by R.J. Ellory
‘Too smart for your own fucking good, Annie O’Neill. Anyway, I was on the subway one time and I saw this girl. This was maybe fifteen, twenty years ago. She must’ve been maybe thirty, thirty-two, something like that, you know real old –’
Annie raised her hand to take a mock swipe at Sullivan.
Sullivan pretended to duck.
‘So I saw this girl,’ he went on, ‘and there wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about her, she wasn’t what you would have called classically beautiful … but there was something. She looked right at me, you know, how you make eye contact in a crowded place, like a bar or something?’
Annie nodded. She thought of the priest on the train, and she willed herself not to blush.
‘So this girl looks right at me, and I look right back at her, and it’s one of those awkward moments when you know you should just look away, like you just happened to be glancing in that direction and they were in the way. But it didn’t happen. Neither one of us looked away. And though it was just a second, perhaps less than a second, I knew.’
‘Knew what?’
Sullivan smiled. ‘I knew she was the one.’
‘The one?’
Sullivan nodded. ‘The one.’
‘And how the hell did you know that?’ Annie asked.
‘I don’t know … well, I do know actually … ah hell, how the fuck d’you explain something like that? I just looked at her and I knew that I should go talk to her.’
‘So what did you say?’
‘I didn’t say anything,’ Sullivan replied.
‘Nothing … not even hi, or hey there babe, how goes it?’
Sullivan laughed, but there was something in the sound of his laughter that was forced. Even now, so many years later, he was looking at one of the small regrets of his life.
‘No, I didn’t say a damned word … I just sat there, every once in a while glancing in her direction, but she’d realized by then that I wasn’t going to say anything. And I knew how she felt.’
‘How did she feel?’
‘She felt the same sense of loss as me.’
‘How could you tell?’ Annie asked, intrigued by Sullivan’s story, a small part of this man’s strange life that had reached beneath the surface.
‘Because she got off at the next station.’
‘Maybe she meant to get off there.’
Sullivan shook his head. ‘No, she didn’t.’
‘How could you tell?’
‘Because when she got off she took three or four steps to a bench and sat down, like she was just gonna sit there and wait for the next train. And as the train pulled away I was looking at her, and you know what she did?’
Annie raised her eyebrows.
‘She held up her hand, you know, like when someone waves but they just raise their hand … it was that kind of wave, like she was saying goodbye.’
‘And she was looking at you?’
‘She was.’
‘That’s really fucking sad Jack … hell, that’s gotta be the saddest thing I ever heard.’
‘Saddest thing was there was a moment to take and I didn’t take it … that was by far the saddest thing.’
‘So what does this tell me?’ Annie asked. ‘That I should go down the subway and ride the trains until I connect with someone?’
Sullivan nodded, his face serious. ‘That’s exactly what it tells you Annie. Any time, night or day, every waking hour you should be down those subway tunnels trawling the carriages for single men to make eye contact with. Figure it’d go better if you dressed up a little, you know, a really short skirt, some fishnets with a hole in the back, silver stiletto heels an’ all that.’
Annie nodded, and then she smiled. ‘Seize the moment, seize the day, right?’
‘Carpe diem and all that goes with it.’
‘So what should I do?’
‘Fight for it Annie. That’s what I think you should do. Take a look at what you felt, how you felt when he was around compared to how you felt when he was gone. Weigh the two up, and if one feels better than the other go fight for it.’
‘It felt better when he was here.’
‘So go find him.’
‘Jeez, I wouldn’t know where to begin Jack.’
‘Marine insurance, that’s his business. Whoever he works for is bound to have an office in New York and an office in Boston, right?’
‘Right.’
‘So I’ll check out how many firms deal with marine insurance that run an office in both those places, and then we’ll make some calls.’
Annie nodded, and then she looked sideways at Jack Sullivan.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Figure the subways might be a better bet.’
‘Humor … the last line of defence.’
Annie shook her head. ‘No, I’m just a devout believer in the law of diminishing returns.’
‘And what the fuck would that be when it’s at home?’
‘The theory that the universe is constructed in such a way that you always get back less than you give.’
Sullivan nodded, his face once again serious. ‘Well Annie, as far as I’m concerned that’s the ripest heap of horseshit that ever assaulted my ears.’
‘You reckon?’
‘I reckon.’
‘You think he was serious?’
‘About what?’ Sullivan asked.
‘About me Jack … you think he was actually serious about me?’
‘I don’t know whether serious is the right word. Seems to me any guy who takes you to Boston for a couple of days has to have some kind of idea that he wants what you got.’
‘Would you want what I got?’
‘Annie O’Neill, from the first time you hauled your cute little keister up that stairwell I’ve wanted what you got.’
‘And you think there might be a chance if I go find him?’
‘There’s always a chance. Hell Annie, you gotta get it into your head that men are some of the dumbest and most ignorant creatures that ever walked the face of the earth. They think they know what they want, and when they’ve got it they go all weak-kneed and spineless.’
