by Mary Kubica
I’m about to leave when I hear a voice. “Alex?” asks the voice. “Alex Gallo?” and I turn to see her, Mrs. Hackett, my high school science teacher, standing before me with some paperback in her hand, a winter coat draped over an arm. She’s hardly changed a bit in the six months since I’ve been there, and I’m struck by a sudden moment of homesickness. I miss school, my friends, roaming the halls of that aged, light brick building with its rows and rows of cherry-red lockers and vinyl floors. Mrs. Hackett still has the same dark long hair, parted at the center and pulled into a low ponytail on the side; the same dark eyes; the same thick eyebrows; the same soft smile. Where her body used to be narrow and trim, there’s now a bowling ball protruding, right in her midsection, which she has her hands laced around. She wears a long, tunic-type thing that bulges at the center, hanging low to cover up the protuberance. A baby. Mrs. Hackett is going to have a baby, and soon. For some reason this makes me smile, even if she is giving me a look of arrant disappointment, her arms crossed, a pout on her pretty face.
“I told them no, surely not,” she says. “I said I wouldn’t believe it until I saw it with my own two eyes. But here you are,” she adds, wielding her hands in my direction, and I force a smile and say, “In the flesh.”
Her disappointment turns to heartache as she asks, “Why, Alex? Why? Why did you turn that scholarship down?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I’m a homebody, I guess. Couldn’t be away from home.”
It’s true, of course, and it’s not true. And everybody knows the reason why, though no one’s too keen to say the words out loud.
“How is your father?” she asks.
“Just fine,” I say. She sighs.
“You used to come here all the time,” she says then, of the library. I did. I used to come here all the time and hole myself up in the stacks all day, with a tower of astronomy books, and read them until the librarians told me to leave. I’d been fascinated with the sky since I was a little kid, since long before I could read. Pops bought me a telescope once, back when he could actually afford a telescope. I can hardly remember life that long ago. I haven’t looked through it in years, not since that night with Leigh Forney out on the beach. That’s the last thing I need to see, my dreams floating off to space with clouds of interstellar dust and nebulae.
It’s what I always thought I would do when I grew up, work as an astronomer or, if that fell through, an aerospace engineer. Design spaceships and airplanes. Study the universe, find life out there somewhere, confirming what I already knew was true: we are not alone. Not working for Priddy full-time, bussing tables. I never thought I’d be doing that. There’s a letter at home somewhere to prove it, a full ride to the U of M, which I turned down two days after Pops drank so much he had to be hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. I’m pretty sure we’re still paying for that visit, a no-interest payment plan I managed to negotiate with the hospital’s billing staff.
My eyes stare off into the distance, to the spines of books lined in a row, as Mrs. Hackett says, “I haven’t seen you around here in a while.”
“I’ve been busy,” I say.
“You’re working?” she asks.
“I’m working,” I say. And then I point at that big, round belly and ask, “Boy or girl?” Anything so that we can stop talking about me and what an utmost disappointment I am, and she confirms that that bowling ball inside her shirt is in fact a girl. Elodie, she’ll be. Elodie Marie Hackett.
I say that I like it. She asks if I want to touch her belly, but I say no.
And then I go because I can’t stand that look of disappointment in her eyes.
Outside I backtrack from the library through town, fully intent on heading out to the beach and finding my way home, along the same path as I always do. It’s almost five o’clock; it’ll be getting dark soon. Pops is likely hungry, wondering where I am and why I’m not making dinner. Tonight we’re having SpaghettiOs and a can of corn. I’m a regular sous-chef. I might even heat up some kielbasa and throw that in, too.
But this is where the plan goes south.
I’m cutting down Main Street, past Ingrid’s house and the café, for a return to the beach. I’m thinking about Pearl, and whether or not she’ll be there for another evening swim—hoping that she’ll be there, so that this time I might actually manage a return wave and not practically shit my pants when she smiles at me—when I hear a screen door slam shut, and standing there, just outside the blue cottage door, is Dr. Joshua Giles.
