Dead Certain

by Adam Mitzner

  My sleuthing completed, I do a little more lawyer work on behalf of some other clients, managing to somehow show that my pushing paper around amounts to nine hours of billing. At eight I leave the office, full of excitement for the evening to come.

  My transformation to Cassidy begins the moment I step into my apartment. There’s no point in having a secret life if you’re going to hold back, so I reach for my tightest jeans and decide not to even bother with a shirt or bra. Instead, I put on a fringy vest and cinch it tight, until I’m reasonably satisfied I won’t fall out of it.

  Cassidy’s makeup also makes a statement: dark mascara and bright red lipstick. And she wears her hair down and loose. I only wish mine were longer, because hers should be midwaist to truly be as wild as she’d like. Cassidy certainly doesn’t have to tie it back for work in the morning.

  Less than an hour later, she’s staring back at me from the full-length mirror in my hallway. I eye Cassidy the way a man would. Slowly lifting my gaze from the floor, up my legs, lingering at my breasts, and then finally smiling at my reflection when we make eye contact.

  She looks good. No, hot.

  Cassidy—no last name, just Cassidy, like Madonna or Rihanna—has a bio on Lava’s website and more than eight hundred “fans,” the Lava equivalent of Facebook likes. Charlotte might be the writer in the family, but I’ve crafted a perfectly convincing alter ego for myself. It says Cassidy’s from a small town in Oregon and describes her musical style as indie/pop with a jazz influence. There’s a “sounds like” section for people who don’t understand what indie/pop with a jazz influence means. For Cassidy’s, I’ve listed Lana Del Rey and Adele, along with Billie Holiday, to lend her an aura of sophistication.

  There’s also a photo array. Eight carefully composed pictures indicate that Cassidy is worth looking at without any of them actually showing her face. Of course, even with the teased-up hair and heavy black eyeliner that Cassidy favors, anyone who’s ever met me would instantly recognize that it was Ella Broden onstage. But so far, at least, in the three months that I’ve been living my double life, that hasn’t happened.

  And yes, my first visit to Lava was two days after I joined up with my father. And no, you don’t have to be a shrink to realize that the timing isn’t a coincidence.

  I haven’t told a soul. Not even Charlotte, although I’ve come close a few times. I don’t withhold out of shame or embarrassment, however. Charlotte is the least judgmental person I know. Rather, I maintain this secret because, as odd as this sounds, I feel like telling Charlotte—or anyone else, for that matter—would be betraying Cassidy. That she’s not me is the point. If I blur that line, then Cassidy will cease to exist.

  And right now I need her. A once-a-week vacation from my life, and a quick glimpse of the road not taken. What Ella Broden might have been if . . . she hadn’t been so Ella Broden. If she had been a little more like her younger sister.

  6.

  The Lava Lounge—as Lava is officially named—is in the East Village. I’m likely the only person who takes a cab there. It’s strictly a subway-and-walking kind of crowd.

  Open mic is every Wednesday night. Lava’s front room is a traditional bar. No seats, just a ten-foot mahogany counter. There isn’t even a kitchen. Sometimes a food truck parks in front, just in case a patron wants some form of sustenance between rounds of alcohol. The moment you enter the back room, however, it’s like Dorothy stepping out of her black-and-white Kansan world and into the kaleidoscopic colors of Oz. The stage has blindingly bright spotlights that illuminate a bright, red-lacquered floor. The rest of the space, though, especially where the crowd stands—and it’s strictly a standing-room-only situation aside from a few bar stools—is dark as a cave. There’s a collection of well-worn musical instruments and amps set off in the corner. Lava always provides a piano player, and more often than not, other musicians are at the ready to back up the singers.

  It never fails to smell like a heady concoction of beer and sweat, and it’s always loud. Very, very loud. The two-drink minimum makes the crowd enthusiastic and unforgiving. Tonight, the decibel level is already high enough that you need to shout to be heard even though the mic hasn’t yet officially opened.

