Last Girl Ghosted(10)

You won’t be long, I tell myself. You’re on your way.

White tablecloth.

Orchids in a vase.

The low hum of voices, flute music. I wait.

It’s half past the hour. Definitely not like you.

Finally, I dig my phone from my bag.

Oh.

Three missed calls. I try to call you back, but there’s no answer. An unpleasant throb in my center. Fear pulses. I know that bad things can sneak up on you. One moment life seems solid enough, predictable, and the next your whole world gets pulled out from under you and you’re floating in space. Zero gravity.

I text: Is something wrong? I tried to call you back.

A few more minutes pass. People enjoy their meals, oblivious to the thumping of my heart. My waitress keeps glancing over at me. Other servers zip past, carrying trays of food—the aroma is heavenly, but it barely reaches me.

Finally, after ten more minutes pass, and you don’t call, don’t answer my calls or texts, I gather my things.

You’re not coming.

Something is wrong.



five


Rising, I draw looks, leaving my sweating water glass, dropping my crumpled napkin on the table. The back of my throat is tight, heat rising to my cheeks. Shame. It lives in the pit of my stomach, curled like a snake, waiting to strike and sink its fangs.

It was too soon to have told you. We didn’t know each other well enough. I have buried my ugly past for a reason. It was years before I told Jax. And even she doesn’t know all of it.

But you.

Isn’t that what love is? We want to show ourselves, don’t we? Hoping against hope that when we do, we will be loved for exactly who we are, not who we were expected to be.

“There’s been an emergency,” I say to the waitress who comes to see what’s wrong, why I’m leaving. “I’m so sorry.”

The waitress, the host, they’re so kind and accommodating. Which hurts. Kindness sometimes hurts me. I can’t explain that.

On the street, I try again to return your call, but there’s just the recorded message: I’m sorry. The person you have reached has not set up a mailbox. Strange.

Your place is not far. It’s probably faster to hoof it than get a cab and crawl through traffic. Anyway, the walk will calm me, clear my head.

The city can be a kind of forest; you can bathe in its sounds if you let yourself go quiet inside. The horns and voices, the rumble of the subway under your feet, there’s a kind of rhythm to it, a peaceful disharmony. There’s a stream, and if you enter it, it carries you—lights changing from don’t walk to walk, people clearing a path. I enter the stream, and it only takes me twenty minutes to walk from the East Village to your place in Chelsea.

By the time I reach your building, I am sure there’s a simple explanation for why you’ve stood me up after I revealed the darkest thing about me. After I whispered it to you in the dark, and you held me. I’m so sorry, you said over and over. And I felt seen, heard, understood.

The clean white entryway to your building has no doorman, just a slick monitor and intercom. Twelve B, the only buzzer without a name beside it, is stiff and white under my finger.

Why should strangers know who lives in 12 B? Just another way people neglect their security, you said.

That’s your job. Security. Selling security systems to companies and individuals. You install cameras and silent alarms, motion detectors. You educate about cybersecurity, set up firewalls, encrypted websites. You’ve told me about the way con artists, criminals, and hackers can worm their way into systems to steal, to sabotage, to subvert. You’re passionate about it. I like people who are passionate about their work. It was one of the first things I liked about you.

No answer. I press the buzzer again.

Finally, “Hello?”

I am taken aback by a female voice, young, cautious. Now, her face swims on the screen. She’s pretty with dark skin and ringlet curls. For a moment I can’t find my voice. Who is she?

“Is—Adam there?” I ask, my throat dry.

She shakes her head. “There’s no one here by that name. Sorry.”

I hear a child’s voice. “Mommy, who is it?” She moves off camera and when she returns, she’s holding a small child—a boy in a red shirt—who reaches out with a chubby hand to the camera, blocking the image with his palm. There’s a caged bird in my chest, wings flapping in panic. Who is this woman? This child?

I clear my throat, collect myself.

“This place belongs to—a friend of mine,” I say. “Is he there?”

I check the buzzer again. This is the right place. I’ve been here twice—once for dinner. Once I spent the night.

After that, we were mainly at my place. In fact, I haven’t been here in months. Your place—it’s cold. I tick back to my time here with you. Couches stiff, bed too hard. No food in the fridge. Your clothes hung like soldiers, filed and pressed, ready to go into battle. No pictures. Even your bathroom—a single deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss. One bar of soap in the shower. Certainly no sign of another woman, a family.

“Is he there?” I ask again when the toddler moves his hand away.

“No,” she says. She’s seems like a nice person, a mom type with a patient voice and understanding eyes. “Oh, this is just a vacation rental. I am here with my family this week. Sorry.”