Light Remains: Three Stories

by Fuller, A. C.

  As we paid our bill, I was telling her about the cupcake incident and the baseball glove and the day my parents gave away our beloved golden retriever because we were moving into Seattle from the suburbs.

  "What was that like for you?" she asked, pulling the bill toward her and slapping down a credit card before I could stop her.

  "I loved that dog and felt…"

  The waiter came and took the credit card.

  "Felt what?"

  "Like there was just a hole in my life. We'd had him since before I was born and—"

  "You hadn't known a world without him."

  "Exactly."

  I smiled down at the table and slowly raised my eyes to meet hers. She was smiling, too.

  It sounds sappy, I know, but you have to understand that the whole thing was going down with a layer of irony. She was playing the role of therapist and I was playing the role of scarred little boy. I wasn't on the verge of tears or anything.

  "Can we get out of here?" I asked.

  "Don't we need to do that Uber thing?"

  The moment she mentioned it, a knot formed in my stomach, but the Bloody Marys gave me enough courage to ignore it. "Totally. Can I use your phone?"

  She slid her phone across the table. iPhone 7, same model as mine, and I remembered noticing it the night before. I opened Safari, found the Uber page I needed, then handed her the phone when the box popped up.

  She entered her number and asked, "What now?" just as the phone started ringing. She handed it back to me and I put it on speaker phone.

  I glanced around the diner. There was no one within a few booths of us, so I figured it wouldn't be too rude if I spoke quietly.

  After three rings, a man's voice. "Hello?"

  "Oh hi, thanks for picking up. I was in your car last night, around one."

  "One is in the morning, not night."

  Up until that point, all I'd remembered were the driver's yellow teeth and hideous smile, but now more memories were starting to flutter through. This guy was a smartass. I'd told him what I did for a living and he'd made sure to tell me that he was a "Samsung guy."

  "Okay, early this morning," I said. "I think I left my phone in your car."

  "Nope."

  He sounded certain, dismissive, and eager to end the call. He'd spoken like this last night, with a directness and precision. Like he couldn't wait to get to the end of his words, so he sort of clipped them on the last syllable.

  "I mean, can you at least check your—"

  "I do a sweep of my vehicle at the end of every day. I often find phones, hair bands, lipstick cases. Sometimes a wallet. Last night I found nothing."

  As he spoke, I was playing our interaction from the night before over and over in my head. I remembered how out-of-place he'd looked pulling up in his dark blue Toyota Prius. He'd rolled down the curbside window and leaned over and I'd noticed his ratty black t-shirt with the logo of some brand of cigarettes on it. He had long blond hair, not exactly a mullet, but something close. I remembered his crooked teeth, grinning at me in the rearview mirror as I swayed, pleasantly drunk, in the backseat. I try not to fall into in stereotypes, but he looked like he should have a thick Tennessee accent. Like he'd be more at home shotgunning beers at a NASCAR track than driving techies like me around Seattle.

  "Look," I said, "is there any way you could check again? I'm pretty sure it's there. Or can we meet so I can check through your car?"

  "No one inspects my ride but me."

  "I...I just…"

  Something wasn't right, but I had no recourse. I looked at Maria, who was staring out the window. I couldn't even tell if she was listening.

  "Okay," I said. "Thanks for nothing."

  * * *

  1 PM

  At brunch, Maria had mentioned that she'd never been to Pike Place Market, despite being in grad school here for three years, so we'd taken the long route to The Lion's Breath. I'd managed to keep the knot in my stomach from growing by asking her all sorts of questions about psychology.

  But the whole walk over, I couldn't stop thinking about the Uber driver. Did I really just have to take his word for it? He said he hadn't found my phone so...that's it? The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me.

  When we stepped into The Lion's Breath, more of the night came back to me. I saw the exact stools we'd been sitting in, the third and fourth from the right along the wooden bar. I walked straight up to the bartender but Maria hung back by the door. I noticed that the further I got from her, and the closer I got to the bar, the denser the knot in my stomach became.

