by Susan Dunlap
"'By the weekend I’ll be dead.’ That’s what she said.” Suddenly I was so cold I felt like my skin would shatter. But I couldn’t give up, not now, not yet. "What about the bathroom?”
"Over there.”
I checked. Empty. Reality was setting in. "I just can’t believe,” I said, stepping back onto the cart, "that I could pull her back from the edge and then have her just disappear. Like she never existed.”
"That’s the lure of the bridge. No mess, no pain, no consequences. Or so they think.”
"Yeah, sure, no pain, maybe for them. For the family—waiting, never knowing—pain doesn’t let up.” I was thinking, of course, of Mike’s disappearance and Mom never leaving the house for more than a day in those two decades lest he should come home and find no one there. Thinking of the false hopes, the deadening disappointments, the numbness. Of never crossing the Golden Gate Bridge without wondering . . . of my favorite brother who’d vanished and stayed gone twenty years, and of the stranger wearing his skin whom we’d finally found. But this woman ... "I just can’t believe we could lose her. There’s got to be something—Wait. A bicycle. Maybe in the fog—did you see it?”
"No. Definitely no. That’s something we note.”
"I passed one, about a hundred yards before I spotted her. No rider near it.”
"If it’s gone—good sign. Not a bad sign anyway.”
"What about those joggers we just passed? They must’ve seen her.”
"Okay, but . . .” He shrugged. But he started back to the cart with what seemed like hope.
We caught them a hundred yards onto the bridge. I soon realized why McNin had shrugged. "A woman? On a bike?” The taller guy mused. "Maybe. Dunno. Didn’t get in our way.”
The short one was running in place. "We’re focused. We got held up this afternoon; now we’re really late. We were pressing. When we do this bit, we don’t even see the skyline. Like I say, we’re focused.”
McNin took their contact info, but the look he gave me said "dead end.”
"So,” he said after a moment, "you want a ride back to this most patient brother of yours on the other side?”
Omigod! All those years Mike was gone, never a day had gone by without my thinking of him, and now here he was waiting for me and I’d totally forgotten. "Thanks.” As we drove north I turned on the phone and mea culpa’d to his voicemail, "But a nice cop’s speeding me toward you so turn on the heater for me.”
It was quarter to six. Dusk had passed to night, and, as often happens, the wind had suddenly eased up. In fifteen minutes the walkway’d be closed. The ride was easier now—clear of pedestrians. Even so, it was still Arctic, with both of us shivering. For the first time I looked beyond the railing to catch a glimpse of the city skyline. Nothing but gray now. When he slowed to skirt the north tower, I said, "How can people jump in this kind of weather? It’s so—”
"They go all the time. All the time. Two, three a month, and those are the ones we know of. The water”—he was shouting over the noise—"it’s deceiving. Looks warm and soft, brown. Like they’ll land easy, like floating down to a nice pillow. But if you’d seen those bodies . . .”
I couldn’t bear to think about that. "McNin, she said I’d ruined it. She said she’d be dead by the weekend. D’you believe her?”
He slowed the cart. "She could go either way. Take this as a wake-up call. Or just get more pissed and be back like she promised. No way to tell. Not with what little we know of her.”
"I just can’t believe—”
He put a hand on my shoulder. "Believe.”
I clutched her red jacket tighter to me, uselessly. It was ridiculous to be freezing and not put it on, but how could I?
Almost in slow motion it seemed now we rolled onto the Marin side. The parking lot was nearly empty. There was a young couple curled around each other on a bench, and one bent-over old guy in a watch cap at the bus stop. None of them were even facing the water. "There,” I said, "that silver convertible.” The top was now up.
"You want me to explain to your brother?”
"Nah. I’m a big girl. But listen, thanks. Will you keep an eye out?”
"I’ll let you know.”
I extricated a card.
"Stunts. Hey, I’m impressed.”
"Call me. I’ll get you a set pass. You’ll be bored 99 percent of the time, but the other one could be dynamite.”
