“I think you were very young to be locked up here with a bunch of dour nuns and it would be sensible to want to get out.”
She gives me a grateful smile and then tilts her head. “Spoken like a girl who has an eye on a fellow of her own.”
Now it’s my turn to blush. Lillian’s keen eyes have taken in my late-morning deshabille and made the obvious connection. “Well,” I admit, “my editor did come by last night . . . but I don’t . . . it’s not like that . . . not that anything happened . . .” I debate telling her about what happened in the park, but that would only scare her. She misinterprets my hesitation.
“I’m sorry,” Lillian says. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Perhaps you’d better not rush into anything.”
“Oh . . . I won’t . . .” I blush again. “But what about your Frank? Did you go upstate together?”
Before Lillian can answer, a bell chimes on the computer, startling her. “What on Earth?”
“It’s a message notification alert.” I move my chair closer and see that Stacy has returned my Facebook message. “Oh, do you mind?” I ask. “It’s from the friend of the girl I’m looking for.”
“Let’s see!” Lillian says, excited. “How do you get her message?”
The page is open to the picture of AJ and Stacy standing in a gazebo with a stretch of water behind them. Like all the pictures it doesn’t show AJ’s face clearly, but looking at her silhouette I feel like she reminds me of someone . . . but the image goes out of focus in my head before I can think who. When I open the message box I see with dismay that the print is too small for me to read. I’m thinking of asking Bot to read it but then Lillian volunteers. “May I?” she asks.
“Please,” I say.
Lillian reads in a crisp, businesslike voice that she might have used to read back a transcription when she worked as a stenographer. “AJ would be happy that you’re interested in her cartoons but she’s not available right now. She’s gone out of town to take care of a sick relative. I’ll pass along your information to her, though, if you will give me your name and address and reporter credentials. Thanxxx!” Lillian drops the business voice. “She’s misspelled ‘thanks’ and added some yellow dots with faces on them.”
“Emojis,” I explain to Lillian. “What do you think of Stacy’s message?”
“That she’s lying,” Lillian says without hesitation. “There’s no sick relative. This AJ is hiding because she’s scared and her friend wants to know more about you before giving you any information. You can tell what good friends they are from this picture.”
Lillian peers closer at the screen and reads the caption. “It says Camp Bernadette Forever.”
“Hm,” I say, peering at the picture. “A camp might be a good place to hide.” I inch closer to the computer and type in “Camp Bernadette,” but even before it comes up Lillian says, “I know where it is—that tall mountain behind them is Storm King. Frank and I passed it on our way up to Barrytown. Across the river is—”
“Stratford,” I finish, recalling the town from my own train trips home.
“So,” she says, her eyes flashing. “When are you going to go find her?”
Chapter Twenty
Melissa
IT’S RAINING WHEN I get up, and the morning news is ranting about a hurricane that’s coming up the East Coast and is going to cause flooding and power outages and sea surges. They’re going on like it’s the storm of the century. It’s the usual hysterical hype that Cass attributed to the television news outlets’ hunger for ratings. Even Sandy, which was the worst storm New York ever had, wasn’t really as bad as everyone made it out to be. Sure, we were without power and Internet for a couple of days, but it was kind of fun camping out with the kids, toasting marshmallows over the fireplace and eating by candlelight. Of course, if you were on the Jersey Shore or Staten Island it was worse, but those people should have thought twice before building in a flood zone.
Thanks to the rain, it’ll take forever to go downtown in an Uber, so I’ll have to take the subway. When I type the address into Waze my phone tells me that I can get the A train just a few blocks from my apartment and take it practically to the restaurant’s front door. Easy-peasy. I’ll take a selfie on the subway and send it to Whit and Emily. Won’t they be surprised! Maybe I’ll send one to Wally too. She’ll die of shock.
I dress down so I won’t intimidate Barbara but nice enough to show respect for her situation: black ponte skinny pants tucked into tall Hunter rain boots, cashmere sweater, and the classic Burberry Cass bought me in England ten years ago. I tie an Hermès scarf over my hair, put on the matching wide-brimmed rain hat, and grab an umbrella.
