by Gian Sardar
“Hello,” Frederick says when he spots Claire. He’s sitting on the bench by the tennis courts, sipping his drink. “I’m not in your way, am I?”
“Not at all. Do you mind if I join you?”
“For a game?”
“No, just to sit.”
“It’s not my bench,” he smiles.
Claire sits by him. Not too close though, as to Frederick they’ve just met. They’ve always just met. It is your bench, she would’ve said when the problem began. It’s all yours. This is what you worked for. But she’s given up correcting him, given up pointing out that something’s wrong, that life is not the simple glory he’s enjoying. The pain, she found, that his memory causes her is nothing compared to the pain she feels when suddenly he knows to be afraid.
Claire is never okay, leaving her father. But today the weight of two secrets are piled upon her. Perhaps she’s fooling herself. William eating dinner with some woman in public, suspicious enough that Dr. Adams would call her mother, is not a secret. And her father: hair a bit too long, face far too tanned, of course people talk—though they’ve been protected, placed in the extravagant shade of the Ballantine name, and the comments have been kept as whispers in respect for William’s parents. I hear he’s lost his mind, she’d once overheard at a dinner party, quietly spoken around the corner. She’d stood frozen, next to a monstera plant, the wide tropical leaves. That he howls at the moon.
William is the only son, the only chance to carry the name. Her genes, her own composition, could be the end, the water splashed upon a perfect painting. Now she realizes there could be another child, born of a woman whose father doesn’t laugh too loud and isn’t mesmerized by the chiming of ice. William could take the opportunity to have what he’s always wanted.
William could leave her.
9
Now
SATURDAY SHE SLEEPS. Heavy and dreamless, sunlight a slow chase upon the rug, a languid brightness. Though the hours feel wasted, the nightmares have always taken their name quite literally and never happen during the day, so the luxury of sleep, the safety of daylight, is irresistible. Now and then her mother opens the door to check on her and the edge of Abby’s mind registers the attention, welcomed and appreciated. Tomorrow, she tells her at one point, I want to look at those letters. Her mother assures her they’re not going anywhere, and softly closes the door.
When the alarm on her iPhone sounds, she eats a protein bar and goes through the routine of getting ready for the reunion, hair straightened, face powdered, sweeps of eye shadow with names that seem to promise a voyage—embark, jaunt, moonglow. Her red top plunges into territory guaranteed to freak out a few good Catholics and her high heels should give her another three inches at least. There, she thinks, I’m different. New and improved. She sets her perfume on the dresser, ready for a last-minute spritz.
A few texts with Hannah. This lipstick? Or this? she asks, firing off selfies. Will Aidan be there? The night spans with possibility. Her phone bings. The brighter lipstick for sure, Hannah writes, but what’s on your face? Abby goes to the mirror, leans in. Hives. Four of them, smack on her forehead, front and center. She grabs the wrapper from the protein bar and sesame seeds taunt her from the ingredient list. Benadryl, the only thing that’s worked for her, was shoved into her suitcase as an afterthought. Thankfully.
Her phone rings, lit up with Robert’s face.
“Stephen called,” he says immediately. “Left a message. A producer at Warner Brothers loves the script. Wants to meet.”
“What? He called him on a Saturday?”
“I guess. That’s all I know, he’s not answering. Didn’t even say which producer. I have to go, I’m running into a movie.”
“Without me?”
“You only want to see comedies. I don’t write comedies.”
It’s happening. The timing, news delivered right before the reunion, feels fated, and the evening is now one she enters with validity, an excitement she has every right to voice. Warners wants to meet. The wedding should be soon. But only minutes later, her positivity plummets. They’ve been through this. In her mind calendars of meetings tear past, pages and pages of notes given and contracts redlined only for an actor to back out or the executive to leave the studio: This was my baby, I’ll try to set it up when I land. What then? A glimpse of herself at the next reunion, pride a crack she tries to cover, heartbreak something she skims with trite sayings. The timing was off. Everything happens for a reason.
Already she’s spotted another patch of hives, sprung upon her neck like an invading army. Benadryl. The nap-inducing pink pill. It’ll be an early evening for sure, but better that than being stuck here with her thoughts, second-guessing happiness.
The few signs he sees from his window drive him crazy. Demands for answers, for justice, for good from evil, as if inside the station were a closet with the solution they simply walked past each day, determined not to look. Don’t take it personal, Schultz told them a few days ago when a friend of Sarah Breining’s set up shop on the sidewalk with a sign of only tally marks—black, accusatory slashes, a running countdown. I look at that, Harris had said, and see how many days since I slept in my own bed. Hard, though, not to take it personally. Especially when leads are cooling.
Everything about the day has been one problem after another. A computer that continually froze. A printer that jammed every other minute. Even a false confession, the second one they’ve gotten since the media became involved, given by a nut job driven to take credit for a crime he didn’t commit, discounted when his account conflicted with the details they’ve withheld. And the one time Aidan answered his office line without looking at the ID, it was Rebecca Sullivan, brimming with histrionics. Histrionic personality disorder. Aidan had looked it up when he left Rick Sullivan’s house that day: a need for attention, flirtatious behavior, casting blame on others—everything he read seemed to narrate the experience of his visit with her. Someone who’d contest a will for the attention? Something to look into later, when they’ve time for other cases, when nightfall isn’t the backdrop of what feels like an overdue and impending certainty.
