“Just what I said. You sell your condo. I’ve got a few bucks stashed away.” He put his cup down and rested his hands on my shoulders. “We’ll pool our resources and buy a place of our own. What do you say?”
“Babs doesn’t do real estate anymore.”
“So get someone else.”
I just looked at him.
“I know I promised I’d wait.” He took the mug from my hands and cupped my chin. “But things have changed. I hate to sound corny, but I’ve got this feeling that time is of the essence here. That all could be lost if we wait.”
I picked my mug up from the counter and stared into the dark liquid. “All could be lost if we don’t.”
“Will you think about it?”
“This is because I got a little weird the other day?”
“A little weird? You call that a little weird? You looked and sounded—and acted—just like Serena before they sent her to Peaceful Sea!”
“But I’m not Serena! Did Serena run a business? Could she have placated someone like old man Farnham? Was she involved in a relationship—rocky as this relationship may be?”
“No, but—”
“I’m telling you—I’m not crazy. There are things going on here that you just don’t understand. If you understood them, you’d know that I’m perfectly sane.”
“Tell me about them.” He touched my chin. “Tell me all the things I don’t understand.”
“I can’t,” I said softly. For a second, the thought of telling him everything, of taking him to my apartment, of proving it all to him, flashed through my mind; but I knew it was hopeless. “I only wish that I could.”
He nodded, his eyes full of pain. “That’s what Serena used to say.”
A different picture flashed: I saw myself taking Richard to my apartment and finding nothing there. Fear stabbed in my stomach as I imagined his expression—the love and the sorrow and fear—just as it must have been when he looked at Serena. But I wasn’t sick like Serena. I knew that I just couldn’t be. “If I remind you so much of Serena,” I demanded, “why do you want to be involved with me at all?”
He paused; it was his turn to stare into the depths of a coffee cup. “I blew it last time,” he said slowly. “I’m not going to blow it again. I loved Serena, and I lost her. And now I love you. For better or for worse.”
I sat down, his words—for better or for worse—echoing through my head. “We’re not married, Richard. It’s not going to work. I can’t be loved like this now.”
“I can’t help it. I’m worried.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know what I’m like when I feel I’m being smothered.”
“You’re my responsibility now.”
“You’re wrong, Richard,” I said softly. “I’m nobody’s responsibility but my own.”
“Lindsey, you’re not well—I know the signs. I love you. I’ll help you get better.”
“You’re not listening to me! You haven’t heard a single word that I’ve said! I am well! I’m fine. My big problem right now is that you’re pushing me too hard, that you’re trying to suffocate me.” I walked over and grabbed my jacket from the couch. “I care about you, Richard. I care a lot. But I think we’d better call it quits for a while.” I picked my briefcase up from the floor.
“Lindsey—”
I shook my head, my eyes full of tears. “I’ll stop by this afternoon when you’re at work and pick up my things.”
“Lindsey—”
I held up a hand as he stepped toward me. “Don’t.” I turned and walked out the door.
I had no choice. I needed more space, and I needed to prove to Richard and Naomi and Babs—and mostly to myself—that I wasn’t like Serena at all.
Pam came into my office after lunch and closed the door. “Why don’t you go home, Lindsey?”
I swiveled my chair away from the computer. “What?”
“Look, maybe I’m a bit out of line, but you’re doing more harm than good around here today.”
“What?”
“I just spent twenty minutes on the phone with Joe from Holden Printing—he was totally confused from the directions you gave him this morning.”
“But I told him—”
Pam shook her head. “And Peter’s pretty upset at the way you bit off his head before lunch. And frankly, you weren’t too nice to me about the mail.”
I looked down at the printouts on my desk. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I know you haven’t been feeling well the last couple of days.”
I looked up. “Richard and I broke up this morning.” I could hear the dead sound to my voice.
“Oh.” Pam sat down on the edge of my desk. “So that’s it.”
I tried to smile. “That’s it.”
“Want to talk about it?”
I shook my head. “I think I will take off early.” I turned off the computer and left.
