by Riley Sager
The picture startles me, mostly because the original was among the photos I set on fire before I moved out. Seeing it again feels like spotting a ghost. It was the only vacation the two of us took together, and even then we couldn’t really afford it. But at the time I thought it would be worth the expense. We look happy in the photo. We were happy. At least I was. But maybe Andrew was already thinking about finding someone else to screw. Perhaps he already had and I was just blissfully ignorant.
I delete the image and replace it with a blank avatar. That seems like a more appropriate reflection of my current state.
Once that’s out of the way, I do a search for Ingrid Gallagher, trying to remember all the places she told me she’s lived in the past two years. I narrow the search to New York, Seattle, and Boston, finding two Ingrid Gallaghers. Neither are the Ingrid I’m looking for.
I move on to Twitter, with similar results. Lots of Ingrid Gallaghers. None resemble the one I know.
Next up is Instagram, which I open using the app on my phone.
At last, success.
Ingrid Gallagher has an account.
Her hair is all blue in her profile picture. A too-bright shade that reminds me of cotton candy.
But then I see the photos she’s posted and my heart sinks. They’re a generic lot. Dimly lit food pictures and oddly angled selfies. The most recent picture is a selfie Ingrid took in Central Park, a bit of the Bartholomew visible over her left shoulder.
It was taken two days ago, probably around the same time I was getting a tour of 12A. Maybe Ingrid was one of the people I spotted in the park during that first, flushed look out the sitting room window. There’s even a chance I’m visible in the photo—a dim figure gazing out a twelfth-floor window of the Bartholomew.
Ingrid kept the caption simple—three heart emojis, pink and throbbing.
The photo received fifteen likes and one comment from someone named Zeke, who wrote, cant believe ur back in NYC and havent hit me up.
Although Ingrid never responded, it’s heartening to see she knows at least one other person in the city. Maybe she’s with him now. I take a closer look at Zeke’s profile picture. The Neff cap, scraggly beard, and scuffed skateboard raised conspicuously into the frame tell me all I need to know about the guy.
That impression is reinforced when I click on his own photo gallery. Most of the pictures are selfies. Him shirtless in the bathroom mirror. Him shirtless at Jones Beach. Him shirtless on the street, his jeans slung low enough to show off his boxer shorts. He even took a shirtless picture this morning, snapped in bed as a woman slept next to him. All that can be seen of her is a patch of bare shoulder and long hair spread over the pillowcase.
Blond. No trace of blue. Definitely not Ingrid.
Still, I send Zeke a message just in case she decided to, in his words, hit him up.
Hi. I’m a neighbor of Ingrid’s. I’m trying to get in touch with her. Have you heard from her recently? If not, do you have any idea where she might be? I’m worried about her.
I leave my name. I leave my number. I ask him to call.
After that, it’s back to Ingrid’s Instagram account, where I hope her older pictures might offer clues about where she could have gone. The photo before the park selfie is a close-up of her fingernails, which had been painted bright green. It was taken five days ago. The caption quotes Sally Bowles from Cabaret.
“If I should paint my fingernails green, and it just so happens I do paint them green, well, if anyone should ask me why, I say: ‘I think it’s pretty!’”
Seven likes. No responses.
It’s the picture before it that truly grabs my attention. Taken eight days ago, it’s another close-up of Ingrid’s hands. The fingernails are light pink this time. The color of a ripe peach. Her hands rest atop a book. Jutting from its top is the red tassel of a bookmark. Glimpsed in the spaces between her spread fingers is a familiar image—George perched at the corner of the Bartholomew. In addition to that are scraps of a familiar font spelling out an equally familiar title.
Heart of a Dreamer.
The caption Ingrid included is even more surprising.
I met the author!
I’ve also met the author, and she wasn’t too happy about it. Still, this photo seems to suggest that Greta and Ingrid were, if not friends, then at least acquaintances. Which means there’s a small chance she might know where Ingrid went.
With a sigh, I grab the last bottle of wine Chloe had given to me, leave the apartment, and make my way down the hall to the stairwell.
I’m going to risk breaking another Bartholomew rule and see Greta Manville, no matter how much it’s sure to annoy her.
14
My initial knock on the door to 10A is so tentative I can barely hear it over the sound of my thudding heart. So I rap again, using more force. Behind the door, footsteps creak over the floorboards and someone shouts, “I fucking heard you the first time.”
When the door finally opens, it’s only a crack. Greta Manville peers through it with eyes narrowed to slits. “You again,” she says.
I raise the wine bottle. “I brought you something.”
The door opens wide enough for me to see her outfit of black slacks and a gray sweater. On her feet are pink slippers. The left one taps with impatience as she eyes the bottle.
“It’s an apology gift,” I say. “For bothering you in the lobby yesterday. And right now. And for any future times I might do it.”
Greta takes the bottle and checks the label. It must be a decent vintage, because she doesn’t grimace. I’ll need to thank Chloe for not giving me our usual Two-Buck Chuck as a going-away present. Especially now that Greta has drifted away from the door, leaving it open still wider. I pause on the threshold, moving only after her voice drifts out the gaping door.
