by Kevin Lucia
And then he saw the old, bulky cell phone lying far back in the right corner. It was gray and blockish, a rectangular shape. Obviously outdated, but it appeared brand new.
Shane stared at the cell phone, wondering how it had gotten there. According to Amanda (where had she heard about this place again?) the school had been closed since the seventies. Maybe one of the store’s elusive employees, still using an old phone, had dropped it? But if so, how had it ended up in a locker?
Shane stood there, one hand on the locker door, staring at the old cell phone. It appeared mundane, innocuous, trivial even. Who knew how it had gotten in there, or why? There it was, though. A gray, blocky old cell phone, probably a Nokia, the heavy ones you could use to knock out a mugger, if needed.
He should close the locker and find out what Amanda was doing. Last thing he needed was for her to see him standing here and staring into one of the old lockers. Best case scenario, she’d rake him over the coals for being nosy, saying she couldn’t take him anywhere, so why did she bother, anyway?
Of course, that would require she show some life. Worst case scenario? She’d say nothing and continue to ignore him as she had the last seven months.
He grasped the top edge of the locker, about to close it. Instead he bent over, reached out, scooped up the Nokia, and stuck it in his pocket. Then he closed the locker quietly as he heard Amanda’s heels clicking toward him.
He turned, stuffed his hands into his pockets and assumed what he hoped was a neutral expression. Neutral was the safest expression to wear around Amanda these days. A literal survival technique.
“Find anything good?”
Amanda didn’t look up, scrolling on her iPhone (as she always did lately, anything to avoid looking him in the eye), no doubt comparing prices of the end-tables she’d found to those she’d bookmarked on the Internet. “Not really,” she said. “A few of them were okay, and would probably fit into the den, but compared to what I could get online, not such a bargain.”
She glanced up briefly, favoring him with a blank expression of her own. “Let’s go up front, ask where the sofas, recliners, and beds are. This place has so many hallways I can’t remember half of what I saw on the way here.”
Of course he’d agree with her. He didn’t care one way or the other. He certainly had no other plans for the day, which didn’t matter, either. Amanda had planned it, which meant they would do it. Period. His acquiescence was merely a footnote, and as a lot of things in their marriage lately . . .
is this a marriage?
. . . not of much concern to her. At least, so she acted. Which, of course, begged the question, as he dutifully followed her down the hall and around the corner in search of the front lobby, why he was so willing to follow along.
It certainly wasn’t the sex, of course. There hadn’t been any, lately. He instantly felt ashamed at the thought, wondering how he could possibly think of sex first, after everything they’d endured.
no
don’t go there
As a seemingly endless procession of freshly-painted locker doors streamed by, Shane admitted the only answer that made sense: He still loved her. Despite her rejection of him, holding him at arm’s length, despite everything that had happened, he was still here, with her. Helping her pick out furniture for their new house in Eagle Bay. He was here, because he loved Amanda Carroll. Couldn’t imagine ever walking away from her, or waking up in the morning without her. He felt all this, despite her casually dismissing him as part of the scenery (ironically, like an old armchair you can’t bear to part with). He felt a deep chasm open beneath his feet whenever he thought maybe things would be better if he left. Or worse, when he thought maybe if Mandy in accounting (a lithe redhead who’d been flirting for months) asked him out to lunch, he’d accept, because at least someone wanted to have lunch with him. Maybe he’d see where things would go.
He cut himself off, a stinging sense of betrayal twisting his guts, because he still loved Amanda. Couldn’t live without her, and thought he might actually kill himself if he tried to cheat on her, temptations regardless. Unfortunately, those things had become a footnote also.
As they turned right and proceeded down a hallway lined with coffee tables and lamp stands—pushed against the lockers, again reinforcing the illusion they were keeping the lockers closed, keeping something inside from getting out—Shane thought for the hundredth time he wasn’t being fair to Amanda. It wasn’t as if she’d gotten bored with him and wanted to trade up. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Yes, she’d held him at arm’s distance for months. Had retreated behind a cool exterior, but all through their move, him coming with her had never been a question. Divorce or separation wasn’t an option, not even a casually whispered aside. So she must still want him in her life, too . . .
like an old armchair you can’t throw out
. . . even if he’d been put on an indefinite holding pattern. He only hoped he’d be allowed to land before he ran out of fuel.