I stepped out onto Boylston Street. The sun was at a springtime angle in the sky, and there were hints of green fuzz around the edges of the trees; a crisp breeze with a touch of warmth underneath it lifted my hair. I turned down Dartmouth Street. I heard the high voices of children running through the Commonwealth Avenue mall, and their screeching annoyed me. I’d forgotten my sunglasses, and the glare was making me squint. Aunt Bertha tells a story about a woman so grouchy, she complained that her coffee cup’s handle was on the wrong side; I understood what the poor woman meant. I watched my feet as I walked to my car. I drove to Richard’s.
The inside of his building was cold and dark, the tiles and metal railings holding on to winter. I felt better in there; it mirrored my feelings. I trudged up the four flights of stairs. If only he hadn’t pushed, if only he had left well enough alone. Didn’t he know I was afraid?
I opened the apartment door, and dusty sunlight filtered through the grimy windows. It was close and dark and more than a little dirty. Even so, I wanted to stay. To stay where it was safe, where I was loved and protected, where I could hide from the things that frightened me. But I knew that I couldn’t; that my safe house was no more, that it was time to stand on my own and face the hard truths.
It only took two trips to bring my things down. I hadn’t brought that much over. Part of me must have always known I wasn’t staying, that he wanted too much. I slammed the trunk and looked up at his window. The window we looked out as we lay like two spoons, nested together. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, but it wouldn’t budge. I was going to miss him. He was a sweet man. I was going to miss him a lot.
I squared my shoulders and climbed into the car. But when I sat down, my head dropped to the steering wheel and I watched my tears make dark circles on my skirt. Despite my misery, I smiled as I quoted Yogi: “It was déjà vu all over again.” For here I was, once again, wondering whether I was going home to find my sanity or my insanity. I pulled a tissue from the glove compartment and wiped my eyes; I put the car in gear and pulled out onto Comm. Ave.
I had planned to double-park in front of my house and unload, but when I turned onto Beacon Street, I saw that the space directly in front of the door was empty. I pulled in. Was the parking place Isabel’s way of apologizing, of arranging a homecoming, of showing me she forgave me? Or was the empty spot just a coincidence? Had it all just been coincidence mixed up with Babs’s jokes and my own craziness?
Edgar’s door opened soundlessly as I put the last suitcase in the foyer. “Don’t go up there!” he hissed.
I turned toward the hoarse voice and was horrified by what I saw. Edgar seemed to have shrunk, and aged; his skin was whiter than ever, and his eyes were rimmed in bleary red. His face looked defeated, defenseless, and scared. Behind him, his apartment was dark, all his curtains closed. “Edgar! What is it?”
“She killed Mirepoix.”
“What?” I grabbed the newel post. The segmental arches seemed to divide and come together, divide and come together, as they reached for the ceiling. “What?”
&n
bsp; “Two days ago. Since you’ve been away.” His voice had no affect, as if it, too, were dead. “Poisoned, the vet said. Poisoned by arsenic. I’m moving as soon as I can.”
“But, but, I don’t understand …”
He reached out and grabbed my wrist in his bony fingers. “You do understand. Only you and I understand! No matter what anyone else says, you and I know the truth! We know she did it.” He let go of my arm and retreated toward his door, tears beginning to roll down his cheeks. “She never did like my Mirepoix, she never liked my little girl.”
“Oh, Edgar,” I said, starting toward him, my arms open. “I’m so sorry.”
He stepped back, putting the door between him and me. “Just don’t go up there. Leave! Leave while you can!” he whispered just before disappearing behind the door.
I bolted from the house. I walked up and down the alphabetical streets of Back Bay: Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, and Dartmouth, then Exeter, Fairfield, Hereford, and Gloucester. Then I walked back home again. I stood in front of the house. It looked so innocent, its row of bay windows in perfect harmony with its neighbors. Isabel might not have liked Mirepoix, but she’d never kill an innocent dog. I knew that she wouldn’t. Or I thought I knew that she wouldn’t. I pushed open the door. I had to find out. And the truth was, I had nowhere else to go.
