Alone

by E. J. Noyes

  “Sure,” I mutter.

  She gathers the papers I signed, flicks through to check each signature then places the document in a tray. Olivia looks up and the fine tension lines around her eyes smooth out. Memories rush through my head like a DVD on fast-forward. Olivia hugging me for the first time. Holding my shoulder as I dressed her wound. Cooking with me. Our first kiss. Laughing at my silly stories. The sound as she climaxes. Lying in my arms. The exquisite touch of her hands and mouth.

  “Celeste? Is there anything else you needed?” She reaches blindly into the handbag on the shelves behind her and pulls out a soft leather purse. “Do you have enough cash for tonight?”

  Celeste. Not Ms. Thorne. A frightening hope swells, but it’s not enough to overcome the fear. I know now that there is so much I need from her but I also know that I will never get any of it. But I’m going to try to get one final thing. “I don’t need your money, thank you. May I ask you something?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Yet another thing trips in my memory. Me asking Controller A—Olivia—if I could ask a question, while I was wondering how crazy I was. I didn’t expect an answer then and I don’t expect one now. “Did they force you to sleep with me?”

  Her eyebrow gives the barest twitch but other than that her expression doesn’t change. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the finer details of the study,” she says smoothly.

  There’s nothing I can say to that dismissal. Olivia leans down and when she straightens again she’s holding a duffel. “Here are all your personal belongings, including mail we collected for you while you were away.”

  My whole life reduced to a single bag of miscellaneous stuff I left with them before locking myself away. “Thank you.” I dig through the bag. Laptop. Phone, probably at least two models out of date. Wallet with about a hundred bucks in cash and my credit cards—some expired. Driver license and other ID. A small diary notebook filled with phone numbers and various account details. Keys to my storage space and post office box. No house keys. I live nowhere. Officially vagrant just like Mother. Not for long. I’m leaving here and I’m buying a house. I just don’t know where yet.

  She passes me another envelope. I’m acquiring quite a collection. “Here’s a plane ticket, and accommodation for this week to help you with the transition. All hotel charges will be covered for food, beverages, massage, movies.” She smiles. “Whatever you want.”

  “Thank you.”

  She points at the envelope. “There’s also a card in there with a number you can call any time, day or night while you’re at the hotel, if you need assistance. Assistance with anything—anxiety, can’t make the hotel TV work, nightmares, wondering what the best item on the room service menu is. Someone will be there within ten minutes to help.”

  “Thanks.” I look at the ticket. O’Hare, Chicago. First class. There’s also a booking confirmation for one week at the Sofitel. A decent hotel. It’s a nice gesture from them to give me a roof over my head until I find a place to live.

  She seems to read my mind. “When you’re settled, we’ll forward your clothing from the habitat.” Olivia clarifies, “They won’t be needed for the next candidate.”

  “Donate them to Goodwill or something, please. I don’t want anything from that house.” Except you. The thought springs into my head without my permission. I don’t want it there, but it is, and won’t leave, because it’s the truth.

  Riley was right. This is exactly like Mother. Even though I know Olivia doesn’t want me, that it’s pointless trying to make her love me, I just can’t let it go. I am destined to spend my life chasing after people who have left me without even sparing me the tiniest backward glance.

  Olivia nods. “All right then.” Her gaze is measured, so piercing and so penetrating that I want to look away.

  But I don’t. I won’t give her that. I make myself look into her eyes. “Well, I guess that’s it. Thanks for everything.” There’s nothing more to say. I pick up my bag and my envelopes and leave her office.

  The Suit escorts me through the downstairs lobby and pauses outside the revolving door to wish me luck. There’s a hired car and driver in the lot, engine running. He gestures to it. I smile a tight-lipped smile of thanks, hoist my duffel onto my shoulder and walk away from this place.

  Running footsteps, high heels loud on the asphalt. “Celeste, wait!”

  At her call, I turn around. “What?” My single word comes out less-than-politely. I’m too tired, too overwhelmed to even try to mask my emotion.