Annie laughed suddenly.
‘What?’
‘That’s what I called him … a spineless immature teenager.’
Sullivan nodded. ‘Asshole deserved it … pretty mild if you want my opinion.’
‘So, you were saying how men –’
‘How men think they know what they want, and when they get it they go all weird and complicated, like they start thinking that there might be something better. Best way to handle them, you know what that is?’
Annie shook her head.
‘Tell ’em what they want and don’t give them a choice.’
‘No choice.’
Sullivan nodded. ‘Right, no choice. You just tell them that you’re as good as they’re gonna get, and if they start that thing with the wandering eye an’ all that they’re gonna get kicked into touch so fast they’ll make light speed look like Sunday chess in the park.’
Annie smiled. ‘You’re just a leetle beet crazy Jack Sullivan.’
‘And you, Annie O’Neill, are just as crazy yourself.’
‘Thursday,’ Annie stated matter-of-factly.
‘What’s Thursday?’
‘We find him Thursday.’
‘Why wait ’til Thursday?’
‘Because I feel like I want to finish one thing before I start another.’
‘And what would you be finishing by Thursday?’ Sullivan asked.
‘The story.’
‘Right,’ Sullivan said. ‘The curious Mister Forrester.’
‘What did you make of him?’
Sullivan shrugged. ‘Seemed harmless enough … I don’t know, I only spoke to him for a little while, and then he left.’
‘He had the other pages with him?’
‘He did.’
‘Wish he’d given them to you.’
‘It matters that much?’ Sullivan asked.
‘It does … don’t know why, but hell I’ve always loved a story.’
‘I never read the last chapter,’ Sullivan said.
Annie eased herself off the couch. ‘Then you should read it now. I’ll go get it.’
‘And then maybe you an’ me could go break a sweat in the bedroom before you get your David Quinn back?’
‘Sure thing Jack, you read the story and I’ll fetch my fishnets and a twelve-pack of Trojans.’
Sullivan laughed as she started towards the door.
She stopped suddenly, turned and looked at him.
Sullivan raised his eyebrows.
‘I meant to ask you,’ she said. ‘I’ve been looking every goddamned place I can think for my check book. You haven’t seen it have you?’
‘Your check book?’
Annie nodded. ‘I’m sure it was in the apartment, and then I thought maybe I’d left it in the store or something. You didn’t see it anywhere?’
Sullivan shook his head. ‘Nope, didn’t see it. It’ll be around someplace. It’ll turn up.’
Annie nodded and smiled. ‘So where was I?’
‘Fishnets and Trojans,’ he said matter-of-factly, his face deadpan.
‘Right,’ Annie said. ‘Fishnets and Trojans.’
She turned and left the room, and Sullivan watched her go, and as he watched her he wished – perhaps for the second time in his life – that he’d been smart enough to get himself a wife.
THIRTY
Wednesday morning Annie O’Neill went amongst the people of Manhattan.
Leaving early, she was acutely aware of them, these people who walked the same sidewalks, who breathed the same air, who took the same cabs and drank the same coffee as she did. Ignoring their existence had been her defence perhaps, and yet now she believed she had something in common with each and every one of them. Pain perhaps, or loss, or nothing more than being touched by life and feeling its presence.
Possibly she had seen these very same people a thousand times as she walked to work, but this day – this bitter Wednesday September morning – it was as if she was seeing them for the very first time.
An old man struggled to make it over the junction before the lights changed; a woman carried bags evidently too heavy, and yet she bore the weight as if it were her lot in life to fetch and carry in such a manner; a child gripped his father’s hand, his clothes obviously uncomfortable, his eyes almost brimming with tears as his father droned endlessly about nothing of consequence in some chance meeting at the corner; a young woman, perhaps twenty-five or six, paced back and forth by the service entrance of a department store, cellphone in hand, her expression close to desperation as she attempted to reach someone who wasn’t there; a middle-aged couple, politely oblivious of each other’s existence, and yet she held his arm as they crossed the street as if letting go would undo the meaning of all the years they had suffered together; a baby in a pram, face smeared with chocolate, staring at Annie as she passed as if to plead for release from its comfortable prison; a teenager, eyes sullen, expression hangdog, earphones jammed in to drown out the noise of whatever parental criticism he had endured that morning; and time slowing down, each second a minute, each minute an hour as Annie looked, as she saw into the hearts of these people and perceived a tiny fraction of their lives.
She stopped at Starbucks, and standing there in the queue she grew acutely aware that she was being watched. The hairs rose on the nape of her neck, and she sensed that whoever’s eyes were burning a hole through the center of her back meant something.
She could not describe it.
No words for such a feeling.
She turned – slowly as though she was having to push the heavy air aside to shift her viewpoint – and saw a man looking right at her.
He was three or four behind her in the line, and there was something in his eyes, something meaningful, something somehow empty, as if by looking at her he hoped she would fall right into that vacuum and disappear.
She felt herself blush.
She looked away, and then couldn’t help herself: she looked right back at him.