She didn’t do this, he reminded himself as they came to another intersection. She didn’t ask for this, and you can’t blame her for it.
And he didn’t.
He wouldn’t leave, either. He loved her, and though they hadn’t slept together in months, (the last time had been a joyless, mechanical affair), though she had retreated emotionally and treated him as part of the scenery, he wouldn’t leave her. He wasn’t happy but he wasn’t exactly unhappy, he just was. Being without her was nothing but a recipe for madness and despair.
What if she asked him to leave?
Told him they were done, and she didn’t want him around anymore?
He didn’t know.
It’s not her fault.
But it wasn’t his, either.
He pulled away from his thoughts as he came to Amanda’s shoulder at the intersection. She stared ahead, eyes glazed and distant.
“Everything okay?”
His voice broke her out of the trance she’d fallen into. She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “Place is a damn maze. I thought for sure this led to the main lobby.”
Shane looked ahead. Bean bags filled the hall on the other side of the intersection, of all kinds, shapes and colors. It was also a dead end, its doors probably leading to what was once the school’s playground. He couldn’t tell for sure because they were behind rows of bean bags, heaping piles reached for the ceiling.
This was the nature of Save-A-Bunch, so far as Shane could tell. The front sales area appeared neat and professional, and the halls and classrooms had been arranged with orderly rows of furniture. But around the edges—like at the end of this hall—the order crumbled a bit. In this case, bean bags piled haphazardly to the ceiling. Though it was stupid, he didn’t like those piled bean bags. Hulking, lumpy, and bulbous. Like the gelatin clumps of tadpole eggs he’d seen floating in an old water hole at the edge of his parents’ property, growing up.
Shane glanced down the hallway to his left, which stretched to a corner turning right. This hall featured bookshelves, clothes bureaus and armoires, pressed against the wall, lined up neatly next to each other. For some reason, these pieces hadn’t been pushed against the lockers, and though it made him feel weak and silly, he didn’t want to walk down that hallway at all.
The hallway to their right led to another intersection too far away to see clearly. And lining it were perhaps two dozen recliners of all shapes and sizes. “Hey, look. Recliners.”
Amanda stared down the hall, speechless. Shane frowned and peered at her face. She wore the same empty expression he’d become accustomed to over the past few months, but her eyes trembled with fear. He couldn’t tell exactly how he knew she was afraid. A shimmer there, a trembling, a glimmer he hadn’t seen since It happened.
No.
“You okay?”
Amanda shivered, as if shaking herself from her fugue, literally pulling her wits together. She blinked, and the fearful shine he’d glimpsed there faded. “I’m fine. It’s just—”
She shook her head, sounding puzzled. Did he see fear flickering in her eyes again? “I thought, when we walked through the lobby, the recliners were in the hall to the right of lobby. I can’t see from here,” she pointed to the dim intersection ahead, “but that doesn’t look like the lobby.”
“Oh. Well, maybe they have lots of recliners.”
Amanda’s hand lowered to join the other clutching her red purse before her, in an oddly frightened gesture. “I suppose. This place is so big and confusing.”
She wasn’t looking at him, but he nodded slowly. “Yeah. It is.” He wasn’t saying it to humor her. The store’s layout meandered and branched off into numerous halls and intersections, with many blind alleys stacked with furniture.
and those lockers someone doesn’t want opening
Disconcerting, yes. It would be easy to lose your bearings and get all crossed up. Still, he didn’t quite understand the fear he saw in Amanda’s eyes.
“Well.” Amanda’s tone still sounded doubtful and hesitant. “Guess I’ll check them out. Haven’t found any good recliners online yet, so why not?”