  What if it wasn't there? Or what if I had left it there but someone had stolen it, wiped it clean, and already had it for sale on eBay?

  I stood at the bar and tried to catch the bartender's eye. He finished with another customer and called to me, "What'll ya have?"

  "No, I'm looking for my phone. I think I left it here last night."

  He sighed and walked to the cash register at the center of the bar, then dropped to one knee. "What kind?" he asked.

  "iPhone seven. Simple white case. Finish of the phone is black. Not the jet black but the matte black. Tiny speck of dust in the top-left corner under the screen protector. Small yellow stain on the—"

  He stood up and leaned on the bar just a couple feet from me. "Nothing."

  "Nothing? I mean, can you check again?"

  He just stared at me.

  "It has to be there. Where the hell else could it be?"

  "I'm sorry, it's not—"

  "Someone took it."

  He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  In retrospect, this is when I started to lose my shit. "Someone took it and I want the names of everyone who was tending bar here last night, everyone who—"

  I felt a hand on my lower back and turned to see Maria.

  "It's not here," she said, nodding toward the exit door. "Let's go."

  I gave the bartender an angry look, but eased away when Maria slid her arm through mine and tugged gently toward the door.

  * * *

  2 PM

  Maria and I sat on a bench in Westlake Park, shaded from the sun by the bright green leaves above us. I'd called Uber on the walk over, and they'd confirmed what I already knew. If the driver said he didn't have my phone, there was nothing I could do.

  I didn't want to lose it in front of Maria, so I'd thanked the representative respectfully and ended the call, then casually asked her about football, the great unifier. She was from North Carolina, so we could talk about the Seahawks-Panthers rivalry with a flirty intensity that worked for both of us.

  After half an hour, she leaned in and took my hand, then scooched down the bench and put her head on my shoulder. The day had grown hot, but a cool breeze blew through the park and rustled the leaves. A low-hanging branch swayed in and out of my field of vision with the wind, giving me something to focus on instead of the yellow-toothed, mouth-breathing bastard who'd stolen my phone.

  I watched the branch, and the couples with strollers passing through the bright sun on the walkway before us, and for a moment I was at peace.

  Then I was struck by the urge to tweet something about it, and that brought me back to my phone. Facebook messages were probably piling up, and texts. What if my manager hadn't gotten those specs I sent him Saturday afternoon? Or what if something had happened to my mother?

  I said, "Have you ever lost a phone?"

  "I have."

  "Did you feel terrible?"

  "Not especially."

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, then Maria said, "I did an internship with a hospice company last year. You know, health care for dying people. One of the patients who was dying of cancer would one day be happy to visit with friends and family and discuss worldly things, and the next day he'd have a far away look in his eyes and not engage with anyone. The family asked why this was happening. I heard the nurse tell them it was the process of the soul leaving the body. She said that, as the soul practices l
eaving, a person will seem very far away. Touch and sound from loved ones will cause the soul to rejoin the body temporarily. A dying person will do this dance of separation back and forth until, ultimately, it becomes too painful for the soul to return to the confinement of the body. That's when death occurs."

  It was a nice story, but I didn't get the point. "Not sure what you're getting at."

  Her head was still on my shoulder and she glanced up at me. "I bet there was a moment today when you felt happier without your phone. Like you'd moved into a different realm, free and unconstrained."

  I closed my eyes to think, trying to come up with something clever to say, but the knot had returned to my stomach. My shoulders tensed, even with Maria's head still resting on one of them. I kept seeing that driver grinning at me in the rearview mirror, and I was beginning to believe that I hadn't forgotten my phone at all.

  Maybe I'd nodded off during the trip. Maybe he'd leaned back and swiped my phone while stopped at a light. Maybe his modus operandi was to work the late shift and pick up drunk people he could rob, people too out of it to notice until the next morning. Maybe he needed someone to teach him a lesson and—

  "Hey."