Enda offers to get me a taxi but I tell him I’m just walking to the subway. His eyes widen like I’ve told him I’m going out to rob a bank. Really, people stereotype the rich. (Not that I’m rich anymore; at least, not now, but once I sell my book I will be again.) Why doesn’t anyone write about that? Maybe I’ll do an opinion piece for the Times.
It’s barely raining as I walk through the park. The cool, misty air feels good on my face and I imagine it’s making my complexion all dewy even though it’s probably not particularly clean rain here in the city. I make a mental note to do a charcoal face mask tonight since I can’t afford to see my usual aesthetician.
The subway station is easy to find on the corner of Broadway and Isham. I’m a little startled by how tawdry the neighborhood looks over here, and when I go down into the station I can’t help but notice what a mixed crowd it is. There are a few young professionals though, including a sweet redheaded girl who I decide is a safe option to stand next to.
When the train comes, I board with her, but after five minutes, we haven’t budged. I turn to her and ask, “Why are we still sitting here? Are we waiting for someone?”
The girl laughs. “There’s always a delay because there’s only one track out, so they have to wait for it to be clear. The good thing is you always get a seat at 207th . . . oh look, the doors are closing.”
The doors close but we sit for another five minutes. The redhead, who tells me her name is Chloe, asks polite questions about where I’m going and how many children I have and obligingly takes a selfie of both of us that I post on Facebook. Chloe seems like a well-bred girl, so I’m surprised to learn that she’s working as a bartender/dogwalker/babysitter.
“I interned at corporate offices but I hated it,” she tells me. “I’m writing a graphic novel.”
She shows me her sketchpad, which is full of drawings. I tell her they’re very good but express concern that it must be hard to make a living that way.
“Almost impossible!” she says cheerfully. “But you gotta try, right?”
“Maybe you could go back to school,” I suggest tactfully. “You could be an art teacher.”
Chloe smiles. “Yeah . . . well, maybe. Only, I’m working three jobs to pay off my student loans from college so I’m not sure how I’d manage that.”
The train finally moves. At each stop more people get on. By 168th Street there are no seats left. By 145th there’s a solid wall of people in front of us. Chloe gets up for an elderly woman and stands in front of me. When the elderly woman gets off at 125th a large man takes her place and spreads his legs so wide I have to squeeze up against the guard rail. Chloe rolls her eyes and mouths manspreader to me.
“The train runs express from here to Fifty-Ninth,” Chloe tells me. “I’m getting out at Fourteenth, and you’re the stop right after. Take the stairs to your right and you’ll be only a few feet from your restaurant. I think it’s probably raining pretty hard by now.”
“When do you take the train back uptown?” I ask, hating to see Chloe go.
“Around one,” she tells me.
“In the morning? Doesn’t your mother worry?”
She laughs. “Yeah, she’s admitted she’s tracked me on FindMyiPhone. . . . Maybe I’ll see you around the neighborhood. My roommate and I go to trivia night at the Black Rose sometimes.”<
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We exchange phone numbers and I tell her to text me if she ever needs anything. Chloe’s made me miss Whit and Emily. I text them both but the texts aren’t delivered because there’s no service.
I ride the next couple stops alone and when the train halts at West Fourth Street, I exit to find water cascading down the station stairs and wind driving sheets of rain sideways. Thanks to Chloe’s helpful directions, I make my way seamlessly to the correct sidewalk, but my umbrella turns inside out instantly and is torn from my hands to join the rest of the broken umbrellas littering the streets. I am soaked by the time I enter Buvette. I go straight to the ladies’ to blot off my damp face and scrub my hands clean of subway grime. I’m seated at a table under a cooling vent and complain to the hostess to turn down the air conditioning. I order hot tea to make my point and prepare to wait.
Which I do for the next forty-five minutes.
I check my phone for messages. I’d given Barbara my cell phone number—de rigueur for meeting in real life, I’d thought—but I notice now that she had not reciprocated. Still, she could have Facebook messaged me or called the restaurant. But I suppose if she’d chickened out she wouldn’t do either.
