Don't You Cry(41)

“You okay?” he asks, and I say, “Yeah. I’m okay. It’s windy.” But still, I feel his arm upon my skin. What is it that he sees in Priya, after all? Why not me instead of her?

But I can’t think about that right now.

Ben goes first, and I follow closely behind, up the concrete steps, through the white front doors and into the vacuous entryway. There’s nothing there but sixteen mailboxes and a dirty, gray doormat, smothered in grime and debris.

Welcome, says the doormat, though it’s placed upside down so you see it as you leave.

I have no idea what Ben and I plan to do, or how it is that we’ll attempt to find Esther. But I do know that I’m happy as pie to have someone here by my side, someone practical like Ben who can help me sort through all these inane ideas running amuck in my mind. It’s also lonely and I’m desperate for someone, anyone, to keep me company, for the sound of voices other than those which live inside my head. But more than anything, I’m happy it’s Ben.

I gather my mail from one of the mailboxes, and up the stairwell we go, Ben in the lead, me in the rear. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t stare at his tail end.

At the door I fumble with my keys, having almost forgotten that my key—the little copper thingie I’ve had for nearly a year—no longer fits inside the door, and I fish around in my pockets for the new one, the one I snatched from John the maintenance man’s aging hands. Once inside the apartment, I kick the door closed and drop the stash of mail on the countertop and walk away, thinking nothing of it until Ben holds up a catalog for me to see.

“I have to know,” he asks, “which one of you shops here. You or Esther?” And there’s a smile on his face, a teasing smile, but suddenly I feel irritated and confused. I’ve seen that catalog before. It’s a regular in Esther’s and my mailbox, the kind of thing that hits the recycle bin the moment it arrives, like the takeout menu from the deli where Esther and I both got sick. Why do we keep getting this catalog? On the front is a woman, no more than twenty years old, with some sort of occult ensemble on, a tunic dress that could be cute if it wasn’t decked out in skulls and crossbones, platform heels with spikes extruding from all sides. There’s a choker on her neck, black leather, pulled so taut it’s a wonder she doesn’t gag.

I reach out for the catalog in Ben’s hand and for whatever reason flip to the reverse side to see why this catalog keeps winding up in our mailbox. Does this catalog belong to Esther? Was she a vamp in a former life? A goth? Did she dress in all black and go around clubbing under the pseudonym of Raven or Tempest or Drusilla? Did she have an odd fascination with death, a fetish for the supernatural? I don’t know. I have this pesky feeling that I don’t know who Esther is anymore.

But instead of seeing Esther’s name there on the address label as I expect to see, it reads, Kelsey Bellamy or current resident of 1621 W. Farragut Avenue.

That’s my apartment building, but who is Kelsey Bellamy?

I never asked Esther about her old roommate and she never said anything. It was as if she didn’t exist, though I knew she did, of course. It was the reason for the vacant space, for Esther’s need to fill a room once complete with life but suddenly void of it.

I have one thought then, one memory: the name etched into the wall in my bedroom closet, the forgotten fragment of a photograph bearing traces of Esther’s hair, the one I found in the closet of the vacant bedroom after I’d moved in.

I hurry quickly from the room and into my bedroom. Ben follows behind asking, “Where are you going?” and there in the bedroom I show him. I slide open the doors of the reach-in closet and start pulling out items at random, tossing dresses on hangers to the floor, pushing aside a rolling suitcase I’ve never used, a graduation gift from my folks in case I ever had the urge to get up and go. Right now I have the urge to get up and go. But where?

“What are you looking for?” asks Ben as I point a quivering hand at six consequential letters placed on the drywall, scored into the popcorn walls with something like a carving knife. An hour ago they meant nothing to me, but now they do.

Kelsey.

*

It’s all just fun and games until somebody gets hurt.

Isn’t that how the saying goes?

It couldn’t be more apropos.

We’re sitting in my apartment, Ben on the rose-colored sofa, me on the black-and-white mod plaid chair because it seems like the right thing to do, the unassuming thing to do. I could have sat next to him; he’d sat first and he left me room. But that, of course, seemed foolhardy and pert. And what if after I sat, he rose and found another chair? That wouldn’t be good.

No, this way I’m in the driver’s seat, in the saddle, at the helm. I’m the one in control. And anyway, from the other side of the industrial iron coffee table, the view is more clear. The better to see you with, my dear.

His light brown hair is a sleek square cut, the kind that sends him to the barber every other week for a trim. His expression has taken on that serious air as it does when he’s working, completing the all-important task of Bates labeling documents like me. But instead of Bates labels, his fingers type across the keyboard quickly, and then he stares at the screen. And then he types and he stares, and he types and he stares. His feet rise up to the coffee table, his work shoes removed. His socks are black, a crew cut, pulled halfway up to his knee. He’s discarded the tie and unbuttoned a button or two of a vintage oxford shirt. He wears no undershirt beneath, the skin there tanned and smooth.