She set off, and again, Shane noticed a marked hesitancy in her stride, as if she were a child proceeding down a dark alley at night. He stepped after her, Are you sure you’re okay? poised on his lips.
He closed his mouth and came to a halt when the Nokia he’d found vibrated.
He clapped a hand over the Nokia’s bulge in his pocket, nervous guilt coursing through him, which was ridiculous, of course. Yes, his inexplicable urge to pocket the old Nokia—which he’d forgotten about completely— didn’t make sense. Also odd; he’d immediately forgotten about it. Of course he’d made the mistake of allowing himself to think about Amanda, their relationship and the null zone it had fallen into. He’d almost allowed himself to think of that, too. Then he’d gotten sidetracked by Amanda’s strange unease over this sprawling store.
He had no reason to feel guilty about the Nokia. No reason to suddenly fear Amanda knowing about it or to worry she’d be angry at him for taking it, no need to hide it from her.
The phone vibrated again.
And again.
Unsure why he felt so guilty, Shane glanced at Amanda’s slowly receding back as she hesitantly made her way down the hall, examining the recliners lined up on both sides . . .
keeping those lockers closed
. . . in furtive, sweeping glances, as if she were afraid, for some reason, of stopping at one recliner too long.
The Nokia vibrated again.
Struggling against a strange sense of betrayal and a surreal unreality, Shane slid his hand into his pocket, withdrew the phone, and without looking at the screen, he pressed the answer button and put the phone to his ear. He turned away from Amanda, again stricken by a guilt he didn’t understand. His whisper sounded harsh and furtive in his own ears. “H-hello?”
A quiet hissing. Not exactly dead air, but not static, either. Then, a clearing of a throat, and a tremulous, feminine whisper, “M-Mike? Is that you?”
Shane glanced over his shoulder at Amanda’s receding back, sure the woman’s voice had echoed in the hall, and would catch Amanda’s attention. He glimpsed her red-jacketed form standing before a classroom door, most likely another showroom for furniture lined up in neat rows, appearing eerily like diligent students sitting at attention. She didn’t act aware of his presence, or hear his whispering. He turned away and replied, “No. I’m sorry. Who is this?”
A tired, wretched sob. A gasp, and then a murmured, “No, no, no, this can’t be, this can’t!”
The Nokia clicked off.
Shane pulled the old cell away from his ear and stared at it, regarding again how out of date it was. It could still be used, of course, being a Tracphone. All you needed was to buy a Tracphone card with a serial number to get minutes. So maybe whoever had owned the phone had simply wanted basic communication, without all the frills and complications of a smartphone. And of course, it certainly didn’t look old, but brand new, out of the package. So he supposed it was conceivable that, however the phone had come to be in one of the lockers, it had done so recently, and had some battery life remaining.
But now the screen was dead. He pressed the power button. Nothing happened. Maybe whatever spark of power had remained was gone?
Who was Mike and the woman asking for him? Had this been Mike’s phone? People switched numbers all the time and got new plans with a newly assigned number, and they often received wrong calls. Maybe that’s what happened, here.
Shane shook his head and glanced up to see that Amanda was gone.
An irrational fear flooded his heart. Of course, she’d stepped into the classroom to examine whatever she’d found in there. Nothing to worry about. Still, she’d done it so quietly. He’d been occupied with the strange Nokia when she’d disappeared, which made him feel strangely responsible. As if she’d vanished when he should’ve been watching over her.
Gripping the now-dead Nokia in his hand, Shane walk-trotted down the hall toward the classroom Amanda had been standing near. He forced himself not to run, feeling his shoes threatening to slip on the glazed and polished ceramic tile floor. He knew it was stupid, she was only browsing used furniture for their new home, but by the time he reached the classroom his heart was hammering and he was breathing heavily, clutching the old Nokia so hard his knuckles ached.
He stopped at the classroom door, almost slipping again on the weirdly slick tile floor. He sighed in relief, seeing Amanda’s red coat, seeing her standing there in the middle of the room, but his relief was cut short as an entirely different kind of fist clenched his heart. He opened his mouth to speak, to call out to Amanda, to say anything. Nothing came but a choked silence, his throat clogged with thick emotion. He felt, vividly, as if he’d been punched in the stomach.
