Sliding Past Vertical

by Laurie Boris

  “Fine. I’ll get my stuff and go.” He paused. She expected the puppy eyes. But he just looked…scared. “I’ll have to keep it until he calls.”

  She remembered his windshield. And all those heartbreaking mornings putting him back together. She couldn’t watch two of the men in her life self-destruct in one week. “Okay,” she said, on the tail end of a long sigh. “I’ll keep it. But only for a few more days.”

  “You sure?”

  “No. But I don’t want you to have it.”

  He grinned. “I take it back. You’re not a bitch. Look, once he gets the stuff, I’ll take you out to dinner. Anywhere you want.”

  She flashed him a skeptical look.

  “Then how ’bout a cut?” he said.

  “Of the coke?”

  “No, a percentage. Of the money, honey.” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

  She needed money but not that badly. “Forget it. Just get it out of my apartment and out of my life.”

  Chapter 10

  “I spoke with her last night,” Rashid said.

  Milk dripped off the piece of chocolate donut Emerson had just dunked into his glass. Rashid merely sipped his tea, prepared, as always, with one sugar, stirred five times counterclockwise. He set his cup on a folded napkin, arranged his small, brown hands right over left on his lap, and gazed mildly ahead.

  Emerson chewed his bite of donut. He admired his housemate’s resolve. It terrified Emerson to imagine spending the rest of his life with a stranger of his parents’ choosing. His greatest fear was that she’d find him inadequate, that she’d long for a “manlier” man, with broad shoulders and a square jaw, one who would take charge, make lots of money, never complain, and always know how to fix things. Inevitably, she would leave him and sleep with other men, like Sarah had. He swallowed and said, “How did it go?”

  Rashid shrugged. “She comes from a good family. She is studying business management.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It’s a very demanding program. I don’t see how she has time for much else.”

  “No, I meant, that’s all you learned about her?”

  “It was a short conversation.”

  “But she’s…no offense, but a total stranger. What if you’re, you know, wildly incompatible?”

  “My parents would never choose such a woman for me,” Rashid said. “They know me best and only have my best interests at heart.”

  Emerson noted the quiet confidence radiating from his friend. There had to be a great sense of security in knowing that when you’re ready to marry, a compatible woman would appear. How much time, money, and anxiety had Emerson wasted on women over the years, looking for someone who could love him? And how many fragments of his soul had died in the quest?

  “At least her voice isn’t unpleasant, and that is a good thing.” Rashid took another sip of tea, set the cup gently on the table, and straightened his spoon. “Don’t you think?”

  Emerson looked up from his breakfast. It was the first time he’d seen Rashid display anything less than utter sangfroid about his impending nuptials. The corners of Emerson’s mouth dipped further down; his shoulder sagged. Maybe he would continue to flounder with the opposite sex. Maybe he’d been hurt and disappointed. And maybe he’d never find a woman who would love him as much or in the same way as he loved her, but he hoped to God that when and if he did marry, he’d have more good reasons to cling to than a voice he didn’t detest.

  Chapter 11

  When Sarah—at eighteen—had strutted out of the dressing room of Sibley’s department store in what was to become her first and only good suit, Emerson had laughed and said she looked like a kid messing around in her mom’s closet. Deflated, she’d scuttled back and reappeared in her everyday jeans and college sweatshirt.

  Twenty-nine-year-old Sarah, having forgiven him long ago for teasing her, worked hard to feel well groomed and smart in her crisp white bow blouse, navy skirt, and classic blazer. She’d reinforced the buttons, raised the hemline to a more fashionable length, and put her hair up in an attempt to look older. But she still saw a child in the mirror. Usually at times, like this one, when she wanted to be taken more seriously.

  She sat across a big, busy desk from one of the top art directors in the city, who’d been generous or desperate enough to call her for an interview.

  The art director, wearing her own bow blouse but in a fabric much more expensive-looking than Sarah’s, flipped through the pages of her portfolio without comment. Sarah could implode from the effort not to fill in the empty space. As the typesetting machines in the next room blipped and bleeped, Sarah hung on the woman’s every gesture: a nod, a lift of an eyebrow, a turn of a multi-ringed hand. Each could be the bellwether of her fate.

