Sliding Past Vertical

by Laurie Boris

  The bathroom and kitchen were done. It was ten o’clock. She hadn’t had supper—as if she could eat—but she should have something ready for Emerson and his friend.

  She checked what was still salvageable of the provisions. Garlic, onions, half a shriveled pepper. A box of spaghetti. A tiny bottle of extra-virgin olive oil from an old Christmas gift basket. Canned tomatoes. A half-loaf of Italian bread in the freezer.

  Twenty minutes later, marinara sauce simmered on the stove. She stirred in spices and watched it bubble. The kitchen filled with smells that should have been comforting, aromas that should have made it feel like home. But it no longer felt like home. It was just an apartment, in a city that had turned on her.

  Chapter 12

  To Emerson’s displeasure, the Americanization of Rashid had included the discovery of a fondness for a particular segment of popular music: easy-listening hits of the previous decade. It had been generous of Rashid to offer his car for the trip—Emerson’s rattletrap probably wouldn’t have made it past the Massachusetts border, and he was grateful for the company—but if he had to listen to Captain & Tennille’s “Muskrat Love” one more time, he would have ripped the cassette deck out of the dashboard. He closed his eyes and consoled himself with the fact that when it was his turn to drive, it would also be his turn to pick the music.

  A favorite Police song drifted into his head, one he and Sarah both liked, and he couldn’t help thinking of her. He hated that she was alone. He almost wished she had gone to Jay’s, only until Emerson arrived, of course.

  The two years since he’d seen her felt like twenty. They talked every week or two by phone, less when she was content, more during periods of crisis, which had been the case more frequently of late. He wondered if she was still a girl in a woman’s body, if he could be in the same room with her without thinking things he shouldn’t, if she’d changed at all. He wondered if she would notice any changes in him. If she did, would she tell him?

  Rashid turned down the volume. “We are coming very close to something,” he said.

  Emerson’s eyes snapped open. Gone were his thwarted Sarah fantasies. He searched the night for deer or an oncoming semi. Then realized Rashid had been talking about his research.

  “My professor is on the verge of something that may prolong a patient’s life.”

  “So they can suffer longer,” Emerson said.

  Nearly a decade in a nursing home had taught him about suffering. Before working there he hadn’t thought much about death. Or hadn’t wanted to. Now he saw it every day—the lingering, the slow decay, the indignity. Doctors played God in the name of prolonging life and their precious funding; Rashid had his drug trials. When Emerson’s time was up, he prayed that he would go instantly. In his sleep. Hit by a bus. Or a car, like Thomas: a ton of misnavigated metal against a five-year-old boy on his first bicycle.

  It had been clean and quick. For Thomas, maybe, but not for those he had left behind.

  “Having My Baby” ended and Emerson knew what came next. He didn’t want to have to break Rashid’s cassette deck. “Maybe we can listen to the radio for a while.”

  Rashid popped out the tape and fiddled with the dials. He found his favorite FM station (remarkably, and just to annoy Emerson, it seemed, still in perfect reception two hours outside of Syracuse), which was playing nothing but the Carpenters.

  “This you are agreeable to?”

  Emerson sighed. He couldn’t find it in himself to truly hate the music, because Karen Carpenter had died so tragically and so young.

  * * * * *

  At 12:15 a car slowed in front of Sarah’s house. Her stomach did a little flip, and she grabbed her T-square. She reached the window in time to see a dark sedan with New York plates before it rolled away. She was relieved to see the orange SU parking sticker in the window. They must have taken Rashid’s car—surely Emerson couldn’t afford anything that new. Apparently, they were lost. She slipped on her shoes, preparing to run downstairs, catch them, and show them where to park.

  Then she smiled, as pieces of Emerson began to emerge from the fluttering camouflage of one of the maple trees that lined her street: a long back in a red T-shirt, a knapsack, and a hay-colored head.

  Rashid, apparently, had left him behind.

