by Rick R. Reed
“I’m sorry,” Elaine said softly. She took a bite of toast.
Cole looked across the table at his sister and wiped the tears out of his eyes. “I know. You didn’t mean to say that. You know better than anyone else I’ve done just about every possible thing I could.” He reiterated all he’d done over the past trying weeks—the appearances on local TV and even radio, the tacking up of hundreds of signs around the north side of the city, the long hours spent with detectives at the Chicago Police Department trying to come up with something, one tiny little thing, for Christ’s sake, that would explain why a perfectly happy, healthy, gainfully employed, and in love (or so Cole thought) twenty-three-year-old man would simply disappear off the face of the planet. He’d even seen to it that Rory was registered in the database of missing persons. Detective Adkins and everyone who worked with her took the case seriously.
But there was simply nothing to go on.
Sure, a woman had come forward a few days ago, saying she’d waited on Cole at some burger joint on Broadway the night he vanished. And Cole supposed she had, but he couldn’t help but harbor a little bit of doubt in the back of his mind about her story. She said Rory was “tipsy,” which Cole found hard to believe. Rory hardly ever touched alcohol, despite Cole pushing it on him all the time.
But why would that waitress lie? Maybe to grab her fifteen minutes of fame? That would be stupid, right? But who knew what motivated people these days?
Yet in the end, whether she was being truthful or not didn’t matter because her seeing Rory that night was just another dead end. Another thing to be frustrated about. Whether he was at Moody’s or not, tipsy or not, simply didn’t matter, because the information led them nowhere.
“You about ready to go?” Cole asked.
“But you haven’t touched your breakfast,” Elaine complained. Cole glanced down at his nearly full plate of pancakes and bacon. Once upon a time, such a plate would have been cleared in about five minutes flat. Pancakes were Cole’s favorite food.
Now they only looked unappetizing, as though they’d not nourish him but lay heavy in his gut, making him even more tired than he always seemed to feel these days.
His sister had been nice enough to come around and offer to treat him to breakfast. She even said he could pick a movie out for a matinee later on that afternoon. He hated to hurt her feelings, but he didn’t think he could swallow even one more bite of the pancakes.
He tried to smile. “I’ll have them wrap it up. I can eat it for dinner later.”
Elaine’s eyes were full of concern. She put her hand over his and gave a little squeeze. “Sure.” She looked around for their waitress. As she was signaling to the heavyset, older gray-haired woman who’d waited on them, Cole sat up straighter as he saw another waitress enter the diner, obviously not one that worked here.
“Wait a minute,” Cole said. “Isn’t that the woman from Moody’s?”
Elaine swiveled to peer over the top of the booth.
Cole and Elaine had been at the police precinct when she’d come in to tell her tale of having served Rory the night of his disappearance. They’d even had a chance to talk with her a bit themselves. She seemed nice enough, even if Cole had doubts about her.
Elaine turned back to Cole and nodded. “Yeah, I think that is her. Kind of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Why? She has to eat breakfast too.”
“What was her name again? Dora?”
“Dora, Dora Reynolds.”
“Like Debbie Reynolds?”
“Yeah.”
Elaine asked, “Should we say something to her?”
Cole shook his head. The woman was with a guy—an olive-skinned redhead with a big nose and broad shoulders. He was leading her toward an empty booth two over from theirs.
But whether Cole wanted to say anything to her or not was out of his hands because Dora spotted him and made eye contact. She gave him a small and sympathetic smile and waved.
“Here she comes,” he said under his breath to Elaine.
He watched as Dora headed their way, her boyfriend trailing behind.
“Good morning, you guys,” Dora said. As she stood by their table, it was obvious she was uncomfortable, demonstrated by the fact that she kept restlessly shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
Cole barely managed a smile and a nod. Elaine spoke up quickly. “Hey, Dora. We were just finishing up here. Good to see you.” Elaine grabbed her big red leather purse off the seat beside her to prove her point. She dug around in it.
