What was…?
A bump or a scrape or…
I cocked my head to listen.
Silence.
I pushed aside the blanket and bloody tissues and grabbed the machete from beneath the cushions. I tiptoed out of the den, and crept down the hallway.
The red light on the security panel shone. Alarm armed.
I stopped in my step.
That Tibetan mandala brocade Truman had brought back from his Everest trip? The same brocade I had deposited into the guest bedroom just a day ago? It hung next to the security panel. Wide-eyed, I stood there, trying to remember when I had done this.
Yesterday? After I… after I did… something? Or this morning?
I tapped the machete against my leg. Had to be yesterday. I nodded, then continued down the hallway and down the stairs, pausing every few feet to listen.
The kitchen glowed with moonlight until I flicked the light switch. Dishes were piled high in the sink. The icemaker rumbled, and ice cubes crashed into the freezer’s tray. I placed the machete on the counter, grabbed a mug from the cabinet and scurried to the refrigerator.
Light crackles blue when I dream of you
Love rockets fly twirl soar
You light my sky with languid magic
My last message to Truman... A message he never saw.
I squinted at those words until I could no longer see them. With closed eyes, I reached for the door handle and pulled. I grabbed the carton of orange juice, making sure to turn away before those words returned. You light my sky with languid magic. I poured myself a glass of juice, then guzzled it. Poured another glass, and drank half. Maybe I hung the mandala while Lei was here and I just forgot that I did. I placed my cup in the sink, and glimpsed a shadow near the driveway.
The hairs on my body stiffened. “Who’s there?” I shouted.
Maybe it’s a raccoon.
A raccoon shaped like a person?
Something rustled through fallen dry leaves.
I grabbed the machete from the counter, and crept towards the door.
Footsteps… Running…
I dropped to my knees. The machete fumbled from my hands and clattered to the tile. I crawled to the door and peeked out the window: the Volvo, the BMW and darkness.
I opened the door—the cold air shocked me, made my heart beat faster. I looked up the hill. Didn’t see anyone. As I inched back to the kitchen, a light popped on in the darkness.
Jake’s house.
30
Keith Ensby, FSN’s Executive Vice-President of Marketing, stopped in his step once he realized that I was the haggard woman sitting on the lobby couch. He grinned to hide his shock and wrapped his arms around me. “Nicole, you look…” He paused, then said, “I’m so glad to see you.”
My hair lived in a nappy bun. Dark circles couched my eyes. My face had puffed from not enough sleep and salty fast food. I wore deodorant; that is, if I remembered to use it, and on this morning, I couldn’t remember if I had or not. I had spent a half hour trying to look this good.
Keith, on the other hand, resembled a middle-aged Robert Redford. WASPY-handsome, towheaded and cocky. And despite his wife’s fears, he also threw himself off cliffs and pulled himself up mountains. He had missed the diving trip to Farnsworth Banks because of conjunctivitis he had caught from his four-year old daughter Bella. He had forced the network to pay for that high-tech sea-search for Truman.
I trudged behind Keith as he strode through the main corridor. The nape of his neck was brilliant pink, sunburned from some recent adventure. All the gray strands in his blond hair meant that he was too old for climbing, jumping and diving, and I wanted to scream, Don’t do this to your wife. Don’t do this to Bella. Stop being a selfish prick. Look at me. Do you see me? You want Meredith to look like this? But I didn’t. Men don’t listen.
Posters of sports greats hung on the walls, and live images of Tony Hawk, Eli Manning and Tiger Woods played on monitors no one watched. The FSNers that knew me nodded their hellos or stared as I toddled past.
“We really miss him,” Keith was saying as we marched through Marketing. “Especially with this China expansion coming up.”
As we got closer to Truman’s office, my skin prickled—the same Geiger counter sensation I experienced near his spaces at home.
“Oh. I got H.R. to give Leilani a job interview,” Keith told me. “Nothing big. An administrative assistant position down in Royalties. But it’s good pay. Great benefits.”
