Bystanders

by Tara Laskowski

  Sullivan couldn’t keep track of who she was anymore. The apartment was the only place he could really see her close up, study her, but even then it was not really her. But even the apartment seemed surreal, just a space between spaces, somewhere neither of them belonged.

  Perhaps everything about Alicia was secret, an act, a put-on. On the streets sometime, he would see a woman walking with another man and wonder, for a brief moment, if that was Alicia. Most of the time she would turn and he would see the woman’s nose was slightly upturned, or her cheekbones too high, but every once in a while he wouldn’t be able to find the differences before she disappeared.

  ***

  Each time, he said it was the last time they would have sex there, but after several times of going and not getting caught, it began to feel less dangerous, boring even. When they were done, she just liked to slump over the couch and look out at the view. “You know there are a million legal places in this city that have better views than this,” Sullivan said.

  They felt like they were getting to know Bernie. He had a good cable plan, belonged to a book club, donated money to the University of Virginia, and voted Democrat. Bernie liked almond milk and Cheetos, preferred Puffs to Kleenex, and had an affection for the Miami Dolphins.

  One time they played “husband and wife”—Alicia’s idea, setting the table and pretending to cook dinner in the middle of the afternoon. Sullivan figured Alicia would tire of the game soon, though in reality he suspected she would tire of Sullivan first. The entire apartment was just a set, just a bunch of props for her to tinker with.

  Alicia opened Bernie’s closet, ran her fingers along his clothes. “He likes blue,” she said. She tried on his bowler hat and posed in front of the full-length mirror on the wall. “I think it suits me.”

  Sullivan stopped following her around and instead fed the cat. He found the treats in the cabinet above the microwave and sat on the kitchen floor feeding her one treat at a time. “What is your name?” he asked her. “You are a pretty cat.” She always came back for more. “I am going to name you Juniper.”

  “Sullivan, come here,” Alicia called from the bedroom. “I can rehearse my lines for the audition,” she said when he entered. She was rummaging through her purse. “There. Lay in the bed.” She pulled out some papers. “Go ahead. The bed.”

  Sullivan sat cautiously on the edge of the bed.

  “In it, Sully.”

  “I’m not getting in the guy’s bed, Alicia. That’s creepy.”

  “Fine, whatever. You’re supposed to be under the covers.”

  “Pretend.”

  She glared. “At least lie down, would you? It’s important for me to get into the part.”

  He lowered his head onto the pillow, making sure to keep his shoes off the bed. It was too intimate for his comfort, lying on someone else’s pillow, looking at someone else’s ceiling. He knew they’d already crossed so many lines, but this one, this one, wigged him out.

  From the doorway, Alicia started to read. “I’ve come to tell you something, Raymond.”

  “I want a cooler name than Raymond. Fabio. Or Dylan.”

  “Jesus Christ, Sullivan. Can you please just humor me?” He heard her flip some pages. “Now, you’re supposed to say, ‘I don’t think I need to hear it, Marissa.’ But don’t worry, we’ll just skip over that. Now, here’s where I get into the monologue.” Alicia cleared her throat and then her voice got lower, like she was trying to be someone who was trying to be serious. “It was hard enough back when we were all at Still Water, when we were all just kids, messing around…”

  Sullivan drifted. He noticed little indentations on the ceiling, little pockmarks here and there, and wished he could float up and push on them, see if they would give way. He wondered if Bernie ever looked up at them and felt the same urge.

  Alicia reached a part in her monologue where she was supposed to cry, and he realized as he listened to her gasp and hiccup that she probably was not a very good actress. That that’s why she never really got any good parts anywhere. Like the guys at the hotel always talking about how they were going to be promoted and transferred to one of the hotel chain’s other locations—somewhere warm and sexy like L.A. Everyone always waiting to be discovered.

  Sullivan scratched an itch below his elbow and felt something wet. He looked and saw a small cut. Just a tiny scratch, maybe from the cat, maybe from a quick slice of a Swiss Army knife. Alicia had stopped her reading and was puzzling over the page. He waited for her to look at him and smile. The air conditioner in the unit kicked on, making everything cold, and Sullivan got up to go rinse off the blood before it stained something.

