with a force that split the skin. Teeth cut into her knuckles, but for a moment, she felt nothing. 

Karla held her own, striking out with desperation and fury. But it wasn’t long before the two girls overpowered her, dragging her to the showers once they did. The water turned on, icy streams soaking Karla’s clothes as the girls kicked her over and over again. 

   When they finally left, Karla remained on the floor, cold water numbing her skin, blood running down the drain. Her body felt heavy, her breaths shallow. 

Then came the ambulance, her backpack shoved in beside her on the stretcher. The glaring lights burned her eyes, the medics’ voices cutting through the fog in her mind like sharp knives. 

“She’s going to need stitches,” said a young woman. “A lot of them.”

At the hospital, she received thirteen stitches on the back of her head. An older nurse patted her leg, her hands soft and warm. “Have the parents been notified?” she asked the doctor. “The police are already on their way.” 

The words pierced through Karla’s haze, sharp and cold. 

When the doctor and nurse left, Karla spotted her backpack hanging on a peg by the door. She grabbed it, her movements stiff but purposeful. Moments later, she was out on the street. The sun was painfully bright, stabbing her eyes as she stumbled forward. She didn’t stop until she reached the only place she could go.

***

On Winter Street, Karla stared at Gary Newcastle’s blank, faceless windows, a backpack slung over her shoulder, wondering if the rumors about the house being unsellable were true. The fallen For Sale sign in the yard suggested they might be.

In the back, Karla tried a window and exhaled in relief when it slid open with ease. She tossed her backpack inside and hoisted herself up onto the window ledge. Her shoes landed with a soft thud on the bedroom carpet. 

As darkness fell, Karla got comfortable on the bed. The lamp on the end table was missing a bulb, leaving the room in shadow. Like the rest of the house, it looked staged––its days of being lived in long over. 

After rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, she found a flashlight and returned to the bedroom. Its beam was weak, but it was enough to read by. Settling into bed, she opened David Copperfield. 

As she turned the first page, a sharp knock rattled the window. Karla froze, her heart pounding, as she faced the silhouette of a head and a fist raised in anger. 

It took all her courage to get close enough to that ominous shape, afraid that Richard had found her. When she managed to peer outside, she saw Danny. She hesitated before unlocking the window and opening it a couple of inches.

   “I see you found my flashlight,” he remarked.

At school, Danny was always leaning against the courtyard wall, talking to a group of boys, a Polaroid camera slung around his neck. Despite staring at her ever since their hallway collision, he hadn’t tried to speak to her again until now.

   “Are you going to let me in?”

   “I’m not,” she snapped, suddenly angry at the intrusion. Just like Richard.

     Karla began sliding the window shut. Danny placed an arm on the runner to stop it. 

   “I don’t have anywhere else to go, and the house is big enough for the both of us,” he bargained. 

In the pale light, Karla noticed his mechanic’s uniform. Across the front pocket, white stitching read Harry’s Auto Body, and beneath that name was his own. The strap of a  Polaroid camera hung around his neck . He carried nothing else but a book that looked like it belonged on a wealthy woman’s coffee table. She slid the window open all the way for him.

   “You can have the flashlight tonight, but tomorrow it’s mine,” he said, hoisting himself up onto the ledge and then hopping through the window.

As he walked out of the room, Karla watched him go, unease prickling her skin. Maybe she shouldn’t have let him inside. He could be anyone, capable of anything––just like Brittany.

***

The next night, Karla found Danny standing in the dark kitchen, a bottle of bourbon and a glass on the counter in front of him. 

   “Do you want a shot?” he asked, his voice low. 

She stood there, forgetting why she’d come to the kitchen in the first place. Danny grabbed another glass, poured a little bourbon into it, and slid it across the counter toward her. 

   “What are you studying for?”

   “I’m taking college correspondence courses,” Karla replied, already feeling a warm, floating sensation spread through her body after a few sips. “I’m going to be a sophomore when I start college in August.”

   “So why doesn’t a family want someone like you?”