“I was just wondering if you’d heard anything. I hope your friend’s come home.” There was such a sincere, concerned look on the young woman’s face that Cole felt bad for not speaking and, indeed, ignoring her.
So he answered, “We still haven’t heard a thing.” Cole stared down at the table for a moment, then lifted his gaze again to meet Dora’s. “But we’re not giving up hope.”
“Oh, I’m sure something will give soon.” She must have realized the dark import of her words because she quickly amended them with “I mean, I’m sure he’ll come home.”
“I hope you’re right,” Cole said.
“Well, we were just getting ready to go. We’re going to catch an early matinee.” Elaine gathered up the check and a credit card in one hand. This was the kind of place where you paid at the cash register on your way out.
The four of them, two standing and two sitting, were silent for several awkward moments. Finally Cole couldn’t help asking, “Have you thought of anything new, Dora? About that night? Maybe you remembered something he said about where he was going? Or if maybe he met someone outside the restaurant?”
Dora shook her head, and Cole didn’t know how long he could abide the pity he read plainly in her eyes. “No,” she said softly. “I’ve been over it in my head a dozen times. I really think I told you—and that Detective Adkins—everything I recall. I’m really sorry I can’t be more helpful.” She stepped back and away from the table, bumping into the man she was with. “Oh!” she gasped, startled, as though she’d forgotten he was with her. “This is my roommate, Tommy D’Amico.”
They exchanged pleasantries and names, and when Tommy offered his hand to Cole, Cole found the presence of mind to shake it, although he didn’t meet the guy’s eyes.
“We need to get going.” Cole stood. “Don’t we, sis?”
“Right.” Elaine stood too. “Enjoy your breakfasts.”
“The pancakes are great,” Cole said. He looked down at his almost full plate and felt stupid. “I need to tell our waitress to wrap mine up.”
Elaine steered him away. Cole could feel their eyes on him.
“That was weird,” Elaine said.
“It was nice of her to stop and ask about Rory,” Cole responded.
“I suppose so.” Elaine paid, and the two of them exited. Cole didn’t care about the pancakes he’d left and was glad his sister didn’t remember his plan to get a doggy bag.
Once they were back on the street, Elaine commented on how she could really feel the fast-approaching autumn in the air. And indeed, even though it was warm, in the upper seventies, there was a cool undercurrent, a harbinger of the season bearing down on them. She asked what he wanted to go see at the movies that day.
“We could see Mimic. I hear that’s really spooky and good. Great special effects.”
“I don’t want anything spooky. My life is spooky enough.” Besides, Cole thought, Mimic was exactly the sort of movie Rory would have loved. He didn’t know if he needed the reminder.
They began walking north on Sheridan. As usual, Cole couldn’t keep himself from eyeing all the faces of strangers on the street and even driving by in cars. Maybe one of them would be Rory. It was weird, because suddenly he was seeing guys who looked like Rory almost everywhere.
Elaine said, “I thought a little escapism might do you good.” They continued on in silence, with Cole forcing himself to stare down at the sidewalk. He suddenly wished Elaine
, with all her good intentions and her need to cheer him up, would just go away. The realization took him by surprise. Cole was nothing if not an extrovert; he usually couldn’t abide being alone. He thought people who went to see movies by themselves or even ate out alone were strange. Could one change from being an extrovert to an introvert? It didn’t matter anyway. Cole knew he simply wanted to be alone.
They waited for the Walk light to illuminate at Sherwin, and when it did, continued on their way. Elaine sighed. “I’ve been wanting to see G.I. Jane. How about that?”
Cole stopped in the middle of the street. A guy on rollerblades veered sharply around them. “Then why don’t you go see it?”
“What do you mean?”
Cole hated seeing the hurt in his sister’s dark eyes, but he didn’t think he could abide one more minute with her. The need to go off and shut himself up in an apartment that used to be theirs but now was his pressed in. He wasn’t sure why. All he knew he’d accomplish would be to make himself even more miserable than he already was. But maybe he needed that misery. In some ways it was becoming like an old, reliable friend, one that knew him better than anyone else.
