by R. J. Jacobs
When I twisted the lens, I could see all the way through Centennial Park. How far had Paolo told me it could see? I backed up, squinted, turned to the windows of a restaurant. Still nothing—the reflection was a blank stare back at me. I opened three more canisters inside the bag before I found what I was looking for.
The filter. The fish filter.
I opened its case, attached it to the front of the lens. It was like a curtain had been pulled back. Across the street, what had been a silver sheet now revealed a bartender wiping out glasses. At the far end of the counter, a man sat alone, teeth like white porcelain as he bit into his breakfast.
I braced my elbows on the top of the couch and scanned the street through the camera’s digital display. The image was sharper than my eyesight.
Click.
“Emily?”
Click.
I found a dewy glint of sunlight on the yellow edge of the stoplight. Click. I found the crumbled sidewalk, the creaky gate I’d held on to for dear life when Marty showed me the office. I dialed down the light intake, zoomed in on flakes of rust. Click.
“Are you there?”
“I’m here.” I flicked back over the two shots I’d taken. I wasn’t ready for an exhibition, but I was getting the basics down.
Click.
“I have an idea,” I said. “Humor me. This won’t take long.”
He looked at his watch.
I leveled the lens and found the windows of the restaurant across the street. Vague shapes, upright, human, silent. Just the sound of my breathing, then Cal saying, “I’m going to get coffee.”
I’d stopped for coffee on the way in, but I wanted more. I didn’t turn my head. “Get me one?”
I heard the door close as he left.
I detached the filter and set it back in its case, then put the case over my shoulder. I made my way toward the end of the hallway, where the door leading to the roof was rimmed with sunlight. Behind me, my shadow followed me like an apparition. I was in my head now, I knew. When you’re manic, nothing feels impossible; the world seems expansive but vaguely nightmarish. Sensing my grip on reality slipping, I began hoping Cal wouldn’t be away long—to stay grounded, I needed him with me.
On the roof, the hallway’s silence gave way to a symphony of city sounds. The ten days that had passed since I’d been up there seemed like a year. That was before meeting with Sandy, before finding her.
I swallowed hard, pushing the image of her face from my mind as I dropped onto the tar paper, the acrid smell of it somehow both registering in my nose and not mattering. I aimed the camera toward the medical center. I focused the lens, altered the light intake. The distance was correct, but the reflection made seeing impossible, like peering at the surface of water in the morning.
I retrieved the filter from the case and attached it to the camera lens. Like before, the glass appeared transparent, revealing the entire lab. I let out a small gasp.
A gust of wind pushed against me and I inched back from the roof’s edge.
How many times had I tried to picture the lab? Here it was, not very different from what I’d imagined. There was an empty office that I knew must be Silver’s because of its size. It was separated by a wall from two rows of computers. Then there was an open space with some lab equipment, then another wall, then a hallway leading to a darker space which I assumed was where the animals were housed.
I recognized Matt’s slumped shoulders right away and wiped my warm palms down my sleeves. On the lab’s far end, Silver was talking with an assistant who wore a white coat. I didn’t recognize her at all, but her eyebrows were knitted intently and she nodded slowly as Silver’s lips moved.
The camera’s plastic warmed in my hands as the battery indicator flashed a red, empty cylinder. I dug through the case until I found a charger, connected the camera.
Beside the charger, I found my phone.
I dialed the number of the florist my family had always used—where fifteen years earlier, I’d picked a dove-white boutonniere for prom. Where I’d ordered the flowers for Paolo’s service.
A second later, Becky, the owner, came on the line. Her voice was instantly familiar. Part of me didn’t want her to recognize who was calling. I couldn’t believe what I was about to ask, and that I was calling again so soon. With a family friend, you feel like you owe explanations even if you don’t. I wondered if she’d heard about my accident, if she’d be curt and disapproving.
No. Accustomed to occasions of all kinds, I was sure, she sounded warm but surprised. “Well, hello again. Was that two weeks ago you called? Everything okay with the order?”
