The Lost Night

by Andrea Bartz

  He rubbed his eyes with his fists. “Shit, Lindsay. You really want to know?”

  I nodded.

  “It’s exactly what you already know. Edie was avoiding us. Kevin left to go play a show and the rest of us took a bunch of shots—gin or something, something bad—and headed to the show. You got surprisingly drunk, so you said you were gonna go home.”

  “So I did go to the concert?”

  “Yeah.” He frowned. “As far as I can remember. You were there, right? Or did you leave right before?”

  “I’m not sure, which is creepy. I know I was out front and a random girl called a car for me.” I shook my head. “If only there were some way I could just go back and look, you know? Something that could tell me what happened.” Would he bring up the camera? Did he even remember it?

  He put on his man-laying-out-the-truth voice. “Lindsay, there was nothing any of us did or didn’t do that led to Edie’s suicide. It doesn’t work like that. It sucks, and I know we all wish things had gone down differently, but it just is what it is. She was clearly a very troubled girl.”

  So faraway, another cheesy line from a movie. Again, I tried it on: About two months after the breakup, could Alex have walked over to Kevin’s open chest, picked up the weapon, and pulled the trigger? Dropped it in his panic and tapped out some semblance of a suicide note? Absurd. But there had been no signs of a struggle, just Edie in her underwear, high on ecstasy and still frozen—in Alex’s mind—midcoitus with Lloyd.

  How well does anyone really know their friends? Edie was proof that the answer is: not well at all.

  I let the conversation veer back into normalcy, tapering off the sniffles and throwing in a few snappy jokes to prove everything was all right. He kissed my cheek as we hugged good night, and then we headed in opposite ways in the dank post-rain night.

  * * *

  As soon as I got home, I poured La Croix over a pile of ice cubes and called Tessa, omitting the detail that stuck out like a blinking light: our fingers, interwoven.

  “God. As if he weren’t looking sketchy enough already,” she said, after I brought her up to speed. “Means, motive, and opportunity, right?”

  “I know.” I sank into my couch. “God, I really don’t want it to be him. I’ve always liked him, you know? And I always thought it was so noble that he and Edie kept living together after the breakup. Which is ironic, I guess, if that’s what put him over the edge.”

  “I’m worried about you,” she said. “If he really did this and he thinks you’re getting close to figuring it out…”

  Alex wouldn’t hurt me, right? I stood up and slid the curtains closed. “It’s not like I could go to the police right now. I have no proof.”

  “I know. But…maybe it’s time to cool it on pressing him. He knows you met with Sarah, who was the first person to suspect that Edie was murdered, right? And now you get in touch all full of questions…”

  She was right, but I told my thousandth lie of the day. “I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”

  We’d said good night and were about to hang up when I blurted it out: “Is everything okay?”

  There was a long silence, which told me everything.

  “Tessa, what’s up?”

  “It’s nothing, we don’t need to talk about it.”

  “Are you kidding? I’m here. You can talk to me.”

  A swallow, then a sniff. “It’s just…we’re okay. Will just found out he’s not getting his bonus this year, and we were already barely keeping up with the mortgage on the Saugerties place, and now with this baby coming…” Her voice cracked.

  “Oh, Tessa, I’m sorry. That’s so stressful.”

  “Thanks.” She kind of laughed. “And everything I’ve read about pregnancy is like, whatever you do, do not flood your body with stress hormones because it’ll mess up the fetus, so I’m doubly freaking out about—”

  “—about the fact that you’re freaking out,” I finished. “Aw, Tessa. I want to give you a hug through the phone. Should I come over?”

  “No, it’s okay. We’re seeing his parents next week and they’ll probably want to help and it’ll all be fine.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I try to be sensitive of whom I’m complaining to. I know it’s kind of shitty to be like, ‘Ooh, my house, and my husband, and my baby.’ ”

  Hearing it so bluntly, I teared up, too. I had no idea she’d been shielding me. “Honestly, you really don’t need to think like that,” I said. “This sounds weird, but it actually…it kind of helps? I mean, it sounds awful to say it makes me feel better, but, like, it reminds me that life is still life, and ticking those boxes doesn’t magically make everything better.”

