by Lisa Unger
“Oh my god, Poppy,” he said, voice breaking. “I’m so sorry.”
He tipped into Layla, who let out a strangled wail of grief as she held him, then pulled me in. We all three stood there, holding on to each other. Mac sobbed like a little boy, helpless against his sorrow. My own voice, a whisper, a prayer: nonononononono.
“He’s a good-looking guy,” says Jack. “He kind of looks like me a little, don’t you think? What would your shrink say about that?”
The sound of his voice sends a jolt through me. But I don’t answer him. After all, he’s not there. Instead, I take Noah’s empty beer bottle and put it in the recycling, busy myself as if I’m getting ready for us to leave. But he’s so real. I could walk over and take him in my arms, wipe the blood from his face. What’s happening to me? I’m not dreaming. But I am. I must be.
“Poppy,” Jack says. He stands, wearing his running clothes that are smeared with mud and blood. The side of his head is mashed, unnatural. “Don’t do this. Keep looking for answers and you’re going to find things you won’t like. Take the advice everyone keeps giving you and let me go. I’m gone. Long gone.”
“You okay?” asks Noah.
There’s that stutter, that world wobble, and then Jack is, thankfully, no longer in the room with me.
“I’m just—sleep-deprived,” I say, trying to slow my hammering heart. What had the doctor called it—hypnagogia? I think about trying to explain it but it sounds way too crazy. He was so real. He was right there. “Prone to blanking.”
He moves back around the bar.
“So, let’s go do this and then get you to bed,” he says. He must catch something on my face; his cheeks color slightly. “You know, to sleep—alone. I mean, if that’s what you want.”
His discomfort—it’s charming. “Thank you.”
I’m grateful for him, this stranger who didn’t know Jack and who doesn’t truly know me. Everyone else in my life lost something when Jack died; they all just want me to be better, to be well and each of them has ideas about how that’s going to happen fastest. But Noah only sees who I am right now, a fractured girl trying to put herself back together, to understand who killed her husband. And he has offered that person his friendship, maybe simply because he knows the way down this dark and twisting, bending path better than most.
He doesn’t ask what I mean. He knows.
A quick glance at my phone reveals a screen full of texts from Layla—lots of angry emoji faces and those big red exclamation points, a missed call from Izzy’s phone (Layla calling from Izzy’s phone to try to get me to answer, an old trick that’s worked more than once). There’s a missed call from Detective Grayson. If I call him back, I’ll need to lie to him. I don’t even consider it. If it was anything important he’d have come here. I hear his warning again, though: Be low risk for a couple of days, okay?
“Ready?”
Noah’s watching me. He hasn’t glanced at a phone once; not on our last date, not tonight. It’s rare that someone doesn’t have a device clutched in his hand, isn’t staring at a screen all the time, relationships scrolling out in bubbles, text disembodied from voice and body, language pared down to barest meaning and, so, far less meaningful than actual conversation.
How did we let them do it, separate us from each other while making us seem more connected than ever? How did we let them strip voice and touch and tone from our interactions? I like this about Noah, that he’s more present than most people. More present than I am. He pulls the door open for me as I stow the phone in my evening bag, vowing not to look at it again.
A quick glance behind me reveals that the apartment is mercifully empty.
17
Jack and I fought the night before. In fact, Sarah was right, we’d been fighting a lot in the months and weeks before he died. Couples fight, Layla said when I confided this in her during one of our long talks after his death, after my breakdown. You go through phases, good times, bad times. Everyone wants you to think their relationship is perfect. But nothing’s perfect, no matter what they post on Facebook. She’s right, of course, but I hated that our last few weeks were characterized by bickering, silences, hard words.
Mac and Layla were frequently stiff and snappish with each other. Over the years, I’d seen the frayed edges of their relationship—Mac’s immersion in his work, parenthood, Layla giving up her art to raise a family—how stresses and little resentments bubbled up into blowouts. Still, I knew the way he looked at her, and she at him. The way he held her, the way they kissed, long and sweet when he got home from work (usually). The way she laughed at his stupid jokes that were not funny to anyone else. The way he held her coat. A marriage is a mosaic, comprised of pieces—some broken and jagged, some shiny, some dull, some golden. The pieces don’t matter as much as the whole picture of your life together.
The truth was, it seemed different with me and Jack. What we had, was it somehow less solid? Were we less bound to each other than Mac and Layla? I suspected it was the lack of children, the miscarriages. They unstitched me in a way I wouldn’t have imagined. But Jack didn’t grieve in the same way. My desire for a child began to consume me.
“I think we should take a break,” he said over dinner that last night. I’d been staring at the pasta on the plate, moving it around. I didn’t remember the last time either of us had spoken since sitting at the table. He had his laptop open. I looked up from my plate.
“A break?”
“From trying so hard, I mean.”
That was it, the strained silence. I was ovulating; we both knew that.
He reached for my hand, but I pulled it back. Part of me heard what he was saying, and even agreed. Sex had become about making a baby, not just about connecting, about pleasure, about love, about lust. I didn’t love that about our life, either. But I sensed something else, another layer.
