City of Second Chances

by Jane Lacey-Crane

  I looked across at Rachel. She was still asleep; head back, mouth open and snoring lightly. That woman could make napping an Olympic sport. She’d always been the same. When we were at college, if ever she didn’t make it to lectures, I’d know she was grabbing forty winks somewhere. Her favourite spot was on the floor of the disabled loos – plenty of space to spread out, she’d said. She’d spent many an hour in there catching up on her sleep after a heavy night. I personally couldn’t think of anything less conducive to sleep than sprawling out on the floor of a toilet stall, but Rachel never seemed to share my concerns. In fact, Rachel had never really seemed too concerned with anything. She was always so upbeat and full of life, sometimes a bit too much. I’d always envied her that positive outlook; she never seemed to let anything get her down.

  I’d always been the opposite. I worried about everything, from exams to boys and back again. I was permanently stressed out and anxious. Rachel used to tell me off for letting stuff get to me, but I couldn’t help it. As I got older the anxious feelings went away, only to be replaced by recurring bouts of depression. All through my teens and into my twenties, I struggled with feelings of worthlessness, despair and a crippling sadness that seemed to control everything I did, or ever wanted to do. It drained me of any desire to do anything much beyond getting out of bed in the morning. At my lowest point, when I was eighteen and about to take my A levels, I woke up one morning and decided I’d had enough. What was the point of being alive but never living? I told myself. My family and friends would be better off if they didn’t have to keep worrying about me. I left my house and walked the half a mile or so to the nearest railway station and I sat on the platform and I waited. I told myself I was waiting for just the right time, just the right train; I was still sitting there two hours later, when Rachel found me. When I hadn’t turned up for lectures she’d been worried, so she’d driven to my house and scoured the streets in her rusty old Citroen 2CV. A neighbour of mine eventually told her he’d seen me walking along the high street towards the station, and that was where she’d found me. I shivered – whether it was at the cold or at the memory I couldn’t be sure.

  I turned as I heard the front door of the apartment open. My sister was taking off her boots and coat as I came down the hallway.

  ‘Jesus, it’s bloody freezing out there. Put the kettle on, would you? I’m going to nip upstairs and get changed into something more comfortable. And warm,’ said Kate.

  ‘No probs.’

  I shuffled into the kitchen and filled up the kettle. The cleaner had obviously been: the sink was gleaming and there was a freshly laundered tea towel draped over the rail on the oven. When I opened the fridge to get the milk, a fresh lemony bleachy type smell filled my nostrils. My fridge always seemed to be home to a lingering smell of sour milk and wet lettuce; I needed to find out the cleaner’s secret.

  I mentioned our differing fridge aromas to my sister when she came back into the kitchen. She was now in tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt and a pair of fluffy socks, probably cashmere as well, I thought.

  ‘There’s no secret formula, Evie, it’s just called cleaning. That’s probably why you don’t recognise the smell.’

  ‘Ha ha, very funny,’ I said, whilst acknowledging that she was undoubtedly right. I’d lost count of the amount of times I’d purchased various tools and sprays that were meant to ‘revolutionise the way you clean’, hoping that they would contain the magic secret for good housekeeping. I was always disappointed; it turned out there was no magic formula – you just had to clean stuff. Regularly.

  ‘Tea or coffee?’ I asked.

  ‘Tea, please. There’s some Earl Grey in the caddy.’

  ‘That’s why the cuppa I had this morning tasted like someone hadn’t rinsed the washing up liquid out of the mug properly. Earl Grey – bleurgh!’

  ‘You’re so common,’ Kate said with a smirk.

  ‘And proud of it,’ I replied.

  ‘What are you two gabbing about?’ asked Rachel. She wandered into the kitchen, scrubbing at her eyes. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Just gone six,’ I said.

  ‘No wonder I’m starving, I haven’t eaten since yesterday,’ she replied. ‘What are we going to do about food? Are we going out?’

  All three of us turned to face the wall of windows on the other side of the apartment. The snow had started to fall again.

