Veronica

­Veronica was born Veronica Blackwell. She died Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe Columbus Adams. She married seven times before her unexpected death and had no children by any of her husbands. Just names. The names were her babies.

Veronica Blackwell was born in a small rural town outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Her family was one of the only white families in the neighborhood. The youngest of eleven children, Veronica Blackwell grew up with the sense that she wasn’t really wanted. Her mother was an Emergency Room nurse who worked the night shift after all the kids were in bed, and her father worked the Circle K convenience store front checkout at the Mobil gas station whenever he wasn’t passed out on the couch. Veronica Blackwell’s older siblings, especially her older brothers, were strangers to her. Sometimes she wasn’t even sure if they knew her name. Once she overheard her oldest brother talking to her father over beers and cigarettes. He referred to her as “Victoria.”

“Veronica!” she’d yelled from the living room.

She was closer to the younger siblings, but still felt separated from them. It was always a competition for attention from their parents, and they didn’t like it when Veronica was there because they felt like she always got their mother’s attention—she was the baby.

Although she rarely spent time with her mother because of her job, Veronica Blackwell loved her. Her mother had the most beautiful black hair that fell past her shoulders, light brown eyes the color of coffee. Veronica Blackwell hated her own hair and eyes. Her hair was dark and long, but it was matted and wavy underneath the rigid top pieces. Her eyes were black like coal, but her mother made her feel special. Her happiest moments as a child were sitting with her mother in the bathroom, on two peach plush stools underneath a sepia tone light while her mother combed and plaited her hair and painted her face with makeup.

“You are so beautiful, my sweetness. One day, all of the boys will fall in love with you and want to marry you.”

Veronica Blackwell smiled a semi-toothless smile and peered at herself in the mirror out of the corner of her eye as her mother brushed pink blush onto the apples of her cheeks.

When her mother pulled her hand away, Veronica Blackwell asked her, “How did you decide to marry Daddy?”

Her mother closed the compact and set it on the counter.

“I didn’t really choose to marry Daddy. It was more like fate that brought us together. We were meant to be married, Veronica.”

Veronica Blackwell loved the way her mother said her name. Ver-on-i-ca. She used every part of her mouth to enunciate it. She took the time and effort to say her name. No one else did that. Not even Veronica Blackwell herself.

Veronica Blackwell never really saw her parents interact. When her mother was awake, her father was asleep, and when her mother was asleep, her father was probably also asleep. Sleep was the most common pastime in the Blackwell household. But Veronica had trouble sleeping. She shared a room with four of her sisters, and at night when they were all asleep, the sounds that came from their mouths frightened her. The heavy breathing, the occasional snoring, and the mild gasps from sleep apnea all sounded like ominous whispers, filling Veronica Blackwell with anxiety. Every night, she could only fall asleep after she had worn herself out from the trembling of her body and the whirling of her mind.

The sleepless nights got worse after Veronica Blackwell’s mother died. Her father told her she died of a “disease of the mind.” Veronica Blackwell didn’t understand how she could have died so suddenly—she didn’t look or act sick. The sullen, ominous whispers in the house started to explain more. Those whispers said her mother “did it to herself,” and “how could she just leave us like this,” and “how come she never told us.” Veronica Blackwell was ten years old going on eleven. She began to spend her sleepless nights in the bathroom on the peach plush stool painting her face with her mother’s makeup, adding layer upon layer upon layer until her face was not her own anymore. This soothed her and she could go back to sleep.

—

Veronica Blackwell was twenty-five when she married her first husband. He was the Teaching Assistant for her economics class at community college. Her wedding was out of a catalogue. His parents paid for almost all of it. She wore a chiffon dress with intricate beading and lace. Her veil trailed for miles behind her. She wore peach-colored peony petals in her hair with makeup to match. Her father, old and gray, walked her down the aisle, stoic and sleepy as ever, kissed her forehead and handed her to Mr. Paul Eckhart before he joined his most recent girlfriend in the front left pew. Surprisingly, almost all of her siblings were in attendance. All except the oldest. She wasn’t even entirely sure if she had sent them invitations. Her engagement ring and wedding band sparkled brighter than the stars in the sky that night. But the accessory she enjoyed the most was her newly acquired last name. One week prior to the date of the wedding, Veronica Blackwell signed the papers to become Veronica Blackwell Eckhart. Her maiden name became her middle name—she was not born with a middle name.