“I’m starting to think I want this more than you do,” I said. Sadness, anger, seemed to always simmer beneath the surface now, a fight always ready to boil over.
“I want it, too,” he said, looking away. He closed his laptop. “You know I do. It’s just—the business is growing. We talked about my taking assignments again.”
It wasn’t just the words, but his tone. Soothing, reasonable—but distancing somehow.
“You said you didn’t want that. That you’re all in.” My voice bounced back peevish, mocking in a way I didn’t intend. But Jack was easy, slow to ignite to anger. He lifted his shoulders, took the napkin from his lap and laid it on the table.
“When the business is solid, I might want that again.”
I put my fork down, leaned back.
“I’m just saying,” he went on, leaning forward to bridge the distance I created. “Let’s take the pressure off. If it happens, it happens, you know? Let’s stop tracking your cycle, get back to good old-fashioned fucking because we’re hot for each other. You’re still hot for me, right?”
I felt the energy of a smile.
“I’m not just a baby machine to you, right?”
He came around to where I was sitting, knelt beside me and took my hands. He had that smile on, the one that melted anger and any kind of resolve.
“What if it doesn’t just happen?” I asked.
He shrugged. “There’s more to life than kids, Poppy. Right?”
I flashed on the sheets covered with blood, the wail that came from a place of sorrow inside me I didn’t even know was there. I thought of Izzy and Slade, the magical products of Mac and Layla’s love. The world before they came was somehow less than it was after their arrival. Who would Jack and I bring into the world? I desperately wanted to know.
“Like what?” I asked.
He blew out a laugh. “Like art and travel, late nights with friends, freedom. Like us, Poppy—you and me—doing whatever we want for the rest of our lives.”
It cut deep, the w
ay his face lit up with excitement.
“You’re saying that it doesn’t matter to you whether or not we have kids.”
There was something about it that was so crushing; I couldn’t have even said why. Before Jack, I never really thought about kids, either.
“I’m saying you matter, we matter. Whatever else happens, I’m good with that.”
“I heard you,” I said. He frowned at my tone.
“What do you mean?”
“Talking to Alvaro last night.”
He shook his head, looked down.
“You told him about the miscarriage and what did he say?”
You dodged a bullet, man. Kids are the end of everything else in your life.
I only heard because Jack had him on speakerphone while he was typing. He quickly picked up the phone.
“That’s fucked-up, man,” said Jack in a low voice. “Poppy’s hurting.”
Not we’re hurting. I didn’t hear more after that, just walked away.
“Alvaro only cares about himself,” he said with an eye roll. “You know that.”
“I knew that about him, yes,” I said, rising. I picked up my plate and moved away from him. “But I didn’t know that about you.”
“Come on,” he said, staying on the floor. “That’s not fair.”
He called after me, but I went into the kitchen, cleaned up, then went into the bedroom. The cold I’d been fighting had me too exhausted to even be angry. I brushed my teeth, changed and climbed underneath the covers. A few hours later, he crawled into bed beside me, wrapped me up.
I love you, he whispered, his breath hot in my ear. I love you so much. I’m sorry.
I pretended not to hear him, to be sound asleep, and finally he moved away.
* * *
Noah and I don’t wait in the line that stretches up the block. He slips his arm through mine when we exit the cab and strides us up to the doorman, who glances at us briefly, lifts the velvet rope without question. They exchange a nod, and for a second it seems like they know each other. Has he been here before?
Before I can ask, we are in a maze of bodies, music thumping. Almost immediately I am sorry we’ve come. The club is a breathless crush, the usual blend of chic, and grunge, and after-work, and punk and whoever, whatever else. The space, too small for so many people, throbs with deafening house music.
Still I push my way in, am immediately assaulted by moments, images. I wish I had my camera. Behind it, I can hide and observe, separate myself from the chaos; behind it, I am lifted from the moment, above it. Instead, I’m buffeted by bodies, Noah pulling me through the crowd. In the throng, I wait for the sense that I’ve been here before.
But the club in my dream was not like this. Glancing about, there is nothing familiar, no one and nothing I recognize. I take the phone from my bag, breaking the vow I made less than an hour ago. The phone camera, though not my preferred piece of equipment, will do.
Once I have it, the world captured on a screen, the chaos around me makes more sense. The world segmented into moments: a couple presses into each other, makes out against the exposed brick wall; a girl blows bubbles from the rickety loft up high, dancing bodies all around her; a DJ onstage, intent, head bent, disappears into bulbous red headphones. Blue lights glitter from the ceiling like neon stars, a young man bows his head into his hand. Girls spin on poles, stage lit. A disco ball sheds rainbow shards on a woman in a glittering purple dress. I capture Noah staring at a golden mannequin, the naked torso of a woman. I recognize that look, an artist studying form, asking questions about shape or light. He turns and stares at me through the screen, smiles. I put the phone away, and he slips his fingers through mine, pulls me toward the stairs.
