by Amber Stuart
Eric shrugged. “Who knows? But if any of this can be proven… Dietrich, it’s kind of a national security problem.”
“No. This is why you need to stay out of it then.”
“Oh, please. We don’t have to report her. But the others…”
I stopped him. He wasn’t taking her friends away from her.
“Fine, but if some Independence Day style invasion happens, I’m holding you personally responsible for not letting me warn anyone in time to stop it.” Eric pointed his empty coffee cup at me.
I had never seen that movie either.
“Deal. I mean, I’ll probably be dead, so I won’t care but you can blame me posthumously all you want.”
Eric shook his head. “You’ll live. I’ll make damn sure of it so I can rub your face in the fact that I was right and you were finally wrong about something.”
I really needed to start watching more movies.
“Ok, then, I’m ready; let’s start with a twelve hour driving distance. I’ll take the western half, you take the east,” Eric said, standing up and tossing his empty iced coffee cup into the trash.
It seemed so anti-climactic after so much wrestling with whether or not to search for her even, that his breezy decision to divide up an 1,800 mile semi-circle around Houston seemed too easy, too simple. My portion of the semi-circle meant searching through 900 miles, roughly to Jacksonville, Florida and northward to Omaha, Nebraska. There was no way she was living in Omaha. Nothing good could ever survive in Omaha.
“If she’s in Nebraska, I’m calling this off,” I said.
Eric smiled and shook his head. “Fucking Nebraska. I’m not going.”
I was bluffing. Some people were worth going to Nebraska for.
Chapter 4
Baton Rouge. It had taken three days to find her. I had been so sure that she would have avoided Baton Rouge, knowing it was Lottie’s home, and yet, she was there, living as Charlotte Martin. It had taken another two days of Eric arguing with me about leaving now versus waiting… I don’t know, a few weeks maybe?
I wasn’t ready to face her. What the hell would I even say to her? But I did want to see her again, so Eric had won and we made the five-hour drive eastward on I-10 on that second day after turning up her name and address, her employer, and yes, even a fake social security number.
She and Lydia shared an apartment on Essen Lane, a busy area of the city with a major hospital right down the road and both of the major interstates intersecting the crowded, tangled street. I couldn’t imagine why she had chosen an apartment here. She knew this city, didn’t she? We hated this part of Baton Rouge because of the traffic that never seemed to let up, the construction that never seemed to end.
As I pulled onto Essen from the interstate to head toward our hotel, I couldn’t help wanting to drive in the opposite direction, to go directly to her apartment complex even though I still had no clue what I would say to her. We had talked about it on the drive and Eric was still convinced this was like talking to someone who wasn’t Lottie, that it would be so easy to just demand – and get – more answers from her.
After checking in to our rooms, Eric agreed he would wait for me rather than overwhelm her with us both showing up at the same time. It was getting close to supper time and he was hungry anyway. The thought of food made my stomach twist. I drove him down to a sushi restaurant where he picked up his order and he made half-hearted efforts to share with me. I didn’t like sushi and he knew that. Even the smell of it in my car was making my stomach heave even more and I had to roll down my window. And then to distract myself from sushi and Lottie I stupidly wondered how long we would continue using the phrase “roll down the window” when no one actually rolled down anything anymore, and what a better expression would be, only coming up with “put down the window” and how I could get it to catch on.
Eric was quick to inform me some people already used that phrase. Fucking English.
Perhaps one of the few good things about living along the Gulf Coast in the summer time was how long the daylight lasted; it was past 7:30 by the time I had dropped Eric off and driven to her apartment complex, finding her new car in its parking spot – a white two door Yaris with a hatchback, something my Lottie wouldn’t have chosen because it wouldn’t easily fit car seats in the too small rear seat and getting babies in and out of a two door would be real pain in the ass – and found an empty visitor’s parking spot along the edge of the complex. Lydia’s car wasn’t next to hers, but I didn’t expect it to be. Lydia was still at work.
