The Caretakers (2 page)

Miss Erish paused, her mouth hanging expectantly. Evelyn was the one who asked.

“Do you believe that Amy—Miss Wilson might be sensitive in such a way?”

“It scarcely matters what
I
believe,” said Miss Erish. Her hands settled on her tablet case. She opened it, and her fingertips made a clicking sound as she entered the passcode on the screen. An email then appeared … one from [email protected], but not one that Evelyn had seen before. Miss Erish didn't appear to mind, so Evelyn started to read it over her shoulder.

“You may read it aloud,” said Miss Erish.

Evelyn nodded, and went back to the beginning.

“
Dear Miss Erish
,” she read. “
Thank you so very much for everything. I have just got internet up and running in the apartment (
Amy had abbreviated to
apt
.)
, and this is the first email that I am sending using it. I am looking out at a view on the Park, which I never thought I would see from my own place!!! It is so beautiful. Classes start in two days, so I have to finish unpacking. But I wanted to thank you Miss Erish. I could never have afforded this by myself. Love XO Amy.”

“I was rereading that note just this morning,” said Miss Erish, “as I waited. I had been looking forward to seeing Miss Wilson, you see. She had seemed grateful for all I have done for her.”

“We're all grateful,” said Bill, and both Leslie and Evelyn nodded and agreed until Miss Erish appeared satisfied. She shut the folio on her tablet, and as she did, it seemed to Evelyn as though the light dimmed throughout. It was, of course, coincidental, and Evelyn saw that as she looked up and over her shoulder. Clouds had moved in and brought more snow. It was falling fast enough that the freeway across the river was now only visible by the stream of headlights.

Miss Erish tucked the still-glowing tablet between her hip and the sofa cushion, folded her hands in her lap, and looked about brightly.

“Mr. Hunter,” she said. “You've put on weight.”

Leslie shifted and sat a little straighter—as though that might conceal the spread of his belly over his belt.

“I oughtn't be surprised,” she said. “If you enjoy beer as much every night as you did the last, of course you'll fatten. It is like drinking cake.”

Leslie's expression betrayed only the faintest breath of surprise for himself. Evelyn knew how unlikely it was that Miss Erish would have been here at the bar last night when the rest had arrived, and obviously Leslie hadn't noticed her either. But Miss Erish's senses were sharp, her intuition sharper; Evelyn wouldn't put it past her to have simply correctly surmised by a barely perceptible redness in Leslie's eyes, a hint of sourness on his breath.

“I'm worried about that weather,” said Evelyn, and Miss Erish nodded in agreement.

“They oughtn't be out in it.” Miss Erish turned the tablet in her lap. “They ought to be
here
.”

“Why don't I call Andrea? See how she is?” said Evelyn.

Miss Erish looked down and made a dismissive flutter with one hand.

Evelyn stepped away and made for the lobby. Miss Erish didn't care for calls, in or out, during a meeting: it disrupted the
foci
as she put it. It was a
dilution
.

The lobby was scarcely busier now than it had been when Evelyn rose. In fact, it might have been busier at half past five than it was now. Even the concierge desk was empty. Evelyn pulled out her phone. There was another text from her daughter:

STOP IT

Evelyn let that sit while she scrolled through her contact directory and found Andrea's number.

She answered after four rings.

“We're all right.”

“Hello to you too, Andrea. I'm glad to hear that. It looks awful outside. You caught up with Amy?”

“It is awful outside. Yes, we caught up. We're in a coffee shop down the promenade.”

Evelyn told her about Miss Erish.

“It's pretty bad outside,” said Andrea. “I think we better hole up here for a while.”

Evelyn peered out the windows. Snow was drifting high in the parking lot, making shallow parabolae between the cars there. The sky was darkened to a necrotic purple. Even absent any other motivation for staying in their coffee shop, Andrea had a point.

“How is Amy?” she asked.

“She's…” A pause, presumably while Andrea asked Amy how she was. “Amy is
fine
.”

Evelyn doubted that and said so.