  I haven’t missed a Wednesday performance since I first took the stage twelve weeks ago. By now I’m on a first-name basis with the regulars. The bouncer, Kareem—a refrigerator of a man—greets me at the door. I ask him where I can find Karen. He points, and I see her at the bar, working at her iPad.

  Karen is the woman in charge, although her authority is limited to giving out time slots and introducing the acts. She looks to be in her midforties and she has clearly made it to this point the hard way. There’s a world-weariness around her eyes, as if she’s experienced things she now regrets. She’s rail thin—without any of the musculature of someone who adheres to a workout regimen.

  “Cassidy!” Karen calls out when I approach.

  We kiss on both cheeks the way Europeans do, and I wonder if it’s because Karen might be European. Her voice has a trace of an accent, but I’m not sure if it’s foreign or affected.

  When we pull away, she scans my body. I am reasonably sure Karen is a lesbian.

  “Wow. Look at you. Going to blow the roof off the place before you sing a note.”

  “Going to do some Donna Summer,” I say.

  She taps her iPad. “I had a bunch of cancellations tonight. If you want to go on at midnight or so, I can give you four songs.”

  Sets are at most two songs. Rookies, or anyone who has pissed Karen off recently, only get one. People have been known to offer Karen bribes—usually promises of sex, because none of the performers have any money—for an extra three minutes (and she always declines), which makes Karen’s offer tonight to double my time without any quid pro quo virtually unprecedented.

  My first thought is that a midnight set means I won’t be home until after 1:00 a.m., and I’ll be so wired that I won’t fall asleep until two at the earliest, which is not ideal considering I have to be Ella Broden, attorney-at-law, in the morning. But I absolutely hate when Cassidy suffers Ella’s thoughts.

  Cassidy is a creature of the night. She doesn’t have anywhere to be tomorrow, and there’s nothing she’d like to do more than throw back a few drinks, listen to some music, and then, as Karen says, blow the roof off the place at midnight.

  “Sure. Whenever,” I say.

  At the bar, I order a whiskey because that’s Cassidy’s poison. I’m midway through it when I spy a handsome man in the crowd. He’s dark everywhere. Skin, eyes, hair, and dressed from head to toe in black. His smile is borderline dangerous. The kind of man Cassidy would go for in a heartbeat, but who would scare the hell out of a goody-goody like Ella Broden.

  I give him my—I mean, Cassidy’s—best “fuck me” smile.

  It’s enough to reel him in. He heads right to me, and sidles up so he’s standing wedged between my bar stool and the one next to it.

  He tells me his name, but I don’t catch it. When I tell him mine—Cassidy, of course—he repeats it back to me.

  “I’ve never seen you here before,” I say.

  “I’ve never been. I came here tonight on something of a lark.”

  “Are you here to watch or perform?”

  “Only time will tell, now, won’t it?”

  My new friend calls out to the bartender, “I’ll have whatever she’s having,” like they say in the movies. When his drink arrives, he clinks his glass against mine. “To . . . ?” he says.

  I complete the toast the way Cassidy would. “To whatever time has to tell.”

  “Indeed,” he says. Then he throws his whiskey back in one gulp.

  He looks at me like he’s the devil, urging me to match him. I give in to the peer pressure, although my attempt to be cool is thwarted when I gag a bit as the whiskey goes down.

  When our glasses are empty, he signals to the bartender that we’re ready for more by holding up two fingers and spinning them aro
und. We chat for a while, mostly about music. When I ask him to regale me with his life story, he says only that he lives in Brooklyn and that he’s a doctor who most recently worked in Peru with Doctors Without Borders. I consider pressing him for more details, but it’s so refreshing to be talking to a man who doesn’t go on and on about himself that I’m content to allow him to remain mysterious.

  He asks about me like he’s truly interested, which is also something of a new experience in my dealings with men. For an instant, his sincerity causes me to consider breaking character, but then I hear myself parroting Cassidy’s bio, at one point even going on about the sunsets of the Oregon coast as if I’ve actually seen one.

