Plastic Flowers

A couple of plastic flowers fell out of Fatima Meader’s pocket as she bent over to check the price of a ripe mango from a street vendor, her diamond-shaped beige birthmark exposed on her lower back. She had been arranging the flowers in the casket of a petite elderly woman who had died from metastatic breast cancer. The velvety red petals created a sharp contrast with the concrete covered in speckles of urine, dirt, and fruit juice. She paid for her mango and hurried to the subway platform. It was nice to be among the living, even if it meant putting up with screaming babies whose mouths were covered in ice cream and hearing about five different very loud phone conversations, all in different languages. 

“You smell weird.”

Fatima pushed her strawberry-blonde hair out of her eyes and looked up from her book to see a child sitting across from her wrinkling his nose. He was obviously talking to her. She’d been working as a mortician for over four years now, and it didn’t always occur to her to put on perfume after leaving work. Formaldehyde, the chemical used to fix the bodies, was probably one of the strongest smells to exist. Though she wore dedicated T-shirts and sweats when actively working, the scent settled on her skin and in her hair. She mustered up a polite laugh and went back to reading her book.

She was suddenly more aware of her smell. It was going to be nice to take a shower, climb into her tiny twin-sized bed, and look out the window at the city as the sun went down. It would be another quiet Friday with nothing to do, and she had no problem with this. 

When she finally reached her apartment building, the sun was beginning to set. For a moment, the old building’s fading bricks and rusty fire escape seemed romantic. She was, after all, living in New York City. It was a dream she’d had since growing up as a child in rural Michigan as a first generation American who got free lunch and went to Toledo, Ohio for all family vacations. 

She heard loud conversation and music coming from her apartment door when she finally reached the 3rd floor. A silence fell over the room of friends as she entered.

“Oh, Fatima!” Her roommate Velda acknowledged her. “We thought you were working late tonight.”

Her two roommates and two guys sat on the floor in a square formation, two bottles of wine in the center and plastic cups in their hands. She did not recognize one of the guys. She recognized the other one as Zane Rodas, an orange-haired costume designer who worked with her roommate Autumn Selusi, a choreographer, on off-Broadway shows. Autumn and Velda had moved together from Arkansas a couple years after graduating college. They had Fatima on a paper flier near NYU after a few months of sub-leasing from some college students, sleeping on a pull-out couch. The situation had seemed perfect: a 30-year-old female with a 2 bedroom apartment looking for 2 female roommates. It didn’t end up being like a roommate situations from the movie where 3 girls living in Manhattan shared their dreams together and ordered takeout and drank wine together on Friday nights. But it was fine. And fine was good. Fatima was unusual but quiet. They were creeped out by her job as a mortician at first, but someone had to do it, right? 

“Sam, this is our roommate, Fatima,” said Velda, gesturing toward Fatima, who stood awkwardly in the doorway. “Fatima, this is Sam. Sam and I met at one of my layovers in Washington. He’s a tomato farmer.”

“Horticulturist,” Sam corrected, but he smiled mischievously. “That was the best layover of your life.”

Zelda pushed his shoulder playfully, her long blonde hair swaying between her shoulder blades. She was a pilot, probably the youngest one Fatima had ever met, for a private airline company called Friendly Skies. She had grown up practicing flying planes in rural Arkansas with her uncle, an ex-military pilot, who still owned a small private jet. 

“Nice to meet you,” said Fatima politely, leaning on the kitchen counter. “I had a pretty long day at work, so I’m going to head to bed.” 

She could smell the formaldehyde lingering on her clothes and knew that the others had at least gotten a whiff by now. She waved awkwardly at the group and began to walk toward her tiny bedroom.

“Oh, wait!” Autumn jumped up from her seat on the old couch cushion. “Do you happen to know if someone used to live here named Chasity Doyscher? A letter came in the mail addressed to her today. I checked with the building manager, but she said no one by that name lives here now.”

Fatima felt her stomach drop and her jaw clench when she heard this. She stood at her doorway in silence, unsure of how to respond next. She never thought she’d hear the name Chasity Doyscher again. And she thought that if she did, it could be one of the last things she ever heard on this Earth. 

“It’s fine if you don’t know—” Autumn broke the silence, giving Fatima an odd look. 

“It doesn’t sound familiar to me,” interrupted Fatima. She waved to everyone. “Goodnight.”

She sat in bed under her faded quilt, the only thing left of her childhood, listening to the world moving around her. She heard furniture moving above her, scratching inside of the old apartment walls, drinks clinking and people cheers-ing at the nearby bar, and her grandfather clock chiming on the hour. The world wouldn’t stop spinning because of one incorrectly addressed letter. Not in New York City, where people had too much time to think for long about what anyone else was doing. She drifted off to sleep. 

In the living room, Sam and Zelda were fast asleep on the couch, snuggling. Zane and Autumn were still half-watching Love is Blind, half-scrolling on Instagram. On a whim of curiosity, Autumn typed “Chasity Doyscher” into Google. The first search result read, “Wanted for murder: Chasity Doyscher. $1,000,000 reward.” She clicked on an article that included a story:

Chasity Doyscher, 23, has been implicated in the murder of Hal Watson, 41.

