How Many Letters Are In Goodbye? (13 page)

He puts the menu down and takes a drink of his pint.

“Rhea, there's something I have to tell you.”

Writing this, I'm remembering how my heart did that thing again, how it sped up in only a few seconds. Before Sergei can say what he has to tell me, the barman is back to take our order. Sergei smiles and his face is back to normal as he orders a burger, medium rare, Swiss cheese. The barman turns to me and I remember I want the shepherd's pie.

When he leaves, I'm about to ask Sergei what he was going to say, but I don't have to.

“I put the CD player in your bag. I
…
I wanted you to have it. A present.”

A waitress passes by with two big plates of potato skins, crispy brown on the outside, melted cheddar, scallions. In the middle of the plates, there's sour cream dip. I should have ordered potato skins.

“What are you talking about?”

He rolls his neck, takes another drink of beer. He hasn't taken off Michael's jacket. “Don't freak out, Irish bullhead, but we're not going back to Michael's. He kicked us out.”

Behind Sergei, there's a bald man at the bar eating French onion soup and reading a paper. I wonder, is he listening.

“Why? What did you do this time?”

I only mean to ask the first part of that question, the “why” part, but somehow the second part slips out. It's the hook that Sergei has been waiting for.

“What did I do? What did I do?” He looks around as if someone else will answer. “He's the one with the problem, Rhea, he's the control freak.”

I keep my face sympathetic, I try to. “So, you had a fight?”

“It wasn't just a fight, Irish bullhead. At first, he wouldn't let me into the apartment. When he finally did, he lost his shit. He told me not to come back. He called me a fucking rent boy, Rhea.”

He says that really loud and the man with the soup looks over.

“When did this happen?”

“What? The other night.”

“Which night?”

Sergei takes another drink. “I don't know, Wednesday, Thursday? Who can keep track.”

Something is slowly starting to dawn on me. Sergei fixes the collar on Michael's jacket where it's sticking up.

“So how come we were there last night?”

He pulls something from his pocket and puts it on the bar. A set of keys.

“I knew he wouldn't be back last night. I heard him on the phone to his wife—it was one of the little brats' birthdays.”

“You got a copy of his keys made?”

Sergei is grinning a weird grin. “Sure. Why not? What else would he expect from a fucking rent boy?”

The barman comes with our food, places it down. The shepherd's pie is in a bowl. Gravy drips down the side.

“What the fuck, Serg? You should have told me, I can't believe you didn't tell me. We shouldn't be eating here, blowing money on this—”

“Relax, Rhea, just eat it.”

“How can I, Serg? This is pizza slices for three or four days for both of us, not to mention the price of the beer—”

He's started his burger already. “We're fine for cash, eat up.”

“No we're not, I'm not. No one's giving me a job, Serg, I've tried everywhere and now if we don't have Michael's, if we've nowhere to even shower—”

“Rhea, we're okay for money, okay?”

“What does that mean? You've fifty dollars? A hundred? A hundred dollars barely lasts a week in this city, Serg.”

He takes something from his back pocket, puts it on the bar between us. It is a clip, full of notes, a clip full of notes we've both seen before.

“You took his money?”

He takes another bite of burger, chews.

“You took his fucking money, Serg?”

“Keep your voice down, will you?” He snarls it, doesn't say it. His mouth is full. “Do you want the whole city to know?”

“There was over a thousand dollars there, Serg, you can't just take it.”

He slams his burger down hard on his plate. The barman glances over.

“Why not? Why can't I? We need it, we need this money. What's he going to buy? More Ralph Lauren polo shirts? Another skateboard for his kids because the other one is an old model? More of those horrible pictures he had on his walls?”

“I like those pictures.”

“It's not the point, Rhea, the pictures aren't the fucking point.” He pushes his plate away and grabs his beer, spilling some. “He used me. He owes me. I deserve this money, we both do. We didn't trash the place, we left it nice, I didn't take anything else, I swear, just the money.”