Locking up for the night.
He wears a coat and gloves, a leather satchel in the clasp of a hand.
His patients have all come and gone, the day is done, and Dr. Giles is heading home. The rest of the street is quiet. Most of the shops are closed for the night, though cars pass up and down the street, going slowly, stopping to take turns at an intersection that bears no stoplight, but rather a yellow yield sign. A block away, a woman walks her dog, a small terrier-like thing that she scoops into her arms to cross the street as a conversion van drives past. The sky has begun to fill with stars, Sirius first, the brightest star in the nighttime sky. I stop on a street corner and stare. In the distance, the train pulls into town as Dr. Giles begins his trek home.
All of that makes perfect sense.
What makes no sense to me is why I follow him.
My Dearest,
I’ve forgotten many things. But there are many more I will always remember: your voice, your smile, your eyes. The way you smelled, what it felt like when your hands first touched mine.
I didn’t ask for you. You should have just gone away like I asked you to. Like I told you to. Just go. But you didn’t go, and then you were there, and there was nothing I could do.
You stayed until it was me who had to go.
I wonder, sometimes, if you even remember me.
Do you remember me?
All my love,
EV
Quinn
There are few worthwhile lessons I actually remember my mother teaching me. Don’t pick your pimples, they’ll scar. And Floss your teeth. You don’t want to lose your teeth before you turn thirty-five. That’s what she said, citing cavities and gingivitis as the cause of tooth loss. There was also the fact of bad breath, and how bad breath scared eligible bachelors away, and I didn’t want to be a spinster forever, did I? That’s what Mom asked those nights she hovered in the doorway to the bathroom in our split-level suburban home, insisting that I floss my teeth. I was about twelve years old and already she was picturing me as an old spinster living alone with a thousand cats.
But there was one lesson that stood out above the rest. One good one. I was fifteen. I’d gotten into a fight with my best friend, Carrie, of eleven years over something as inane as a boy. I had my heart set on asking some football jock to the high school’s turnabout dance, but she asked him before I had the chance. You snooze, you lose, Carrie had said to me, and it was in that moment I decided we’d no longer be friends. What I wanted to do was scream at her, berate her in public, start some hideous catfight in the crowded halls of our public high school, pulling hair and arousing our retractable feline claws so we could scratch each other’s eyes out while scores of teenagers watched, picking sides and jeering us on.
But my mother wisely cautioned that this would help nothing. She was right. Carrie was bigger than me, for one. She was tall, an athlete, a basketball and volleyball player to boot. She could kick my ass if given the chance, and so I didn’t dare give her the chance.
Instead, my mother suggested I write notes to my friend-turned-archenemy, Carrie. “Jot your feelings down on paper. Tell her how you’re feeling,” she said, with the PS: “Don’t send the letters. Don’t give them to her. Keep them to yourself. But once you get your feelings down on paper, you’ll be able to move on. You’ll be able to think through your emotions. You’ll f
ind closure.”
And she was right. I wrote the letters, long scolding notes on lined purple notebook paper with my favorite gel pen. And in those letters I read Carrie the riot act. I tore into her, I took her into the woodshed and reamed her out. I called her names. I told her I hated her. I said I wished she’d die.
But I never gave the letters to Carrie. I wrote them and threw them away. And in the end, I felt better. I found my closure. And I found new friends, too, though never any as dear as Carrie had once been.
Until the day I met Esther.
Sitting there that day on Esther’s bedroom floor, eating my pizza, mozzarella cheese streaming down my chin, I’m absolutely certain of one thing: that’s why Esther was writing the notes to My Dearest. That was her intent, to get her emotions down on paper, to feel better, to find closure with this two-timing man who has broken her heart.
The notes were never meant to be seen.
After searching a few more drawers, a shoebox or two in Esther’s raggedy closet and under the bed, I give up. I’m not going to find any more answers in here, anything other than the contacts, the information on loss and grieving, the passport photo, the change-of-name form, all things which raise far more questions than they solve—namely, who is Esther, really?
