The Vanishing Year (21 page)

He laughs. “Touché. So, ask away. I'll answer.”

“How did you end up back on the East Coast?”

He shifts in his seat and cocks his head. “Go right for the hard stuff, eh?”

“Is it? I thought that was a softball.” I smile.

“Yeah, well, ah, you didn't know. So I was engaged. Her name was Mary. We met at an Astros game, actually Game Five of the NLCS in 2005.” He coughs and shifts in the driver's seat. “I was sitting behind her, and we were all standing and jumping around because Berkman had just hit a home run. And some jerk knocked into me, spilling my beer all down her back. She turned around and took one look at me, holding an empty beer cup, and threw her daiquiri in my face. Who drinks a daiquiri at a baseball game? I think I said that. I bought her another one as a peace offering.” As he tells the story, he gets a funny, faraway look and I think of all the ways Cash has held himself at arm's length. Although I'm married, I feel certain it wouldn't be different if I wasn't.

“I've never been to a baseball game.”

“Never? You've lived in New York for how long and you've never gone to a Mets or Yankees game? That's, like, un-­American.”

“I know. I guess, just it wasn't Lydia's thing, and it's certainly not Henry's thing. I think his firm has had events at Yankee Stadium, but we haven't gone.” I flick my fingertips in his direction. “I didn't mean to hijack the conversation. Keep going. This Mary, she liked your daiquiri, then?”

“Oh, sure. Who wouldn't?” He winks at me, and I laugh. “So, I got to plead my case, that it wasn't my fault, ruffians and all that. She believed me, I guess. I saw her later at a bar outside the stadium and bought her another daiquiri. We met for dinner the following Saturday. She was . . .”

I give Cash his reverent moment.
Beautiful? Amazing? Luminous?

“Bat-shit crazy. That's what she was. She was a lawyer, an attack dog in the courtroom. She got an offer from a New York law firm after killing them in an insurance case. She drove a hard bargain and walked away a partner and a rich woman. I followed her here. I was a journalist. There had to be a ton of work in New York, right? I was working freelance but she didn't think I had a lot of ambition and suggested the
Post
as a way to be more structured with my life.
A real job,
she called it.”

“Huh,” is all I can think to say.

“Yeah. Huh. But I did. And we had a spacious high-rise on Fifth Avenue, overlooking Central Park. She worked long hours, so I started working long hours. I proposed to her, to fix it, which is just about the dumbest thing a person can do. She said yes, because, well, I don't know why. I surprised her at work one night to find her screwing one of the partners in her office. Wouldn't you lock the door?” He offers a quick glance over. “I'd lock the door. I mean, c'mon.”

“Ouch.”

He sighed. “So I moved out and haven't spoken to her since. Oh!” He snaps his fingers like he just remembered something. “That's a lie. I covered a wedding a few years ago, and she was there as a guest. With him. She
married
that guy. She was all tucked and lifted, her face was a thick cake of makeup. She was like an ice sculpture of Mary. When I said I still worked at the
Post,
she laughed.”

“What did you say?” I ask, incredulous.

“I asked her if she still fucked her husband in her office. He was standing right there and by the look on his face, I could tell
that
answer was no.”

I laughed. “So you're not still hung up on her?”

He's quiet for a moment. “No, not hung up on her. She was the only woman I was ever engaged to, so sometimes I wonder. Plus, she was such a loose cannon. I find myself
sabotaging relationships with other women, that's all. They're all so normal. Am I self-destructive? My mother thinks so.”

“Maybe a little bit.” It feels so nice to swing the camera around and focus on someone else's problems.

“Well, self-destruction seems to be something we have in common.” He turns the radio on, but to a low volume. Something classical. More surprises. “How did
you
end up on the East Coast?”

The question is tangled up in
the things I cannot say.
I think of how to be honest, truthful, and not give away all my secrets. For me, the basest act is also the most admissible.
Evelyn.

