How to Start a Fire (29 page)

With his vast collection of associates, investigators, and databases, Matthew quickly amassed a healthy dossier on Anna. Her arrest and conviction were in the system. He was able to confirm with the medical board the circumstances under which her medical license had been revoked. He tracked her addresses since then and realized that she had been living in Mr. and Mrs. Blackman’s vacation property for almost four years. She had her own family. Still alive. And yet she lived in the Blackmans’ vacation home. The only thing he couldn’t figure out was what her connection to Max was. And Matthew wasn’t about to come out and ask.

Matthew lost and found case files the way senile old ladies lost and found their glasses. They’d scurry about like mice in a maze only to discover them hanging around their necks, and Matthew’s missing files were often similarly close at hand. But case files vanished on Matthew on a daily basis and he seemed at times willfully incapable of finding them himself. He also habitually accused other people of misplacing them.

The ritual repeated like a skip on an old record.

“Anna, do you have the Smith file?”

“No. Is it on your desk?”

“It’s not in my office. Will you please look on your desk?”

Anna would then fake-search her workplace for the file that she knew was not in her possession.

“I’m sorry, it’s not here. Let me check to see if it’s been misfiled.”

She would hide out in the file room drinking coffee for five minutes and then return to her desk and report that it wasn’t there. She’d wait for Matthew to leave his office, and then she’d search for it herself. Invariably the file was hidden under another file on his desk or misfiled in his right-hand drawer when it should have been in the left, or vice versa. She’d leave it on his chair, and he would never ask where she’d found it.

It was during the final phase of their ritual one day that she found the Anna Fury file and got to briefly relive some of her grimmest biographical details. Matthew came upon her as she was reviewing the plea agreement she’d made after her arrest. The file was a different color than the others so that he wouldn’t accidentally misfile it.

Matthew shut the door and closed the blinds.

“What is this?” Anna asked.

“Let me explain.”

“What is this?”

“You never answer any questions.”

“I do my job.”

Matthew approached her carefully, as he would a large dog baring its teeth. He gently pulled the file from her hands and put it in the shredder.

“That’s an empty gesture. You’ve already read the file.”

“I just wanted to understand you,” Matthew said.

“You don’t need to understand me. I just work for you.”

“It’s more than that and you know it.”

“I think we should swap back.”

“I already made that request to Mr. Blackman. He refused.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him I had feelings for you.”

“What did he say?”

“He said I should tell you.”

“If that’s all, I’m going to go home now,” Anna said.

Matthew slid his arm around her waist and kissed her. It was the kind of kiss you saw coming so if you really wanted to evade it, you could. She didn’t.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Anna said, focusing her gaze on the worn industrial carpet.

“I think you liked it,” Matthew said.

“Most things I like aren’t good for me.”

Boston, Massachusetts

“Anything to drink?” the waiter asked.

This was the kind of restaurant where you were expected to drink something expensive, so Bruno ordered the most expensive water.

“A bottle of sparkling water, please.”

“Anything else?”

“No, thank you,” Bruno said.

The waiter didn’t bother hiding his disappointment as he watched 50 percent of his tip vanish with just three polite words.

Anna turned to Bruno. “You can drink in front of me. I can handle it.”

“I can handle not drinking, and the waiter can handle one dry table tonight.”

“I don’t think he would agree.”

“I’m sure you’re tired of the question, but I’ll ask anyway. How have you been?”

“I’m great.”

“You look healthy.”

“One of the side effects of not poisoning my liver every day.”

“Is it hard?”

“Not too bad,” Anna said.

There were sputters to Anna’s sobriety. The official line was two years, but in truth, the longest stretch had been six months, and the most recent stretch, after her second stint in rehab, was only three months.