“I mean I don’t know if I feel up for a movie.”
“Okay,” Elaine said.
They turned the corner at Fargo, Cole’s street. His building was just ahead.
Elaine offered, “We can just hang out. It’s cool if you don’t want to go anywhere else today. We’ll just check out what’s on TV. Or I could run over to Blockbuster and get us a couple videos. Maybe later, we could order in Thai. There’s that new place over on Clark.”
Cole closed his eyes and forced himself to take a deep breath. His sister’s kindness was almost painful. He didn’t know why and he didn’t understand it, but there it was. He needed her gone.
“Don’t you get it? I need to be by myself,” he snapped.
Elaine’s face crumpled. He’d hurt her.
Cole reached out a hand, then dropped it before making contact. “Look. I’m sorry. I’m just not dealing with this. I still need—” Cole’s voice trailed off. What did he need? He wished he knew. So he simply told his sister he needed space.
“Why won’t you let me help you?” Tears stood in Elaine’s eyes.
“I will,” Cole said. “You can. But I just need a little time. Okay?” He reached out and at last touched a fingertip to her cheek. “I know I’m being an asshole. But can you understand?”
Elaine said nothing. She simply pulled him into a fierce embrace, so hard Cole had to gasp for air. He knew she was crying—and wished he could cry too. But all he felt at the moment, other than his desperate need for solitude, was numbness. It was as though all the emotions had slowly drained out of him with each passing day with no word from Rory.
How would life ever get back to normal?
Elaine held on to him for a long time, until Cole finally had to gently extricate himself. He tried to mollify her with “Look, give me a few hours. Then, if you’re not busy tonight, come on over and we’ll order in. You can sleep over. You can even have my bed.” It wasn’t much of an offer—he hadn’t slept in their bed since the night Rory vanished. “I’ll just take the couch.”
Elaine smiled and wiped a tear away. “Really?”
Cole felt guilty for how hopeful she looked. “Sure. And ordering in Thai sounds great.” Even though it didn’t. “We’ll find some stupid comedy to watch. We can mix up a pitcher of margaritas.” Cole already dreaded the evening.
“Okay.” Elaine turned back to head toward her car, which was parked in the lot at the end of Touhy Avenue. “I’ll swing by around six? Seven?”
“Make it seven.”
She opened her mouth, and he knew she was going to encourage him to go for a run or take a bike ride or simply do something, even if it wasn’t with her. And even though he had no intention of taking out his Asics or his bike, he was ready to tell her he’d think about it.
But all she said was “Good.” And then she hurried away.
Cole stood watching until she turned the corner.
He walked slowly back to the apartment, and when he got to the courtyard entrance, he simply stopped and stared up at the gothic building. It was a pale salmon color, with terra-cotta embellishments. The courtyard’s grass was still green, and there were mums and asters planted in the pots at each corner of the yard in readiness for fall.
With a lump in his throat, he remembered the day he and Rory had first looked at the place. They’d gone to some apartment-finder service on Broadway that Saturday morning in June. It had been a gorgeous day, sunny, with a few big, puffy clouds riding high. Their agent had been a fellow gay man, not much older than themselves, and Cole could tell he was new to the job and a bit nervous as he drove them around the north side of the city to view a few places in their price range.
The agent, whose name was Neil, was hunting for parking as Rory and Cole stood in front of the building.
“It’s kind of like that movie,” Rory said, snapping his fingers as he tried to remember. “You know the one? With the witches!”
Cole shook his head. “Sorry.”
“Rosemary’s Baby!” Rory yelled as it came to him.
“Never heard of it,” Cole said.
“Oh, come on! Really? We have to rent it ASAP. Anyway, this couple goes and lives in this old building in New York. This place makes me think of it. It’s not as foreboding, but just the age. Maybe it was built around the same time as the place they used in the movie.”