  ‘I think we should just order in,’ said my sister. ‘Open that drawer. There’s all sorts of takeout menus in there.’

  I pulled open the drawer nearest me and saw all the reasons my sister’s oven was so spotless. There were menus from every conceivable food outlet.

  ‘Don’t you ever cook?’ I asked, pulling a handful of leaflets out of the drawer.

  ‘I don’t have to. If you two weren’t here, I’d have just gone out for dinner with people from work. No one cooks in Manhattan. Besides, I don’t get time to shop. Magda, the cleaning lady, buys my essentials for me. As long as I’ve got the basics, I’m all right.’

  Rachel and I exchanged glances.

  ‘What?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Nothing, just bloody jealous, that’s all,’ said Rachel. ‘I wish I never had to cook again. Sean only eats bowls of cereal or brown food, no vegetables allowed, and Martin isn’t very adventurous either. I’d love it if I could tell them to just order a pizza and have done with it every night.’

  I wasn’t quite so convinced. I enjoyed cooking for my family and friends; I liked entertaining in my own kitchen. I missed having the kids to cook for now they’d moved out. Sitting at my kitchen table by myself made me feel a bit lost and sad, to be honest. The kitchen had always been the heart of my home. The kids had destroyed the old pine table with scribbles from crayons and felt tip pens and scuffs and scratches from scissors and rulers dragged across the surface. But I never minded; all those marks told a story. Even the cloudy stain on the right-hand corner, the one that refused to budge even after repeated attempts to polish it out. It was a reminder of the one and only time my husband tried to iron a shirt. Convinced that he didn’t need to get the ironing board out since it was only one shirt, he’d laid a towel on the table and done it on that. He’d grossly underestimated how much heat my new steam iron could generate and had singed the table top.

  These things were what made a house a home, the marks, the imperfections; all served as reminders of the lives that were lived in a house. That was what my sister’s swanky apartment was missing: signs of life. Everything was too new, too clean. No one had scribbled on her dining table with green crayon or scuffed the walls up her stairs as they ran by. And maybe that was how she liked it, I thought, but it would never be my choice. It was like this morning when I’d gone from Joe’s diner, which was old and a bit tired but full of heart, to the gleaming, big chain coffee shop across the street from the bookstore. That place might have been packed with bodies, but it had no soul. Kate’s expensive apartment was just the same. That thought made me sad and I wondered if Kate was really happy here. She looked happy but how real was that? I knew I wouldn’t get to talk about it to her until we subdued Rachel with some food.

  ‘What shall we order, then?’ I asked, leafing through the menus.

  ‘The Chinese place two blocks over is fab. Their dumplings are to die for,’ said Kate, picking out a bright red and yellow menu complete with dragon on the front.

  ‘Chinese it is. How quickly can we get it here?’ asked Rachel.

  *

  An hour later we were sitting on the floor, surrounded by half eaten boxes of Chinese takeaway. Kate had been right: the food was delicious. I had reached the point where you realise that you should have stopped eating about ten mouthfuls ago but unfortunately it was too late to do anything about it.

  ‘My stomach,’ grumbled Kate. ‘This is all your fault, Evie. I never eat like this when I’m on my own.’ She burped loudly, as if to illustrate her point.

  ‘Stop moaning, you loved it,’ I said, nudging her with my foot
.

  ‘Ow! Don’t do that, I think I’m gonna be sick,’ she replied, holding her stomach as she rolled onto her back. ‘Do you know how many miles I’m going to have to run to burn off what I’ve just eaten?’

  ‘Hundreds probably,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t bother if I were you.’

  ‘You should come with me,’ she said. ‘You used to love to run. I don’t know why you stopped.’

  I shrugged. I didn’t know the answer to that; just life getting in the way again.

  ‘I didn’t bring any kit,’ I said, hoping that this would be the end of the subject.

  ‘Well, that’s no excuse. You’re in a city full of fitness fanatics. There’s a sportswear store on every other block.’ She sat up, full of enthusiasm for her awesome idea. ‘Let’s go out tomorrow morning and get you some kit. And you, Rach. It’ll be fun. I can take you on the run I do along the river front. You’ll get to see some amazing sights. I promise, you’ll love it.’

