by Tyler King
According to Cyle’s email, he’s designated me as the new IAQ elf. No byline. No credit. Just looking up inane facts for people too lazy to Google it themselves. Out of curiosity, I use the log-in credentials he sent me to check the IAQ email account. Three hundred and fourteen unread emails. If I drank, I’d be about ready to jump knee-deep into a bottle about now.
In any case, I’ve had a long day, so I find the least brain-intensive assignment on Cyle’s list and start with that. I’m not ten minutes into fact-checking a movie review of the first summer box office bomb when there’s a knock at my door. Either pizza delivery around here is on point, or Kumi’s already lost her keys.
“Yeah,” I say, uncurling myself from the couch, “coming.”
In my haste, I catch my foot on the coffee table and fall on a stack of boxes we still haven’t unpacked. Dishes, from the sound of it. We’ve got to get on that. It’s starting to feel like we’re squatting. I then hobble through the kitchen with a bruised toe.
Opening the door, I forget all about the pain.
“Uh, hi,” I say, wearing an old T-shirt too big for my body and pajama pants too long for my legs. I suddenly feel like a fucking four-year-old, and now I understand why people on TV are always fully dressed at home, even when just sitting around the house. “What are you doing here?”
“Rats?” Ethan says, peering around me into the apartment.
“What?”
“I heard a noise. Sounded like you were killing something in there.”
“Oh, no.” I cross my arms over my chest like that’ll hide the rest of me. “Just, uh, tripped. Too many damn boxes.”
“Hey, so, listen…” He combs his fingers through his hair, pensive, his eyes on the floor. “I’m sorry to wake you up—”
“I wasn’t asleep.” That comes out quicker than necessary. “Catching up on Cyle’s to-do list.”
“Ah, okay. Well…” His hands adjust the strap of his messenger bag, then they brace against the doorjamb. “See, the reason I came by—I should have called, now that I think about it. I’m not really sure why that didn’t occur to me.”
He fidgets, unsure what to do with his hands or where to look. Ethan’s nervous, which is sort of making me nervous. My father already died today, what else could he have to tell me that even approaches that level of uncomfortable conversation?
“Ethan?”
He looks up. “Yeah?”
“Spit it out.”
“Right.” He clears his throat and stands up straight, now determined to at least make an attempt at getting to the point. “I came back because I lied to you earlier, and I couldn’t leave it like that.”
His nervous shuffling is less cute now. “Okay…”
“The reason Patrick agreed to the interview,” he says. “He also asked me to find you.”
Once it’s out of his mouth, Ethan finds his sturdy footing again. He leans in against the frame. I don’t miss that he nudges his foot across the threshold, in case I try to slam the door in his face.
“I agreed because, hell, I would have agreed to anything back then. As long as it got me the interview. But I swear, Avery, I never gave him anything. I spent eight weeks convincing him you might have changed your name and left the country. Frankly, if I’d told him you were still in the state, he might not have believed me.”
“But you did look for me, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” This part he isn’t contrite about. “He made me curious.”
“And you found me.”
“I did.”
Ernest, unrepentant. Ethan has the kind of self-assured confidence my father must have recognized and admired. I guess I do, too. Though I haven’t yet decided what to do with this new information. On the one hand, I appreciate that he respects me enough to turn around and knock on my door, not content to let the omission stand. On the other, had I not asked the question, he might never have revealed the truth. That for the better part of two years, he’s been following my ghost.
“But what I saw,” he says, like he senses the door closing, “was a normal, bright young woman trying to move on with her life. I never had any intention of taking that away from you. I think, like the rest of the country, I wanted to know you’d turned out okay. You’d survived.”
What would he think if he knew what really became of Echo? Detox isn’t pretty. Ravaged by drug addition, she died kicking and screaming and shitting herself on a bare cot in a state-funded rehab facility. I’m what’s left when she emerged.