Refrigerators hummed in the background. We quickly caught up, her asking about Mom.
“What can I help you with?”
“I need something a little unconventional, Becky.”
She laughed. “Emily, if you wanted something conventional, I’d be surprised.”
Fair enough, I thought, smiling. “Is Tommy still doing deliveries?”
I pictured her assistant of twenty years. Blue baseball cap, tall, rail-thin. Nose like a hawk’s.
“Who else could I count on day in and day out?”
“Great. I need to send something simple to the medical center. But it has to be today.”
“Wow, today.” She sighed a little. “Oh-kay. What’s the address?”
The click of a pen.
I pictured the ID badge around Paolo’s neck the year before. I knew the lab address by heart. “They’re going to Matt Cianciolo. And the card is a little strange, okay?”
“Yep. Ready when you are.” I could hear her shifting the phone from one ear to the other. Nothing was going to faze this woman.
“ ‘Matt, I know it was you. Paolo, Sandy. They’re talking to James Mandel in the hospital now. Forget about Europe.’ ”
The sound of pen scribbling on paper. “Aaaand … got it.” Her pen clicked a final time. Probably not even the strangest card she’d handled that morning.
“How busy are you guys? How soon can Tommy make it over there?”
“Hang on, I’ll ask him.” The sound coming over the line muted as her palm went over the phone. A few muffled exchanges back and forth. “By one thirty,” she said. “Will that work?”
I knew getting a delivery done even by then was an immense favor, but even a few hours felt agonizingly long. “Sure. Please tell Tommy the closer he can get to ten on the dot, the better.”
I suppressed awareness of my bank account and gave her my credit card number. Then I thanked her profusely, promising to stop in soon.
While I waited—for Cal, for the delivery, for the camera to charge—I heard Cal’s boots jog heavily up the stairs. He met me at the door, a white paper cup in each hand. Why did he always smell like Irish Spring soap? It was like we were living in a commercial for it or something. He handed me the coffee, motioned toward my jacket.
“Chilly?” he asked. His voice echoed in the hall. I took him up the second stairwell onto the rooftop deck. Steam rose from the silver metal arches of the medical center, like the building itself was breathing. It looked sinister, white and red lights glowing in what remained of the morning fog.
Cal picked up the tripod, swung it in slow motion like a softball bat. Leaning against my desk, he started slipping his field jacket off his shoulders. “Want to tell me what you’re planning now?”
The coffee was hot, delicious.
About twenty-five hours now till Matt left.
Behind Cal, the sky looked like brushstrokes of gray and yellow. Above his beard, his cheeks reddened in the cold as I told him what I’d done.
He bit his lip, squinting slightly as he took in the plan. “So you want to watch as the flowers get delivered to Matt? Can I just ask what you’re hoping to actually see?”
“He’s going to look guilty,” I explained, quickly. “He’s going to freak out when he sees it, tear it up, try to get rid of it.”
“Emily, anyone might tear it up. You would. I’
d throw it away, too, if it came to my office.” He sounded apologetic for having to point out something so obvious.
I shoved aside the doubts swirling inside me. I pictured the accusation in Mason’s eyes as he’d leaned forward; the watchful gaze of the young cop walking me down the stairs of Sandy’s condo; Allie avoiding me. I hated feeling crazy.
I knew it was Matt.
I flashed back to his expression in the supermarket, a carton of blueberries scattering across the floor between us.
The cold made me shiver, but that didn’t matter. Up for days, everything I thought made sense. “Maybe I have something to prove, okay? I just have to see for myself,” I said. “I need this. I just do. I need to see this right now.”
Even beyond what I needed, part of me still hadn’t let go of the idea of showing a photo of Matt to Mr. Mandel.
Cal looked at his watch.
“Look, it’s already done now,” I said, my hand on my hip. “I put the order in and I’m going to see what happens. Aren’t you curious?”
