Vicarious

by Paula Stokes

  As soon as Gideon disappears into his bedroom, I snatch the headset from the counter and remove the recording. I hurry down the hallway, duck into my room, and shut the door behind me. I set the untouched glass of water on my dresser, my eyes lingering for a few moments on my small collection of snow globes. Most of them are from cities where Jesse and I have recorded ViSEs or Gideon has traveled for work. I guess they’re an odd thing for someone like me to collect, but I like the idea of perfect moments captured in glass.

  As opposed to the worst moment ever, captured on a ViSE.

  I can’t bring myself to play the recording again. Why would anyone hurt my sister? Were they interrogating her? Is that why she was being drugged? Or was it simply a clean and convenient way to end someone’s life?

  Pulling the cover from my bed, I lie down on the floor. Regression, a voice whispers. I don’t care. Today of all days I am allowed to seek comfort in the past. I think of Rose and me as children, snuggled side by side on a bamboo mat, the heated floor beneath our bodies keeping us warm during the long chilly nights of winter. I think of us at the orphanage, on separate cots pushed close enough together so that we could reach out for each other in the night. And then later, in the hospital, Rose curled up against me. Two sisters, one bed.

  I wrap my arms around my comforter and pretend she’s here with me. Finally, my thoughts start to slow and my mind goes quiet. I’m not sure how much time passes before there is a sharp knock on my bedroom door.

  Reluctantly, I untangle myself from the folds of the blanket and rise to my feet. I cross the room and open the door.

  Gideon stands in the hallway. He looks as if he’s aged five years since this morning. “My cab is here,” he says. “I’ll see you the day after next.”

  I walk with him to the door of the penthouse and embrace him lightly as we exchange good-byes. Jesse is in the living room watching television. I must have slept through his arrival. His eyes lock onto mine. I try not to think about last night. Being here with Jesse might be scarier than being all alone.

  “So are you going to help me look for that hotel room?” I ask.

  Jesse studies me for a moment before responding. “Gideon said a detective was looking into that.”

  “Yes. A detective who said he’d try to get back with us in a couple of days. I want to do something now.” I shift my weight from one foot to the other.

  Jesse sighs. “I knew coming here was a bad idea.”

  “What?” I ask. “Gideon said we could try to find the hotel.”

  “He also said if we found anything we should tell him or Baz and not go check it out by ourselves.” Jesse arches an eyebrow. “That okay with you?”

  I perch on the arm of the sofa. “What if Gideon is wrong? What if she was just knocked out? She could be lying half-unconscious or injured somewhere. We should look for her just in case.” I’m not sure if I still believe in this possibility or if I’m just trying to convince Jesse to help me. I’m not sure what I believe in right now.

  “Winter.” Jesse presses the remote and the TV goes dark. “Gideon’s not wrong. He’s never wrong.”

  “Everyone is wrong sometimes.” I cross my arms. “And even if he’s not, we should find her, Jesse. She deserves a proper funeral.”

  “True,” he says. “So you’re saying you just want to check out the hotel if we can find it?”

  “I figure we can start by trying to talk to the desk clerk from last night. Oh, and I want to go to Inferno and ask if anyone saw anything.”

  Jesse rakes both hands through his thick brown hair. “Shit. You are impossible. I never should have volunteered for this. Gid almost fired me last month, you know? I’m trying to stay out of trouble.”

  “What did you do?” I ask. Gideon has never fired anyone to my knowledge. He’s too paranoid about his personal information getting leaked.

  “Something stupid,” Jesse says darkly.

  “Well, I won’t let him fire you—I promise.” I pause. “You know I wouldn’t willfully go against Gideon’s wishes, but I’ll go crazy if I do nothing. You saw me earlier, in the ViSE room. That’s what happens when I stop moving and start thinking. The blackness swallows me up.”

  Jesse shakes his head as he exhales deeply. “I hated seeing you like that. Okay. Inferno doesn’t open for hours. Grab your tablet. Let’s look for the hotel room.”

