Sleepless

by Cyn Balog

  And there he is.

  In a picture window across the street is Eron’s figure, framed in light. His back is to me but I can tell by the shock of black hair, now a little messed, and the well-defined curve of his back. He’s in one of the shabbier buildings on the street, standing on a second-floor landing, spreading out laundry. He’s … he’s … not wearing any clothes! Before all the air can be pushed out of my lungs, before I can have a coronary, I blink a few times and focus. No … at that moment, he hikes up a pair of gym shorts that have fallen dangerously below his thin waist. He brushes the dark hair out of his eyes and turns his broad back toward the window, then sinks out of view. I sit there for a moment, quietly willing him to come back, and then I remember my mom.

  Now she has both feet pressed down on the floor mat and is biting her lip as she watches a couple of lowlifes leering on a stoop near us. “Ready to go whenever you are,” she says, but I know she’s thinking, Now, please?

  “Um. Oh. Okay.” I glance up at the window again as I shift the car into drive. It’s not like I can throw stones up at his window and say, Yoo-hoo! I was just in the neighborhood! anyway.

  Eron turns back toward the street, and now there’s a worried look on his face. He picks a T-shirt up, shakes it out as if he’s about to put it on, and then …

  Then …

  He disappears.

  I’m vaguely aware my jaw has fallen into my lap. The white material of his shirt—the material that only two seconds ago was in his hands—floats peacefully in the air and settles somewhere out of view. Okay, no. That didn’t just happen. He must have fallen, or jumped away, or something. He couldn’t have … There’s no way …

  “Let’s get a move on!” my mom urges in her most commanding voice, startling me.

  I spring upright, forgetting I’ve already put the car into drive, and press on the accelerator.

  And barrel straight into the minivan parked ahead of us.

  CHAPTER 22

  Eron

  Shortly after ten this morning, I become human again and rush to the apartment on Hart Avenue in my bare feet, hoping not too many people will see my shameful nakedness. When I climb the stairs and open the door to the living room, I groan. The room smells even more like rotting garbage than it did yesterday. Worse, Harmon, that drunken fool, has thrown all my clothes into a messy pile in the corner, and a partly bald yellow cat is lounging in it, licking its paws.

  I shoo the cat away and shake out my trousers, balking at the dreadful stench. If I put these on, I will smell like a dying animal for the remainder of the day.

  The doorbell rings, and I’m still attempting to determine if any of my clothing can be salvaged when I fling open the door.

  I stop shaking out my shirt and stare.

  It’s Julia.

  “How … how did you know where I live?” I ask, my body still frozen.

  “You told me,” she says.

  We stand there for a moment, awkwardly, until I remember simultaneously that I’m nearly naked and that I am not being a very good host. “Where are my manners? Please come in,” I say, throwing my cat-hair-covered button-down shirt on and motioning to my sleeping couch. There are a few dirty dishes and cereal bowls there. I quickly scoop them up, spilling sour milk on my shirt. Perfect.

  Julia looks around unsurely, wrinkling her nose, then sits on the couch. Her long legs are bare. She has a large flesh-colored bandage over the wound she got yesterday, but it looks much darker, almost brown, against her pale skin. “You live here?” She seems shocked, but no more surprised than I was when I walked in.

  I nod. “Would you like something to drink?” I ask. I am relieved when she shakes her head. From what I’ve seen, I don’t think Harmon would be too pleased parting with his beloved ale, and I know it’s not Julia’s drink of choice. I turn in time to see her gaze move abruptly away from my collarbone. There is still a rather jagged red scar there, where the machine at the textile mill wrenched my arm apart from it. She doesn’t seem any more disgusted by it than she does by her surroundings, but still, I feel myself blushing like a schoolgirl. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “You said you had the noon shift at Sweetie Pi’s. So do I. I was hoping you could give me a ride?” She smiles sheepishly, and it is so endearing I would say yes in a heartbeat, if only … “I would have called but I didn’t have your number.”

