Don't You Cry(37)

Quinn

I wake up early the following morning and spend a few minutes putting together my puzzle pieces on the floor of Esther’s room. I’m making progress, albeit not much, just the berry blue of a sky and nothing more. The rest of the image lies in an unkempt pile on the floor. I shower and dress for work. Ben calls early to see if there’s been any word from Esther, and I tell him sadly no. He hasn’t had any luck with his search, either.

Before leaving, I snatch some cash from Esther’s and my Rent envelope in the kitchen drawer, one twenty-dollar bill and a couple of singles. It’s empty now—the envelope—thanks to my Jimmy John’s purchase and now this, and so I step on the foot pedal of the trash can, ready to toss it in.

And that’s when I see the ATM receipts tucked away in the garbage can.

Normally they wouldn’t catch my eye—I’m not one for picking through trash—but I see Esther’s bank’s insignia right away and know that they’re not mine. They’re Esther’s receipts. I reach my hand inside the trash can, steering clear of a splatter of ketchup on a dirty napkin that the receipts are hidden beneath. I pull them out, three of them, three receipts dated Thursday, Friday and Saturday afternoons, each a withdrawal for five hundred dollars, cash. That’s fifteen hundred bucks. One thousand five hundred dollars. A whole lotta moola, to be sure.

What in the world would Esther need fifteen hundred dollars for, taken out over the course of three days? I don’t know for certain, but strawberry daiquiris in Punta Cana come to mind. Seems like a nice place for Jane Girard to take a vacation. Seems like a nice place for me to take a vacation, but I doubt in my life I’ll ever make it to Punta Cana. Five hundred dollars is the maximum withdrawal limit for most banks, not that I’m one to know; I don’t even have five hundred dollars to my name. Everything I make at work gets handed over to Esther straightaway to cover rent and utilities, leaving only some spare change for the occasional night out or a pair of new shoes.

What is Esther doing walking around town with fifteen hundred dollars stuffed in her purse? I wonder. But I can’t think about this right now. Right now there are other things on my mind.

I’m about to head out the door when I throw it open and there, standing on the other side, is the building’s maintenance man, John, who’s, like, eighty years old and wears navy blue coveralls, though it’s not like a person needs coveralls to change the occasional lightbulb or battle a colony of carpenter ants. His hand is raised in the air, ready to knock. Beside his feet is a toolbox, and in his hand is a whole assortment of things, tools I don’t recognize, tools I do, a brand-new door handle and a dead-bolt lock, to boot.

“What’s this?” I ask, staring down at the dead-bolt lock as he tears into the plastic box and removes it from its packaging.

For as much as I don’t like Mrs. Budny, John I do. He’s like a grandpa, like my grandpa who died when I was six years old, with his shock of white hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and his denture smile. “You asked for a new lock,” John says to me, and it’s snappy the way I say, “No, I didn’t,” though I don’t mean to be snappy with John. I like John way too much to be snappy.

John’s answer is immediate, as well. “Then it must have been the other one,” he says, his left hand moving up and down around his face. “The one with the hair.”

I know right away what he means. He’s referring to Esther’s hair, distinct and prominent, unmistakable, a conversation piece. The day my parents loaded up a U-Haul and helped move my twenty-nine cardboard boxes and me into the city apartment they were consternated by Esther’s hair to say the least. It appalled them. In suburban America, people had blond hair or brown hair or red hair, but never some sort of odd combination of two or three. But Esther did, this piecemeal hair color that changed like paint swatches, brown to mocha to tawny to sand. My mother pulled me aside by the arm and begged, “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s not too late to change your mind,” while keeping one eye on Esther all the time.

I was sure. I wanted to do this.

But now, of course, I’m wondering if I should have been a little more judicious, a little less sure.

I ask John again if he’s certain Esther requested to have the locks changed and he says yes, he is certain. He even shows me the paperwork to prove it, an order by Mrs. Budny to change the locks in unit 304. The date of the request is three days ago. Three days ago Esther got on her phone and called Mrs. Budny’s office to request our locks be changed.

Why, Esther, why?

But I don’t have to think on this too long. The answer comes to me before John fires up his electric screwdriver and starts removing the old dead bolt from the steel door. I’ve been a bad roommate and Esther wants me gone. She wants to replace me with Megan or Meg from Portage Park, or someone akin to Meg. Someone who pays the rent on time, who helps finance the utilities, who doesn’t leave the lights on all the time, who doesn’t talk in her sleep.

Before I leave, I snatch a spare key from John’s extended hand. I’m sure that wasn’t in Esther’s plan. And then I take a cab out to Lincoln Square and head to the police district station, a light brick building that spans an entire city block, surrounded by flags and parked police cars, the white Crown Victorias with their red lettering and a blue stripe along the side. We Serve and Protect, it says.