  The conversation, the alcohol, and his eyes are enough for me to completely lose track of the time. I’m just finishing off my third drink when he raises his hand and shouts out, “Right here.”

  My focus shifts to Karen, on the stage. She’s pointing at me. It takes me a moment to realize what has happened, but then it clicks. She’s pointing at him, not me. Mr. Only-Time-Will-Tell has just volunteered to do a set.

  He pushes through the crowd and climbs onto the stage. After he makes his way over to the band and whispers his song selection, he returns to the mic.

  Some people look lost up there, but not my new friend. He reminds me of a conquering monarch addressing his subjects.

  “I’m Dylan Perry,” he says, so at least now I know his name. “This is an old one, but . . . well, you decide for yourselves if it’s any good.”

  The cheesy organ lead-in makes me first think that he’s going to sing a Doors song, but then I realize it’s “House of the Rising Sun.” My first reaction is fear . . . for Dylan. Experienced singers know that there are certain songs you don’t cover because they’re so identified with the original. That’s why no one with half a brain tries to sing anything from Queen.

  But my concern vanishes the moment he utters the first lyric. He’s . . . dominating. That’s the word that comes to mind. Dominating. Eric Burdon has nothing on him. Dylan surveys the audience as he sings, and when his eyes return to mine, as they do every few seconds, I feel myself flush.

  Even before he’s finished, the crowd has drowned him out. So completely, in fact, that I can’t hear my own screaming voice.

  “Thank you,” he says, and then I see an almost imperceptible chuckle. Like he’s surprised he’s done as well as he has. It makes me fall for him that much more.

  “I’m allowed to do one more song,” he says. “I hope you like this one. It’s also a throwback. From Queen.”

  When the bass starts, it sounds like that Vanilla Ice song, but then I realize it’s “Under Pressure.” The crowd is ahead of me, and they’re even louder than before.

  When he’s done, Dylan literally jumps off the stage, without any of the basking that some people do. I say a silent prayer of thanks that I’m not following him. In fact, I pity whoever has to live up to that performance.

  He returns to the bar stool, glistening in sweat. I have no idea what comes over me—the whiskey or my Cassidy persona taking over—but I immediately pull him into me and plant my lips on his. At first he seems surprised by my aggressiveness, but it isn’t long into the kiss before I feel him taking control.

  We make out for the better part of the next few sets. Like teenagers at the drive-in, but with the promise of more to follow. I’ve forgotten all about the stage, when my name—or rather Cassidy’s—is called.

  He breaks our embrace. “That’s you,” he says.

  A moment later, I’m peering down at the crowd. When I catch Dylan’s eye, he winks.

  “I’m going to do a Donna Summer song,” I say. “Hope you like it.”

  I shut my eyes, and in the darkness I’m alone. This is the moment I try to hold on to. After the first note, it all becomes a blur. Right before, when the entire room is silent for just a moment, it’s pure bliss. That’s the high I’m chasing every time I become Cassidy.

  Twenty minutes later, after I’ve done “Bad Girls,” followed by two up-tempo Blondie numbers—“Call Me” and “One Way or Another,” which I probably wouldn’t have even attempted but for Dylan’s show of courage covering Queen—I close with “Love to Love You, Baby,” which I sex up with utter abandon, even for Cassidy.

  The crowd is roaring as loud as they were for Dylan, which is as loud as I’ve ever heard it at Lava. But the reviewer I most care about is sitting at the bar with a half-full glass of whiskey in front of him.

  His critique comes in the form of a whisper in my ear.

  “I need to be with you, right now,” he says.

  I’m not so drunk that I don’t realize it’s a line, but it hits the mark. I throw back the rest of his whiskey and say, “Let’s go.”

  On the street, the air has a chill to it that I hadn’t recalled from earlier. It feels exhilarating. We immediately resume our make-out session outside, interrupted only long enough for Dylan to flag down a cab. When we get in the back, I blurt out my address before Dylan can direct the driver to his place.

  The cab ride is less than five minutes, during which our lips barely separate. We break the embrace long enough to make it into my building and up the stairs, but we go at it hot and heavy as soon as we get inside. I never even turn on the lights.