  “Um …” I watch a large cockroach scuttle across the floor, near her delicate toes. She doesn’t notice. “I don’t … do that.”

  “You don’t do what?”

  “I don’t have a … vehicle,” I answer.

  “You take the bus or something?”

  “No, I walk.”

  “Walk? It’s like five miles.”

  She says it as if the moon is easier to reach, as if walking is not something that’s done anymore. “I … like the exercise.”

  “Oh. I’ll walk with you.”

  I survey the shambles that was my quality suit—the herringbone jacket, the fine suspenders—which the cat is now chewing on. I wonder how many customers I will scare away in that. How long it will be until Julia is also frightened away. If only I’d never told her where I lived! I pull the shirt tightly across my chest. “Of course,” I say hesitantly. “Let me just find some suitable attire.”

  She shrugs and I head down the hallway, hoping that Harmon has something that will fit me other than the horrid rags he offered earlier, something that won’t be too disgraceful. I can hear him snoring before I push open the door. When I do, I rifle through his drawers quietly. They’re mostly empty, because much of their contents are lying in soiled piles on the ground. In the closet, I find a pair of denim jeans like I used to wear in the textile mill, a belt, and a white shirt that isn’t too wrinkled. I dress quickly in the hallway. The jeans are the wrong size, a little too short and a little too loose, but the belt helps. I tuck the shirt in, splash some water on my face, and sigh. For the first time in a hundred years, I need a shave, but I do not have a razor. And since I can’t find one in Harmon’s mess, and I’d rather not leave Julia to do battle with the cockroaches any longer than I have to, I step into my dress shoes and hurry to her. “I’m ready,” I say, rubbing my chin as if that will help erase the awful stubble from it.

  If my presentation is inadequate, she doesn’t seem to notice. I think she was more questioning when I was wearing my fine suit. Perhaps she is in too much shock from the filthy apartment, too eager to escape it, because she stands and follows me out the door, clinging closely to my heels. We walk outside and down the front stairs, to the street. I say, “I’m sorry about the apartment. I haven’t had the time to—”

  Immediately she says, “Oh, no, that’s okay. I hope you weren’t upset by me coming over. I just wanted to see if I could bum a ride because … my mom’s car had a little accident.”

  “Oh? I hope nobody was hurt,” I murmur.

  She shakes her head. We walk in silence a little more and then she says, “Actually, that wasn’t the reason I came over.”

  “Oh?” I repeat, staring at the ground. Because I already know from her incessant questioning yesterday why she came to my home. She’s still suspicious. And who’s to blame her? I play the part of a modern youth sorely.

  “Tell me how you know so much about me,” she says. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her looking straight ahead, face tense.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You know so much more about me than any stranger would. That’s what you’re supposed to be, right? A stranger. But you’re not.”

  I force a laugh. “Julia, I’m not sure what you’re suggesting, but—”

  “There’s something really weird going on. And you’re part of it.” She takes a deep breath. “I’ve met you before, haven’t I?”

  “No.” But I’m not very good at lying. “Not exactly.”

  “Did you know Griffin?”

  I nod a little.

  “From �
�?”

  She whirls around and brings her eyes to meet mine. I swallow. If she holds my gaze for much longer, I know I will tell her everything. I break eye contact quickly. “He is … was, I mean, an acquaintance.”

  Of course I can see the puzzlement on her face. She brings her hair forward, over her ear, to cover her scars, suddenly self-conscious. “That message you had. Asking me to be careful. I’ve been trying to figure out who could have sent it, because other than my parents, nobody else would care that much about me. It was from Griffin, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “He gave you a message because he wanted to protect me? But why … unless he knew he was going to die?” She stops. Her eyes widen. “Wait … when did he give you that message?”

  I know she is putting the pieces together, and all I can do is stand there and watch the curtain I’ve placed between us unravel. “Julia, I …,” I begin, but I don’t know what else to say.