  ***

  A few days later, Sullivan and Alicia were coming back from lunch—a rare date out—when Alicia stopped at the entrance to the apartment building. “Oh my god, that’s him isn’t it?” Sullivan looked over at the man who was walking across the lobby to the elevators. He recognized the sloping nose, the receding hairline. Alicia grabbed his hand. “What’s he doing here so early? Come on.”

  “Wait,” he said, but she dragged him across the lobby, her nails digging into his wrists. They stopped behind Bernie and waited for the elevator.

  “I love your watch,” Alicia said, and Bernie turned and looked at her. His nose was red and flaky, and he clutched a wad of tissues.

  “Oh, thanks,” he said in a warbled voice that threw him into a fit of rasping coughs. Sullivan stepped back, but Alicia leaned into him, already becoming someone else, already the voice slightly higher, slightly more girlish. Her flirting voice.

  “It’s a Swatch, right? One of those old school ones. I used to collect them when I was a kid. I had like ten different ones, and this little box to keep them in.”

  He nodded, dabbing at a watery eye. “Yeah, I had a lot, too. Got this one on eBay.”

  “Memories,” she chirped, and Sullivan nudged her. She ignored him. “So you live here, too?”

  The elevator doors opened and they all stepped inside. Sullivan took the back corner and pressed his entire body against it. Alicia slithered in front of him and pushed the button for the eighth floor. Both she and Sullivan reached out their hands at the same time to correct the mistake, and Alicia laughed loudly, nervously. “Oh, silly me, I keep forgetting what floor I live on.” She hit the button for the fourth floor. “I used to live on the eighth floor in my other place,” she said, “and I keep doing that all the time.”

  Bernie smiled. “Well, it’s okay. Turns out I live on the eighth floor.”

  “Oh!” Alicia laughed again. Sullivan scowled, his face burning red. “That’s so funny! Ha ha. What are the chances?” She looked up at Sullivan, and he shrugged dramatically.

  “What are the chances?”

  The elevator took its time getting to the fourth floor, creaking, groaning. Alicia hummed, tapping one of her ballet slippers. Sullivan was certain that police officers would be there to greet them when the doors opened—if not now, then soon.

  “I’ve lived here for twelve years now, and the elevators have always been this slow,” rasped Bernie, rubbing at his nose with the tissues. “I sometimes think about all my life that was wasted waiting for this thing to crank itself up to eight floors.”

  “Well, have a lovely day,” Alicia said as they exited. “Take care of that cold.” She just barely waited until the doors closed before turning to Sullivan and collapsing in his chest. “Oh my god, that was awful.”

  “I know,” Sullivan said, surprised. “I told you this was wrong of us.”

  She raised her head and looked up at him, grabbing the front of his polo shirt. “Sullivan, no, do you not realize what this means? Bernie’s sick! He’ll probably be staying home the rest of this week.” She stood upright and found the keys to her apartment.

  “The good news is you can bring him chicken soup and he won’t even have to get out of bed.” />
  “Oh, hilarious.” She opened her door and took off her raincoat. “I just don’t know what we’ll do all week. We’ll be so bored.”

  “We could try legal activity. More lunches like today? That was nice, wasn’t it? Or, I don’t know. Go to a movie? Dinner? Order in and play a game?” He watched her retreat into the kitchen, waving her hand in dismissal.

  “And how will we know when he’s better? Back to work? How will we know when it’s safe to go back?” When he didn’t answer, she came back with two glasses of wine and handed him one. “These are all serious questions.”

  “I think maybe we’re done,” he said.

  Alicia’s eyebrow rose. “Done? Don’t be silly, Sullivan.”

