The Guardians (18 page)

    Randy
moves to stand, but then his eyes catch on the hands I've planted on the
tabletop. The hands still, but the elbows vibrating like a pair of idling
engines.

    "Don't
say it," Randy says.

    "Say
what?"

    "What
you're thinking."

    "You're
a mind reader as well as an actor now?"

    "I
don't need to read minds. Not about this. And not with you."

    "So
tell me."

    "This
missing girl. Heather. The house. How it feels the same all over again."

    "For
the record, you were the first to say it out loud, not me."

    Randy
draws his sleeve over his forehead as though to wipe away sweat, but his skin is
dry, the cotton rasping.

    "How's
the executor duties going?" he asks, both of us happy to change the
subject.

    "I'm
not sure actually."

    "You
need some help?"

    "No.
Thank you, though."

    "It
must be kind of strange. Going through Ben's things."

    "He
kept a diary."

    "Yeah?
You read it?"

    "Enough
to know he wasn't well."

    "I
think we knew that."

    "He
thought there was something in the house across the street. Something he
believed was trying to get out, and
would
get out—"

    "If
it wasn't for him."

    "That's
right."

    "You
said it. He wasn't well." Randy's not looking at my elbows now, but
squinting severely right at me.

    "Or
he was right," I say.

    "About
what?"

    "That
the Thurman place needed to have an eye kept on it."

    "Well,
let's see," Randy says, lifting his hands to count off the points he makes
on his fingers. "One, nobody lives there, so there was nobody to keep an
eye on. Two, Ben was an anti-social shut-in with delusional tendencies—and that
was him in
grade eleven.
Three, even if there was something in there
that was trying to escape, how would staring at the front door stop it from
getting out? Four, Ben was talking about ghosts. And people with full decks
don't believe in ghosts."

    "You
haven't used your thumb yet."

    "Okay,
then. Five, you're grieving, whether you think you're immune to that particular
emotion or not. And grief can make you stupid."

    "Aren't
you grieving too?"

    "In
my way. God knows I raised my glass to his memory enough times last
night."

    We
laugh at this. In part because we need to in order to move on to the next
chance for normal to settle over us again. In part because Randy's mention of
the word "ghost" feels like it invited one into the room.

    "What
about some dinner tonight?" Randy says, rising.

    "Sounds
good."

    "I
was thinking the Old London."

    "Is
it still there?"

    "Was
when I walked past it last night."

    "Perfect."

    "I
was going to hit the coin laundry this afternoon. Want me to grab some stuff
from your room and throw it in too?"

    "I'll
use the washer here if I need to. I'm staying here tonight anyway."

    Randy
turns around on the porch. "Here? Overnight?"

    "Betty
asked if I would. I think she needs the company."

    "Where
you going to sleep?"

    "Ben's
room."

    "That's
fucked. Got to say"

    "I
think it was your point number four, wasn't it?" I say, pushing the door
closed. "People with full decks don't believe in ghosts."

    The
next couple of hours are spent back up in Ben's room, fitting his belongings
into boxes and stuffing the clothes from his closet into bags for the Salvation
Army ("Take whatever you and your friends might want," Betty McAuliffe
had invited me). I put aside a pair of ties, though I did it just to please
her.

    They
are activities that keep my fidgety hands occupied, but not my mind. Over and
over I return to Tracey Flanagan. Odds are that she's fine, and that Randy was
right: starting an official search after less than a day was nothing more than
the over- reaction of small-town cops. Yet the news struck me as hard as it
seemed to have struck Randy. Maybe it was the way she reminded us of Heather.
Maybe it was Randy saying how, now that we'd let it see us, the Thurman house
knew we were back.

    And
then there's the house itself.

    By
mid-afternoon the clouds had not quite lifted but thinned, so that, from time the
time, the sun found a square to poke through. It would flash across the Thurman
windows and reflect into Ben's room, beckoning me to turn and look. Each time I
did I'd have to close my eyes against the light, and when I opened them again,
the sun was gone, the glass dull. The effect was like a leering wink from a
stranger, so swift and unexpected you couldn't be sure if it was a signal or
just a twitch.

    It
happens again. The sun, the blink of light.

    Except
this time, as I'm returning to the pile of Ben's clothes at my feet, something
changes. Not in what I can see in the house, but in my peripheral vision.
Something in the room with me.

    I
spin around to face it. And it
is
a face. Mrs. McAuliffe's, her head
popping up another foot where she's come halfway up the stairs.

    "Phone
for you," she says.

    "I'll
take it up here, if that's okay."

    I
start for the phone on Ben's bedside table, but Betty McAuliffe waves me over.
Tugs on my pant leg until I bend down, my ear close to her lips.

    "It's
a
girl,"
she whispers.

    Once
Mrs. McAuliffe has started back down I pick up. Wait to hear the click of the
downstairs receiver.