“You can come in, or you can leave. It makes no difference to me.”
I decide to enter, the movement prompting a nod from Greta. She turns and moves wordlessly down the hall. I follow, sneaking glances at the apartment’s layout, which is far different from mine. The rooms here are smaller, but there are more of them. A backward look down the hall reveals several doors leading to what I assume are an office, a bedroom, maybe a library.
Although, quite honestly, the entire apartment could be considered a library. Books are everywhere. Filling the shelves of the room opposite the door. Sitting on end tables. Rising from the floor in tilted, towering stacks. There’s even a book in the kitchen—a Margaret Atwood paperback splayed facedown on the counter.
“Who are you again?” Greta says as she retrieves a corkscrew from a drawer in the kitchen’s marble-topped island. “There are so many of you apartment sitters coming and going that I can’t keep track.”
“Jules,” I say.
“That’s right. Jules. And my book is your favorite and so on and so forth.”
Greta caps the comment with a mighty pull of the cork. She then fetches a single wineglass, filling it halfway before handing it to me.
“Cheers,” she says.
“You’re not having any?”
“Sadly, I’m not allowed. Doctor’s orders.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know.”
“You couldn’t have,” Greta says. “Now quit apologizing and drink.”
I take an obligatory sip, mindful about not drinking too much too fast. It could easily happen considering how anxious I am about talking too much, asking too many questions, annoying Greta more than I already have. I take another sip, this time to calm my nerves.
“Tell me, Jules,” Greta says, “why did you really stop by?”
I look up from my glass. “Do I need an ulterior motive?”
“Not necessarily. But I suspect you have one. In my experience, people don’t arrive bearing gifts unless they want something. A signed copy of their favorite book, for instance.”
“I didn’t bring my copy.”
“A missed opportunity there, wouldn’t you say?”
“Who?” Greta asks.
“She’s an apartment sitter. In the unit above you. She left last night. In the middle of the night, actually. And no one knows where she went. And since she mentioned on Instagram that she met you, I thought that, possibly, the two of you were friends and you might know.”
Greta gives me a tilted-head gaze, curiosity brightening her blue eyes. “My dear, I didn’t understand a single word you just said.”
“So you don’t know Ingrid?”
“Are you referring to that girl with the ghastly colored hair?”
“Yes.”
“I met her twice,” Greta says. “Which doesn’t qualify as knowing someone. Leslie first introduced us as I was passing through the lobby. And by introduce, I mean accost. I think our Mrs. Evelyn was trying to impress the girl into staying here.”
“When was this?”
“Two weeks ago or so, I believe.”
This likely would have been during Ingrid’s interview tour. The dates match to how long she told me she’d been here.
“When was the second time?”
“Two days ago. She came by to see me.” Greta gestures to the open bottle on the counter. “Without wine. So you have her beat in that respect.”
“What was her ulterior motive?”
“Now you’re catching on,” Greta says with an approving nod. “She wanted to ask me about the Bartholomew, seeing how I wrote a book about it. She was curious about some of the things that have happened here.”
I lean forward, my elbows on the island counter. “What kind of things?”
“The building’s allegedly sordid past. I told her it was ancient history and that if she was looking for gossip, she should try the internet. I don’t use it myself, but I hear it’s rife with that sort of thing.”
“That was it?” I say.
“A two-minute conversation at best.”
“And you haven’t talked to her since?”
“I have not.”
“Are you sure?”
Just like that, Greta’s expression darkens again. Her bright-eyed curiosity was like a single ray of sunlight peeking through two storm clouds—fleeting and misleading.
“I’m old, dear,” she says. “Not senile.”
Chastened, I return to my wine. Murmuring into the glass, I say, “I didn’t mean to imply that. I’m just trying to find her.”
“She’s missing?”
“Maybe.” Again, the vagueness of my reply infuriates me. I try to rectify that by adding, “I’ve been trying to reach her all day. She hasn’t responded. And the way she left, well, it concerns me.”
“Why?” Greta says. “She’s free to come and go as she pleases, isn’t she? Just like you are. You’re apartment sitters. Not prisoners.”
“It’s just—You didn’t hear anything unusual last night, did you? Like a strange noise coming from the apartment above you?”
“What kind of noise are you referring to?”
A scream. That’s what I’m referring to. I don’t specifically say it because I want Greta to mention it unprompted. If she does, then I’ll know it wasn’t just me. That the scream really happened.
“Anything out of the ordinary,” I say.
“I didn’t,” Greta replies. “Although I suspect you heard something.”
“I thought I did.”
“But now?”
“Now I think I imagined it.”
Only I don’t know if that’s possible. Sure, people can hear things that aren’t really there, especially the first night in a new place. Footsteps on the stairs. Raps on the window. I heard something myself when I woke up—that slithery non-noise. But people don’t imagine random, solitary screams.
“I was awake most of the night,” Greta says. “Insomnia. The older I get, the less sleep I require. A blessing and a curse, if you ask me. So if there had been a strange noise coming from upstairs, I would have heard it. As for your friend—”
She slaps her palm against the countertop, the motion sudden, unsettling.