I’m feeling frustrated to say the least. Assumptions come to mind: Esther, aka Jane, has taken her passport and fled the country; or maybe Esther, aka Jane, is sitting somewhere, so afflicted by grief she can’t bring herself to come home. I just don’t know, but it makes me sad, thinking that Esther is sad and I didn’t know. And so I find that business card and dial the number embossed on its surface, the one for the psychologist. It rings five times, but he doesn’t answer, sending the call to voice mail, whereby I leave a message delineating my concerns. My roommate Esther Vaughan is gone, I tell him, and I explain that I found his card in her things. I ask if maybe he knows where she is. I beg, in fact, hoping, wondering, if Esther might have revealed to him some place she likes to go to hide, or whether or not she planned to leave the country without her phone. Maybe she told him the reasons she decided to place an ad for another roommate in the Reader, or why she wants to replace me with Meg from Portage Park. Perhaps he knows. Perhaps Esther sat there in some dimly lit room across from the man and confessed to him that I made for a lousy roommate. That I didn’t pay my fair share of the rent, that I didn’t cook. That I ate her dill weed. And maybe he encouraged her, as a good psychologist would do, to cut ties and to do it quickly. To kick me to the curb. To be ready to leave at a moment’s notice, in case my abuse went beyond the realm of shiftless and slovenly. To not let me take advantage of her anymore.
Perhaps it’s his fault I’m in this predicament.
Or maybe it’s mine.
But then I’m hit with another query: Does he even know who Esther is? Perhaps to him she is Jane. And so I say this, too, on the phone. I say that my roommate also goes by the pseudonym of Jane Girard—as I take a look at the petition for Esther’s name change and I’m stricken by how completely outlandish this is, admitting to some person I don’t know that my roommate has a double life I know nothing about. On his answering machine, no less. I pinch myself. Wake up!
I don’t wake up. Turns out, I’m already awake.
I press End on the phone, feeling miffed at how many questions I’ve formed—many—and how many answers I’ve found: none.
I think and I think. Where else could I possibly look for clues? I put in a call to Ben to see if he’s had any luck in tracking Esther’s family down, but again he doesn’t answer his phone. Damn Priya, drawing his attention away from the task at hand. I leave a message, and as I do, my eyes swerve to that photograph of Esther and me thumbtacked to the wall—Esther and me posing before the artificial Christmas tree for a selfie. Seeing the photo, my mind starts to wonder about that storage unit where we found the tree, that winter day we dragged the tree home through the snow. What else does Esther have hidden in there besides a Christmas tree? It’s not like I have the key to the storage unit, but still, I wonder if I’d be able to sweet-talk some employee into letting me inside. Doubtful. That’s the kind of thing Esther could do, but not me. I’m not the type of person able to sway someone with my bright eyes and a beguiling smile, which is Esther to a T.
That night, before I go to bed, I gather the collection of clues I’ve found and sit before the arched windows of the living room, going through them one by one, rereading the notes to My Dearest, familiarizing myself with the grieving process, running my fingers over the embossed name on the psychologist’s business card. It is dark outside, the lights of the city like a million sparkling golden stars. The number of neighbors who have curtains drawn is trifling; they, like me, sit in a fully illuminated room into which everyone outside can easily see. It’s part and parcel of city living or so I’ve learned, leaving the window coverings open wide to welcome in the city’s superabundant lights but also neighbors’ prying eyes. My mother, in our split-level suburban home, never would have gone for this. Curtains and blinds were closed at the first indicator of dusk, as soon as the stars and planets became visible to the naked eye and the sun began to dip. I stare out the window and admire it all: the lights of the buildings, the stars, the planets, the flashing wing lights of a passing jet plane, flying silently overhead at thirty thousand feet. From up above, I wonder what the passengers see. Do they see me?