  I opened my eyes to find Maria standing over me. She'd gotten up without me noticing.

  "Hey, what's going on?"

  I looked down at my hands. My fists were clenched and shaking.

  "What the hell is going on with you?"

  "I...I just—"

  "You got all tense and haven't responded to me in two minutes."

  I consciously relaxed my hands, but I could still feel the knot in my stomach and the heat coursing through my chest. "I'm sorry."

  She stared down at me for a few seconds, like she was making a decision. Finally, she said, "You have anger issues. You need help. I'm sorry, I'm outta here."

  With that, she turned and walked away. Her shape was amazing and she had this walk that was a little more side-to-side than it needed to be, like her hips had a mind of their own. And it worked for her.

  As I watched her go, I knew I'd screwed it up. The problem was, I didn't care.

  * * *

  11 PM

  A dark blue car caught my eye, but as it approached I saw that it was a Ford Taurus.

  I was outside The Lion's Breath wearing a form-fitting black t-shirt and skinny jeans, pacing casually like I was just waiting to meet up with some friends. But what I was really doing was watching the traffic. Priuses are everywhere in Seattle, but I knew the one I was looking for.

  Getting a new phone hadn't been as bad as I thought. I just walked into the cathedral-like Apple store, told them what I wanted, asked them to assign my number to the new phone, and walked out.

  A couple hours later, I was watching CNN on my couch while downloading my contacts, songs, podcasts, and bookmarks onto my new device. By the end of the process, I had what was essentially the same exact phone. I'd even gotten an identical white case.

  But as I'd held it in my hand in the warm night air, pretending to read a text while glancing up occasionally at the passing cars, it didn't look right. There was no yellow stain on the case, no speck of dust under the screen protector. And worse than that, worst of all, this one had new idiosyncrasies that I was going to have to live with. The case had a tiny imperfection, a little nib of silicon at the seam on the middle-right, just where my ring finger hit when I wrapped my hand around it.

  And that little nib was driving me fucking crazy.

  So there I stood, in the shadow of the green awning of the fancy umbrella shop next to The Lion's Breath, waiting on that dark blue Prius. Sunday nights were slower than Saturdays, but there was a good crowd inside and a steady stream of people coming and going. And, of the ones who were going, many were hopping in Ubers.

  I knew the chances were that he wouldn't show up that night. But I'd be back. I'd come back every night until I saw him. I'd wait there, under the awning, eyes trained at the street, and eventually he'd have to show up. I'd see the blue Prius pulling to a stop and I'd slide into the back seat before he knew what was happening.

  Most likely he'd sold the phone already, but there was a chance he'd had it wiped and was using it himself. Maybe I'd even catch him tapping away on that beautiful little screen. Maybe he'd tried to clean the turmeric stain and, if I caught him with it, I'd tell him, "Jokes on you, dude, that thing is never coming out."

  I'm not a violent person, but I'd grill him until he admitted it. And if he didn't, I'd wring his little neck.

  A blue sedan pulled up and I held my breath for half a second. But it wasn't the Prius. Two young women popped out, laughing and already drunk, and stumbled into The Lion's Breath.

  * * *

  Midnight

  Three Priuses had come and gone, and I was getting tired. I checked the time on my new phone, then turned to walk home. That's when I saw the driver.

  But he wasn't behind the wheel of the Prius. He was half a block away, on the other side of The Lion's Breath, walking toward me.

  I stepped back into the shadows and leaned against the building. It was clear he hadn't seen me from the way he was walking casually, stopping to glance into storefront windows along the way. If he'd seen me, he'd have looked guiltier, or maybe he'd have turned to run.

  In any case, he was coming right at me. The lights from the storefronts sparkled off the grease in his shoulder-length blond hair, and I saw red. He was fifty yards away now, but I decided to wait, to see where he was headed.

