“What are you going to see?” asked Billy, as he swept the floor.
Crud cakes. I hadn’t anticipated that question, so I stalled a minute while digging through my backpack trying to find where I’d stuffed my subway pass.
“I don’t know, we’re watching something at his place,” I said. Billy, dressed all in black with his black hair, piercings, and tattoos, paused in his sweeping, eyed me up and down, then stared outside at Derek.
“What do you think? Is he an ax murderer?” I asked, mostly teasing. Mostly.
“Eh, he looks alright. Tall bastard, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I didn’t know you were into Sasquatch, Maddy. You’re a tough nut to crack, aren’t you, Miss Mystery Past?”
“Yep, that’s me,” I said. “So stop asking.” I hated questions about my past and never answered any of them. Mostly because I didn’t know the answers myself.
“Fair enough. Just be careful with that guy. It’s the normal ones you gotta watch out for. If you don’t come in tomorrow, I’m going down to the precinct with a description of him.”
“Thanks, Billy. I didn’t know you cared.”
“You’re the kind of girl people just want to watch out for.”
Before I could respond to that, Mac came out of the office and said my drawer was exactly right, as usual, and wished me a goodnight. Billy put down his broom, and wrote something on a scrap of paper.
He then unlocked the door and held it open, offering me the scrap of paper with his other hand. “Here’s my number. Call me if you need anything,” he said. Not that I had a cell phone, but it was the thought that counted, I guess.
I suspected he’d said it for Derek’s benefit.
I shoved the number in my jeans and said, “Hello.”
Billy locked the door behind me. The night air was chilly, though the street was still vibrantly lit and busy with several passersby.
“So where do you live?” Derek asked as we began walking down the street.
“In Dumbo,” I said, referring to the name of my Brooklyn neighborhood. Dumbo stands for “Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass.” I didn’t believe that was its actual name either until I saw it on a map.
“Excellent,” Derek replied.
“Why is that excellent?”
“Because my chariot awaits,” he said, gesturing toward the end of the block.
Several cars were parked in the metered spaces on Seventh Avenue. “Which one is yours?”
“The little white one,” he said.
The little white one was an antique sports car I recognized, not in prime shape, but still cute.
“Nice Karmann Ghia,” I said.
“Hey, a girl who knows her cars!” he said. “Are you a car buff?”
“Not really.” I wasn’t sure how I knew. It was just one of those things.
Derek chivalrously opened the door on my side first, then went around to his.
I climbed in. The seats were scuffed and cracked leather. A blanket and some books lay on the tiny back seat, but I didn’t get a good look at the titles.
“Do you want the blanket to sit on?” Derek asked me as he got in. “I know the seats can be a little rough if you’re not used to them.”
“How do you even fit in here?” I asked, my knees bumping the glove box. I’m five-nine in flats. He had to be at least six-five.
“Ah, sorry about that. The seat moves back,” he said, reaching over as if to dig under my legs and then stopped, awkwardly. “Right. So . . . there’s a knob and lever under the seat. Just pull it and push with your legs.”
I did what he said and was immediately rewarded with more legroom. “Ahhhh,” I sighed. “Much better.”
“I haven’t had anyone else in here in a while,” he said.
“Do you know how to get to Dumbo from here?”
“Sure,” he said and started up the little engine.
My apartment was completely dark when we got there. I turned on the hallway light and noticed that the floor lamp in the living room—the one that was always cold to the touch—was lying on its side.
Pointing, Derek began asking, “Was that—?”
“No.”
We stood there staring for a few seconds.
“Um, maybe we should—” I began, but he held up a hand and put a finger to his lips. He then grabbed a large golf umbrella that Kara kept near the front door.
“Which room is yours?” he asked.
I gestured, and he went and checked it.
I reviewed the contents of my room, trying to imagine what it would look like to his eyes. Boring, probably. Futon bed, desk, laptop, a small bureau. Nothing on the walls except a bulletin board with a calendar tacked to it I got free from a drugstore. Make that super boring.
He emerged and declared it safe, then checked the bathroom across the hall. I heard the jingling of the shower curtain hooks as he checked the shower for psychos.
While he secured the bathroom, I went to my room and packed my backpack with two days’ worth of clothes. I again lamented the room’s anonymous drabness. By comparison, Kara had masks and the mirror and framed prints of Broadway shows on her walls, with moss green and violet bedding. Julie had her paintings and beads and colored lanterns hanging from the walls and ceilings, with orange and rose sheets and comforter. My sheets were white and my walls were empty, except for the bulletin board and an old key hanging from it. It might as well have been my hospital room.
My roommates’ rooms were reflections of who they were. But who was I?
Nobody.
After Derek came out of the bathroom, I went in and quickly packed a few more necessary items, and we got the hell out of there.
Once we were in the car, we were laughing, or maybe I was laughing at myself, and he was laughing at me, but either way, it suddenly seemed very funny. Running from ghosts. Who does that?
Twenty minutes later, we were back in Manhattan and he’d parked in a long-term garage and handed his keys off to an attendant who called him Mr. Miner.