   Karla shrugged, starting with Before Richard. 

Before Richard, her mom had cleaned houses all day and then spent her evenings watching recordings of Days of Our Lives and chain-smoking with an ashtray perched on the couch’s armrest. Sometimes, Karla watched the soap operas with her, because it was the only time her mom talked about her dad––a man who had died when Karla was a baby. 

“I have a mom like that too,” Danny admitted.

            “Is that why you left?” Karla asked. 

            Danny nodded. “It was like living the same day over and over again.”

            Karla kept going. When her mom met Richard, they’d started going to church on Sundays, even though they never had before. Karla had liked the sense of belonging at the old Baptist building that smelled like an attic.   

     “You didn’t run away because he was religious, though,” Danny guessed.

   She kept going.

One afternoon, after she got home, Karla found Richard sitting in the kitchen, reading a newspaper.

   “Where’s Mom?” she asked, realizing for the first time that she’d never been alone with him.

   “Picking up something special for dinner.” 

She hurried out of the kitchen, her backpack banging against her shoulders. Upstairs, she looked over her geometry homework, frustrated by the proofs. As a distraction, she put on her CD player’s headphones and turned the volume up as loud as she could stand. She lay back on her bed, looking at the patterns in the ceiling as Morrissey sang about tomorrow. Her eyes closed, one hand resting on the smooth plastic of the CD player, she bent one leg at the knee, her skirt sliding down. 

As the song ended, Karla opened her eyes, only to see Richard standing in the doorway. A smile played on his lips, but not in the eyes, which were framed by metal-rimmed glasses. 

     “I thought it was the beginning of something I wouldn’t really like.” She paused and sighed, waiting for the list of things she should have done.

  Danny didn’t say anything for a minute, but he touched the edges of the bandage on the back of her head. When he placed his hand on top of hers a moment later, she felt the calluses on his fingertips and palm.

  Later, when they went to her room, Karla sat on her bed, her glass tucked between her legs. Danny was cross-legged on the beige carpet, the light making his dark hair shine. His irises were a purplish hue, like those sweet-smelling flowers lining the streets in Richmond Heights. She struggled to focus; he seemed like an image cast by an old film reel. 

    “What do you take pictures of?” she asked, watching as his slow smile spread, his eyes twinkling in the pale light.

   “Things I like.” 

She wanted to ask what those things were, but her throat felt full of cotton. She fumbled with the sheets until Danny got up and pulled them out and over her.

   “Sweet dreams, pretty girl,” he told her. 

***

Pretty girl. Those words echoed in her head, pushing away the ugliness of her dream as she woke up.

In it, Karla was washing her hands in the bathroom when Brittany and Ashleigh entered, their lips curved into Cheshire smiles. They kept putting wads of gum into her hair until she could barely hold her head up. She was being crushed, one tiny inch at a time. 

Pretty girl, she told herself, feeling the softness of Danny’s words like a gentle caress. 

   Later, long after the dream dispersed, Danny knocked on the frame of her bedroom door. 

     “Do you want to go to the dollar theater? I know how you like those old movies.”

   “Sure,” she replied, her stitches beginning to itch. “How did you know I liked old movies?”

   Danny shrugged.

At the theater, Karla held a paper container filled with popcorn. Danny reached over, grabbed a handful, and tossed it into his mouth.

   She cleared her throat. “Can I ask you something?” . 

“Anything.”

“Why do you think Gary Newcastle killed himself?”

They looked at each other in silence before Danny shifted, his seat squeaking with the movement.

“Maybe something bad happened to him that he couldn’t get over,” Danny replied. “Or maybe he didn’t have anyone who cared about him. Everyone needs that.”

Karla considered his words, wondering what she had to live for. College? A career? But what about the moments in between, when she’d be alone with the knowledge that no one loved her? “What if you don’t have something like that?”

“Come on, Karla.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time, thinking there was one thing that made her feel whole. “Sometimes, I want to hurt Brittany and Ashleigh,” Karla admitted, running each word together, as if they were racing one another.