They both worked at the same bookstore, a job my Lottie would have loved if only because it meant being surrounded by books all day. She had always obstinately refused to let me get her an e-reader and wouldn’t use mine. She collected books like a philatelist collects stamps, but stamps were small. Stamps were light. Stamps would be easy to move in and out of apartments. She never had to move boxes of books up three flights of apartment stairs.
The joy she took, though, in finding an autographed copy of one of her favorite books, or the pure elation and adoration on her face as we waited in line to meet one of her favorite authors at a book convention in Dallas always made me secretly happy that she wasn’t a closet philatelist. I figured when we ran out of space for her books in our apartment, I would just buy us a bigger house.
Now, as I stood outside her apartment building, taking in the New Orleans inspired wrought iron railings, perhaps meant to be reminiscent of the French Quarter, I wondered how much room she had for bookcases. If she even had the same obsessive book-collecting nature my Lottie had.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor where her apartment was, swatting occasionally at one of the omnipresent mosquitoes of south Louisiana. The closer it got to dusk, the worse they would get. There weren’t many things I missed about Germany. Not being eaten alive by swarms of insects was one of them. We have mosquitoes, of course, but I have never been anywhere that is plagued with them the way this place is. I harbored a very deep suspicion that Louisiana had been cursed, much like Biblical Egypt with its locusts.
I killed another mosquito that had just landed on my forearm as I reached her door. I took a deep breath. I wanted to give myself a few minutes, collect my thoughts, make sure I knew the exact words to say and in the right tone and the right syntax, but I was growing increasingly worried that if I waited too long, I would contract West Nile. Or need a blood transfusion. Or I just really hated mosquitoes. So I knocked.
I waited, knowing there was a very good chance she wouldn’t even open the door for me. I knew she was home. The lights were on, and I could hear the muffled music she must be listening to, faintly smell the scents of the meal she was cooking for her own supper and maybe Lydia’s. Lottie was thoughtful like that. She would have even waited for Jamie… or Lydia… to get home.
I heard her approach the door and I held my breath. She had stopped on the other side. No sounds. She hadn’t walked away but no locks being unlocked, no cursing at me, telling me to fuck off. I slapped at another mosquito.
I don’t know what made me think I actually could talk to her like she was just Lottie, but I heard myself blurting out, “If you don’t want to let me in, can I at least borrow some mosquito repellant?”
It was close to dusk now. It was like being attacked by vampires. Honestly, I would have taken my chances with a vampire or two.
A few more tense seconds passed with silence, except for the unbelievably obnoxious buzzing of mosquito wings as they flitted past my ears. Then I heard the unmistakable sounds of a deadbolt sliding out of its lock, and the door quickly swung open. She stood there, in a Banana Republic t-shirt and cotton shorts, her soft brown hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, and she quickly motioned me inside.
“Hurry,” she said, “before they all get in.”
I hurriedly stepped inside.
The smell of Lottie’s Bolognese sauce filled the apartment. Such a familiar smell. How many times h
ad she made that for us? It was one of my favorite foods. She made it for me every year on my birthday, no matter what else was going on, no matter what else was happening to her. One year, she had been sick with a bad cold and even though I had admonished her to stay in bed and rest while I went to work, she had gotten up to make it for me anyway. As soon as I got home, she had placed the plate of pasta and meat sauce triumphantly in front of me then gone promptly to bed, exhausted and aching, but she had done it. Because that was Lottie.
I glanced at the table where two wine glasses stood waiting, a bottle of pinot noir placed in the middle.
“Oh. Sorry, “ I stumbled. I don’t know if I was or not but it seemed like I should say it.
Lottie followed my gaze and seemed to catch on.
“Lydia,” she said. “She’s had kind of a bad day. Customers can be… oh, we work at this bookstore….”