  ***

  On the day that Sullivan really decided enough was enough, he walked along the water, the heavy gold key in his pocket. He used to jog along the river when he’d first moved there, thought it might be a good place to meet people. Now he walked. Bikers and joggers passed him. Boats out in the water puttered along. He was waiting for a chance to throw the key in the water. He wanted it to be a grand gesture, but he was afraid if someone saw him he could get in trouble for littering. That was the problem with Sullivan—he was always looking to do something solid, something real, but was afraid of the consequences. So he never did much of anything.

  He had an eerie feeling then that nothing had changed since he first moved there. That time hadn’t really passed. He was still the same Sullivan hanging on by his teeth, living paycheck to paycheck. Ten years and he had no real friends to turn to, to talk about his relationship, to figure out what he was doing wrong. He played an occasional Xbox game with his roommate, but he had a regular day shift IT job and they hardly ever saw each other. The guys at the hotel—kids really—were still into hooking up with as many chicks as possible.

  Sullivan stopped suddenly and threw himself purposefully into an oncoming jogger’s path. “Watch it, shithead,” the guy huffed as he passed, and Sullivan was satisfied that even if not really seen, at least he still existed.

  He pulled the key from his pocket and looked at it. Just an ordinary key. Nothing special. A key that among other keys would just blend in, get lost. He thought of all the hotel keys hanging in the special box behind the front desk—for they were still that type of establishment, one that used real keys—and the story of a disgruntled former bellhop who’d removed all the tags and swapped them around during his last shift. It had taken days to sort it all out.

  Just throw it, Sullivan thought then, willing himself. But he couldn’t. He put it back in his pocket and walked off.

  ***

  The next morning first thing, Sullivan went to Bernie’s by himself. He fed Juniper almost an entire bag of treats that he bought at the 7-Eleven. The cat had started waiting at the door for him, scratching with her paws as he approached, almost like she could smell him. “Goodbye, kitty,” he told her, scratching behind her ears. The cat slinked away, unimpressed.

  Sullivan opened Bernie’s closet door and flicked through the suits. Sullivan didn’t own an expensive suit, but he knew one when he saw it and there were many of them. He reached back to the edge of the closet and pulled out a dark blue suit that still had dry cleaning tags on it. The receipt stapled to the hanger had a date from two years ago.

  The sleeves were a little long. The pants were a little snug, but the right length. Sullivan chose a crisp white shirt from the end of the rack. He did not put on a tie. He fingered the socks in the dresser, thought of the cleaning woman’s locker, and left them there. Bernie’s shoe size was one too small, but Sullivan was wearing his black dress shoes from work. He folded his own clothes in a shopping bag.

  He locked the door behind him. He held the key up for a moment, as if making sure it was the right one, and then pushed it under Bernie’s front door, giving it one final shove so it would move out of his reach. He got down on his belly and peered through the crack, saw the key a few feet inside, saw Juniper’s little paws scamper over, her nose sniff the key. He smiled, then got up, straightened out his suit, and headed for the elevator.

  ***

  “I gave it back,” he said. “The key.”

  He was talking through Alicia’s door. He knew she didn’t like it when he just showed up without telling her, but he had to do it now or he was afraid he never would. There was silence on the other side, and he wasn’t sure she was going to let him in. Then he heard the metal slide and the doorknob turn and there she was. That brown hair, wavy this time, all around her shoulder with a thin, gold, braided headband holding her bangs away from her face. Full pink lips slightly open, wide eyes staring at him.

  “Why?”

  He wanted to kiss her, but he walked past her. The air felt thick, and he sensed he was interrupting something. She closed the door slowly, still staring at him. “Why? You know why. It just—it wasn’t right.”

  She shrugged, picked up the remote, and shut off the TV. “I figured you would.”

  “Are you upset?” He followed her into the bedroom. The bed was unmade, sheets twisted and hanging off the bed. He had a feeling he’d just missed something or someone.

  Alicia picked up two bottles of nail polish off the dresser. “What do you think—the pink or the orange?”

  “It just wasn’t right. We just couldn’t keep violating that guy’s privacy like that, don’t you agree?”

  She smiled. “Totally. The orange.” She put the other bottle down and wiggled to the middle of the bed to start painting her nails. “I agree, Sully. We can’t keep being places where people don’t know we are.”

