by Riley Sager
But these walls don’t talk.
They observe.
Yet something inside the apartment is making noise. I hear it from my spot in the sitting room—a muffled creak.
At first, I think it’s a mouse. Only the Bartholomew doesn’t seem like the kind of place that would have mice. Also, it doesn’t sound like any mouse I’ve ever heard. The creak is accompanied by the groan of something normally still being forced into motion. It brings to mind rusty cogs and stiff joints.
I follow the sound to its point of origin in the kitchen, at the cupboard between the oven and the sink.
The dumbwaiter.
I throw open the cupboard door, revealing the empty shaft behind it. A cold draft hits me, shivery and crisp. The ropes that hung lazily when Leslie showed me the dumbwaiter during my tour are now taut and in motion. Above, the pulley turns, stopping and starting with each tug of the rope. Each time it moves, it emits a short, shrill squeak.
I peek into the shaft itself, the brisk draft brushing my face. At first I see nothing. Just inky darkness that, for all I know, might stretch to the Bartholomew’s basement. Then something emerges from the black, rising to meet me. Soon I can make out the top of the dumbwaiter itself.
Wood.
Thick coat of dust.
Holes on the top and bottom to let the ropes slither through.
The pulley turns and squeaks. The dumbwaiter continues to rise. The draft stirs the dust on top of it, sending up a small puff that makes me back away before it swirls out of the cupboard door like ash from a chimney.
I imagine it in use a hundred years ago. The harried cooks sending down extravagant meals dish by dish as the dumbwaiter shaft filled with the scent of roast chicken, rack of lamb, cumin and thyme and rosemary. The dumbwaiter’s return trip would bring stacks of dirty dishes, soiled silverware, crystal goblets with wine swirling in their bottoms and lipstick on their rims.
It sounds romantic through the soft gauze of time. In truth, it was probably wretched. At least up here, where the servants worked and ate and slept.
When the squeaking of the pulley finally stops, the once-empty space is filled with the dumbwaiter itself. It’s a perfect fit. A casual visitor opening the cupboard door wouldn’t even know it was a dumbwaiter if not for the ropes. It’s a plain wooden box, just like any cupboard.
Resting on the bottom is a piece of paper. Its left edge is slightly ragged, indicating it was torn from a book. Printed on it is a single poem. Emily Dickinson. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.”
I turn the page over and see that someone has written on the back. It’s brief. Just three words, the letters large and in all caps.
HELLO AND WELCOME!
Beneath it, in slightly smaller text, is the messenger’s name.
Ingrid
I search the kitchen for a pen and paper, finding both in a junk drawer stuffed with rubber bands, ketchup packets, and takeout menus. I write my response—Hi and thanks—before placing it inside the dumbwaiter and giving the rope an upward tug with my right hand.
The dumbwaiter shimmies.
The pulley above it creaks.
It’s not until the dumbwaiter begins to descend that I realize how big the whole contraption really is. The same size as an adult male and almost as heavy. So heavy that I need to use both hands to lower it. As it descends, I count how far I think it’s traveled.
Five feet. Ten feet. Fifteen.
Just before I hit twenty, the rope goes slack in my hands. The dumbwaiter has been lowered as far as it can go, which by my estimate means to the apartment directly below me.
11A.
Home of the mysterious Ingrid. Even though I have no idea who she is, I think I like her already.
7
In the afternoon, I head out to buy groceries, taking the elevator from the silent twelfth floor past levels that are louder and livelier than my own. On the tenth floor, Beethoven drifts from an apartment down the hall. On the ninth, I spy the swing of a door being closed. With it comes a nose-stinging waft of disinfectant.
On the seventh, the elevator stops completely to pick up another passenger—the soap opera actress I saw during yesterday’s tour. Today, she and her tiny dog wear matching fur-trimmed jackets.
The actress’s appearance leaves me momentarily speechless. My brain fumbles for her character’s name. The one my mother loved to hate. Cassidy. That’s what it was.
“Room for two more?” she says, eyeing the grate closed across the door.
“Oh, sorry. Of course.”