  I get my computer from my bedroom, taking a few minutes to change out of my dobok at the same time. When I return to the living room, Jesse has already found a list of local hotels along the Mississippi River with the GPS function on his phone. We search each website, but it’s tedious work, especially since some of them provide photos of only their most elegant suites.

  I flinch each time a room with a crisply made bed pops up on the screen. It’s like a door that’s been locked inside of me is slowly creeping open, spilling out a past I don’t want to acknowledge, let alone relive.

  “What about this one?” Jesse asks.

  Biting back a wave of revulsion, I force myself to concentrate on the computer screen. The web page is for the Riverlights Hotel and Casino. There’s a picture of their deluxe single. Plaster walls. Gray curtains. A navy bedspread.

  “It looks like the place,” I say. “Will you go there with me?”

  Jesse reaches out for my hand. My fingers fall easily between his. He squeezes gently. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  I nod. “I have to know for certain.”

  * * *

  Jesse parks in the hotel’s garage, so we have to cut through the casino to get to the Riverlights lobby. Solitary elderly people are lined up at the slot machines, their jaws going slack as they press buttons repeatedly. Ignoring them, I scan the small clusters of men hunched over the craps and blackjack tables. I don’t know if I’ll be able to identify either the recorder or the man who shot Rose full of drugs with almost nothing to go on, but both Jesse and I are wearing headsets under our winter hats so we can record everything we see. I search the whole room, looking for anyone who might be the same size and shape. Anyone who might look or feel familiar.

  Jesse strides up to the hotel’s front desk, where a red-haired clerk is flipping through a celebrity gossip magazine. Her long manicured nails curl under at the ends like talons.

  “Excuse me, miss,” Jesse says. “Did you work last night?”

  Her eyes narrow. “Maybe. Why?”

  He flashes her his perfect smile. “Do you remember seeing a blond woman in a red dress in here?”

  The woman snorts as she flips another page in her magazine. “That’s half of our weekend clientele,” she says. “You got a picture?”

  He turns to me. I fumble in my pocket for my phone. Flipping to the photo gallery, I am not surprised to find I have only one recent picture of Rose. She’s been known to sneak through people’s phones and delete any images of her she feels are even the slightest bit unflattering. The one she’s left me is dreamy-looking and slightly out of focus.

  The clerk raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Sorry. Don’t recognize her,” she says.

  “She’s Korean,” I say. “Really pretty.”

  “She might’ve been with two guys,” Jesse adds.

  The clerk smirks but then shrugs helplessly. “It doesn’t ring a bell.”

  Discouraged, I turn away from the front desk and walk to the large picture window that looks out onto the river. The twisting water beckons to me, its curves flashing deadly white. Jesse follows me and puts a hand on my arm.

  I shake off his touch. My heart pounds inside my chest, light and fast, a rabbit being chased by a cat. “I need to find her, Jesse. Even if she’s in the water.”

  He sighs. “Come on.” He tows me past the desk clerk who is busy texting on her phone. He bypasses the elevators and ducks into the stairwell. Our feet echo on the cold metal as we ascend to the second floor.

  “What are we doing?” I ask.

  “Making sure this is the right hotel. We can’t check the whole M
ississippi.”

  He’s right. We might not even have picked the correct river. There are other ones within driving distance of the city.

  The second-floor hallways are both empty. Undaunted, Jesse proceeds to the third floor. Empty. Then the fourth floor. A pair of doors are propped open halfway down the hall, a housekeeping cart parked just outside. Jesse takes my hand like we’re a couple returning from a leisurely lunch. As we stroll past the rooms where the maids are working, he looks into one and I scan the other. It’s more obvious in person than online. It’s the same gray curtains, the same navy-and-gold coverlets.

  We’re in the right place.

  “Now what?” I ask.

  “Now we can check the water.”

  My chest tightens as we descend back to the main level. We cross the gaming floor and head out into the cold. A MetroLink train hisses by on an elevated track, slowing near the far end of the parking lot to let off a group of casino patrons and hotel employees. I watch the stream of people disembark and head down the stairs, searching for any sliver of familiarity.

