Audrey’s Door (6 page)

A petite redhead in her early thirties grinned up at her, like she could see Audrey’s blinking eye through the backward telescope.

Audrey swung the door wide. Immediately, awkwardly, the woman stuck out her hand for a shake, and poked Audrey in the stomach. It didn’t even slow her down. “Hi! I’m Jayne! I live across the hall!”

Audrey didn’t know what to say. Except at cheap motels, where she’d known better than to answer the door, neighbors had never dropped by. Was this a joke? Was this woman a Jew for Jesus?

Jayne waited for Audrey to speak. Audrey waited for Jayne to grow wings and fly away. Her hair was the phony color of a fire engine, and she’d shaped it into a chin-length bob. Her mouth and teeth protruded, horse-like, from her face. She had three gold studs in one ear and two in the other. The skin surrounding them was swollen, like she hadn’t worn jewelry in a long time and had recently popped open her skin with the sharp ends of her earring posts to get them to fit.

“I’ll bet you had a long day,” Jayne said. Her voice was sandy. She smelled like fertilizer and smoke—Winston cigarettes.

“I wanted to say hi. Also, I thought you might like these.” Jayne thrust a pile of glossy papers in Audrey’s direction.

Audrey accepted them with a tight-lipped grin. She was sure they had something to do with Hari Krishnas, the evil Freemason conspiracy, or rescuing cats from cruel and unusual juggling. But no, she realized when she glanced down. Just take-out menus. Chinese, Indian, Greek, and Middle Eastern.

Jayne bopped her head up and down. “I figured…You know. You’d probably be tired. I heard it was somebody young moving here, and I thought, thank God. They’re all, like a hundred years old, you know?”

“They are?”

Jayne puckered her lips and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, in what Audrey could only guess was an imitation of a dead person, halfway decayed. “Fossils! Bat-shit
crazy, to boot. This one guy downstairs, Mr. Galton, only ever wears a plain, white mask. What is that? Fucking creepy.” She leaned in close, and lowered her voice, “And 14D’s a taxidermist. Evvie Waugh. Animals all over the walls. Basically, we live with Michael Myers and Norman Bates.”

Audrey lowered her voice, too. “I thought…I haven’t seen any of them, but they seem strange. I feel like they’ve been watching me.”

Jayne nodded. “Totally. That’s because they are watching you. They were born and raised in The Breve, and they’ve got nothing else to do but sit around and spy on the young people. I swear to God, sometimes I think they peek at me through the opposite end of my peephole. But they’re harmless, and my place is dirt cheap. I moved in three months ago, and if I hadn’t found it, I would have wound up with a twenty-year-old rich-girl-hipster roommate in Brooklyn. And not even near the park! Totally embarrassing. So, I’m never leaving. When I die, they can bury me under the floor.”

Audrey chortled. A little at the delivery, a lot at the messenger. “Sorry,” she said.

“Why? I’m very funny. I’m doing stand up at the Laugh Factory next week—my first real gig!” As she spoke, Jayne bounced against the doorframe with her hip like she was made of rubber. Back and forth. Back and forth. Audrey couldn’t figure out if it was a nervous habit or a happy one. Maybe both.

“You should come to one of my shows. I’ve got like, three friends, but they’re all married, so they don’t count. I hate it when they make their kids call me Auntie Jayne, and what the hell do I care if they shit green or brown? Anyway, if you come, I’ll comp you. That’s what it’s called: comping, for complimentary. But that’s not my real job. The rest of the time I’m in sales at L’Oreal. Westchester office, so it’s a backward
commute. They laid off half the staff last month. Everybody was wandering out of their cubicles carrying cardboard boxes and crying. I hope I never cry when I get fired from a job I don’t even like. I mean, what’s the matter with them? You’d think they weren’t going to get unemployment. Anyway, if you ever need makeup or whatever, just shout. I’ll give you samples and shit. Oh, I hope you don’t mind that I keep cursing. Do you mind? I’ve got a real potty mouth.”

Audrey shook her head. “No, I don’t mind.”

“You’re awesome!” Jayne declared. In her excitement, she hip-checked herself against the door hard enough to hurt, and her bounce-back wasn’t nearly as resilient. She limped a little but kept smiling.

