Sliding Past Vertical (6 page)

There was a long pause.
“Sarah?”

She covered her eyes and sank
to the floor. “Em. I’m sorry, I thought you were...someone else.”

“Are you all right?” His
voice sounded quiet and serious.

“Yeah, I guess, I...” She let
out her breath. “Our place was just ransacked.”

She could almost hear his
heartbeat. Or maybe it was her own. “But you’re okay?”

“We’re both fine.”

“So…Dee Dee’s there with you?”

 
“The little wimp went to her boyfriend’s.
No one here but me and a pair of rubber gloves and about a thousand loads of
laundry.” She thought it best not to mention the dead parakeet.

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

Sarah didn’t want to be alone
and especially didn’t want to sleep in her apartment alone. She hadn’t thought
of that until he brought it up.

“Did they take anything?”

“Well, not really, they
were—” She considered that the scum could have bugged the phone when they
were here. Maybe she shouldn’t have said she was alone. “I don’t get it. They
just kind of shredded everything.”

“Sarah. Your voice sounds
funny. Are you sure you’re okay?”

She felt nauseated again.
“Not really.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I
can.”

* * * * *

A few minutes later, Emerson called
back to ask if he could bring his friend, Rashid. “Bring all your friends,” she
told him, hoping those dirtbags were listening. “The bigger and more dangerous,
the better.”

She continued to clean,
concentrating on the kitchen and bathroom. She was in the tub washing coconut-scented
conditioner off the tile walls, and more than anything, she wanted to take a
shower, dissolve under the steamy spray. But the thought of pulling the curtain
gave her the willies. If the bastards came back, how would she hear them? She’d
be trapped. She jumped out of the tub, leaving a trail of wet footprints to the
front door. Nobody was there. The downstairs lock held firm. Even so, she decided
to wait on the shower until reinforcements arrived.

The bathroom and kitchen were
done. It was ten o’clock. She hadn’t had supper—as if she could eat—but
she should have something ready for Emerson and his friend.

She checked what was still salvageable
of the provisions. Garlic, onions, half a shriveled pepper. A box of spaghetti.
A tiny bottle of extra-virgin olive oil from an old Christmas gift basket.
Canned tomatoes. A half-loaf of Italian bread in the freezer.

Twenty minutes later,
marinara sauce simmered on the stove. She stirred in spices and watched it
bubble. The kitchen filled with smells that should have been comforting, aromas
that should have made it feel like home. But it no longer felt like home. It
was just an apartment, in a city that had turned on her.

Chapter
12

To Emerson’s displeasure, the
Americanization of Rashid had included the discovery of a fondness for a
particular segment of popular music: easy-listening hits of the previous decade.
It had been generous of Rashid to offer his car for the trip—Emerson’s
rattletrap probably wouldn’t have made it past the Massachusetts border, and he
was grateful for the company—but if he had to listen to Captain & Tennille’s
“Muskrat Love” one more time, he would have ripped the cassette deck out of the
dashboard. He closed his eyes and consoled himself with the fact that when it
was his turn to drive, it would also be his turn to pick the music.

A favorite Police song drifted into
his head, one he and Sarah both liked, and he couldn’t help thinking of her. He
hated that she was alone. He almost wished she had gone to Jay’s, only until
Emerson arrived, of course.

The two years since he’d seen her
felt like twenty. They talked every week or two by phone, less when she was
content, more during periods of crisis, which had been the case more frequently
of late. He wondered if she was still a girl in a woman’s body, if he could be
in the same room with her without thinking things he shouldn’t, if she’d
changed at all. He wondered if she would notice any changes in him. If she did,
would she tell him?

Rashid turned down the volume. “We
are coming very close to something,” he said.

Emerson’s eyes snapped open. Gone
were his thwarted Sarah fantasies. He searched the night for deer or an
oncoming semi. Then realized Rashid had been talking about his research.

“My professor is on the verge of
something that may prolong a patient’s life.”

“So they can suffer longer,”
Emerson said.

