Object of Desire

by William J. Mann

  “Are you famous?”

  I laughed. “I wouldn’t quite say—”

  “Then you are. If you weren’t famous at all, you would have just said no. I’m sorry I didn’t know who you were.”

  “Oh, don’t be. I’m not—”

  “Sure, I’ll get together with you and show you my sketches.” He whipped out his tablet and flipped it open, scrawling his number on a blank sheet and tearing it out. He handed it over to me. “Text me so I’ll have your number as well.”

  I took the paper and nodded my head, not quite believing all this was happening.

  And then he was gone.

  “Nice to see you haven’t lost it, Romeo,” Randall said, leaning into me.

  I stared down at Kelly’s number. The sevens were written European style, with lines struck through them. Below the number he’d written “Kelly” in a bold script, rendering his y with a big, happy loop—which was exactly the way I was feeling at the moment. Happy, and more than a little bit loopy.

  I took out my phone. I texted Kelly a brief message. GOOD TO MEET YOU. Then I used the arrow to go back and add an adverb. VERY GOOD TO MEET YOU.

  Still a masterpiece of understatement.

  And I could not deny what I did next. Onto the seat he had just vacated, I placed my hand, soaking up the last lingering remnants of the warmth he had left behind.

  EAST HARTFORD

  Mom insisted on putting up a Christmas tree because if we didn’t, it would be like admitting Becky wasn’t coming home.

  Nana sat on the couch, watching as Dad and I stuck the artificial branches into the plastic tree trunk. Nobody was saying much. In silence, I handed Dad branches in order of increasing size, starting with the small ones up near the top, finishing with the big ones that filled out the bottom of the tree. Then came the lights, three strands wrapped around the tree, and when we plugged them in, we discovered the middle set didn’t light up. Dad groaned and said he’d go down to Genovese Drug to get replacements. After he left, I sat down next to Nana to look up at the unfinished tree.

  “Where’s Patsy?” she whispered.

  She asked this five or six times a day. It drove Mom crazy. Nana knew that the question had become irksome, but still, she was heartbreakingly unable to retain its answer. So when she asked it, she tended to whisper it, and usually she directed it to me.

  “She’s at St. Luke’s,” I replied.

  When she heard this, Nana would always nod, as if she recalled everything. And maybe she did, at least for that fleeting moment. Maybe she remembered that Aunt Patsy’s cancer had spread throughout her body, stunning her doctors with its swiftness, and that she was now wasted down to about eighty-five pounds, living at the hospice run by the Catholic church. But even if the memory had come flickering back to her, in a short while she’d be asking again where her daughter was, the daughter who had taken care of her for the last decade, the daughter from whom she’d rarely ever been separated for the last forty-five years.

  The phone rang on the table set against the far wall. The phones there hadn’t been as busy over the last few weeks as they had in the beginning. Becky’s disappearance had become old news, no longer featured in the papers or on the local newscasts. The police had followed up on lots of leads, like that one about Becky being with some motorcycle guy on Cape Cod. For some reason, Mom had really thought that one was going to pan out. Maybe because the cops told her that they’d followed a couple of suspicious motorcyclists on Main Street on the very morning Becky disappeared. Of course, she’d also been convinced that the Hare Krishnas had taken Becky, because they’d been in town that morning, too. But it didn’t matter. For a good two weeks, Mom remained certain that Becky had been kidnapped by bikers and was now on Cape Cod—until, that was, an exhaustive search by police turned up no one on the Cape who looked like Becky or the bald-headed guy with the Led Zeppelin shirt. And so now we were back at the beginning, without any real leads that might explain what had happened to my sister.

  Mom was undaunted. She kept her command post staffed with friends and neighbors, but as the holidays drew closer, fewer people came by to help out, so she hooked up an answering machine to the main line whenever she couldn’t be there herself. This was one of those times. Mom was at Mass. She went to Mass every morning. Because she couldn’t drive, a local taxicab driver had volunteered to pick her up and bring her back every day. It was his contribution to the Rebecca Fortunato Fund, he said. At church Mom would grip her hands so hard in prayer that she left bruises on her knuckles.