“And his clothes?” I say, gesturing at his jacket.

“One fucking jacket, a shirt, so what? Something for me, just like the CD player was a little something for you. I thought you'd like it, you're always going on about how much you miss your fucking music.”

“I don't want it.”

“So, fine, don't take it, give it to me. I'll take it.”

He's calmed down then, is calming down, like he thinks the worst of the fight is over and maybe it is. He turns back to his burger and I pick up my fork, pierce the top of the shepherd's pie. Steam comes out. Lisa's mum made shepherd's pie a few times, in a big casserole dish. She'd cut squares of it, so it stood tall on a plate. It was nicer, somehow, than being in a bowl.

I don't know why but it's thinking about Lisa's mum that makes it sink in. Makes everything sink in.

“He could have come home last night and found us there. He could have called the police. Had us arrested.”

“Rhea—” he says. “Come on.”

“You said you'd made up with him. If the police had come, I'd have been arrested too, no one would have believed I didn't know.”

He smiles his best Sergei smile, the one that had charmed Nurse Small and Michael and Nana Davis' doorman. And me. “I knew he wasn't coming back.”

“You couldn't have known.”

“I knew, Rhea. I knew we'd be okay. Do you think I'd have put you in any danger? We're a team, remember?”

A team, pitching our wits against the city, how long ago was that? Four weeks ago? Less? More? Being a part of a team means working together, being honest. Not lying to each other.

I put my fork down. “I want you to put the money back.”

He laughs. Some bits of burger land on the bar. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You know I'm not doing that.”

“He won't be back until tomorrow. You have time to put it back and the Discman too. And then I want you to get rid of those keys.”

He swigs the last of his beer back, signals the barman for another.

“And if I don't?”

“Then that's it, I'm not on this team anymore.”

He rolls his eyes. “Come on, don't be an Irish bullhead about this. I know you're mad at me but we both know you're not going to do that.”

My heart is doing that crazy beating thing, my stump hurts. I feel sick, I don't even want the shepherd's pie. I push my stool back, stand up.

“Sit back down, eat your lunch. I'm sorry about last night, if you don't think I was a hundred percent honest with you.”

“A hundred percent honest? Try zero percent honest.”

I'm putting on my jacket then and he's laughing, but it's not his real laugh, I know him well enough to know that.

“Stop this, we both know you wouldn't last five minutes in this city without me.”

I don't answer him, Mum. I don't say anything because I'm remembering that first time we met in the Y, when I stood up for him in a way he'd never stuck up for me. And I know that if I start to say anything, it won't just be about him, it'll be about every other person who'd never stood up for me since the beginning of time.

I reach down for my backpack. I pick it up, I don't grab it. I almost take out the Discman but what's the point? He's not going to give it back anyway. And I don't storm out, I take my time to put it on and then walk away from Sergei like I've always walked away from him, like I know I'll see him later. As I get closer to the door, my feet are going faster, they want to run, but I make them slow down to a normal walk, even when I hear him calling after me. The door is heavy but a man coming in holds it open for me and I thank him before I turn left, downtown. I keep walking, like I know where I'm going, but I don't know where I'm going. I keep walking, away from Sergei and my Coke still sweating on the counter and my shepherd's pie which is getting cold by now.

I keep walking, block after block, past Grand Central and Union Square and my backpack feels so heavy, heavier after each block, and I'm dying to sit down but there's nowhere to sit down so I keep walking, through SoHo and Chinatown, until I get here, to the water at the end of Manhattan, the end of the island. The end of the world.

It's nice here. It'd be nicer if it was a bit warmer. The wind off the water is cold and after being so hot on the walk I put everything back on again—my denim shirt and my Champion hoody and my jacket. And I like hearing the water lapping against the dock, like watching the green and orange ferry that goes to Staten Island and back and then over to Staten Island again.

I should be hungry, I haven't eaten today, but I feel kind of sick instead. Dizzy. I wish I'd had the shepherd's pie, or taken it with me, because I know without having to count it I have $74.15 in my pocket, which is less than fifty pizza slices or subway rides or two nights at the Y.

