The Blondes by Emily Schultz

was a lawyer in his fifties named … Hoagland, that’s what it was. And he said much the same thing he’d said on the platform, as if he’d become stuck permanently on those words: “I had her. She caught my hand, but then she slipped away. I grabbed her again and then she was gone—just like that. I can still feel her.”
    The article was written in short, clipped sentences. A statement of facts.
    Eugenia’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gilongos, were Filipino. She was their only daughter. She’d gone to the Fashion District with her friends after school. The reports speculated that she had parted ways from the other teenagers before the attack occurred. She was an honour roll student. She was Catholic, and very involved in her church. She also played volleyball for her school team and loved dancing. She had a younger brother who was quoted saying something about her belief in God, that she was with Him now.
    Witnesses gave conflicting reports about whether the teenager and her attacker knew each other, but police said it was unlikely given the age discrepancy and cultural differences. What else can I tell you? Apparently some witnesses said the woman had first hugged the teenager, then pushed her onto the subway tracks. The detective called the incident “strange.” I remember he said that the person who had done this mighthave been emotionally or mentally unstable; there was no way of knowing at such an early point in the investigation. The tone of the reports was both cold and indignant, the way articles of that sort always are; there were statements about how young people should be safe at four in the afternoon. The MTA advised passengers to always stand well back from the tracks, to remain alert and aware, to disable audio devices while in transit. Most of the articles speculated that the attack might stir discussion over MTA safety barriers.
    You have to remember this was before anyone knew that the attack would not be an isolated incident.
    Another article claimed that the women were together, that the older woman had “helped Gilongos onto the tracks” and “joined” her there, and that police had not yet ruled out an association between them. Still another claimed that double suicide was a possibility. Gilongos had been “embraced, then thrown,” “dropped,” “lowered,” “punched,” “forced,” and in one report, quite accurately as it turned out, “bitten and tossed away.”
    Late into the night I was swimming in information, none of it illuminating. Eugenia was elusive. She liked cats and her favourite subject was math. I wondered,
Is this how we summarize a human life—with cheap speculation and lists of hobbies?
    It was then that Moira reappeared. I heard the outer door to the alcove scrape open, followed by footsteps. A weight paused in the hall, and then came a soft
rat-a-tat
tap.
    “I saw your light,” Moira said when I answered the door. She had an instrument case with her. She looked tired andsmelled faintly of juniper, likely the after-effect of several gin and tonics.
    “Come in,” I urged.
    She did, but lingered just inside the door and didn’t set down her case. She was wearing a long dress and strappy sandals. The lights in my room were blazing, and I realized for the first time that she was black, or more likely half-black. I’d been too self-involved before to notice.
    Moira said she’d just wanted to check how I was doing.
    “I think I’m in shock,” I told her.
    She nodded and said that was natural. Then she asked if I had called “him” yet, and I realized she meant Karl. We were talking about two entirely different things. I reached over and flicked the laptop shut. I didn’t want her to see it. I had unburdened myself to her enough already.
    “What’s that?” I pointed to her case.
    “Glockenspiel.”
    “Will you show me?”
    Moira held the case out and pulled at the edges, producing fold-up legs. She opened the case, and it was now a stand. Two sets of