She looked back over at me, and crossed her arms, maybe fully realizing just what I’d done for the first time. “Well, never mind. I guess you already know that.”
I just nodded. What else could I do? She stood there like that, waiting for me to explain why I had shown up here after all. Lottie would have known I would have eventually come for her anyway.
“What time is she going to be home?” I finally asked. I had a pretty good idea but I was starting to feel self-conscious just standing there awkwardly not saying anything. And my mosquito bites were starting to itch.
“Around 9:00 probably.”
About an hour. I couldn’t imagine that she wouldn’t kick me out before Lydia showed up.
“Do you have something for this?” I asked, showing her the angry red welt on my forearm. It did itch. Badly, actually. But I was just buying myself time, trying to slow my racing heart and swirling stomach that couldn’t decide if it was nauseated or hungry by the smell of Lottie’s Bolognese.
She nodded and disappeared down the hallway. A light flipped on, and I heard her rummaging through what I assumed was her bathroom medicine cabinet. I sat down on the couch and finally looked around me.
Lottie’s apartment. Ok, Lottie’s and Lydia’s. But Lottie was everywhere here. The bookshelves against the wall, filled from end to end and then, when the bookshelf betrayed her by refusing to allow any more books to fit on that shelf, she had resorted to stacking them on top of each other. My bookshelves at home still looked like that. There was a Nook on the coffee table in front of me, but I suspected it didn’t belong to her. The television in front of me was on one of those channels that streamed music. This one promised to play Today’s Hits. The current hit it was playing was by Maroon V. I know she couldn’t control what music was played, but even the band was one Lottie had loved.
I heard her close the medicine cabinet and the light in the bathroom flickered off. I looked away from the television and caught a glimpse of the artwork hanging on the wall, a small serigraphic print in thick gold, white and black, with small red lips on this half-face of a woman. I knew this print, this artist. I even knew how much it was worth. I had the exact same print hanging in my bedroom.
Lottie stood beside me, a tube of hydrocortisone cream in her hand extended out toward me but I couldn’t take my eyes off of “Golden Sorrow,” the woman’s features for the first time finally seeming truly sorrowful to me. I had honestly never gotten the appeal of Martiros Manoukian. I didn’t really get art at all. Lottie had discovered him during an art class she took as an elective during college and was hooked; I thought I could draw better spaceships than he could paint women. But that didn’t stop me from buying a print of “Golden Sorrow” for Lottie for her twenty-second birthday.
She was about to graduate from college, and we were moving to Houston soon. I figured it was time for us to have more grown-up, sophisticated art on our walls than a poster of Death Valley on game night.
Lottie looked at the print then back at me. She swallowed and dropped the tube next to me on the sofa.
“I just liked it,” she said firmly. Defensively.
I looked up at her. She was angry. At me?
I nodded. “I know.”
Lottie shook her head. “No,” she said, “I liked it. I just wanted it, ok?”
She almost sounded panicked.
“Ok,” I said. I wasn’t really sure what I was agreeing to though. I picked up the tube and thanked her, anxious to change the subject, but Lottie was agitated, clearly troubled by my recognition of the serigraph.
She sat down uneasily in a chair perpendicular to the sofa and looked back at the print on the wall.
“It was hers, wasn’t it?” She was fidgeting with the hem of her t-shirt. That small little crease had appeared between her eyebrows, that look of consternation and confusion and frustration, and although she probably already knew the answer, I told her anyway.
“Yes.”
She sighed and closed her eyes, falling back into the chair. I wanted to hug her again, kiss her, promise her that it was alright, even though I didn’t know if it was, but she looked so incredibly depressed, I would have done anything to make it true.
“I saw some of his art in a book at the store, and I was drawn to it. I thought it was just me. This one… just spoke to me.”
It may have been that moment that I finally started to believe her. And she looked just like my Lottie, and often, even acted like her, so seeing her so despondent made me want to fix everything for her, to make everything right and put everything back in place where it belonged.