  Emerson lingered a moment, partially obstructed by the tree, facing the departing car. For a second Sarah felt sad for him. He seemed so disoriented, abandoned in a strange city in the middle of the night. She wanted to scoop him up and take him inside.

  Then he turned toward her house. The spell broke and he was just plain Emerson again, come to rescue her. He ambled up her front walk, the knapsack slung over his shoulder. His hair was rumpled. His glasses slipped down his nose; he pushed them back. As he did this, his gaze tilted up to the window, searching for her, apparently, but not finding her.

  When she let him in at the bottom of the stairs, he hugged her like he’d just returned from war.

  Sarah had never permitted any display of affection from or for him to go too far. But this time she didn’t want to leave his arms or scold him about the kiss he planted atop her head. There was something new in his embrace. It was stronger. Safer. Or maybe she just needed it more.

  But she knew she ought to stop, before it went too far.

  She was slow about it, though, dragging her hand down his arm, fussing with the dishtowel she’d tucked apron-style into the waistband of her jeans, unable to muster the small talk of greeting.

  She was slow to meet his eyes, because she knew what she’d see: Emerson looking back. Oozing back. Giving her one of those baby-chick looks. Like he would gladly spend the rest of his life feeding her warm milk through an eyedropper.

  When they were dating, he’d looked at her like that after they’d made love.

  This time the look held only a shadow of its former intensity, but it still made her squirm a little. “Where’s Rashid?” she asked, smoothing a hand over her hair.

  “Parking.”

  She turned toward the stairs and then stopped. “He knows which house?”

  “He’s got the number.”

  She started to turn again. He followed her for a step, until she stopped again. “Maybe we should wait.”

  “He’ll be okay. He’s got a good sense of direction.” Em paused and gave her one of his long, liquid looks. “Unless you want to wait.”

  The landing was too small for the two of them, too close. He smelled like the road and cologne that must have been Rashid’s, since Emerson didn’t wear any. Maybe he should. It smelled nice; maybe his girlfriends would like it. She fussed again with the dishcloth. “No, that’s all right, we don’t have to—well, the light’s on, he’s got the number, I guess—anyway, I hope you guys are hungry.”

  Emerson followed Sarah up the stairs and into the apartment.

  “You should have seen it before I started cleaning,” she told his slack-mouthed expression.

  His knapsack slid onto what was left of a chair. “The police came?”

  “Yeah.” Sarah shrugged a shoulder. “There was really nothing they could do.”

  He faced her, a hand on her elbow. Waiting.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered. “I’m scared they’ll come back.”

  He made noises of comfort, and she let him hold her again and let him pet her hair.

  “They won’t come back.”

  “Yes, they will,” she said against his shirt. “I know what they came for. They didn’t find it. Something must have stopped them before—”

  The doorbell rang. Sarah practically jumped out of Emerson’s arms. It was time she was out of them, anyway.

  * * * * *

  So much for big and dangerous.

  Trailing behind Emerson on his way back up the stairs was a slightly pudgy fellow, about Sarah’s height, maybe an inch or two shorter. His wavy, dark hair looked recently combed. Small gold-wire glasses and a wispy mustache floated over fleshy lips. He wore neatly pressed designer jeans and a baby-
blue polo with a pony stitched over the left breast. The placket of the shirt was open. A fine tuft of black hair poked out, and Sarah wanted to tuck it back in. When Emerson introduced them, Rashid offered Sarah a soft, paw-like hand and nodded slowly, marble-dark eyes widening into hers, as if they had just sealed some sort of agreement.

  “I’m sorry for your troubles,” Rashid said. “I hope you won’t find my tagging along to be a burden.”

  After hearing his accent, she remembered Rashid and smiled. His was the voice that answered the phone when she called Emerson. He always asked about the weather in Boston. Once Em wasn’t even home and she chatted with him for fifteen minutes about nothing in particular. She was glad Emerson had brought him and not some stranger.

  “Not at all,” she said, and realized at the same time Emerson did that she was still holding on to Rashid’s hand.