“I was in college. I was in a bad place.” I trace swirl patterns with my fingertip on the cold windowpane. “My adoptive mother, Evelyn . . . she died. I was depressed and too poor to take care of her so I . . . ran away.”

“She was sick?”

“She had cancer.” I try to avoid saying it, that big looming pit of blackness in the corner of my mind. The one that I skirt around with euphemisms and niceties like
common burial
and
state-funded
, when I really mean abandoned. Unloved. “So New York was an escape for me. I saw an opening at La Fleur d'Elise and started working there as a glorified custodian. I worked on design at night. Then . . . I met Henry.” My voice drops on the
Henry.
“The thing is, I left my mother.” I square my shoulders and stare at Cash's profile, willing him to pass judgment. I see nothing, not a flicker of understanding, even. “In the morgue. I couldn't afford to bury her. I left her.”

I see comprehension dawning in his eyes. He reaches out, touches my hand. “Are you that same person?”

“No. I was a mess then, running from myself. From other people. I'm only a slightly more put together mess now.” I pat my running nose with a napkin I find in the glovebox.

“Have you tried to go back? Find out . . . what the county
did? I can do that for you. You could have a memorial. Have closure.”

“No. I can't.” I shake my head vehemently. “They did a state-funded burial. That's what they give to people who are abandoned. The only people who are abandoned in death are those who die unloved. I . . .” I can't finish my sentence. I can't even finish the thought, except I push. My brain pushes past the whooshing in my ears and the whir of the tires on the road and the awareness of my body and I think the thought I've avoided since I left San Francisco five years ago. “The last thing I ever did to Evelyn was tell her that she was unloved.”

The words themselves don't feel so terrible out there, clunked out on the console between us. Cash covers my hand with his, and his eyes are so filled with compassion that I think I might break, right there in that shitty car on I-84. I gaze out onto the interstate in front of us, a large, flat expanse of nothingness with no cars and no people. It's all so lonely.

I depress the window button and feel the warm air hit my face. I take some deep breaths. I've said the worst things about myself to someone who seems to care about me and I'm still here. My hands are trembling and I shove them under my thighs, my diamond digging into my skin.

Cash reaches over, taps my shoulder. “Okay?”

I nod awkwardly. I feel like someone who has impulsively confessed something horrible on a crashing plane that ends up righting itself only minutes later. I cough. “Yeah. I want to find out information on Joan. How can I do that?”

“Do you have a computer?” he asks. I give him a
duh
look and he laughs. “If you give me fifteen minutes and decent Wi-Fi, I can find out pretty much anything.”

I shrug. “Okay, let's go. But I'm taking advantage of Henry being gone and ordering Chinese for dinner. He generally considers all takeout to be the lowest form of food, barely edible.”

“Well, that's a real shame. I happen to
love
chicken and broccoli.”

•  •  •

We order takeout and sit on a blanket on the living room floor, surrounded by foil and cardboard containers, the sauce oozing out of the corners. I eat until I could burst and we chat about the city, being transplants, and what things were hardest to get used to.

“The speed of everything,” Cash said without thinking. “Everyone walks fast, the subways are fast, the taxis are fast. And yet, it can still take an hour to cross a one-mile island. Why? It used to be frustrating. About eighteen months here, I stopped trying to figure it out.”

“Yes! For me, the hardest part was the massive amounts of people. I come from a city but San Francisco has nothing on New York in terms of sheer number of bodies. But no one looks at each other. In California, people are
nice.
” I pour us both a glass of wine in the supplied paper cups. “I met Lydia and it got easier. I had a ready-made band of misfits.”

“Well, it was easier for me at first, then lonely later. I have friends now, guys at the paper or from the gym.”

“What about girlfriends now?” I blurt.