  Olivia slows to a walk and steps close, right into my personal space. Out here, her perfume blends into the scent of mown grass. I want to throw myself at her, to pull her into my arms and make her remember us. To remember everything we had. Even if it wasn’t real, it was so damned good.

  Her voice is low and sincere. “They didn’t force me to sleep with you. It was completely voluntary, and one hundred percent optional. I didn’t have to do it but I wanted to, Celeste. I wanted you, desperately, and I couldn’t help myself.” Her eyes glisten with tears, and she shrugs helplessly. “You make me so weak.”

  Again, I just don’t know what to say.

  A warm hand closes around my bicep. “Take care of yourself.” Her tear-filled gaze is intense and she holds my eyes for what feels like an eternity. “I miss you so much,” she murmurs, then she lets me go and rushes away. Before she disappears into the building, Liv pauses, turns back and stares at me for a long moment before she steps through the revolving door and is gone.

  Chapter Nineteen

  At the airport I discover I’m in Seattle. Obviously she must live in Seattle if she works at that place. Mentally, I move another point from the lies column to the truths column. The truths outweigh the lies, but the lies are so big that I can’t help but weight them more heavily. I wait for my flight with those last words of Olivia’s echoing inside my head.

  I miss you so much.

  I want to believe her, because there’s no reason for her to have said it unless there was a sliver of truth within it. But I can’t separate it from everything else. I can’t know if all she’s doing is trying to curry favor with me for my future dealings with The Organization, or smooth things over to give herself closure. Before I can decide, my flight’s called.

  Her voice is lazy, dulled by the past few hours we’ve spent in bed. “Do you like to travel?”

  “Honestly, I’ve never really had the chance. I don’t even have a passport…and I don’t like flying much, so even if I could I probably wouldn’t.”

  “Why don’t you like flying?”

  I turn to her. “Not being able to see outside makes me feel claustrophobic.”

  “Sit next to the window then.” She grins and rolls onto her side, head propped on her elbow.

  “You have to pay more to choose, and the ticket person always puts me in the middle bit between strangers.” The two times I’ve flown that is.

  “Hmm. Maybe one day you’ll get a window seat.”

  “Maybe. But I think it’s also not being in control, or not knowing how the plane actually works, like how does it stay up?”

  “Planes work because they’re designed to work.” Her fingers are softly sliding up the inside of my thigh. “When you get back you could research the mechanics of flight so you’re less afraid.”

  “Mmm, it seems so complicated.”

  “Simple physics. Lift and thrust.” Her smile is seductive.

  I raise my hips to give her better access. “I know a lot about thrust.”

  The hand moves higher. “Yes. You do…”

  The flight attendant shows me to my first-class window seat.

  I miss you so much.

  When we land, I shove to the front of the line and rush up the gangway. Too many people. Too close. Too loud. I’m bumped and jostled through the terminal, my panic rising with every touch and sound. I push into the nearest bathroom and lock myself in a stall until I’ve calmed down enough to make my legs work again so
I can leave. It takes a while. I’d expected it would be hard to be back out in the world, but I didn’t expect it to be this overwhelming.

  I rush out of the airport and into a cab to the hotel. Four walls and a ceiling to keep me safe inside. I call room service, ask for a glass of ice-cold milk and drink it down in two long gulps. I’ve waited three and a half years to drink a real glass of milk and it’s upsettingly unsatisfying. I have the uneasy feeling that a lot of the things I’ve been looking forward to will be the same.

  I learn we have a new president, the notion awful and unbelievable. Some musicians and actors I liked have died. Celebrities have divorced. Others have married or had kids. So much has changed and the idea is both thrilling and terrifying. At the same time, other things haven’t changed—global warming, pollution, people doing horrible things to other people. I think I’m a little indignant to realize that life really did keep on going without me, and that the world does not need me in order to keep spinning.