There Amanda stood, back to him, rigid and still, hands dangling at her sides, in the middle of the classroom, which didn’t feature recliners, but cribs.
Baby cribs. Rows of them, lined up perfectly, as if with a square and compass. Another invisible punch to the gut: It looked like a ghostly, abandoned post-natal ward in a hospital, but filled with empty cribs bereft of infants never to be.
Amanda turned stiffly. He met her frozen gaze. Mouth working, but he couldn’t speak. He groped for something, any words of comfort, but everything inside of him wilted in the face of the raging grief he saw blazing in her eyes.
“What . . . ” she paused, looking slowly around her at the neatly ordered rows of empty baby cribs. “What the hell? What. The. Hell?”
The paralysis which had silenced him snapped. “Amanda. Listen. It’s a furniture store. Right? A used furniture store. New parents are gonna be broke, right? So of course a used furniture store is going to have used baby cribs, because parents starting out will need quality used ones for cheap. Right?”
She ignored him, glancing around the room, eyes bright and wide, shining with unshed tears. “No,” she rasped, pointing indiscriminately around the room at the cribs, as if they were to blame for her pain. “No. This is wrong, Shane. All kinds of wrong. What about-what about—”
Shane cocked his head, frowning slightly. “What?”
Amanda stopped pointing and squeezed her hand into a fist, her jaw clenched. He figured it was his imagination, but he imagined he could hear her teeth grinding together as she rasped, “All the babies. Who used to sleep in them. It’s disrespectful, Shane, disrespectful to them.”
She gasped.
Shut her eyes.
Grappled with her purse, digging through it frantically, and withdrew a pink inhaler. She stuck it into her mouth and triggered it, drawing in deep, wheezing breaths.
Shane stepped into the classroom-turned-showroom, hands up (exposing the old Nokia, he realized belatedly, but Amanda couldn’t see because her eyes were still closed), in a gesture of peace, or submission, or surrender, he wasn’t sure. “Amanda. Honey. Please. It’s not . . . ” his voi
ce cracked. He swallowed and tried again. “It’s not . . . ”
Amanda took one last breath. Her chest eased. She removed the inhaler, dropped it back into her purse, opened her eyes and glared at him.
Shane felt as if time itself stopped. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe, as if all the air had been sucked out of the room, and he almost felt like he needed an inhaler. He’d almost mentioned it, hadn’t he? Had almost brought up That Which Should Not Be Talked About, Ever.
“No,” Amanda muttered in a dull monotone, her rage fading as she shook her head in short, jerky sweeps. “No, no, no, no.”
She marched stiffly forward. Hands clenched into tight fists, swinging at her sides. Staring straight ahead, past Shane. She would’ve bumped shoulders with him if he hadn’t sidestepped as she plunged out the door into the hallway.
“Amanda. Hey. Listen, I’m sorry. It’s okay.” He started after her, ashamed he’d come close to mentioning it. Especially in the middle of such a freak thing as a room full of used baby cribs, lined up in such neat, orderly rows.
Amanda turned left, out of sight, down the hall.
The Nokia buzzed in his hand.
A kind of unreasoning anger surged in him. He had no cause to be angry at the person calling, searching for her husband or whatever, and Amanda walking out certainly wasn’t the woman’s fault. Also, why was he answering? He should ignore the call and go after Amanda. However, he figured maybe she needed some space, so instead he let his curiosity get the better of him, pressed answer and put the phone to his ear. “What?”
“Mike! Oh, God-Mike, is that you?”
“Listen, lady. I’m not your husband and I don’t know where he is. I found this phone in a locker at this old furniture store outside Clifton Heights, in what used to be a school, and I have no idea how it got here, and my wife stormed off all pissed at me and is God knows where by now, so if you’ll excuse me . . . ”
A sharp intake of breath, the woman’s voice vibrating with fear. “You here. At Save-A-Bunch?”
