Lurkers

by Sandi Tan

  “Please don’t. It’s best not to burden my spouse with my extramural obligations.”

  “Why are you talking like this?” A lump caught in her throat. Not him, too.

  “I’m in a meeting right now.”

  “At school?”

  “No, not at school. Look, I really shouldn’t be on the phone.”

  “Can we talk though? Later?”

  “I’ll send you a text. I have to go now.” In the background, she heard murmuring voices and recognized the familiar screech of chair legs on institutional linoleum.

  Less than a minute after they hung up, Rosemary’s phone beeped. She breathlessly scrolled to its text screen:

  “C U @ end of St Cls Ln. 5 PM. Lets hv dinner . . . I MISS U”

  Her tears evaporated.

  “Where’s Mira?”

  Mrs. Park shrugged, her eyes fixed on the TV screen, fingers cracking open chestnuts and popping them into her mouth. Her favorite Korean soap was on—a period weep-a-thon about an insufferable maid who kept the imperial household together with all her cooking.

  “I heard you two fighting earlier.”

  Mrs. Park shrugged again.

  As she walked down Santa Claus Lane, Rosemary noted that every house on the street—with the exception of the gay writer’s, Kate Ireland’s and theirs—had some kind of Halloween adornment. Foam skeletons hanging from rafters, plastic pumpkins doubling as lamps, rag-doll witches sprouting black tinsel hair. She was reminded again of Arik’s remark that she felt like the inside of a jack-o’-lantern.

  This year, without Mr. Park, their front porch sat bare. Last year, when their father was still alive, the girls had badgered him into buying a couple of pumpkins, and together they’d carved toothy smiles into them. The girls were surprised by his deftness with a hunting knife, even as he complained that Halloween was a pagan festival.

  Rosemary heard the Nissan Maxima whirring up the street at five sharp. The recent rain had melted away the smog and the whole neighborhood was given a new, glossy alertness—Mr. Z’s car looked especially shiny, like it’d been driven right out of a commercial. Rosemary opened the door and sank into the passenger seat. She sucked in the musky fumes of his car deodorant and was ready to go to sleep right there.

  “Hadn’t heard from you in weeks. How’s the honeymoon going?”

  She pursed her lips.

  “I suppose I’m here to run back to when things go south. You must know how insulting that is. It makes me feel like a parent.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”

  “I mean it.” She brandished the red Buca di Beppo pen she’d lifted from his car months before. “Here—I’m returning this. I stole it.”

  “Keep it.” He drove on. They passed autumnal foliage and evergreen shrubs, crack houses and kindergartens, liquor stores and libraries, and merged onto the freeway. “You hungry?”

  The waiter knew instinctively where Mr. Z wanted to sit. Though the restaurant was deserted—it wasn’t yet six o’clock—they were led to a corner booth in the Grotto, a private room two steps down from the main dining area. There, the walls and ceiling were covered in a tangle of plastic grapevines, empty wine bottles and more reproduction vacation photos than Rosemary had ever seen.

  “This is such a cool, cool place.” She leaned back and gazed at the decor.

  “Glad you like it.” He called a waiter over. “A pint of Moretti for me, a strawberry shake for the young lady, and garlic bread for the table, to start.”

  She liked how confidently he ordered, without consulting her or the menu, and how he said, “for the table, to start.” Her father would have taken an eternity to make up his mind, plus he’d never order alcohol at any non-Korean establishment because he was paranoid about being cheated.

  “I love it here,” Rosemary said, finally. “It’s so unique.”

  “Can you imagine, a bunch of suits sitting in a Minneapolis office park, deciding what goes on the walls of each one of these eighty branches?”

  “Wait. This restaurant’s part of a chain?” Rosemary’s enchantment dipped.

  “Oh, my poor, poor bunny.” He gazed at her. She detected a little sneer at the edge of his lips, then it vanished. “Look at the prompt service, the organized clutter, the large yet homogenized menu. How could this be anything but a chain for Americans who think they’re individuals who eat at special places but don’t want the anxiety of the strange menu they’d get at a real Italian restaurant.”