I open the grate and nudge to the side so the actress and her dog can enter. Soon we’re descending again, the actress adjusting the hood of her dog’s jacket while I think about how my mother would have gotten a kick out of knowing I rode in an elevator with Cassidy.
She looks different up close and in person. Maybe it’s the abundant makeup she wears. Her face is entirely covered with foundation, which gives her skin a peachy cast. Or it could be the saucer-size sunglasses she’s once again wearing, which cover a third of her face.
“You’re new here, aren’t you?” she says.
“Just moved in,” I reply, debating whether I should add that it’s just for three months and that I’m getting paid to be here. I choose not to. If the woman who played Cassidy wants to think I’m a real resident of the Bartholomew, I’m not going to stop her.
“I’ve been here six months,” she says. “Had to sell my house in Malibu to move, but I think it’ll be worth it. I’m Marianne, by the way.”
I already know this, of course. Marianne Duncan, whose fashionable bitchery on the small screen was as much a part of my adolescence as reading Heart of a Dreamer. Marianne holds out the hand not currently occupied by a dog, and I shake it.
“I’m Jules.” I look to the dog. “Who’s this adorable guy?”
“This is Rufus.”
I give the dog a pat between his pert ears. He licks my hand in response.
“Aw, he likes you,” Marianne says.
Lower we go, passing two other presences from my first tour—the older man struggling his way down the stairs and the weary aide by his side. Instead of pretending not to stare, this time the man offers us a smile and a trembling wave.
“Keep it up, Mr. Leonard,” Marianne calls to him. “You’re doing great.” To me, she whispers, “Heart trouble. He takes the stairs every day because he thinks it’ll prevent another coronary.”
“How many has he had?”
“Three,” she says. “That I know of. Then again, he used to be a senator. I’m sure that alone caused a heart attack or two.”
In the lobby, I say goodbye to Marianne and Rufus and head to the wall of mailboxes. The one for 12A is empty. No surprise there. As I turn away from it, I see someone else entering the lobby. She looks to be in her early seventies and makes no attempt to hide it. No forehead-smoothing Botox like Leslie Evelyn or caked-on foundation like Marianne Duncan. Her face is pale and slightly puffy. Straight gray hair brushes her shoulders.
It’s her eyes that really catch my attention. Bright blue even in the dim light of the lobby, they seem to spark with intelligence. We make eye contact—me staring, she politely pretending that I’m not. But I can’t help it. I’ve seen that face a hundred times staring at me from the back of a book jacket, most recently this very morning.
“Excuse me—” I stop, wincing at my tone. So nervous and meek. I start again. “Excuse me, but are you Greta Manville? The writer?”
She tucks a lock of hair behind her ears and gives a Mona Lisa smile. Not exactly displeased to be recognized, but not overjoyed, either.
“That would be me,” she says in a Lauren Bacall rasp, her voice polite but wary.
There’s a flutter in my chest. My heart beating overtime. Greta Manville, of all people, is right here in front of me.
“I’m Jules,” I say.
Greta Manville makes no attempt to shake my hand, instead edging around me on her way to the mailboxes. I make
note of the apartment number.
10A. Two floors below me.
“Pleased to meet you,” she says, sounding anything but pleased.
“I love your book. Heart of a Dreamer changed my life. I’ve read it, like, twenty times. That’s not an exaggeration.” I stop myself again, fully aware that I’m gushing. I take a breath, straighten my spine, and say, as calmly as I can, “Do you think you’d be able to sign my copy?”
Greta doesn’t turn around. “You’re not holding my book.”
“I meant later,” I say. “Next time we run into each other.”
“How do you know there’s going to be a next time?”
“If we do, I mean. But I do want to thank you for writing it. Reading it is why I moved to New York. And now I’m here. Temporarily, at least.”
Greta turns away from her mailbox. Slowly. Not too curious, but enough to study me with those keen, inquisitive eyes. Her lips pucker ever-so-slightly, as if she’s thinking about what to say next.
“A temporary tenant?”
“Yes. Just moved in.”