  “Winter. Let’s go.” Jesse rests a hand on my lower back and I turn away. A smooth concrete path littered with dead leaves and patches of ice leads toward the river. It’s just over the hill. What if the whole area is cordoned off with yellow police tape? What if I see Rose there, bobbing in the black water?

  “Are you going to be okay?” Jesse’s voice is full of concern.

  Are you going to be okay if we find her body? That’s what he means. I don’t answer.

  Jesse slips his hand in mine as we traverse the path, guiding me around the slick spots. I have to know. I repeat those four words over and over in my head like a mantra. We turn onto the street that runs along the riverbank. The frozen cobblestones glint like jewels in the sun. I don’t see any police tape or dead bodies. So far, so good.

  It’s not until we make our way down to the shoreline that I recognize the futility of our task. The river is wide, the current strong. The water is full of mud, driftwood, and litter. We’re going to be searching for Rose in a giant churning garbage dump. Even if she’s right in front of us, we might not find her.

  Jesse senses my hopelessness. “Come on,” he says. “I know where we can get a boat. Maybe things will look different on the river.”

  * * *

  On the river, things look even worse.

  Starting just north of the Riverlights Hotel and Casino, we cruise along the western bank in a motorboat Jesse borrowed from a guy who owns one of the riverfront restaurants.

  “It’s too big to search everywhere,” Jesse says. “I’m going to stay near the shorelines.”

  “Good idea,” I say. “She could have crawled up onto the bank somewhere.”

  He licks his lips like he wants to say something, but finally he just nods.

  “Do you see anything?” I ask. The riverbanks are a rainbow of grays and tans, the water greens and blacks. Complete contrast to Rose and her red dress.

  “Nothing,” Jesse says grimly. We hug the bank until we’re about a mile south of Riverlights, our eyes skimming the vegetation. The high grass is full of debris—beer bottles, dirty diapers, old truck tires—but there’s nothing that could be Rose. Jesse pilots the boat across the river. Water slams into clusters of rocks and driftwood in the middle, its fierce current occasionally sending a shard of broken wood tumbling downstream.

  The icy wind burns my skin and thrashes my hair against my face. I pull my hat down low over my ears. Jesse turns north and steers along the opposite bank. We’re fighting the current now, so it’s slow going. My eyes begin to water from the cold. Suddenly he yanks the wheel hard to the right so the hull is pressed up against the reeds and stops the motor.

  “What is it?” I ask. “What do you see?” I peer into the high grass but see nothing except clods of mud and a half-buried rubber tire. Wait, no. As the wind folds the vegetation away from me, I see a flash of red.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Eonni!” I am over the side of the boat before Jesse even brings it to a complete stop, sloshing through the knee-deep water.

  “Winter, wait.” Behind me, Jesse swears loudly.

  I ignore him. I ignore the wind biting at my exposed skin and the soft mud squeezing at my ankles. Pushing my way through the high grass, I make my way toward the red.

  Desperate.

  Hopeful.

  She could be alive.

  There has to be a chance.

  But as I draw close, I see it’s not my sister.

  It’s just a scrap of cloth tangled in the reeds.

  Jesse comes up behind me. He’s wearing gray hip waders that keep him dry. “Jesus Christ. You could’ve at least waited for me to anchor the boat.” He makes his way through the high grass and reaches out with one gloved hand to grab the scarlet fabric.

  “Let me see.”

  He tucks the red cloth into his pocket. “Once we’re out of the water.”

  I try to protest, but my teeth start chattering and I can’t get the words out. I turn and retrace my steps through the mud. Jesse helps me over the side of the boat. My whole body is shivering now, my pants soaked almost up to my knees.

  “Now let me see,” I demand.

  He pulls the ball of crumpled fabric from his pocket. He holds it up and a couple of sequins flutter to the floor of the boat like glittering drops of blood. Both of us stare at the red cloth without speaking. Then finally Jesse says, “It looks like part of her dress, right?”

  “That could be from anyone,” I say. “It could have been there for weeks.”

  “Fabric left in water would break down quickly. This can’t have been in the river for more than a few days.” Jesse’s voice is deadly serious.