And then my eyes return to the street, and I spy a sole figure standing in the shadows of Farragut Avenue, staring in the window, up at me. A woman, I believe, with strands of hair that flitter around her head like a dozen butterflies flapping their flimsy wings. At least that’s what I think I see, though it’s nighttime and I can’t see so well, but still, the figure doesn’t make me feel in the least bit scared or creeped out, but rather hopeful. Esther? The form stands far enough away from streetlights to be inconspicuous, to be invisible, to hide. But someone is there.
Please let it be Esther, I silently beg. She’s home; she’s come home. Or at least partway home, though she’s not yet convinced to come inside. I have to convince her. I rise quickly to my feet, a fish in a fishbowl, knowing that whoever is outside can see me with clarity, and for this reason I wave. I’m not scared.
I search for signs of movement, hoping and wishing that the sole figure will wave back, just a twitch of movement from the street, but no. There’s nothing. Not at first, anyway. But then there is. A wave, albeit a small wave, but still a wave. I’m just sure of it. Or at least I think I am.
Esther?
I drop the items in my hand and run quickly through the apartment door and down three misaligned flights of stairs before she has a chance to leave. If it’s Esther, I have to convince her to stay. I run. Stay, I think to myself and, Don’t go. I slip more than once, my shoes losing traction on the floor as I run faster than I’ve ever run in my whole entire life. I almost fall, catching the hand railing for support and righting myself before my rear end hits the ground. I come barreling out the main entranceway and onto the quiet street, down the steps and into the middle of the road without looking left or right for traffic.
“Esther,” I call out two times, the first a forced whisper—to avoid waking neighbors—and the second, a scream. But there is no response to either. I dart across the street, to the blackened expanse where thirty seconds ago I saw the figure—or thought I saw the figure, though now I can’t be sure—but there is no one there. Just parked cars, a line of flats and low-rise apartments, a vacant street. I look every which way, but there are no signs of life. Nothing. The street is barren. Whatever I saw, or whatever I thought I saw, is gone.
Esther isn’t here.
I turn sadly back to my own four-flat, but I don’t go straight home. Instead, I wander through the streets of Andersonville, past the places we like to hang, searching for Esther. Our favorite restaurants, our favorite coffee shop, the snazzy little gift and
boutique shops that line Clark and Berwyn, cupping my hands around my eyes to peer inside and see if Esther is there, but in each and every one of these places, she’s not there.
I pass a theater on Clark Street where a satirical play has been gracing the stage. Esther has been dying to see it but I’ve refused to go. I like my shows with surround sound and popcorn, I told Esther at the time, weeks ago, when she’d asked if I’d join her for the play. Lots of popcorn, I said, spouting on and on about how live theater was lame.
Now I wish I’d just shut up and gone.
A group of artsy urbanites comes bounding down the steps of the theater and I quickly dig up a photo of Esther on my phone and thrust it into one man’s hand. “Have you seen her?” I ask with shaking hands. “Was this woman inside?”
The man shakes his head and returns my phone to me. He hasn’t seen Esther and I watch sadly as he and his pretentious friends turn and walk away, happy and laughing, talking about what a great time the play was, what a riot.
I wind my way up and down the quieting city streets, watching as they slowly become uninhabited as nighttime draws near, footsteps escaping off into every darkened direction. I pass the Catholic church where Esther sings in the choir, a huge neo-Gothic structure whose doors, even at this late hour, remain unlocked. I pull on the blackened handle and let myself inside, calling out quietly and yet hopelessly for Esther. “Esther,” I hiss, moving with stealth two steps in, knowing this was where she was supposed to be, this is where she was meant to be, when she was not sleeping in her bed.
But the church is empty and the only words that return to me are mine, my desperate plea for Esther echoing off the wood paneled walls. Esther is not here.
In time I know that I’ll have to return to the vacant apartment all alone, without Esther in tow, and that when I arrive, Esther will not be there waiting for me. Not tonight, anyway, though I take comfort in the fact that maybe Esther will be home tomorrow. Tomorrow will be forty-eight hours that she’s been gone, just like the 311 operator said. They usually come home in forty-eight to seventy-two hours. Tomorrow then, I tell myself. Tomorrow Esther will come home.