“When does she start?” I asked.
“She never showed,” Keith said. “The job was basically hers as long as she passed the background check like everyone else who works here, and agreed to mandatory drug testing.”
I smirked. “She must’ve been excited about that.”
“She sent me this rambling e-mail about the Constitution, the Eighth Amendment and religious liberties.” He paused, then added, “Truman was too gentle with that girl.”
“Girl? Lei’s the same age as me.”
Keith grimaced. “You serious?” He used his keycard to unlock Truman’s office door. “We keep it locked… You know how people are.”
A person leaves and suddenly, their Stuff is up for grabs. Chairs, electric staplers, metal-mesh file holders… Coworkers pick at the office, leaving with their arms filled, pushing chairs loaded with PostIt note dispensers, dictionaries and dry-erase boards until their ex-colleague’s office is stripped as clean as a gazelle’s skeleton in the Gobi.
Keith reached across the wall to hit the light switch. “No one’s really been in here since…”
Ratings awards and commendations hung on the walls. An original “Thrilla in Manila” poster signed by Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali hung on the south wall. On Truman’s desk: an open bag of Doritos, an FSN mug with its bottom black from evaporated coffee, pictures of Truman and me as well as pictures of him and Penelope dressed in climbing gear.
Penelope. She had died that day. She had panicked and rushed to the surface without decompressing.
Keith said, “I hate to ask you this, Nic, but I just can’t accept that… I mean, the guy’s a great athlete. Strong. Smart. Are they sure?”
“They are,” I said. “Me? Not sure at all.”
Keith nodded, then said, “I’ll find some boxes.”
I sat in Truman’s high-backed chair, and surveyed everything before me: the ivory-handled letter opener, stale tortilla chips, calendar… His desk looked as though he had just stepped away to make a photocopy.
Another framed photograph sat at the edge of his desk. “Your Future Kid.” Truman and I had posed for this snapshot eight years ago in one of those County Fair photo stations. The booth’s software had combined my picture with Truman’s to produce a composite of our “daughter.”
We had named her “Trumanita.” She had Truman’s pointy nose and my almond-shaped eyes. We had laughed at the mashed-up picture, called it tacky and strange. Days later, the photograph disappeared. Now, I knew where it had disappeared to.
In real life, our daughter would have inherited Truman’s broad shoulders and my cheekbones. He would have sneaked her candy and cookies after I had told her “no.” He would’ve taken her on horse back rides and to Lakers games. Bought her climbing boots and videogames. Brushed her hair into Afro-Puffs, and rocked her back to sleep after nightmares.
“Someone in here?” Elene Givhan stood in the doorway. She gasped seeing me seated behind Truman’s desk. “Oh. Hi,” she said, forcing an uneasy smile to her lips. “I didn’t know who…”
My nerves caught fire seeing this woman again. I wanted to fly across that desk and beat her down right then, but God kept me burning in that chair.
Elene swallowed nervously—she smelled danger, but she couldn’t move. “I’m… I’m…”
“Close the door.” Somehow, my fingers had wrapped around the letter opener.
Elene closed the door.
“Did you sleep with my husband?” I asked.
She
twitched, and ran her fingers through her hair. “I don’t think that’s—”
I slammed my hand against the table, and shouted, “I don’t care what you think.”
Elene startled from my explosion, and she eyed the letter opener.
“Answer the question,” I said, standing from the chair. “Did you or did you not have an affair with my husband?”
She continued to gape at the letter opener.
I tossed the weapon to the carpet and leaned against the desk with my arms crossed.
“I cared about him,” she said. “That was it. Nothing happened between us.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe you.”
Defiant, she cocked her chin. “That’s your problem, then.”
“Excuse me?” I saw stars—my mind had become a piñata and her words were a thick stick being wielded by an seven-year old boy. “Wanna say that again?” I asked, my hands clenched into fists.
Elene was at least five inches taller than me, but size didn’t matter today. I had enough anger to destroy an entire village.
