Bystanders

by Tara Laskowski

  “Oh god, Sully, I don’t remember. Probably someone for a part or something.”

  On the dining room table was a vase filled with fresh lilies. Sullivan stared at them, started to make a joke about another man but stopped himself. He was too embarrassed, or didn’t want to know.

  “Those were like five hundred dollar shoes. I need a starring role in Broadway to ever see something like that again.” She sank down next to him and kissed his neck. “Or a super nice hotel manager to buy me some for my birthday.”

  He didn’t even know when her birthday was. He didn’t ask. She took the flowers from him and buried her nose in a pink one. “They are so pretty I could eat them.”

  ***

  That night when he was rinsing dishes in his sink, Sullivan thought again of the cat-sitting job. It was the crust from the chicken potpie his roommate had left on the counter. The crumbs, moistened under the water from the faucet, looked to Sullivan like wet cat food and he remembered how much he’d hated the smell. He remembered thinking he would love to have a cat if not for the food. Sullivan enjoyed other people’s animals okay, but he was always relieved to go home to his own apartment with only a houseplant to worry about.

  He tried to picture that client’s apartment. He’d only gone there a handful of times, and he remembered the cat was sick. He’d had to inject some kind of medication in his food and mix it all up. He remembered the way the cat had jumped up on the kitchen counter, mewing desperately, pleading, rubbing up against Sullivan’s arm. That place had been a little depressing, then, and overly warm.

  It hadn’t even been a job that Sullivan had signed up for. The job had been passed on to him when another cat-sitter had unexpectedly left town. He had met her at a coffee shop, and she had given him the key and the instructions, which was a bit off protocol for the business. Usually all keys had to be kept at the central office and signed out by each sitter when they got the new job, but because that didn’t happen Sullivan had simply kept the key.

  Just because he was standing right there next to the junk drawer, Sullivan rummaged through it. He was not really expecting to find it, but things did have a way of just sticking around. And there it was, in the back, under a pile of rubber bands. A heavy key. Gold. Otherwise, nothing special. He even remembered the apartment number because it was the same as the house he’d grown up in: 814.

  ***

  The next time he went to visit Alicia, he took the key with him. Sullivan had not really planned to do anything with it, but he was a few minutes early when he got into the elevator and suddenly felt brave enough to push the button for the eighth floor. He waited nervously, a knot budding in his stomach, as the elevator slowly, so slowly, creaked upward.

  What were the chances that man still lived there? Sullivan was not a thief. He could not even help himself to the bowl of mints they kept on the front desk for their customers, even though Frida the overnight housekeeper tossed handfuls of them in her apron any chance she got. He was just going to walk past the place, see the door number, make sure that he was remembering correctly.

  Sullivan stood in front of apartment 814, feeling the blood thudding in his neck. Would it still fit? After all these years, surely not. The key slid in like it was slick with oil, turned soundlessly, and when Sullivan turned the knob the door swung inside like it was welcoming him in.

  What am I doing? Sullivan wondered as he stepped inside. He hadn’t even thought that someone might be here, that at any moment he could be shot by a pistol or attacked by a guard dog. But it was the middle of the day in the middle of the week, and it was clear almost immediately that no one was inside the place. Sullivan felt an overwhelming sense of anxiety stepping into the apartment. It was the smell, a rather stuffy, yet not unpleasant, odor of cleaner and air freshener—and it immediately put Sullivan back to that time ten years ago when he fell asleep with knots in his stomach, worrying about his next month’s rent payment. And the apartment itself seemed familiar, like the furniture hadn’t changed in ten years. It was a nicely decorated place. The furniture looked heavy and dense and most definitely not from Ikea like all of Sullivan’s bookshelves and coffee tables.

  I’m not really doing this, I’m not really here. That feeling of invisibility—a ghost slipping into someone else’s life, for just a moment. He’d always liked that and been frightened by it when he had done all those pet-sitting jobs that summer. He enjoyed not having to see anyone, to talk to anyone—that endless pratter at the front desk always got to him—but he also sometimes felt like he could just slip away, just disappear, and no one would ever notice.

  “Mew.” The cat voice, so tiny and fragile. The kitten rubbed its entire body around Sullivan’s legs, figure-eighting around them. There, then. The old cat must’ve passed on, Sullivan thought. He reached down and ran his fingers through the kitten’s fur. Such a fragile thing. So trusting.

  Sullivan walked cautiously around the perimeter of the rooms, checking in each open door as though he might see a younger version of himself around a corner. It was eerily quiet, only the hum of the refrigerator. A bill tacked to the refrigerator revealed the man’s name was Bernie Halifax. Sullivan was careful not to touch anything. He was rehearsing a story in his head—“I’m the cat-sitter?” he would say if someone walked in right then. “They called me and said you needed help this week?” He would hold out the key, say he got it from the company. Blame them—how could they possibly have gotten something like that mixed up?

  The walls in the bedroom were painted in fashionable hues—light grays, mauves, and green—and there was real artwork hung on every wall. The bed was made, closet doors were shut, and the only sign of anything out of place was the remote control tossed in the center of the bed and a pair of slippers kicked off in front of the closet door.