  I hug my arms around myself for warmth. Inside of me, something snaps, subtle, pinching, like a guitar string. The scrap of red does look like a piece of her dress.

  * * *

  Jesse takes me home and follows me up the stairs to the penthouse. When I open the door and slide out of my shoes, he starts to do the same.

  “You don’t have to babysit me,” I say. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Nice try, but I promised Gideon I’d stay with you,” he says. “You need to get out of those wet clothes before hypothermia sets in. I could try my hand at making some tea if you want to take a bath or something.”

  “All right.” I am too hollowed out to argue.

  I show Jesse where I keep the loose tea and fresh herbs. Then I head for the bathroom. My knees buckle when I see all of Rose’s beauty products scattered across the vanity. Slumping to the tile floor, I pull my thighs up against my ribs, but tears elude me. When I played the ViSE, I felt like she was gone. Then, afterward, I let hope creep into my heart. But finding the fabric from her dress makes me realize I’m being stupid. Not stupid, crazy. I don’t want to let her go. It makes me think of something Dr. Abrams said once, about how the mind creates delusions because people simply cannot live with reality. And so we block out what we don’t want to remember and we change what we refuse to accept. That’s what I’m doing—making loopholes, finding irrational reasons to believe Rose is still alive. I’ve studied the neural sequences for death.… The science is definitive. I’m rejecting reality for my own version of events.

  Delusional. The word stings, even inside my own head.

  My wet jeans are sticking to my legs. I should be freezing, but I just feel numb. I curl my arms around my knees and dig my nails into my palms, embracing the pain. Jesse knocks on the door a few minutes later, probably wondering why there’s no water running. I don’t answer. He knocks again and then opens the door a tiny crack.

  I am coiled into a ball. Lifting my head, I see him looking in at me. I drop my face back to my knees.

  He slips inside the little room and sits down next to me. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I shake my head violently.

  We sit side by side for a few minutes, listening to each other breathe. Then Jesse says, “I�
�ve lost people close to me. I saw their bodies.” He looks over at me. “It doesn’t help. I don’t want you to have to go through that.”

  I blink rapidly. “I just can’t believe she’s gone.”

  “I know. It feels the same way even if you’re there. Even if you watch them die.” He leans back against the wall. “Everything sort of speeds up and slows down simultaneously. It’s like people are dying, but the pain, the blood—it doesn’t feel real.”

  “Jesse,” I whisper. I never thought about who else might have been injured alongside him in the army. I never thought about the people he might have lost.

  “Sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t make today about me.”

  “I don’t mind.” I reach up and run my fingertips along his scar. “Tell me. It might help.”

  Except for his accident, Jesse’s history is a blank to me. You can’t grill someone about his past without offering up some information about your own. I’ve never wanted him to know I used to be a sex worker, at first because I was embarrassed, and then later because I didn’t want it to wreck the apparent crush he has on me. As much as I try to deny his feelings, part of me thrives on them. I’m broken and he still likes me. I don’t want to give that up.

  He leans back against the bathroom wall and looks up at the ceiling. “I went into the army as soon as I turned eighteen. There was a critical need for MPs—military police—so they offered me a signing bonus. My parents told me not to go. My mom worried I’d get hurt. My dad is just not a huge fan of the American government.”

  I have never heard Jesse talk about his parents before. For some reason I imagined he was an orphan like me. “Where are your parents?”

  “They’re in Albuquerque,” he says. “Anyway, I was nineteen by the time I deployed. My job was basic—be part of a routine checkpoint on a road that led to a makeshift US camp in Afghanistan. Easy breezy,” he continues bitterly. “Locals come. We stop them. We check their cars for weapons or explosives. We let them go.” He rubs at his disfigured ear. “There were five of us working that day. We had just finished our shift and were heading back to camp. I was driving. It was dark. We were all tired. I remember my staff sergeant was telling a joke, something about a one-legged man in a bar. I should have been paying better attention. Maybe then I would’ve seen something.” He says all of this in an emotionless, clinical manner, like he’s practiced it before. I can almost see him sitting at a table with a couple of superior officers, going through the story one piece at a time while someone takes notes and fills out paperwork.