  It didn’t sound like such a bad idea to me, but I knew Rachel would hate it. Her last New Year’s resolution had been to never, ever, attend another group fitness class again. It was a resolution she was proud to say that she’d had no problems sticking to.

  ‘Er, no, thanks. I’ll skip it. You two enjoy yourselves though,’ said Rachel. ‘But you can’t go tomorrow morning. It’ll have to be later. After we’ve been to the police station.’

  Kate whipped her head round to me. ‘Police station? What for?’

  Rachel mouthed ‘Sorry’ at me and then returned to foraging around inside a box for another prawn cracker.

  ‘It’s nothing really. I was going to tell you, but I didn’t want to do it over the phone.’

  ‘I knew there had to be some other reason for this sudden trip. Not just because you had holidays to use up.’

  ‘Well, as it turns out I think I might be on a permanent holiday from work anyway.’

  ‘You lost your job?’ asked Kate.

  ‘More like quit in dramatic fashion!’ Rachel laughed. ‘Leaving a trail of devastation in her wake!’

  ‘That’s not helping, Rach,’ I said.

  Kate looked stunned. ‘What’s going on, Evie?’

  ‘The job thing is no big deal. I haven’t been happy there for a long time, you know that. And as for the other thing,’ I took a breath, ‘the police think they may have discovered Olivia’s body. In the forest, upstate. Albany, they said.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus. Why do they think it’s her?’

  ‘We don’t know – we don’t know anything really,’ I said. ‘That’s why we’re going to see the police tomorrow. In the hope they can tell us more.’

  Kate let out a huge sigh and put her head down. She stayed that way for a long time. Rachel and I just sat in silence, waiting for her to speak. Eventually the silence became too much for me.

  ‘Kate? Say something, would you?’

  My sister looked up and I was surprised to see she had tears in her eyes.

  ‘Kate, what’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘Why would you want to go back over all that again?’ she asked. ‘It was such a horrible time, for both of you.’ She looked at Rachel. ‘I just don’t get it.’

  ‘I just feel like we owe it to her to find out. They found the remains of eight bodies, Kate. They think one of them might be her.’

  ‘But what can you do about it now? How is it going to make a difference to anything?’

  ‘I think Evie just feels like we should be here, in case it is her. To make sure she’s treated properly.’

  ‘Oh, Evie. I can’t believe they might have found her. But…’

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘To come all this way on the off chance? I suppose I’m just surprised, that’s all. You’re supposed to be the sensible older sister, not the one who takes off across the ocean on a whim. That’s my job.’

  ‘I know, and believe me, I’ve had this conversation with myself many times over the last few days. What if it isn’t her? What if the police refuse to tell us anything anyway? But I keep getting the same answer. This whole business has hung over us for too long. It’s time to put it to rest. If there’s even the slightest chance that we can find out what happened once and for all, then we can close the book on it.’

  ‘I’m just worried about you, that’s all,’ said Kate, giving me a thin smile.

  ‘I know you are but there’s no need to be. I’m fine.’

  Kate stood and began collecting the empty takeaway cartons, taking a handful out to the kitchen and dumping them into the bin. Rachel and I started doing the same, unsure of what else to do.

  ‘You know, the bit I don’t understand,’ Kate called from behind the kitchen island, ‘is why you’re both out here doing this and that twat of a boyfriend of hers isn’t. I mean, in the years since it happened, he’s taken every opportunity to get his smug face included every time anyone mentions anything to do with Olivia.’

  I had to admit I’d thought the same thing. It had occurred to me, as we were mid-flight and it was too late to turn back, that he might well turn up. I’d said as much to Rachel, but she’d dismissed the idea.

  ‘He won’t come unless some newspaper offers to pay his air fare for him. He doesn’t do anything for free. Money grabbing little shit.’

  But the more I thought about it, the more worried I became. What would I do if I saw his smirking face again?

