Sleepwalker

by Jordan Castillo Price

I walked him to the elevator and he gave me a once-over. “You seem pretty plucky for the middle of the night,” he said.

  “I sleep all day.”

  “No...it’s more than that. You know something about MAHPS that I don’t know?”

  I pushed the down button for him and the doors whooshed open. “A little optimism never hurt anyone.”

  “I’ll remember that. Maybe I can even take it to heart after I grab a few hours’ sleep. G’night, Web.” The doors slid shut, and I was alone to try, and fail, to stop smiling.

  So I was jazzed ’cause I’d had a hot guy in my bed—even though nothing had happened. It still might. Luckily George didn’t take over and say that to Luke...in a perfectly reasonable voice that sounded exactly like mine.

  It was less disruptive to let Luke think my good mood was a wholesome product of team spirit, of the hope that a big fat grant would make everything at the Center good again—but, come on. Things had slipped too far. Not only were the displays and the building neglected, but the understaffing went a lot farther than the need to have Alex put on my spare uniform and stand around looking official. They didn’t even have a real conservator on staff anymore. The best we could hope for was that the grant would keep the Center afloat for a couple more years.

  Though I supposed that’d be better than nothing.

  I shouldered through the door to the break room and opened the fridge to put my lunch inside, then felt my stomach bottom out when I saw the paper bag was already there and my hands were empty. I checked my watch. I was missing about fifteen minutes. Damn it.

  According to Alex, I’m pretty mild-mannered when I’m sleepwalking, but there’s a first time for everything. My initial thought was Jesse. Had I done something screwed-up in front of him? I felt my mouth—yep, there it was, right where I’d left it. No wayward spit. No mouth-to-mouth residue. I checked my phone. No incoming or outgoing calls. Then I zeroed in on my heart rate. The muscle in my chest was pounding, but more of a panicky stutter than an indication that I’d been running up and down the stairs to make a fool of myself in front of Jesse.

  Sometimes at home I’d find ice cube trays full of water in the pantry, or shampoo bottles in the oven. I opened the storage cabinet to see if anything was blatantly out of place, but it was mostly empty, with that sparse look of a room that’s not lived-in, and nothing seemed too disconcerting—unless you counted the microwave popcorn with an expiration date three years past. I couldn’t even remember who it belonged to, just that Bridget always bitched up a storm about how badly it stunk up the offices when someone got desperate and nuked a bag.

  I scanned the molded plastic chairs, the crumb-topped table, the brown-tiled bathroom with the toilet handle you had to jiggle to stop the water from running into the tank all night. Nothing wrong.

  The biggest likelihood, assuming Jesse was still among the Kickapoo with his moldy animal hide, was that I’d just zoned out, maybe talked to myself about the Cubs for a few minutes. No big deal.

  Jesse’s number was on my phone. I could call him and double-check, try and judge by the tone of his voice if I’d just done anything...weird. Except how needy would I look, calling him every fifteen minutes when he had a whole museum to clean in two more nights.

  Nope. Looking needy was at the bottom of my wish-list. I slipped my phone into my pocket and told myself to get a grip and start my rounds. I checked my mag light and pepper spray—still there—and did a quick check of the hallway that led to the offices. As I approached Luke’s office, I saw a semicircle of light cast onto the linoleum from beneath the door. Had he left it on? He had been pretty wrung-out. Heck, who knows, maybe I’d turned the light on myself.

  Half the offices weren’t even in use anymore. They’d belonged to employees the Center had let drift away over the years without replacing them: Curator. Personnel. AIC-certified Conservator. I flicked through my keys and found the one I wanted—Director of Fundraising and Marketing—Luke. I pinched it out from the bundle and opened Luke’s door with the sudden rush of dread that maybe I’d find something in there that would top the shampoo in the oven—like the Rock River Beaver sitting smack in the middle of Luke’s desk, his freshly cleaned fur and scaly tail all agleam.

  No beaver. The invisible hand of dread around my chest loosened enough for me to take a breath or two.

