Don't You Cry (12 page)

Alex

He walks with an abnormal gait. His footsteps are short, the weight of his body placed more on the heels of his feet rather than the soles or the toes. It isn't overly evident, and yet it is unmissable as I trail Dr. Giles by a good twenty paces to keep from being discovered. I probably walk with a gait abnormality, too, as I creep warily down the street, hiding behind tall, fat oak trees any time he so much as breathes. I've got my cell in the palm of a hand, texting invisible digits onto the screen so I can play possum if he turns around and sees me. Though I've got the phone on vibrate to deflect the sound of any incoming calls.

Dr. Giles didn't plan on walking home. He planned on driving in his car, a functional sedan parked in the driveway of the blue cottage where he keeps his office. Though a lot of people walk or ride bikes in these parts, even when the temperature drops to a meager forty-five degrees, that wasn't the reason Dr. Giles walked home. The reason? The puncture holes in the tire of his car, rendering the tire flat. I watched from the street as he ran his hand over the gashes, as he stared at the flattened tire in dismay. Probably a slow leak thanks to a nail or a rock. Or maybe somebody slashed his tire. Who knows?

And so he turned and walked home, leaving the car behind.

Dr. Joshua Giles is a good-looking guy. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think so. Not that I'm into that kind of thing, but he just
is
. He's a good-looking guy, and he knows it, too. That's the worst part. That's what makes me mad. He's tall, maybe six foot two or six foot three. Dark hair and eyes, the kind that women seem to like. He wears trendy, thick, black-framed glasses that hide his kindhearted eyes. I wonder if they're natural, those eyes, or if that's something they teach you in shrink school. To have kind eyes. A sympathetic smile. A rhythmic, measured nod. A solid handshake. I'm guessing it's all a ruse.

He dresses nicely. While I've got on ripped jeans and a hooded sweatshirt the color of gunmetal and torn at the hem, the drawstring missing, he's got on some kind of dressy, olive-colored pants dad-types wear. Not my dad, but other people's dads. Working dads. I have no idea what else is tucked under the black topcoat, but whatever it is, I'm guessing it's classy. And then there's the leather satchel that swings from the palm of his hand, all the way through town and into the adjoining neighborhoods where the burghers live, the rich people, in the older but renovated historic homes—Tudor cottages and American foursquare homes—that Pops and I couldn't afford. Everyone knows that's where the rich people live, tucked behind their decorative metal fences and sweeping lawns. It's a scant quarter-mile walk from Main Street in the opposite direction of my own house, overlooking Lake Michigan from a small bluff. From up on the hilltop, these homes overlook the downtown area, the fringes of town, the lake.

It's dark by the time we arrive. Cars drive past us, slowly heading home from work. Their headlights are on, navigating the way home. At some point a cell phone rings—his, not mine—and I freeze in place like a chipmunk, entirely motionless. The wind blows through me rather than around. It hurls itself right to my core, making everything down to my liver and spleen cold. “Hello,” he says, pausing on the street, answering the phone. His voice is gentle, telling the person on the other end of the line that he'll be home soon. He got held up at work; he's running late. He doesn't mention the tire of the car. He sounds strange and hollow in the vacancy of the nighttime street, his voice bouncing off concrete and trees. The call is short and sweet, laced with words like
darling
and
dear
. His wife. And then they say their goodbyes and he ends the call.

He walks quickly, the sound of his feet taking consistent steps on the pavement. I walk quickly, though my steps are silent. He steps over a pothole on the narrow street. I do, too. At one point he pauses and turns around, as if he knows he's in pursuit, and I fall quickly to the street in the prone position behind a parked car, feeling like an idiot as I do, but I do it, anyway, waiting, holding my breath, until the shrink gives up and continues on his way.

As Dr. Giles pushes through a squeaky metal fence and hikes up the long driveway, I remain on the other side of the street, squatting behind a parked car, a beat-up black Nissan that certainly doesn't belong on this street. I have no idea what I'm here to do or see, why I trailed him home. What was I hoping to gain from it? I don't know. But at least I know now where he lives, in a Cotswold cottage that should really be in some small English hamlet rather than here, in our dinky Michigan town. He lets himself in through the arched doorway, and there in the casement window she appears, the missus. She runs to him with small, precise footsteps, and he sweeps her into his arms where they kiss with that familiarity husbands and wives often share, a mastery of where hands and lips go, of whose head goes in which direction when they kiss, of how long they have before the rug rats appear. And then, like that, they do appear, two sprogs standing at his feet, arms raised, begging to be picked up. And he does; he picks them up, one at a time, the bigger one first followed by the little one. The whole scene is something I have no awareness of. No comprehension. No knowledge. It's as strange to me as a foreign language, the image of a happy, nuclear family—a mom, a dad, two kids and, no doubt, a dog. As conflicting to my family as black is to white. Polar opposites.