  Finally she came to the end and pushed the book toward Sarah like a picked-over plate after an unsatisfying meal. Sarah could predict what would happen next. After a subway ride downtown (two transfers), after walking four blocks in heels, pantyhose, and ninety-degree heat, she’d just hear, “Thanks, but no thanks, and come back when you’re more talented.”

  Or older.

  “We may be able to use you in the bullpen,” the art director said. “It’s an entry-level position. And in a couple of months, we’re going to retool the department for desktop publishing, so you’ll have to take computer training. I hope that’s not a problem.”

  Sarah’s eyebrows flew up. She’d take anything, even make copies or spend half her days in the darkroom, for a chance to work for this woman, in this agency with the blond paneling, clean carpets, and smiling sweet receptionist who’d offered her iced tea. And for a check every week. Better than wringing her hands, borrowing from Emerson or, God forbid, her parents.

  Or, in desperate moments, when Dee Dee appeared at her door with another bill in her hand, of taking Jay up on his offer.

  “Entry level is fine,” Sarah said, although the computer part sounded intimidating. She liked the tools of her trade: the smell of wax, the squeak of the Lucite roller. After eight years, she knew precisely the right amount of pressure to use on the X-Acto knife. She could cut through amberlith masking film with barely a mark on the plastic backing.

  The art director looked relieved. “Then you’ve just gone to the top of my list. May I call your previous employer for a reference?”

  A knot tightened Sarah’s stomach. She felt her hair loosen, her bra straps slip, and her pantyhose creep down her crotch. A scuff appeared on her pump that she hadn’t noticed before. In her mind, she was suddenly eighteen and coming out of Sibley’s dressing room. Why the hell was Emerson laughing? It was his job to adore her.

  “Where did you work, again?” The art director pecked around her big, busy desk and found Sarah’s résumé. “Copy King, that’s right. I live near there. How awful about the fire. I saw the article in last week’s Tab.”

  “It was an accident,” Sarah blurted. She couldn’t bring herself to say it was Jimmy’s fault.

  Magically the newspaper appeared out of piles of file folders and job bags. The art director read, rings tapping on the desk, brows knitted together. Tap, tap, tap.

  “It was an accident,” Sarah repeated, softly. Jimmy accidentally committed arson for the insurance money.

  But the art director had to have known what really happened. She lived in the neighborhood. And she’d probably just read the part that painted Sarah as a complete ditz, to boot.

  Mouth tight, the art director glanced at her watch. “I’m overdue for a meeting. We’ll...be in touch. Sally, is it?”

  * * * * *

  The T station where she’d come into town was closed because of a stalled train. The four city blocks in heels, pantyhose, and ninety-degree heat became eight. Three transfers. She got stuck in a rush hour throng punctuated by people’s failing deodorant and five o’clock breath.

  Finally, home loomed from six houses down the block, but it didn’t feel like home. It was a place of chirping parakeets and phones that didn’
t ring. But she could stop playing grownup, take her hair down, and be herself, young-looking and untalented and hounded by the worst of luck, or at least bad timing, in a city that used to be kinder.

  The bottom door was open. She’d told the landlord twice about the lock that didn’t stay locked. But upstairs was open, too, the paint on the doorjamb clawed away, the wood splintered.

  Her portfolio, purse, and keys clattered to the tile. “Shhh!” she hissed, and with shaking hands scolded them. She held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut, pressed an ear against the battered door, a hand to her heart.

  Nothing. She opened her eyes. Maybe they’d gone. Maybe not.

  Run. Call the police.

  No. Someone had come for the coke. She couldn’t call the police. What if they didn’t find it, what if it’s still in the closet, what if—

  She couldn’t take that chance.

  Crouching over her portfolio, she worked the zipper open tooth by tooth and eased out an eighteen-inch aluminum T-square, a graduation gift from Emerson. The poor, sad thing was too short to use as designed; it wouldn’t stay put on the drafting table. But she kept it in the back pocket of her portfolio for emergencies, like creeps on subways and frat boys with overactive hormones. Gripping it at the end of the blade like an outsized hammer, she pushed on the door.