  “He died weeks ago, but strange things have been happening since then. Things that make me feel like he’s still here.” She taps on her temple. “I know it’s crazy.”

  I watch her silently, trying not to leak anything, but I know it isn’t working.

  She gasps. “So it’s true. He gave you that message after he died, didn’t he?”

  CHAPTER 23

  Julia

  “Julia …,” he says, looking away.

  Okay. Did I just say that aloud? That I think my dead boyfriend is contacting me from beyond the grave, and Eron is the conduit? Way to win friends and influence people. “Um, forget I ever said anything,” I say lamely, noticing a storm drain that I would love to climb into.

  “I don’t think you’re crazy, Julia,” he says after a moment.

  Well, sure he doesn’t … yet. He doesn’t know that I could have sworn I saw him disappear into thin air last night. “Really?”

  “Really.” He says it like he means it. Griffin would have been on to insult number twelve by now.

  “Who are you?” I ask softly. “Are you someone who can communicate with the dead? Have you been speaking with—”

  He extends his hand as if to say, Hold it there, little lady. He’s obviously trying to calm me, because I can feel the heat swirling in my face and the pounding in my temples, as if there’s a storm inside me raging to get out. “No, nothing like that.”

  I look down at the olive skin of his hand. There’s something all too familiar about the way he holds his hand above my shoulder so that it’s almost, but not quite, touching my skin. “Why do I feel like I’ve known you longer than just three days?”

  “It’s not important who I am,” he says. “The important thing is that you—”

  “Stay safe,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I have parents who warn me about that every day. Why you?”

  He doesn’t answer my question, just stands there, fidgeting from one foot to the other. It’s odd that at times he seems so mature, beyond-his-years mature, yet sometimes, he’s almost like a little boy.

  “Where did you get that scar? On your shoulder?”

  He shakes his head. “No matter. It was a long time ago.”

  I know that they’re obvious, that he’s probably seen them before, but I lift the hair from my cheek and tilt my chin into the sunlight. I’m not sure why I want to tell him now, but I’m not sure of so many things when it comes to him. Maybe it’s because I’ll go mad if I don’t get answers from him now. “I’ll tell you my story if you tell me yours,” I whisper.

  “You don’t have to say a thing,” he says, gently taking my hand away from my cheek. It’s as if he already knows how difficult it would be to tell. As if he already knows everything anyway. He says, “Your beloved … Griffin. Did you trust him?”

  “Yeah,” I say immediately, but the second the word leaves my lips, my resolve weakens. “I mean, I guess. We had a weird relationship.”

  “Weird?”

  “Well, he liked to joke a lot. He’d laugh at a funeral. Nothing was ever serious to him. But he was a good guy.”

  “And he loved you.”

  “Yes. Well. We never said so, in so many words.”

  He smiles. “It only takes three.”

  “No, you see … we didn’t talk about anything serious. Ever. And I kind of liked that.”

  He looks puzzled. “You did?”

  “Well, yeah. I’m … Something happened to me when I was a kid. And afterward, everyone walked on eggshells around me. But Griffin didn’t. We never talked about serious stuff like that. He treated me like anyone else. Which was good.”

  I bite my tongue. There I go again, spilling my soul to him, as if we’re old friends and didn’t just meet three days ago. Maybe it’s because I’d never have been caught having this kind of serious discussion with Griffin and I’m starved for a heart-to-heart. Pathetic. I can just imagine Griffin pretending to throw a rope around his neck and hang himself. “And we were not really an emotional, lovey-dovey type of couple. Why am I telling you this? I need to shut up.”

  He laughs. “No, you don’t. I like hearing you talk.”

  “Really?” I turn to him, and his face is serious as he nods. No indication that he’s going to poke fun at me. “You really don’t think I’m a nut job?”

  He laughs. “Not at all.”

  “I like talking to you, too.”