  I fall asleep with Cassidy’s reckless abandon, but awake a couple of hours later with Ella’s thumping head and her dry throat. Dylan is already wearing his pants, tying his shoes, but is still bare-chested.

  “Sorry I woke you,” he says.

  “Are you leaving?”

  “Yeah. Unfortunately, I have early rounds.”

  “Okay,” I say, trying to sound cool. Cassidy should be experienced with casual hookups, even if I’m not.

  After he’s dressed, Dylan leans over me as I lie in bed and kisses me good-bye. It brings back the rush I felt the night before, and as I watch him leave, I feel a dull ache inside. There’s nothing I want more right then than for him to return to my bed.

  After I hear my apartment door slam shut, I realize that my fantasy is not going to come true, at least not right now. I reach for my phone to check the time. I assume from the early light that it’s barely six o’clock.

  Even before verifying the hour, I feel dread.

  My phone shows three missed calls from Zach.

  I blink.

  Charlotte’s Zach.

  There’s no reason Charlotte’s boyfriend would call me even once unless something was wrong. Three times can only mean catastrophe.

  And then I remember that I haven’t spoken to, or even heard from, Charlotte since we met at Tom’s. That was more than thirty-six hours ago—too long a silence. Much too long.

  I can’t tell when Zach first began calling because my phone only registers the last of his calls. It came in at 4:15 a.m., at which time he left a voice mail message.

  I hit the “Play” button.

  “Sorry to bother you, Ella, but I’m not sure where Charlotte is and it’s not like her to be out so late without telling me. If she’s with you, or if you know where she is, can you ask her to call me? I don’t care what time.”

  His last contact was at 4:52 a.m. A text:

  Call me anytime. Important. Zach.

  I call Charlotte. She might be screening Zach, but she’ll pick up for me.

  Only she doesn’t. I hang up and call again. When the call goes to voice mail for the second time, I leave a message.

  “Char, it’s me. Zach called and said you didn’t come home last night. Is anything wrong? I’m worried because I haven’t heard from you since Tuesday. As soon as you get this message, call me. I don’t care what time.” I take a beat. “I love you, Char-bar.”

  I debate waiting for Charlotte to call back before returning Zach’s call, but I already fear the worst. Besides, Zach sounded like he needed to hear from me. So after hanging up with Charlotte’s voice mail, I call Zach.

  He answers on the first ring.

  “Ella,” he says
breathlessly. “Is Charlotte with you?”

  “No. Did you guys have a fight or something?”

  “No.” Then he repeats it. “No.”

  “And you have no idea where she is?”

  “No. And she’s not answering her phone or texts.”

  “Are you sure she didn’t say anything to you about where she was going tonight?”

  “No,” he says for the fourth time. “I expected her home for dinner. It’s not like her to be out all night, and certainly not without telling me.”

  “Did you call the school?”

  I already know the answer. Zach must have tried every possible place he could imagine Charlotte being before involving me.

  “They didn’t have any information and suggested I call the police.”

  “Did you? Call the police, I mean.”

  “Yeah. They told me I had to wait forty-eight hours.”

  “When did you last see her?”

  He doesn’t answer, at least not fast enough for my liking. It’s incomprehensible to me that he doesn’t know the exact moment he last saw his girlfriend, especially if he’s supposedly been sitting up worrying about her.

  Finally he says, “It was this morning. I mean, yesterday morning. Wednesday morning. I’m sorry, but I’ve been up all night. I left early for an audition yesterday morning, and she was still in bed.”

  “What about her friends? Did they see her yesterday?”

  “I called Julia and Brooke. That was . . . I don’t know, around midnight. They said that they hadn’t seen her all day, but would ask around and call me back if anyone else had. That’s the last I heard from them.”

  For a brief moment I consider involving my father, but he’s the last person Charlotte would go to with a personal issue. He’s also the last person I want to tell that she’s missing.

  “I’m sure she went out with someone, lost track of the time, and just decided to crash at their place,” I say.