  * * * * *

  Sarah didn’t get to take her shower until the three of them killed the spaghetti, the garlic bread, and a six-pack of Kingfisher beer Rashid had brought; until she was made to sit with a cup of tea while both men did the dishes; and until she’d explained what had happened to her apartment and why.

  She turned off the water and was reaching for a towel when the phone rang. She clutched the terry cloth to her breasts as if someone had just burst in. As if a cheap bit of fabric from Woolworth’s would protect her.

  From them.

  They’re coming back.

  It rang again, a third time, and stopped.

  Rashid asked most politely who was on the line.

  Sarah froze. Waited. Listened. The towel still covered her nakedness like full-frontal armor. Snarled wet hair dribbled cold rivers down her back.

  “No, I’m sorry, I don’t believe she wishes to speak with you.” Pause. “No, I don’t feel that’s necessary, I—”

  “That’s Jay?” Emerson said. “Let me talk to him.”

  Sarah threw on her robe. “Em, don’t!”

  She was too late. “She doesn’t want to talk to you, and I don’t blame her. If you have any respect for Sarah, you’ll leave her alone.”

  Sarah reached him as he hung up. She was too furious to make words. Water dripped from her hair onto the floor. She stabbed a finger at him, gasping. “If you...if you ever do that again—”

  He glared. “I was just trying to—”

  “Look. You were wonderful to come here.” Rashid appeared from around the corner with another cup of tea and spilled a little at the sight of her dripping and fuming. “Both of you—but you can’t just—you can’t just fix it for me, I’m not a child, I can fight my own battles, you can’t—”

  Alcohol, a big dinner, and a long hot shower were probably a mistake on top of the day she’d had. She suddenly couldn’t take a breath. Her stomach lurched upward. As the room began to swim, clammy sweat sprouted along her back. She felt her legs begin to dissolve.

  Emerson was there, no longer angry, wrapping a supportive arm around her. He led her to what was left of the couch and encouraged her to sit with her upper body bent toward her knees.

  Eventually the lightheadedness ebbed. Then she was being carried, like a small child. Working with his patients had made Emerson stronger than she remembered.

  “Sleep,” he commanded.

  He was shadowy above her, a flash of glasses, slanted mouth, and a curtain of hair, as he saved her from herself and put her to bed.

  Chapter 13

  The first thing Sarah saw the next morning was an empty birdcage. The tiny door dangled by one hinge; green and blue pinfeathers fluttered in the broken wires.

  She’d had a nightmare. The parakeet had come back for revenge, a million times its normal size, and beat her with her own useless T-square. She blinked a couple of times, thinking she was still dreaming, but the cage remained.

  The cage. The Guns N’ Roses and Bon Jovi posters. The uniforms in the closet. Emerson put me in Dee Dee’s room! Gotta get that cage out of here before she comes home.

  Sarah swung her legs over the side of the mattress but misjudged the distance because she was unaccustomed to sleeping on a real bed with a frame. Her feet thudded onto the floor and almost took her entire body with them like a Slinky dropped down the stairs. In the process of catching herself, she whacked her palm against the bed frame.

  As she rubbed the pain out, cursing bed frames and the situation that had left her rooming with a parakeet’s ghost, she heard the squeak of shower knobs and then a ringing phone no one seemed interested in answering.

  “What now?” she groaned, stumbling into the hall.

  It had to be Emerson in the shower.

  Rashid was still asleep on what remained of the sofa.

  His glasses were off. If not for the little mustache, he’d look about twelve years old.

  She picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “No slave boys to screen your calls?”

  This nightmare was real. She smoothed rat’s nest hair out of her eyes. Her head and hand throbbed. “Don’t start with me, Jay.”

  “What’s with Mutt and Jeff dissing me on the phone last night?”

  “They were just trying to protect me.”

  “From me? What did I ever do to you?”

  I’ll make you a list. “Someone busted up our place yesterday.”

  Silence.

  “I think you know who did it.”

  Finally he responded, his voice grave and cracking. “Did they take anything?”

