Mania (8 page)

Gasping, Nick slid into a heap on the floor.

Nick wrapped his arms around his knees. His camera was on the floor next to him. As far as he could tell it hadn’t been damaged. Imagining that he was alone in the bathroom, he was breathing easier now, recovering. He was contemplating his retreat through the crowd of homeless men, about to push himself to his feet, when he heard a noise from the stall: the sharp echo of a hardened plastic toilet seat banging against the porcelain bowl, followed by the loud rustling of clothes. He looked up.

His blood froze in his veins.

Beneath the gray Formica partition of the stall, Nick caught sight of the shoes the man inside was wearing.
His
shoes. The pair of black and orange Nike running shoes that he had lost the night that Sam was killed.

The man hiked his pants and closed his belt, then shuffled around, moving to exit the stall.

After Sam dropped Nick and Sara off at the ferry landing on the day of their first date, Nick didn’t see Sam again until they met for dinner several days later at an Italian restaurant off the steps below Pike Place Market. Nick hadn’t called Sam since that afternoon, and he knew that his brother would be worrying about him. Nick didn’t bother to dress for the occasion. He showed up twenty-five minutes late in jeans and a T-shirt: no sweater, no jacket, despite the fact that it was so cold that parked cars were covered in frost and puddles in the street were glazed with thin, glassy sheets of ice.

Sam stood up from the linen-topped table when Nick arrived, pulling it to one side to make room for his brother to sit down in the cramped restaurant. The silverware clinked on the table, and the red wine he had been drinking sloshed back and forth in his glass. Sam couldn’t disguise his concern. Nick didn’t give him a hug or even a touch on the shoulder. As Nick squeezed into his chair, he realized how disheveled he must have looked. His hair was uncombed, and his eyes were puffy and tired. Perhaps it hadn’t been a good idea to come.

“What’s up, Nick?” Sam asked his brother. “You’re looking worse and worse.”

Sam’s wine spilled as he sat back down, and Nick watched it seep into the white tablecloth. “Am I? I’m feeling pretty good,” he said. He realized after the words were out of his mouth that he was lying. He was happy, but he wasn’t feeling
good
. Physically, he was feeling poorly. He wasn’t sleeping much, and he was waking up dizzy and disoriented. “I’m having fun—with Sara, you know?”

Sam’s smile spiked the corners of his mouth. His eyes, though, remained critical. “You’re seeing a lot of that girl, aren’t you, bro’?”

Nick nodded. He was thinking about the expression in his brother’s eyes, trying to understand what it meant. Sam wasn’t pleased.

“She’s spending nights with you, at your apartment?”

“Every night but one since we met,” Nick said.
That’s it
, he told himself.
He’s not just jealous. He’s angry.

“Every night? That sounds pretty serious.”

“Yeah, well, keep in mind we only met a few days ago.”
Angry with me for spending so much time with her
.

“Still,” Sam said. “Even if it’s just a few days, the two of you are practically living together.”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Look at you—
I
can see how serious this thing is. Anyone can.”

“It’s sexual,” Nick said.

Sam sat back in his chair. His hands were on the table, and Nick noticed that he was crumpling the white tablecloth in his fingers. Following Nick’s stare, Sam relaxed his grip, then reached forward and picked up his wine.

“Let’s not talk about it,” Nick said.

“Why not? I think you should talk about it.”

Nick refused. “It’s making you uncomfortable.”

“Me?” Sam forced a laugh. “Why should it make me uncomfortable, Nick? It has nothing to do with me. I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”

“There’s nothing to be worried about.”

The waiter approached their table, interrupting them to inquire if Nick wanted something to drink. When Nick asked for a glass of water, his brother spoke over him. “Bring him a glass of the same wine,” he said, and then to Nick: “It’s a Merlot, and it’s a pretty good one.”

“I’ve been drinking too much,” Nick said when the waiter was gone.

“Yeah, well. One more glass of wine won’t hurt you then.” He lifted his glass and took a sip. “So tell me, little bro’. If everything’s so goddamned great, why the hell do you look like shit?”

Nick had already been awake at five that same morning when Sara crept out of bed. She moved so stealthily that the covers barely rustled. Nick opened his eyes in slits, spying on her. She didn’t look back at him. She lifted herself off the uncomfortable mattress and walked naked across the room to the bathroom door. Nick was aroused by her slender silhouette, by the way her breasts lifted proudly from her chest and how muscled her long legs seemed as they disappeared into the cleavage of her small ass. He stilled himself, puzzled that she was up so early.