He looked down at the card again, then up, and finally said, "Okay then, huh?” If only the woman we’d been searching for knew how much we cared. Slowly, he guided the cart toward Mike’s car.
I expected to find Mike slumped behind the wheel, expected to hear Black Rebel Motorcycle Club running down the battery, expected the heater to be on blast. But the car was silent and empty. "He’s probably in the john. I’ve kept him waiting long enough.”
"I can stay with—”
"I’m fine. But you’ll let me know if you hear anything. Anything! If you even have any idea, right?”
"Yeah.” With that, he pulled loose, turned the cart around, and sped off, leaving me alone with the cold and all my fears. I could still feel her body against my chest as I heaved her back. She couldn’t just disappear and . . . die! Suddenly, I was desperate to get out of here, back to the warmth of Mom’s kitchen.
To life.
I tried the car door—locked, dammit! What was this about? We never used to lock cars. I moved to the downwind side, squatted for what little protection the vehicle could offer, and pulled out my phone to see how many messages he’d left. I was just putting finger to key when the old man I’d noticed began hunching toward me. Did he want to know why Bridge Patrol dropped me here? Or was the guy just hoping for a ride? Did he—
It wasn’t till he was nearly to the car that I recognized him.
3
"Omigod!” I would have laughed if it weren’t so strange.
He straightened up to his full six foot two and instantly dropped thirty years. When he pulled off the watch cap his red curls sprang out and he was Mike again.
"What happened?”
"A woman tried to jump,” I began, and had to stop to get myself back together. "She seemed okay. And then—this is weird—you blew the horn. She looked over at you. And then she climbed over the rail. I managed to pull her back. She fought me. She wanted to step off, into nothingness—so cold—”
He pulled open the passenger door. "Get in and we’ll turn the heater to blast. This baby’ll do everything short of making you a hot toddy.”
The imminent promise of warmth compared to the icy water of the bay . . . I shook off the thought. Illusion! I pushed away what might have happened, what could happen tomorrow, and focused on this moment, the feel of the seat, the sounds of Mike climbing in, the grind of the ignition, the blast of cold then warm air.
"I need a favor,” I said.
"For you, of course.” His grin implied complicity, our special connection, the way it used to be. I couldn’t help but smile back, if just because here was the old Mike I remembered. For you, of course, had been a standing joke between us so long I’d forgotten the origin.
"Drive back across the bridge again, as slow as you can.”
"To see if she’s there?”
"It’s crazy, I know. Looking for a woman who’s not wearing this jacket anymore.”
"But it’ll haunt you if you don’t?”
"Yeah.”
He cut underneath the freeway and back onto the roadway. Even on a clear day there’s only ocean to be seen to the west, and now with the fog and dark there was nothing. He drove in the center lane while I tried to see past him, between vehicles in the three lanes on the other side. But an elephant could have been trotting down the east walkway and I’d have missed it. I wanted to check out the red jacket on my lap, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the walkway, elephant or not.
"Why the disguise?” I asked him suddenly.
"I wanted to know if you’d see through it.”
"Odd timing, that
.”
"You’d have spotted me right off any other time. Catching your subject when they’re distracted—choosing your moment’s part of the disguise.”
"Disguise is a two-way thing?”
"Isn’t acting?”
"Yeah, but not that much. It’s not like you can go into the audience seat by seat seeing who’s distracted and who’s not. And shooting a movie, well, you’ve got to be aware of what the audience will think—in the case of stunt work, what they’ll assume—Damn! You sidetracked me. Steered me right into one of my favorite little sidings, stunt talk. It’s one thing to do that with Mom, or John or any of the other sibs, but me?”
He flinched but I couldn’t tell if it was a reaction to hurting me or to being found out. Later, I’d probably think back on this and be more hurt—secrets used to be things we kept from the rest of the family—but tonight it was just a minor bruise. Traffic was light by now and I could see the east walkway most of the time—the empty walkway. "So, where did you learn that?”
"Watching people.”
"When were you watching people?”