I set down my glass on the table. “Mrs. Manville?”
Greta closes her eyes as her face, already pale, turns ashen. Her whole body tilts. First slowly, then gaining steam until she’s leaning at a precarious angle. I rush to her side, keeping her upright while searching for a chair. I find one near the door to the dining room and gently guide her into it.
The movement jostles her back into consciousness. Her head snaps to attention, and life returns to her eyes. She clamps a hand around my wrist, the knuckles knobby with age, purple veins visible beneath tissue-paper skin.
“Dear me,” she says, slightly dazed. “Well, that was embarrassing.”
I hover over her, not sure what else to do. My body’s gained a tremor that runs from head to heel. “Do you need a doctor? I can fetch Dr. Nick.”
“I’m not in that dire of shape,” she says. “Really, it’s nothing. I sometimes get spells.”
“Fainting spells?”
“I call them sudden sleeps, because that’s what they feel like. An instant slipping away. But then I roar back to life and it’s like nothing’s happened. Never get old, Jules. It’s horrible. No one tells you that until it’s too fucking late.”
That’s when I know it’s okay to stop hovering. She’s back to her normal, ornery self. Still trembling, I return to the kitchen counter and my glass of wine. No sip this time. I gulp.
“If you’d like, you may ask me one question about that book,” Greta says. “You’ve earned it.”
Only one? I have a hundred. But I noticed the pronoun she used. Not my book. Or the book. It tells me she’d rather talk about anything other than Heart of a Dreamer.
“Why did you stop writing?”
“The short answer is because I’m lazy. And unmotivated. Also, I have no financial need to write. My family was wealthy. The book made me wealthier. Even today, it generates enough income to allow me to live very comfortably.”
“In the Bartholomew, no less,” I say. “Have you lived here long?”
“Are you asking if I lived here when I wrote Heart of a Dreamer?”
That’s exactly what I’m asking. Being read so easily makes me take another gulp of wine.
“The answer to your real, unsolicited question is yes,” Greta says. “I was living at the Bartholomew when I wrote it.”
“In this apartment?”
Greta gives a quick shake of her head. “Elsewhere.”
“Is the book autobiographical?”
“More like wishful thinking,” Greta replies. “Unlike Ginny, it was my parents’ apartment. I grew up there, moved out after getting married, and moved back in following my divorce. I was aimless and bitter and suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. I decided to fill it by writing what I wished my life to be like. When the book was finished, I moved out again.”
“Why?” I ask, still unable to comprehend why anyone would choose to leave the Bartholomew.
“Why does anyone move, really?” Greta muses. “I needed a change of view. Besides, one gets tired of living with their parents. Isn’t that why everyone eventually leaves the nest?”
Most people, yes. But not me. I wasn’t given a choice.
“Because of how and when the book was written, is that why you hate it so much?”
Greta looks up, affronted. “Who says I hate it?”
“I just assumed you did.”
“No, you surmised,” Greta says. “There’s a difference. As for the book, I don’t hate it as much as I find myself disappointed by it.”
“But it brought you so much success. And it’s touched so many people.”
“I’m a very different woman now than when I wrote it. Think back to when you were younger. Think about your tastes and behavior and habits. You’ve changed since then. Evolved. We all do. Which means there are aspects of
that younger version of yourself that you’d probably detest now.”
I nod, thinking of my mother and store-brand cereal.
“When I wrote that book, I was so in need of fantasy that I failed to do the one thing all good writers are supposed to do—tell the truth,” Greta says. “I was a liar, and that book is my biggest lie.”
I down the rest of the wine, preparing myself for something I never thought I’d have to do—defend a book to its own author.
“You’re forgetting that readers need fantasy, too,” I say. “My sister and I used to lie on her bed, reading Heart of a Dreamer and picturing ourselves in Ginny’s shoes. The book showed us there was life outside of our tiny, dying town. The book gave us hope. Even now, after all that hope has been stripped away, I still love Heart of a Dreamer and I remain grateful that you wrote it. Sure, the Manhattan in the book doesn’t exist in real life. And no, few people in this city end up getting the happy ending Ginny received. But fiction can be an escape, which is why we need idealized versions of New York City. It balances out the crowded, gritty, heartbreaking real thing.”
“But what about the real world?” Greta says.
“That sister I mentioned? She disappeared when I was seventeen.” I know I should stop talking. But now that the wine had loosened my tongue, I find that I can’t. “My parents died when I was nineteen. So, frankly, I’ve had enough of the real world.”
Greta lifts her hand, places her palm to her cheek, and spends a good ten seconds sizing me up. Caught in her stare, I freeze, embarrassed that I’ve said too much.
“You strike me as a gentle soul,” she says.
I’ve never thought of myself as gentle. Fragile is more like it. Prone to bruising.
“I don’t know. I guess I am.”
“Then you need to be careful,” she says. “This place isn’t kind to gentle souls. It chews them up and swallows them whole.”
“Do you mean New York or the Bartholomew?”
Greta keeps staring. “Both,” she says.
15