He's Gone

by Deb Caletti

  The waitress arrives. She has our plates balanced on her arms. Poached salmon and grilled bluefin and my filet with fine Roquefort potatoes. “Diane,” Paul says. The waitress has no name tag, so he obviously knows her from another visit. “When is your birthday? Let me guess.…” He waits; he looks her over. A man at another table is signaling his need for her with an upraised hand. It makes me nervous—the other diner wants his check and Diane is still hanging around, as if she has all the time in the world. “October,” Paul Hartley Keller declares.

  “November.” She giggles. She has auburn hair. She has a long, thin neck like a ballet dancer.

  “I knew it. Scorpio! Dynamic, passionate … aggressive.” He lifts one eyebrow at the last.

  She laughs again. “Ah, yes. Watch out, mister.” She shakes my steak knife at him before setting it down next to my plate. I have an ugly feeling. Jealousy, repugnance. My own shine is dimming. “Anything else?” She pours him more wine without asking.

  “That’s quite enough,” he flirts. He watches her ass as she leaves.

  Definitely enough. My mood is turning sour. His charm is shriveling in my eyes now, too. That disgust I feel—it’s making its rounds. First it was Ian who disgusted me, then Paul. But I’m disgusted with myself the most.

  We decline dessert, but he relishes his. He licks the spoon with a fat pink tongue.

  On the way out, Paul sees someone he knows. He takes her hand, kisses her cheek. Her eyes shimmer. “Oh, your hands are so warm,” he says.

  Paul asks the valet to call us a cab. He has people he’s going to meet. His fingers look like stout sausages as he hands over his credit card to pay. Ian and I don’t speak. The cab takes forever to get there. We stand at the curb, waiting and waiting, as the glittering people come and go.

  Eight months later, Ian got a call with the news. Paul Hartley Keller had had a massive heart attack. He was dead. It happened at “a friend’s” apartment. I tried not to imagine the scene but did anyway: Paul Hartley Keller eating oysters in bed, post-sex. A “powerful woman” with her powerful thighs wrapped around his waist. It was a complete fabrication, but this is what I imagined when I thought of him dying. There were other factors, too, though, I guess, other than lust and desire. I remembered that wheezing when we walked uphill toward his car. And he had that diet of rich food and flattery that was obviously bad for the heart.

  Not three days before this call, Ian’s divorce had been finalized. Paul Hartley Keller would never know it had happened.

  Ian didn’t cry at the news that his father was gone; he only seemed stunned. Days afterward, stunned. He didn’t sleep. Abby was at Mark’s that first night, so I was with Ian. He sat on that temporary couch in that furnished apartment, and he stared out the window at the city lights. He was not an angry little boy then; he was a sad and lost man.

  “It’ll never be different now,” he said.

  It would never have been different, anyway, but I didn’t say that. We can need so much from people. That need is so thick sometimes, we can barely see through it.

  Ian dressed in his most beautiful suit for the funeral. He shaved carefully. I held his hand during the short service at the funeral home.

  They were there at the graveside service, scattered across that dewy green lawn. The butterflies. The one silently weeping behind her sunglasses. The one in those high, high heels, which were sinking into the grass. The one in a red dress, obviously defying conventional black in some way she felt Paul Hartley Keller would approve of.

  I don’t believe he’s gone, Ian had said. Not: I can’t believe he’s gone. Not: It doesn’t seem real that he is gone. But: I don’t believe he’s gone. He was probably right about that.

  We got married three months later. Three months to the day of Paul Hartley Keller’s death. To Ian, it was more important than ever to prove that he was a man who could finish the job.

  13

  Really, why would Desiree Harris pick this particular place? This is where you go to meet a woman whose husband has disappeared? A husband you may have been involved with? The bar of the Sorrento Hotel—it’s a meeting place for lovers. You sneak there for drinks in the rich, lavish, candlelit room downstairs; you sink into a plush couch or a wingback chair and sip drinks and feed each other smoked salmon with your fingertips. The Sorrento Hotel bar is a hidden, seductive den, where the waiters make themselves respectfully scarce. Sometimes there is a well-dressed man sitting at the piano. He plays dreamy, pensive pieces, but he, too, is politely preoccupied, immersed in the keys or else looking up at some faraway image in his own mind, his eyes closed. Ian and I had met there, in our early days. We even sat on the very couch where I am sitting right now. Feeling safely unseen, I’d draped my leg over his, and we’d breathed each other’s breath, and love was enough reason for anything. It was the reason. It was planetary orbits and cells dividing and sunsets in God colors.