  Did he hear someone clear his throat? He had an urge to look under the bed—knew suddenly that they were not alone. Someone else was there. In the closet? Under the bed? Alicia calmly painted her nails, like she was waiting.

  “Well, okay. I’m glad we agree.” He paused. The suit was bunching and pressing in places it shouldn’t, and he was growing increasingly uncomfortable. “So, would you like to get dinner?”

  “I’ve got plans tonight, Sully.”

  “Tomorrow then?”

  She looked up at him and shook her head slightly. He wanted her to say something then, something about how he looked. Or kiss him. He really wanted her to kiss him. She raised a finger up to her lips, and broke into a triumphant grin. “Busy then, too. I guess you’ll have to wait until next week.”

  He had this funny idea then that Bernie himself was under the bed and that this whole scenario, the whole crazy deal, had been part of some bigger plot, that Bernie and Alicia had been pulling one over on him this whole time. Silly stupid Sullivan. He imagined Bernie under the bed, clamping his hands over his mouth to keep from giggling. Posing for pictures with one of Alicia’s friends to pretend he was a gay man. Installing a video camera in the apartment so they could sell the footage later on the Internet. If this had been one of Alicia’s movies, then Sullivan would push her aside right now and lean under that bed to make the big reveal. Alicia would cry, but not really, just those awful gasps and hiccups, and then she and Bernie would reveal their whole plot. They’d confess to it all, the big sham, how all of Alicia’s exotic costumes were part of it, too, a way to make it look like Sullivan was bringing different women to the apartment, like some kind of sleazy prostitute scam. They were framing him, for some reason Sullivan hadn’t even known about. An inheritance, maybe.

  If this was one of Alicia’s movies, Sullivan would slap her across the face. Not enough to really hurt, just to sting, just to get some of his dignity back. And then he’d steal something valuable from both of them and use it to start a new life, a new identity somewhere else.

  Instead, he was just a guy being broken up with by a girl who was all wrong for him anyway. Instead, he was just a guy wearing someone else’s suit. Not really there. Somewhere else.

  Half the Distance

  to the Goal Line

&nbs
p; There was a time when all of us wanted to be like Jack and Diane. It didn’t matter that we didn’t really like them. It didn’t even matter that we sometimes made fun of their names, same as the Top 40 song that was popular for all those years. They were clichés just like that song—popular, good-looking, initials in a heart carved on the side of a tree. And we worshipped them.

  Jack (his full name was Jackson, but really no one ever called him that except maybe his dad when he was pissed at him) was a varsity football player, and though Diane was no cheerleader, she did have a lot of leads in the high school chorus. The freshman and sophomore girls aimed for perfect imitation—how to get our hair to stay in such luscious curls all day long, cuff our pants at just the right length, choose just enough jewelry to stand out but not look like we were trying too hard. And the guys—well, we just stepped back against our lockers, watching Jack walk down the halls, football in hand. Jack and Diane were the standards to live up to, the topic of conversation worth having.

  And then in later years, of course, there were the fights. Big, spectacular cinematic displays that got retold in a kind of Telephone Game, over and over again in the halls. Diane spilling beer on Jack’s head at a house party. Jack speeding off, tires squealing, from Diane’s house, rolling over the curb in his hurry to get away from her. Slammed phones, love notes shoved in lockers, rumors of a pregnancy, and then always, when the smoke cleared, the picturesque image of the two of them walking side by side through the lunch room, their hands in the back pockets of each other’s Levis Five-Oh-Ones.

  Everyone in school knew it was clichéd. We all should’ve known, anyway. But there was something about Jack and Diane that made you believe. Even when they won Homecoming King and Queen—because, yes, that too happened—and someone switched their first dance song from “Open Arms” to “Jack and Diane” as a joke, even then it all seemed somehow fitting. And they took it in stride, awkwardly twirling to the fast beat, the hand claps, while John Cougar told them it wasn’t going to be like this forever, that they needed to make it all last as long as they could.