  Luke’s office was just like I’d remembered it. Desk. Computer. A mounted golf club on one wall, a photo of him giving a bright white smile beside Jane Goodall on the other, and half-empty pack of gum on his desk.

  The fan on Luke’s computer whirred—the thing was still on. I had to admit it was possible George could have stopped in for a game of solitaire...or streaming porn of supposedly straight college students in tube socks and sideways baseball caps jerking off for the camera.

  I jiggled the mouse and the black-screened monitor flickered, then woke up, and an email filled the screen. Not my email—what a relief.

  I moved the cursor to the start menu to shut everything down, and my name caught my eye. It took a second, because it wasn’t “Web” I’d noticed. It was “Dan.”

  To: Luke Presioso

  From: Bridget Barker

  Re: Cutting line item 12 by over 10k

  Maybe it would be more cost-effective to hire out the security, but it’s not something we can jump into without putting the framework in place first. At the very least, I would keep one of them on as a security supervisor and hire the rest from the service. Dan is my first choice, but I don’t know how long he plans to stay on. As you say, Marvin should have retired years ago. I don’t think Theresa has the right attitude.

  Yesterday at 10:10 am, L Presioso wrote:

  > I got a quote from Reliable Security, the company I told you about when we were going through the numbers. Not only can outsourcing save 10k from the security budget, but Reliable can add an extra guard during the day. Four guards for the price of three, plus the regular weekend shift.

  > I told you nobody expects benefits packages anymore!

  I printed the document and double checked the names to make sure I was reading what I thought I was reading. Luke wanted to outsource our jobs and Bridget wanted to keep us—or one of us, at least. Luke would’ve been happy to put all three of us on the chopping block. What a prick. Smiling at me with those Goddamn white teeth of his, and all the while talking behind my back about replacing me with a subcontractor so he didn’t have to foot the bill for my health insurance.

  Shit. I felt dirty for even having the thing in my hand, but when I turned on the shredder to get rid of it, a grinding sound came out of the motor, and a weird smell like burning plastic. Broken, like everything else in the Center.

  I leaned back against the wall and checked my watch. Three and a half minutes since I’d found my lunch already in the fridge.

  Not sleepwalking. Completely and utterly awake.

  7

  MY PHONE RANG, AND I jumped like I’d found the coffee maker in my shower. The screen flashed JR Jones. “Hello?”

  Jesse said, “I was thinking. I wonder if you really meant it when you asked me if I needed any help, and you weren’t just checking me out.”

  The mere sound of his voice made me stand down, enough so I didn’t sound like a weirdo. I did my best to hide my annoyance at the email. “Do those two things have to be mutually exclusive?”

  He laughed. “I like the way you think. Now, you don’t strike me as an allergy sufferer.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “No telltale antihistamines in your bathroom.”

  “You went through my medicine cabinet?”

  “I needed toothpaste. So, what do you say? Think you’ve got the fortitude to move a musty, dusty bison pelt? ’Cause it’s a hell of a lot heavier than I thought, and I don’t think I can get it down to the conservation room myself.”

  “I’m on my way.” No telling where that email would end up if George decided to go sleepwalking; I’d need to play it safe. I read throu
gh it one more time, then I shredded the printout by hand, flushed it down the staff toilet, prayed that the paper wouldn’t clog it, wiggled the handle so the tank stopped running, and finally hopped on the elevator.

  Jesse had rolled the bison pelt into a plain white canvas. He hefted one end, me the other. “Hold ’er steady. Don’t let it kink up in the middle—it’s brittle.”

  It was as heavy as he’d said it was. And it reeked of mildew.

  “Hate to do this to you, but we’ll need to take the stairs. Elevator’s too shallow.” Call me a glutton for punishment, but I got off on the idea that he didn’t think I was too infirm to help him manhandle a big, stinking roll of animal skin down three flights to the basement.

  It wasn’t too difficult. The stairs were wide, and it wasn’t as if there were other people we needed to navigate. We went sideways, so neither of us had to bend, or lift the foul-smelling hide higher than waist level.