Edgar never appeared as I carried the suitcases and boxes up to my landing. I pulled out my key and then hesitated; I stepped away from the door and leaned against the balustrades. What was I going to find? Nothing or something? I ran my hand along the smooth mahogany railing. Would it be still and silent or would there be snakes and walking sticks? Or perhaps, perhaps now that she’d won—now that she’d seen me leave Richard—perhaps I would find the old Isabel—the Isabel who had been my friend.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward. My fingers trembled as I slipped the key in the lock. I turned and picked up my suitcases, then I pushed the door open with my foot and slowly entered the apartment. The first thing I saw was the living room. I dropped the suitcases to the floor and cried out.
Everything I owned—every saucepan and every piece of Tupperware, every earring and every nightgown, every record and tape and every single book—had been emptied from its cabinet or closet or shelf. The living room was strewn with messy mounds and drifts and stacks of my personal debris. One pile touched the ceiling.
“Isabel!” I yelled, beating my fists into the wall. “Don’t do this!”
No response.
“You were right! You were right! He did want to change me. He did want to own me! I’m finished, finished—I promise you I’m finished with him,” I sobbed. “I’m finished, finished …”
I stumbled out of the apartment and collapsed in a heap on the landing, sobbing and waiting. Waiting as a naughty child waits for her mother’s consoling hug, waiting for Isabel to show me she understood and forgave me. But there was no sign, no consolation, no forgiveness.
“Babs,” I sobbed, standing in her doorway. “You’ve, you’ve got to help me. I, I don’t know what’s going on. I, I don’t know what’s happening anymore. It’s all so crazy—if only it were me who was crazy … If only I were crazy, but now I know that I’m not.”
She put her arms around me and drew me inside. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
I had gone straight to Babs’s after fleeing the mess in my apartment. Or I assumed I had gone straight to Babs’s. I didn’t remember much. One moment I was facedown, crying on the landing, and the next I was pushing a little black button under a brass nameplate that read “Putnam.” The waning light said it was late afternoon, so I must have come directly to her Marlborough Street apartment. If it was still the same day.
“It’s all so awful,” I wailed, sitting down on her couch. “She’s so awful, so awful …”
“Okay, okay, kiddo. It’ll be okay.” Babs slowly rubbed my back. “You cry and yell and scream and make no sense—and then, when you’re done, when you can talk again, you can tell me what’s going on.”
Finally I calmed down, took a deep breath, and told her. I told her all about the stuff she couldn’t have done, all about the stuff that proved Isabel existed, all about Mirepoix and the new journal entry and the walking stick and my empty kitchen cabinets. She didn’t interrupt, and when I finished, she didn’t say anything; she just looked at me.
“You don’t believe me!” I was stunned. “You still don’t believe in Isabel. Why the hell would I make up a story like this? A walking stick, for God’s sake. Why the hell would I make up a story about a walking stick? I don’t think I even knew what a walking stick looked like until it was spit out of my ceiling! And what about Mirepoix?”
“The vet said Mirepoix could have gotten into Edgar’s skin lotion or his anemia pills.”
“Edgar said arsenic!”
“There’s arsenic in those things.”
“Edgar would know if his dog had eaten his pills.”
“Maybe,” she said gently. “But it’s all so hard to believe.”
“But it’s true!” I protested. “It’s either true or both Edgar and I are crazy!”
“Edgar’s always been paranoid, and you yourself said the guy was looney tunes.”
We stared at each other in silence.
“I’m not crazy—I wish that I were. I used to think that being crazy was the worst thing I’d have to face, but, but this is much worse. Much worse.”
Again the room fell silent. “Let’s go,” Babs finally said.
“Go?”
“To your apartment.”
I shook my head vigorously. “No. I’m staying here.”
“How else can I see?”
“You go. I’m never going back there.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Haven’t you been listening? Of course I’m afraid!”