    "Trevor?"

    It's
Sarah. Sounding nervous, her voice slightly higher than yesterday. The way my
own voice probably sounds.

    "Hey
there."

    "I
tried you at the Queen's," she says. "When you weren't there, I
figured I'd see if you were at Ben's."

    "What
was your next guess?"

    "A
bar somewhere. Maybe the back row of the Vogue. The entertainment options
haven't changed much around here."

    "I
can tell you that folding up Ben's underwear isn't too entertaining
either."

    "Want
some company?"

    "Sorry?"

    "I've
got the afternoon off. Just wondered if you thought it might be easier with an extra
pair of hands."

    She
wants to see you. A distinctly external voice, not the boy's. Mine.
She's been thinking of you as much as you've been
thinking of her
.

    And
then a different voice.

    
Ask
her over,
the boy says
.
Take her across the street. We can all
have a good time
.

    "I'm
fine. But thanks for offering," I say.

    "It
was a dumb idea."

    "No.
I'd like to see you, Sarah."

    "Really?"

    "What
about dinner. Tomorrow?" There's a pause, and the foolishness of what I've
done hits me square. "Listen to me. It's like I'm sixteen all over again,
calling you up for the first time."

    "I
called you."

    "Which
I appreciate. And I'm sorry if I've made this awkward. You're probably married
or have a boyfriend. I didn't even ask—"

    "What
time?"

    "Time?"

    "When
do you want to come over?"

    "You
tell me."

    "There's
a Guardians game tomorrow night. You could come by here first."

    "Sounds
wonderful," I say, because it does.

    The
Old London Steakhouse used to be—and likely still is— Grimshaw's one and only
so-called fine dining restaurant. We would come here, my parents, brother and
I, for special birthday dinners, squeezing ourselves into itchy dress shirts
and affixing clip-on neckties for the occasion. When I find the place now and
push open its door, I see that nothing has changed. Not even the lightbulbs,
apparently: the place is impossibly underlit, not to create a mood (though this
may have been the intention when it opened forty or so years ago), but to hide
whatever crunches underfoot on the carpet.

    I
have to wait something close to a full minute for my eyes to adjust to the near
darkness. There is nobody to welcome me, so I must endure the muzak version of
"The Pina Colada Song" alone.

    "You'll
be joining your friend?" a voice eventually asks, the low growl of a
chain-smoker. And then the outline of a man in a shabby tux, backlit by a fake
gaslamp.

    "I
guess he's already here?"

    The maître
d' has stepped close enough for me to see the grey cheeks in need of a shave,
the bow tie pointing nearly straight up, like a propeller snagged on the
bristle of his chin.

    "Your
friend," he says with a sadness that seems connected to the ancient past,
the suffering of ancestors in a lost war, "he is having a cocktail. A
Manhattan."

    "I'm
not one to rock the boat."

    He
leads me into the dining room—or dining rooms, as the space is divided into a
warren of nooks and private booths separated by hanging fishnets and "log
cabin" walls with peekaboo windows. Other bits of maritime and frontier
kitsch are scattered throughout, but aside from the framed print of the Houses
of Parliament glowering over a moonlit Thames set above the stone fireplace, there
is nothing "Old" or "London" about it. Not that this stops
Randy from speaking in a particularly bad cockney accent through the first
drink of the evening.

    "'Ello,
gov!" he calls out, and there he is, waving me over to an enormous round
table. "Set yourself down and warm your cockles!"

    "What's
a cockle, anyway? I've always wondered."

    "I
don't know," Randy answers thoughtfully, pushing his empty glass to the
table's edge. "But mine are certainly warmer now than they were five
minutes ago."

    The
maître d' returns with our drinks in the time it takes me to pull out one of
the throne-like chairs and sink into its overstuffed seat. Everything is slowed
in this dark—every search for the men's room, every reach for water goblet or
butter dish. It is like being able to breathe underwater.

    The
Manhattans and joking at the expense of the escargot appetizers pass pleasantly
enough, a testimony to how much, despite everything, we enjoy being together,
particularly given that the initial conversation concerns updates on Tracey
Flanagan's disappearance. No sign of the girl. Todd refusing to leave the house
in case the phone rings or she comes home expecting him to be there. The
boyfriend claiming he didn't see her after work last night, now taken in for
questioning and described by police, in their first press conference, as a
"person of interest." And to reconstruct a narrative of her evening,
authorities are asking all patrons of Jake's last night to come forward to
provide their accounts of the bar's comings and goings.

    "I
guess we should go down there tomorrow," I say.

    "I've
already spoken to them," Randy answers. "They're expecting us at
eleven."

    "It
does
kind of remind you of Heather. Doesn't it?"

    "So
what if it does? People go missing sometimes. Even in small towns," Randy
reasons. "If it's two missing persons over thirty years, Grimshaw is
probably below the per capita national average."