  He felt this tremendous sense of urgency—that he needed to get out of there. And yet, he’d come this far. He just wanted to see. See what? It was like he was two people—the one who clearly understood that his actions were not normal or sane, and the person who was walking up to the framed photos on the coffee table, picking them up.

  The cleaning women at the hotel always told stories about the things they saw in the rooms. Remote controls dripping in some unidentified substances; kinky sex toys left on the bed; toilets unflushed. One time Frida opened a door to a group of fluttering parrots swirling around the ceiling, one of them greeting her with a “Hello, my love.”

  Bernie liked photos. Every table was covered in rows of framed photographs. Sullivan looked at them. Many people smiling. Groups of people on beaches, boats, in front of trees and houses. In Disney World. In Paris. Cats lounging, sleeping, being held by people.

  “Hello, Bernie,” he said quietly. “What have you been up to these last ten years?” Behind him, the cat leapt from its perch on the counter and darted into the next room.

  ***

  He told Alicia about it in bed. They had just had sex, and Sullivan always felt more confessional when he was naked and his heartbeat was returning to normal. Alicia flipped over and propped up her head, eyes gleaming. “Really? Sully, that’s so naughty!” She put her chin on his shoulder. “You have to take me.”

  “I don’t think so, Alicia. I shouldn’t have even done it. It was stupid.”

  “Are you kidding? That’s brilliant. It’s like he will never even know. Like you’re a ghost.” She squeezed the skin under his nipple. “You have to take me. Like, now. I love looking at other people’s houses.”

  “I think he’s gay,” Sullivan mused, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Gay? What makes you think that?”

  “The pictures on the table. There are lots of him with another guy, though I guess it could be his brother or something. He’s lived there a long time. Ten years. And none of the decorations have really changed. Don’t you think that’s weird? Nothing? After ten years. I think of how much has changed with me in
the last ten years.” He put two fingers to his lips, smoking an imaginary cigarette.

  “Let’s go now! Before he gets home, Sully. Please?” She rolled off the edge of the bed and tossed his pants at him.

  He knocked them away, pulled the sheet up over his head, but Alicia was on top of him. She held his t-shirt up to his face. Sullivan bit his lip. She smiled at him until he couldn’t help but smile back.

  ***

  Alicia pushed past him into the apartment, slinking forward, rubbing her hands on everything. She had dressed for the part, donning a black wrap dress and covering her hair with a black silk scarf. She kicked her black stilettos off and wiggled her brown toes in the carpet. She touched the photos, made an ‘mmm’ sound. Approached the white sofa by the window and leaned over it. “What a view,” she whispered. “This is what I need. He’s above the bank building.” It was true. The eighth floor had a much better view of the city than the fourth.

  Sullivan stood near the door, like he had something on his shoes that he didn’t want to track into the room. The DNA Alicia was getting everywhere, he thought. I’m not really doing this, I’m not really here. She came over to him and reached inside his pocket. Tugged out his clunky key chain. “What are you doing?” he asked, but she was already back at the white leather couch. She twisted out the Swiss army knife, rubbed her finger lightly across it. “No seriously, what are you doing?” Sullivan walked toward her, grabbed her wrist, but she twisted away from him.

  “Hold on hold on hold on,” she said impatiently. She bent over the couch again, farther, her ass in the air. Sullivan leaned over her to see. Alicia held the knife at the back of the couch, toward the bottom, and made a tiny slit in it near the corner. “There we go.”

  “What the hell? Are you insane?”

  She sat up, slumping next to him on the couch, and closed the knife. She smiled. “There. Just a little cut. He’ll never even notice it, ever. But we’ll know it’s there.”

  “We have to go.” Sullivan pushed himself up, but Alicia tugged at his shirt.

  “Wait. Just a minute.” She stretched her arms above her head. Yawned. “We deserve this, Sully, don’t we?” Even her voice sounded different, thicker, some unidentified fake accent, like she was auditioning for one of her roles.

  “Deserve what exactly?” He stood above her, adjusted a pillow on the couch.

  “This. This moment.” She stood up and kissed him. Wrapped her arms around his waist. Squeezed his ass. She was soft and tiny and molded to him like his foam mattress. “Don’t you think so?” she whispered in his ear. He was starting to worry about trusting her with this. But despite all that, his penis was beginning to get hard as she rubbed all over him.

  “Alicia—we need—”

  She was breathing in his ear. “I want you to do me on the couch, while I look out at the city, Sully.” She pulled away and fell on the couch again, leaning over it, her cute ass wiggling in the air. “Come on, Sully. Before he comes home.”

  It was not the best sex, mostly because Sullivan was waiting to hear the key turn in the lock, be caught with his pants down in someone else’s apartment. In the middle of it all, the cat jumped on the couch and sat itself down on the back next to Alicia’s head, just watching Sullivan with its dull green eyes. “I can’t do this with that fucking cat there,” he said. They both tried to shoo it, but it just persisted.