Yet, painful as that experience was, I learned a few things about forgiveness. They’re big on that in rehab. Making amends to those we’ve hurt isn’t worth attempting if we can’t forgive ourselves first.
“Answer me one thing,” I say, “and I’ll let you off the hook.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
“Was it Cara’s idea to offer me the job, or yours?”
“It was Ed’s.”
He’s fucking with me. “You’re fucking with me.”
“Ed read your essay, called me into his office, and said, ‘Get me that girl.’ Cara was indifferent until she saw the viral lift it had after only a few hours. I had nothing to do with it.”
This time I believe him. Though it does make me look at Ed in a new light. Was he so absent in our interview because he’d already made up his mind? I suppose he’s just a distant person. In any case, with one notable exception, I don’t make it a habit to hold grudges, so Ethan was never in any real danger. And now that he’s here, I don’t entirely want him to leave. I admit, there was the slightest sting of excitement when I answered the door. Like Enderly said, he’s new. And new is interesting.
“Hey,” I say, “if you haven’t eaten yet, I’ve got a pizza coming. My roommate’s out, and I’m not going to finish it by myself, so…”
“I still have to write this article. Ed’s going to be waiting up for it. He’ll start calling every fifteen minutes until I send it in.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, no problem.” I start pushing the door closed to shield myself from the embarrassment of being a dumb-ass. “Good—”
“But—” He stops the door with his foot. “I’m starving. If you don’t mind me working while…”
“Sure, yeah.” Stepping back from the door, I let him in. “I was just working on the couch. But, uh, sit wherever. Sorry about the mess.”
“I’ve lived in my place for a year.” He follows me to the living room and sits on the couch beside me to pull his laptop out of his bag. “I still haven’t unpacked everything.”
Propping my feet up on the coffee table, I wake up my laptop and return to Cyle’s to-do list. We fall into a comfortable silence together, not unlike at the office. Except now there isn’t a fabric-padded wall between us. And like his hand covering mine while I cried, it feels familiar. Like we’ve been here a hundred times.
A few minutes later we get up when the pizza arrives and pause to eat and watch a little TV, skipping over the news channels.
“Christ,” Ethan says, opening the box in the kitchen while I get us some paper plates. “Is there anything you don’t put on your pizza?”
“Meat.” My signature order is mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, goat cheese, spinach, basil, black olives, and green olives. “But I feel like you already knew that.”
It isn’t stated outright, but Enderly reads as a vegetarian.
“Patrick told me a story about how you cried and went on a hunger strike the first time they slaughtered a cow.” He takes the box back to the coffee table and pulls out a slice. “I extrapolated from there for the book.”
“No, it’s fine.” I curl up beside him on the couch with my plate in my lap. “You’re like my own polite stalker. It’s only a little creepy.”
“There it is.” Taking a bite, he reclines and stares up at the ceiling. “She said the S-word.”
“Really. I mean, I get it. I’m fascinating. You’re obsessed with me. Just as long as you don’t let it interfere with doing our jobs.”
> He laughs, shaking his head. “You’re such a brat.”
“Creeper.”
Later, I mention the IAQ duty, to which Ethan explains that it isn’t so much Cyle’s attempt at torture but more a rite of passage. Every new member of the staff, even Banana Republic Andrew, takes a turn manning the helm. It does make me feel better, like part of the team rather than the redheaded stepchild, even though the sheer number of emails is a bit overwhelming.
“You don’t have to answer every one,” he tells me. “Just pick a few every week, only what you can comfortably handle, and write up a paragraph or two at most. Some only need a short answer. Just be sure to search through the archive to see if it’s a question that’s been answered before. The fun part, really, is that everyone who runs the IAQ has their own sort of flair. They pick different sorts of questions. Have fun with it.”
Fun. I can do that.
By ten we’re both engrossed in our laptops when his phone rings. The sudden noise startles me from my productivity trance. Ethan yanks his phone out of his pocket to look at the screen, then he jumps to his feet.