  Along with their drinks, a large clump of garlic bread arrived, steaming with heat. Mr Z. asked for chicken parmigiana and something called “strangled priest,” again without glancing at the menu.

  The garlic bread burned the roof of Rosemary’s mouth, but she could eat this food forever, with Mr. Z sitting across from her, their feet occasionally bumping, famous arias flowing from the speakers. She sucked on her strawberry milkshake and leaned back. The shake had a comforting synthetic flavor, reminiscent of her early childhood with its store-bought quilts and Barney the purple dinosaur singing, “I love you, you love me.”

  “Do you take your wife here?”

  “Why do you assume that married people are joined at the hip, that we do everything together? We’re both busy individuals. There are things we enjoy together and there are things we enjoy apart.”

  “My parents did everything together,” said Rosemary. “But I doubt they loved each other. I never saw them once, like, hold hands.” She paused. Hoping to seem innocuous, she looked at her nails and said: “What’s your wife look like?”

  “Well, you could say she’s not hideous. It’s not like I keep her in the attic.”

  “Do you have a photo?”

  “I had one in my wallet. But that wallet got stolen.”

  “Do you love her?”

  He looked into her eyes: “We’re quite married.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  “What I mean is that we’re quite married. As opposed to very married. Why this sudden interest?”

  His shin grazed hers. She moved her legs away, but his legs came back and found them again. She felt his foot rubbing the back of her calf like a needy cat, and all she could think of was whether he’d leave mud tracks on her freshly laundered jeans.

  “This is what you were really asking, isn’t it?” He reached for her hand now, and kneaded her finger joints. “Rose, you know how fond I am of you. You needn’t have been so coy. Not with me.”

  “Coming through!” warned a voice. Mr. Z released Rosemary’s hands abruptly. The waiter lowered two huge platters—one holding fried cutlets and another with wormy strands of pasta mixed with beef ragu.

  “I told you not to fill up on that garlic bread,” he said, jauntily avuncular.

  She counted the seconds until the waiter was gone. “I’m not actually hungry. I just wanted to say . . . I feel so safe with you. I think you’re perfect.” Her eyes welled up at that word. “I think your house is perfect . . . and I’ll bet your wife is perfect, too.”

  Mr. Z was halfway into his first cutlet. “Nobody’s perfect. You know that.”

  “What I’m trying to say is . . . my mother’s kind of a psycho . . .”

  “Everybody’s mother is kind of a psycho, kid.”

  She nodded. “I know it’s probably too late now, but I was wondering . . .” She stared at her strawberry shake. “Would you and your wife consider adopting me?”

  Mr. Z took a big gulp of his beer. She knew she had to ram home the rest of the pitch now, sway him before the word no formed in his mouth.

  “I’m totally low-maintenance, I’ll get after-school jobs so you wouldn’t have to, like, give me an allowance and stuff. I’m quiet, good with chores, I’ll keep getting scholarships. And I can entertain myself—I don’t watch much TV, I’ll stay out of your wa
y.” She felt herself floundering. “It’ll be adoption in name only. I promise I won’t bother you guys for anything . . . It’s just that my mother’s threatening to ship me to Korea and I just . . . I just . . . I can’t go, I can’t leave here.”

  Mr. Z appeared to be thinking. She pressed on:

  “I’ll pay you back as soon as I can. For the lawyers and paperwork and so on.”

  “You know,” he leaned in toward her, and she mirrored the move with great anticipation, “I wasn’t quite expecting that from you, kiddo. You threw me a real curveball, I have to say. That’s not fair.”

  “But you said, you said I could talk to you about anything.”

  “Furthermore . . .” He lowered his voice. His smile was sugary but his words were not. “Furthermore, here is neither the time nor the place to discuss such a matter. I can ill afford to put myself in a situation that could be of a criminal nature.”

  “Yes, but I’m not asking you to do anything bad. It’s just that I don’t want to have to go . . .”