“Sarah Breining’s uncle,” Schultz says, taking the coffee filter from the machine and shaking the grounds into the trash, “that veterinarian, says he put the motel in Sioux Falls on a credit card the night Sarah was raped. Out there visiting his sister. Bank’s verifying and the motel’s pulling their footage, but they’re having problems with it, got a tech guy involved. Gotta make sure it’s him and he didn’t check in and leave right away.”
“What’s the sister say?”
“Says she saw him the next morning around ten. Not that night. He could’ve hit the road early and made it to her by then. Checked in the night before as an alibi. I never liked him.” He fills the coffee filter, shuts it back into place, and flips the switch.
“Dr. Breining once came to our house,” Harris says, “to give vaccinations because he knew Onyx hated the car. Man’s a good guy.”
“Good guy who knew the victim and whose office had ketamine ‘go missing.’”
“Hardt says he was retired then.”
“Not according to employment records, he wasn’t. Someone check that, what Breining’s saying.” A small trickle of black from the coffee machine. “The clock is ticking.” Then, as if remembering something, a glance at Aidan. “Why are you still here? I told you, go. Have fun and get back here.”
All Aidan wants is his couch, his beer, and that show with the guy who makes tree houses. Forget the reunion. Forget the case. Forget everything. Just one night off, away from the world, away from the station, away from people with a pathologic need for attention. And Brittany. Her voicemail announced her return to town like a game show host announcing a brand-new car! Then Ashley, the message right after: If you’re up for going tonight, I can go with you?
He should take her. Even in sweats she’d impre
ss, the gleam of her youth like a talisman. That’s it. He needs to call her before he changes his mind. Quickly he reaches for his cell phone and knocks over a cup. A mass of water overtakes a folder. In a second he’s tossed a sweatshirt on top of it all and Schultz is there with paper towels, but the ink is bleeding, the paper bulging and dipping with water. The clock on his computer says he’s late and going to be later—getting Ashley would be ridiculous at this point. He gives in and sits, beginning to separate pages, blowing on the black contrails of ink.
Four police cars are parked by the high school, as if the event were to be attended by someone famous. Abby watches one from the parking lot, convinced the man’s asleep, then tilts her head toward the building—brick, a red tile roof, yellow lights at either side of the door. The reunion should be in full swing by now. In one swoop she can go in, see everyone, and go home.
Stepping out of the car, she squints up at a light. Stars behind it blare in competition. There are stars here, she thinks, and leans against the car. Jewelry, she realizes, she’d forgotten to put on jewelry and her perfume—but who cares. She’s too tired to care. That’s what’s best. Just go in, a red-clad disaster, and view the whole evening as a science experiment. The stories she’ll later be able to tell will all be worth it—then there was that time I fell asleep at my reunion.
A passing couple pauses. “Do you need help?” the man asks.
Abby stares at them, familiarity glimpsed through the murk of age. “No, I’m good. Thought I saw a shooting star.” They relax, nodding and approving, and then wave as they head toward the gymnasium. Abby follows a good pace behind so they don’t feel the need to slow and introduce themselves.
Then she’s inside, and it’s like walking into a little room in her mind. Who knew she could do this? Everything is the same. The hay-yellow paint and the dark blue mats held to the walls, the water fountain by the double doors that lead to the lockers. She scans the room and finds a table with wine, then quickly downs a glass. Everyone seems to be a part of a couple: one with a name tag—the alum—and the other without, the spouse. Though some name tags are paired together and Abby wants to take them aside and ply them with questions. Have you only ever been with each other? Is everything in life a given?
A hand on her shoulder. She turns and looks into the face of her former best friend, Beth, and at once is hit with the toll of age—shapes that have lost their boundaries, focus slightly softened—that view that only a lapse in years provides. Still, the second Abby says Beth’s name, there’s a squealed greeting, a maelstrom of catch-up.
“When is everything ever all perfect?” Beth now asks, having heard the recap of Abby’s relationship. “There’s no such time.”
“He’s just very logical. Wants things in order first.” A vicarious defense of herself.
“So he gets to decide?” Beth asks, then smiles, trying to soften her words. “Sorry, just hate stories like that. A good woman, waiting.”
Harsh, a bitter first taste—this wasn’t how the conversation was supposed to go, and yet the truth of it burns, a painful passage. She follows it with a healthy sip of wine. “It’s weird that they’re giving us alcohol in school. Like when we’re all together we shouldn’t be adults, like the collective us should always be sixteen.” Silence. She points to her head. “Benadryl. Too tired to make sense.”
Beth tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and leans in toward Abby. “Did you hear they almost canceled the reunion? With what’s going on.”
“Abby Walters,” a voice says.