  We’d made the landing between levels one and two and set the hide down to take a breather when Jesse asked, “Am I screwing up your rounds? If you’re busy, just say the word. We can pick up the pace.”

  “Huh? No, it doesn’t make any difference.” I took off my baseball cap and ran my fingers through my sweaty hair—and realized that probably wasn’t the best way for me to handle an artifact, wrapped in canvas or not. I wiped my hand on my pant leg.

  “You seem ticked off.”

  He could tell? “It’s nothing to do with you.” We maneuvered around a corner, and I shuffled sideways to make sure I didn’t drive Jesse into the Lead Rush diorama. “I just found out I might lose this job.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me.” We set down the roll again while I unlocked the basement access door. The hallway was warm from its proximity to the boiler room. It smelled stale and close. “The doors shut for good if the Mid-America guy decides he doesn’t want to spray you with the money hose, right?”

  “No, not that.” We lifted the hide yet again. It felt about fifty pounds heavier than it had on the third floor. Jesse hadn’t even broken a sweat. “I might lose it anyway. No matter what. They’re looking at hiring a security service.”

  Jesse whistled through his teeth. “That’s a shame. Worst part is, if it weren’t for George, I don’t suppose it’d matter much.”

  We shuffled into the conservation lab and heaved the heavy canvas roll onto a work table, then I looked at Jesse hard. How was it he got it, whereas Alex would try to talk me into Medicaid, and Kathy would tell me it was all right, everything would work out, and the neurosurgeon said George might never get any bigger, and besides, universal health care was right around the corner. Jesse didn’t say any of that.

  He opened the canvas so the hide could lie flat, then did a quick look through the cabinets to raid them for supplies. “First thing my old man taught me was to always have a backup fleshing knife in case the one you’re working with loses its edge. Might not ever need to use it. But if you do, at least you’re not stuck with your hand inside a bobcat and a dull blade.”

  I stood between him and the door. A few steps closer backed him into the corner created by the worktable and the wall. “Now you’re just trying to freak me out,” I said.

  “Am I?” The corners of his eyes creased. That smile, damn. That smile ambushed me each and every time.

  Another step toward him, and there it was—we were closer than straight men got for anything other than beer bongs and semi-pro wrestling, and there I was, me, putting the move on someone.

  He wasn’t quite as tall as me. I had to tilt my head down to kiss him.

  He met me halfway.

  I was careful at first. We were both careful. Lips only. Closed lips—but softly closed, as if the nudge of a tongue would be all we needed to take things to a level that could easily spiral out of control. His mouth was warm, and good, and despite all the mildew and the dust, the smell of my shampoo clung to his long hair. My lips parted then, in a gentle gasp. Sheer surprise at how shocked I was to kiss someone again.

  His hands settled on my arms. He ran his thumbs over my biceps, and murmured his appreciation into my mouth. I tried to sneak my hands around him in return, but I couldn’t seem to get hold of anything other than a couple handfuls of flannel shirt.

  He had no trouble at all finding the places on me he wanted to touch. He ran his hands along my shoulders, lingered over the jut of my collarbones, then cupped my jaw with both hands while he plied me with sweet, slow kisses.

  Still no tongue, though. Dare I be the one to initiate it?

  As I tried to work up the courage, Jesse ran his hands back down my body, planted them on my hips, and eased us apart so he could see my eyes. “Sometimes the backup knife is simpler than you think. Sometimes it’s just a matter of saying, fuck it all. I’m gonna do what I want.”

  My khaki pants felt way too snug. “I know what I want, but I think there’s a security cam in here.” And if there was, bad enough it’d caught me kissing him, let alone all the other things I itched to do.

  “I’m not talking about this one moment—I’m talking about everything. The whole bag of marbles. Lose your job? Fuck it. Figure out the details when they come to you. Go do what you’ve always wanted to do.”