“But it’s the only way, sweetie,” she said. “It’s the only way you can prove to me—or I can prove to you—what’s really going on.” She touched my arm lightly. “We don’t have much of a choice.”
“No.”
“It’s this or I call Richard, or your shrink or the police or somebody.”
I shook my head. “Do what you want, I’m not going.”
She took both my hands and pulled me up from the couch. “Yes, you are.”
Numb, almost zombielike, I followed her out the door. We walked in silence, a silence so noisy and so immense, it heightened all of my senses. The late afternoon sun made garish shadows on the buildings, turning the pointed tops of wrought-iron window bars and railings into menacing, threatening swords. A gargoyle adorning an oversize town house grinned its evil grimace, and a cabbie screamed obscenities out his window at anyone who would listen. We walked at a slow, even pace.
We climbed the stairs in the same deliberate manner. When we stood in front of my apartment door, I couldn’t bring myself to unlock it. But I didn’t need to; Babs pushed the door with her foot, and it opened. She walked into the entryway. I remained on the landing until she came out and gently led me in.
Slivers of pale light skipped on the river, and dusky sun filled the living room bay, but there were no saucepans, no nightgowns, and no Tupperware. The apartment smelled of lemon oil.
24
We stood motionless in the entryway for what seemed like hours. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but apparently Babs could.
“Lindsey, sweetie,” she said softly. “See? There’s nothing here.” She turned and grabbed my arms. “Lindsey, I feel so terrible! This is all my fault. I could kill myself for not knowing when to stop. For thinking up this dumb, stupid joke!”
“Joke?” Confused, I looked around the immaculate room. The sun dipped behind a cloud, and the armoire cast a bulky shadow on the wall, tall and hulking. “You cleaned up the mess as a joke?”
Her eyes grew huge as she stared at me. “Lindsey, oh, Lindsey,” she moaned. “You need help. We, I, I have to get someone to help you. I have to call your shrink.” She reached up
and gripped my shoulders, turning me toward her. “Lindsey,” she said, slowly enunciating each word, “tell me her name. What was her name?”
“Naomi,” I said, dropping to the couch. I kept looking, staring at the empty carpet, at the narrow hardwood floorboards, all shiny and bare. I couldn’t believe it. The mess had been here—my clothes and my records and my pots and my pans—right here. But now there was nothing. I reached down and touched the floor. Just another one of Isabel’s visions? It had seemed so remarkably real.
“What’s her last name?” Babs was asking, her voice coming from far away. I had the feeling she’d asked the question before.
“Last name?” I repeated stupidly. Last name of what? Nothing made sense. Did this mean I really was crazy? That Isabel didn’t exist? I dropped my head to my hands. There was no other explanation. I’d gone over the edge.
I looked up as the sun popped out from its cloud and lit up the room, touching the edges of the couch and the chair and the books lining the shelves in descending order by height. I started to laugh.
“What is it?” Babs demanded, fear in her voice. “Lindsey what is it?”
“I just figured it out—it all makes perfect sense—Isabel put everything back because she forgives me!” I jumped up and hugged Babs; she stared at me in stunned silence. “Of course, that’s it—that’s it! I’m not crazy! She forgives me!”
I stuck my head in the kitchen. “Isabel?” She wasn’t there, so I ran toward the bedroom, waving my arms to try to catch her breeze, wrinkling my nose in search of lavender.
Babs grabbed me as I crossed the living room. “Lindsey, sweetie …” Her voice wavered and she looked scared. “Please, please don’t do this …”
“No, no, it’s fine, really it’s fine.” I slipped from her grasp and went to the back of the apartment. “I know it looks nuts, but it’s not—she’s here somewhere. I’m sure of it.”
Babs waited for me in the living room. She sat on the edge of the couch, clenching and unclenching her brown and orange paisley scarf. “Lindsey, Lindsey, you’ve got to—”
“I know how this must look to you.” I sat down and patted her knee. “I know you feel guilty—but really, I’m not angry. And I’m not crazy. Everything’s all right now.”
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