The 23-year-old was last seen in the Malco movie theater parking lot on

December 17th, 2016. 

And an obituary for the victim:

Hal Doyscher was a loving stepfather of two teenage girls and biological father

of one adult man. He is survived by his step-daughters Chasity Doyscher and

Faith Parkers and son Adam Watson. He was an active member of South Monroe

Baptist Church and a former troop leader for the Boy Scouts of America. His tragic

death has touched hundreds whose lives he impacted. It is requested that donations

be sent to South Monroe Baptist Church in lieu of flowers. 

Autumn’s heart skipped. Did this girl used to live at this apartment? 

But what did she look like? That was the important part. After all, it’s possible that Autumn had come across her sometime in the past few years. Clearly, someone was still sending her mail. When she delved into the depths of Facebook, she came across an image of a girl with silky-smooth jet-black hair and caramel-colored skin, holding her high-school diploma in what seemed like the inside of a church. Maybe a Catholic school?

She couldn’t control her curiosity any longer. She had to open the letter. After all, it was for her safety, right? She peeked at her friends, who were all now fast-asleep. She carefully ripped open the beige envelope. It read:

Dear Chasity, 

I’ve thought about writing this letter for a long time now. I went back to Chattanooga after you disappeared. South Monroe wasn’t the same without you. Walking to the creek was the most depressing shit when I couldn’t hear you laughing the whole way down. I know he was hurting you. I’m not upset if you did it.

I should have written earlier. The truth is that I was scared of it - you being gone, permanently.

But then I read this story on Humans of New York about a girl named Fatima who was working as a mortician in New York City. I thought I saw your birthmark in the picture they posted of the girl bending down and looking at flowers. I went down a rabbit hole and found her address. I addressed it to you. Fatima, if you’re getting this and you’re not Chasity, I’m sorry for the scare. I won’t send another letter if I don’t hear back from you.

But if it’s you, meet me on the campus of NYU Friday, November 12th at 5pm. I’ll be waiting there for you with a donut. We can buy airplane tickets and just move to Scotland or Austria or fucking Antarctica. I don’t care. 

Please respond. We could finally have the life that we always dreamed of. I’m not doing anything with my life. I’m a teaching assistant here at a school in Chattanooga. I can leave at any time. 

Tell me it’s not too late. Even though I know it is. 

Anthony Sokoloski 

Autumn was wide-awake all night. She’d wait until the dawn and then confront Fatima when everyone else was still sleeping. But she’d make sure they were on a walk together - somehow. She had to have answers. 

A warm glow of winter sun began to highlight the corners of the Earth at around 6:15am. Autumn stretched, her joints popping ever-so-slightly. She approached Fatima’s room and held her breath. She opened the door slightly. Fatima was brushing her hair, standing by her night-table, her back facing the door.

“Oh!” Fatima exclaimed, surprised.

“Do you have time for a walk this morning?” Autumn asked, swallowing the lump in her throat. 

“Uh, I guess…” Fatima trailed off. The two never hung out socially, so this was quite unusual. “Is there something going on? If it’s about the dishes, I’ll get them done as soon as possible.”

“It’s not about the dishes,” Autumn responded.

“Then…”

“Anthony Sokoloski,” Autumn blurted out.

Fatima dropped her brush on the ground, startled. She bent to pick it up, her pajama shirt raising ever so slightly. There it was - the diamond-shaped birthmark. Autumn took a step back. The two women stared at each other, not speaking a sound.

“I’ll put on my shoes,” Fatima muttered softly. 

They exited the calm apartment building, the car horns and voices of early morning food vendors amplifying as the street came into view. Dogs barked, squirrels raced away from them, and cyclists flipped off reckless drivers. They sat at a bench in the park across the street, still silent. Autumn handed Fatima the crinkled letter without a word. Fatima cried silent tears, her shoulders shaking from her realizations and the cold city wind. 

“I think you should go,” Autumn broke the silence. She thought of her own stepfather and their “little secret” she promised to never tell her mother about. Anger bubbled up within her and disseminated throughout her body, diffusing through every cell membrane until her whole body was warmed.

“It’s today,” said Fatima. “What will I do about my job? The apartment? Zelda?”

“Just go. You’ve always been mysterious to us. We wouldn’t bat an eye.”

Fatima nodded and hugged Autumn. They exchanged a look that seemed to contain the words of a library of novels. Fatima walked toward the subway, looking back only once to see that Autumn had vanished.

This subway ride was different. She looked at herself in the tinted window. Would he recognize her with strawberry blonde hair, thinned brows, tattooed freckles, and pale white skin? Would he even like what he saw?

“Chas.” She recognized his voice but not the body it was coming from. Anthony’s formerly boyish grin was more weathered now. More serious, too. He had lines on his face where he never did before. His formerly dark-brown hair was blonde. His face was freckled. He had a beard, something he’d never been able to grow. His hands were in his pocket. 

They walked in silence to the train station. What was life but starting over, again and again?