by Brian Harmon
She turned her wide, bespectacled eyes on the store around her. “No Karen today?”
Eric obviously didn’t want to tell her that he’d only ducked in here to hide from a scary man in a pink shirt who he saw ducking into an invisible store next door, so he simply said, “No. Not today. It’s just me.”
Turning those big eyes back on him, Gertie smiled. “Is it a special occasion, then?”
“What?”
“You’re looking for a gift?”
“Um…” Eric considered it and decided it was easier to just go with this. “Yeah. Maybe. I’m really just shopping around. Looking for ideas.”
Gertie beamed at him. “I see. How exciting. Let me show you some of my more personal items?”
“Personal?”
Gertie turned around, swishing her jangling dress as she did, and led him back through the oversized racks toward the back of the store.
Eric turned and looked back toward the big display windows. There was no sign of Pink Shirt out there anywhere.
“Here we go. I think this would be lovely, don’t you?”
Eric faced forward again and found himself staring at an extremely revealing, red, sheer teddy. “Oh…” was all he could manage to say.
“Karen has such a lovely body,” she said, her soft voice practically purring. “She would look amazing in one of these, don’t you think.”
The teddy was displayed in several colors, and with subtle differences. Some were less revealing than others, but all were designed to leave very little to the imagination. There was also an assortment of nighties and negligees and an entire display of skimpy undergarments in a rainbow of colors and fabrics. A nearby manikin was wearing a tiny pair of panties and a bra that appeared to be completely comprised of little ribbons.
“Wow…” he stammered. “Yeah… Um… Yeah. She probably…would…”
It was suddenly very stuffy in this store. The air conditioning didn’t quite seem to reach back to this corner.
“And if you don’t see something you like, I can make any adjustments you want. I could make it crotchless, for example.”
Eric felt a lump in his stomach at the thought of discussing crotchless lingerie with Gertie Britmacher. “Oh…no…. Please don’t go to any trouble.”
“No trouble at all.”
“That’s all right. Really.”
She kept staring at him with those big eyes, made bigger by those glasses. “Or, if you prefer, I could show you something in a men’s intimate wear.”
Eric opened his mouth to respond, but he was saved by his cell phone ringing.
Gertie looked down at the phone. “Oh! I like this song.”
“It’s…Karen’s phone…” he mumbled awkwardly.
“Oh.”
“I’m just…borrowing it… That’s her now, actually.” He tapped the screen and put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“Hi,” said Karen. “How’s it going?”
“Fine.”
“Bethany Longman just called me.”
“Did she?”
“Yeah. She just saw you out walking around. She wanted to know if I’d lost you.”
Bethany must have driven by as he was walking along Carter Avenue. It seemed he could go nowhere without finding someone who knew Karen. He wondered if that was when he was talking to Isabelle. If so, he must have appeared to be wandering around and talking to himself. “No, I’m not lost.” He glanced up at the intimate wear in front of him. “Not completely, anyway…”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m in The Creek Boutique, actually.”
“What are you doing there?” She sounded utterly perplexed by the idea that he should be there of all places.
In the background he heard Diane ask, “Where is he?”
“Just looking at stuff. Gertie’s showing me some…things…”
Gertie leaned forward suddenly and shouted, “Hi, Karen!”
“Oh. Hi, Gertie…”
Eric looked up at Gertie and said, “She says ‘hi.’”
Gertie shrugged her shoulders and smiled brightly, as if that had made her whole day.
“Okay,” said Karen. “Well, if you’re having fun… I guess. Um…where’s Paul?”
“Oh he’s…” He glanced at Gertie again. “He’s next-door. I’m just waiting on him.”
“I see. Well, let me know if you try anything on that you think would look good on me.”
“Funny. Hey, by the way, I think your phone’s going dead on me.”
“It probably is. It wasn’t charged when you took it. I didn’t know you were going to take it shopping all day.”
“Wait,” said Diane in the background, “he went shopping without us? That bastard!”
“I know, right!”
“Well, I should probably save the battery, then…”
“I use mine a lot more than you do, so my battery’s probably not as good. There’s a mobile charger in the glove box. Plugs right into the cigarette lighter.”
“Well, that’s useful.”
“It is.”
She was right. He didn’t use his phone nearly as much as she used hers. Typically, he only had to charge it once every few days. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Get yourself something pretty, okay?”
“Goodbye.”
Eric hung up as Karen and Diane broke into giggling fits again and turned to face Gertie. She stared back at him with that curious smile and those big eyes. Before he could say anything, the phone sang again.
It was Paul.
“Sorry, I should really take this.”
“Take your time,” she assured him, then stood there, watching him.
Eric turned away from her and answered the phone. “Where are you?”
“I’m still in the store,” replied Paul in a hushed voice.
“What?”
“I was on my way out the front door when I saw that pink shirt guy walking up.”
“Did he see you?”
“I don’t think so. I couldn’t get out the back so I ducked into the dressing rooms. He’s upstairs now.”