Audrey shook her head. Was this chick for real? Then again, nobody else had come knocking, so she decided to play along. “You’re awesome, too!” she said, then chuckled, because she hadn’t used the word “awesome” since…ever.

Jayne clasped her hand and squeezed, but didn’t shake, like they were New Age hippies practicing touch therapy. Her skin was surprisingly cold. “Okay! It’s so good to meet you! I’m on my way to a date. It’s new, but I think I love him. Will you have dinner with me tomorrow? Let’s have dinner! Anyway—oh!” She dropped Audrey’s hand and ran back into her apartment across the way before saying more. Audrey fought with a sudden case of giggles. Just barely, she won.

When Jayne returned, she was holding a twelve-ounce minibottle of Moët & Chandon. “I’ve got, like, ten of these. L’Oréal Christmas parties—they hand them out like cards. Too bad they don’t give bonuses. Welcome to the building!”

Before Audrey could say
thank you,
Jayne was heading down the hall in beat-up New Balance running shoes. She didn’t jog. Instead she walked really fast, like those middle-aged ladies who circled the Central Park
Reservoir in the early mornings wearing nylon track suits. Determined as ducks, and just as graceless.

After Audrey closed the door, she opened the bubbly, sipping straight from the bottle to keep the suds from spilling. She was relieved to find that the “Betty Boop!” wireless connection had faded, and when she tried to refresh “Diary of the Dead: Casualties of Chaotic Naturalism,” it was gone.

So she did her best to put the article out of her mind and watched as the
Night Court
theme song played. As she sipped Jayne’s bubbly, she wondered when she’d last made a friend aside from her boyfriend, Saraub, or her drug dealer, Billy Epps. She reached back into her memory as far as she could and realized that the answer was never.

Z
ZZZ!-ZZZZ!

After a big move and twelve ounces of fizz, Audrey dozed. The story line from
Night Court
entered her dream. A smarmy lawyer with short, slicked-back black hair hunkered over her piano. He wore an old-fashioned notch-collared shirt and three-piece suit, and when he winked, he reminded her of all the charmers Betty had dated on the road. She’d always been surprised when they got tired of her bullshit, and walked.

“Have you ever built a door, darling?” he asked. His eyes were dilated like he was high, and in her dream, she smiled, because “darling” was a pretty word.

ZZZZ!-ZZZZ!

“Shouldn’t be hard for a bright girl like you,” he said, then turned back to the Steinway and began to bang out “Heart and Soul”:

—
I beg to be adored, Heart and Soul!

His voice was low-pitched and strangely plural like that of a locust.

“I tumbled overboard…” His face hollowed as he played, and she saw now that his chin was dark with stubble, and the circles under his eyes were deep.

I fell in love with you madly!
he sang, then he leaped up from the piano bench and ran at her with open arms. His voice got louder as he charged:

“BECAUSE YOU HELD ME TIGHT!”

She woke with a start. A man, in the room with her! A man, coming after her! But then, the television played a courtroom scene. A laugh track crescendoed with John Laroquette humping the blond defense attorney, the bailiff, the judge, then the camera. Equal-opportunity hump.

She rubbed her eyes. A dream. But the man in her dream had been different from the one on television, hadn’t he?

ZZZZ!-ZZZZ!

She spun in all directions and peered down the hall toward the front door. What the hell was that? A plague of locusts? Was this her tiny studio in Omaha? Saraub’s place on the Upper East Side? Oh, right, The Breviary.

ZZZZ!-ZZZZ!

She staggered out from the den and down the long, dark hall. Felt her way with her hands. What was making that noise? Still groggy from sleep and champagne, her thinking was murky.

ZZZZ!-ZZZZ!

She jumped, then sighed, and said aloud, “shit-all.” The intercom. She’d ordered Tandori Chicken from one of Jayne’s menus a half hour ago, before falling asleep. She pressed the TALK button and got staticky feedback in reply. “Hello?” she asked.

The she pressed LISTEN, and heard the Haitian guy
with the 1950s uniform: “blah-hiss-blah-guy-blah-up?

Her stomach growled. “Send him up!” she said.

The bell rang a few minutes later. She swung the door wide without looking through the peephole. Saraub blinked at her. She blinked back.