  Now, though, I just watch the door. I keep my eyes on it, waiting for her arrival (still imagining her in that dress) or for Nathan’s. He’d insisted that he come, too. He didn’t feel that I should meet Desiree Harris alone. What did he think I would do? Wrap my hands around her throat in the Sorrento Hotel parking lot? Stab her with an appetizer fork? All I want are answers, and I want them now. Why is she so nervous to meet with me, anyway? That’s what I want to know. Most people would do anything to help a woman whose husband was missing. Most people would not pick a dimly lit, let’s-finish-this-upstairs hotel bar to meet in, either. But maybe that’s what you did when you were the type of person who flashed your breasts around like you were offering a roll from the breadbasket.

  Had she and Ian met here, too? There’s a question.

  This is taking entirely too long. Who would be late to a meeting like this? Jesus. I reach inside the zippered pocket of my purse and feel around. Yes, it’s still there, that cuff link. I order a glass of wine. And then I call the waiter back and switch to something stronger. I remember the brown fire that Abby had brought over that night after Ian disappeared. Maybe it’ll scorch my throat so that every word I want to say will be charred away to harmless ash. I don’t trust myself. Inside, I’m blazing. The answer to all this, the reason for all this pain and fear and unknowing—I’m sure it’s going to walk in that door at any moment.

  A man in a light spring suit arrives. He has newsman hair and a shiny, wholesome, Christian face. A woman follows behind him, looking over her shoulder. She wears a tiny knit dress and has a straw purse. Meeting secretly, probably. I never noticed things like this before. Even in high school, I was the sort of person who didn’t realize that pot was being sold in the upper parking lot. I lived in a different, more innocent world than anyone else. I kind of liked it there. The first time I saw a bong, I thought it was a fancy decanter for vinegar and oil.

  My whiskey arrives. I swirl the ice expertly, the way Paul Hartley Keller might, the way Ian might. I take a swallow and try not to shiver and sputter. How do people drink this stuff? And now I need to go to the bathroom. It’s an amusing trick my body plays with me, ha-ha, one of its personal favorites. Whenever I can’t easily leave a place—the doors of the theater have just shut, for example, or I am jammed in the airplane window seat next to two sleeping businessmen, or I am waiting to meet the skittish possible lover of my husband—I am sure to have to go. Badly. I begin to worry. It becomes an impossible problem: The place is filling up, and if I get up now my spot will surely be taken. Will I miss her if I make a quick trip? She might leave if she doesn’t see me. Of course, I could leave my coat on the seat. I could ask the waiter to keep watch. I am busy with these highly complex mental calculations that are all part of this particular syndrome when I feel a tap on my shoulder.

  “Mrs. Keller?”

  It is Desiree Harris, and I don’t even recognize her. She wears a somber blue skirt with a short-sleeved white blouse. It is buttoned. She has flat black shoes, the kind you wear if you’re planning to walk a long distance. Those shoes surprise me. The
y’re practical. They might even have insoles she put in herself. Nobody finds Dr. Scholl sexy, likely not even Mrs. Scholl. Seductive and practical are never friends. They never even say hello to each other. They each make fun behind the other’s back.

  “Desiree.” I stand up. And then, dear God, what is wrong with me? I offer my hand! I smile politely! Why did I smile politely? I am instantly furious at myself. It’s the furnace repairman again but worse. Way worse! I can hear Ian’s voice in my head.

  You asked the guy how long he’d been in furnace repair. No one’s in furnace repair. It’s not like being in real estate, or in financial planning. He’s a furnace repairman! You’ve elevated the entire profession with one preposition!

