The Vanishing Year(5)

But I’m lying. Molly McKay was my roommate in college. Five years ago, in the throes of finals week, I left our small one-bedroom apartment on Williard Street in the middle of the night and never came back.





CHAPTER 2



I wake on Saturday, sweating and panicked with the vague notions of a terrifying dream tugging at my mind. Before it seeps away, I can only grasp large shadows and men with guns, chasing me down Forty-Second Street. I sit up, untangling my legs from damp sheets. The room has the eerie cast of early morning rain, bluish and depressing.

Henry is gone and that itself isn’t unusual. He’s usually up before five and out the door, even on a Saturday. Sundays are for sleeping in and espresso in the sitting room, but Saturdays are just another workday.

The night before comes back to me in a rush, followed by a heavy, clenching feeling in my stomach. I swing my legs over the side of the bed, and for a second, my vision clouds as the world shifts sideways. I push the heel of my hand into my forehead. I didn’t drink but one glass of champagne—the pulsing behind my eyes can’t be a hangover. I have a nebulous memory of Henry pressing a small white tablet into my palm the night before, kissing my forehead. “Tonight, you’ll take this,” he said, and I felt a quick flash of irritation. But I swallowed it down on instinct, the need to sleep, and to forget Molly McKay. I hadn’t protested, but quite honestly, I don’t understand his penchant for pills, his fussing, trying to push this or that—a medication, a tablet, a drug. There’s always something to cure any ailment and the bottles sit, lined up in Henry’s medicine cabinet like soldiers waiting to battle the bulk of his ails: alprazolam, zolpidem, lorazepam. The thick, cottony coating of my tongue confirms it. Henry, unaware of my past or my reasons, always pushes aside my protests with a dismissive pat.

The shower is hot, the spray rinses away the remaining fog from whatever I’d been given. As I dry off and tie the towel around me, tucking one end into the other, I shake loose any resentment. He’s only trying to help. Henry babies me and I waffle between secretly adoring it, the pampering and the idea of being this “kept woman,” and childishly rejecting it, rebelling like a teenager to his silly rules and requests. Henry is a product of a traditional household and paternalism runs deep in his veins, which I find both charming and a little infuriating, depending on the day.

I check the clock. 8:58. I want to call Francesca, to find out exactly how I missed Molly McKay’s name on the final guest list. Of course! She married her boyfriend, but his last name escapes me entirely. Then it clicks, like tumblers sliding into place. Gunther! Her boyfriend, now her husband, I was sure, his name was Gunther. Well, if I had seen Molly and Gunther on the guest list, I would have been on alert. I am used to watching my back this way. I’ve spent half of the last decade with a careful eye on the street behind me, although, to be honest, since marrying Henry, I’ve become increasingly sloppier about it. In our Tribeca penthouse, it is hard not to feel protected, insulated from evil, as though having money keeps you good, or wholesome. I’m not na?ve: in many cases, aren’t the rich the ones perpetuating evil?

I remember Molly from our college days, round and bubbly, with peering, hawk-like blue eyes. Even then, she’d fasten on to an idea—a boy one of us liked, a professor we hated, a piece of wayward gossip—and figure out how it could benefit her, turn it razor sharp. She was subtle in her manipulation, even then, and age and time hone natural skills. She was someone to fear, if she knew your secrets. I envision her now, working her pet Gunther into a full frenzy. We’d always called him that, meanly, behind their backs. Her trick dog.

The phone shrills, and I’m startled out of this thought. The clock reads exactly nine and I smile. Henry calls at exactly nine every day. Never a minute later or a minute earlier. I asked him once, what if he was in a meeting? Surely this could happen. At the time, he had only blinked at me and replied, “I can miss a few minutes of any meeting, regardless of the topic.” And his answer was so definitive, I never questioned it again, at least not out loud. It still strikes me every single day as odd. Who can say that they can carve out time, no matter the length, at exactly the same time every day, without fail?

“Hello?” I half-sigh and half-laugh into the phone.

“Are you still sick?” His voice comes over the line, silky and deep like melted chocolate.

“No, I feel better. With enough sleep, I guess anyone would.” I say this sarcastically, but with a smile in my voice.

Henry laughs softly. “Can’t you ever just let me take care of you? I love to, you know. And you said you do feel better.” I say nothing, because quite honestly, I do. When I’m quiet, he continues, “Okay, I’m sorry. I know you hate the sleeping pills. I try very hard not to recommend them. Am I forgiven? Meet me for lunch?”

“Maybe. I have some odds and ends to tie up from last night. Can I let you know?” I trace the pattern of the coverlet with my fingertip, a manicured red fingernail on the bright white spread like a blood spatter. I pull the towel tighter around me.

He harrumphs on the line, I can tell. I rarely say no to Henry. “You will eat, right? You’ll eat regardless. Why not join me?”

“We’ll see, okay? I’ll call you. Don’t worry. I love you.”

We hang up and before I can second-guess myself, I call Francesca and request the final guest list. In thirty seconds, my email bings, I tap it open on my phone and scan it. It looks the same as it did the previous Wednesday, no mention of Molly McKay or Gunther What’s-his-name. I call Francesca back and ask her if there is a way someone could have attended the benefit without being on the guest list. She is flippant.