She didn’t go into the bathroom, and she didn’t switch on a light. Quietly she pulled on her clothes, lifting her string panties up over her legs, then snapping her lace bra behind her back. It occurred to Nick that she must have gathered her clothes by the bathroom door before they fell asleep. The room was too much of a mess for her to find her things so easily otherwise. Nick measured his breathing. He waited for her to latch the door carefully behind her, then pulled himself up out of bed and, fighting off a nearly crippling dizzy spell, followed her from the apartment. The engine of her large Mercedes was turning over in the parking lot as Nick slipped down the concrete stairwell. He took the rest of the stairs more quickly, crossing through the shadows in the lot to his car as the red glow of her powerful taillights vanished from the misty, early morning air. The Toyota’s engine rattled then turned over, and Nick gave chase.

The streets were practically empty. Nick had to hang back to avoid being spotted. He allowed two to three blocks between them. Her car was easy enough to follow, even from a distance. Its headlights shone so brightly that the slick black body of the car seemed to be shadowing its own halo. Nick’s headlamps barely poked two weak shafts of candle-colored light into the darkness.

The wind, whistling through the failing seals around the Toyota’s windows, tossed the light car from side to side. Down Roosevelt Way, the cedar and elm trees lining the street churned overhead. When a branch broke loose and hit the pavement in front of the Corolla, Nick slammed on the brakes and nearly skidded off the road. He had seen the movement out of the corner of his eye, and for a split second he thought a person was running in front of the car. He even imagined a flash of the person’s face, twisted in fear, prepared for the fatal impact. Shaken by the vision, Nick huddled over the steering wheel, taking deep breaths.

He caught up with Sara’s Mercedes again crossing the bridge over Portage Bay, and from there he followed her all the way to Bellevue. Easing off the gas, he was a quarter mile behind her when she dropped onto Shore-land Drive and meandered down the tree-lined lane toward Chism Park.

For as many years as he had lived in Seattle, Nick had never ventured into this part of Bellevue. He gawked at the huge houses hidden by trees, set back hundreds of feet from the road. He didn’t notice when the Mercedes slowed in front of him, and he was almost on top of her when Sara turned into a driveway and pulled to a stop in front of a gigantic electric gate. Nick continued past her without slowing down, catching sight of the looming house at the end of the long white gravel driveway out of the corner of his eye. He turned the car around and came to a stop a few hundred feet before the gates. Above him, with the engine off, the wind storming through the gigantic old growth trees became a roar.

The sky was lightening into a soft gray as Nick got out of the car. Hunching against the cold, he walked to the gates in front of the Hamlin house. He could barely comprehend the imposing scale of the mansion at the end of the long driveway, beyond a field of freshly mown grass and plantings of flowers and hedges and trees. The only houses that Nick had seen larger than the one in front of him were the aristocratic palaces in England after which the Hamlin house had been designed. Its sandstone walls gleamed in the approaching light of dawn, and its hundreds of windows sparkled like so many diamonds. As Nick stood staring in at the house, a light flickered in a large window on the second floor. The house was much too far away for Nick to be able to see anything inside, and at last, feeling cold and insignificant, he thought about returning home. He was walking back to his car when, unexpectedly, he heard the sound of an engine turning over. He glanced over his shoulder, then took his hands out of his pockets and jogged the rest of the way to the Toyota.

In another minute, Nick was tailing the black Mercedes again. The narrow roads fronting Lake Washington were deserted at this time of the morning, and he didn’t want to risk being spotted. Once on the expressway, it became much easier to keep Sara comfortably in sight. A number of other cars were beginning their morning commute, and he blended into the traffic as he followed her over the bridges across Mercer Island into downtown Seattle. Where was she heading?

Nick got caught at a traffic light about half a block behind her when Sara pulled to a stop in front of the Four Seasons Hotel and switched off her engine. He leaned forward against the steering wheel, trying to get a good view of her through the misty windshield as she stepped from her car. A tall doorman dressed in a long black coat and top hat held her door open, then led her to the curb.

The traffic was moving again when another man came out of the hotel toward Sara. Nick wasn’t able to get a good look at him, but Sara leaned into him and gave him a kiss on the cheek, her hand intimately finding his chest.

