by Wendy Walker
“We went on three dates in total, if you count the night we met,” Sylvia continued. “The first two times, he was a perfect gentleman. Paid for the drinks. Paid for dinner the second night. Opened doors for me, listened to me. He was the reason I had doubts about my boyfriend—you know? He was everything Dan isn’t. But when I look back on it, I can see how he paid careful attention to everything I said, and, yes, I lied about still being with Dan. But we’re not married. We don’t live together. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just as bad as he is.”
She stopped, took a sip of coffee. It felt like forever.
“So what happened?” Rosie asked finally. “Why did you agree to meet me in the middle of the night?”
Sylvia looked up, suddenly hesitant.
“Please,” Rosie said. “I need to know what might have happened last night.”
“Look, I don’t know if this is going to help you find your sister. It’s hard to talk about it. It’s humiliating.”
“I don’t think any of us get through life without doing something humiliating.”
Sylvia smiled softly. Exhaled. Looked into her coffee.
“I just wanted to be sure, you know? About Dan. Before we got married or had kids. I’d never thought about it until I met Buck at that bar. He was so attentive, you know? And Dan, well … he’s not exactly a talker. It made me wonder if I was rushing into things. I had feelings for this guy instantly. He was emotional and intelligent. He even cried when he told me about his divorce.”
“So Jonathan Fields…” Rosie said, thinking out loud. “I mean Buck, or whoever he is. This man”—she pointed again at his picture—“he liked to talk?”
“You have no idea how good he is. It was as though he could read my mind. Everything I brought up, he had something clever or insightful to say about it. He never looked bored or antsy. Intellectual, well-read, you know? I honestly thought I was falling in love with him right then and there, by the end of the third date. That night, we met at a place downtown.…”
“On Richmond?” Rosie asked.
“Near there. On Main—one block over.”
“The car my sister was driving was found on Richmond! Did you go to his apartment?”
Sylvia shook her head. “No. But he asked me to go there—all three times I saw him. We talked for hours. I told him it was too soon for me to go to his place—maybe next time. This whole thing about sex on the third date—it’s ridiculous, and I wasn’t falling for it. So he suggested we go for a walk. He wasn’t put off at all—or so it seemed. And I was really attracted to him. It filled me with so much confusion and guilt, but also this passion I hadn’t felt for so long. He was inside my head. I don’t know how else to describe it.
“We went down this side street. He said he wanted to show me something. It was some kind of gallery. It was closed, of course, and the street was empty. It was after midnight. He showed me this painting in the window. He said his friend painted it. Total bullshit, I found out—the artist was dead. But that’s not the point.”
Sylvia leaned in close, lowered her voice. Her eyes scanned the small dining room, which was still as empty as it had been when Rosie had arrived.
“There was an alley between the art gallery and the next building. That was why he’d brought me there. He grabbed my hand and pulled me just inside, between the buildings. Just a little bit—so little that I still felt visible from the street. He said he couldn’t stand not kissing me for one more second. And then he did—he kissed me. And it was just like the way he got into my head and took over my thoughts—he did that to the rest of me in that alley. To my body. It was all so gradual, so natural and perfect that I didn’t even know what was happening really until my face was pressed against the side of that building and he was inside me.…”
She stopped then. Closed her eyes and shook her head quickly, as though trying to erase the memory that was before her now.
When she opened her eyes again, she blinked away tears.
“I want to be clear, though. He didn’t assault me. There was no force. Just brilliant seduction. He made me want him. He clearly expected sex on the third date and he got it.”
Rosie reached across the table and took her hand. “I’m so sorry.” She meant it, but still, this couldn’t be the end. This couldn’t just be about seduction and regret. Unless her fears were right. Unless Laura’s regret had turned to rage.
“Can I ask you what happened after that? If you saw him again?”
Sylvia slid her hand away and folded it into her lap.
“Everything changed. As soon as he had my face pressed against that wall, everything tender and loving about him turned ugly. He started saying things to me, in my ear. Dirty talk, they call it, but I had never heard it that dirty. That filthy and degrading. He bit down on my earlobe until it bled. And he was so rough and crude. When it was over, he couldn’t wait to get rid of me. He barely waited for me to straighten my clothes—he zipped up his pants and started walking. I had to run to catch up to him.”
“Jesus,” Rosie said, imagining the scene.
“Look—I’m not naïve. And it’s not the first time I’ve been in a situation that wasn’t—you know—a relationship. I’m not the girl who thinks every guy she sleeps with wants to marry her.”
Sylvia pressed her hand on the man’s picture. “But this man is sick. He walked ahead of me the whole way back to the restaurant. He said something like thanks. And then he walked away. Just like that. He didn’t walk me to my car. He didn’t kiss me good night. He was making a point of it. Like he wanted to make sure he made me feel as used as he possibly could. I don’t think it was about the sex. He wanted to hurt me. But that’s not all.…”
She laughed then, a maniacal burst that came from deep inside her.