  I’m just starting to feel better, like maybe I’m not completely losing it, when suddenly my flip-flop catches on an uneven piece of pavement and I fall forward. I land half in the grass, half on the sidewalk. My palms and my knees break my fall, but I scrape the left one of each on the pavement. Blushing, I roll over onto my backside, inspecting my bleeding body parts. While this is when Griffin and Bret would laugh and say, “Have a nice trip?” or something, Eron rushes to my side and pulls a handkerchief out of the pocket of his baggy jeans. Two thoughts hit me at once: First, what guy who isn’t eighty years old carries a handkerchief? And secondly, is it possible ever to meet Eron without having an injury? Is there a reason I become a bumbling idiot around him?

  My palm is just a little red and coated with gravel, so Eron brushes the grit away from my knee and clamps the cloth over it. It’s not bleeding as much as the cut on my shin yesterday did, but now I have a wound on each of my legs. I look like I shaved with sandpaper. I’m going to make a great impression in New York.

  The injuries sting, but suddenly there’s a throbbing in my ankle. When he pulls me to my feet, that throbbing becomes a shooting pain. I howl.

  “Is your ankle twisted?” he asks, settling me back down. He seems reluctant at first and blushes again, but eventually he gently places his fingers on either side of my ankle, moving upward. At one point, the pain is so bad I whimper.

  “I think so,” I say. “I am officially a moron.”

  He reaches down and picks me up. He hefts me into his arms easily, as if I’m just a bag of groceries. “I’m taking you home.”

  That sounds just fine to me. “But I live a mile away,” I say, embarrassed.

  “Not at all,” he answers. It’s a hot day, and his breathing isn’t labored, so I relax a little, even though I still feel like a goober. “I just hope it is not broken.”

  “Let’s not overreact,” I say. “I’ll be fine.”

  He carries me the entire way without so much as getting red in the face. I hand him my keys and he holds me up with one arm while opening the front door, then lifts me easily up the stairs. I’m about to direct him where to go, but he never hesitates; he steps to the right and twists open the door to my room, without a word. A weird sensation creeps over me as he lays me in my bed, lifts the sheets out from under me, and covers me. I’m only marginally aware of my hot-pink thong panties lying on the shag carpet, near his feet. How did he know which bedroom was mine?

  “Thanks,” I say, nonchalantly reaching down and sweeping the panties under my bed. That’s when I notice my old Zac Efron poster, across the room, framed by my posters of the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben. I’ve b
een meaning to tear it down ever since I started dating Griffin, but now it hangs there, in all its glory, a testament to my lameness. Strangely, though, Eron seems to be focused completely on me.

  “Not at all. I will telephone the management of the soda fountain and tell them of this unfortunate incident.”

  “You mean, you’re not going in?”

  He shakes his head. “And who would play nurse to you? I think you need to stay off that ankle.”

  “No, really, I’m fine….”

  He smiles. “I insist.”

  I settle back in the pillows. “You really don’t have to.”

  “Julia …,” he says, wagging a finger at me to say, Stop arguing.

  “Fine. Um, I think my mom has some soda in the fridge. No egg creams, unfortunately.”

  Eron laughs, his eyes never leaving mine. They’re focused in such a way that makes me a little queasy. Or maybe that’s just the heat. Or maybe it’s that right then, I realize that Eron doesn’t seem to take notice of his surroundings at all, as if he’s not interested. Or as if he’s already seen my bedroom a thousand times before.

  “You’re Italian, is that right?” my mom says, inspecting Eron as she ladles gazpacho into his bowl. A little of it spills onto the table.

  He nods politely.

  I hope Eron realizes what he’s in for. My mom could make the most hardened of criminals weep. Add my father, and it’s past cruel and unusual. If Eron thought my questioning was harsh, he may end up jumping from something very high at the end of this meal. That’s why I only brought Griffin around my parents once. Only once.

  My mom is smiling sweetly, but that’s just one of her tactics: make them think she’s on their side, then strike. “Do I know your parents?”

  “Mom …,” I groan.

  “They’re … deceased, ma’am,” he says.