The cars lined up behind Nick honked their horns. A sudden wave of fatigue washed over him, and he gripped the hard plastic steering wheel. Easing his foot off the brake, he passed through the intersection, just in time to catch a glimpse of Sara disappearing inside through the hotel’s plate glass doors, arm in arm with the man whose face he had not been able to see.

“I think she’s seeing someone else,” Nick said to his brother.

“What?” Sam sat back in his chair, surprised.

“You asked me why I’m not sleeping. I look like shit, you said.”

Sam held onto the edge of the table, visibly stunned. “How do you know?” he asked. “What makes you think she’s seeing someone else? And even if she is, you’re just at the beginning of the affair, right? What makes you think this is supposed to be exclusive?”

Now it was Nick’s turn to pause. “I never said I thought it was exclusive.”

“You’re acting like she’s the love of your life.”

“Maybe she is. But I told you already, it’s sexual right now. And that’s all it is. Haven’t you ever had a purely sexual relationship?”

Sam nodded but didn’t respond.

“I followed her,” Nick admitted.

“What?”

“This morning. I was awake all night. I couldn’t sleep.”

“You really do look tired.” Sam examined his brother. “I mean it.”

“She got out of bed at five, and I followed her.”

Once again, Sam leaned back in his chair. The veins in his neck turned red, bulging beneath the collar of his white dress shirt. “Where?” he asked.

Nick shook his head. “I saw her with someone else.”

“Where?” Sam asked again. This time, the word came out with the force of a demand, and he shifted in his chair, then softened his voice. “Where did she go when she left your apartment, Nick?”

Nick leaned back to let the waiter set the glass of Merlot down on the table in front of him. Then he rested his elbows on the table, narrowing his eyes at his taller, broader brother. “What does it matter? Like I said, it’s only sexual between Sara and me.” He drew his lips against his teeth, fastening his hands under his chin. “I know I should put a stop to it,” he said, “but I can’t. You know what I mean? I
can’t.
”

The phone woke Nick at twelve-thirty the next afternoon. He reached for it, then propped himself onto his elbow on the hard, uncomfortable mattress, staring blankly at its display. His throat ached from the night before.

After leaving Sam at the restaurant, he had met Sara at a nightclub. For the first time in years, he had smoked a cigarette and sniffed a couple of lines of coke. Nick closed his eyes, trying to piece the night together. He could barely remember anything after the coke. Just looking into Sara’s eyes and laughing, dancing with her in the crowded room, jostled by sweaty bodies, hypnotized by the loud music and the pulsing shafts of green and purple laser light caught in the club’s smoky air like the threads of a jagged spiderweb.

He let the phone ring six times, aware that his croaking voice would betray him. He swallowed to try to moisten his mouth, then, sitting up on the side of the bed, away from Sara, pressed the button to accept the call from Laura Daly.

“Hello?” Nick’s greeting was a rasp.

“Nick? Is that you?” Nick understood from Daly’s tone that she hadn’t recognized him.

“Yes.” Nick cleared his throat. “Sorry.” Sara moved under the blankets, and Nick stood from the bed to walk to the bathroom. He winced, remembering that he had forgotten to turn in the photographs of the toxic spill on Elliott Bay. From the bathroom doorway, he glanced over his shoulder at the reason for his screwup.

Sara’s face was resting like an angel’s on the lumpy pillow he had owned since college. He had a sudden image of this same face, twisted with passion, his fingers in her mouth, almost brutally, stretching her lips, as he pinned her writhing body beneath his. She had screamed when he finally allowed her to move, then had choked on his fingers, and he had dropped his hand to her neck. He hadn’t known that he would slap her until he felt the smack of her cheek on his fingers. He watched her skin redden, then squeezed her throat and slowly but rhythmically slammed himself into her, again and again until her body knotted up into a tight ball underneath him.

“You’re calling about the assignment,” Nick said into the phone, turning away from Sara. He wanted to collect himself for the call, but the mess in the room distracted him. The floor was covered with their clothes, and his camera bag was open and his equipment scattered throughout the apartment.

“You didn’t even speak to Rogers,” Daly said evenly.

“I missed the deadline, I know. I can bring the pictures downtown today.”

“Rogers had some fairly specific requirements for the pictures. Things he wanted to see accompany the text. You know how it works.”

Nick closed his eyes, unable to offer any excuse.