“Thirteen stitches will do that to you.” He looked at her, still serious. “What if I told you about this girl who used to wear a red plaid skirt and black shoes with a silver buckle on them, and how I always looked at her.”

She’d worn that outfit at least once a week freshman year before Richard threw her shoes out. Brittany and Ashleigh had called her the Wicked Witch of the Poor back then.

   “You remember that?”

            Karla nodded.

She’d never kissed a boy, though she imagined doing it before she went to sleep most nights. When he leaned forward, he smelled so clean, like aftershave and soap.   

   “I remember a lot of other things too,” Danny said and then leaned back in his seat after they broke apart.

Before she could reply, a voice from the aisle made her freeze.

   “I thought I would find you here,” Richard said. “After running away from the police.” 

Richard leaned forward when a few people turned to see what the commotion was about, slightly bending at his waist. While he didn’t mind scenes at home, he hated them in public. The overhead lights reflected off his glasses, hiding the eyes behind them.

   “You’ve had your fun at your mother’s expense. Now it’s time to come home and pay the piper,” Richard said, reaching for her left wrist and latching onto it, grinding her bones together.

   When she tried to break free, some of the popcorn spilled out of the container and hit the floor, bouncing under the seats in front of them.

   “Let go of her,” Danny said, grabbing Richard’s hand, his veins standing out like tiny cords. “She’s not going with you. Not now. Not ever.” 

She watched Richard’s face contort in first confusion, then disgust. He released her wrist as though it had turned into a serpent. Karla pulled away, rubbing her red, chafed skin with her fingertips, the jostling movement awakening the pain at the back of her head. Richard regarded Danny like an unfamiliar creature. 

Then he turned and walked out of the theater. When the door shut behind him, the lights above them began to dim. 

Danny leaned back in his seat, stretching his legs out while looking at Karla in the dark. He watched her for another minute, then they both turned to the screen as the movie came to life.

***

That night, she lay in the dark looking at the ceiling, swaying tree branches outside the window announcing a storm’s arrival. 

At your mother’s expense, Karla thought. She never saw Richard hit her mom or anything like that. Sometimes,. when Karla did the laundry after her mom forgot, she found skimpy pieces of lingerie buried beneath bath towels and pairs of jeans. Karla let the lacy material slip through her fingers. Richard liked seediness––just as long as no one could see it.

She fell asleep thinking about those lazy afternoons Before Richard, only to end up dreaming about Brittany and Ashleigh trying to strangle her. 

She got up from the bed and walked down the hallway to Danny’s room. He was sleeping under a thin sheet, his chest bare. After a moment of indecision, Karla curled up on the floor next to the bed, using her arm as a pillow.

   “You don’t need to stay on the floor,” Danny said, leaning over the bed’s edge. “We can just sleep.” 

Karla debated his offer for a moment before lifting up the sheet. “Do you really like me?” 

   “I would do anything for you. That’s how much I like you.”

   “But why?” 

   “Because we’re the same.”

  They stared at each other in silence. She didn’t know why he felt that way, and she couldn’t explain why she’d kept looking for him in the courtyard every day, but she did know that he was right.

Karla laid down next to him, pressing her hand against his chest. She felt him kissing the top of her head, careful to avoid the bandage, running his fingers down her spine. She looked up and kissed the side of his face. 

     “Most people wouldn’t do anything for anyone,” she said. 

   “Most people aren’t like me,” he said, twisting a strand of her dark hair between two fingers. “Or you.”

           As she became drowsy again, things he had told her, all fragmented, came together. “How do you know so much about the house?”

          “I’ve been watching it for a long time.”

          “Me too,” she said, as the shadows danced across the ceiling. “Can I see your pictures some time?” 

   “Sure.”.

She also didn’t understand how someone like Danny and girls like the Stantons could exist in the same world, yet they did. In her mind’s eyes, she erased the two girls, along with Richard, leaving only good in the picture.

