“Just act natural.” I say.
She crosses her arms, holding the glass with one hand up to her lips.
“That works,” I say, and snap a picture.
Click.
“Should I do some different poses?” Samantha asks.
She turns from side to side, moving from smiling to serious.
“You’re good.”
Click.
“Really good, actually.”
Click.
Samantha takes another sip. “Is that what you say to all the girls you bring up here to photograph?”
“Hey, hey, hey.” I set the camera down. “You’re the one who asked to have your picture taken.”
“Relax, I’m just teasing you. You’d better hurry up on that whiskey, because I’m about ready for another.”
I set the camera down and pick my glass back up. As the smell of the whiskey hits my nose, I stop, struck by a sudden memory. I’m sitting in the limo with Molly. It’s the night she died, and I’m gulping down shots of Johnnie Walker as I work up the nerve to confront her about that damn go-bag.
“Okay… where’d you go?” Samantha asks.
I open my mouth, and then close it again, realizing I was about to say the truth.
Samantha narrows her eyes. “You were thinking about her, weren’t you?”
I let out a sigh. “Yes, I’m thinking about my wife.”
Samantha gets up on one elbow, staring at me. “Your dead wife?”
“You asked,” I say.
She takes another drink. “I know.”
There’s a long moment of silence as Samantha stares at me over the rim of her glass. “Fine, I’ll ask. Why are you thinking about your dead wife,” she gestures at the space between the two of us, “while this is going on?”
“Because I haven’t been with another woman since she died, and I swore to myself after she died that I never would.”
“Why would you do that?” Samantha asks.
“Shouldn’t you be asking why I broke my promise and called you?”
She shakes her head. “You’re lonely and probably a bit horny—” I choke back a cough— “You’ve just moved to a new city, and one day you stumbled across the card I gave you two years ago. See? That one was easy.”
“Jesus,” I mutter. “You must be a great lawyer.”
“The best,” she says. “So, why’d you go monastic in the first place?”
I let out a long sigh. “Because I thought she was still alive.”
There is an even longer moment of silence. “And why did you believe she was alive?”
I turn away, staring at the lights from the street below shining in through the living room window. “Molly was a completely unpredictable person. She drove me crazy at times. I loved her, deeply, but I barely even knew her. And after she was gone… A man came to me claiming to be her father. She had always told me that her parents were dead. But after the funeral, he tracked me down and told me that she had faked her own death once before, and had probably done it again.”
“And you believed him,” Samantha says.
“Yes,” I say.
“Do you still believe him?” Samantha asks.
I shrug. “Some days.”
Samantha sets her glass down, taking a step toward me. “The East River is over forty feet deep at that point. The current was strong and the water temperature was in the high forties. Even if she had made it out of the water, she would have had severe hypothermia and wouldn’t have survived without going to a hospital.”
I stare at her, and then I understand why she’s been bringing up Molly throughout the entire evening. I recognized the list of facts as soon as she said them. They were the same facts I had initially used to convince myself that Molly was really dead. The same facts I had shared with Mark that afternoon in the bar when I was trying to convince him that Molly’s death was something more than an accident. “You’ve read the article,” I say.
“Of course I have,” she says. “Did you really think I would go out on a blind date without checking the Internet first?”
“You found that article on the Internet?”
“The New York Times has started scanning their archives.”
“Damn Internet. So I failed the test?”
She takes a sip of her scotch, scouting out the room. “Not entirely.”
I follow her gaze, noticing for the first time my lack of appropriate seating arrangements. “If you want to talk we could sit on the edge of the bed…”
She sets the drink down, moving toward me in a manner both assertive and sensual at the same time. “I don’t think we’ll be doing much sitting… or talking.”
“Really?” I ask.
She turns away, walking slowly back down the hallway toward the bedroom. “Really,” she answers back.
I set down my own glass, following Samantha to the bedroom.
Light and shadows dance on the wall across from the bed, flung down the hallway by a passing ‘L’ Train. Samantha is curled in the blankets, sleeping soundly. The skin of her back is pale white in the moonlight, and she makes a soft, snoring sound with each exhale. I had spent the last two years sick with guilt in the wake of each moment not spent searching to make some sense out of Molly’s death. Sick with guilt and desperate for answer I knew would never come. And of course I knew that; I had always known that. So why do the search, anyway? Why go through the trouble of tracking down the driver, to discover the strange case of missing identity, only to find that it leads to nowhere? I have found no answers for those questions.
But life is rarely full of answers.
Pulling aside the covers, I slip out of bed, walking softly down the hallway. I pause at the bathroom door. Samantha hasn’t stirred.
I slip inside the bathroom and turn on the light. My face looks haggard in the bathroom mirror. I was already graying a little and beginning to go bald when I lost Molly, but the last two years haven’t been good to me. My stubble is almost entirely gray and my hairline has receded, leaving only a small island of hair at the crown. The skin on my neck and arms is beginning to hang a little looser and my eyes are encircled by deep wrinkles. What the hell did someone like Samantha see in my anyway?
