by Riley Sager
“I thought you might need these,” he says.
I take one of the bags and carry it to the kitchen. Charlie follows with the other. Inside are replacements of every item damaged in my collision with Ingrid. New economy-size box of pasta. New jar of sauce. New oranges and frozen pizza. There’s even the addition of a bar of dark chocolate. The decadent, expensive kind.
“I tried to salvage what you had bought, but I’m afraid not much survived,” Charlie says. “So I made a quick trip to the store.”
I stare at the groceries, touched beyond words. “Charlie, you shouldn’t have.”
“It was nothing,” he says. “I have a daughter your age. I hate the thought of her going hungry for a few days. I’d be a terrible father if I let the same happen to you.”
I’m not surprised he knows I couldn’t afford to replace all the groceries. He saw what I had purchased. All of it implied the tightest of budgets.
“How much do I owe you?”
To my relief, he shoos away the offer like it’s a pesky fly. “No need to worry about that, Miss Larsen. It makes up for that unfortunate incident in the lobby.”
“Are you referring to the collision or to Greta Manville?”
“Both,” Charlie says.
“Accidents happen. As for Greta Manville, I’ve already shrugged it off.” I unwrap the edge of the chocolate bar, snap off a square, and offer it to Charlie. “Besides, everyone else here has been so nice that it was bound to end at some point.”
“You’re suspicious of nice?” Charlie says as he pops the chocolate into his mouth.
I do the same, talking and chewing at the same time. “I’m suspicious of rich and nice.”
“You shouldn’t be. Most people here are both.” Charlie runs his thumb and forefinger over his mustache, smoothing the bristly hairs. “I can only claim to be one of those things, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, the nicest. And I feel like I should repay you somehow.”
“Just perform a good deed for someone else,” he says. “That’ll be payment enough.”
“I’ll do two good deeds,” I say, biting my lower lip. “Because it seems I need yet another favor. My keys, um, sort of fell into the heating vent.”
Charlie shakes his head, trying to stifle a chuckle. “Which one?”
“Foyer,” I say. “By the door.”
A minute later we’re back in the foyer, me watching as Charlie presses his formidable stomach against the floor. In his hand is a pen-shaped magnet stick, the end of which he lowers through the grate.
“I’m so sorry about this,” I say.
Charlie wiggles the stick. “Happens all the time. These grates are notorious. I think of them as monsters. They’ll eat up anything that comes their way.”
The comparison is apt. The longer I look at the heating vent, the more it resembles a dark maw just waiting to be fed.
“Like keys,” I say.
“And rings. And pill bottles. Even cell phones, if one falls at the right angle.”
“You guys must get calls about lost toys all the time.”
“Not so much,” Charlie says. “There aren’t any kids living at the Bartholomew.”
“None at all?”
“Nope. This place isn’t exactly child friendly. We prefer our tenants to be older—and quiet.”
Carefully, he removes the stick from the grate. Dangling from the end is my key ring. Charlie plucks it off and gently places it into the bowl on the foyer table. The magnet stick goes back into his jacket’s interior pocket.
“If it ever happens again, just grab a screwdriver,” he says. “The grate comes off real easy, and you can reach right in.”
“Thank you,” I say with a sigh of relief. “For everything.”
Charlie tips his cap. “It was my pleasure, Jules.”
After he leaves, I return to the kitchen and unpack the groceries, overwhelmed not just by his generosity but by the care he took in replacing them. Other than the chocolate, everything in the bags is exactly what I had purchased.
I’ve just put away the last of the groceries when I hear a telltale creak rise from the cupboard.
The dumbwaiter on the move.
I lift the cupboard door as it rises into view. Inside is another poem.
“Remember” by Christina Rossetti.
Seeing it causes a slight hiccup in my chest. My heart skipping a single beat. I know this poem. It was read at my parents’ funeral.
Remember me when I am gone away.
Ironic, considering how I long to forget sitting in the front pew of that church my family had never attended, Chloe by my side, a smattering of mourners mute behind us. The poem was read by my high school English teacher—the kind and wonderful Mrs. James, her voice ringing through the silent church as she spoke the opening line.
On the back Ingrid has left me another note.
SORRY ABOUT YOUR ARM
With the same pen and paper I used earlier, I write my response.
It’s fine. No worries.
I put it in the dumbwaiter and send it to 11A, having an easier time this go-round. I’m prepared for both the weight and the distance.
I receive a response five minutes later, most of that time taken up by the dumbwaiter’s slow ascent. Inside is a fresh poem. “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost.
Some say the world will end in fire.
On the back, Ingrid has written not another apology but a command.
CENTRAL PARK. IMAGINE. 15 MINUTES.
10
As instructed, I’m at the Imagine mosaic fifteen minutes later, looking for Ingrid among the usual crowd of tourists and grungy buskers playing Beatles songs. It’s a beautiful afternoon. Mid-sixties, sunny and clear. It reminds me of my childhood. Of pumpkins and piles of leaves and trick-or-treating.
It also reminds me of my mother, who adored this time of year. She called it Heather weather, because that was her name.