He looked over at me surprised. It was such a real expression that I suddenly understood that all the others weren’t. "I’ve always watched people. Didn’t you know that? Most people don’t pay that much attention. Even you.” He hesitated. "You watched bodies, how they moved, but you didn’t watch people. Didn’t have to. I did it for both of us.”
I shivered. He saw it. "Hey, if I hadn’t, you would have been grounded every other day. You can’t deflect questions if you don’t know the questioner.”
"You were the master.” He had saved my tail a lot when I was the wild kid. It’d seemed cool—then. "But it still doesn’t explain the disguise.”
"What you’re really asking isn’t about me, it’s why your jumper would put on a look-at-me jacket to hurl herself into oblivion.”
Again, it wasn’t my question. Again, I slid into the siding. "It makes no sense. But, okay. Why care how she looked? Who was she dressing for, the bridge cameras?”
"A lover out with someone new? Make ’im guilty. Show ’im what he lost?”
"And then jump out of despair? Very, very B movie.”
"But she wore red. Someone less observant than you wouldn’t have noticed what she had on under it.”
"Which wouldn’t have mattered, because she’d be dead! She wasn’t planning on me pulling her back—and doing it by her jacket. She wasn’t faking, Mike, she was on the other side of the railing. She’d already thrown her purse over.”
"To conceal her identity?”
"Sure seems like it. Can’t you go any slower?”
"Yeah, if you don’t mind that van driving into our back seat.”
"Let him go around.”
Another time in these couple months since his return I’d’ve hesitated, picked my words carefully in a way that marked the difference from how we used to be. Now I peered past him and said, "Why did you conceal your identity?”
Mike laughed, started to speak, then seemed to reconsider. "Thing is, Darce, I don’t want to be spotted, to be the focus again. I know there had to be some mention of me when I got back, after being kept in the news all those years. I had to do payback. But now—”
"What’s that? Slow down!”
He pumped the brake. Behind us horns blared. "Is it—”
"No. Just the patrol cart! I don’t know why I’m wasting my time when I can barely tell a cart from a woman. I should forget this and check out that jacket. Can you drive with the overhead light on?”
"Not in a convertible. Check the glove box.”
Of course there was a flashlight. The car belonged to my brother Gary, and he hated to be without anything. There was also a knife, small water bottle, and what appeared to be a hatchet for a hobbit. The light was surprisingly bright. It showed the tight weave of the wool, the thickness of the gold braid, and the shine on the brass buttons. "Label says Hartoon, London. But it could’ve come from anywhere, right? Designer boutique? Local resale shop?”
"As opposed to her flying in from London to go off the bridge? Yeah.”
"I didn’t hear an accent, not that you have to be English to live there.”
"Or visit and put down a credit card.”
Franticness and exhaustion pulled at me. What messages could there be in what I was holding on my lap? I inhaled slowly, concentrated on feeling the breath leave, did it a couple more times till I could really see again that brief time before I grabbed her and the scuffle began. "You were driving by, you blew the horn. She turned toward, and for an instant here’s what I thought, that she was like some girl who’d been carrying a torch for you all these years and suddenly there you were, beeping at her. And then she realized you weren’t—not at her.” I paused. "Were you?”
"No way. I was looking for you. Trying to see where you were on the bridge, gauge how long it’d be till you made it to the end. Her? I never saw her at all. Just you.”
I nodded, not that he noticed. "Okay. But her—if you’re on the brink of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, you’d’ve already squeezed dry every hope you had. If a horn sounded you wouldn’t look up. You’d go about your business—the business of killing yourself. But she didn’t.” I remembered her strange parting words. "You know what she said to me? 'I did one decent thing in my life and you ruined it.’”
"You saved her fucking life!”
The jacket was on my lap. It was at least something concrete to deal with. I ran my fingers over the soft wool. "Funny,” I said, "I wouldn’t have expected it to be soft.” I stretched the two small pockets that would have come at the bottom of her ribs. Empty. There was a slit pocket over the left breast, only an inch deep. "Wait, what’s this? Paper.” I had to pull it out between my first and second fingers. It was just a scrap of ordinary white paper—office paper—folded over and over into a narrow strip. There was nothing jotted down on it. It looked familiar in the way common things do. "It’s so little to go on. But we’ve got to find her. We can’t let her go home, put on a different jacket, and try again.”