When the priest announced, “I now present to you Mr. and Mrs. Paul Eckhart,” Veronica Blackwell Eckhart vibrated all up and down her body. Her eyelids fluttered a moment before her lips planted themselves on her husband’s before the priest could finish saying, “You may now kiss the bride.”

As they walked down the aisle arm in arm, Veronica Blackwell Eckhart began to cry. She thought she saw her mother sitting down in a pew towards the back taking her picture. Mr. Eckhart wiped the tears from her eyes and asked her if she was okay. She responded that she was.

Paul Eckhart asked her the same question two years later when he handed her the divorce papers. She walked from the kitchen of their (his) mid-century modern two-story house into their (his) mid-century modern master bathroom. The chevron porcelain tile was still wet from her morning shower. She sat on an old faded peach plush stool wearing two towels, one around her body and one around her hair, and began to put on her makeup. Paul Eckhart followed her and knocked on the door before entering. He sat on the closed toilet seat, still holding the papers in his hands, head hanging low.

“Veronica, I—,” he began.

“I’m keeping the name,” she interrupted.

“Huh?”

She paused from pressing powder into her skin and turned to look at him.

“I am keeping my full name.”

He nodded like he understood.

*****

A year after her first marriage ended, Veronica Blackwell Eckhart married her second husband. They met at a bar where she worked as a bartender. He was a patron. They told their families they met through mutual friends. They travelled to Manitou Springs, Colorado to elope because Veronica Blackwell Eckhart had never seen the Rockies. It was his first marriage and initially, he wanted to have a big wedding and invite all of their family and friends. She convinced him to elope after they had known each other for three months. She proposed in bed one night.

“Just imagine how romantic it would be. You, me, and the Rockies. Can’t you picture it? Doesn’t it look magnificent?”

“I suppose so…but don’t you want a real wedding?” he finally replied.

“And what’s more real when you really think about it?”

Two weeks later, they were married at the Blue Skies Inn with a view of the Rockies. She wore a burgundy velvet dress and dark, heavy makeup to match, and Veronica Blackwell Eckhart became Veronica Eckhart Robinson. She had never really liked her given last name and felt no attachment to it anymore. They slept together under the Colorado moonlight and it was the first time Veronica Eckhart Robinson orgasmed during intercourse.

After her husband fell fast asleep, Veronica Eckhart Robinson softly rolled out of bed, dressed in her gown, and walked out of the room, out of the Blue Skies Inn, out of Manitou Springs, Colorado, and onto the next outgoing flight going anywhere.

On the plane, Veronica Eckhart Robinson lay back in her seat and shut her eyes for the first time in a while. She felt tears forming at the corners of her eyes. She felt awful and ecstatic at the same time. She scoured her purse to find a pen that hadn’t run out of ink, took the vomit bag from the front seat pocket, and started practicing her new signature. Veronica Eckhart Robinson. Over and over again. Occasionally, a tear would drip from her cheek onto the bag and the ink would spread like tiny black fingers across the white slick surface. She kept writing and rewriting until she thought the loopy cursive letters looked pretty enough. Then she slept.

The next day, Veronica Eckhart Robinson arrived in New York City. The first thing she did when she made it out of JFK was find a mailbox to mail the divorce papers to Mr. Robinson at the Blue Skies Inn. Last-minute, she added a Post-It note inside the envelope that said, “I’m so sorry.” Veronica Eckhart Robinson felt better after sending that note. She got to her hotel, checked in, showered, changed, and put on her makeup.

After her second divorce, Veronica Eckhart Robinson realized she did not like being single. Not because she felt lonely, but because she loved being married. It was something she was good at, she thought. Over the course of five years, Veronica Eckhart Robinson married and divorced three more men and kept all of their names. She did not mind the constant signing and filing of legal documents and certificates. In fact, it became a hobby of sorts. She thought maybe she’d do well as a lawyer, but she didn’t want to waste away what she felt were her nubile years in school. So, instead, she shopped for husbands and names. She spent her days going to markets, malls, parks, restaurants, and bars, surveying her prospects. She wore makeup every day because she never knew if today was the day she would meet her new husband. She told the men she met that she was an actress.