“Well get out of there. I don’t trust that guy.”
“I am. I found some kind of passageway in here. I think there’s a door up ahead. I see lights. I’m going to see if I can get out that way.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
Eric hung up and turned back to Gertie. “Sorry about that. Hey, these are great. I’m not sure what I’m looking for though. Maybe I’ll sleep on it.”
“Of course. I hope I was helpful.”
“Oh you were very helpful. Believe me. Hey, can I ask you something? It’s a little off-subject.”
“Sure.”
“Do you ever hear anything strange coming from the store next door?”
Gertie considered this for a moment. “No. I don’t believe so. It’s always very quiet. But I don’t think a jewelry store would be very loud.”
“That’s true, I guess.” Clearly she had no idea that there was a space between her store and the jeweler.
“Why do you ask?”
“It’s nothing. Just… Something I was curious about.”
Gertie gave him a bright smile, as if she didn’t find him strange at all.
“I should get going.”
“Okay.” She turned and walked with him toward the front of the store.
As they stepped into the center aisle, they were both surprised by a sudden commotion from the display window. Continuing forward, they were met with the sight of Paul fumbling with one of the manikins.
Apparently, that secret corridor he found opened up right into Gertie’s front window. Paul appeared to have stumbled through a hidden door and right into the arms of a fashionably dressed, plastic woman.
“Isn’t that your brother?” asked Gertie.
Eric stared at the window, embarrassed. He hadn’t realized that she knew who his brother was. Paul appeared to be having difficulty standing t
he manikin upright again. “I’m afraid so.”
“Why is he manhandling Rose?”
Eric shook his head. “I… I don’t know. I really don’t.” He turned and looked at her. “Rose?”
“All my manikins have names,” Gertie replied, as if the idea of not naming them were perfectly silly. “That’s Rose.”
Paul finally managed to put Rose back in order and was now trying to hand her back the purse she dropped, but she didn’t seem to want to take it.
Outside, two women had stopped on the sidewalk and were watching him.
Pointing to the other two manikins in the window, she said, “That’s Dana and that’s Minnie.” She turned and pointed to the other window. “Those are Lydia, Mona, Penny and the little one is Sam. Tina was the one in the intimates section. She’s got the least body image issues.”
“I see,” said Eric, although he really didn’t. Now that she mentioned it, he was pretty sure Karen had told him this about Gertie before. She called it an adorable quirk. Eric was thinking it might have a clinical name, but he wasn’t rude enough to say so.
He watched his brother. It was painful to see. As a last ditch effort to save his pride, he tried to look as if he were merely studying the manikin, but when the women outside didn’t go on about their business, he gave up and slunk away, Rose’s purse still tucked under his arm.
“He’s silly,” Gertie decided.
“He’s something all right.”
Paul walked up to them, his face flushed, and handed Gertie the purse. “Sorry about that,” he murmured.
“That’s okay,” she assured him.
“Come on,” Eric said and started toward the door. “Thanks, Gertie.”
“Come back again. I’ll help you find the perfect gift. I guarantee it.”
Eric smiled and gave her a wave. Then he led Paul out the door as she stood smiling after them.
“What the hell was that?” he asked when the door was firmly closed behind them.
“I don’t know! I was fumbling around in the dark in the changing room passage and I found a door.”
“And then you decided to assault Rose?”
“I was surprised! I didn’t know where I was. The door opened and someone was standing right there. I thought it was that Aiden kid.” Suddenly he turned and looked at Eric. “Wait… Rose?”
“Yeah. Rose. The lady you felt up back there in front of all of Milwaukee Street.”
“The manikin’s name was Rose?”
“You didn’t even ask her name. Typical.”
Paul looked utterly baffled.
“God, I can’t take you anywhere.”
“You’re going to tell Karen about this, aren’t you?”
“I genuinely wish I could,” Eric assured him. “But I’m pretty sure that Gertie is probably already on the phone with her by now.”
Paul hung his head as he withdrew his keys from his pocket. “Wonderful…”
Karen’s phone began vibrating. Eric withdrew it and read the screen: OH MY GOD! I CAN’T STOP LAUGHING!
Paul held up his hand in a “don’t tell me” gesture and kept walking.
Eric chuckled.
IT HURTS!
Chapter Twelve
“So, now where are we going?” asked Paul as they drove away from The Creek Boutique. Eric couldn’t help but notice that he seemed surlier than he was before his visit to Milwaukee Street.
“Back to my car. I need to charge up this phone.”
Paul nodded and turned at the next light. “So what’s the deal with this pink shirt guy, anyway? What do you think he was doing back there?”
“Looks to me like he’s interested in the same thing we are. Those rooms with the symbols.”
“And that tower?”
“Seems that way.”
“How is it that you and him and Aiden can see these places, but nobody else can?”
Eric shook his head. It was a good question. He didn’t have an answer for it.
“And how is it that you and them just happen to be looking at all these places on the same day?”