***

Karla didn’t know if it was the dream about church that woke her––the organ music so loud it shattered stained glass windows––or the ambulance sirens. Danny still slept, but she got up, certain that the police had arrived to arrest her.

She hid behind the blinds, putting one finger through the slats enough to push them apart. An ambulance sat in front of the Stanton house, several police officers and medics standing around, talking to one another. A moment later, one stretcher came outside, followed by a second one, the bodies wrapped in white sheets like mummies. The twins’ father followed the second stretcher, stopping to lean over it and sob. Karla let the blinds fall back into place but didn’t move away from the window. Their dad had come home earlier than usual from his rounds.

   Her breath came in and out in soft hisses as she closed her eyes, still seeing the siren lights. She kept expecting pounding on the front door, as the police tried to gather information. When no one came, she returned to bed. After all, no one was supposed to be living here.

***

A month later, Danny’s boss decided to rent out his carriage house, offering Danny first dibs. 

Karla and Danny had to move unwieldy pieces of furniture into the man’s basement before they could place their own meager belongings inside the dusty space. When they finished, they sat down on a bed that creaked with every movement. 

   “I kind of miss it,” Karla said.

   “Winter Street?”

   She nodded as she pushed her shoe through a streak of dust on the wood floor, smiling at the thought of the flashing lights reflecting off Mr. Newcastle’s house.

They sat there quietly for a few minutes before Danny got up and went to the bathroom, the water turning on a moment later. Karla lay back on the bed, thinking about the pictures of her dorm. In the same brochure, a library sat close to the student residences, rows of books lining polished shelves. After months of looking forward to nothing else, she was uncertain about it all now. Her roommate was only a typed name on a piece of paper. She could be anyone.

Karla kept telling herself it didn’t matter. It would be okay, like Danny said. He might end up forgetting her, even though he promised to visit on the weekends. She sat up and tossed off her shoes so she could sit cross-legged on the bed without getting it dirty. Maybe her mom would forget her too, choosing to follow Richard’s lead. 

She shook her head as if this gesture would make the thoughts disappear, like tendrils of smoke in a breeze. Karla looked down and noticed a book in Danny’s bag––I Only Have Eyes for You. The glossy pages were worn and bent from someone flipping through them over and over again. When she got to page thirteen, a woman’s red eyes with black spiderweb makeup above her lids glossed the paper. She was beautiful and monstrous at the same time. Three Polaroids, used as bookmarks, slid out and spilled across the woman’s burgundy lipstick before hitting the floor. She bent down to pick them up, certain they were some of the pictures Danny always took but never showed her. 

The picture that landed face up featured Karla from a distance. In it, she wore her red plaid skirt and the black shoes with the buckles. There was a backpack slung over her shoulder, her red chemistry book poking out of the top where the zippers didn’t quite meet. The light cast a strange reflection, making a halo appear over her dark hair. Richard stood in the driveway, his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze fixated.

The second one was also of her, though recently taken. She was walking between the house on Winter Street and the Stantons’, her backpack slung over one shoulder, her white bandage bright in the sunny afternoon. 

She reached for the third. 

In it, the girls lay on their backs, a blue blanket covering their eyes. Red marks made a necklace shape around their necks. Their long blonde hair lay crisscrossed, as if they’d fallen. She held the Winter Street picture of herself and the one of the Stantons side by side, studying them before her hands began to shake. 

Karla put all three pictures back inside the book and then stuffed it into Danny’s bag. After a moment, she straightened it so it looked like it had before. She remained frozen on the bed, her heart pounding to the rhythm of her thoughts.

Danny came into the room, rubbing his wet hair with a towel. She could feel his eyes on her as she turned to face him. When he saw her expression, he looked first at the bag and then back to her. 

His hands fell to his sides, becoming still.

We are the same, she thought, we are the same.

About the author
About the author
Susan is a professor of literature and Spanish at Webster University. She has published articles and reviews but is returning to fiction after a long hiatus. Her preferred genres are literary fiction and literary horror. She says her object is to engage readers from different backgrounds.