The Vanishing Year(27)

The lobby is austere with mirrored walls, floors, ceilings, white and black countertops, and a single twenty-foot tree stretching up to the ceiling. I follow the group down the hall and skirt away before I reach the locker room. At the end of the hall is another entrance into one of the main gyms, and the last twenty feet of hallway is a one-way mirror, presumably for prospective clients to view the amenities without current members feeling put on display.

My mouth goes dry and I involuntarily place my hand against the wall, the heat from my fingertips leaving condensation prints against the cold glass. Henry is in there, his movements quick and smooth, his back muscles flexing with each up and down. Push-ups are last, he’s close to done. If he makes a move toward the lobby or toward the locker room, I’ll reveal myself as a pleasant surprise. Maybe blow Cash off and grab a middle of the week lunch with Henry.

He stands up and gulps water and I watch him lean in, whisper to a coltish blonde on the mat next to him. She throws her head back, as though he’s said something hilarious, which I know could never be true because Henry is not funny. At least, not recently. But something about him is different to me: he’s loose-jointed, almost swaggering, a hand poised cockily on one jutted hip. I lean forward until my nose is almost touching the glass. Henry cracks another joke and the blonde swats at his arm. He reaches out and pats her bottom, her round, perfect pink-spandexed bottom and hovers there, his fingers gently flexing on the rounded swell.

The heat flushes my face and I back away from the window. Men flirt, it’s how it is. I still feel dizzy and I push the heel of my palm to my forehead.

With my head down, I scuttle through the lobby.

“Ma’am!” The receptionist calls but I flip my hand up in her direction and push out the front door. In the time I’ve been inside the club, cloud cover has rolled in, cloaking the sky in thick gray cotton. The cool breeze brings gooseflesh to my arms.

Henry wouldn’t be unfaithful, I know that. Simple flirting, that’s all it is. Men need their egos tended to, it’s practically biological. I hush my panic with Henry’s words. He worships me. Breathe in, breathe out. I wonder what he’s said to her. He hasn’t joked with me in a long time, or made me laugh like that. Like a protective reflex, my brain soothes me, hands me snapshots. Recent memories: Henry gently caressing my cheek at the benefit as we danced. His hands on my bare waist in bed, his low murmurs, God, you’re so beautiful. These are not things men say and do to women they do not love. Passionately. Passionately. The word gets caught on my tongue.

I adjust my blouse and straighten my hair. I walk briskly, shaking loose the sick feeling in my stomach, the self-disgust. I’ve spied on my husband and been properly chastised. Dishonesty is rarely rewarding.

The coffee shop is two blocks away and when I blow in, bringing the newly cool air with me, Cash’s head jerks up. He gives me a tentative smile as I slide into the chair across from him. We order two coffees.

“Hi Zoe. I wanted to call you. I, uh, wanted to see if you were okay? After the car thing?”

I shake my head and roll my eyes. I reach into my purse and pull out the folded paperwork. “I’m fine. Listen, I didn’t really call you for the story. I want your help.” I smooth out the creases in the birth certificate. “What do I do next?”

He picks it up in his thick fingers and flips it around, examining the watermark on the back.

“This is an original.”

I shrug. That point is inconsequential to me.

“Well, they usually don’t do that. They’ll give out partials. Where’d you get this?”

I’m impatient. Who cares? “I don’t know,” I reply. “I just want to know what my next steps are. Where do I go next?”

He studies the memo. “You have a name, Zoe. Carolyn Seever.” His finger jabs into the paper.

“It’s a fake name. It’s worthless. I did all that legwork years ago. I just need to know what to do next.”

“How do you know it’s fake?”

“Because she doesn’t exist. I even tracked down the receptionist from the agency and she confirmed her belief that she didn’t leave her real name.”

Cash looks out the window and runs his palm along his jawline. “Yeah, but think about it, when you give a fake name, especially under stress, you don’t make something up out of the blue. This name,” he says and taps the memo, “it means something. It could be the key.”

“Okay, but if I didn’t have the name? Then what?”

“Um, then you’d start by looking at all the babies born in that hospital on that day. Most likely if she gave birth in that hospital, she was local. I would start there. Most counties have a birth registry. It might give you the same name back, it might not. It would depend on where they pull their information.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means, let me help you.”

“No.”

“Why? I could do this in my sleep. You have more information than I’ve had to start with in the past. I could find her in a week, tops.”

“Because, it’s something I need to do myself.”

“Why? That makes no sense, Zoe.”

Because I’m not who you think I am. I’m not who anyone thinks I am.

“Just tell me what you would do,” I insist. I tap my nails on my mug.