  “We all have our shit,” she agreed. I did feel better, and I struggled to home in on whether or not that was a betrayal. “I mean, especially with all this crazy Edie stuff.”

  “I’m fine,” I told her again, pierced by the change of subject. “I’m okay.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t until I was changing into my pajamas that something hit me, a breaker of fear and fury, horror at Alex, jagged resentment and disgust and those barbs of jealousy toward Edie, dead and gone and still messing with me anyway.

  “Fuck this,” I whispered aloud, because I was done, done scuba diving in the past, unearthing horrible things about my friends that I couldn’t share and would never unknow. Suddenly I was crying so hard that it was like I’d never existed outside of this cry. I smeared the tears so they stung, then flopped down and slept with the yellow lights on overhead.

  Chapter 9

  Around noon the next day, my phone chimed. “Hey, it’s Josh!” it read, exclamation point standing tall. “How’s it going?”

  I was supposed to wait—Edie would have demanded it, she’d been my flirt-texting Cyrano back in the day—but I figured this kid might as well know now that dating a thirty-three-year-old does not leave room for bullshit games.

  “Hey!” I texted back. “Just at work. How are you?”

  I stared at the screen until I saw he was typing back.

  He stopped typing. Fuck me.

  “Just walking in Brooklyn Bridge Park.”

  Now what? Tease him for making it sound like he’s jobless? Say something about the park? Why hadn’t he asked a follow-up question? What Would Edie Do?

  “I can see DUMBO from my building,” I typed. “Wave.” I’d have to actually enter a conference room to look east, but, technicality.

  No response. Two minutes passed, then three.

  Then: “Ha, nice, you in FiDi?”

  “Yep. How are things on your side of the river?” God, I was bad at this.

  “View’s better from here. You’re only one ferry stop away.”

  What did that mean? An invitation? A statement of fact?

  Then he wrote again: “I’m by Ignazio’s. Come have pizza with me.” Three pizza-slice emojis to underscore his point.

  Something pitched in my chest. Damien walked by just then, so I pulled him in.

  “Wait, who is this?” he screeched, delighted.

  I blushed as I scrambled for something to say—I hadn’t mentioned that I’d been stalking Edie’s ex and couldn’t think of a suitable meet-cute for a guy ten years my junior. Damien had moved on from the Edie mystery and I didn’t want him to know how fixated I’d remained.

  “He’s waiting!” I spat, handing him the phone. “He’s a dude I met. Answer now, info later.”

  Damien scrolled. “Well, do you want to have pizza with him?”

  “I mean, sure! Yeah.”

  “Hmm.” He stroked his chin stubble.

  “Can I just say that? Pizza, sure?”

  Damien looked up, eyes sparkling, and I dropped my face into my hands. “I am horrible at this.”

  Damien started typing. “What kind of pizza do you
like?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Damn it, Lindsay, this is not a drill! What kind of pizza!”

  “Uhhh, I don’t know! Pepperoni!”

  He hit send and handed the phone back to me just as my cheeks started to hurt from laughing. He’d written: “Meet me at the dock. I’ll take pepperoni.”

  “What the hell, Damien! He’s supposed to bring me pizza to go?”

  “I’m really glad you said pepperoni. Because it’s phallic.” He leaned on my desk and sighed happily. “Mystery man, bring me your big, hard pepperoni.”

  “Jesus Christ. He’s writing back.” We both leaned in to watch.

  “You got it. Be there in twenty or I’m eating both slices myself.”

  Damien whooped. I gathered my things, ignoring his screeching request for more explanation.

  “If you’re not back in an hour, I’m calling the Coast Guard,” he called as I hustled to make the 12:30 ferry.