He shrugs and leans back against the easy chair behind him. “I do okay.” He rubs his hand across his jaw and gives me a sideways grin. I briefly think of Henry—he would die if he saw us eating in here. The rug cost $5,000. To cover the silence, I reach into the greasy bag and pull out a fortune cookie. I crack it open, the crumbs dusting down to my legs, on to the blanket. I pull out the little folded rectangle of paper. “‘In case of fire, keep calm, pay bill, and run,'” I read. “What does that even mean?”

“I like how they tell you to pay the bill first, though.” He stretches his legs out and grabs a cookie. “Here's one. ‘It never
pays to kick a skunk.' Honestly, these are the weirdest fortune cookies I've ever seen.”

“Kick a skunk? Oh my God, that's ridiculous. Okay, here's one.” I unfold another little paper and drop it. We both reach for it and his hand accidentally grabs mine. I pull it away. “‘The greatest risk is not taking one.'”

We both ponder that one. Cash smiles. “I guess we should get a move on our search for Joan, then?”

I laugh as he pulls the last cookie from the bag, cracks it open, and unfolds the fortune. His smile falters.

“What? Read it.”

“Ah, Zoe. ‘You are extraordinarily beautiful.'”

“What?” The flush creeps up my neck and my cheeks grow warm. I clutch the collar of my shirt.

“That's what it says, look.” He hands it to me. He's right.
You are extraordinarily beautiful.
My pulse thumps under my thumb. I feel it then, his crush on me. We don't know each other enough for it to be any more than that but I've been abusing his friendship, pretending the undercurrent wasn't there. Why else does a man go to such lengths for a woman, driving her a hundred miles in one day?

“Cash, I—”

“Did you hear that?” Cash whispers. He holds up his hand, and then I do hear it. A single bang coming from the kitchen fire exit. All penthouses in New York must have a secondary exit—it's part of the fire code. The door back there is locked with a key, not a card the way the front door is, and it's rarely used. The only key that I know of is in the kitchen drawer.

I stand up, all wine-fueled courage, and tiptoe toward the kitchen. The room is dark and light filters in from underneath the emergency door. The light in that hallway is bluish fluorescent and gives the kitchen an eerie glow. I scoot along the cabinets, my back against the countertop. Underneath
the door, I can make out the shadow of two feet. I can't breathe, my heart pounds.
We have got to get out of here.

I'm staring at the door, my feet rooted to the marble floor in terror, when the door handle jiggles.

I back up and crash into one of the metal kitchen stools. The door handle stops moving.

“Henry. Is that you?” I yell at the door, my words dribble out much weaker than I intended. Cash grabs my arm. I hadn't even heard him come into the kitchen.

“Zoe, we should get out of here.” He's pulling me out through the front door and into the elevator. The service stairs are on the opposite end of the floor. Whoever was back there could cross the building and surprise us on another floor. Difficult and unlikely, but possible. The elevator door closes and we start to move down.

“Why would he come in the back? Does he do that?”

I bend over at the waist, trying to catch my breath. My legs feel like Jell-O from the adrenaline. “He never has before. It's not Henry. Henry's in Japan by now.”

I stand upright and dial Henry's number. He picks up after one ring.

“Zoe? What's the matter?”

I inhale, not expecting him to answer. I sag against the back wall of the elevator as the numbers light up: ten, nine, eight . . . “Henry? Someone is in our apartment. I don't know who.” My voice comes out like a squeak.

Four . . . three . . . two . . . L . . . “Zoe? Are you okay? I'm in L.A. Should I come home?”

I don't know what to say. He shouts into the phone, “Can you hear me? I'm coming home, okay?” I can barely hear him over the blood rushing in my ears.

The elevator doors slide open.

CHAPTER
21

The lobby is empty with the exception of Walter, the night doorman.

“Call the police, Walter,” I'm out of breath and spin in one direction, then the other, to find where the service stairs come out. I think of my apartment a week ago, a leveled wreck, all our belongings strewn across the floors and furniture. I think of the car. The whispered threat to Caroline. I realize with a sudden thud that none of this is accidental. It's all a deliberate attempt to send me a message.