She squared her shoulders, and said, “You need to leave.”
“You don’t tell me what I need to do.” I took a step forward and smelled her perfume. She wore a scent that smelled like bubblegum and roses—something obnoxiously named Flirt or Temptation.
“I’ll call Security,” she said.
“Call Security. I don’t care. My husband is missing, bitch, you think I care about—”
The door opened. “What’s going on in here?” Keith stood there, boxes in his arms.
My anger continued to grow, unabated by Keith’s presence. But when he gripped my arm, his cool fingers tamped down some of my fire. “Nicole,” he whispered, “you’re upset, and that’s okay. But you can’t… You shouldn’t…” He turned to Elene. “Why the hell did you come in here?”
Elene dropped her eyes to the carpet, then opened her mouth to speak.
Keith pointed to the door. “Get out of here.”
Elene nodded, then departed in steely silence.
31
Keith agreed to messenger over the artwork, and asked if I wanted to sell the signed Frazier-Ali poster. “We’ll give you $10,000 for it,” he had offered as he helped me load the car.
“Not right now,” I had said. “Because if he…”
Keith nodded. “I understand.”
The sun had dropped behind the hills by the time I pulled into my driveway. Once inside, I struggled up and down the dark stairs with Truman’s office boxes in my arms. I nudged the door open with my foot, and kept my eyes to the floor as I stowed his effects into the closest corner. Mission accomplished, I darted out, and retreated down the hallway. Felt sick. The kind of sick Aunt Beryl used to cure with saltines and ginger ale.
I crept past my empty bed, eyes on the comforter, and prayed that Truman wouldn’t just… appear like a magician’s assistant in a Vegas magic act.
I reached the bathroom.
No tricks. No ta-dahs.
I cringed at my reflection in the mirror. I had been pretty once upon a time, but over the last thirteen days, my beauty had evaporated like clouds on a hot, dry day; the old me—the well-coiffed, polished, and unwrinkled Nicole—had been stolen and replaced with a hollowed-out sleepwalker sharing the same name and the same DNA.
Did other court-mandated widows look like me?
I reached for the tap—
Whiskers in the sink.
Why are there whiskers in the…?
Maybe they’ve always been there but you’re just seeing them now.
I stared at those thick short hairs as though they were poisonous barbs.
Of course they’ve been here. He hasn’t shaved since…
I hadn’t paid much attention to my house’s cleanliness, especially the bathroom. Hell, I rarely visited my bedroom. Who knew how long those hairs had been there.
I rinsed the bowl until no whiskers remained.
The bathroom light flickered. A second later, the light popped off.
I could no longer see the sink. I could no longer see my reflection. Couldn’t see anything.
I crept back out to the bedroom.
No burning lamps. No glowing digital clock. The only light in the room came from the moon.
I inched to the den.
No little green and blue lights gleaming from the computer, the stereo, or the digital satellite box. I stood there, feeling the prickly freak-out start in my toes and creep up my shins.
“It’s okay. It’s just a blackout. It’s okay.” I held my breath, and listened.
No whir from the computer fan. No low rumble from the refrigerator. No buzz from the television.
I tiptoed over to the window, the den’s only source of illumination. Lights burned in the windows of my Cuban neighbors. The other houses on my side of the hill also had power.
I’m on a different grid, that’s all.
Arms out before me, I inched out of the den to the hallway. The security panel glowed red, powered by its own mega-battery. Moonlight spilled through the beveled glass of the cupola window. The picture frames hanging on the walls shone, the faces in those photographs hidden in the light.
I glanced at the Tibetan mandala, still unable to remember hanging it there, then tromped down the stairs. I opened the front door, and stepped out onto the porch. Cool air washed over me. The brick felt cold beneath my feet, and vibrations rumbled from deep down in the earth to my soles. The air smelled sweet. Orange blossoms instead of sage. But there were no orange trees in the canyon.