“Sorry. I’ve got to take this.”
“No problem,” I say, and point toward my room.
He’s been in there for ten, fifteen minutes, by the time Kumi gets home.
“Hey,” she says, coming through the front door with two arms full of grocery bags. I get up to help her and move boxes from the counter to give her a place to set them down. “I just grabbed some essentials. How was work?”
“Got sent home early. You?” I unpack sodas and iced tea from a bag and line them up in the fridge while Kumi puts stuff away in the pantry.
“What, why? Something happen?”
We hear “What the hell does that mean?” come from my bedroom. Kumi’s eyes perk up.
“You have a guy over?” she asks.
“Ethan. He doesn’t count.”
She drops a loaf of bread on the counter and corners me against the kitchen table. “Ethan Ash is in your bedroom?”
“He was sitting at this table earlier. Next to your bra.”
I hold it up and twirl it at her. She snatches it and tosses it aimlessly across the room. The woman has no shame.
“So…” Her eyes get big and excited. “Fill me in.”
“My father died. The boss sent me home early, and Ethan took me to the prison.”
“Whoa. Okay.” All humor leaves her face, and she grabs me by the wrist to drag me to the couch. “Serious time. How are you feeling? Is this an ice cream thing or a—well, you don’t drink, so—or a smash some plates then sit alone in the dark thing?”
“I’m fine.”
Her response is a dubious frown.
“Really. I made my peace and cried it out. I’d like to move on. Now, if possible.”
Sure, I admit, the topic of him and all the ways he ruined my life will never be fully resolved. If not tomorrow or the next day, then at some point sooner or later I’ll still feel the occasional pang of resentment and anger. I’ll probably still have a nightmare that seems brought on by nothing in particular. When I haven’t thought of him in days, something will trigger an anxiety attack and I’ll count back from ten and breathe through my nose and tell myself it’s all in the past. But for today, I’m just tired.
“Okay,” she says. “No more daddy issues tonight.”
I sort of love her tactlessness.
“And that being the case…” Kumi brings both knees up to her chest like a kid ready for story time. “Tell me more about why you’ve got Ethan Ash locked up in your bedroom. Are you going to do sexy times to him?”
She needs a therapist.
“No.”
“Can I?”
“Settle down, kitty.” This is how she ends up falling in love with the first rebound that comes along. She’s ruled by her libido. “We’re working. I invited him to stay for pizza after he dropped me off.”
Well, dropped me off, drove around, came back…not important.
“Oh, see…” Her lips screw to the left in a second-place-Olympic-gymnast sort of way. “You don’t do pizza on a date if you’re planning to hook up. Nobody wants garlic breath and bloated pizza farts in bed. That’s not hot.”
Though her logic is sound, I can’t have her using Ethan as a scratching post or making winking insinuations every time he comes over. Because I guess I’ve decided that this doesn’t have to be a one-time occurrence.
“Promise me you won’t—”
Her attention darts over my shoulder. I turn to see Ethan walking out of my bedroom. He pauses, noticing Kumi.
“You must be the roommate,” he says, and comes to the coffee table to grab his laptop and shove it in his bag. There’s tension in his shoulders, in his hurried steps. With the bag slung over his shoulder, he holds out his hand to Kumi. “Ethan, nice to meet you.” Then to me: “Thanks for dinner. Sorry, but I’ve got to head out.”
“Everything okay?” I get up to see him to the door.
“Yeah, yeah.” But he’s practically running ahead of me. “Just something I’ve got to take care of.”
He opens the door and only pauses on the other side as an afterthought. “I’ll see you.”
I lock up behind him and turn to see Kumi’s puzzled expression staring at me from across the room.
“What was that about?”
“No idea.”
Whatever it was, Ethan looked spooked.