  But now, while she was at prayer, the phone was ringing. On the fourth ring, the answering machine clicked on.

  Nana and I listened. “This is Peggy Fortunato. If you are calling about my daughter, Rebecca Ann Fortunato, please leave a message and please, please, please leave a phone number. Thank you and God bless you.” Then came the beep.

  “Hello,” a voice said. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female. “I’m calling about Becky.” The voice was shaking, as if the speaker was frightened. “We have her. She’s right here. And you can get her back if you give us ten thousand—”

  I bolted from the couch and lifted the phone. “Who is this?” I shouted.

  The caller seemed startled into silence. Finally the voice resumed. “We have Becky. Pay us ten thousand dollars and we’ll let her go.”

  “Who are you? Where are you?”

  I heard another voice in the background. “Oh yeah,” the caller said. “If you contact the police, we’ll know. And we will kill her.”

  “Where are you?” I asked again.

  “Bring the money by twelve o’clock noon to the Caldor’s Plaza on West Main Street. Drop it into the Dumpster in the back. Then drive away.” The voice in the background said something else. “And no cops,” the caller repeated. “If we see anything out of the ordinary, we will slit Becky’s throat.”

  “Okay,” I said, my heart racing. “I’ll tell my parents.”

  “Twelve o’clock,” the caller said again.

  “Okay,” I said.

  And the caller hung up.

  I didn’t know what to do. My mind was in shambles. Twelve o’clock. That was less than two hours from now. I looked over at Nana.

  “They said they have Becky,” I said.

  “Becka dee, Becka doo,” Nana said.

  I looked out the picture window, hoping to see either Mom or Dad pulling into the driveway. It had snowed the night before, and a couple of icicles hung from the roof. Across the street Chipper was shoveling his driveway. I ran to the front door and threw it open. “Chipper!” I called. “Come over here, please! Come over!”

  Chipper looked up at me. He wore a red and white striped wool cap on his head. He hesitated, then stuck his shovel into the snow and walked slowly across the street.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, trudging up our walk, making deep footprints in the snow.

  I stood in the doorway. Behind me, Nana was hugging herself against the cold air I was letting inside.

  “Somebody just called and said they had Becky,” I told him.

  He made a face as if he didn’t believe it.

  “They said they wanted ten thousand dollars, or they’d slit her throat.”

  “They’re lying,” he said.

  “What if they’re telling the truth?”

  “Where are your parents?”

  “Mom’s at church. Dad’s at the store.” I felt suddenly as if I was going to cry. “They said to bring the money to the Dumpster behind Caldor’s. At twelve o’clock.”

  Chipper scoffed. “How you gonna get that kind of cash on a Saturday?”

  Just then I saw the yellow taxicab pull into the driveway. I ran outside in my socks, waving furiously as Mom got out on the passenger side. She could see from my face that something was up. I blurted out the whole story to her.

  “But where is she?” Mom asked. “If we give them the money, where and when and how do we get Becky?”

  I was at a l
oss. “I don’t know. They didn’t tell me that.”

  “And you didn’t ask?” Mom shouted.

  “I didn’t think to ask—”

  She slapped me hard across the face. “You idiot!”

  I pulled back, my hand flying to my stinging cheek. The cold air only made it hurt worse. Mom was enraged. She looked up at the sky and screamed, her coat falling open, her big breasts heaving. She seemed like an animal, a bear or a wolf. I was stunned. I couldn’t move. Chipper came up behind me and rested a gloved hand on my shoulder.

  “Mrs. Fortunato,” he said, “take it easy.”

  “Take it easy?” she said. “These goons are threatening to slit my daughter’s throat, and you say take it easy!”

  “Peggy,” came the voice of the cabdriver. “You want me to wait here?”

  He was a heavyset man with big jowls and wavy steel gray hair. He had stepped out of the cab and was leaning against the open door.

  Mom’s eyes darted into the open garage. “Where’s your father?” she shouted. “Where is your goddamn father?”