Nearly a decade in a nursing home had taught him about
suffering. Before working there he hadn’t thought much about death. Or hadn’t
wanted to. Now he saw it every day—the lingering, the slow decay, the
indignity. Doctors played God in the name of prolonging life and their precious
funding; Rashid had his drug trials. When Emerson’s time was up, he prayed that
he would go instantly. In his sleep. Hit by a bus. Or a car, like Thomas: a ton
of misnavigated metal against a five-year-old boy on his first bicycle.

It had been clean and quick.
For Thomas, maybe, but not for those he had left behind.
 

“Having My Baby” ended and
Emerson knew what came next. He didn’t want to have to break Rashid’s cassette
deck. “Maybe we can listen to the radio for a while.”

Rashid popped out the tape
and fiddled with the dials. He found his favorite FM station (remarkably, and
just to annoy Emerson, it seemed, still in perfect reception two hours outside
of Syracuse), which was playing nothing but the Carpenters.

“This you are agreeable to?”

Emerson sighed. He couldn’t
find it in himself to truly hate the music, because Karen Carpenter had died so
tragically and so young.

* * * * *

At 12:15 a car slowed in
front of Sarah’s house. Her stomach did a little flip, and she grabbed her
T-square. She reached the window in time to see a dark sedan with New York
plates before it rolled away. She was relieved to see the orange SU parking
sticker in the window. They must have taken Rashid’s car—surely Emerson
couldn’t afford anything that new. Apparently, they were lost. She slipped on
her shoes, preparing to run downstairs, catch them, and show them where to
park.

Then she smiled, as pieces of
Emerson began to emerge from the fluttering camouflage of one of the maple
trees that lined her street: a long back in a red T-shirt, a knapsack, and a
hay-colored head.

Rashid, apparently, had left
him behind.

Emerson lingered a moment,
partially obstructed by the tree, facing the departing car. For a second Sarah felt
sad for him. He seemed so disoriented, abandoned in a strange city in the
middle of the night. She wanted to scoop him up and take him inside.

Then he turned toward her
house. The spell broke and he was just plain Emerson again, come to rescue her.
He ambled up her front walk, the knapsack slung over his shoulder. His hair was
rumpled. His glasses slipped down his nose; he pushed them back. As he did this,
his gaze tilted up to the window, searching for her, apparently, but not
finding her.

When she let him in at the
bottom of the stairs, he hugged her like he’d just returned from war.

Sarah had never permitted any
display of affection from or for him to go too far. But this time she didn’t
want to leave his arms or scold him about the kiss he planted atop her head. There
was something new in his embrace. It was stronger. Safer. Or maybe she just needed
it more.

But she knew she ought to
stop, before it went too far.

She was slow about it, though,
dragging her hand down his arm, fussing with the dishtowel she’d tucked
apron-style into the waistband of her jeans, unable to muster the small talk of
greeting.

She was slow to meet his
eyes, because she knew what she’d see: Emerson looking back. Oozing back.
Giving her one of those baby-chick looks. Like he would gladly spend the rest
of his life feeding her warm milk through an eyedropper.

When they were dating, he’d
looked at her like that after they’d made love.

This time the look held only
a shadow of its former intensity, but it still made her squirm a little.
“Where’s Rashid?” she asked, smoothing a hand over her hair.

“Parking.”

She turned toward the stairs
and then stopped. “He knows which house?”

“He’s got the number.”

She started to turn again. He
followed her for a step, until she stopped again. “Maybe we should wait.”

“He’ll be okay. He’s got a
good sense of direction.” Em paused and gave her one of his long, liquid looks.
“Unless you want to wait.”

The landing was too small for
the two of them, too close. He smelled like the road and cologne that must have
been Rashid’s, since Emerson didn’t wear any. Maybe he should. It smelled nice;
maybe his girlfriends would like it. She fussed again with the dishcloth. “No,
that’s all right, we don’t have to—well, the light’s on, he’s got the
number, I guess—anyway, I hope you guys are hungry.”
 

Emerson followed Sarah up the
stairs and into the apartment.

“You should have seen it
before I started cleaning,” she told his slack-mouthed expression.