“I don’t know about Pink Shirt, but Aiden’s obviously been at this for a while. You didn’t see the state of that apartment.” All that laundry and garbage hadn’t accumulated overnight.
Paul shrugged.
Eric stared out the window at passing buildings, thinking. Both Aiden and Pink Shirt were at the store. Were they working together?
And what was the deal with those black creatures he encountered at both the overgrown lot and the institution? He didn’t see them at the store or at the apartment, both places where he encountered Aiden… And then there was that strange, golden liquid… And that monster that Paul hit with his truck…
This day was getting stranger by the second.
Karen’s phone rang. It was Penelope again. He ignored it until the voicemail picked up and the Spice Girls stopped singing.
He should really tell Karen she was calling.
The phone vibrated and a text appeared on the screen: I’LL LET HER KNOW
“Thanks.”
SURE THING
Paul shook his head. “You know it’s still kind of weird, the two of you talking like that.”
“It’s still weird to me, too.” Having her in his head all the time could be a little unsettling. She’d told him before that she couldn’t just turn it off, which meant that she was always connected to him, regardless of where he was or what he was doing. But she’d assured him that she wasn’t always listening in. She could tune him out most of the time, effectively leaving him alone at times when he wouldn’t want her there. She’d likened it to having a television on in another room, a constant, audible droning, but she couldn’t tell what was actually going on. She could usually hear him if he actually spoke to her, and if something happened that elevated his emotions, such as an emergency, it would bring her back to him immediately, but she was adamant that she always allowed him his privacy. Still, it had definitely added a new level of awkwardness to his and Karen’s intimacy.
But right now, he pushed the thought from his mind and looked out at the passing scenery.
“Well, what’s your next step going to be? After charging the phone, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Eric confessed. “I should probably go back to the apartment. If I can find it again. It’s the only other place I can think to go. If I look through all that stuff he had plastered on the walls, maybe I can get a handle on what’s going on. Or if nothing else, I can see what the other hidden locations are on that map of his.”
Paul considered it. “Have you tried going back to where it all started?”
Eric glanced at him, confused. “I just told you I need to find the apartment again.”
“No. That’s where you started. I mean where Aiden started.”
“Where Aiden started?”
“Where he first disappeared. That gas station. I’ve been thinking, if there’re these hidden places all over town, maybe one of them is the answer to how he vanished that day.”
Eric stared at him. Of course. It made perfect sense. He was even thinking back at the store that such hidden places could possibly explain many of the world’s greatest mysteries. Why not the very mystery that started all this? “That’s a really good idea.”
Paul frowned at him. “You don’t have to sound so surprised.”
“Sorry.”
Paul turned north on Oshkosh Avenue and followed the hospital signs to the Urgent Care entrance. The PT Cruiser sat where Eric left it, alone in the middle of the lot. He parked next to it and then leaned forward and squinted through the windshield. “There’s nothing there,” he decided after a moment. “I don’t see anything.”
“I don’t either, now. But it’s there. Somewhere. It’s got to be.”
But was it? An entire four-story building? It seemed impossible. There wasn’t even a space where it might have once stood.
“How does something like that even work?” Paul wondered.
But Eric didn’t know. He stepped out of the truck and sat behind the wheel of the Cruiser. The charger was in the glove box, right where Karen said it would be. He plugged it into the cigarette lighter and then connected the iPhone to it. Then he studied the screen for a moment. “How long do these take to charge?”
“Few hours.”
Eric frowned at the phone. That was a long time to be without it. A lot could happen in a few hours. A lot had happened in just the last few hours. It was only a little past two and look at all he’d been through already.
“Maybe you should take my phone,” suggested Paul, reading his expression.
“But then you wouldn’t have one. I wouldn’t be able to call you if I need you.”
“You won’t be able to call anybody if you don’t have one. I’ll call Kevin, have him bring me his.”
Kevin was Paul’s twenty-year-old son. He knew about the strange journey Eric undertook the previous year. He and a friend had to drive halfway across Wisconsin to find and rescue Paul from an empty cabin in a deserted nudist resort after a foolish attempt to follow him into the fissure. But neither of them knew the whole story. It wasn’t that they hadn’t trusted them. As with Diane, they simply didn’t want them thinking that Kevin’s uncle was a raving lunatic. It was easier to simply omit the most fantastic details of how and why Paul needed rescued in the first place.
“You need to stay in contact with Isabelle.”
“Isabelle can stay in contact with you. She knows your number.”
“That’s just wasting time. You’re the one she’s connected to. You need to have a phone. Besides, it’s safer for you. If you lose mine, I’ll just make you buy me a new one. If you lose Karen’s, she might kill you.”
“She might,” Eric admitted. “Wait. Why does everyone just assume I’m going to lose it?”
Paul shrugged. “You lose phones.”
“I’ve lost two phones. Two.”
“Isn’t that every cell phone you’ve ever owned?”
Eric didn’t reply. That wasn’t the point.
“So are we heading to that gas station now or what?”
Eric nodded. “You want me to drive for a while? Gas is expensive.”