“I doubt your pics are going to fit, and you know as well as I do that it’s too late anyway. They say the EPA is going to award the contract for the cleanup within the week. This story’s got to run now. Why didn’t you call me?”

Nick brushed his hair back, away from his face. His skin felt sweaty to the touch, as if he had been hot in his sleep. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t really do much for me, Nick.”

“I know.” Even as Nick acknowledged Daly’s point, though, he felt a wave of resentment rise in his chest. He tried his best to battle the irrational emotion. “Listen,” he said, a bitter edge creeping into his voice, “you don’t have to lecture me, Laura. I know that I messed this one up.”

“I’m not lecturing you.” His boss sounded surprised. “I was depending on you, that’s all. You had plenty of time to talk to Rogers, and you didn’t. I didn’t step in. I let you try to do it on your own.”

“You gave me the rope and let me hang myself with it,” Nick said.

The phone went silent for a couple of seconds. When she next spoke, there was confusion in Daly’s voice. “I
relied
on you.”

“So what are you saying?”

Daly sighed. “Maybe you should come on down here. Maybe we should talk about this in person.”

“Are you planning to fire me, Laura?”

“You know, Nick, I don’t like your tone of voice. I don’t know what’s going on with you right now. I’m asking you to come on in so we can sit down and discuss it.”

Nick’s body was stiff with tension. He was filled with regret. Daly was a good boss. He didn’t know where his anger was coming from. Sara’s hand was suddenly on his stomach. She had come up behind him naked, her fingers smooth and cool on his skin. “Okay,” he said. “Listen, I’m sorry.” Her nails were digging into his skin. “I’ll come in. We’ll talk.”

“Without delay,” Daly said firmly.

Before Nick had the chance to say more, Sara took the phone out of his hand and flipped it closed and tossed it onto the floor, where it got lost in the clutter. She wrapped herself tenderly around him and brought him back to the bed. Nick forgot everything but the sensation of her hands pulling him into her.

“Hurt me,” he heard her say.

“What?”

Hurt me
. Nick was certain she had spoken the words, but they seemed to have lost all meaning.

“Make love to me,” she said, as though she were repeating herself.

“Wait a minute.” Nick hadn’t thought to speak. He hadn’t thought to push Sara away from him. But he did. His arms were stiff in front of him. His hands were on her shoulders.

“Make love to me,” she said again. “Please, Nick.
Hurt me.
”

“No.” He shoved her away from him, not roughly but not gently, either. She looked at him in surprise.

“What is it, Nick?”

The anger in her voice didn’t escape him. Neither did the note of pain. He kept her away from him for a few moments longer, then all at once wanted only to hold her. “Just hold me,” he said.

“Nick?”

“I just want you to lie down with me and hold me.”

Sara took his shoulders gently in her hands and pulled him down onto the bed next to her. She let him twist onto his side, away from her, then drew herself into him, crushing her breasts against his back.

“I didn’t know I was going to feel like this,” she heard him say.

I didn’t know I was going to feel like this, either
. The words were on her tongue, but Sara couldn’t speak them.

“I don’t want you to go away.”

“I’m right here,” she said.

“I thought I could do it.”

Sara waited.

“I thought I could accept anything, just to be with you. But I can’t.”

“You’ll only know when you fall.”

Nick let the words sink in, turning them over in his mind.

“When you fall, I’ll be there to carry you, Nick. We’ll carry each other. Then you’ll see. Then you’ll know.”

Downstairs in the apartment building’s small lobby, Laura Daly’s face was red with anger. After making love to Sara, Nick hadn’t gone in to the paper. He had drifted back to sleep. It was four o’clock when the buzzer woke him up. Standing disheveled in front of the older woman, he could taste the editor’s profound disappointment. Nick hadn’t just tripped, he had tumbled in this woman’s esteem.

“I appreciate your coming all the way here,” Nick said. “But I’m fine.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Nick. I had some business to take care of at the university. I only stopped by because I need to vent. I put my faith in you. You’re letting me down.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You can begin by explaining yourself.”

Nick dropped his eyes. “I’m going to resign,” he said.

“What?” Daly was clearly taken aback.

“I’m going to quit,” Nick said again. The building’s heat was switched on too high, and Nick could feel sweat gathering on his scalp, soaking his shirt beneath his arms. He felt dizzy. The lobby walls were closing in on him. “Let’s go outside,” he blurted out.