  “Rosemary, that’s all very well, but I’m your teacher, nothing more.” He pulled his legs away from her as he said this. “It’s important that you remember there are boundaries. It’s beyond my control.” A direct quote, from the coldest moment in Dangerous Liaisons. He glanced at the plates. “Are you going to eat any more of that?”

  She shook her head, and he instantly gestured for the waiter.

  A couple of minutes later, they were walking briskly to the exit. By the door was a table with a basket full of red Buca di Beppo pens. Rosemary fished out Mr. Z’s pen from her shoulder bag and returned it to the pile.

  The house was dark when she returned. It looked like nobody was home, although she knew that wasn’t possible. The stupid choppers were at it again, combing the evening skies, probably looking for the same carjackers or home invaders they’d been tracking for the past six months. Except for the chubby couple walking their whippet and the sullen clanks of dinner cleanup, Santa Claus Lane was shut down for the night.

  Rosemary entered her house, feeling the kind of loneliness that in recent weeks she thought she’d banished for good. Once inside, she was struck by a strong bleachy odor—clean, industrial, unkind. Mira’s bedroom door opened, and Mrs. Park emerged, her face made strange by a collage of shadows.

  “Did something happen?” Rosemary asked.

  “Nothing, nothing. She having period, veh tired. Is nothing.” Mrs. Park pushed her toward her room. “You go sleep.”

  “It’s only seven-thirty.”

  “Baby, you go bed. You mind own business.” This time, Mrs. Park pushed more insistently, even opening her door for her. “This not you business.”

  Rosemary went to her room and locked the door. It was just as well. She rushed to her window, half expecting Arik waiting outside, mad with remorse, a ready boner tenting his pants. But there was nobody.

  She pulled her curtains shut and took out her cellphone. No new messages. With a few taps on the keypad, she deleted Arik’s number from her directory, along with the cartoon icon of Apu from The Simpsons she’d assigned to him. Scrolling down to Archived Messages, she played her favorite, received a week before and saved away like the rarest ambrosia. She pressed the phone to her ear till her lobe ached:

  “Rose, hey, I know your phone is off and you’re probably asleep right now but I wanted to leave you a message that I, uh, don’t have the balls to say to your face. I am so deliriously out of my mind with you, man. It’s 3 a.m. and I can’t go to sleep right now thinking about you, and how, I don’t know, like, I want to be inside you all the time . . . [laughs] I hope I’m not freaking you out. I probably sound like I’m high right now, but, well, I guess I am high, on you. You’re entirely responsible for this. You make me feel like everything’s possible, like we’re spiritually bound [giggles]. Yeah, that’s it. And I just want to be with you, you know, and fuck you and fuck you and fuck you. Oh my God, I love the way you wriggle and squeal when you’re coming. I came like eight times today thinking about that. I hope this doesn’t sound too insane or stalkery or anything, but I’m so hard again right now and I’m gonna come so fucking hard for you . . . Um, what else do I have to say? Oh, right . . . I’ll kill for you, I’ll die for you. I swear it. Iloveyou, bye.”

  With a few icy thumb strokes, Rosemary erased the message and with it, every trace of Arik Kistorian.

  Knocking on the door. Some idiot was toggling her doorknob.

  “Okay, okay, I’m coming . . .” She hid her phone.

  It was her mother, in yet another deplorable, shapeless housecoat.

  “Why you lock door?”

  “I’m not in the mood to be lectured. What do you want?”

  “Next week, terminator is coming. We go somewhere.”

  “Could you say that again, in English please?”

  “Next week, terminator coming here. We having many termites. They putting poison inside the house, killing termites.”

  “So?”

  “Poison, Rosie! Everywhere. They cover up house, every things. We cannot stay here. It’s FDA legal poison! We go away for three days, mandatory. I already talk to Quellie Soo. She says we staying at her house.”

  “No way am I staying in some stranger’s house. Have you told Mira any of this?”

  “Notchet. She sleeping.”

  “At this hour?”

  “She has period, same like me, very tired. Do not disturb.”

  “I’m positive both Mira and I won’t want to stay at Quellie Soo’s. Couldn’t we go to a hotel or something?”