This prompts a slight nod from Greta, who says, “I imagine Leslie went over the rules?”
“She did.”
“Then I’m sure she told you about not bothering residents.”
I gulp. I nod. Disappointment burrows into my heart.
“She did say residents like their privacy.”
“And so we do,” Greta says. “You might want to keep that in mind the next time we run into each other.”
She shuts the mailbox and edges past me again, our shoulders brushing. I shrink away. In a voice no louder than a murmur, I say, “Sorry for bothering you. I just thought you’d like to know that Heart of a Dreamer is my favorite book.”
Greta spins around in the middle of the lobby, an armful of mail clutched against her chest. Her blue eyes have turned ice cold.
“It’s your favorite book?”
I feel the urge to backtrack. The words One of them form on my tongue, weak and flavorless. I stop myself. If this is the only time I speak to Greta Manville—and it sure seems like it will be, considering how unpleasant she is—then I want her to know the truth.
“It is.”
“If that’s the case,” she says, “then you need to read more.”
The words have the impact of a slap—hot and stinging. I wince. My cheeks turn red. I even sway back on my heels, as if buffeted by a blow. Greta, meanwhile, strides stiff-backed to the elevator, not even bothering to see my reaction.
Knowing she doesn’t even care how the insult affects me somehow makes it feel worse.
Like I’m the least important person in the world.
But then I turn toward the front door and see Charlie standing just inside the lobby. While I don’t think he witnessed my entire conversation with Greta Manville, he at least saw enough to know why I appear so rattled.
Tipping his cap, he says, “While I’m not allowed to speak ill of the residents, I’m also not supposed to turn a blind eye when one of them is rude. And she was very rude to you, Miss Larsen. I apologize on behalf of everyone at the Bartholomew.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’ve been treated worse.”
“Don’t let it get you down.” Charlie smiles and holds the door open for me. “Now go out and enjoy the beautiful day.”
I step outside and see three girls pressed together for a selfie with the gargoyles above the door. One of them raises her phone and says, “Say ‘Bartholomew’!”
“Bartholomew!” the other two echo in unison.
I freeze in the doorway until the picture is taken. Giggling, the girls move on, unaware I’m also in the photo. Then again, there’s a chance they might not even notice me at all. It’s easy to feel invisible on this patch of busy Manhattan sidewalk. In addition to the Bartholomew tourists, I see dog walkers, nannies pushing strollers, harried New Yorkers doing the sidewalk slalom around tourists.
I join them at the corner two blocks away from the Bartholomew, waiting for the light to change. The streetlamp there bears a taped flier that’s come loose at one edge, the paper flapping like a windblown flag. I get glimpses of a woman with pale skin, almond-shaped eyes, and a mane of curly brown hair. Above her photo, in siren-red letters, is one dreadfully familiar word.
MISSING
Memories lurch out of nowhere. Leaping on top of me until the sidewalk turns to quicksand beneath my feet.
All I can think about are those first fraught days after Jane vanished.
She was also on a flier, her yearbook photo placed under the word MISSING, which was colored a similarly urgent red. For a few weeks, that picture was everywhere in our tiny town. Hundreds of identical Janes. None of them the real thing.
I turn away, afraid that if I look again it’ll be Jane’s face I see on the flier.
I’m relieved when the light changes a second later, sending the dog walkers, nannies, and weary New Yorkers into motion across the street. I follow, my footsteps quick, putting as much distance between me and the flier as possible.
8
I now have only two hundred and five dollars to my name.
Grocery stores in Manhattan aren’t cheap. Especially in this neighborhood. It doesn’t matter that I bought the least-expensive things I could find. Dry pasta and generic red sauce. Off-brand cereal. An economy-size box of frozen pizzas. My only splurge was the handful of fresh fruits and vegetables I bought to keep me from being completely malnourished. It’s mind-boggling to me how a few oranges can cost the same as five pounds of boxed spaghetti.