“Miner? Is that how you can afford that fancy car? You struck it rich during the gold rush?”
“Not that kind of miner. M-I-N-O-R.”
“Derek Minor?” I asked, trying not to laugh as we walked down the block. “But you’re so tall!”
“Yes, yes, it’s very funny, Madison . . . what’s your last name anyway?”
“It’s . . . Roberts,” I said. It still felt so foreign that I almost forgot it that time.
“You sure?” he asked, an amused look on his face.
And here was where it got tricky. Did I tell him the truth? Or did I play it off? If I told him, would he regret asking me to stay with him?
I gave him a look from under my eyelashes. “If I told you it was an assumed name to protect my identity, would you believe me?” I asked sweetly.
“Have it your way. I’ll get it out of you some other time,” he said.
We reached the building where Thirteen Books was located. A metal security fence had been pulled down over the front glass and door, so that you could still see the book display in the window behind it, but there was no way you could get in without bolt cutters.
Derek unlocked the door to the left of the store. “After you,” he said. Inside, a short hallway extended back with a set of stairs going several floors upward, lit by a ceiling lamp. He led me up the stairs, taking them two at a time. And yeah, I checked. He had a nice butt.
On the second floor, his keys jingled as he unlocked his apartment. “Come on in,” he said, moving forward and hanging his keys on a hook near the entryway.
“The living room’s through there,” Derek said.
I moved through the archway at the end of the kitchen and stood amazed, facing a huge swordfish mounted on the wall of the living room over a futon couch. The fish had to be about six feet long, including the “sword” part.
“Holy carp!” I exclaimed.
“Yeah,” Derek gave a short
chuckle. “Meet Charlie.”
“Charlie?”
“You know, like the tuna mascot?”
“Oh, right,” I said. Some dim memory of a cartoon fish in glasses that talked like Mr. Delgado flit through my mind. A commercial.
“You’re not a member of PETA, are you?” Derek asked, after I’d been silent maybe a beat too long.
“A member of what? No, no, sorry . . . just lost in thought. I don’t think that guy’s a tuna, though.”
“Yeah, but there aren’t any celebrity swordfish.”
“You like fishing?”
“I used to go with my granddad down in Florida when I was a kid. Loved it.”
I turned to take in the rest of the room, which was dominated by an enormous flat screen TV surrounded by shelves and shelves of DVDs.
I whistled a low whistle. “My, my. I guess I was right,” I said.
“About what?”
“Wanna watch a movie?” I asked.
Ten minutes later we were sitting together on the futon, sharing a bowl of buttery microwave popcorn, watching a movie he’d just bought. In it, two conman brothers convince an eccentric heiress to join them in a heist, planning to rob her as well. What they don’t plan on is one of the brothers falling in love with her, or for the guy they swindled to seek revenge.
My hand brushed against Derek’s twice when we reached for popcorn at the same time. And I was abnormally aware that his leg was less than a foot away from my leg. I felt both awkward and comfortable with him. It was a weird feeling.
The movie was romantic and crazy and fun and sad all at the same time. As the credits rolled, I found myself wanting to rest my head on Derek’s shoulder, so I did.
“Oh, hey,” Derek said, and abruptly stood up. “I should probably get you some sheets and a pillow and stuff.”
Did he think I’d fallen asleep on him? I swallowed my embarrassment and thanked him. He disappeared through a doorway and came out a few minutes later carrying a bundle of blankets and linens.
“You know, I could sleep out here if you want the bedroom,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a problem.”
“No, this is fine, really. Thank you.”
“The bathroom is through there, on the right,” he said, “and there are fresh towels on the rack if you need one.”
He seemed to be going to a lot of trouble to make me feel welcome. It was nice, especially after feeling so unwanted at home.
“You’ve been really sweet,” I said. He sighed. My comment seemed to have deflated him somehow.
“You must be tired,” I said. “Just leave the sheets and stuff, I’ll make up the bed.”
“Do you know how to open the futon?” he asked.
His futon was different than mine, so he opened it for me and I thanked him. Again. I seemed to be doing that a lot.
“Goodnight,” I said. I had already kept him up late as it was. I didn’t even know when he was supposed to open the store.
He wished me a goodnight too and closed the door to his room.
Damn, I thought as I wrestled the sheets onto the floppy futon mattress. Damn, damn, double-damn.
I shimmied out of my clothes and pulled on an extra-large t-shirt. I wasn’t even slightly sleepy, so I just lay on my back and looked around the room. My eyes fell on a shelf of liquor bottles. Damn, damn, double-damn, butterscotch schnapps?
A dusty bottle of butterscotch schnapps stood next to a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream. That made me think of Kara’s mom.
I’d met Kara while at Spring House, the name of the center for people with various mental health issues that I’d been sent to after my diagnosis. Kara was a “member” there too, not-quite recovering from the nervous breakdown she’d suffered after her mother’s death. She just sat and stared most of the time, moving through the cycle of meds and meetings and group therapy sessions like a zombie. Then one day, during group, she said she was supposed to go to Ireland with her mother, and then got quiet again.
