The Never List

breathing hard. Instinctively, she jumped back from us as we came to a sudden stop in front of her.
    Her hair was the most shimmering shade of golden blond I had ever seen, and her face, whose skin had always seemed translucent, now glowed with health. Her teeth were in perfect even rows, and her cornflower-blue eyes looked as though they’d been dyed for effect. She was impossibly slim, and every stitch of her casual clothing looked immaculate, as though she had just stepped out of the display case of a Madison Avenue boutique. I looked down in dismay at my travel clothes from my flight that morning: jeans, T-shirt, and hoodie.
    “Christine!” said Tracy triumphantly, seeming almost happy to be reunited after all these years. I felt a pang of what had to be jealousy, which was erased when I saw that Christine definitely did not feel the same way.
    Christine pulled herself up tall and said haughtily, “As you know, I don’t use that name anymore.”
    “Oh, right,” said Tracy. “I keep forgetting about the cloak-and-dagger names. What is it now? Muffy? Buffy?”
    Christine looked Tracy up and down this time, obviously annoyed.
    “My friends know me as Charlotte. Really, Tracy, why don’t you go back to one of your protests, or whatever, and leave me alone? And you ”—she turned to me and then, unable to find the words, immediately back to Tracy—“I’m surprised to see you two together.”
    I decided to get straight to the point. “Jack comes up for parole in four months—”
    Christine held up her hand in the air, cutting me off midsentence. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care. I actually really don’t. I have told McCordy that that is his problem and let the justice system do what it may. If they can’t manage to get a raving madman locked up in a straightjacket in some rubber room, then they are clearly incompetent buffoons, and nothing I can say or do is going to help them. I want nothing to do with it.”
    “You don’t care if he gets out?” Tracy jumped in. “Don’t you have daughters? Aren’t you worried about them? Haven’t you read his letters? The guy is still obsessed with us. What if he makes a beeline for your door when they let him out? I don’t think they’d like to see him showing up on the steps of The Episcopal School.”
    Christine looked at Tracy with a steady gaze, her voice firm.
    “No, I most certainly have not read any letters from that monster. I told McCordy he could keep them. You think I would want those in my home ? And as for my daughters, I will get them each a personal bodyguard if necessary. But I don’t think that is a realistic concern. Jack may be crazy, but he is not stupid, and I can’t imagine he has enjoyed being locked up. And now, if you will excuse me—” She started to push past us, but Tracy blocked her way.
    “Fine, fine, you want nothing to do with it. We get that. But tell us something—if we go back to the university, to talk to people there about his work and his life there, who should we talk to? What should we do there?”
    Christine stopped walking. At first I thought she was going to turn in the other direction and run, but she didn’t. She looked at each of us in turn, as though she finally recognized us as members of her species. Was she letting herself remember? Surely she couldn’t have blocked it all out as completely as she made it seem. She couldn’t be that strong, entirely recovered, able to handle anything, including Jack’s release. But then Christine had always been a person of extremes—unpredictable in a way that put me ill at ease.
    I thought I saw a hint of sadness flicker across her face, and then she shut her eyes for a moment, her lips twitching ever so slightly. When she opened them again, she shrugged with an air of resignation.
    “Well, what about that woman who testified at the trial? The one who had been his teaching assistant when we were there? Isn’t she a professor there now? Aline? Elaine? Adeline? Something like that.”
    So Christine had followed the case. She knew a little more about it than she’d let on. Tracy was nodding. I pulled out my notebook and started writing.
    Christine paused. “And there is one thing that I have thought about over the years. I suppose now is the time to bring it up. Jack had what I suppose you could call a friend there. I sometimes saw him at the cafeteria with another professor in the department. Professor Stiller. I never took a class with him, but