Andrea paused again, but this time, it was not to ask Amy a question. Evelyn could hear the sound of chair legs clattering along tile, and the shift in acoustics indicated that Andrea was on the move. When she spoke again, her tone had shifted too.

“Amy's not fine; of course she's not. She says she's not coming back.”

“That's not good.”

“No, it's not.”

“Has she said why?”

“She says—” Andrea paused again for a second and whispered, “—she thinks Miss Erish is a
vampire
.”

“Does she?”

“Well not literally. But she … she's got some metaphysical ideas.”

“Would it help if I spoke with her?”

“What are you going to say?”

“I don't know,” said Evelyn, “I'll have to listen to what she says first.”

The concierge returned to the desk. He was an older gentleman, excessively thin, the dark flesh of his cheeks still soft, though. He met Evelyn's eye and offered a hesitant smile before his mouth pursed severely and he made to busy himself at his computer screen.

“Hello?”

“This is Amy?” said Evelyn.

“Yeah. Hi, Evelyn. It's Evelyn, right?”

“It is.”

Evelyn let the silence stretch a few seconds. “Andrea tells me it's very bad out there.”

“It's okay in here.”

“Well, I hope you're drinking something hot.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you think you can come back to the hotel soon?”

“I don't think so, no.”

“I see. You have your things here. How will you get them?”

“I don't have much I'll miss. I've got my wallet. My phone. All the important shit.”

Evelyn observed the inner cuticle on her left thumb as she spoke. It was ragged and red, as though she had been tearing at it with fingernails or chewing on it.

“Miss Erish is very sad not to see you. She asked me to read aloud the email you sent the day you moved into that lovely apartment. The one overlooking the park.”

“How do you know about the apartment?”

“It was in the email you wrote. That Miss Erish had me read aloud to the others.”

“Is she there now?”

“No.” Evelyn looked around. The concierge remained at his post. The door to one of the elevators was just finishing closing. Evelyn couldn't tell who was inside as it began its ascent. “No, she's sitting with Mr. Allen and Mr. Hunter. I am in the lobby. It's just us.”

“I believe you.”

Amy's voice sounded very small and much younger than Evelyn knew her to be. She was not a child, not really, but she was inhabiting one, perhaps remembering those nights when she lay awake in a cold bed, with emptiness gnawing like a rat in her belly … in a home where the only notion of escape was intertwined with death, where hope
was
death because that was how poverty was for a child …

“Now can we talk a moment, just you and I?”

“Okay.”

“Are you afraid of Miss Erish?”

“I'm … I don't know. I'm
creeped
out by her.”

“I see. Can you be a bit more specific?”

“It's the way…” Amy trailed off into silence.

“Does she telephone?” Evelyn prompted. “At odd hours?”

“Sometimes.”

“Can I ask what she calls about?”

“Different things. Sometimes, she asks me if I've read a book she's reading. She has a story she likes to tell—about the river, right?”

Evelyn felt herself smile. Miss Erish first told Evelyn that story on her eleventh birthday, and brought it up from time to time, quite often. It was, as Miss Erish herself described it,
foundational
. “I know that story too.”

“It's—” Another pause. “—It creeps me out.”

“Miss Retson told me that you thought Miss Erish was a vampire.”

Silence now. Evelyn supposed the girl was distracted, shooting daggers at Andrea as she must have been.

“Amy,” said Evelyn, sternly, “where do you suppose you would be now, if not for Miss Erish's generosity? Amy?”

“Yes?”

“Miss Erish likes to talk. Sometimes she calls in the evening.”

“And when she calls—we come, right? No matter what?”

“That's the deal, Amy.”

“I can't fucking do it.”

Now Evelyn was silent. Amy—[email protected], that was the name that Evelyn really understood her to have; this humanizing business of Amy was only an hour or two old, she reminded herself—was so very unsuitable to Miss Erish. Really, the foul-mouthed little
slut
—there was no other word for her, a little
slut
—might be better off tramping out through the blizzard with her wallet and her boots and her filthy mouth, finding a bus back to the apartment that she would soon find herself unable to afford, and leave the rest of them to restore the balance. Evelyn swallowed hard.