  “At the store,” I told her, my hand still on my cheek. “Getting more Christmas lights.”

  Mom’s eyes were wild. “How long has he been gone?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a half hour.”

  She made an ugly sound in her throat. “He’s not getting Christmas lights.” I didn’t know what she meant. She turned to the cabdriver. “Oh, Bud, yes, please wait! I’m going to go in and make some calls!”

  “Okay, Peggy.” The driver got back into the cab.

  Mom pushed past Chipper and me to head into the house. We followed. Chipper paused first to take off his boots on the front step. I pulled off my wet socks, too. My feet were freezing. But it was my cheek that stung the most. My mother had spanked me when I was a kid. But she had never, ever slapped me across the face.

  And she had never called me an idiot before.

  “Okay, we’ve got to think here,” Mom was saying as we came inside. The vein on her forehead was pulsing and she made the sign of the cross. Nana shrunk down a little on the couch at the sound of Mom’s shrill voice.

  “Look,” Chipper reasoned. “Whoever called you is just looking for money. They don’t have Becky.”

  “And how would you know, Chipper?” Mom asked. Accusation was in her eyes.

  He sighed. “I just think…if they really had Becky, they would have contacted you before now. Becky’s been gone for almost four months. If somebody had kidnapped her for ransom, they wouldn’t have waited this long to contact you.”

  “Maybe we should call the police,” I said. The pain had not faded from my cheek. Mom had big hands, and she was strong.

  “The police have been one hundred percent completely useless so far,” Mom said. “They’ve given up on Becky. They think she ran away. No, we’re not calling the police. Until we know for sure, I have to take what that caller said to be true. They have Becky, and they’ll kill her if we get the cops involved. I will not take the chance of jeopardizing my daughter’s life. So we’ve got to get that money out of the fund and drop it off as they said by twelve o’clock.”

  “Banks are closed on Saturday,” Chipper said. “And I’m not sure you can withdraw that much cash, anyway.”

  “Well, we’ve got to!” Mom shrieked.

  “There’s only eight thousand four hundred in the fund,” I said. Mom turned to look at me with wide eyes. She’d assigned me to keep track of the money that came in. I pulled open a drawer in the kitchen and withdrew the passbook, handing it to her. “See?”

  She looked, shaking her head. “Then we’ll have to take the rest out of our own savings.”

  “But the banks are closed,” Chipper said again.

  Mom spun on him. “Then we’ve got to get them to open up for us, don’t we, Chipper?”

  Chipper made no reply.

  “I can call my friend,” I said, anxious to regain my mother’s trust and affection. My cheek was still painful. “His father is a vice president at the bank.”

  “What friend?” Mom asked.

  “His name is Troy Kitchens. We sit together at lunch.” That was, in fact, the extent of my “friendship” with Troy. We sat together because no one else wanted to sit with us. We were de facto friends. We said very little to each other, but lately we’d been exchanging a few laughs at Brother Pop’s expense, commenting on his cigarette breath and pasty, doughy hands. I felt certain Troy would do what I asked.

  I was wrong.

  “You want me to do what?” he replied after I’d gotten him on the phone and asked if his father could open the bank for us. The woman who’d answered the phone, probably the housekeeper, had seemed surprised that someone was calling for Troy. When he’d come to the phone, his hello had dripped with suspicion and wonder. But when he’d heard it was me, there’d been a little rise to his voice, as if he were glad that I’d called. Still, when I made my request, he froze.

  “No way,” he said. “My father doesn’t do any shit that I ask him.”

  “Please, Troy. We need to get money out of the bank today. It’s about my sister.”

  “Sorry,” Troy said.

  “But we really need to—”

  “Give me that phone!” My mother grabbed the receiver from my hand. “Listen,” she barked at Troy. “We have no other choice! Let me speak to your father!”

  Mom was more persuasive than I was. When Mr. Kitchens came to the phone, Mom babbled out the whole story for him. She even cried a little. Finally, he told her to meet him at the bank in half an hour. That didn’t leave us much time; it was 10:45. Still, Mom hung up the phone flushed with happiness, as if she had found Becky already and had her in her arms.