I shut my eyes, feeling a wash of guilt. When had I given up? When had I stopped looking for Molly? That night I left New York, I had rented a car and driven straight through to Chicago. Some part of me—some mad part of me—was convinced that she had taken that flight to Chicago, even without the ticket. That same mad part of me has never stopped believing it.
I turn the light back off and slip out of the bathroom. Glancing back down the hallway, I can still see Samantha’s sleeping form. She hasn’t stirred. I turn, moving toward the living room. Picking up the camera, I carry it into the darkroom.
With the light off, I take the film out and load it into the spool, then place the spool into the developing canister, then move into the bathroom. I pour water into the canister, letting it soak, then adding the developer. Soak, agitate, rinse, add the stabilizer. When the film is done, I take it back into the darkroom and get to work on the enlarger.
The whole process takes a few hours. When I’m done, the entire reel is printed and drying from the lines in the closet. I look at them as they dry. The pictures of Samantha are some of my best, which comes as a surprise. I’m used to taking candid shots.
The other pictures from this roll are mostly of buildings from various parts of the city, or candids of strangers sipping drinks outside coffee shops, eating lunch, or walking down the street. I flip through them until I find the one I want. Medium height. Slim. Mid-forties, with dark, curly hair. The hair-length isn’t quite right, but it’s impossible to know what style Molly might be wearing her hair now.
She also could have colored her hair.
Or could be wearing a wig.
The thought that she may have gotten plastic surgery has crossed my mind before, but that would expand my search even more. I’d been convinced many ti
es that I’d spotted her and quickly snapped a picture, only to find after examining the photos that something was just slightly off.
I’d like to think that if I really did see Molly, and she saw me, that she would do something. Say something. But I have to act under the assumption that she doesn’t want to be found. Even by me.
I wait for the picture to dry and then take it out to the living room. I take a magnifying glass from the drawer, like the kind jewelers use to examine diamonds, and under the light of my desk side lamp I pour over every detail of the photograph. At first, it seems to have potential. The curve of the mouth. The shape of the nose. The color of the eyes. The set of the chin. And then I see it. A small birthmark on the women’s left cheek bone.
It’s not Molly.
I pick up the photograph, crumple it into a ball, and throw it into the trash can beside my desk. Turning off the lamp, I move softly back to the bedroom.
It isn’t lost on me what this behavior would look like to Samantha if she discovered it. But how could I explain the truth to her?
Could I say, I believe that my dead wife is alive and in hiding, and I’ve come to this city in the desperate hope that I can find her amongst the millions of women who walk the streets every day?
And then she would ask why I called her up if I still believed that Molly was alive.
Because life is not so simple, I would say. And I don’t want to be alone, but I also can’t stop looking.
Samantha stirs as I slip back into bed.
“It’s late,” she says.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I answer.
“What were you doing?” she asks.
“I developed your photos.”
“How’d they turn out?”
“Good,” I mutter, feeling a stab of guilt.
But when she rolls over to kiss me, I don’t stop her.
And then I kiss her back.
October 18
“My God, you did it. You really moved, and not just out of that loft, or out of New York, but out of the whole damn state!” I look up to see Arthur Longdale standing above me, wearing a three-piece suit under a dark wool overcoat, holding a steaming cup of coffee, and grinning with a smile big enough to show off a mouthful of enviously white teeth.
I choke back my coffee, swallow it, and hastily wipe my mouth. “Longdale? Christ! What are you doing here?”
“Litigation on a new product line,” Longdale says. “Same old, really. I have a meeting just across the street. I’ve been walking by this coffee shop every morning this week and this was the first morning that I thought, enough is enough, if Orville and Strauss can’t serve up a proper cup of coffee then I’d have to just take matters into my own hands. Do you live around here?”
“Not far,” I say, lighting another cigarette.
He gestures at my camera on the table. “Since when did you take up photography?”
“After I moved here.” I say.
“It’s a cold day to be out shooting photos, isn’t it?”
I wave a hand, showing off my fingerless gloves. “I came prepared.”
Longdale gives an approving nod.
A month ago, I’d been convinced that I’d seen Molly while out for a morning coffee, but I hadn’t had my camera with me. Now I try and never leave the apartment without it. Still, even mentioning the camera makes me nervous. “How are you doing? How’s…” I trail off.
“Jessica,” Longdale supplies. “You don’t have to pretend that you remembered the name of my fourth wife. This one’s not going to last either. Surprise, surprise. Such is my luck with women. She’s probably drafting up the divorce papers as we speak.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I say.
“Don’t be,” Longdale shrugs. “I am not a guiltless party in these disputes. But forget about me. What have you been up to? It’s been, what? Two years? What was it that brought you here, anyway? Teaching?”
“Northwestern,” I say. “I’m a visiting lecturer in the Graduate Journalism Program. It’s not much. Just a few classes here and there. But, it’s given me some extra time to do a little writing.”
“Working on that next great American novel?”
“Oh god no,” I say. “Just an ordinary book. Any book that I can finish is a book that I will be happy with.”