The waiter refills my sparkling water for the third time and asks if I’d like to order something while waiting for my guest to arrive. There’s that hint of condescension in his voice that waiters reserve for the stood-up, but I somehow doubt it’s employed for pretty young girls or powerful older men. The fact that I’m waiting for someone I was trying to help means nothing. I am still a middle-aged woman sitting alone in a restaurant in the middle of the day in the middle of a worsening storm. The idea of eating here alone seems embarrassing.
“I suppose my friend’s been hindered by the weather,” I say, rising to my feet and looking at my watch. “I should be getting home.”
I step outside into the shelter of the awning and stare at the rain-swept street. Two taxis go by but they’re off duty. I try my Uber app, but there’s a fifteen-minute wait for the next car and it says my trip back home will take over an hour. The subway station yawns across the street, but the thought of going back underground into that fetid tunnel seems unbearable. Besides, I’m hungry—and angry at being stood up.
I check Waze and see that the Bosie tearoom is only a ten-minute walk south. Why not put some of Joan’s research to work? Plus, their scones looked delicious in the pictures on Google. I put up my collar, fasten my rain hat, and step out into the deluge.
UNABLE TO CHECK my phone in the pouring rain and blinkered by my wide-brimmed hat I get turned around in the maze of West Village streets. It takes me more like twenty minutes to find the diminutive tearoom on a side street. I stumble in, drenched, shedding sheets of water like a large Labrador. A young woman behind the bar greets me by shouting, “Ahoy! Come aboard!”
I open my mouth to laugh, but a sob comes out instead. I feel like I’ve been dragged out of the sea—a shipwrecked survivor. The tearoom even looks like a ship, paneled in deep honey-colored wood, the walls lined with round brass urns, the air steamy with exotic spices. The young woman behind the counter doesn’t look at all fazed by a crying customer.
She offers me a table or a seat at the bar. I take the bar, huddling up close to this friendly girl as if she were a banked fire. She is wearing a black T-shirt that says Tea-Witch, a ruby glints from her left nostril, and half her head is shaved. She might be a pirate.
“Can I get you some hot tea to start? You look chilled.”
I stare up at the wall of brass urns. There must be over a hundred varieties of tea in this little shop.
“We just got in a very rare milk oolong from Taiwan. It’s very hard to get and flies off the shelves. That’s what I’m drinking.” She waves her hand over the teacup in front of her as if performing a spell and I catch a whiff of caramel and butterscotch.
“Yes, thank you,” I say.
She measures tea from a canister and pours hot water into a china teapot while I strip off my sodden coat and hat and hang them on a wrought-iron coat rack. There are a handful of other customers—an elderly man reading a foreign newspaper, two Asian women talking low, their heads bent close together, a middle-aged woman tapping away at a laptop. The glass plate windows are steamed over, giving the tearoom an air of an underwater waiting room—but to what I’m not sure.
When I sit back down there’s a delicate china teacup, a teapot, and an egg timer, white sand slipping steadily through its pinched glass throat. There’s also a china plate with a scone and tiny glass jars filled with clotted cream and raspberry jam.
“These just came out of the oven,” the waitress says. “I thought you looked like you could use a little sustenance.”
Grateful and touched by the gesture, I take a bite of the scone, which is so good I nearly swoon.
“Good, right?” she says, pouring the tea.
I take a sip of the tea and it warms me down to the bones. “This is delicious,” I say. “I heard about this place from one of my daughter’s friends who used to work here. A girl named AJ? Did you know her?”
The girl is looking down at the tea she is pouring. When she looks up the warmth is gone from her eyes. “A lot of people have been looking for AJ,” she says.
“Oh?” I try to look surprised. “Is she missing?”
“People are looking for her,” she repeats, “that she doesn’t want to find her. So, as you can imagine, I can’t give any information about AJ to someone I don’t know.” Gone is the warm, tea-wielding waitress, replaced by a steely examiner.