And I still don't know if I did the right thing or not. If it's bad news that I walked out of there and left him or if it's good news that I just don't see yet.

But I do know that I do okay on my own, that I know how to do it. And that being on my own is better than being with someone I can't trust, someone who steals, someone who lies to me. I might not know much, Mum, but I know that.

At least, I think I do.

Rhea

Battery Park, New York
30th April 1999
8:30 p.m.

Dear Mum,

I'm still sitting here. I'm still sitting on this bench, next to the water. I'm freezing now. My hand is stiff and sore but I thought writing might help keep it warm. I don't know where to go next. I've been sitting here trying to figure it out, trying to come up with a list of things to do next in my head, but the only thing my head wants to do is to have imaginary conversations with Sergei.

What if he's sorry? What if he's changed his mind and taken the money back? People change their minds. They apologise. If I don't go to any of the places that I usually go, then he won't be able to apologise, will he? He'll never find me here. Laurie apologised. That was what changed things, I think, what started to change things. I'd been there seven months by then, it was winter time, not that you'd know it in Florida, but I remember it was November because the conversation over dinner started about Thanksgiving.

Aunt Ruth brings it up, how they need to get back to Cheryl about the plans for the day. Cooper doesn't look up from his food.

“I'll get back to her, Ruth.”

“When, Coop? Thanksgiving is next week.”

“Tonight, I'll call her and tell her it's not going to work out, we have plans.”

Laurie is playing with her pasta while they are talking. It's fusilli, my favourite, and she's trying to twirl it, only you can't twirl fusilli so it keeps falling off her fork.

“Who's Cheryl?” I go.

I don't know why I ask, I don't think I care really, it's only something to say. I'm not expecting Aunt Ruth to say what she says next.

“Cheryl is Laurie's mom. She's an actress. She's in a show down in Miami.”

“Cool!” I say it straight out, forget to pretend I'm not interested. I look at Laurie but she's still twirling. “Has she been in any films? Would I know her?” I'm asking Laurie but Aunt Ruth's the one who answers me.

“You might know her from this TV show she was in—”

Cooper bangs his hand down on the table, so the glasses rattle. “Jesus, Ruth, we don't need to go through Cheryl's resumé!”

Laurie pushes her plate away. “May I be excused?”

“Rhea's part of this family too,” Aunt Ruth says, taking a mouthful of salad. “She has a right to know who we're talking about.”

I'd wondered about Laurie's mum, why she'd never come to visit, why I'd never heard her on the phone. Somehow over the time I'd been there, I think I'd decided she must be dead too, but I'd never asked.

I've finished my pasta and there's no more left. Laurie looks like she's not going to finish hers but I need to wait until she leaves the table to take it.

Aunt Ruth takes a sip of her wine. “I know it's none of my business, but since she's only in Miami, maybe you should consider it, Coop—”

“Only in Miami? It's not the end of the block, Ruth. Do you want to drive down to Miami on Thanksgiving?”

“May I be excused?” Laurie says again.

“I'm only saying that, comparatively speaking, she's pretty close by—”

Cooper bangs the table a second time. “So we're supposed to be grateful that we don't have to travel out of state so she can get some annual holiday fix with her daughter? What about the rest of the year, Ruth?”

He's forgotten Laurie is there, that I am. When he stops shouting, there's only the sound of the fan swishing, and then he remembers.

“Sweetheart—” he goes, reaching out to her, but she's already pushing her chair back. It scrapes against the tiles.

“Dad, it's fine.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean that the way it sounded.”

“May I be excused?”

“Laurie, your dad didn't mean it like that,” Aunt Ruth says. “He only meant—”

Laurie never hears what Cooper only meant because she leaves the kitchen then, slamming the door behind her. Cooper stands up too, like he's going to follow her, but instead he sits back down and turns to Aunt Ruth. “Now look what you've done.”