11
The Ingénue
I couldn’t sleep. Was wide awake this morning at six when Kumi left for work. The first thing I did was roll over in bed and reach for my phone on the nightstand. I had texted Ethan last night, just to make sure he was okay, but he hasn’t replied. Not that I expected him to after I went to bed at three without a response. Maybe he was already asleep by then. And he probably hasn’t woken up yet. Or he is an early riser, but replying to my messages isn’t the most pressing part of his morning routine. Now I just feel stupid. Ethan’s a big boy. If he wants my help, he’ll ask for it. Unlike me, he probably isn’t suffering from a dearth of available friendships that have lasted longer than the two weeks we’ve officially known each other.
By seven I’m caffeinated, showered, dressed, and out the door. My father’s affairs have been settled as far as my involvement is concerned, so there’s no reason I can’t go back to work. Now that I know Ed was my secret admirer, I’m less hesitant to stand my ground on this one. Not like he’s going to fire me for cutting short my bereavement leave. Without bereavement, it’s just leave.
Whether it’s the three cups of coffee or my morning meds kicking in, I even find the courage to call my mother while I’m walking to the subway.
“Echo,” she says, like we’ve spotted each other across a crowded room. “Good morning, sweetheart. You’re up early.”
“On my way to work.”
“Where are you? It’s so loud.”
I don’t even notice it. The car horns and screeching brakes. Timing belts squealing and storefront roll gates clanging open. That’s something else Ethan got right about Massasauga. It was too quiet. So much silence has a way of driving a person mad. Without the commotion of society, you spend too much time absorbed in your own head.
“I’m walking,” I say.
“Echo, no.” It’s like I’m five again, and she’s smacking my hand before I pluck a big cluster of poison oak. “You shouldn’t be on your phone while you’re out in the city. You’ve got to keep your attention on your surroundings. You could get mugged or hit by a bus.”
“Mom, that could happen whether I’m on my phone or not.”
“Don’t say that. Oh, God, don’t say something like that. You put thoughts like that into the universe and they have a way of coming back to you.”
I walked right into that one.
“Listen, Mom, I called because I need to tell you something.”
“How’s the new apartment?” Her voice rises to that artificial octave of pleasantness. “You girls gettin
g settled in okay? Use your dead bolt, Echo.”
“Mom, please, I—”
“And keep the chain on the door. You have a chain, right? I worry about you two by yourselves.”
I knew this was going to happen. Why I entertained even for a moment that she’d let me get it out, I have no idea. There’s only one way to combat her avoidance tactics, and that’s with a brutal assault.
“Mom, he’s dead. I went to the prison and left him to the state.”
“You know, I’d really like to meet your roommate one of these days. You should bring her up here soon, before she starts school again.”
Like she doesn’t even hear me.
“I’ll talk to you later, Mom. Bye.”
* * *
At the office, no one says anything when I walk through the Farm. Eyes follow me from the elevator and down the aisle between cubicles. Addison gives me a tentative hello nod. C.J., a hesitant wave. Navid has his headphones on and is too consumed by his screen to notice me walk by. I don’t think he even takes bathroom breaks. Probably just has a Gatorade bottle under his desk, or a rigged-up catheter-condom situation. It’s not until I’ve got my laptop on and bring up my news feed that I see the headlines. In big bold type: INFAMOUS CULT LEADER DEAD AT 68, DAUGHTER EMERGES FROM HIDING. PATRICK TURNER MURPHY DIES IN PRISON, DAUGHTER SIGHTED. CULT KID MOURNS CONVICTED MURDERER.
Mortified, I glance around me. From all directions they watch me then turn away startled when our eyes meet. I’m a head-on collision and they have to look, but no one admits to gawking at the mangled wreckage. No one wants to be caught finding entertainment in the carnage. There’s nothing I can do but close the browser and choose to ignore the red, violent heat building in my chest. It’ll pass. It always does. Some other poor soul will have their life ripped from their fingers, and this will all be forgotten by the weekend. There’s no use dwelling on it. So I put on my headphones and tune out the world.