“Of course,” I say warmly. “You’re protecting your friend. You must be so worried about her and you can’t tell whom to trust. What kind of people have been asking for her? Reporters? They can be ruthless.”
The girl makes a face. “You have no idea. There was one pretending to be her mother.”
“Her mother? I ask, remembering what Barbara had said about the staff at Bosie being unhelpful.
“Yeah. This woman calling herself Barbara sent me a Facebook message saying she was AJ’s mother.”
“And that’s not her mother’s name?” I ask.
“Well, here’s the thing.” The young woman leans across the bar and lowers her voice. “AJ’s mother died six months ago.”
“Oh!” I say, feeling suddenly cold despite the warm tea.
“Is something wrong?”
“I just remembered something . . . at home . . .” I get up, knocking over the stool. Barbara—my Barbara—isn’t AJ’s mother. But why would she agree to meet me . . . Unless she wanted me out of my apartment just like I wanted Joan out of hers. Which means—
“I have to go,” I say to the waitress. “How much do I owe you.”
She shakes her head. “It’s on the house, and here . . .” She hands me a card. It has the name Katy Morrison on it and under it the phrase “Tea Witch” with a drawing of a gloved hand pouring a cup of tea. “Let me know what you find out and I’ll see if AJ would be willing to talk to you.”
THE STREETS ARE flooded and empty of taxis. There’s no choice but to take the subway. I descend into the wet, slippery station and wait fifteen minutes on a sweltering platform before I’m rewarded with a humid, crowded car. I manage to grab the last seat between two enormous manspreaders, and then sit thinking about how I’ve been duped. I find the last message from “Barbara” and reply back, Who are you really?
Then I check the MataHari app to see if “Barbara” has been in touch with Joan. Two can play at this game. MataHari reports activity on Joan’s Facebook with AJ’s account, but it’s not with Barbara; it’s with someone named Stacy. Joan has sent her a message claiming she wants to do a story on AJ’s cartoons—an obvious ruse that Stacy replied to with an evasive answer. Then Joan did a Google search for something called Camp Bernadette. I click on the link to the camp but the site won’t load. We must have lost service.
The train stops and I look up to see what station we’re at but there’s nothing outside the windo
ws but sooty cement. We’re between stations, so why are we stopping? I look around but no one in the car looks alarmed. Everyone is either looking down at their phones or asleep. I remember what Chloe said about the train stopping between stations. Usually it’s nothing—
Usually.
The man sitting to my right shifts, pressing his damp, beefy leg against mine. I try to inch over, but the man to my left is large and unbudging. I try to make myself smaller. I look across the aisle, hoping to make eye contact with someone sympathetic—a nice girl like Chloe—but the middle-aged woman in nurse scrubs across from me returns my gaze blankly. As if I’m invisible.
Then the lights go out.
A few people groan, but as if this is a common inconvenience, not a disaster. The conductor comes on and mutters something completely unintelligible. It’s not just the lights that are out; it’s the ventilation as well. As the car warms it fills with an odiferous fug that smells like wet dog and decomposing bodies—
It smells like Cass’s open grave. It’s as if I have been buried with him and these last few months have been a dream—or a nightmare. Which is what it’s felt like. This isn’t my life—living in a rundown building in a grungy neighborhood practically in the Bronx, breaking the law to snoop on my neighbor, riding the subway for an hour to be stood up. I’ve been sent to purgatory to atone for my sins.
But what have I done? Even if Cass did those terrible things—and how terrible must it have been if he’d paid out a million dollars to Pat Shanahan to make it go away?—I didn’t know about them.
Girls all compliant like Melissa Osgood, Joan had written. Had I been compliant? Had I been willfully blind? The thought creeps down my spine and spreads into a warm, damp sensation through my legs—
No, that warm, damp feeling on my leg isn’t guilt; it’s a hand. The man to my right has his hand, which is heavy and hot as a piece of cooked meat, on my leg. How long has it been there? Why am I still sitting here, anaesthetized, on the slick, clammy seat? That it’s been there all this time without me realizing makes it feel as if I’m somehow complicit in its presence.
The Stranger Behind You Page 23