"Very little.” The old Mike would have jumped in, eager for the challenge, sure he could have made it work. But now? Now, I realized, he was considering.
"What’s holding you back?” I needed to know. Otherwise, I’d have to admit to myself that this guy sitting next to me, inhabiting my brother’s body, was a stranger. He was the guy who’d lived somewhere else for twenty years, not the kid I’d grown up with. "What?” I prodded.
It was a moment before he said, "Nothing. I’m in.” I heard the words but could tell he still had one foot on the outside. He continued, "What’ve we got? Let’s assume she’s local, like you first figured. That narrows it to what, a million women?”
"We’ve got this paper,” I reminded him. I unfolded it. "Wait!” I grabbed for the flashlight. "There is something on it. Or was. Damn, why don’t people write in ink? Pull over!”
"What is it?”
"Number. Looks like phone, but it’s so smudged. Two oh . . . Two eight? One? Seven? I don’t—”
"I’ll do it,” the old Mike said.
"But there could be a hundred possible—”
"I’ll work it out.”
"But—”
"Hey, I’ve got ways. Connections. You’ll have the top ten by dawn! That’s when you Zen types like to get up, right?”
In spite of everything I grinned. This was old Mike! Making it work was his gift.
The first few bars of Audioslave’s "I Am the Highway” played.
"Your phone?”
He glanced down. "Mom.”
"Oh, wait. We can’t tell her about this, not right before your birthday dinner—”
Mike had been told, by more than one of us, but there was no way he could grasp the effect of this day. He hadn’t watched the stilted attempts at jollity, the cautious choice of topics unconnected to the past, us oh-so-carefully avoiding mention of the increasing time that had passed, the decreasing likelihood o
f his ever being found . . . alive. The type of thing the family of the woman on the bridge would have faced if she’d succeeded. But, being Mike, he’d intuited a lot and was intent on this year’s celebration blotting out all the bad years.
He clicked on the phone. "Hey, Mom. What’s cooking?” It was his old-time greeting, the joke being the same beef stew she always kept ready for us, our friends, and pretty much anyone any time. I could picture her smiling in a way she hadn’t the whole twenty years he’d been gone. We couldn’t undermine that. I glanced over and he gave me a thumbs up.
"Darcy’s gotta do some Zen stuff,” he said. "You know how it is, nothingness isn’t nothing. She’s going to drop me at the cable car—Hey, there’s one coming! Heat up a big bowl for me. Bye.” He pulled over and was out of the car before I could speak.
It wasn’t till he was hanging on the outside of the Hyde Street car, waving, that I realized he’d bolted before I got a chance to find out how he planned to go about translating that slip of paper into a name and address.
He could tell me now. After all, all he was doing was hanging on to the cable car pole. I rang his number.
He didn’t answer.
I dialed Mom. "Hi. Listen, when Mike gets there—”
"Mike’s coming?”
"You just . . . Isn’t he?”
"Not that I know of, honey. But if he does I’ll tell him to call you. And you’ll remember the rhubarb pie, right?”
"Yeah, Mom, his favorite. I’ll have it there before you put the salmon on. It’ll be a great day, won’t it?”
"The best.”
I hung up. If she hadn’t called him, who had? What had they said to make him burst out from behind the wheel and run for the cable car?
4
I slid over, pulled the seat a couple notches forward, and headed to North Beach to leave the car. But my driving was off, my hands grabbing hard to the wheel, and suddenly the tears I’d held threatened to burst out. It wasn’t just about the woman in red, but the brother who’d just been sitting next to me.
By the time I dumped the car I was glad to double-time it down Columbus ignoring the tables of outdoor diners scarfing pizza like it was just another fine night in North Beach. Who could blame them? The scene on the bridge wasn’t replaying in their heads.