At this point in her life, Veronica Eckhart Robinson decided to collect the names of men of various ethnicities. While she was in New York, she married a Muslim man whose last name was Odeh. He was born in Bombay, India and he came to New York to study engineering at Columbia University. His first language was Urdu, and though he spoke English fluently, Veronica Eckhart Robinson asked him to speak to her only in Urdu. He used every part of his mouth when he spoke Urdu. He mistook this as some sort of deep appreciation for his culture that no one in the U.S. had previously showed him. He was fascinated by her fascination. And when she proposed the question to him, he replied emphatically, “Haan.”

The night of their wedding, Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh had sex with her new husband for the first time, and she asked him to whisper Urdu prayers into her ear. At first, he hesitated, but she was so beautiful and he was so in love with her that he complied. That night, they did not sleep, though he was extremely tired. Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh pulsated with exhilaration at the addition of her new name, which felt exotic to her.

She conducted the same process, as though it were a scientific experiment, with a Japanese man in Tallahassee, Florida. His last name was Nagata. She was entranced by the shape of his eyes. She treasured the part that he had been conditioned to hate most about himself. When they had sex the night of their wedding, Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata asked him to keep his eyes open as they kissed so she didn’t have to stop looking at them.

She relished how cosmopolitan she felt her full name was becoming, and felt even more elated when she began receiving the attentive gaze of an African man who lived in her apartment complex. They met in Seattle and his last name was Igwe. He was born in Nigeria but moved to the U.S. with his parents when he was an infant. His skin was as black as her eyes, and almost as black as her mother’s hair. She wondered if she picked away at his skin if there would be layers of gold underneath the black surface. On the night of their wedding, Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe dug her fingernails into her husband’s back and scraped them downward along his spine. There was no gold—only a few thin streaks of blood and painful groans.

At this point in her life, Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe was thirty-two-years old and she wondered if perhaps her collection of names was beginning to lose its magic. She felt aimless and hovering. She almost forgot why she had even started this endeavor of hers. And then she met a man with the last name Columbus, and she felt herself falling in love for the first time. He was an older white man, not really anything particularly unique. But his name incited a sense of hope within her. She felt herself falling in love with him when he introduced himself to her at the entrance to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. He asked her where she was headed and she responded with her classic answer: “Anywhere with you.”

They got married in Los Angeles and remained married for six years. It was Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe Columbus’s longest relationship and longest commitment to anyone or anything. And for once in her life she was okay with archiving her collection of names. She thought he would discover something inside of her that she wouldn’t be able to find by herself. But Columbus didn’t discover anything that hadn’t already existed and that Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe Columbus hadn’t already known.

“I’m leaving you,” he told her one day as she stripped her face of yesterday’s makeup, about to apply today’s.

She thought she was having déjà vu.

“Why,” she responded stoically.

“Because we don’t love each other.”

“Yes, we do. How can you say that?”

She didn’t pull her face away from the mirror, but her nose and eyes began to turn red.

“You’re a shell, Veronica, you’re not capable of loving anyone.”

“That’s not true, what you just said. I am capable of love.”

She finally glared at him from the comfort of her rotting peach plush stool, face entirely red and splotchy.

“Veronica, there’s something I need you to do for me.”

She hated how her name sounded in his mouth.

“I want you to go one day without piling all that shit on your face.”

She turned back to face the mirror and splashed her red face with water.

“And why must I do that?” The running water muffled her words.

“Why can’t you do that? What would happen if you didn’t wear makeup for one fucking day?”

“I don’t fucking know, I’d probably just disappear!” She laughed at the thought.

“I swear to God, if you can’t do this one thing for me you might as well walk out that door and never come back.” He seethed in the doorway as he spoke.

“This is ridiculous and you know it. You’re going to end our marriage because I wear makeup?” She spoke calmly through her tears. She did not yell.

“It’s not about the fucking makeup! I don’t know who you are! Show me who you are!”

She turned to face him once more. With unwavering eyes fixed on his, she spread a creamy beige foundation across both her cheeks with her palms. The wetness of her face from her tears made it difficult to blend.