When I finally spot Ingrid, I see that in her hands are two hot dogs, one of which she holds out to me.
“An apology gift,” she says. “For being an idiot. I’ve always hated those people who look at their phones instead of where they’re going. Now I’ve become one. It’s inexcusable. I’m the lowest of the low.”
“It was just an accident.”
“A stupid, preventable one.” She takes a giant bite of her hot dog. “Did it hurt? I bet it hurt. You were bleeding a lot.”
She gasps.
“Did you need stitches? Tell me you didn’t need stitches.”
“Just a bandage,” I say.
Ingrid’s hand flies to her heart as she exhales dramatically. “Thank God. I hate stitches. They say you’re not supposed to feel them, but I can. Those wire threads pulling at your skin. Ugh.”
She starts to move deeper into the park. Even though a mere minute in her company has left me exhausted, I follow. She’s fascinating in the same way tornadoes are fascinating. You want to see how much they’re going to spin.
Ingrid, it turns out, spins a lot. Walking a few paces ahead of me, she whirls around anytime she has something to say. Which is about every five seconds.
“I love the park. Don’t you?”
Whirl.
“It’s, like, this perfect wilderness smack-dab in the middle of the city.”
Whirl.
“It’s all man-made, you know. Everything is by design, which makes it, I don’t know, more perfect.”
Two whirls this time. Quick, looping ones that leave Ingrid flushed and slightly dizzy, like a child after one too many cartwheels.
She reminds me of a child in many ways. Not just her excitable spirit but also her looks. I can’t help but notice our height difference as we stop at the edge of Central Park Lake. I’ve got about six inches on Ingrid, which means she barely
clears five feet. Then there’s her thinness. She’s nothing but skin and bones. In all ways, she looks hungry. So much so that I give her my hot dog and insist that she eat it.
“I couldn’t possibly,” she says. “It’s my apology hot dog. Although I should probably also apologize for the apology hot dog. No one knows what’s in these things.”
“I just had lunch,” I say. “And your apology is accepted.”
Ingrid takes the hot dog with a grand curtsy.
“I’m Jules, by the way.”
Ingrid takes a bite, chewing a bit before saying, “I know.”
“And you’re Ingrid in 11A.”
“I am. Ingrid Gallagher in 11A, who knows her way around a dumbwaiter. Never thought I’d learn that particular life skill, but here we are.”
She plops onto the nearest bench to finish the hot dog. I remain standing, staring at the rowboats on the water and the handful of pedestrians currently crossing Bow Bridge. This is, I realize, the ground-level version of the view from 12A.
“How do you like the Bartholomew?” Ingrid says before popping the last bit of hot dog into her mouth. “It’s dreamy, right?”
“Very.”
Ingrid uses the back of her hand to wipe away a speck of mustard at the corner of her mouth. “Here for three months?”
I nod.
“Same,” she says. “I’ve been here two weeks now.”
“Where did you live before that?”
“Virginia. Before that was Seattle. But I’m originally from Boston.” She lies down on the bench, her blue-tipped hair fanning out around her head. “So I guess I don’t live anywhere now. I’m a nomad.”
I wonder if that’s on purpose or out of necessity. A constant flight from poor choices and bad luck. Someone not unlike me. Although, honestly, I see nothing of myself in her.
And then it hits me: I see Jane.
Both share the same rambling, manic-pixie personality that gallops right to the cusp of being too much. I never felt fully balanced around Jane, even though she was my sister and my best friend. But I loved that lack of equilibrium. I needed it to counterbalance the rest of my shy, quiet, orderly existence. And Jane knew it. She’d take my hand and whisk me to the woods on the other side of town, where we’d stand on stumps and do Tarzan yells until our throats hurt. Or into the shuttered headquarters of the town’s old coal mine, guiding me through musty offices that had been untouched for years. Or through the back exit of the movie theater, where we’d slip into our seats after the lights went down.
She caused and healed so much. Scraped knees, mosquito bites, broken hearts.
Jules and Jane. Always together.
Until, all of a sudden, we weren’t.
“I left Boston two years ago,” Ingrid tells me. “I came here to New York. I forgot to mention that earlier. The New York part. The less said about that, the better. So it was off to Seattle, where I waitressed a bit. So awful. All those overcaffeinated assholes with their special orders. This summer I went to Virginia and got a job bartending at a beach bar. Then it was back here. Silly me thought it would pan out this time. It didn’t. Like, at all. I had literally no idea where to go next when I saw the ad for the Bartholomew. The rest is history.”
Just hearing about it all gives me something akin to jet lag. So many places in such a short amount of time.
“And how did you end up at the Bartholomew?” Ingrid sits up and pats the spot on the bench beside her. “Tell me everything.”
I take a seat and say, “There’s not too much to tell. I mean, other than losing my job and my boyfriend on the same day.”
Ingrid displays the same stricken look she had when asking about stitches. “He died?”
“Just his heart,” I say. “If he ever had one.”
“Why do boys totally suck? I’m starting to think it might be ingrained in them. Like, they’re taught at a young age that they can be assholes because most women will let them get away with it. That’s the reason I left New York the first time. A stupid, stupid boy.”