“Maybe it is you. I mean, a lot of people like his art.”
“Yeah, Dietrich, I’m sure out of all the artists in all the books I flipped through while stocking the shelves, I just coincidentally picked this one out and no other.”
Of course, it wasn’t a coincidence. She wasn’t stupid. I couldn’t seem to stop myself from talking though. I almost wished I would forget how to speak English for a while.
“Doesn’t mean you can’t like the same things, though. Maybe his art caught your attention because of Lottie’s memories, but you bought this one because you like it?” Even I knew how incredibly ridiculous I sounded.
Lottie’s big hazel eyes bore into me, frighteningly furious and determined.
“What else?” she demanded.
“Um.”
What other lame excuses could I make? Probably quite a few.
“What else is hers?”
Oh. Shit.
I licked my lips, but my mouth suddenly felt sandpapery, my throat rough and raw. Stall, I thought. Or distract. Or both.
“You like to read?” I asked lamely.
Goddamn it, I was as good at lying to her as I was to Eric.
Lottie nodded and gestured toward the wall of bookshelves.
“Go ahead,” she offered. She wanted me to see if I recognized any of the titles.
Don’t do it, Dietrich. That seemed about as smart an idea as walking into a hornet’s nest.
But I got off the sofa anyway and knelt down by the bookshelf closest to me, dragging my fingers along the spines of the books, plucking one out about halfway through the top shelf. I heard her groan behind me. It was an autographed copy of Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy, the same author we had waited in line in Dallas to meet; the same book Lottie had had autographed when she finally met one of her idols.
I turned around to look at her, and her eyes were pooling with those tears again.
“Is there anything in there that wasn’t hers?” she asked.
I looked back at the bookshelf. I didn’t recognize quite a few of the titles actually, but some of them were quite new. It wouldn’t help to point that out, so I just said yes. Lottie wasn’t satisfied. “Which ones?”
“Lottie, there’s a lot of books here…” I protested.
But she cut me off, begging me, “I know, Dietrich, please. Just tell me.”
I put Vampire Academy back on the shelf and grabbed one I didn’t recognize. I held it up to her victoriously.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “That’s Lydia’s.”
“Oh.”
I put it back. Remembering the tablet on the coffee table, I asked her, “What about the Nook? Is that yours?”
What was I even doing? I had come here hoping to find more evidence that some part of my dead fiancée was still alive and now that I had found it, I was trying to help bury it?
Lottie shook her head. “Also Lydia’s. I can’t read on it. It gives me a headache.”
Reading on my iPad always gave Lottie a headache, too, I thought.
“What else is hers?” she asked glumly, her eyes closed, her head reclined back, like she was getting a headache now. Honestly, I tended to have that effect on people.
“Well, she shopped at Banana Republic. A lot.”
Lottie nodded. She opened her eyes and looked at me, waiting for me to continue. It seemed like for the past month, all I had done was walk directly into conversations I wanted to avoid.
“That smells like her Bolognese.” I tried to say it casually, but that memory, that association, was too strong and too painful and it stuck in my throat.
I looked away from her and turned my attention back to the bookshelf to try to buy myself a few pregnant seconds before she started interrogating me again. I wasn’t the one who was supposed to be getting grilled anyway. How had this gotten so turned around?
A song faded on the television, replaced by a familiar one, and my eyes quickly flicked to the TV before I just as quickly looked away, hoping Lottie hadn’t noticed. I knew she was still watching me.
But she had seen me, and she groaned again. “God, even Fallout Boy? Do I get to have anything of my own?” She threw her hands up in exasperation and let them fall limply down at her sides.
“Lottie, how do you know it isn’t always like this? Maybe the memories are different for you, but Lydia may be a lot more like Jamie than you could possibly know unless…” I wondered if she would let me meet her.
She waited for me to finish but when I didn’t, she slowly shook her head and started fidgeting with the hemline of her t-shirt again.