  I find Heather’s number in my notebook, hoping it hasn’t changed, and remind myself that The Organization will pay for all calls I make during my stay at the hotel. Her voice mail kicks in and my anxiety eases a little at not having to talk to her. I stare at the wall. “Heather-Bear? It’s me. I’m, uh, I’m back. I’ll be in town for a few more days then I’m heading out. Not sure where I’ll go. You can reach me on this hotel number until Thursday. Bye.” I check my notebook for email passwords, delete a million spam emails then log on to Facebook to let everyone know I’m still alive, and back from my “extended social media break.”

  I close the curtains, turn off the lights and crawl into the huge, very comfortable bed.

  “Celeste? Are you awake?”

  “I am now.” I groan and roll over, fumbling for the light.

  “Leave it off,” Olivia insists. In the dark, she slides the sheet down and presses herself to me. A warm mouth covers mine. Hands are on my breasts, then cupping between my legs.

  I groan. “Liv, please…”

  “Please what, darling? What do you want me to do?”

  “Fill me,” I urge her. “Love me.”

  I come abruptly awake as she enters me. The dream is a lie. My pulse pounds between my legs and when I reach down, I can feel how aroused I am. The brush of fingers over my clit sends a warning but I pull my hand away. It’d be so easy to make myself come. But I don’t want it that way. I don’t want to come by myself with just the memory of her. I want her all over me and inside of me. Nothing and nobody but her.

  And the thought makes me want to cry so badly, but I can’t even do that.

  After a morning spent at the window eating a fantastic room service breakfast and watching the street with my nose pressed to the glass, I graduate to the balcony. For the rest of the day I sit at the table outside doing nothing but ordering room service and staring down at those who live their lives on the street. They can’t touch me up here. I’m still apart from them.

  “Like an angel above, Celeste,” Olivia says, almost reverently.

  “Don’t say that.”

  Heather phones me while I’m eating nachos before it’s dinnertime and watching a reality television show I’ve never heard of. She lives in Texas now, working in taxation law and married to an accountant. She tells me I met her now-wife at a party before I left, but I don’t remember the woman she describes in great detail. Alli scored her dream job working as a film producer and moved to LA, and she calls or emails Heather sporadically. The rest of our circle of friends stayed in Chicago and Heather suggests I contact them. I tell her I might, but know I won’t. I’ve been away for so long. What will I say to them?

  I think Heather’s pleased to hear from me but she mostly sounds confused, as though I’m someone so far in her past she doesn’t remember how close we were. Maybe I’ll visit, but not any time soon. My old life feels wrong, something I want to leave in a packing box and never open.

  Near midnight, I get around to opening the few dozen letters in my duffel. Bank statements mostly, new credit and debit cards to replace those that have expired. Three letters from a lawyer in Arkansas, all postmarked a few months apart and the most recent one from four months ago. I open the oldest letter first.

  RE: Estate Nathalie Lynette Thorne; DOB 3/18/1966, DOD 12/6/2016

  Dear Ms. Thorne,

  It is with deepest regret that I must inform you that your biological mother, Nathalie Lynette Thorne passed away…

  Regret? Why does this lawyer who probably barely knew Mother regret her dying? I don’t.

  I skim the rest of it, trying to make sense of the words. A few legal terms jump out at me, and I’m reminded of my time in college when I thought I’d make something of myself. There’s a brief mention of an estate. What estate? Mother had nothing to leave anyone except fistfuls of heartbreak and meanness. The next two letters are more of the same—where are you, please contact us urgently blah blah blah.

  I call their office at a polite hour in the morning and lie that I’ve been out of the country and therefore out of contact. Still not knowing where I’m going to settle, I tell the lawyer I’ll come to Arkansas and sign some paperwork in a couple of weeks. I’m surprised Mother had a lawyer and even more surprised to hear that she had a small amount of money and some non-trashed belongings left to me. Seems she got clean somewhere along the way. Somewhere between her breaking my jaw and my arm and having her kids taken from her, and the recent past.