On the flight down, it grows quieter, darker. Drunk people clamor around a freezer-temperature room dedicated to serving vodka shots. Their laughter and shouts, whoops and cackles follow us down a long dark hallway. I was never one of those people, drunk and laughing in a group. I was always the one outside, looking in, wondering what the hell was so funny. Maybe that’s the natural condition of the photographer, to stand in the margins, to observe, to document. Or maybe some of us are just hardwired to be the outsider, and that’s why we paint or write or hide behind a camera lens.
“There’s another bar,” he says. “It’s quieter.”
“You’ve been here before,” I say. But he doesn’t hear me above the din, keeps walking.
We make our way down a long hall, the shoes I’m wearing already hurting, squeezing my toes and biting at my heels. The music throbs, vibrates through the floor. A red light casts a strange glow and the wall is a patchwork of stickers, writing in marker and pen, Polaroid pictures, a thousand faces, messages, images. Déjà vu dogs me. We press through the crowd. This place, maybe it is vaguely familiar; but there’s nothing solid to cling to, no real reference point.
The relative quiet of the other bar is a relief. But if I’ve been here before, it’s buried so deep that I can’t reach it, and I’m no detective. I realize that I don’t even know what questions to ask, or of whom to ask them. Detective Grayson wanted me to stay out of it and now it’s clear why. You can’t investigate yourself.
“What are you drinking?” asks Noah. Though it’s quieter, we still need to shout a little.
“Club soda.”
Noah yells something to a male bartender with a large ring through the middle of his nose like a bull.
“So,” he says, leaning in close. “Anything?”
I look around at the room, people crushed into semicircle booths, lights too low to see much. I just shake my head. It’s embarrassing to say I don’t remember, that I can’t be sure.
He’s watching me with that same intensity I noticed earlier, the artist looking for the truth. There’s something, the whisper of a memory then, but it’s gone as fast as it came.
“I’m sorry,” he says. There’s a gravity to it that I find moving, though I’m not sure why he’s apologizing. Maybe it’s just because, for some reason, he cares about this errand, maybe about me. He wanted to help, and is disappointed for me. I am, too. Or maybe he just feels sorry for me. The stupidity of this endeavor is humiliating.
“Will you be okay for a moment? If I hit the bathroom?” he says.
“Of course.”
I watch a young woman twist, arms up, on the dance floor. She’s in her own head, not with anyone, just one of a few people dancing in the space, much smaller than upstairs, the music coming over speakers mounted on the ceiling. I snap a few pictures of her; no one notices. In fact, that space is riven with those rectangles of light, the bright stutter of flashes. Everyone’s photographing themselves or someone else, texting, or scrolling through feeds. When did we stop seeing with our eyes?
When I turn back to the bar, recognition is a rocket—her violet contact lenses, her arms sleeves of tattoos. The bartender from my dream. For a moment, I’m breathless, reality stretching. I think of Dr. Nash, her answer to my question about how I know when I’m dreaming and when I’m awake. Do any of us really know?
She puts our drinks down and I reach for her arm before she can shuttle away. Looking up, her violet eyes flash annoyance. Whatever she sees in my face softens her.
“Do you know me?”
She shakes her head, her smile curious. “Should I know you?”
“I may have been here once.” My voice sounds weak, and I feel strange and out of place here. “Maybe a year ago?”
“I meet a lot of people.” She glances down the bar, looking I guess for other customers who might need her attention. The music seems louder now that we’re talking. We’re almost yelling to hear each other.
“I was wearing a red dress,” I say. “I wasn’t feeling well. I was with someone, a man.”
Listening to myself, I’m aware that my descriptions sounds like a hundred women who must have been he
re over the last year, messed up, with a strange man, even wearing a red dress. I’m suddenly so tired, I can hardly stand. I sit on the barstool, leaning closer to her. On her arms, brightly colored fairies frolic in a flowering landscape. A rainbow twines through; there’s a unicorn in a pen. From the speakers above us, a remix of an old Grace Jones song weaves through a modern dance beat.
“Maybe.” A squint, a tilt of her head, pink hair spiky and unmoving. “Maybe you look familiar.”
“But you don’t remember that night.” How could she? One of a hundred booze-soaked evenings.
That’s when she realizes that I’m not hitting on her. She seems to consider me a moment longer, then shakes her head again, and starts to move away. “I’m sorry.”
A dead end. What did I think would happen here? I watch her go, wondering what next? What would Grayson ask her? Or that firm that Layla wants to hire. Surely there’s some technique that professionals have. Some way of teasing information from people, finding clues. This was a mistake.
But then she turns back and stares a moment, returning. The girl takes out her phone, taps at it with her thumbs and starts scrolling.
She looks up, gets someone a glass of water, still staring at her phone, then comes back again.
“I take pictures sometimes—you know, for my blog. I never delete anything from my phone,” she says. “Maybe—when did you say this was?”
“A year ago,” I say, leaning toward her.
She glances up at me, then back to her phone. Finally, she turns the screen so that I can see it.
“Could this be you?” she asks.
A woman, long and lean, slender pale hands on the wide dark shoulders of a man, almost pushing him away. She leans back, but he has her solidly, arm wrapped around the low of her back, bent over her like a sickle, kissing her. Blue lights glow above and behind. There’s a mascara trail of tears down her face.
Her face. My face. It’s me. My heart thrums.