“I waited two days before texting him. The worst two days of my life. The facts were all there, and the feeling in my gut as well, but I clung to this shred of hope that I was wrong. That he was just awkward or kinky or something, but that the rest of it, the conversation and the way he looked at me and made me feel, was genuine. Because if I was that wrong about him … if I could be so easily manipulated … then the world felt like it was turned upside down. Like nothing was real.”
Rosie didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. She was picturing Laura with this man, wondering if she would be able to see through it. She was so good at that, at seeing people. Unless they were men offering the hope of love.
“You probably think I’m just an idiot,” Sylvia said after a short while.
“No!” Rosie said. “That’s not what I was thinking. We can’t live our lives never trusting anyone. That would be miserable.”
“Well, maybe so. But when I finally texted him, the number was unrecognizable. It was gone. Some kind of burner phone. TracFone. Disposable. His names were all fakes. He was done with me and he made sure I had no way to find him. I tried. Google. Facebook, other social apps. He was gone. And I was left with my guilt and shame, but also, you know what?”
“What?” Rosie asked.
“Gratitude. For Dan. For that boring guy who sits on the couch watching football and doesn’t hear a word I say, but loves me and is honest and loyal and doesn’t call me a cunt when we’re making love. That man, Billy or Buck, or Jonathan or whoever the hell he is—he’s sick and he’s a liar. He’s never who he says he is. But I try now to think of him as a gift. Because he showed me what kind of monsters are out there.
“Promise me,” she said then, taking hold of Rosie’s arm this time. “Promise me that you will never tell anyone about this. I can’t lose what I have. Not over this. Please.”
“Of course,” Rosie reassured her. “I won’t say a word. But can you just sit with me a little longer? Tell me more things about him, the stories he told, things he said about his past, anything—it might help me find him. And then find my sister.”
Sylvia nodded. “Okay,” she said. “But then you have to promise me another thing.”
“Name it.”
NINETEEN
Laura. Session Number Eleven. Two Months Ago. New York City.
Dr. Brody: It can become confused in the mind. Intimacy and sex. Power and sex.
Laura: You sound like an article in Cosmo.
Dr. Brody: I know. It’s cliché. Do you remember when it changed? You used to find power through other things—chasing vampires and climbing trees. Even school and sports.
Laura: Jumping through hoops.
Dr. Brody: Maybe. But it changed, didn’t it? What brought that change?
Laura: It’ll sound absurd to you.
Dr. Brody: Try me.
Laura: It was a kiss. Everything changed with one kiss.
TWENTY
Laura. The Night Before. Thursday, 10:30 p.m. Branston, CT.
Jonathan Fielding lives in a nice building, with navy blue carpeting in the hallways and beige wallpaper. All of the trim is gold, so it looks elegant and fancy. Maybe a bit old-fashioned, but that’s normal for this town.
We don’t speak in the elevator. We don’t speak as we walk down the hall to his door. Or when he finds the key and puts it in the lock, turns the knob, and lets us in.
“Here it is,” he says, finally. “Home sweet home.”
Only it’s not sweet at all. And it doesn’t feel like anybody’s home. It’s close to empty.
He deciphers my expression and makes a preemptive excuse.
“I know, I know.” His hands are held up in front of him, head bowed like he’s making an apology. Humble. Contrite. “I haven’t had time to get it properly furnished.”
That’s an understatement.
I walk in and look wall to wall. On the left is the kitchen. It’s very white and clean, as though it rarely gets used. There is nothing on the counter except take-out menus and plastic silverware. Not even a saltshaker. Not even a dirty glass he didn’t have time to put in the dishwasher.
Dead center is the living room. There’s a small sofa against the wall. It’s black leather and has no pillows. It faces the opposing wall where a very large television sits on the floor, propped up on a temporary stand. It’s waiting to be hung. Beside it is a cable box and some wires going into the wall.
There is nothing else. Not a coffee table. Not a painting or a picture or a rug. Absolutely. Nothing.
“Okay,” I say skeptically as I gather this information along with the other things he’s told me over the past three hours.
He said he’s been divorced for a year. He said he lived here even before that and worked here as well. He said he only commuted to the city a few times a month.
More things to add to my list of concerns—with the car and the woman (yes, I add her back on the list now) and the fact that he’s stayed here voluntarily, in this small town where he has to get dates on a website.
I begin my inquisition.
“So tell me you moonlight for the CIA.”
He laughs nervously. Throws his keys on the bare kitchen counter. They make a loud noise as they slide across it. There’s nothing on the counter to stop them.
“What?” he asks.
“You’ve been here a year and all you have is one sofa? Didn’t you get anything from your old house? I thought people divided things up when they got divorced.”
Eyebrows raised, tilted head. Wry smile. That crooked smile. Is it endearing? Or was I wrong before? Is it smug?
“I know. I just … I didn’t want any of it. It all reminded me of her and our life together. It’s not like I still love her or anything. But it is the death of a dream, right? The dream I had of a family and all that.”
Hmmm … Jonathan Fielding, you can do better than that. Can’t you?
“But then you didn’t just make a run to IKEA and load up? Do you even have any dishes?”
Jonathan Fielding opens a cupboard and points proudly to a set of white plates and glass tumblers.
“You want a drink?” he asks, changing the subject.