  “Hotel expensive, Rosie.”

  “I didn’t mean the Ritz. I meant, like, Slumber Inn.”

  “Okay, I ask Quellie. I ask.”

  At long last, her mother went away. Rosemary waited till her footsteps subsided and the electronic hum of the TV in the den had developed its steady tinniness. Then she made for Mira’s door.

  It was unlocked, and she stepped right into the darkness.

  “Mira?”

  In the moonlight, she made out her sister’s silhouette on the bed—flat on her back, hands clasped over her heart like Snow White in her glass coffin. The chiffon drapes were billowing slightly, which was strange because all the windows were shut.

  “Mira, are you asleep?”

  A small, mournful voice—more escaping air than voice—answered:

  “Not really . . .”

  On any other day, Rosemary might have guessed Mira was pulling her leg, cackling secretly under her comforter. Not tonight. She wanted to embrace her baby sister but feared encountering chilly, sepulchral flesh.

  “What happened? Are you okay?”

  “She locked me in the attic . . .” Her voice was hoarse. “She hates me. She always has.”

  Rosemary was queasy with guilt. She hadn’t even included Mira in her adoption request to Mr. Z. In her selfish pursuit to be understood by boys, by men, by everybody else, she’d completely forgotten her true best friend.

  “I’m so sorry, Mira. I’m so sorry I wasn’t around.” She swallowed back her tears. “I won’t let it happen again, I swear. No matter what happens, everything will be fine if we stick together.” She reached out for Mira’s hand, which turned out to be feverish, and not at all cold. “You’re my little Gas Rat.”

  Mira tried to laugh but instead hacked a chesty dry cough and it sounded as hollow as a forgotten room in an old house. Its severity spooked the both of them.

  “Want some water?”

  The shadow shook its head.

  “What were you doing in the attic anyway?”

  “Nothing . . .”

  “You mustn’t provoke her. I know it’s hard but, please, we cannot provoke her.”

  Mira kept quiet.

  “Why are your hands clasped like that?”

  “I was praying . . .” />
  “You don’t have to do that. You know it doesn’t work.”

  A gastric yawp from Mira’s stomach chirrupped through the silence. It sounded like a cricket in her ribcage. “I’m praying to the Devil,” she said. “I think She listens.”

  – 12 –

  GIVE ME SOMETHING

  GOOD TO EAT

  Quellie Soo called them a Bell cab. Rosemary canceled it and called for a People’s Taxi. Quellie Soo booked them a room at the Motor Lodge. Rosemary canceled that and reserved a room at the Slumber Inn.

  “Who cares what she wants?” Rosemary told Mrs. Park. “That person’s not part of our family.”

  “But, baby,” her mother said, “she’s our realtor.”

  As their cab departed, all three Park girls craned their necks back and watched as a team of swarthy men pulled a giant red-and-white striped tarp over their house, lifting it strategically so it wouldn’t catch on the chimney, the satellite dish, the falling-apart gable. The men climbed up and down casually. They had a lot of faith in shingles.

  One waved to the cab. Then with a heave-ho, his pals pulled the tarp square down the sides of the house and its familiar form disappeared. The big top was in town.

  “I lost the war,” muttered Mira. Rosemary squeezed her hand.

  At the end of Santa Claus Lane, they encountered another cab driven by a younger man coming in the opposite direction. Both drivers rolled down their windows and traded greetings in battle-ax Armenian. Rosemary had assumed that their driver was Iranian or Pakistani from the giant god bless america decal on his window.

  “That guy,” the driver explained as he rolled up his window, “his wife always asking for money. Never enough money.”

  “He should get a divorce,” said Rosemary. Her mother elbowed her.

  “He already did. This is third wife.”

  Kate wondered where Mrs. Park was taking her daughters in the taxi that had just crossed paths with hers. She got an answer when her own cab pulled up to her house and she saw the giant tent across the street.

  Her driver clucked his tongue. “Now all their rats will run away to your house, and next year it’ll be your turn to make your house to wear the dress.”