Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)(22)
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’ve had a lot of time to get used to it.”
“Do you talk to her?”
I shake my head. “She could be dead or alive. I have no idea.”
“And this guy, Saul, he knows her?”
“Knew her.” But he could know her, I think. He could know where she is right now. My heartbeat speeds up and I breathe in sharply.
“You okay?” asks Tony, putting his hand on my knee. “Wanna change the subject?”
Wouldn’t it be nice, I think, if it were that easy? Change the subject, change the way I feel. Change my life. I nod, but I can’t pull the pinched grimace off my face. I look away and drink. One-two-three big swallows of beer. Swallow the tightness. Liquefy it.
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s been a long day.”
Tony motions for another round.
“Tell me if you wanna bail,” he says. “I know it’s late.”
“No,” I say. I let this feeling of fear slow me down for years. I let it keep me inside. No more, not here. Not in New York City.
“Wanna come over?” I ask Tony.
“I do,” he says slowly. “You sure, though? We don’t have to…”
“I’m sure,” I say, sliding off the bar stool. I can’t imagine sleeping alone tonight.
SATURDAY
CHAPTER FIVE
Tony and I get about five minutes into watching season five of The Wire in my bedroom when we start kissing, which turns quickly to me pulling off my shirt, him unhooking my bra, and his very thick dick inside me. I sigh and lean back when it goes in. It feels like a relief. He’s got his arms tight around me and he comes with a loud cough.
“Sorry,” he says, red-faced and out of breath. “That was quick. Did you … Do you want…?”
I kiss his lips and hold his face in my hands. There are few moments in life where I feel more powerful than when I’ve just made a man come. I don’t orgasm easily—maybe it’s the pills, or maybe just my general anxiety about letting my guard down in front of people—but tonight I don’t care. What feels good in this moment is being in control.
We fall asleep and wake up around ten the next morning. He goes up the block for coffee and returns with a copy of the Trib.
The front-page photo is of “Porn Dad.” “Porn Dad” is how the newspaper refers to a man named Frank White who was arrested on Thursday for selling pornographic pictures of his girlfriend’s son and daughter to his friends and several continents of other online perverts. The story got even bigger yesterday when somebody realized that “Porn Mom,” whose name is Melissa Dryden, is actually Missy Sanders, former “hot daughter” on an ABC sitcom that ran between 1984 and 1986. She did a guest spot on Melrose Place in the early 1990s, then made some soft porn before disappearing. Pages three and four are the spread, which includes one sidebar of screen shots from poor porn mom’s Cinemax days, with plot summaries of films including Ecstasy Island 2: Pleasures in Paradise and Snow Bunny: Wet in Winter, and another with a couple shots from her teen sitcom days.
Rivka Mendelssohn gets four inches on page seven:
WOMAN’S BODY FOUND IN BROOKLYN SCRAP YARD
By Rebekah Roberts
The body of a Brooklyn woman was found in a Gowanus scrap yard on Friday. Rivka Mendelssohn, 30, of Borough Park was discovered by workers at Smith Street Scrap around 9 A.M.
“I saw her foot first,” said an operator who declined to give his name. “Everybody starting pointing and yelling and running toward the pile.”
Mendelssohn dangled nearly 50 feet above the ground for several hours before employees and emergency service workers retrieved her body.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said another worker on the scene. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. I just kept thinking how cold she must be.”
According to family members, Mendelssohn had been missing since Tuesday.
“She was a good mother,” said Mendelssohn’s sister-in-law. “The children are very sad.”
Close. Someone embellished the quote from the operator and made it seem as though we had quotes from two workers, instead of two quotes from one. My name is on the piece, but I didn’t actually write a single word. It took me by surprise when I first started at the Trib and learned that being a reporter meant that you go get the story, or part of the story, and then call in what you’ve learned. Someone else writes the story and either shares the byline with the reporter or, as in this case, just gives it away.
Tony and I turn on the television and settle into watching Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell in Overboard, which is playing on TBS. The radiator hisses and heats the room. I slept badly, and yesterday feels like a dream. The edges run together. The body and the black hats, Miriam, the little boy. Did he know that his mother was the one hanging there? Did he know as he stood by the coffeepot that she was gone?
At noon Iris appears, and just as she’s walking in, my phone rings. I get up from the futon and see that it’s a New York number I don’t recognize. Maybe it’s Saul, I think. Maybe he’s got my Aviva Kagan with him. Maybe they’re right outside.
“Rebekah, it’s Saul Katz.”
I go to the window in my bedroom and wrap my arm around my chest, pressing in on my manic heart.