Bruno thought she was lying when she told him rehab had been easy, but she wasn’t. For Anna, rehab had been a breeze. Six weeks of no stress, plenty of rest, and not a single brutal hangover to mar her next day. She went for walks in the woods and smelled fresh air, and because she was doing what she was supposed to be doing, she could sleep at night. Her conscience took a vacation. She had been back to work only a few weeks now, but the palliative effects of her forced internment raised the bar on her coping skills. She was cured. The problem was in her past, like a childhood humiliation that dissipated behind the thick fog of time.

But she was taking shortcuts now and again. She wouldn’t always sit through every AA or NA meeting. Other people’s troubles could be so dull. She bounced around locations, never being loyal to one group, looking for stories that intrigued her rather than resonated with her. Sometimes all she did was prowl for the meetings with the best coffee and cookies.

Anna and Bruno talked about George with a guarded familiarity. In the restaurant, Anna was carefully attuned to the mild attentions of strangers. Did they think Bruno was her father or her date? A geneticist would have known in a flash. She wondered if Bruno cared what people thought of them. Not that anyone knew the truth. In fact, the worst truth these strangers could imagine was that he was an older man on a date with a much younger woman. It was the other detail that snagged on Anna’s conscience.

“How has George seemed to you?” Bruno asked.

It had been a while since Anna had heard from George. Sometime after she drugged herself up and flew to Chicago to help George deal with Jeremy’s betrayal, which turned out not to be a betrayal at all, their communication slowed. Anna could tell there were times in their relationship when George was being deliberately distant, rebuking her for some unknown slight. Anna was so accustomed to disappointing people that she never took these silences very hard. She simply waited them out, phoning or writing every few months until they passed.

“I haven’t talked to her lately, to be honest. Is the divorce final?”

“Yes. They tried counseling, but Jeremy couldn’t forgive her. She’s thinking about moving to my lake house for a while with the boys.”

“I’ll call her,” Anna said.

The last time they’d spoken, George asked about rehab and Anna pretended it was a paid vacation. And Anna would vaguely inquire after the family, never saying Jeremy’s name so as not to remind George of her last drug-fueled encounter with Anna.

“Did she talk to you about her marriage?” Bruno asked.

“She did. But she told me it was great, until she called me that time and it wasn’t.”

“Seems a shame to end an entire marriage because of a misunderstanding.”

“Marriages have ended for less,” Anna said.

Bruno pulled his rental car in front of Anna’s apartment. He wasn’t looking for a parking space, Anna noticed.

“Don’t you want to come inside?” Anna asked.

She had assumed that Bruno would spend the night, as he had in his past visits.

“I don’t know if that’s wise,” Bruno said.

“Why?”

“Because as much as we like each other’s company, when it’s over, we always feel a little bit guilty. I want you to take care of yourself.”

“I would really like it if you came upstairs,” Anna said.

She had spent the last ninety days of her life alone in bed. It was another form of sobriety, one that she had planned to end that night.

“So, that’s it? The last time was the last time?” Anna asked.

“It’s for the best.”

“I would have liked to have known then that it was the last time. Not months later.”

“Does it make a difference?” Bruno asked.

“It does to me. I really want you to come upstairs.”

She could sense his resolve weakening. She had an animal instinct for that kind of thing. Bruno drove through the narrow side streets, lined with cars parked so closely together they looked like toys that had required a giant hand to fit them in place.

“There’s no place to park. It’s a sign,” he said.

“There are no signs,” Anna said. Although there were always plenty of signs when it suited her. “My neighbor is out of town,” she said. “Park in her driveway.” She was lying, of course. The neighbor was an elderly woman who was usually asleep by ten and took her car out only to go to the beauty shop and the store. She was unlikely to notice anyone in her driveway. Although if she did, she had the towing company on speed-dial.

Bruno followed Anna into her apartment. It was clean and orderly, since she had been expecting a visitor. Earlier that afternoon, plates covered with congealed food had towered in the kitchen sink, dirty clothes were strewn across the floor, and her trash and recycling hadn’t been removed in more than a week. An odor of trash lingered, which Anna tried to mask with incense.