“Are you okay, Mrs. Whittaker?” His brows crease and he reaches a hand out for the telephone. I shake my head.

“I can't stay here. Someone tried to break into my apartment. Just call them.” I run across the lobby, through the revolving doors, and into the street. The April air is still cool at night, despite the daytime heat wave, and the streets of New York are never quiet. Horns honk. People talk, shout, sing. There is always music. It's a comfort, this never abating circus.

“Where to?” Cash huffs behind me, as breathless as I am. I jog west on Hubert Street, make a quick right on to Collister.
Cash follows me, waiting to hear my grand plan. I have no grand plan. Stay alive, that's my plan.

My mind is racing, what could anyone possibly want with me at this point? Revenge? The last time they came after me, they wanted to know where Rosie was. They thought I would tell them if they pushed me enough. This felt different, more final, less desperate. There was only one reason anyone would come back for me: revenge, pure and simple. There were only two people who would want that: Jared Pritchett and Mick Flannery.

I stopped in an alley to catch my breath.

“I don't have a plan,” I say to Cash by way of explanation. “I don't really have any place to go, but I have to call people. Officer Yates.”

“Let's go to my apartment. We can call everyone there.”

I think of the floor picnic and the half-empty glasses of wine. What will Penny think when she finds that in the morning? Penny.

“I need to call Penny.” Then I realize that Cash has no idea who Penny is. “Okay, your apartment, let's go.”

I follow him into the subway station at Canal Street. On the train, I scan up and down looking for anyone suspicious. Jared Pritchett is just a shadowy figure in my mind. Mick's thick blond hair five years later could even be thinning by now. The zigzag purple scar on his cheek that curled along his hairline from where he'd almost lost an ear in prison. I can't recall how I know that story. I was fourteen when he was away the first time for about a year. DUI, Evelyn had said.
Not his first.
His absence both freeing and hollow, the refrigerator devoid of beer, the ashtrays wiped clean and stacked in the kitchen cabinet, waiting for his inevitable return, thirteen months later. One day he was gone, the apartment sunny and cool, and the next he was back, the air thick with sweat. He wasn't mean, not always. But his breath smelled like Sen-Sen,
those red-and-gold packets stacked like playing cards under the quartz ashtray at the kitchen table, the curling smoke while he and Evelyn played gin rummy, her high-pitched giggle as the nights wore on. They were mostly happy, until they weren't. I suppose that's true for most everyone.

The R train stops at Union Square and we exit without incident. No Jared. No Mick. No one is following us. I'm back to checking over my shoulder again, the way I used to, looking for men with guns. The streets are strangely deserted. We walk the four avenue blocks to Cash's apartment. Cash lives in a walk-up, a skinny flimsy building with no doorman. I eye the window, which looks easy to break, and the dead bolt, which looks barely operational.

He ducks his head, shyly, as we enter, and holds his arm out, by way of a tour. His apartment is sparse but small and clean, and his kitchen is an efficiency. The tile linoleum and white steel stove scream fifties, complete with Formica-­topped table and red vinyl stools. The living room houses one small plaid love seat and a faux wood entertainment center that even has the back cut out and magnetic doors. A sheet divides the bedroom area from the living room. I can see the whole apartment from the vantage point right inside the door, which could fit in Henry's master bathroom.

“It's so cozy.” I mean that as a compliment, but I can tell by his face that he receives it as an insult.

“That's what nice people say when they mean
small
.” He smirks.

“No! Genuinely. Most days I could lose my mind in ­Henry's apartment.” It's the first time I've ever said it that way, Henry's apartment. It's always been
our
apartment.

I fish my cell phone out of my purse and pull out a kitchen chair. The first phone call I make is to Officer Yates.

“Zoe.” Her voice is all business. “Glad you called, girl. Listen, I found something you should—”

“Officer Yates, a man tried to break in my apartment tonight. Again. He came up the service steps into the kitchen. I ran, but the doorman called the police. Can you go?”

“What? Where are you?”