  “I didn’t recognize you. I was waiting over there—” She gestures toward one of the neighboring couches, already filled by the Christian newsman and another guy. I was wrong about him and the woman in the dress. The men’s knees are touching, and their eyes are furtive. “We only met that once, and your hair was up.… Nathan said he was coming?” She looks at her watch.

  “You can sit down,” I say. I’ve recovered the proper tone. Authoritative, pissed. We aren’t having a tea party here.

  She chooses the wingback chair to my left, sets her purse beside her. The leather of that bag collapses as if exhausted. “Hope this is okay.” She spins a finger in the air in reference to the room. “I live nearby. My car battery was dead, so I had to walk.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I’m so sorry about what’s happened—”

  “What has happened?”

  She tilts her head as if she hasn’t heard correctly. “Ian? Disappearing?”

  “I assume you know something about that.” I swirl my ice cubes meanly.

  “Me? I don’t know anything about that.”

  Her voice is so earnest that I can’t help myself. I look at her face, really look. It’s tired, too, I can see. It’s the kind of face that belongs to someone who has been unlucky in love; maybe she has a child at home. I realize I don’t know a thing about Desiree Harris. It worries me. I’ve been a fool, perhaps. Dear God, maybe there is no answer to be found here. What if there is no answer to be found here? My anger begins to dissolve; panic is waiting to replace it. Because what then? What if I’m wrong about Desiree Harris? And then it happens. She looks down at her hands. She’s lying. I see the lie hurry past and dart from view.

  I reach into my purse. I have the split-second fear that my fingers won’t touch that circle of gold, that I won’t find anything there. But it is there. Thankfully it is. It’s real. I need it to be real, because if not this story, then … Please, let it be this story. Let him be back at her place right now. I hold the cuff link in my palm. It looks as guilty as a packet of cocaine or an empty condom wrapper. “Did you give him these?”

  Desiree Harris puts a hand to her chest. Her left hand. She wears a ring on her middle finger, as many single women do. Is this to accentuate the fact that the ring finger is bare? Maybe that’s the point, I don’t know. “Oh, my God, no. No, I didn’t give him that.”

  “You’ve obviously seen it before.”

  “Someone’s gotten the wrong idea.”

  “You mean me?”

  “I mean whoever saw me. Someone saw me, right? I was afraid of this. I was just trying to do a favor …”

  “You brought this to our house.” I know that. Somehow, I do.

  “I did bring that to your house. I found it on the grass, after you two left. The party? I decided to drop it off. And then when I heard he had gone missing, I felt weird about what I’d done. The timing. Not leaving a note …”

  “And why would you feel weird?”

  “Because I could have just given it to him on Monday.”

  The waiter hovers nearby, asking without asking if she needs anything, but Desiree shakes her head. What is taking Nathan so long? Someone else should be hearing this. It’s not adding up, in my opinion.

  Now the man is at the piano. He’s settling in, adjusting his sheet music. Desiree Harris leans toward me. She reaches out her hand. I think she’s going to touch my arm, but her hand simply hangs there in the space between us. I’m glad she doesn’t touch me. Her eyes are pleading. “I was curious. You know? That’s the only thing I did wrong, I swear. To wonder. To look. I wanted to see where he lived. Where you lived.” She waits for my understanding, but I give her nothing back. She tries again. “You just seem so …”

  The man begins to play. The glassy notes fill in around the conversational murmurs and the soft clatter of utensils. I have no patience for this. “What?”

  “Lucky.”

  The word shocks me. No, what shocks me is the way I suddenly get this. I understand this, too well. I see it for what it is, for what it does and doesn’t mean, and it feels like a blow. What Desiree is saying, well, I’m not the only one who has ever wanted someone else’s life. Desiree—her roots need touching up, and her lips are self-consciously lined with pencil, and even in the sparkly candlelight I can see that tired purse. It looks like a purse that works hard, trudging along from errand to errand, sitting in grocery carts and hanging off her shoulder as she waits in line at Marshalls. It’s a bit beat up. A pen has leaked ink in the bottom corner, leaving a dark splotch.

  “You didn’t give him this? As a gift?” I look down at that stupid cuff link. My voice sounds far away.

  “No, of course not. Why would you think I did?”