  * * *

  I stepped onto the dock in DUMBO and spotted Josh, back behind the gate and clutching a greasy white bag. We waved hello when I was still twenty feet out and then he lifted the food up near his head; I gave a dorky thumbs-up. Finally we were together and he gave me a one-armed hug hello, with one of those little air pecks somewhere near my ear. He was handsomer than I remembered, tall and broad-shouldered. Why did he want anything to do with me?

  “Hi!” I said. “Is that for me?”

  “Half of it. I got the same thing.”

  “Can’t go wrong with a classic.” Everything I said dated me. My dating skills are dated, I thought crazily. I date datedly.

  “Should we sit down?” We settled on a bench, looking out at the skyline, a mosaicked cliff of brick and glass.

  “Which building is yours?” he asked. I pointed it out: a gleaming silver one next to a big black spire.

  “That’s the Tress building, right?”

  “Yeah, I work at Sir magazine.”

  “Seriously? I used to read that!”

  “Not anymore?”

  “I think my subscription ran out. Wow, what do you do?”

  “I’m the research chief.”

  “So you research the articles?” He’d succeeded in sliding out the slices, each on its own paper plate.

  “Not exactly. I fact-check the articles after they’ve been written. Well, I lead the team that does.” He handed me the top plate, which was probably a nice gesture, but it meant its bottom was soaked with oil, so I couldn’t set it on my lap. I pleated the slice and took a bite.

  “Wow, so you’re a boss lady.”

  “I guess. Tell me more about what you do.”

  “You know, it’s just boring operations stuff.”

  “Do you want to be an architect eventually?”

  “Not really. I studied civil engineering and got really into the technology piece: 3-D printing and advanced CAD, that kind of stuff. Kinda figured I’d end up at a startup, but they hired me first.”

  “Well, they do have a cornhole room,” I cracked. He smiled, chewing. “What’s it like working for Greg?”

  “Oh, he’s the best. Really good guy, really smart. Everybody loves him.”

  “Are you just saying that because he dated my friend? You can be honest. She dumped him.”

  “No, I’m serious, he’s awesome. Your friend really missed out.” He shot me that beautiful goddamn grin, and something between my chest and stomach cartwheeled.

  “All right, I believe you.” I worked up something new. “So how long have you been there?”

  “Two years last month.”

  “Since right after college?” Please let him be older than twenty-four.

  “Yep!”

  Twenty-four, then. A barge glided by, majestic in the sun’s glare.

  “And do you like it?”

  He shrugged. “It’s good, they treat us well. Eventually I’ll probably start my own company.”

  Right, easy as pizza pie. “Doing what?”

  “Probably with 3-D modeling. Making it more accessible to the masses.”

  “So that the masses can do…what?”

  “Whatever they want. Print their own custom orthotics. Or jewelry. Or, like, a bust of their great-grandfather. There are instructions online now for printing and constructing a functional handgun.”

  Handgun. This was the arrhythmic pattern of the last couple of weeks: periods of distraction, of time passing normally, and then screeeh, jolt, and crash.

  “Do you think that has, you know, ethical implications?” I dabbed my lips with a napkin.

  “I don’t know. It’s just a tool. You know the phrase: Guns don’t kill people—people with guns kill people. So it’s kind of a stretch to say that people who design 3-D models for guns kill people. Right?”

  I sighed. “I guess. I mean, I grew up in a gun family; I’m not anti-gun. It’s just…wild to think about.”

  “What would you wanna print out?” he said.

  “Ohhh, gosh. Well, definitely not a gun.” Two assholes careened by on blue and white Jet Skis. “When will we be able to 3-D print a time machine?”

  He laughed. “Once we master quantum physics. We’re getting there.”

  “You think?”

  “Sure.”

  I thought for a moment. “That would make it 4-D modeling!”

  He chuckled. “When would you go back to?”

  August 2009, obviously, so I could stay home that night. Maybe order sushi, walk over to Videology, and rent a DVD.

  “It’s funny we always talk about time machines transporting us back in time, right?” I said after a moment. “You could jump ahead, too.”