  Sarah’s breath ran shallow, her legs unsteady.

  There was no sound from inside her apartment. Not even Dee Dee’s parakeet.

  She wanted to call out, hello, hello, anyone in here, but even she, who had blustered inside instead of calling the police, knew that would be a stupid thing to do.

  Then she saw the rubble of her living room.

  The slipcovers had been knifed from the sofa and chairs, leaving the foam stripped naked. Upended books and mementos littered their shelves. Dee Dee’s beloved plants were now strangled vines; piles of dirt and pottery shards dribbled from the windowsills. Even the vacuum cleaner, left out as a hint for Sarah, had been assaulted: the bag slashed, clumps of dust spilling out like magma.

  Her stomach convulsed. She got to the bathroom just in time and didn’t notice until she was embracing the toilet, spots dancing in front of her eyes, that the medicine cabinet was open. Vials and potions had been spilled into the sink and on the tile. Even their feminine hygiene supplies hadn’t escaped scrutiny. An open tampon blossomed in a puddle of Dee Dee’s apricot facial toner.

  The sweet alcohol smell made Sarah gag.

  She remained draped over the toilet until the nausea passed. Then, from inside the throbbing in her head, she heard the clump of sneakered feet running up the stairs.

  “Sarah!” Dee Dee yelled. “You left all your crap outside, did you know that—oh my God. Oh my God.” The splintered door creaked. “Sarah! Sarah! Are you here, are you—”

  “In here.” Sarah leaned her burning cheek against the relative cool of the fake porcelain vanity. “It’s okay. I think they’re gone.”

  “Did you call the cops? I’m calling the cops.”

  Sarah tried to tell her not to but felt another wave coming up and aimed toward the bowl. Most of it landed there.

  “We’ve been robbed.” Dee Dee gave their address. The phone slammed. “They’re on their way.”

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Sarah hauled herself to wobbly feet and wiped her mouth and hands. She passed the white blur of Dee Dee, who was making even more of a wreck of the kitchen as she threw open drawers and cabinets and flung things onto the floor, muttering, “I can’t fucking believe this. At least they didn’t take the TV. Oh my God. I gotta have a cigarette. Where are my fucking cigarettes?”

  Still holding the T-square, Sarah scrambled to her room. She reached her doorway and froze, mouth agape. The interior decoration was courtesy of the same demented crew that had beaten up the living room. The sheet was torn off the futon, the mattress slashed. Cotton batting bled from the wounds. Her books had been yanked from their plastic milk crates and splayed out at their spines. There was only a series of open mouths where her dresser drawers used to be, the contents in a heap on the floor. A seamed stocking leg stuck out from underneath one upturned drawer like the remains of the Wicked Witch of the East.

  And the T-shirt she slept in, printed with the name of Jay’s band, lay in a clump in the corner, soaked with what smelled like urine.

  Sarah sucked back another wave of nausea and lurched for the closet. And she found it: the knotted sweat sock, the heft of the Baggie still in its toe. Only then did she let out her breath. But the panic started again. What a picture this would make for Boston’s finest.

  She was unknotting the sock and working out the Baggie on her way to the toilet when she nearly bumped into her roommate, who was puffing on a slightly bruised Marlboro.

  Dee Dee’s eyes were wild, ringed with tarantula mascara. “Did you see what they did to the fucking bathroom? Fifteen bucks for that bottle of toner. Fucking animals.” Her gaze landed on the Baggie and she backed away, palms raised as if Sarah had pulled a gun. “Oh my God,” she said through clenched teeth. “What are you doing with that, are you insane? The cops will be here any second!”

  “I know, why do you think I’m—?”

  Dee Dee shoved her into the bathroom. “In here. Flush it. Flush it!”

  Sarah’s fingers slipped against the bag as she fumbled with the twist-tie.

  “Stop fucking around, drop the whole thing!”

  “It’ll never flush like that, it’s too big, I’m trying to...there. Got it.”