“Hey!” she said. A rush of warmth filled her cheeks:
You know, I just had the craziest dream,
she nearly told him.

He leaned into the door. His breath was bad: whiskey and dog biscuits. He was a big guy; that meant
a lot
of whiskey and dog biscuits. “Want my piano back,” he slurred.

“What?” she asked.

He balled his fists into the pockets of his wax rain jacket. “You took my Frank Millers, too, didn’t you? I fucking knew you’d be petty like that!”

She’d been about to step aside and let him in.
Let me show you Wolverine’s new home!
She’d planned to say, and then, by implication:
Let’s both live here! Better yet, Oops, my bad! This place freaks me out. Let’s both live someplace else!

“Are you tight?” she asked.

“I want my piano…and my
Batman.
Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean I can’t have it. You were always doing that—taking my stuff and moving it when I wasn’t around. Bruce Wayne is awesome. You have no idea!”

She looked at her bare feet. This was true. She’d thrown away the “Bless This Home” welcome mat he’d carried back from CVS Pharmacy
(Come on! Those things are breeding grounds for bacteria!),
and she’d hidden his favorite cutoff sweatshirt, because its red color had faded to pink. When he’d worn it, he’d looked gayer than a Lucky Cheng’s drag queen. But how do you tell the man you love something like that? Kinder just to hide the evidence. Well, maybe not kinder. Maybe just easier.

“I don’t have your comic books. They’re in the crate
under the futon. Sober up, you turkey,” she said, then closed the door on him. He kicked it back open. The wood shivered as he shoved past her and headed down the hall.

Countless times growing up, men had busted down the front door, looking for rent money or a fight with Betty. She hadn’t liked it then, and she didn’t like it now. Something squirmed in her stomach (the dust she’d swallowed?). It felt like a worm, writhing in bile. She chased him deeper into the apartment and shoved him from behind. He lurched. She pushed again. Hard. He stumbled but kept walking. She’d never been so angry in her whole life. She didn’t know she had that kind of anger inside of her. She wanted to throttle him, just a little, with her hands or a knife, or the water in the tub. “Get out! Don’t you ever do that! Not ever!”

He opened doors along the way. Room after room. Not a stick of furniture in sight. Just the new bedroom curtains blowing in the breeze, and metallic white paint. Their emptiness shamed her. Like the apartment was her life, and he was peeking inside it and finding nothing.

“What are you going to do?” she asked as he stumbled into the den.

Saraub kicked the air mattress aside. It slid across the wood and into the turret. The vibrations unbalanced Wolverine, who fell. “Hey!” Audrey cried. “Watch it!”

He was too drunk to notice. “I’m taking my piano,” he said, but he stepped too wide, and stumbled into the Steinway’s closed lid to keep from falling.

Audrey raced across the room and righted Wolverine. He’d lost some potting soil, but was otherwise unharmed. She held on to him for just a second longer than necessary, then placed him on the floor, so he didn’t fall again. “You’re the one who had them move it. How do you think you’re going to get it out? Are you going to carry a piano on your back?”

Saraub wedged his shoulder against the baby grand. Its wood was polished and black, and its ivories shone. She came to the other side of the behemoth.
Thank you. This piano is probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me, and I’m grateful,
she wanted to say.
So stop being such a jerk!

Then something happened. She felt like she was on a ship. Everything was moving. Even her feet. The piano began to slide. Its legs groaned in protest. The floor groaned, too, as a layer of its varnish peeled back, and the wood began to splinter. Saraub was pushing the piano!

She shoved back, in the opposite direction. “You’ll break its legs!” she shouted.

He kept going. Shoulder against its bulk, legs spread, knees bent, she pushed back with all her might. This was crazy. This was petty, like those families at the trailer parks back in Hinton and Sioux City and Yuma, who couldn’t be bothered to loan each other a cup of milk or a few extra bucks. They were cheap with each other. She’d always figured that rich people knew better, or could at least afford to pretend they did.

“Stop it!” she shouted. “Just stop it!” He didn’t move. She heard him groan, but didn’t look up. Didn’t want to give him the advantage. She loved this piano. She loved him, too. Had she been wrong in that?

The piano slid away from her and pulled open the hole in the rotten wood floor. She pushed harder. She was winning!