  “That’s true. And it’d be a lot easier to go that way, if we could just figure out how to move at the speed of light.”

  “I guess that’s less appealing, since we eventually reach the future, anyway,” I said.

  A ferry tooted its horn.

  “A physicist would argue that we’re always in the now,” he replied.

  “So would a philosopher.”

  He laughed. “This is pretty heavy for a pizza lunch.”

  He caught my eye and held his perfect smile, his thick hair rumpling in the wind, and for a moment, a small, embarrassing part of me wondered if he was my time machine, my wormhole back to when I was twenty-three and happy and free.

  * * *

  “So did you guys have sex on the dock?” Damien called as soon as I got back to my office, loud enough for others to hear.

  “Damien!” I beckoned him in and closed the door. “I found out he’s twenty-four years old. And he brought me my own slice of pizza. I feel like the prettiest girl in all of high school.”

  He laughed, his eyes glittering. “You said you were chubby in high school, right? Chubby High School Lindsay would be cheering this hot bitch on.” He leaned against the door. “Chubby Lindsay would have eaten a whole pie.”

  “All right, all right.” I spun slowly in my chair. “I can’t even believe I went out with someone so young.”

  “It was just pizza. Does he know your age?”

  “No, and now that I haven’t mentioned it yet, I feel like it’s this dirty secret.” I laughed. “Do I have my graduation year on LinkedIn? He must never know.”

  “He’s probably into the fact that you’re older and wiser.” Damien considered. “But he clearly isn’t just in it for the sex, because you hung out midday. This is fascinating. Maybe the youngs have, like, circled back to playing the long game.”

  “I’ll take what I can get.”

  “How did you meet this kid?”

  “I just stopped into…my doctor switched floors and I accidentally wound up at the wrong suite number,” I said evenly. Was I getting good at this? “I asked for directions and we ended up cha
tting for a minute. So wild.”

  He nodded approvingly. “Okay, so what would Fat High School Lindsay say?”

  “Hey, wasn’t I Chubby Lindsay a minute ago?”

  “Adorable either way. Oh, speaking of being fat kids together, are we getting dinner before the show tonight?”

  “The show?”

  “Alvin Ailey. Don’t tell me it’s not on your calendar.”

  Oh, Christ. “I didn’t forget! Just…I mean I did right now, but I’m in. It’s at Lincoln Center, right?” Damien loves modern dance and always gets us pairs of plush seats at the major companies’ shows, Cedar Lake, Martha Graham, Paul Taylor. (Except for that brief period in 2016 after Damien dated a Paul Taylor dancer, then broke up with him on the basis of bad conversation and disappointingly uncalisthenic sex; Paul Taylor had been unmentionable for two whole seasons.) We get dressed up—nothing annoys Damien like attendees in jeans and sneakers—and sit together, enthralled, watching athletes spin their art.

  “Yep, Lincoln Center.” Damien headed for the door. “I’ll get us dinner reservations in the neighborhood. I can tell you forgot, Linds. Put on some lipstick.”

  * * *

  As we walked to the 1 train, weaving around the after-work mobs, Damien chattered away about his Labor Day plans, the final Fire Island trip. A part of me was grateful that he was over the Edie drama—he was an unchanged figure in the murk of swirling unknowns. I didn’t want to tell another soul about Alex, about what he’d probably done, because saying it might make it true. The secret was like a storm cloud, growing larger under my skin.

  At dinner, too, I tried to be upbeat, tried to keep up my end of the conversation and remark at appropriate times. Greg had been another dead end, but out of it had come a few feel-good minutes with Josh, time that reminded me that there’s a here and now. And if I was really going to close the book on Edie, I had to come back online, to an era when we weren’t guzzling shots and bumming cigarettes and dancing with strangers and always moving just a little faster than real life, jerky and frenetic like early motion pictures. Maybe Edie didn’t need me revisiting her final hours. Maybe I didn’t need to know whether I had made it to the concert or what’d happened after I’d opened her door and turned off my camera. Maybe the past really had passed.