He still watched her, but there was nothing threatening or invasive about his manner, nothing that suggested anything other than … other than need?
In that second – that split, hair’s-breadth second that spiralled out into something infinite and timeless – she felt something close up against her heart and stop her breath.
There was something.
There was something.
Was this the same as Jack Sullivan’s subway moment?
She held her head straight, she looked straight up at the counter. The people ahead of her carried away their skinny lattes and iced mochaccinos, their double decaf espressos with whipped cream, and then she was there, and then she heard the sound of her own faltering voice as she answered up for the coffee guy, as he held out the cup, as she felt the warmth through her fingers, as she turned and began walking towards the door.
She was no more than three feet from the man, ignoring him, intentionally ignoring him, but as she reached the door, as she anticipated the rush of cold air that would greet her as she passed out into the street, she turned back.
She couldn’t help it.
She turned right back and looked at him.
He was looking right at her. Right through her it seemed.
And he smiled.
He smiled.
She felt the color in her cheeks.
The wind caught her unexpectedly, and then she was away, free from the moment, hurrying down towards the junction with her coffee, with her awkwardness, with people all around her.
Her people, she thought.
People just like her.
Arriving at The Reader’s Rest she was struck by the seeming anonymity of the place. The frontage was drab, dark in color, and she tried to remember when she’d had it painted. It must have been five, perhaps six years, and whatever had impelled her to choose the deep burgundy she couldn’t recall.
Hiding, she thought. All these years I’ve been hiding.
Once inside she removed her coat, set her coffee cup on the counter, and surveyed the interior. She wondered if she could ever bring herself to sell the place. Someone could do something with this. Someone could turn it into a Baby Gap or somesuch. Someone could fill it with parents and kids and noise and laughter, fill it with all the sounds of humanity that these walls had not heard for so many years. Someone, perhaps, could give it life.
But why not you Annie? she asked herself. Because this is who I was, not who I am now. Who I am now doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life enclosed within these four walls, staring day after day at the same images, hearing the same hollow sounds, wishing away the same interminable days …
Who I am wants some other kind of life.
The doorbell rang. She looked up.
‘Annie?’
John Damianka smiled at her from the doorway. No, he didn’t smile, he beamed.
‘You’re okay Annie?’ he asked as he hurried towards the counter.
‘I’m fine John,’ she said.
‘You haven’t been here for a while,’ he said. ‘I thought you were sick.’
Annie shook her head. ‘No, I haven’t been sick, just had a couple of personal things to take care of.’
‘Well I’m glad you’re here Annie … I have some news.’
Annie smiled, stepped from behind the counter and met him halfway from the door.
‘We got engaged … me and Elizabeth got engaged.’
Annie rushed forward and hugged him, threw her arms around him.
When she released him she was beaming too, and for the first time since her fight with David there was a reason to feel good.
‘Oh John, that’s great … that’s fantastic! I am so pleased for you both. That has to be the best news I’ve heard –’
‘I know, I know, I know,’ John was saying, overflowing with goodwill for the world and everything in it. ‘It’s amazing
, I can’t believe it. I am so happy, so incredibly happy Annie.’
Annie hugged him again, held him for a while, and felt she was holding onto a real person, a person who – in his own way – had carried all that life had given him, and now, at last, had found some way to unburden those things and move on.
‘I’m in a hurry,’ he said. ‘I wanted you to know, I really wanted to tell you since last Thursday, and I had to stop and see if you were here.’
John Damianka started backing up towards the door. ‘I’ll bring her down,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring Elizabeth down to meet you sometime. You should meet her Annie, she’s a great woman, a really great woman. Okay, I’ll come by … I promise I will,’ and out the door he went, out into the street, out into the throng that was the people of Manhattan.
Her people.
People just like her.
By mid-afternoon the color of the world had shifted, as if some unseen hand had reached down and pressed against a continent somewhere, slowed the whole thing up, shifted it upon its axis a thousandth of a degree. The sun was enveloped by a bank of thunderheads, and then the rain came – heavy, like spring run-offs, the ice-caps dissolving into Manhattan’s streets in an attempt to clean this dirty city once and for all.
Annie O’Neill stood by the front door of her shop and watched the people hurry by, some carrying umbrellas and wrestling with unexpected gusts that caught them unawares, others holding coats over their heads, their feet hammering through the puddles, their clothes wet, their directions focused and channelled and determined. They were all hurrying someplace, perhaps to someone, to their homes and businesses, to meetings, to illicit rendezvous in nameless hotels where lovers waited impatiently with wet hair and heavy hearts and too little time.
Where were you? I thought you weren’t coming.
I’m sorry, there was a phone call I had to take.
Not your wife?
God no, not my wife … it was a business thing.
I was scared you weren’t coming.
I’m here now … no reason to be scared.
I have to be quick … I can only stay an hour. I wondered if we could talk …
Annie smiled at her thoughts, her small imaginings within this second, and she thought of all the things that turned within that same second.