  “Should we go down to Genovese and try to find Dad?” I asked.

  “He’s not at the drugstore,” Mom said, pulling her coat back on.

  “Where is he?” I was genuinely befuddled.

  “Chipper,” Mom said, ignoring me, “I’ll go in the cab, but I want you to follow us when I go to deliver the money. Park at the far end of the parking lot, and just keep an eye.”

  “You should call the police,” Chipper said.

  “No!” Mom shouted. “I’m going to do as they say. I’m going to drop the money in the Dumpster. But then I’m going to hide and wait. And whoever comes to pick it up is going to take me to Becky.”

  Chipper just shook his head. “I can’t do what you ask, Mrs. Fortunato. My parents don’t want me to have anything more to do with you, or with the search to find Becky. I’m sorry, but I shouldn’t even be over here right now. They think you’re scapegoating me, and they said I should keep my distance from you.”

  Mom’s eyes went cold. She stared at Chipper for a long time. He grew uncomfortable under her stare, shuffling his feet, looking down at the floor. But he didn’t leave or change his mind. Finally, Mom said quietly, “Get out of my house.”

  “I hope you find her,” Chipper said. “I really do.”

  I watched him go. The screen door swung shut behind him, and through the glass, I saw him bend down, pulling on his boots.

  Mom just stood in the center of the kitchen, seething.

  “Where’s Patsy?”

  Nana was in the door frame of the living room.

  Mom exploded. “She’s dying! Okay? She’s dying!”

  Nana blinked.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” Mom grumbled in a low voice, pushing past her confused mother-in-law and heading back outside. In a few seconds I heard the door to the cab slam shut and the tires crunch over the snow in the driveway.

  Nana just looked at me. Her eyes were moist, and her chin was trembling. “Where’s Patsy?” she whispered again.

  “She’s just resting for a while at St. Luke’s,” I told her, and she nodded, like she always did, as if she remembered everything.

  We both returned to the living room, where we sat on the couch and looked at the Christmas tree. I had no idea what my mother had meant when she’d
said my father wasn’t at the drugstore, but neither did I have any idea what could be taking him so long. Mom should have gone looking for him. He should be informed about this latest news of Becky. Because maybe, in fact, by the end of the day, my sister would be back home, telling us all about how she’d been kidnapped. The newspapers would run stories about it for several days, and Becky and Mom would be featured on the local news. And then everything would get back to normal—except, of course, that Aunt Patsy would still probably die, and we’d have to deal with that.

  We sat there for quite a while. Dad didn’t return. Neither did Mom. She must have gone straight from the bank to Caldor’s. I looked at the clock. Eleven thirty-five. Twenty-five minutes before twelve, before the money was due to be dropped off. Nana had dozed off, her chin on her chest.

  I stood up when I heard a car pull into the driveway, but it wasn’t a car I recognized. It was big and black, with a silver hood ornament that looked like an animal. A Jaguar. That was what it was. Dad had always commented on Jaguars, wishing he had one.

  And its driver was Troy Kitchens.

  “Hey,” he said, coming to the front door.

  “Since when can you drive?” I asked, opening the door a crack.

  He shrugged. “I’ve known how to drive since I was twelve.”

  “But you’re too young to have your license.”

  He shrugged again. “Maybe. But I’m not too young to drive.”

  I studied him, all wrapped up in a shiny down parka trimmed with fur. His red hair stuck out from under the hood. His eyes were hidden, as usual, by his blue aviator glasses. He wore no gloves and rubbed his bare hands together to keep them warm.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “’Cause my father told me you were about to find your sister. He went down to meet your mother at the bank and give her the money. So I came here to get you.”

  “To get me?”

  Troy nodded. “Don’t you want to see what happens?”

  I didn’t know what he meant.

  “Don’t you want to go and see your sister get rescued? We could hide and wait and see what happens.”

  “My mom is going to hide,” I told him.