My childhood was something much different than this. My mother and Pops never fought; rather, it was the silence that did them in. The fact that they could go for days, occupying the same space, breathing in and out the same oxygen and carbon dioxide, without speaking, but rather moving around and around in silent isolated spheres, one for Mom, one for Pops and me.

But then again, unlike Dr. Giles and his wife, I hardly think Pops and my mother were in love. Well, one of them wasn't, anyway, while the other was head over heels.

His wife is pretty, but in this dolled-up way that doesn't really appeal to me. Even from this distance I can see that she's got on too much makeup, too much hair spray in her flaxen hair. She's just shy of me thinking she's a prima donna, but more like a lady who tries hard to look good for her husband when he comes home from work. Maybe that's not such a bad thing. She leans into him, his hands falling to her waistline, hers rising to his shoulders, so that for one split second I think that there, in the large bay windows, for all of the world to watch and see, they might just dance.

I can't hear the rug rats, but through the window I see them. I see the gigantic smiles on their faces as they giggle, watching their mother and father embrace, and for some strange reason it makes me mad. Jealousy is what it is. I'm jealous.

They have no idea I'm watching. If they did, I wonder if they'd care. Doesn't seem so to me. But still, I've seen enough. I don't need to watch this anymore.

I stand and turn to go, and as I do, I'm all but certain I hear something—a mewl, a bleat, a whine. A cry. I don't know. Some kind of noise, echoing up and down the street, through the trees.

“Hello?” I call out, but there's no response. Only the rustle of leaves in the trees. “Is someone there?” I ask, feeling again like a chicken as my heart starts to race and my head spins. It's dark out here, nearly black, the gleam of porch lights barely stretching down to the middle of the street where I stand. The wind blows again and I shiver, an earthquake of a shiver that rattles me from head to toe.

Is someone there? Is
something
there? Not that I can see. All I see are houses and trees, houses and trees. A car passes by, headlights illuminating the scene. I peer in the glow of the passing light, but still, I see nothing.

But then again I hear that noise.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

It's a squirrel, I tell myself. A chipmunk, a raccoon. A bird nesting in the trees. Garbage on the street. Litter. A hawk, an owl. The last few crickets that haven't been done in by the cold, singing their own little dirge.

But still, as rational as all that sounds in my head, I'm overcome by the strangest sensation that I'm not alone.

As I walk away, I realize this: someone is here with me, matching me stride for stride.

TUESDAY

Quinn

I wake up early the following morning and spend a few minutes putting together my puzzle pieces on the floor of Esther's room. I'm making progress, albeit not much, just the berry blue of a sky and nothing more. The rest of the image lies in an unkempt pile on the floor. I shower and dress for work. Ben calls early to see if there's been any word from Esther, and I tell him sadly no. He hasn't had any luck with his search, either.

Before leaving, I snatch some cash from Esther's and my Rent
envelope in the kitchen drawer, one twenty-dollar bill and a couple of singles. It's empty now—the envelope—thanks to my Jimmy John's purchase and now this, and so I step on the foot pedal of the trash can, ready to toss it in.

And that's when I see the ATM receipts tucked away in the garbage can.

Normally they wouldn't catch my eye—I'm not one for picking through trash—but I see Esther's bank's insignia right away and know that they're not mine. They're Esther's receipts. I reach my hand inside the trash can, steering clear of a splatter of ketchup on a dirty napkin that the receipts are hidden beneath. I pull them out, three of them, three receipts dated Thursday, Friday and Saturday afternoons, each a withdrawal for five hundred dollars, cash. That's fifteen hundred bucks. One thousand five hundred dollars. A whole lotta moola, to be sure.

What in the world would Esther need fifteen hundred dollars for, taken out over the course of three days? I don't know for certain, but strawberry daiquiris in Punta Cana come to mind. Seems like a nice place for Jane Girard to take a vacation. Seems like a nice place for
me
to take a vacation, but I doubt in my life I'll ever make it to Punta Cana. Five hundred dollars is the maximum withdrawal limit for most banks, not that I'm one to know; I don't even have five hundred dollars to my name. Everything I make at work gets handed over to Esther straightaway to cover rent and utilities, leaving only some spare change for the occasional night out or a pair of new shoes.

What is Esther doing walking around town with fifteen hundred dollars stuffed in her purse?
I wonder. But I can't think about this right now. Right now there are other things on my mind.

I'm about to head out the door when I throw it open and there, standing on the other side, is the building's maintenance man, John, who's, like, eighty years old and wears navy blue coveralls, though it's not like a person needs coveralls to change the occasional lightbulb or battle a colony of carpenter ants. His hand is raised in the air, ready to knock. Beside his feet is a toolbox, and in his hand is a whole assortment of things, tools I don't recognize, tools I do, a brand-new door handle and a dead-bolt lock, to boot.

“What's this?” I ask, staring down at the dead-bolt lock as he tears into the plastic box and removes it from its packaging.