I leave the store with more than a week of meals carried in two sagging paper bags. They’re an unwieldy pair, which shift with every step I take. They’re heavy, too, a fact I blame on the frozen pizza. I hold the bags high so they can lean against my shoulders for additional support. Even then, I barely make it through the uncaring throng of New Yorkers hurrying past me in all directions. But when I reach the Bartholomew, there’s Charlie, who sees me coming and holds the door wide open. He ushers me inside with a dramatic sweep of his arms that makes me feel a bit like royalty.
“Thanks, Charlie,” I say through the narrow gap between bags.
“Let me carry those for you, Miss Larsen.”
I’m so eager to be relieved of my load that I almost let him. But then I think about what’s inside these bulky bags. All those store-brand boxes with their rip-off names and apathetically designed logos. I’d rather Charlie not see them and have the opportunity to judge me or, worse, pity me.
Not that he would.
No decent person would.
Yet the shame and fear are still there.
I’d like to say it’s a quirk of my currently dire financial situation, but it’s not. This fear stretches back to grade school, when I invited a new friend named Katie to spend the night. Her family was wealthier than my parents. They had a whole house. My family lived in half of one that had been sliced down the middle into two symmetrical units, a fact made glaringly obvious by our neighbor’s habit of keeping her Christmas decorations up all year round.
Katie didn’t seem bothered by that half of house bedecked in silvery garland and twinkling lights. Nor did she mind the smallness of my room or the budget-conscious mac and cheese we had for dinner. But then morning arrived and my mother placed a box of cereal on the counter. Fruit O’s, not Froot Loops.
“I can’t eat that,” Katie said.
“They’re Froot Loops,” my mother said.
Katie eyed the box with undisguised scorn. “Fake Froot Loops. I only eat the real kind.”
She ended up skipping breakfast, which meant I did, too, much to my mother’s aggravation. I refused to eat them the next morning as well, even though Katie was long gone.
“I want real Froot Loops,” I announced.
This brought a sigh from my mother. “It’s the exact same thing. Just with a different name.”
“I want the real thing,” I said. “Not the poor-people version.”
M
y mother started to cry, right there at the kitchen table. It wasn’t a subtle crying, either. This was shoulder-heaving, red-faced weeping that left me terrified and confused as I ran to my room. The next morning, I woke to find a box of Froot Loops placed next to an empty bowl. From then on, my mother never bought the generic brand of anything.
Years later, during my parents’ funerals, I thought about Katie and those Fruit O’s and how much money my name-brand obsession cost over time. Thousands of dollars, probably. And as I watched my mother’s casket lowered into the ground, the main thought running through my head was how much I regretted being such a little shit about something as innocuous as cereal.
Innocuous or not, here I am, hurrying past Charlie into the lobby. “I’ve got them. But I won’t say no to being helped with the elevator.”
I look across the lobby and see the elevator car descending into its gilded cage. Hoping to catch it before someone on an upper floor can claim it, I dash forward, grocery bags shimmying and Charlie struggling to match my pace. I’m almost at the elevator when I spot a young woman flying down the stairs right beside it. She’s in a hurry. Legs churning. Head down. Eyes on her phone.
“Whoa! Look out!” Charlie shouts.
But it’s too late. The girl and I collide in the middle of the lobby. The crash sends us ricocheting off each other. The girl stumbles backward. I fall completely, slamming against the lobby floor as both grocery bags spring from my grip. Although a sharp pain shoots through my elbow and down my left arm, I’m more worried about the sight of my groceries scattered across the lobby. Thin sticks of dried spaghetti cover the floor like strands of hay. Nearby is a shattered jar oozing sauce. Oranges roll through the puddle, leaving trails of red.
The girl is by my side in an instant. “I’m so sorry! I can’t believe I’m so clumsy!”
Even though she tries to help me up, I remain on the floor, scrambling to shove my groceries back into the bags before others can see them. But the collision has already drawn a small crowd. There’s Charlie, of course, who hurriedly gathers the fallen groceries, and Marianne Duncan returning from taking Rufus for a walk. She stands in the doorway as Rufus yaps. The commotion brings Leslie Evelyn rushing out of her office to see what’s happened.