“You can” was what she finally said.

“Hey.” It was Andrea. “Amy gave me the phone back. It's me.”

“Put her back on.”

“She's gone.”

“Gone?”

“To the ladies',” said Andrea. She sighed. “I don't know what to do.”

“No,” said Evelyn. “Maybe you should just come back. If little Amy wants to leave…”

“What? Let her?”

“She'll see how it goes,” said Evelyn. “She'll see the consequences.”

“She has a boy,” said Andrea, “or a girl. She hasn't said as much, but I'm sure of it.”

Evelyn thought about that. If that was true … well, then that was another thing.

“All right,” she said. “Let me talk to her again when she's back.”

“Look, my battery's dying. And I don't think it's going to do much good, you talking to her. Let me work on her.”

“No. Let me—” started Evelyn, but Andrea had already disconnected.
Let me talk sense into her.

Evelyn dropped the phone back in her purse and wondered: had there been another text from her daughter? She resisted the urge to check and made her way back to the bar, practicing what she would tell Miss Erish: that Andrea was having a talk with Amy … or that Amy was out of sorts … or that Amy had simply proven ungrateful, unsuitable, and that Evelyn wished she could say otherwise … Evelyn had no easy thing to say, and she worried.

As it turned out, she needn't have. When she rounded the corner, floor lamps made lonely pools of light in the dim space, while behind the bar a young man fussed over a tray of glasses. As for Miss Erish, and Leslie, and Bill, they were nowhere to be seen.

Evelyn returned to the sofa and chairs where they had been sitting. She sat down in the spot where she had been earlier—the spot between Miss Erish and Leslie. The cushions to her right still held Miss Erish's cinnamon-clove scent. Was the cushion where Leslie sat still warm? Evelyn's hand lingered there.

“We're closed,” said the bartender. “Bar opens at three.”

“I know,” said Evelyn. “I was here earlier. Did you see where my friends went?”

The bartender shook his head. “Haven't seen anyone,” he said. “You're welcome to sit there,” he added a moment later when Evelyn didn't move.

She pulled her phone from her purse. There were no new messages on it. Not from Miss Erish. Not from Leslie, or Bill, or Andrea. Not from her daughter.

She began to compose a text—to her daughter, at her home. Not at home. She would likely be on her way to school now: on the bus, heading along the township road to the middle school.

I LOVE YOU
, she texted. She didn't send that one right away. She wanted to add something to it
: I DO THIS FOR YOU
, maybe.
I CANNOT STOP IT
was probably more to the point, or
WE ALL MUST PAY OUR DEBTS
. But her daughter wasn't ungrateful, selfish Amy—and Evelyn was in no position to chide or even invoke a guilty conscience in her child. Evelyn's daughter was blameless.

She pressed
SEND
.

Red flashing lights inched across the highway, but it was hard to tell more than that: the snow flew thick over the river, swirling in eddying winds. Andrea and Amy would not be back soon in that, not both nor one nor the other.

Evelyn texted Leslie next:
WHERE R U

She waited a few minutes and thought about texting Miss Erish but couldn't quite, so she gathered her things and left the bar. She hurried through the lobby to the elevator, and from there to the meeting room where they were all to have met that morning.

There was no note tacked to the door. It was shut but not locked, and when Evelyn opened it, she was assailed by the smell of ammonia. She saw that the dry-erase board had been turned to the wall. A housekeeper was wiping the conference table down, bucket on the floor beside her.

“We had the room this morning,” said Evelyn when the housekeeper asked if she could help her.

“You leave something? I didn't find anything,” the housekeeper said.

“I'm looking for my colleagues,” said Evelyn.

“I didn't find anything,” the housekeeper said again. “You don't have the room anymore. I have to get it ready.”

“All right,” said Evelyn. She stepped toward the dry-erase board. The housekeeper moved to intercept her.