“Sure,” I say. But I return to the subject. “Seriously. You’ve really been here for a year? Living like this?”
He has a bottle of scotch and he pours two glasses.
“I know. It’s pathetic. Maybe we can go to IKEA on our next date … assuming you still want to have one. I do. I know that much.”
He hands me the scotch and leads me to the sofa in the otherwise empty room.
We sit on opposite ends. Still, it’s small and when he pulls one knee up onto the cushions, he’s one lean away from me.
“Tell me more about the fun things. The good things,” he says. “It sounds like you have great memories of your childhood—with your sister and her husband and the other kids in the neighborhood. It must have been incredible to grow up next to all those woods.”
Well, when you put it that way …
“I guess it was happy in some ways.” I say this and I somehow even believe it. Yet the word “happy” is not quite right. I try to clarify.
“It’s strange, though. I can pick out certain moments that, in my mind, right now, play back as joyful. Like—oh my God! How we used to tightrope across this enormous fallen tree. And right below it was the nastiest pool of mud and skunk cabbage you can imagine. I nearly fell in it once, but I dug my nails into the bark of that tree so hard that I was able to hang on and shinny to the other side.…”
Joy.
“But then other times, I remember this unrest that was always there, casting a shadow on everything.”
Anger.
“Well, that was your father, right? Your mother knowing he was cheating. Crying in the kitchen to your neighbor—what was her name?”
“Mrs. Wallace. Gabe’s mother.”
“Right—of course you were unsettled. Your very foundation was like quicksand.”
I nod solemnly. It was all Dick’s fault. So neat and tidy.
I change back to the joy.
“I had my first kiss in those woods.”
“Really!” he says, and I feel him shift a little closer. I didn’t mean to be provocative. But now it’s too late.
“It was nothing romantic—believe me! There were seven or eight of us. We were playing spin the bottle by this fort we’d made with a piece of plywood.”
“Very high-tech.”
“Yes. Very,” I say, smiling now. “Rosie and Joe weren’t there. I’d brought two friends home from school. Gabe was there. His brother, Rick, but only because of this girl, Noelle, who also lived on our street at the time and was in Rick’s grade. I think she had a friend as well.”
Jonathan Fielding adjusts himself with nonchalance, but manages to move a little closer.
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen, maybe. Joe and Rosie were together by then, so they were sixteen and seventeen. Gabe was sixteen as well. His brother was about eighteen. I don’t know—we were all teenagers.”
“A giant pool of raging hormones.”
“Ugh…” I cringe at the image he’s put before me. “Anyway—there were three boys there. One of them I didn’t even know and I can’t remember his name—can you believe that? The first boy I ever kissed and I don’t even know his name.”
“That always seemed strange to me, that game. Kissing friends in front of other people, then watching them kiss other friends.”
“I only played that one time, but I didn’t like any of the boys that way and thank God the bottle never landed on Gabe. He was my best friend, so that would have been awkward.”
This was not entirely true. I would come to like one of those boys after that day. If like and desire are one and the same.
“I’m just saying—as a guy—that it would have been more than weird. He would never have looked at you the same way.”
“He was like my big brother, so I don’t think he would have even done it. It would be like kissing Joe. Can you imagine if he’d been there?
Jesus.”
A little closer now, with a shift of his leg, a move of his elbow.
“It sounds a little incestuous—your neighborhood. Growing up together like that, and then Rosie and Joe getting married. They know everything about each other. Sometimes I think it’s good to have some things you keep to yourself, or only share with people you aren’t involved with. People who can be objective.”
“And who won’t use your past to win arguments over who has to take out the garbage.”
“Exactly!”
Awkward silence. I drink more scotch. Thank God for scotch. He takes my glass. He gets up and goes to the kitchen. I hear ice cubes. I hear them crack when the liquor hits them.
“So you kissed that one guy whose name you don’t remember. But not Gabe. And the other boy who was there—Gabe’s brother?”
He returns, hands me the drink. Sits noticeably closer and I realize he got us refills for this sole purpose. There have been many kisses since that first kiss. I know what’s what.
“Yeah—Rick. He was a bad kid. Down to his bones. He spent nine months a year at military school in Virginia, but he came home for a few summers. His mother used to cry about him to my mother in our kitchen. She was actually relieved when he joined the army.”
“And you had to kiss this guy?”
“Yeah. Kind of killed the whole first kiss thing—the guy I didn’t know and the guy I wished I didn’t know. But it was really short—he was a little scared of me, to be honest.”
“Scared of you? Why?”
“A few years before I…” Heart pounds. Wave of adrenaline. Fight-or-flight reaction surges in an instant. The human body in top form.
I can’t tell this story, but now I’ve started it. I go for a modification.
“… I used to tell on him when he was mean to us. I think I’m the reason he got sent away to military school.”
“Oh shit—he must have hated you.”
“I don’t care. He used to pick fights with everyone all the time—even his brother. One was pretty bad. I saw him fighting with Gabe by the fort and I started yelling that I would tell their mother. Rick threw one last punch then ran off. Told me to go fuck myself first, which was nice since I was only eleven.”