Later that afternoon, I asked about her mother. I didn’t remember mine, so I was curious about what moms were like. She told stories of her mother the beauty queen, who loved Broadway shows, and Bailey’s on the rocks. She told me stories about her mother reading “The Frog Prince” to her when she was little, and taking her shopping for her first bra when she was fourteen, and plenty of other stories. And while Kara talked about her mother, that zombie face lost some of its blankness, and her blue eyes took on a personality for the first time since I’d met her.
It was Kara’s breakthrough. The therapists and doctors had asked her to talk about her mother plenty of times, but for some reason, she chose to talk to me. We became friends, and when it was time for her to leave, she told me she’d be getting an apartment in Brooklyn, and if I needed a place to stay, I should stay in touch. A couple of months later, job at Chris Street Comics secured, I called her and moved in that weekend.
And everything had been fine, mostly, until all the ghost stuff started.
I wondered how Kara and Julie were. I felt like a bad roommate for not trying to get in touch with them. But their cell phone numbers were written on that free calendar back in my bedroom and there was no way I was going there again until the sun came up.
I looked at the bedroom door, just a few feet away.
I wondered if Derek was still awake. I wondered what he wore to bed. Boxers? Briefs? None of the above?
Sleep didn’t come easy.
Chapter Three
Kara, remembering that I didn’t have a
cell phone, called me at work the next afternoon. She’d heard from Mr. Delgado, who told her that the locks on all the doors had been changed. She was planning on going home tonight. Would I be there?
That was a good question. Maybe there was something to this whole intruder idea. Maybe I’d just been imagining things when I thought I saw the glass of water pour out. It’s not like my brain never played tricks on me. But did I really want to go back to an apartment that some crazy person was trying to get into?
“What about the windows next to the fire escape?” I asked.
“Mr. Delgado says he’s going to cut some pieces of wood for us to use to wedge them closed.”
“That’s nice of him.”
“Oh, he’ll probably charge us for it eventually. So will you be there?”
“Well . . .” I said, “I kind of sort of have a date-type-thing after work and—”
“Shut up! You have a date?”
Kara had been after me for weeks to “get out there.” She thought it would help me feel more “normal.”
“What’s his name?” she asked. “Where’d you meet him?”
“Derek. He—”
Just then I noticed Mac watching me. I realized I was talking on the store phone about my personal life, which was a no-no. He didn’t mind if his workers periodically sent text messages, but conversations were off-limits. I made an apologetic gesture and said into the phone, “You know what? I can’t talk right now. At work and all. Tell me your cell number and I’ll call you later when I get a break.” Holding the phone against my ear with my shoulder, I scribbled the number she gave me on the back of a receipt and hung up.
“Sorry about that,” I said to Mac. “That was my roommate.”
He frowned. “You still haven’t gotten your own phone?”
“Of course she hasn’t. Because you don’t pay us enough,” said Celeste, who was handing a customer’s bag back to him.
Every store in New York City doesn’t demand you check any large bags or backpack you’re carrying, but it’s a pretty common practice in comic book shops as far as I can tell. Another common practice in comic book shops in New York City is to hire pretty girls with weird colored hair.
This week, Celeste’s hair was bright pink, and as usual, she was wearing clothes that matched her hair. The previous month her hair had been blue, and she’d worn several variations of the shade: royal blue shirts, sky blue plaid skirts, azure dresses and even blue sued
e boots. Today she was in neon pink overalls worn over a bubble gum pink t-shirt along with a pair of pastel pink combat boots. “I think we should all get raises, don’t you?” Celeste asked me, wrinkling her nose. She had a small, heart-shaped face, with brown eyes and a small mouth. Along with her slight stature and monochrome style she seemed like a character out of those weird Japanese cartoons we kept behind the counter.
“What do you care?” Billy asked, emerging from the back of the store.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Celeste asked.
“You go to NYU. NYU isn’t cheap. Your parents must be loaded,” he said.
“We’re maybe well off, but we’re not rich, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s what rich people always say.”
Celeste’s face turned a bright pink that almost matched her hair. She opened her mouth to say something back, but I interjected quickly. “Where did you go to college, Billy?”
“Pshh,” he said. “I didn’t. College is for suckers.”
Celeste huffed a mighty sigh and announced she was going on her break.
With the class warfare temporarily de-escalated, I went back to what I had been doing before Kara called. The 11a.m. to 7p.m. shift was usually pretty slow, so I passed the time leafing through a Captain America graphic novel that Billy had insisted I read. In it, Cap learned that his long-thought-dead partner had returned, mysteriously unaged, as an enemy operative.
“How far have you gotten?” he asked.
“I’m almost done,” I said. “But I want to go back and read the other parts about Bucky.”
“So you found out who he is?”
“Yeah—but what happened to him?”
“Brainwashing,” Billy said. “It’s pretty fucked. Imagine finding your best friend after all those years and then he doesn’t even know who you are.”
“Imagine,” I said. I wondered if I was anyone’s Bucky.
“I’d rather be dead than be brainwashed, you know? Not in control of my own destiny? What if I hurt someone I cared about? Fuck that.”
A Shade in the Mirror Page 3