  My jaw aches. I unclench my molars, open my mouth and stretch it to ease the tension. “Mother?”

  She doesn’t answer but I tell her anyway, “Just so you know, I still hate you. But…at least you fucked things up so badly that I could get away from all your shit and have a sort of normal life.” I fold the lawyer’s letters back into their envelopes and stuff them in the bottom of my bag.

  I call to activate my new bank cards then take a cab downtown so I can buy some clothes and credit for my old cell phone. I almost buy a new phone, but the thought of having an extended conversation with a salesperson about phone models and plans dissuades me. I’d forgotten how the city sounded and smelled. Lights. Noise. Crowds. There’s a sudden rush of a cop car, ambulance, and fire engine speeding past. I stare dumbly at the blur of light and sound and feel a familiar tension in my body. It’s too loud, too bright, someone’s in trouble, someone’s hurt.

  Staring down the street, I notice a familiar man standing fifty feet away. The same guy who took me up to Olivia’s office. The Suit. Only now he’s casual in jeans, sneakers, and a tee. I stare. He smiles, then looks away, but he doesn’t leave. Flustered, I end up ducking into the first store I see and buying a bunch of clothes without trying them on.

  I wait in line at McDonald’s and the pharmacy and then sit and wait some more at the post office so I can cancel my post office box lease. I’m jiggling my legs, tapping anxious feet against the floor and trying to tell myself that it’s normal to be surrounded by people. I remind myself that this used to be my life, hours waiting. For meals, coffee, movies and concerts to start, and for friends to arrive. The whole time I’m aware that Suit is following me. At a respectful distance, and unobtrusively. But he’s still there. Monitoring me. Making sure I’m all right?

  I fish the card with that number on it from my purse and watch him unclip the phone from his belt to answer on the second ring. “Hello, Ms. Thorne. Do you need help with something?”

  “No, just, um…checking.”

  He chuckles. “Very well then. I’m here if you need me.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I hang up without saying goodbye.

  Midway through my transition week I buy a secondhand pickup because I like the idea of throwing my stuff in the back and just getting the hell out of wherever whenever I want. I almost call Suit and ask if he knows anything about mechanical stuff. I take boxes of belongings—clothes and books mostly—from my storage locker and toss them into the tray, and it’s as satisfying as I’d imagined.

  After my week i
n the five-star hotel I leave Chicago to begin my drive around the country, wondering where to live. I think I’ll probably settle somewhere in the mid-north west, but it’s a big country and I have all the time in the world to decide. I am going to give myself until my one month follow-up with The Organization to mope and feel whatever I need to feel about what happened with Olivia. Then I’m going to set it aside the way I always have and move on. After thirty years of pretending I don’t care, I’m pretty good at it.

  My life rushes by in days of fast time. Different cities and states while I search for something I’ll never be able to name. I’m in mourning and I find nothing that comes close to the feeling I had when I was with her. I don’t even dream about her now. She doesn’t come to me at all. She left for good when I left the hotel. I struggle to remember her voice. But I remember the way she felt. And I remember the way she made me feel. Like I was worth something. Like she understood me.

  I remember, even as I’m trying to forget everything that happened between us. I’m trying to forget every look and all of our touches, gentle and loving but also hard and sensual. The sound of her words and soft assurances. The way she begged and praised and directed.

  I miss you so much.

  I make my way down to Arkansas and sign papers for Mother’s lawyers. They have a cardboard box and a check for a small amount of money. Less their fees, of course, they are quick to tell me. I put the envelope in my bag without looking at it and toss the unopened box into the back of the truck.

  I don’t visit Heather in Texas. I couldn’t bear for her to look at my face and know, as she always does, that something is wrong. We talk on the phone a couple of times, and she sounds genuine when she tells me she wants to see me and to stay in touch. I promise, and I mean it, that I will come and see her later. Later, when all my emotions are in their right place and I can be a friend again.