  I stare down into my glass. I know why I thought she gave it to him. Something happened that night that I did remember but didn’t want to. He’d wanted to go back and look for that cuff link. Badly. It had meant a great deal to him. It was important. When we were finally, finally in the car after that dreaded party, he told me he needed to go back. Needed. I had assumed that need was related to love. What is more imperative than love? What drives us more toward need?

  Ian, really? Please! I’ve got to get out of here. I want to go home!

  I’ll only be a minute. I’m sorry if this night has been such a torture.

  I’m tired, is all. I slipped my shoes off, set them on the floor mat. What do you have to do?

  I lost something.

  What? Your wallet?

  No.

  What?

  Never mind!

  Your phone?

  Just let me look, would you?

  He was seething. He got out of the car, slammed the door. He headed for that Kerry Park grass. It was one of those interactions that could make you furious—the held-back information, the something hinted at but not revealed, the refusal to hand over what had been dangled in front of you. Yes, fury rose up in me. I opened my door. I strode over to him. The woman in the red dress, and now this.

  Ian!

  Stop it.

  What are you doing? What have you lost that’s such a big secret?

  Never mind, I said! Jesus. How much did you drink tonight?

  Less than you, I’m sure.

  Look at you. You can barely walk.

  He was right. I was stumbling on that lawn. I can’t see, that’s why! It’s too dark out here. You won’t find anything, anyway!

  Not if I don’t look, I won’t.

  What is so important? Jesus, Ian!

  Not everything about me is your business.

  Ian! Damn you!

  No shoes, wet grass, mud. I grabbed his arm. I felt it between us then, the possibility of rage. I had felt it one other time. I knew what could happen.

  He knew, too. He shook off my arm. He stepped back.

  What is wrong with you?

  The fury crackled there between us. We faced off. He weighed his options. Finally: This is ridiculous, he said. Fuck it!

  He did not look for whatever it was he’d lost, after all. He returned to the car instead. But he was pissed about it. Pissed at me. He drove home with that face, that stone-chiseled jaw. We drove in silence. You marry the person you love, and you marry their shadow self, too.

  With Desiree now,
I try again. It sounds crazy, but I am actually hoping. Please, please, please, let it be so. “The two of you—you had some sort of relationship?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “You don’t know where he is?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Flirtation?” I saw it with my own eyes that night.

  “Friendliness. He was friendly. He joked. I joked back. He always mentioned his wife. You. Always. I saw you at the party. I don’t know …”

  I am silent.

  “I mean nothing to him,” she says.

  I feel unwell. My head is beginning to swim. Desiree is still trying to explain. She has no idea that I likely understand this better than she does herself.

  “Have you ever walked down a street at night and looked into some window?” Desiree says. “Maybe you see a person in there, in a beautiful room? It’s so intriguing, and you don’t even know why exactly. You just want to know more. Maybe you wish you were inside. Maybe you wish that room were yours. That’s all. That’s all it was.”

  I shouldn’t have drunk that stuff. It is swirling bitterly in my stomach, and something else is happening: My chest is caving in again. I can barely get my breath. I try to suck in air, but there is no air.

  “Are you okay?” Desiree gets up, heads toward me, and that’s when that damn purse takes the opportunity to rebel from its life of drudgery, or perhaps it’s merely an attempt at handbag suicide. It leaps from its spot, clatters down toward the tiny glass table, causing my drink to slide across its surface and fall to the other side. Everything is falling, crashing down from high ledges. The ice cubes lay there on the carpet; the liquid drips off the side of the table and soaks a dark spot into the rug. The waiter appears immediately—I’d been wrong before if I thought they were off somewhere minding their own business. He has napkins. It’s like that day at the Essential Baking Company with Nathan and the spilled coffee but worse, much worse. The waiter and Desiree are blotting things, but the napkins aren’t up to the job, and now there is Nathan himself, finally, taking my elbow, asking if everything is all right. The napkins are sopping wet with brown liquid, dripping everywhere, and Desiree’s purse contents are spread out for all to see—a bottle of hand sanitizer, a tampon, a pink tube of mascara with the label worn off.