Daly examined him in puzzlement. “Are you all right?”

“I need some fresh air, that’s all. Do you mind?”

Nick pushed the door open and stepped outside into the small parking lot, trying to recover himself. Daly’s cab was parked at the curb, its motor still running, a jet of exhaust rising in the air behind it. Nick felt nauseous.

“What’s this all about?” Daly asked. The anger in her voice had been replaced with worry. “I have to admit, I’m concerned about you.”

“It’s not about anything,” Nick said. “I’m quitting, that’s all.”

“Do you have a history of—I mean, is this the first time that you’ve done something like this, or do you have a history of—”

“Of what, Laura?”

“Well, of behavior like this.”

“
Strange
behavior, you mean.” Nick took a deep breath. “No, I don’t. Look, I’m not sure what’s going on. I’m with this girl. And I don’t know—maybe I’m in love with her, or maybe it’s something else. But I haven’t been sleeping. And I haven’t been able to do my work. I keep getting these images, you know—these flashbacks—back to when I was a kid. Things I haven’t thought about for years. Until now, things I haven’t even been able to remember.”

Daly assessed the young man in front of her. “Have you thought about seeing someone?”

“A psychiatrist?”

“I don’t know. Anyone. A counselor. Someone who can help you through this.”

Nick shook his head. “I’ll work it out. I don’t need help. I just need a bit of time with it.”

“You can take a leave of absence,” the senior editor suggested.

“I don’t want a leave of absence. I’m quitting.”

“Okay, then.”

“You were going to fire me anyway, weren’t you?”

Daly waved a hand at him. “It’s not black-and-white like that. I was going to give you a warning. As it is, maybe this is for the best. Take some time. Do what you have to do.” She looked Nick in the eye to stress her sincerity. “I’m not going to let you quit, though. I’ll take you off staff, but I want you to work freelance. Whenever you’re able. Okay? You’ve worked too hard to throw it all away.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Your work is too good, Nick. You’re one of my most talented photographers.”

Nick took a shallow breath and held it. The trees surrounding the lot loomed like dark effigies above him, and the ground spun beneath him like a gigantic carousel, picking up speed. The taxi’s engine was getting louder. Its exhaust was choking him. He focused on Daly’s face, trying to regain his equilibrium. “I know that’s really how you feel.”

“Tell me something, Nick.” Daly’s voice came from a distance. “Before I go. This girl you say you’re with. Are you still seeing Sara Garland?”

Nick’s skin was crawling. This had never happened before—never. There was a voice in his head. A voice he didn’t recognize. Someone telling him to turn around and to look behind him.
Turn around, Nick. Turn around now.
He squeezed his hands into fists, fighting the urge to twist around.

“Nick? Are you dating Sara Garland?”

Nick nodded. He was biting his lower lip. He tasted blood. He told himself to relax his jaw. In front of him, Daly didn’t seem to notice.

“Because I did some checking up on her, and I found out a few things that maybe you might want to know.”

Turn around, Nick. Look behind you
.

Nick closed and then opened his eyes, trying to relax, waiting for Daly to continue.

“She’s had kind of a checkered past.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Laura?”

“She’s been in and out of rehab. She’s spent a lot of time in Hollywood. Running around with the people we like to read about in the tabloids. Taking a lot of drugs, having a good time.”

“She’s only twenty-six.”

Nick didn’t notice Daly’s pause. “I just thought you’d like to know,” she said. “You’re swimming in pretty deep water.”

Turn around, Nick.

“I know that already, Laura.”

“She came into the Hamlin family when Jason married Jillian seven years ago. You should see her picture back then, when she was nineteen.”

“She’s beautiful now.”

That’s not what Daly meant. “There was some talk. Some nasty rumors.”

“What kind of talk?”

“She would have been difficult for any man to resist.”

Turn around.

“Am I supposed to thank you for this?”

The older woman shook her head, becoming aware of Nick’s increasing distress. “Just keep your eyes open, okay? You’re not a kid anymore. You know what you’re doing. But watch yourself.”

Now!

Nick’s fingernails were digging into his palms. He could barely restrain himself any longer. When Laura Daly at last got back into the cab, he swiveled around, his eyes climbing the building to the window of his apartment. For a split second, he was certain that Sara was standing there naked, looking down at him. An instant later, though, the window was empty, and Nick was standing alone in the parking lot.