  And Sarah did what she’d wanted to do for two weeks, except she never got to touch the coke. No time to satisfy her curiosity. White powder shimmered across the surface of the water. Dee Dee watched like a nervous father-to-be, sucking hard on her cigarette.

  “Don’t forget the bag,” Dee Dee said. “Hurry up!”

  She dropped the bag and tie, flushed the toilet, washed her hands, and flushed again, just to make sure. Dee Dee sat on the edge of the tub, her head cradled in her palms.

  Sarah picked up the wet tampon and lofted it into the trash.

  “You should leave that.” Dee Dee took a puff. “For evidence.”

  “They’ll have enough evidence without it,” Sarah said. “Believe me.”

  Dee Dee got up. “I’m going to check my room. See if anything’s missing. You should, too.”

  Sneakers squeaked away on the wet tile. But Sarah couldn’t face her room. She should drag Jay over and make him clean it up. He was the one who should have to pick up the shirt, the broken glass, the—

  A scream exploded from Dee Dee’s room. Sarah dashed back and found the girl sobbing hysterically. Nothing appeared to be out of place, except for a feathered lump at her roommate’s feet.

  * * * * *

  Nothing had been stolen and no human had been harmed, so the men in blue who came with their clipboards and guns showed little compassion about small things like the rape and pillage of their possessions.

  Of course, when Sarah called Jay, his answering machine was on. Furious, she slammed the receiver down without leaving a message. It made a satisfyingly musical crash and she stood over it with her arms crossed, enjoying the echo.

  Dee Dee would have rushed out and bitched her up and down for abusing her precious phone, but so what. Dee Dee wasn’t home. She’d gone to see her boyfriend—the parakeet’s latest namesake—to be comforted.

  Comfortless, Sarah stayed behind.

  She let out a long sigh. Feeling calmer, she got Jay’s machine again and told him to call immediately. Then she fetched a pair of rubber gloves, a clothespin, and a plastic bag. She disposed of the T-shirt, the tampons, and the shredded plants. Gathered up the bedding and the stuff from the drawers and began the first of many loads of wash.

  As she was running back upstairs, the phone rang. An adrenaline buzz surged through her with all the nasty things she wanted to tell Jay. She grabbed the receiver.

  “You son of a bitch, you tell your friends to keep the fuck away from us.”

/>   There was a long pause. “Sarah?”

  She covered her eyes and sank to the floor. “Em. I’m sorry, I thought you were...someone else.”

  “Are you all right?” His voice sounded quiet and serious.

  “Yeah, I guess, I...” She let out her breath. “Our place was just ransacked.”

  She could almost hear his heartbeat. Or maybe it was her own. “But you’re okay?”

  “We’re both fine.”

  “So…Dee Dee’s there with you?”

  “The little wimp went to her boyfriend’s. No one here but me and a pair of rubber gloves and about a thousand loads of laundry.” She thought it best not to mention the dead parakeet.

  “You shouldn’t be alone.”

  Sarah didn’t want to be alone and especially didn’t want to sleep in her apartment alone. She hadn’t thought of that until he brought it up.

  “Did they take anything?”

  “Well, not really, they were—” She considered that the scum could have bugged the phone when they were here. Maybe she shouldn’t have said she was alone. “I don’t get it. They just kind of shredded everything.”

  “Sarah. Your voice sounds funny. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  She felt nauseated again. “Not really.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  * * * * *

  A few minutes later, Emerson called back to ask if he could bring his friend, Rashid. “Bring all your friends,” she told him, hoping those dirtbags were listening. “The bigger and more dangerous, the better.”

  She continued to clean, concentrating on the kitchen and bathroom. She was in the tub washing coconut-scented conditioner off the tile walls, and more than anything, she wanted to take a shower, dissolve under the steamy spray. But the thought of pulling the curtain gave her the willies. If the bastards came back, how would she hear them? She’d be trapped. She jumped out of the tub, leaving a trail of wet footprints to the front door. Nobody was there. The downstairs lock held firm. Even so, she decided to wait on the shower until reinforcements arrived.