*****

After Columbus, Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe Columbus didn’t know what to do next. She thought about going home, but she’d stopped talking to her family years ago. She didn’t even attend her father’s funeral. She didn’t mind Los Angeles, so she decided to stay there awhile. She looked for jobs as a bartender, but everywhere she applied they told her she was too old. She was thirty-eight, but she looked older. She was extremely low on cash, but spent the rest of it on a dark gray pea coat, a wool scarf, and thick white-rimmed sunglasses from Macy’s. If she was going to live on the streets, she at least wanted to look good.

And she did look good, for a time. She looked like a woman waiting for a ride from her husband or a friend. She kept her coat clean by wetting paper napkins with a combination of water and saliva and scrubbing out the stains. She combed her hair with her fingertips and usually slicked it back with its own grease to wear in a ponytail or a bun. She didn’t have much makeup left, just mascara and a red lipstick which she kept in the pockets of her coat, but sunglasses were enough at this point. She did not look homeless. This made it hard for her to solicit pocket change from passersby, and she complained about it to the other nearby homeless people. They didn’t have much sympathy for her. A man noticed her one day and approached her to introduce himself. He looked like a well-to-do businessman. His last name was Adams.

“Excuse me, ma’am. You look very beautiful today.”

Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe Columbus was genuinely touched.

“Would you like to grab a drink with me?” he asked her.

She hesitated a moment. She promised herself she wouldn’t do this again.

“Could we grab lunch instead?” she said cautiously.

He grinned.

“I would love that.”

He motioned for her to take his arm and she did.

They were married two months later. Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe Columbus Adams was terrified. But she loved him and she thought he loved her too. She would be happy to spend the rest of her life with Adams. He had been married a couple times before, and he didn’t judge her for her collection of names. They thought about having children, and then decided that she was too old now to carry out a successful pregnancy, so maybe they would adopt. Hopeful whispers of the future fluttered about their household, until one day when Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe Columbus Adams checked their bank account saw it was almost depleted. And then she checked the wine cabinet and saw that at least eleven of the bottles were empty even though they were all full a week ago.

Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe Columbus Adams talked to her husband. Childhood traumas filled her ears and blocked her hearing but she could make out phrases like “I should have told you I’ve struggled with this,” “I thought I had it under control,” “medication may have stopped working,” “seeing a psychiatrist.” She remembered her mother.

She was his wife, and she hadn’t known. She thought about asking him how she could help. But she already knew how, and she didn’t know if she could do it.

All she replied with was, “I understand.” She was too paralyzed to say anything else.

They hugged. She went to bed. It was five o’clock in the evening.

It was a Tuesday morning when Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe Columbus Adams received a phone call alerting her that her husband had jumped off the roof of the high-rise building where he worked every day. He had left a note on his computer addressed to his co-worker.

“Tell my wife that this was not her fault. It was not anything either of us could control. I did not want to go on spoiling her life…” and she didn’t hear the rest after that.

Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe Columbus Adams hung up the phone, went to the bathroom, and rubbed her face raw until the caked on makeup came flaking off. She stared at her naked face before getting into bed. The cool pillow burned her bare cheek.

*****

When a person is said to have died an unexpected death, people usually mean she died young or she took her own life. Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe Columbus Adams did die young. She was forty-two years old. But she did not take her own life. She just disappeared. She was reported missing by her next-door neighbor. The LAPD conducted three years of investigations. It was decided that she must be dead somewhere. And she was dead. But there was no body. No crime. She just disappeared. Asleep in her bed one day, gone the next. Evaporated into thin air. And because they couldn’t find the original record of Veronica Eckhart Robinson Odeh Nagata Igwe Columbus Adams’s given name, the Blackwells received no call.

Ashna Madni is a senior undergraduate at the University of Southern California pursuing a double-major in English (Creative Writing) and Social Sciences with an Emphasis in Psychology. An aspiring author, Ashna loves to read and write several kinds of fiction, but finds particular interest in the genre of magic realism. Some of her favorite authors include Virginia Woolf, Aimee Bender, and George Saunders. She works for Sandpiper Books, an independent bookstore in Torrance, CA. In her free time, Ashna enjoys taking and teaching ballet and contemporary dance classes. She has danced for sixteen years and is currently the Co-Director of the Chamber Ballet Company of USC.