  “Just close your eyes, Sully. Pretend it’s not there.”

  Sullivan came quickly, and was relieved when it was over. Alicia collapsed, letting out a loud hiss like a teapot. He pulled her off the couch onto the floor. “We can’t get anything on it,” he said in horror, and she giggled.

  “You are so funny.”

  She wanted to linger and he had to keep nudging her like he would a toddler. “Get dressed. Let’s go.” Straightening up the pillows. “How did he have them?” Putting on his shoes. “It’s already after 4:00.” He finally got her out the door and locked it behind him, the cat still sitting there on the back of the couch, tail twitching, eyes squinting as if to say, I’m telling on you.

  “God, that was amazing,” Alicia shouted as they got on the elevator. Her scarf had come undone and she just draped it around her shoulders, rolling her head along the back wall. The accent had come unraveled, too. “Simply amazing. I’ve never—” she started, but didn’t finish.

  ***

  Sullivan worked the whole weekend and went drinking after his shift with some of the other guys who worked at the hotel. He gave Alicia a call Monday afternoon, and by then everything that happened in the other apartment seemed like a distant memory, detached from him. Something to tell his buddies about years from now. He decided he wasn’t even going to mention it when he talked to her.

  “Would you like to go to a matinee or something?” he asked once they got the pleasantries out of the way.

  “I think you should come over here,” she purred. She sounded groggy, like she’d not yet gotten out of bed. Sullivan wondered what he might find if he ever came over to Alicia’s place when she wasn’t expecting him.

  He knew he should probably be pleased that she wanted sex all the time, but he couldn’t help but feel irritated when that’s all she talked about. “I was thinking we should go do something. It’s such a nice day.”

  “It is a nice day. But why don’t you come here first and then we can figure it out?”

  When he got there, she was indeed still in her robe, cupping a mug of coffee in her hands, her hair tousled in a sexy way. She grabbed his crotch and smiled. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Alicia—”

  “All weekend, no Sully.” She pulled close to him, kissed him. “Did you bring the key?”

  “The key?” He stalled, feeling prickles of anger in his shoulders.

  “I think I may have lost my earring up there. I need to go look for it. It’s evidence you know.”

  “Your earring? What do you mean you lost your earring?”

  “You know, I think maybe, when you were…” She moved her hips back and forth and laughed. “You’re so aggressive.”

  He paced back and forth. Was she lying to him? If the earring was there somewhere, though…He looked at her. She was smiling, biting her lip. She’d gotten to him, he realized. He remembered a story a friend of hers had told at the dinner party, some long story, interrupted by laughter, about how Alicia had once broken up with a guy by telling him she was on the run from cops because of a bank robbery. Even then, he’d stuck around for a while until one evening they were walking through a park and police sirens had come wailing down the street. “The poor chap had turned so pale you could almost see through him,” this friend said, his voice choked from laughter. “Oh, Alicia dear, you really can tell some whoppers.”

  “I’m not going back up there again,” Sullivan said. “We’ll get caught and go to jail. Do you get that? It’s breaking and entering. It’s not a game.” He wanted to tell her about the woman they’d just fired at the hotel for stealing. She’d been caught taking socks from guests’ rooms. Expensive panty hose and knee-highs, a whole collection of them in her locker. But he was afraid to give her any more ideas, so he just glared at her.

  “We’ll just go look for the earring. That’s all,” she said, pouting.

  “Why? Why do you want to go back there so badly?”

  “I seriously lost it, Sully. It’s one of my favorites. I’ve torn up the place here looking for it, and it’s all I could think that maybe it’s behind the couch up there or something.”

  “Fine. We’ll go. But no funny stuff.”

  She laughed. “Funny stuff. You’re so cute. Didn’t you like it?”

  “No, I didn’t. And I’m considering us lucky we haven’t been arrested yet.”

  “Oh, poo poo. Just one more time, Sullivan. I promise.”

  “No cutting things. No sex. No touching anything. Just
look for the earring and go.”

  She held up her fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  ***

  It was Alicia that found out Bernie’s schedule. She dropped it on Sullivan one evening. “Bernie works at some financial place or something—he usually gets home around 6, just after St. Mary’s rings the 6 o’clock bell.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Our doorman Dennis.”

  “You asked him?”

  “Calm down, calm down. It was all very innocent. I told him I’d seen Bernie drop some cash as he was leaving the elevator, but I couldn’t get to him in time to return it. I asked Dennis when he usually gets home so I could give it back. I ended up giving Dennis $20 to give to the guy, so you owe me.” Alicia punched Sullivan in the shoulder. “But now we know he’s not going to walk in on us…you know.” She made a circle with her thumb and index finger and put her other index finger inside.

  ***

  They went half a dozen times. It got to the point where Alicia wouldn’t see Sullivan anywhere else. Each time she did her hair differently, played a new role like she was auditioning for something. One day a slick bob, silk suit. The next an afro and floral maxi dress that grazed the floor as she walked. She was a little girl in pigtails, a punk rocker, a country western gal with red boots.