Bruno followed Anna into her bedroom without protest. He sat down on the bed, and Anna unknotted his tie. He cradled her face in his hands and said, “This is wrong.”

“I. Don’t. Care,” Anna said with a shadow of a snarl.

It was then that Bruno knew she wasn’t better, but his shirt was undone and Anna was kissing his neck and he wanted her more than he wanted to do the right thing. Anna could sense that Bruno was thinking again and fumbled with the button on his pants and the zipper. She threw her dress over her head, slipped out of her panties, and climbed on top of him before he could do any more thinking. It was only when he was inside her that her thoughts, that constant nagging commentator that lived in her head and told her how awful she was, clicked off. For a few minutes, she felt at peace.

Bruno held her in a boa-constrictor embrace for eight and a half minutes. Anna watched the clock, willing him to stay as long as possible. When he unfurled his arms, it felt like her body was falling apart, her organs and limbs and flesh disconnecting, as if Bruno himself had been holding her together.

“Forgive me,” he said.

“I wish you wouldn’t say that,” Anna said.

“I’m going to go now,” he whispered.

“So that was the last time?” Anna asked.

“That was the last time,” Bruno said.

Anna remained in bed, curled up in a ball, while she listened to the rustle of clothes as Bruno dressed. The bed creaked as he climbed next to her to say goodbye. He kissed her on the neck. Anna never turned to look at him. She didn’t even say goodbye. She listened as Bruno walked slowly down the hall and let himself out the front door.

Tears streamed down Anna’s face until she decided that she wouldn’t cry over a man, especially one she was never supposed to have been with. She crawled out of bed and splashed her face with icy water, which softened some of the ruddiness. She tossed on a pair of jeans, boots, a sweater. Grabbed her overcoat and left her house.

She wanted a drink but reminded herself that she didn’t do that anymore. Or take drugs or fuck strangers. She had to bat away a wild variety of impulses. She walked briskly in the cold fall air and focused on putting one foot in front of the next until she reached Downtown Crossing and found the alluring fluorescent lights of a used-book store in the distance.

She entered the bookstore and was engulfed by the central heat. It was like a warm bath. She strolled the aisles, which were overtaken by overstuffed bookshelves, kind of like untended ivy. Her eyes followed the stacks, assembled with a loose sense of alphabetical order. She had all night, so she started at the beginning, turning her head at ninety-degree angles that followed the horizontal, then the vertical stacks.

A tattered paperback caught her eye.
Sixty Stories
, by Donald Barthelme. She drew the book from the shelf and crouched in the corner, leaving room for other patrons to pass, even though there were none.

The book had an itchy familiarity and yet Anna couldn’t place it. She skimmed the pages for an hour. The surreal dialogue and disjointed narrative felt oddly comforting. And then she came upon a passage that she knew. It drove her back fifteen years and her memory clicked in so vividly, it was like she was watching a movie of herself.

—What did you do today?

—Went to the grocery store and Xeroxed a box of English muffins, two pounds of ground veal and an apple. In flagrant violation of the Copyright Act.

It was no longer the silent voice in her head reading these words. She heard Malcolm speaking as if he were there, tucking her into bed, that time she escaped to the Princeton dorm. Age fifteen.

Anna got to her feet and ran out of the store, unwittingly committing her first crime of the night—a misdemeanor for stealing a two-dollar book. She sprinted four blocks at top speed until the icy air burned her lungs. She stopped, gasping, and doubled over until she could breathe without struggling.

She was helpless against a flood of tears. She sat down on the curb and let herself crumble and wondered how long she could live with that feeling. Then she realized she didn’t have to feel anything at all.

Santa Cruz, California

Kate had been in a television stupor for seven hours straight when Detective Russell rang the doorbell. Kate climbed the stairs from the basement and peered through the peephole. A man stood in front of the door, eyes cast downward. She could see only the thick wavy hair surrounding a bald spot at the top of his head.

“Who’s there?” Kate asked.

Russell lifted his head and answered, “Detective Russell.”