For as much as I don't like Mrs. Budny, John I do. He's like a grandpa, like my grandpa who died when I was six years old, with his shock of white hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and his denture smile. “You asked for a new lock,” John says to me, and it's snappy the way I say, “No, I didn't,” though I don't mean to be snappy with John. I like John way too much to be snappy.

John's answer is immediate, as well. “Then it must have been the other one,” he says, his left hand moving up and down around his face. “The one with the hair.”

I know right away what he means. He's referring to Esther's hair, distinct and prominent, unmistakable, a conversation piece. The day my parents loaded up a U-Haul and helped move my twenty-nine cardboard boxes and me into the city apartment they were consternated by Esther's hair to say the least. It appalled them. In suburban America, people had blond hair or brown hair or red hair, but never some sort of odd combination of two or three. But Esther did, this piecemeal hair color that changed like paint swatches, brown to mocha to tawny to sand. My mother pulled me aside by the arm and begged, “Are you sure you want to do this? It's not too late to change your mind,” while keeping one eye on Esther all the time.

I was sure. I wanted to do this.

But now, of course, I'm wondering if I should have been a little more judicious, a little less sure.

I ask John again if he's certain Esther requested to have the locks changed and he says yes, he is certain. He even shows me the paperwork to prove it, an order by Mrs. Budny to change the locks in unit 304. The date of the request is three days ago. Three days ago Esther got on her phone and called Mrs. Budny's office to request our locks be changed.

Why, Esther, why?

But I don't have to think on this too long. The answer comes to me before John fires up his electric screwdriver and starts removing the old dead bolt from the steel door. I've been a bad roommate and Esther wants me gone. She wants to replace me with Megan or
Meg
from Portage Park, or someone akin to Meg. Someone who pays the rent on time, who helps finance the utilities, who doesn't leave the lights on all the time, who doesn't talk in her sleep.

Before I leave, I snatch a spare key from John's extended hand. I'm sure that wasn't in Esther's plan. And then I take a cab out to Lincoln Square and head to the police district station, a light brick building that spans an entire city block, surrounded by flags and parked police cars, the white Crown Victorias with their red lettering and a blue stripe along the side. We Serve and Protect, it says.

I don't know if I should be here, but nevertheless, I am.

I stand outside for a good ten minutes or more, wondering if I really want to step foot inside the police station. Esther is missing, yes, maybe. But also maybe not. I could wait it out, give it a few more days to see if she comes home. The 311 operator more or less told me, anyway, that there wasn't a whole lot the police department could do, whether or not I filed a report.
People are allowed to up and disappear if they want to
,
she'd said. There's nothing illegal about that. Other than putting Esther's name into some sort of database, I wasn't certain there was much they could do.

But what if filing a police report helps bring Esther home? Then it's totally worth it.

On the other hand, what if Esther doesn't want me to file a report? What if she'd rather I just leave her alone?

And so I'm really in quite the conundrum as I stand there, back pressed to the light bricks, wondering what to do: file a missing-persons report or no.

In the end I do. I file the report.

I meet with an officer and provide the basics for which he asks, including a physical description of Esther and the particulars into her quote-unquote disappearance. I'm sparse on the details, leaving out many things of which I assume Esther would rather not be made public knowledge, such as the fact that she's been meeting with a psychologist. I provide a photo, one I find on my cell, an image of Esther and me together at our neighborhood's Midsommarfest, a summer street festival, listening to live music and feasting on ears of corn, as behind us, the setting sun glinted off the buildings, turning the world to gold. We asked a passerby to take the photo, some dude who could hardly stop salivating over Esther long enough to snap the picture. She had corn in her teeth, melted butter on her chin and hands, and yet he, like I, thought she was beautiful. She
is
beautiful. Magnetic, really, the kind of individual who draws people with her idiosyncratic hair and heterochromatic eyes—whether or not they're a sham. But more than her hair and her eyes and her impossibly flawless skin is her kindness, that tendency of hers to make people feel special whether or not they're as ordinary as, well, as ordinary as me.

I pass the photo along to the officer and even he takes a second look and says, “Pretty girl,” and I say that she is, and I'm half certain we both blush.

The report will be filed; someone will be in touch. Esther isn't met with the same regard as, say, a four-year-old girl who's gone missing. I'm not sure quite what I expect: a search team to line up before me with orange vests and search-and-rescue dogs; squad cars; helicopters; volunteers on horseback wandering the streets of Chicago with a rope tracker, calling out her name in tandem. I guess this is what I hoped would happen, but none of it does. Instead, he tells me I could hang up posters, ask around town, consider hiring a PI. The officer also says, with an unsmiling face, that they'll likely need to search our residence. I assure him I've looked; she's not there. He gives me a look reminiscent of my little sister's looks—as if he's Einstein and I'm a giant ignoramus—and then again says that someone will be in touch. I say okay, before heading on to work, not quite sure whether I accomplished something, or made things even worse.