Cal shrugged, nodded. He set the tripod onto the tar paper and smiled. “I saw an old movie like this once,” he reflected. “Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly.”
“That sounds like validation,” I said.
“It’s something, I guess.” He shook his head, finished the coffee.
A pause.
“Thank you,” I said finally.
I checked the time on my phone and wondered where the flowers were right then. I pictured the yellow delivery van bouncing down West End.
Cal unscrewed the tripod legs, angled the mount.
His phone rang. He raised his index finger, turned to shield the phone from the rushing wind. The back of his brown field jacket contrasted the soft sky. The tar paper crunched softly as he paced to the other end of the small roof, the ten or so feet giving some minuscule buffer of privacy.
“Good morning to you, too. Where’s your mom?” His voice was steady, even; I could tell who’d called without any explanation.
The call was a fissure, a short break, through which I could glimpse exhaustion I couldn’t yet feel. I rubbed my eyes, snapped my attention back to the camera.
Did anyone deliver coffee? I wondered, craving even more.
“Day after tomorrow,” Cal said into the phone. “Yeah, I’m off today. I’m working on something with Emily … Right, that’s her … No, he’s not here, it’s too cold. He’s at her house.”
Cal turned, mouthed to me, Andy.
I nodded. I couldn’t help but eavesdrop, and smile.
“Because we’re at her office. She doesn’t bring him to work … Yep, same building, we talked about that the other day. Olivia, stop. Where’s your mom?” He coughed, rubbed his neck. “Well, you may need to tell her it’s time to get up, honey. She’ll be all right. It’s after nine o’clock. She’ll be fine. Promise. Call me back if you need anything.”
He ended the call, dropped the phone into his jacket pocket.
“Sorry,” he said.
“What for?” Pretending not to listen as much as I was, I’d closed one eye and was watching through the aperture instead of the screen. It made the medical center seem an ocean away.
He shrugged. “I know we’re trying to concentrate here. She’s just bored I guess. This happens sometimes when she spends the night at her mom’s apartment.”
“What happens?” I figured I might as well ask. Until the flowers arrived, we were basically watching people watch other screens. Nothing riveting. I rubbed my hands together, warming them.
We went to the stairwell to stay away from the wind, checking the time occasionally.
Cal folded his arms. Answered my question. “Her mom stays up too late, then sleeps in. I’m not judging, really. She’s actually a great mom but lives a musician lifestyle. It seems like a lot of staying up late.”
“You don’t sound judgmental at all. You’re being pretty understanding, if you ask me.” He hadn’t asked me. Which I knew. I was dangerously close to not minding my own business.
“Well, I don’t have to worry about most of what she does now. We’re not trying to be together, just coparenting. If Olivia’s not affected, then her mom’s coming and going, late hours—whatever—are fine by me.”
Cal and I stood side by side, arms folded, checking the camera every few minutes. The battery indicator showed half full. Plenty.
“Is this recording?” Cal pointed at the unnaturally sharp image on the screen.
“Yeah.”
Time creaked ahead. I was biting my lip so hard I could taste blood.
Cal looked at his watch again.
About sixteen hours left.
It was strange to watch Matt working through a compact screen only a few inches wide—it was as if what was happening were a silent movie and Cal and I were the only audience. There was a peculiar loneliness to being at that distance and, at the same time, a shocking, voyeuristic thrill.
I pictured Paolo and Sandy in that office. My eyes drifted over the stations I assumed had been theirs. A wall separated where they worked from the part of the lab that housed the animals. From our angle, only a fraction of a few cages was visible.
“Weird work, right?” Cal whispered. The intimacy of watching gave the illusion that our voices might be heard.
Concentration and squinting pinched my voice. “He believed in it.”
“I’m just saying, I think the animals getting sick and all. Ferrets sneezing on each other.”
“No, I know what you mean. I guess they have to study that stuff somehow.”
“Where’s everyone else?”