  ‘I think you underestimate how big this could get. If it turns out one of those poor bodies is Olivia’s, then she’s the victim of a serial murderer and that story will be huge. I can promise you that much. And if the press get wind that you two are here, two of the girls who were with Olivia the night she went missing, they won’t leave you alone until they get a story.’

  Rachel and I looked at each other nervously. I had to admit I hadn’t thought that far ahead. My biggest concern was to protect Olivia, or what was left of her at least. And you wanted to escape from your life for a bit. Tom’s voice popped unbidden into my head again. Was that true? I couldn’t say for sure, but I really didn’t need the voice of my dead husband lecturing me on my life choices from beyond the grave right now.

  ‘We’ll just have to deal with that when, or if, it happens,’ I said. Rachel didn’t look convinced and, to be honest, neither was I. Kate’s mention of Lewis and the press had brought with it a sudden flashback to how it had all gone so wrong after Olivia disappeared. The police had interviewed us both quite a few times before they let us fly home. What had we done after Olivia had left the bar that night? Why hadn’t we gone after her? Rachel had had to tell them all about her alleyway encounter with the barman, a fact that he’d happily confirmed for them. We’d stayed at the bar for about an hour after Olivia left and we’d just drunk a bit more and danced. Eventually, I’d got bored of watching Rachel and the barman playing tonsil hockey every time he’d passed our table and I’d persuaded Rachel to call it a night. It had been just another girls’ night out but then Olivia had disappeared.

  Our evening of harmless fun and frolics had been splashed over the front pages of every newspaper when we’d got home. Thanks to Lewis, Rachel and I had been painted as two sex crazed alcoholics who’d abandoned their friend in her hour of need. One particularly nasty tabloid had even gone as far as to push the theory that we might have had a hand in Olivia’s disappearance. According to them, we were angry that Olivia wanted to go back to the hotel and so we’d killed her and dumped her body in the East River. They’d claimed that a local drug dealer had told their reporter that he’d sold us drugs, and that Rachel and I had been high when we’d killed her.

  Lewis had given plenty of interviews where he’d shared his fears about Olivia going on a trip with two such wanton women. He’d painted us as bad influences, claiming we’d practically bullied his beloved Olivia into coming with us and then abandoned her to a horrible fate. The story had had everything the newspapers wanted – sex, drinking, young girls, glamorous location and a distraught boyfriend happy to pose fo
r photos and provide soundbite-worthy quotes. When no further evidence had been uncovered, the press had moved on to their next victim, but not before it had given me an unwelcome few months in the spotlight. I thought about Daniel and the crowd that had gathered around him at that bookshop earlier in the day. That was the price of fame like his, I supposed; it wasn’t something I was keen to ever experience again.

  ‘There’s something else you need to know, Kate,’ said Rachel. ‘I may have had a more selfish reason for talking Evie into this trip.’

  ‘You didn’t need to talk me into it. If anything it was me who talked you into it,’ I said. Rachel gave me one of her knowing looks, the one she reserved for me when I’d said something she thought was really stupid.

  ‘Let’s just say that I didn’t try that hard to talk you out of it, then.’

  I don’t think she could have talked me out of it even if she’d tried but I let that go.

  ‘The thing is, Kate, I needed to get away for a bit. Martin and me, we’re having a bit of a crisis. He slept with someone else,’ she blurted out, before heading back into the living room and sitting down on the sofa. She picked up her glass of wine and swallowed the last of it.

  Kate looked at me and mouthed the words, ‘Oh, fuck,’ before following Rachel into the living room. She sat on the coffee table in front of her and took her hand.

  ‘Jesus, Rachel, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. I’m stunned.’

  ‘You and me both, my lovely. Fill this up, would you? There’s a love.’

  Kate reached behind her for the bottle on the table and filled Rachel’s glass. I came and sat on the sofa next to my best friend.

  ‘Don’t go getting pissed again, will you? We’ve got lots to do tomorrow.’

  ‘I won’t, don’t worry.’