  “Is that all you care about?”

  “No, of course not. You’re okay?”

  “Yes, thanks for asking.”

  “Did they take anything?”

  A wicked grin crossed her face. She wanted to tell him she’d flushed the coke. He’d go berserk. So would whoever else might be listening. “We shouldn’t talk about this on the phone.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  Emerson and Jay face to face before she had her coffee. She cringed. “No, don’t—it’s not a good time.”

  “Why, the boys won’t be done with you by then?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Rashid stirred. Sarah pulled the phone into the kitchen.

  “What else am I supposed to think, when two strange men answer your phone at one thirty in the morning and tell me to shove off?”

  “That maybe they’re trying to help me out of the royal mess my asshole boyfriend got me into.”

  He had the gall to laugh. “Hah. I bet they’re helping you.”

  “Fuck you again.”

  “I’m coming over. Save me a turn.”

  She wanted to slam the receiver down in his ear but he’d beaten her to it. She stomped around the kitchen, making coffee and silently fuming.

  Rashid appeared in the doorway in an orange Syracuse University T-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms, all of them rumpled from sleep.

  “Sorry I woke you,” Sarah muttered.

  “I was just about woken up anyway.” He adjusted his glasses. “May I help you with that?”

  “It’s already brewing.” She sat at the table with a thud.

  He joined her, barely taking up any space on the chair across from hers.

  “We are having a visitor?” he said finally.

  She blinked fuzzily at him. “Something like that.”

  His gaze met hers for a second before it dropped to the sugar bowl. He had kind-looking eyes so brown they were almost black. He fingered the little chip in the ceramic lid. “Maybe I’m out of line to tell you this, as I don’t know you so well as Emerson, but maybe it is not a good thing for this goonda to be coming here.”

  “It’ll be all right.”

  A long silence fell between them.

  “He is bad news. If he makes you curse at him—”

  She sighed. Great. Now I have two Emersons for the price of one, telling me what to do.

  * * * * *

  It began to rain, a sudden, heavy downpour that fogged their windows and turned to steam on the hot sidewalks.
Emerson, still damp from his shower, sat at Dee Dee’s kitchen table, sipping milk and ignoring Sarah.

  She’d forgotten how sullen he could be in the morning, especially when he was mad at her. If it were later in the day, he might lance her with sarcasm. At the moment, though, she’d prefer barbs to silence. At least she wouldn’t feel so isolated.

  Jay pulled up in front of the house and leaned on his horn. She turned toward the noise. Turned back. Emerson, caught looking at her, glanced away, playing hurt little boy games.

  “I’m sorry.” She touched Emerson’s arm. His muscles tensed, pushing her off of him. “I have to do this.”

  He said nothing.

  Jamming her rat’s nest hair into a ponytail, Sarah dashed out. Cold splats of rain landed on the back of her neck. She threw open the car door.

  Jay searched her hands, his eyes raking her with frantic cobalt fire.

  “It’s gone, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Sarah yanked the handle behind her. “It’s gone.”

  Jay cursed while pounding on the steering wheel.

  Knowing better than to say a word until he calmed down, she waited, hands clenched in her lap, until he was merely gripping the wheel and muttering. Technically she’d told him the truth. Either way he would have gone berserk. But this way, he wouldn’t go berserk at her.

  “Okay,” Sarah started quietly. “You have five seconds to explain how your friends knew I had it.”

  Jay turned on her with an evil sneer. “They’re not my friends. I don’t know how they knew.”

  She wanted to slap him. “Bullshit. What are they, telepathic? Have super-human scent glands, they could smell it from the Pike?”

  “Sarah—”

  “They killed Dee Dee’s parakeet.”

  He gaped.

  “And I won’t even tell you what they did to the shirt you gave me. It’s like they were sending you a message.”

  Color drained from his cheeks. He stared straight ahead. The rain picked up, bombarding the car. The deluge seemed to go on forever, during which neither of them spoke. Sarah was too angry, and Jay, apparently, had lost his voice.