I shrugged. “Time off because of Sandy? Packing to leave tomorrow for London?”
“Makes sense,” he said softly. “So, why’s Matt not packing?”
I wondered that, too.
Right at one thirty, it began.
Matt sat closest to the lab entrance. At once, his expression changed, head turned.
“Here we go,” I said. “There’s the delivery.”
Cal glanced over at me, then back to the screen. I wove my fingers through his and his palm squeezed into mine.
Matt stood and walked to the door. He was still for a moment, then he stepped backward with a quizzical expression, a large, clear vase between his hands. Looking around, he settled on placing it atop a filing cabinet. He was squinting, making a face as though it smelled.
“Are those …?”
“Lilies. I had to pick something,” I said.
The lab assistant, seated beyond the partition, didn’t look up or move. Dr. Silver remained in his office with the door closed.
Slowly, Matt reached for the plastic stake that held the envelope on which his name was written. He glanced over the partition as his thumb slid under the seal. He held the card in front of his face, leaning in like he was reading a foreign language. Then his head jerked back. He ran to the door. He looked out into what was surely by then an empty hallway, closed the door again, and turned the card over. He shook it like a fresh Polaroid, eyes wandering back over the flowers, circling them at a distance.
“Hmm,” Cal said.
I realized I was holding my breath. I stopped biting my bottom lip and let myself exhale.
Matt turned the arrangement around, inspecting it. Even held it up and looked at the bottom. He rubbed the back of his neck, then folded his arms like they were a barrier. He paced, picked up his phone, paused, set it back down. I wondered why he didn’t simply call the florist and ask who had sent the flowers.
Then my stomach dropped.
Matt dropped the card in the wastebasket beside the vase, rubbed his forehead, and returned to his computer, shaking his head back and forth. Then he leaned forward as if rereading his work.
“Hmm,” Cal said again.
My little movie had ended abruptly. Twenty seconds, max.
I let go of Cal’s hand, paced the tar paper.
There were shreds of possibility, fragments of maybe. Just threads I had no energy t
o follow. They were wrong.
This was wrong.
And I knew it.
I didn’t know what I’d even hoped would happen. Face in my hands, I felt like screaming. The feeling of falling. Of failure. Of starting again.
I felt stupid, spiraling with confusion.
I thought about Mr. Mandel describing a man in his forties, without a southern accent. It had all made sense before. Now, it looked like I’d forced all of it. We had nothing to go on.
“It’s okay. It was a good idea,” Cal said. His teeth were chattering.
“I wasted our time. This was nothing.”
My mind spun, considering possibilities. It was so strange, I actually felt guilty.
Was Mason going to come arrest me?
Was I guilty?
Cal didn’t say anything, and I was glad. Wind gusted so strongly I winced.
But then, who?
“How can he not …?” I started.
“Hey.” Cal pointed.
“What?”
“Silver’s moving out of his office.”
I returned to the screen, which by that time seemed like a movie in its fifth hour. I moved to turn off the camera. The battery was down to about a quarter full.
Cal grabbed my shoulder. “Give this a second.”
Matt stood, and both men looked at the flowers. Dr. Silver touched his chin, and Matt motioned toward the door. The assistant on the other side of the partition either couldn’t hear or didn’t care—her gaze stayed on her screen. Matt plucked up the card, opened it, and handed it to Dr. Silver.
I imagined I could hear them talking. Silver knew exactly who had arranged that delivery. I pictured a sheriff deputy in the stairwell, restraining order in his hand.
I was already on probation.
I thought back to the intake area at the courthouse, recalled the warm, smudged surface where I’d pressed my fingerprints. The vacant stares of people in line, waiting.
I was so exhausted that watching made a part of me almost giddy. It was bad. So bad, I nearly laughed. “I may need some bailing out in a few hours, so let me go ahead and write down my mom’s number. Would you mind calling her? She’ll know what to do. She’s unfortunately familiar with that process.”