I sigh. I'm so tired. I relay the events of the evening, in more detail and slower. I don't tell her about Caroline or the phone call and I can't decide if I should. It seems excessive, a distraction from everything else that's happened. I can tell her when I see her, which I'm sure I will. She
hmmm-mmm
's and
uh-huh
's
as I talk—I think she's taking notes. I hear the clicking of her long fingernails on computer keys. She promises she's on her way, and I hear the swoosh of her windbreaker as I imagine her getting up from her chair, motioning to her partner to come with her. The phone disconnects.

I dial Henry.

“Zoe where are you what's going on?” he answers, in one sentence, one breath.

I close my eyes. Perhaps, then, he still cares. But do I? It's so hard to know. I tell him about the latest break-in, the man at the service door.

“There are things I haven't told you. I know why all this is happening. There are things you don't know.” It comes out of my mouth in a jumble of facts. “I testified against some terrible men in California. My testimony put them away for a long time—I can tell you more when you come home. I'm not relaying the entire story now, but I think one or both of them is out of prison and has found me. Someone is trying to scare me. The break-in at the apartment must be connected and same with that car. Remember, a week ago? It's all just a hunch.” I don't tell him about Caroline. About the phone call.

“I don't even understand what you're saying. Where are you now?”

I'm silent for a moment. “Lydia's.”

The lie slips out easily, before I have time to think about it. It just seems easier, I justify, than having him worry the entire time he's on the plane about an affair that's not actually going to happen.

“Are you coming home or going to Japan?” I ask, hopefully. I tap my fingers against my cheek, a nervous gesture I'd seen Evelyn do a million times.

“I'm in L.A. right now for a layover, but I'm coming home. My plane boards in . . .” he's silent for a minute, “ten minutes. I'll be home in six hours. It's a red-eye.” A chuckle comes through the line, soft and insistent. Familiar. “Zoe, I've never taken a red-eye in my life.”

“Well, I'm honored.” We're both quiet then.

“Zoe, I've been so stupid. Willfully ignorant of your past. Ignoring my past. Thinking we can live in this bubble where neither of us has baggage. It's just . . . not real. We'll fix this, okay? Together?”

I press the phone tighter against my face, wanting to feel his breath against my cheek, feel his whisper in my ear. My stomach swoops like a roller coaster. I want this love, the one he promises me when we're apart. The love we try to reclaim again and again, chasing it like dandelion seeds. I want
that
love.

A voice blares through the phone, announcing that it's time to board. Henry says a hasty good-bye. I wait until I'm certain he's gone and say “Henry” one more time into the mouthpiece. There's no answer. I miss dial tones.

I lay the phone down on the table and wait for Cash to come out of the shower. I tiptoe to the kitchen window and peek out through the gingham curtains. Cash's building sits in the middle of Fourteenth Street, between First and Second Avenues. Underneath a storefront awning, front lit by a streetlamp, stands a man, smoking a cigarette, a dark baseball cap pulled low over his eyes.

I let the curtain fall and edge away from the window. I'm officially back to looking over my shoulder, eyeing every dubious character, doubting every stranger's smile. Suspicion fits me like a glove. Truth be told, I've missed it.

Yates calls back and our conversation is brief. They didn't find anyone. Just like last time, it's all inconclusive and I can hear a thin edge of skepticism in everyone's voice. Yates. Henry. Except Cash. Yates asks if I can come in tomorrow for an official interview? The apartment is secured, someone is watching it. Am I safe? I tell her I am and we hang up. I eye the window again.

“Are you okay?” Cash leans against the kitchen doorway, his hands in his pockets.

“I'm fine. Just tired.” I smile weakly.

“Ah. Follow me.”

Cash lends me his bed and sleeps on the love seat, despite my protest that I'm shorter and would be more comfortable. He hands me two neatly folded blankets, and we stand awkwardly, the dividing sheet in Cash's thick fist. His face is a mask I can't read.