“Writer’s block?” Longdale asks.
I shrug. “A little. Is it obvious?”
“You’re sitting out here in 40-degree weather, smoking what looks like a half a pack before 9 A.M. You’ve got an untouched cup of coffee. Your notebook is open in front of you, but the page is blank. By the looks of it, you’ve been doing a lot more photography than writing.”
I put out my cigarette. “Not bad. You should go into journalism.”
Longdale smirks. “Oh no. According to Jessica, I am a ‘spineless, heartless, gutless ass.’ I’m good with computers; hopeless with people. Mind if I sit?”
I gesture to the open chair. “Go ahead.”
Longdale sits across from me, rubs his hands together, and takes a sip of his own coffee. I light another cigarette. A long moment of silence passes. Finally, Longdale sets down his coffee and clears his throat. “So, are you seeing anyone these days?”
“You don’t have to do this,” I say.
“I don’t have to do what?”
“You don’t have to treat me with kid gloves. It’s been two years. I’m okay.”
“Noted,” Longdale says. “But you still haven’t answered my question.”
“Actually, I am seeing someone,” I say.
“Is it serious?”
I shrug. “It’s been a few months. We’re not living together, but she spends a lot of time at my place, since it’s close to her work. Actually, she’s a VP at the law firm you’re employing. Samantha Cooper?”
Longdale stares off for a moment and then nods. “Yeah, yeah… I’ve met her. She’s not on my case but she’s done some work on it for us. Huh… Samantha Cooper? Really?”
“You don’t have to sound so surprised.”
“No, it’s good,” Longdale says with, a funny look in his eyes. “Really good.”
A siren screams past and then fades away.
“Ah, I get it. You didn’t just happen to run into me. You’ve been seeing me here all week and you just now worked up the courage to confront your sad looking old friend from your college days who lost his wife two years ago in a tragic accident. But you’ve got it all wrong. Yeah, I come out here and sit around all day pretending to write, but these are my off days, and I sit here all morning just in case my girlfriend can find half an hour in her packed schedule to grab lunch with me. And…” I tap the notebook in front of me, “I’m in talks with an agent for this book idea I’ve been working on.”
“Oh yeah?” Longdale asks.
“Mary Rowell, she’s a big-time literary agent with The Gershwin Agency.”
“That all sounds great, Jim. Really great.” Longdale says.
“Say it again and I’ll start to believe you actually mean it,” I say.
“Ouch,” Longdale says.
I look away. “Sorry, I’m the one being an ass today.”
“You miss her, don’t you?”
I let out a long sigh. “I see her everywhere.”
“Oh?”
“On the street, seated in my classroom, even on TV. I can’t stop seeing her.”
“You still believe her death was… intentional?”
I look up at Longdale. I’d never told him what I’d really begun to suspect, that Molly’s death wasn’t intentional, but that it was somehow faked. That she was, in fact, alive. “I don’t know.”
“It’s perfectly natural,” Longdale says. “Everyone needs closure, and that was robbed from you.”
I wave my hand, dismissively. “I was overcome with grief. I was crazy. I’ve moved on.”
“Moved on? Have you ever gotten over Vance’s disappearance?” Longdale sighs, looking away. “Hell, I haven’t. I see him, too. Sometimes I
pick up the phone expecting it’s him on the other line. Jim, it’s been over twenty years and I still don’t have closure.”
“I…” I open my mouth and close it again. “I’d forgotten.”
“Christ, Jim. I’m sorry. I know you’ve had it hard—”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’ve got to remember that there are other people in the world besides me.”
Longdale nods and we are both silent for a long moment. Another siren fills the space between our words.
“You’re wrong about why I stopped here today,” Longdale says.
“Am I?”
“Well, only half wrong. I did see you yesterday, but I was in a hell of a rush, and I would have had gun sights on me if I was any later than I was already going to be. But after I saw you, I remembered that your name had just come up a few weeks earlier.”
“Oh?”
“You remember that package you got on the night that Molly died? That package with some piece of tech, and I asked you if I could have it to take a look at?”
“Sure, I remember.”
“So, I gave it to one of my tech guys and promptly forgot about it. He must have forgotten about it too because he never got back to me about it. And then a few weeks ago I get a phone call, and it’s this friend of mine, the tech guy, and he has the craziest story. He said he had stumbled across the item again a few days earlier. He’d completely forgotten about it, but remembered what it was the moment he saw it. He said the reason he couldn’t crack it when I gave it to him was because, as far he knows, the technology had not yet been invented yet.”
“What?”
“Jim, you gave me a flash drive. In 1998. Do you remember seeing any flash drives before ‘99?”
I open my mouth and then close it again. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you didn’t. Because they weren’t invented yet. USB for peripherals had been, but not flash drives. And now he’s intrigued, so he plugs it into his laptop and finds a file, but he can’t open it. So he calls me up, and he’s going on and on about stolen military technology, because that’s the only explanation he can think of, and he starts begging me for any info I might have on you.”
Incursion: Book Three of The Recursion Event Saga Page 8