“Fuck!” he shouted.

“Wha—?” She looked up, worried he’d hurt himself, but no. He’d simply let go. Already he was out of the den, staggering down the long hall. He lurched from one side to the other, steadying himself with his hands, like he’d downed a whole bottle in an hour, and the liquor was hitting him harder with every second that passed. He wasn’t just drunk; he was blotto.

She took a few fast breaths to keep from crying, then chased him. Her bare feet slapped against cold, hard wood, but didn’t echo. All the doors were open, like the empty rooms were watching.

He was waiting at the end of the hall.

“I didn’t take your comics, and if you—huh-huh”—she panted—“if you want the piano so bad, you can have it.”

He shook his head but didn’t leave. She waited for his apology. It didn’t come. She tried to make it easier for him. “You looked gay in that shirt. That’s why I hid it. I didn’t like people thinking you were gay. It embarrassed me.” Then she heard herself, and winced. This was her idea of an olive branch?

He’d drunk so much that his eyes were dilated and black. It reminded her of the man in the three-piece suit from her dream. A chill ran from the tip of her neck to the small of her back. “Not my pro’lem,” he slurred.

“What?”

“Tapping yourself—” He imitated her, bending down low enough that they were eye to eye, and slapping his thighs. The sound was a muffled whip:

“One leg—”
Whack!

“The’other leg—”
Whack!

“One leg—”
Whack!

“The’other—”
Whack!

He stood tall again, holding the wall for balance, and kept talking. “—Moving stuff when I wasn’t looking, like a spook…” He glared at her, his jaw set firm and furious, and she knew that whatever was coming next was going to be bad. She squinted, like not looking directly at him might soften the blow.

“You don’t have any friends. Nobody likes you. You never leave the house except for work. It’s like you’re a ghost. Like you don’t even exist.” Hundred-proof spittle flew as he shouted. The blood drained from her face and pooled at her feet, making her dizzy. She squeezed
her hands into fists. Blinked once. Twice. Three times. Felt the tears as they cooled her cheeks.

Though she’d never seen it, she’d always assumed that, deep down, he had a cruel side, just like Betty. But she’d also always hoped she was wrong. His eyes were so dilated they looked black, and he squeezed his hands into fists. It occurred to her that he was about to hit her. Show the true self he’d been hiding from her all this time. A violent man who would one day trade his study walls for her soft flesh, or their children’s birdlike bones. What was worse, she wanted him to do it, so she’d never have to speak to him, or feel bad about leaving him, again. She turned her cheek, to give him a better shot.

His fists tightened briefly, then dropped open at his sides. But his rage remained, a palpable thing.

“I hate this,” she said.

“Yeah? Well, I hate you.”

He turned fast and didn’t wait for the elevator. Instead, he jogged down the fire exit stairs. She heard the echo of his steps. Quick
tap-tap-taps
followed by a loud tumble
(thump! thump!).
Then he got up again and went slower.

Audrey shut and locked the door, then threw herself down on the air mattress. An old episode of
Law and Order
played. A doctor conducting an autopsy removed a sheeted body’s spleen, heart, and liver, then dropped them into a metal bowl. The corpse looked cold without those things. Vacant.

Saraub. Every time he’d told her he loved her, or pretended, when they were sitting on the couch playing Honeymoon Bridge, that he was happy; every offhand glance she’d spied, in which he’d coveted her rear, or else just watched her move, like he was so proud of his girl; every surreptitiously snapped photo; every time he’d run his two fingers down her spine, and traced every bone: all lies. Because his love had been conditional. All
along, with his camera and cold eyes, he’d been watching her, and in her mannerisms, and cleaning, and shyness that people so often mistook for coldness, judging her
not good enough.

As she lay there, she cried for the first time since she’d left him. Before this instant, she’d never really believed that their breakup was real.

Too tired to pull her air mattress into the bedroom, she fell asleep in the den, with the sound of the television to keep her company. A few hours later, she jolted awake to find the man in the three-piece suit watching her from the piano bench.

His beard had thickened with black whiskers, and his long teeth now came to sharp points, wolflike. He tapped his knuckles against the bottom frame, and said, “Satinwood, yes? They don’t make anything like they used to, do they darling? Build the door, Audrey. We love you madly.”