“He break your heart?”
“Crushed it,” Ingrid says. “But now here I am.”
“What about your family?” I say.
“I don’t have any.” Ingrid examines her fingernails, which are painted the same shade of blue as the tips of her hair. “I mean, yes, I had a family. Obviously. But they’re gone now.”
Hearing that word—gone—jolts my heart for a few swift beats.
“Mine, too,” I say. “Now it’s just me, even though I have a sister. Or had one. I don’t really know anymore.”
I don’t intend to say it. The words simply slip out, unprompted. But I feel better now that they’ve been spoken. It seems right that Ingrid knows the two of us are in the same boat.
“She’s missing?” she says.
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Eight years.” It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. The day it happened remains so vivid in my memory that it feels like only hours ago. “I was seventeen.”
“What happened?”
“According to the police, Jane ran away. According to my father, she was abducted. And according to my mother, she was most likely murdered.”
“What’s your theory?” Ingrid says.
“I don’t have one.”
To me, it doesn’t matter what actually happened to Jane. All I care about is the fact that she’s gone.
And that, if her departure was intentional, she never bothered to say goodbye.
And that I’m mad at her and I miss her, and that her disappearance left a hole in my heart no one will be able to fill.
It was February when it happened. A cold, gray month of constant clouds but little snow. Jane had just finished her shift at McIndoe’s, the local pharmacy that sat on the last thriving corner of our town’s dour Main Street. She had worked as a cashier there since graduating from high school a year and a half earlier. Saving money for college, she told us, even though we all knew she wasn’t the college type.
The last known person to have seen her was Mr. McIndoe himself, who watched from the store’s front window as a black Volkswagen Beetle pulled up to the curb. Jane, who had been waiting beneath the pharmacy’s blue-and-white-striped awning, hopped inside.
Willingly, Mr. McIndoe told anyone who would listen. There wasn’t a struggle. Nor was the person behind the wheel a stranger to Jane. She gave the driver a little wave through the window before opening the passenger door.
Mr. McIndoe never got a good look at the person behind the wheel. He only saw the back of Jane’s blue cashier’s smock as she entered the car.
The Beetle drove away.
Jane was gone.
In the days following her disappearance, it became clear that none of Jane’s friends drove a black Beetle. Nor did the friends of those friends. Whoever was behind the wheel was a stranger to everyone but Jane.
But black Beetles aren’t uncommon. Motor vehicle records revealed there were thousands registered in the state of Pennsylvania alone. And Mr. McIndoe didn’t think to make a note of the car’s plates. He had no reason to. When asked by the police, he couldn’t remember a single letter or number. A lot of people in town held that against poor Mr. McIndoe, as if his weak memory was the only thing keeping Jane from being found.
My parents were more forgiving. A few weeks after the disappearance, when it was looking more and more unlikely that Jane would be found, my father stopped by the store to tell Mr. McIndoe there were no hard feelings.
I didn’t know this at the time. It was told to me a few years later, by Mr. McIndoe himself, at my parents’ funeral.
That, incidentally, was the day I realized Jane would never return. Until then, I had kept a sliver of hope that, if she had simply run away, she might find her way back home. But my parents’ deaths di
dn’t go unnoticed. It made the news. And if Jane had heard about it, then I thought she’d surely come back to see them buried.
When she didn’t, I stopped thinking she was still alive and quit expecting her return. In my mind, Jane had joined my parents in the grave.
“Even if she’s still alive, I know she’s never coming back,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” Ingrid says, adding nothing after that. I’ve saddened her into silence.
We spend the next few minutes doing nothing but looking out at the lake and feeling the breeze on our skin. It rustles the branches of the trees around us, their golden leaves quivering. Quite a few let go and drift to the ground like confetti.
“Do you really like it at the Bartholomew?” Ingrid eventually says. “Or were you just saying that because you think I do?”
“I like it,” I say. “Don’t you?”
“I’m not sure.” Ingrid’s voice has grown quiet and slow. A surprise, considering everything else has been spoken at full volume and thoroughbred speed. “I mean, it’s nice there. Wonderful, really. But something about the place seems . . . off. You probably haven’t felt it yet. But you will.”
I think I already have. The wallpaper. Even though I know it’s a pattern of flowers and not faces, something about it unnerves me. More than I care to admit.
“It is an old building,” I say. “They always feel strange.”
“But it’s more than that.” Ingrid pulls her knees to her chest, a pose that makes her look even more childlike. “It . . . it scares me.”
“I don’t think there’s anything to be scared of,” I say, even as that disconcerting article Chloe sent me creeps into my thoughts.
The Curse of the Bartholomew.
“Have you heard about some of the things that have happened there?” Ingrid says.
“I know the owner jumped from the roof.”
“That’s, like, the least of it. There’s been worse. A lot worse.”
Rather than elaborate, Ingrid turns around and looks past the treetops, to the Bartholomew looming beyond them. On the northern corner is George, looking down over Central Park West. Seeing him makes my chest swell with affection.