“Do you have a gun?” I ask. I'm wondering about the door again, if someone could find me here. If the man in the baseball cap is actually a threat.

“No, I don't. But I have a baseball bat.” He smiles, too flippant for the situation.

“If they come, they'll have guns.” I hold the blankets against my chest, nervously twisting my wedding ring.

“I'll keep watch. Don't worry, okay? You need to sleep.” He nudges me toward the bed. His room is soft. Worn woods, a weathered rag rug, and a yellow incandescent light give the room a cabin-like feel despite the street noise. I can hear him rustling around, mere feet away, nothing but the sheet to divide us.

The wall opposite the bed is exposed brick, each painted
a different color, and the overall picture is a rudimentary sun in shades of orange and reds. It seems much too feminine for him to have done himself. The rays are curled around each brick, vinelike and intricate.

I make up the bed and climb inside. I fall asleep in my clothes, staring at that sun, wishing for all the world that it gave off some warmth.

•  •  •

I sleep in fits and starts, shooting up straight every half hour, at every car that starts, every door that slams, never sure if the noise is real or imagined. My dreams are vivid and violent. Evelyn carrying babies in a tattered dress, like a zombie. Caroline running from a burning building. Henry, shot and bleeding on the floor of Cash's apartment. At five, I realize I'm famished and wander out to the kitchen. I find Cash's kitchen cabinets and refrigerator well stocked with coffee, eggs, bread. I work quietly, using only the stove light so as to not wake Cash, who snores like an old steam engine from the love seat.

While I work, I examine my options. I can't stay here with Cash. I could probably call Lydia, but I can't shake her
I-told-you-so
face when I tell her Henry went to Japan. I can't stomach the idea of painting a rosy picture of my marriage, either. No, better to just leave it alone for now. Cash, with his unassuming open-ended questions, is easier.

Henry will come home today and I check my phone, wondering why he hasn't called. He should have landed. When the sun rises, I plan to go to the police station, meet with Officer Yates, figure out what is going on. I resign myself to the fact that today is the last day I will fully live under the guise of Zoe Whittaker. Hilary Lawlor has been an apparition in my mind for five years, existing only subconsciously. The jig is up. Henry will know my past, my drug use. Evelyn. Some of it I can keep hidden, certainly the details are mine to spare.
My throat closes up with shame at the mental snapshots: stealing pills. Those shiny, glistening moms, so perfect it hurt. Those giant thousand-dollar wobbling prams. Legs piled like matchsticks in the backseat of a car. Me, drunk on whiskey, falling in the street while Mick and someone else held me up. Evelyn, abandoned in a morgue cooler. That I left my mother's body to rot. I've never listed it all out, not even to myself. My sins are smaller, less significant, and more manageable if they remain in their individual compartments.

Henry won't understand any of it. He's never been poor. Desperate. Lost. Henry, above all else, has always been consistently, unflinchingly
found.
Certain. Linear.

I think of Joan then, my sister tucked in her childhood bed, only about ten miles away. If I truly believe I am in danger, that someone has come back for me, then so is she. We're twins, the same faces, mere miles apart. It's a reach, but it worries me. I can't help but feel a small thrill, that soon I will meet her. Then a stab of fear that my life will smear into hers, that whoever is after me will somehow find her first. Because I know now, there is someone, some nameless, faceless person who is watching me. Coming for me. I have no idea what they want, all I can do is wait.

I can't fix Evelyn. I can't go back and make right what I've done. I left her, first to die, then to rot. The woman who loved me, raised me. I could never right those two wrongs.

I think of Caroline with a sweet baby boy. Six years old, with sticky hands, gap teeth, and shaggy hair. She is a mother now, a real one this time, with responsibilities, playdates and schedules, kindergarten, and T-ball. Whoever called Caroline is watching me. I can't shake the feeling that I'm being monitored. They could find Joan. It's possible. Technology has made everything so incredibly possible. The world is smaller than it's ever been.