The lights were on at Jake’s house. Lights were on everywhere. No blackout. Just my house.
I stood there, confused and sleepy.
A dog barked and kicked me out of my trance. I raced to the sideboard and grabbed six candles and a book of matches. A sliver of glass left from my episode with the bottle of Chilean merlot sank into the ball of my right foot, and I cursed as pain rippled up my shin.
I darted up the stairs, my right foot bloody, and reached the hallway out of breath, my knees like rubber bands.
In the den, I lit two candles and sat them on the coffee table. I placed two on the computer desk, and two on top of the television. I perched on the couch and picked the glass from my foot, then sat mesmerized by the six points of golden light flickering all around me. Four black holes had swallowed the corners of the room as imp-shadows danced on the ceiling. Another shadow waxed in that candlelight. A shadow that didn’t belong to me or to the television or to the bookcases.
I smelled orange blossoms again, and saw him out of the corner of my eye.
Truman sat at the computer desk, watching me.
I turned to him, but refused to respond in word or in gesture. My body shook with strained fear and frustration.
He sat.
I waited.
He waited.
“What are you?” I whispered, not wanting an answer, not even sure I had spoken aloud. “Are you real?”
He blinked.
I covered my mouth with both hands. The room spun and that vibration returned, but in my teeth this time.
Golden points of light flickered in his eyes, and he said, “It hurts.”
I shrieked, and my injured foot hit the coffee table. A candle toppled to the floor, and landed on top of my blanket. The blanket caught fire, and flames brightened the den.
I’m having a nightmare. This has to be a nightmare.
But the fire possessed heat; the light was too vivid for a dream. The hardwood floor warmed beneath my feet—this fire was real.
The smoke detector started its high-pitched beeping and if it didn’t stop, the security company would call, then send fire trucks rumbling up to my house.
I jammed down the dark stairs, and raced into the kitchen. Beneath the sink, I found the small fire extinguisher Truman had brought just months before from a door-to-door salesman.
The alarm keypad in the foyer chimed, and a woman’s voice said, “This is APX Control Ce
nter. Is everything okay there?”
I shouted, “Yeah, I just… burned some… popcorn.”
“We’re not getting a message from the kitchen’s sensor,” she pointed out. “It’s the upstairs den.”
“Well…” I shrugged. Had nothing else to tell her except the truth, and the APX Control Center wouldn’t have been able to handle the truth.
“All right, then,” she said with a sigh. “I need your safe word before I note this as a false alarm.”
Safe word? My mind was too gooey to retrieve something so random. I stood there, trying to remember, then imagined my books in flames. “Apocalypse!”
The woman thanked me and disconnected.
I raced back up the stairs, tripping on the last two steps. The extinguisher flew out of my hands and clanked onto the hardwood. I grabbed it, and raced to the den.
Truman was gone, but the fire continued to burn, containing itself to the blanket and to the left side of the coffee table. I aimed the extinguisher at the mini-inferno and saw nothing but white. My breathing tightened—less oxygen in the room because of flames and fire retardant. In less than a minute, I had killed the blaze. Nothing left except a charred, wet mess and a half-burned wooden table.
32
Monica couldn’t speak. Her mouth didn’t even move to attempt to speak. She could only stare at the mess captured in the flashlight’s beam. “Is that blood?” She directed the light to crimson footprints marking the wooden floor.
“Maybe they turned off the power,” I said, stating the obvious.
“Do you remember paying the bill?”
I shook my head—Truman had always paid the power company.
“You could’ve died in here, Nicole. Candles? In your state?”
“It was dark,” I said, clutching my cell-phone to my chest.
And my “state” didn’t cause the fire. Seeing Truman—that’s what caused the fire.
“Here.” Monica handed me the flashlight and plucked the phone from my hand. “I can’t believe this.”
I sat there, hypnotized by the flecks of ashes swirling in the flashlight’s beam. “I need a new blanket.”
Monica handed me the phone. “It’s the power company.”
The View from Here Page 12