His knapsack slid onto what
was left of a chair. “The police came?”

“Yeah.” Sarah shrugged a
shoulder. “There was really nothing they could do.”

He faced her, a hand on her
elbow. Waiting.

“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“I’m scared they’ll come back.”

He made noises of comfort,
and she let him hold her again and let him pet her hair.

“They won’t come back.”

“Yes, they will,” she said
against his shirt. “I know what they came for. They didn’t find it. Something
must have stopped them before—”

The doorbell rang. Sarah
practically jumped out of Emerson’s arms. It was time she was out of them,
anyway.

* * * * *

So
much for big and dangerous.

Trailing behind Emerson on his
way back up the stairs was a slightly pudgy fellow, about Sarah’s height, maybe
an inch or two shorter. His wavy, dark hair looked recently combed. Small
gold-wire glasses and a wispy mustache floated over fleshy lips. He wore neatly
pressed designer jeans and a baby-blue polo with a pony stitched over the left
breast. The placket of the shirt was open. A fine tuft of black hair poked out,
and Sarah wanted to tuck it back in. When Emerson introduced them, Rashid offered
Sarah a soft, paw-like hand and nodded slowly, marble-dark eyes widening into
hers, as if they had just sealed some sort of agreement.

“I’m sorry for your
troubles,” Rashid said. “I hope you won’t find my tagging along to be a
burden.”

After hearing his accent, she
remembered Rashid and smiled. His was the voice that answered the phone when
she called Emerson. He always asked about the weather in Boston. Once Em wasn’t
even home and she chatted with him for fifteen minutes about nothing in
particular. She was glad Emerson had brought him and not some stranger.

“Not at all,” she said, and
realized at the same time Emerson did that she was still holding on to Rashid’s
hand.

* * * * *

Sarah didn’t get to take her
shower until the three of them killed the spaghetti, the garlic bread, and a
six-pack of Kingfisher beer Rashid had brought; until she was made to sit with
a cup of tea while both men did the dishes; and until she’d explained what had
happened to her apartment and why.

She turned off the water and was
reaching for a towel when the phone rang. She clutched the terry cloth to her
breasts as if someone had just burst in. As if a cheap bit of fabric from
Woolworth’s would protect her.

From
them.

 
They’re coming back.

It rang again, a third time, and
stopped.

Rashid asked most politely
who was on the line.

Sarah froze. Waited. Listened.
The towel still covered her nakedness like full-frontal armor. Snarled wet hair
dribbled cold rivers down her back.

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t
believe she wishes to speak with you.” Pause. “No, I don’t feel that’s
necessary, I—”

“That’s Jay?” Emerson said.
“Let me talk to him.”

Sarah threw on her robe. “Em,
don’t!”

She was too late. “She
doesn’t want to talk to you, and I don’t blame her. If you have any respect for
Sarah, you’ll leave her alone.”

Sarah reached him as he hung
up. She was too furious to make words. Water dripped from her hair onto the
floor. She stabbed a finger at him, gasping. “If you...if you
ever
do that again—”

He glared. “I was just trying
to—”

“Look. You were wonderful to
come here.” Rashid appeared from around the corner with another cup of tea and
spilled a little at the sight of her dripping and fuming. “Both of
you—but you can’t just—you can’t just
fix
it for me, I’m not a child, I can fight my own battles, you
can’t—”

Alcohol, a big dinner, and a
long hot shower were probably a mistake on top of the day she’d had. She
suddenly couldn’t take a breath. Her stomach lurched upward. As the room began
to swim, clammy sweat sprouted along her back. She felt her legs begin to
dissolve.

Emerson was there, no longer
angry, wrapping a supportive arm around her. He led her to what was left of the
couch and encouraged her to sit with her upper body bent toward her knees.

Eventually the lightheadedness
ebbed. Then she was being carried, like a small child. Working with his
patients had made Emerson stronger than she remembered.

“Sleep,” he commanded.

He was shadowy above her, a
flash of glasses, slanted mouth, and a curtain of hair, as he saved her from
herself and put her to bed.