Cole shook his head. “Is something bad gonna happen to us if we move in here?”
The memory today made him shiver despite the warm lake-scented air. He went back into the memory.
“Like what? In the movie Satan rapes her and she gives birth to the anti-Christ. I don’t think we have anything like that to worry about. Although it might be fun to have you dress up like the devil and try to impregnate me. I’m always up for that!” Rory laughed.
Cole snickered, shaking his head. “But this looks really nice.”
“It’s gorgeous. You can tell they keep it up.” Rory swiveled and pointed to the steps and turnaround at the end of the street and the big ocean-like expanse of Lake Michigan beyond. “And we can just hop on down to the beach whenever we want.”
Cole smirked. “It’s probably way over our budget.”
“Well, let’s just see.” Rory turned as Neil came up to them with keys jangling.
Surprisingly, the apartment was in their price range, and—when they’d signed the lease later that afternoon under Neil’s watchful eye—they’d both been overjoyed. So lucky….
Cole sighed. How could he have known, back then, how short-lived their stay in paradise was to be?
He headed in through the gate into the courtyard, ignoring the flowers, and barely nodded when an old lady who’d probably been a tenant since the building opened said hello.
Head down, he scurried to his little warren, his sanctuary.
Once inside, after closing and locking the door behind him, he leaned against it, feeling a sense of relief as he shut out the world. The more he missed Rory and worried about what had happened to him, the more this apartment seemed like a safe harbor, a place to hide. Where he could, even in his lowest moments, pretend Rory was coming home soon. Sometimes he’d even swear to himself he heard keys in the front door dead bolt.
One thing he had accomplished since Rory had gone missing was installing blinds on all the windows, and now he went about closing them all, shutting out the day’s brilliant light. Somehow he felt better, safer, in the muted semidarkness.
After that task was done, Cole stood in their—his—bedroom, hands at his sides, wondering what he should do with himself. He’d been sleeping so much more lately, so different from the self he used to know who’d rather do almost anything than the time-wasting act of slumber. But now the bed called to him, the bed he’d refused to sleep in. It told him to simply lie down and pull the covers over his head. He could escape
into oblivion, where there was no pain of loss and where sometimes Rory appeared to him in dreams.
Wasn’t that preferable to reality?
He shook his head. “You’re pathetic.” And even though he’d just labeled himself pathetic, he turned to the closet opposite him and went to it to do something he’d done before, something even more pathetic. He flung open the door and stared inside at Rory’s clothes on hangers, at his sweaters on the shelf above, folded neatly, waiting for a cold season that might now never come for Rory. Cole took in the sneakers and the dress shoes, the hiking boots. He allowed himself, almost entranced, to go slowly inside.
And then he began, article by article of Rory’s clothing, to caress each T-shirt, each pair of jeans, each sweatshirt, to rub the fabric between his fingers. And last, he did as he always did and lifted the fabric to his nose, desperate for a whiff of what he could only describe as Rory’s unique smell, something clean, manly.
Then he sat on the floor with Rory’s clothes piled all around him and wept.
Chapter 6
COLE AWAKENED to brilliant sun streaming in through the slats of his bedroom miniblinds. He squinted at the butter-yellow illumination, noticing how it made the dust motes dance in the air. There were lots of dust motes. Cole realized he needed to clean. The place hadn’t been dusted—or anything else—since they’d moved in.
It was his day off. He could give the place a proper going-over—mop the hardwood floors, dust, throw away the pizza boxes and beer bottles littering the living room—that would be a start. Maybe carry that overflowing basket of laundry downstairs to the machines in the basement?
He moved to the window and cautiously opened the blinds’ slats a bit so he could look out at the lake.
It shimmered as though diamonds had been cast upon its aquamarine surface. It looked summery out there, nearly tropical. Cole could almost make himself believe he was someplace like the Bahamas or Jamaica.