  Forty yards away.

  Then thirty.

  When he was just twenty yards away, a gang of four couples streamed out of The Lion's Breath and I lost sight of him.

  They paused to light cigarettes and I crept around them, still close against the building. All of a sudden, they moved in unison to cross the street and I saw the guy. He was only about ten yards away and he stepped back when he saw me staring at him.

  He was wearing an old-school "Save the Whales" t-shirt, the kind I saw all over when I was a kid, and this threw me off briefly.

  But I clenched my fists and took three large steps toward him. "Hey!"

  "Are you talking to me?"

  "Yeah. You drove me last night."

  He scanned me. "Are you the guy who lost his phone?"

  I was trying to read his face, to figure out how far I was going to have to take this. "You know that I am."

  "Did you find it?"

  He was inching toward the door of The Lion's Breath, clearly wanting no part of me. His back was to me now and he was about to step into the pub.

  "Excuse me," I said, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around. "But you know I didn't find it."

  He stepped back while brushing my hand off his shoulder. "What are you—"

  "Give me my phone."

  I was right up in his face. I had at least six inches on him and I could tell he was the kind of guy who wouldn't really fight back. I could smell cheap beer on his breath and see a little chip on one of his front teeth, which were even yellower than I remembered.

  "Man, I don't know what—"

  My phone vibrated in my back pocket.

  "Bro," he said. "Your phone is vibrating. Why do you think—"

  I pulled it out and held it a few inches in front of his nose. "This is my new phone. I spent six hundred dollars on it today."

  As I pulled it away from his face, I read the caller ID: Next Door Gretchen.

  I stared at it for a second and, as I did, the greaseball pulled away and darted into The Lion's Breath, probably figuring I wouldn't have the guts to kick the crap out of him in there. He was right about that, but I'd wait for him outside.

  I stepped back into the shadow of the umbrella store, glancing around for an empty beer bottle or a stick to use as a weapon when he came out.

  I swiped at my new phone. "Gretchen, I'm pretty busy. What's up?"

  "That's weird. I guess you didn't lose your phone."

  "What?"

  "I thought I'd foun
d your phone in the hallway, but if you're answering it, I must have found someone else's."

  I clenched the new phone in my hand, trying to crush it. It was like she was taunting me. "My phone was stolen."

  "I could have sworn that your phone had a yellow stain from the time I convinced you to do that turmeric lemonade cleanse."

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Cars sped by, occasionally hitting me with a stream of headlights.

  "Anyway, I found a phone on the landing between our apartments. Are you sure it's not yours?"

  I dropped to my knees and watched through the window as the greasy-haired driver sipped a pint of dark brown beer. Old memories flooded through me again, but this time with a golden hue, like my whole past, every moment, had been made new. I shivered as a warm wind blew through my beard and dried the sweat on my face.

  I tilted my head back slowly and looked up at the starless sky. "Thank you," I managed to say. "Oh, Gretchen, thank you."

  Celebrity-Prayers.net

  I had never prayed before. On TV, they kneel down—is it one knee or two?—and put their hands in some sort of triangle. Sometimes they make the sign of the cross.

  So I got on one knee, paused, and looked over my shoulder across my room. Sprawling bamboo floors, king-size Tempur-Pedic, three-foot-tall talking R2D2. I'm rich, or at least my parents are. They're Harvard professors. Dad teaches economic history and mom teaches semiotics.

  I got up and locked the door, then knelt again, this time under the window that looks onto our pool and patio. I heard my mom and dad laughing by the pool, but I knew they couldn't see up to my room.

  I closed my eyes.

  This'll never work, I thought. Rich white kids don't pray. Not when their mom teaches semiotics. Plus, you have to believe for it to work. Everybody knows that.

  I opened my eyes, then closed them again. You're supposed to keep your eyes closed.

  I made the sign of the cross, though I'm not sure whether I did it right.

  "God?" I said.