  I knew what he was saying, and maybe someday it might even sink in. But at that moment I wanted one thing, and one thing only. I tried to pull him toward me again, but he slipped out of my grasp easily, smiling. “Yeah, I could go for another taste—but right now I’ve got to make sure I get paid for this gig. The old man couldn’t afford Alaska, but he’s been wanting to go for years so he went anyway, and more power to ’im. Think of it this way, Web. We make it through tomorrow night, and it’s a downhill coast from there.” He slipped a hand around the back of my neck and drew my face down to his for another kiss, but only a brief brush of his lips. “I gotta go grab my toolkit.”

  Nothing’s ever a downhill coast, but I supposed I could handle a day and a half wait after all the long, lonely months I’d already spent by myself. Jesse turned and left me there alone in the abandoned workroom, thinking about how his lips felt, and how his hair smelled, and how his jeans were too loose for me to tell exactly what his ass looked like beneath them...though it was fun to guess.

  Part of me wanted to panic at the thought of that bastard Luke angling to eliminate my job, but part of me, that part that hadn’t been touched or kissed or even sweet-talked for so damn long, really did want to say, fuck it.

  I glanced up at the corner of the acoustic drop-ceiling, and sure enough, a small, wired box hung over the door with a blinking red light and a tiny lens.

  I gave it the finger.

  Fuck it.

  Then I flipped my notebook to a new page and wrote on it. Kissed Jesse.

  I stepped out of the conservation lab and found him staring at a scattering of pennies on the floor, along with scraps of paper covered with forbidden four-letter words painstakingly written in clumsy grammar school cursive, and probably more than a few spitballs. “There’s a grate in the ceiling,” I said, “and the roots of the sycamore are on the other side of this wall. The architect was on crack or something.”

  “Nah, I think it was a cool idea, once.” He pressed his hand into the wall as if he could feel the tree’s underground structure pushing back, then looked up through the grate like he was searching for the starry night sky beyond the tempered glass atrium ceiling. “It just didn’t turn out the way they thought it would.”

  After we parted ways, I made an effort to do my regular rounds. It was no use. I kept running my tongue over my lips to see if I could taste Jesse’s mouth there, even though if there even had been any traces of him, I’d licked them off while I was still in the workroom.

  In terms of my rounds, floors two and three seemed like they only needed a quick check...since Jesse had set up camp on the first floor once he finished scrubbing down the mildewed hide. He crouched among the lead miners who always looked a lot more excited than I would have been to be drawing
lead from the earth. Maybe no one had told them it was lead yet, and they thought it was silver. Or maybe they were just eager to make more bullets. A donkey hauled half a cart out of a mine shaft that was only six inches deep, but had been cleverly painted to appear at least three inches deeper. I’d never really given much thought that the donkey had once been alive, not until I saw Jesse dusting it with a blow drier and a little paintbrush.

  “That’s the most action that nag’s seen since I’ve worked here,” I said.

  “It’s in good shape. The mannequins around it? They’re another story.” He rocked the hair dryer to the side and the tips of a nearby miner’s mustache fluttered. “I’ll blow the cobwebs off ’em, but I wouldn’t know the first thing about doing any hardcore restoration.”

  I hitched my thumbs in my pants pockets and tried to will Jesse to stop working for all of two seconds and realize I wasn’t done flirting with him yet. It wasn’t fair, I knew. He was on a killer deadline, and me? I was being paid to wander around. “Are you that much of a perfectionist about everything?” I said.

  He did pause then, though not quite for a second. “Depends who you ask.” His eyes flickered to mine, and he bit back a smirk that looked tantalizingly naughty. “Shouldn’t you be busy guarding me, Mr. Web?”

  “What else could I possibly be doing?” I spread my hands, and he spared me another quick glance. “I don’t walk around all night with a can of pepper spray digging into my thigh for my health.”

  “Well, since you seem to have a decent amount of latitude in your job description, hold up this sheet so I can get busy with this blow dryer without melting this donkey’s neighbors.”

  I planted my feet carefully in the diorama, stepping only on areas that Jesse had covered with paper, and blocked one of the waxy lead miners from the dust cloud that came out of the donkey’s mane.

  Once I could stop coughing, I said, “So by pitching in like this, I’m buying you enough time that you can knock off at seven and come home with me. Right?”