Though the Louisiana drawl has lessened over the years, the languid, thick delivery remains. Marc Blanchard, her first kiss, a good foot taller than she’d remembered. His hair has thinned unevenly and already Abby can see that one day his face will sink into itself, folding as if cinched with a string.
“Marc, good to see you. You look great.”
“You too,” he says, with something like a smile. And then he’s reaching out to her. “Tic Tac?”
Abby can’t help it, the laughter has already flooded over. “Really?” she says. Had he been planning that all along, hoping she’d be here?
But he looks confused and glances at Beth before offering one to her as well, and it’s at that point Abby realizes this had not been a joke. He must never have known what she’d said about his breath all those years ago—or if he had, it had affected him so little, was so minor, that his mind had filed it away as trivia, perhaps competing with names of babysitters or snacks served in preschool.
“Okay, yes,” she says. “I’d like one.”
He shakes one into her palm.
“Do you remember Mr. Rosenthal?” Beth asks. “The English teacher?”
“Sure, why?”
“Excuse me,” Marc says, and pats his pocket. “Smoke break.” He’s making his exit, taking a couple of steps backward toward the door, but his eyes never leave Abby’s—and in this she sees that he had remembered. The fact of the ruse, the denial, leaves her unsettled.
She looks to Beth, who noticed nothing. “Sorry. What? I need a nap.”
And that’s when she sees him. Aidan Mackenzie. He must have just arrived and yet is already surrounded by his old friends. Abby pictures them scattered, pulled in like magnets the second he walked in. “Aidan Mackenzie,” she says, just to say his name.
Beth turns. “Where? Yeah, he’s back. About a year. I see him at the Kroger.”
“I don’t think he’s aged a day. He’s immune.”
Then she sees Brittany Deschamps walking toward him. Well, they didn’t arrive together, but the flirtation in Brittany’s loose-hipped stride and the mischievous tilt of her head all scream that the past is not just in the past. At least not if she can help it. Nothing’s changed. The cheerleader still gets the athlete. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Abby says. “I’m not regressing back to high school, where I just watch those two and get sad and wish I was blond. I’m getting more wine and I’m going to find my locker.”
Weaving down the empty hall, she stops now and then to check the announcements taped on walls or to admire banners for various drives. Tendons of fluorescent lights stretch along the ceiling and the air pulses with their slight flicker.
When she finds her locker, she crouches unsteadily to get to the dial and spills a bit of her drink before setting it on the floor. Whirl. Click. Her fingers remember the stops before her mind has chance to conjure them—42, 17, 38. A physical memory. Though of course the locker doesn’t open; the combination would’ve been changed years ago.
Suddenly she’s so tired she has to sit. Legs sticking into the hall, head against her locker. Yellow. The lockers are very yellow. “Yellow Submarine” yellow. Not that any of the kids here would even get that reference.
Then she hears his voice. The one she used to listen for, that got her heart beating as thoughts crammed in her mind, a great clogging of words that allowed for few to make it to her mouth. She turns her head, leaning forward a bit, unsteady. Aidan Mackenzie. Talking on his cell phone, one hand cupped to his ear as if the noise from the gymnasium travels alongside him. Crisp blue button-down. A black belt. Jeans, ends frayed in a way she knows was done by life, not machine. Black shoes. He’s more filled out than he was in high school, taller, sturdier. There’s a solidity to him, a feeling he could take care of any problem and that his body would never fail.
What strikes her is that she’s not nervous. Rather, she’s entertained, as if he’s the first page of a book set before her, the opening line in a play. Something is going to happen. She feels it with every step he’s taking, and like an audience member, she leans forward in anticipation.
Not far from her he stops, still holding one hand over his ear, still staring at the ground. “I know,” he says. “Right. Well, if you need a sample, just get me the info. It’s all on hold anyhow, we have time.”
It’s only when he slips his cell in his
pocket that he looks up, almost surprised to find himself this far from the party. Then he spots her. “Hi.” A moment. “You okay?”
Abby smiles. He has aged, the sharp bite of youth turned mellow and refined. “I’ve escaped. This is my locker, but it doesn’t open.”
“You remembered your combination?”
She nods. “It was a fear. That I’d forget it in front of everybody. So I’d repeat it at night. Over and over—42, 17, 38; 42, 17, 38. Like counting sheep.”
He peers down the locker bank. To the right, she wants to say. The upper corner, that was yours.
“I actually have dreams now,” he says, “where I don’t know the combination.”
“I have the ones where I forget my schedule and am wandering through the halls.”
He smiles. “I’ve had that. Or the one where I’ve forgotten to go to a class all semester. Then it’s the final and I’m cramming.”
“Me too. And you know what the class is that I forget to go to? History. My mind is telling me I’ve forgotten history.” She laughs, and though the thought occurs to her that tomorrow she’ll replay this conversation and cringe, for now the moment feels like an ellipsis and all she wants to do is see what comes next.
But what comes next surprises her, a page swapped with one from someone else’s life. He sits. Right next to her, in the hall, his black shoes extending about a foot past her heels.