The Vanishing Year(73)

“Patrice.” Bernie’s tone is pained.

Patrice stands up, the sofa cushion inflates with a sigh. She waves her hand behind her, in my general direction, a motion of apology, and sways out of the room. I hear her heavy footsteps on the carpeted stairs.

Bernie lets out a large belly sigh, mops his brow with a handkerchief from his pocket. “I’m sorry. We’re mostly okay. You’re just so . . .” He examines my face like the words are written there. “Unexpected.” He stands up and looks at me sadly. “We were old parents. I regret that. We tried for years to have babies, almost a decade. Had a lot of miscarriages, no one could tell us why. It wrecked Patrice. Wrecked her. Joanie was our saving grace, it seemed. We maybe protected her too much because of it.”

I thought of Evelyn and nodded.

“You should go, honey. Listen, leave your number. I’ll have Pat call you when she gets her strength back.” He stands up, the couch permanently molded into the shapes of their bodies. I pictured them there, night after night, in a darkened living room with nothing but a flickering television to cover the silence.

I scribble my cell phone number on the back of an old lottery ticket that he gives me. He takes it and sets it on the television stand, which is just an old wooden box television with a flat gray screen. He walks me to the door, pats me awkwardly on the back.

He holds up one wide, pink hand. Hold on a moment, and ambles down the hall. A moment later, he comes back.

“Here, you can keep this. We have tons of them.” He hands me a small, laminated card. The front has a picture of Joanie, in front of a library, a short floral dress, a smile filled with endless summers and infinite possibilities. It could have been me. The back of the card has a prayer.

“That’s her college graduation.” His hand shakes, a violent tremor, and he shoves it in his pocket. “She went to Queens College. Library science major. You know the trip was an hour and a half one way? Three transfers. Does that sound like someone with anxiety to you?”

I shake my head.

“You understand. It’s hard.” His eyes are watery gray, without any distinct color, and up close his neck wobbles.

“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spring this on you. I didn’t know about Joanie.”

He coughs, thick and mucousy from the back of his throat. Then he says something surprisingly empathetic. “You’ve lost someone, too. You just didn’t know it.”

I don’t tell him I’ve lost a lot of people I didn’t know about in the past few days. I reach up and kiss his cheek and leave him there, patting his jowl.

? ? ?

Once outside I call a car service. I stand on the corner, a half a block away from the Bascio residence. Someone keeps parting the curtains in the front window of the closest house. I half expect a police car to show up because I’m a suspicious person. I text Cash while I’m waiting. Joanie is dead. Joan Bascio. Find out all you can. She was married. Find out who.

Before I can think it through, I dial Lydia. She picks up on a half ring, her voice high and echoing, like in an airplane hangar. “Zoe?” There is a loud commotion behind her, a crash followed by a deep voice, almost in a yell.

“I’m here, are you okay? What’s wrong?” My heart picks up speed.

“We’ve been vandalized. Everything is ruined.” There’s a loud rustle, like she’s turned her face away from the speaker, the scrape of her chin against the mouthpiece.

“What?” I wait a beat but there’s silence, then talking. “Lyd. Where are you?”

“The shop. I have to go, we have to call the police. I’ll call you back.”

“Is everyone okay?” I ask, panicked, my brain sifting through everything that’s happened and settling, with a heavy, foggy dread, on the idea that I’m involved. This has everything to do with me. It’s all connected.

“I think so,” she replies.

“I’m in Brooklyn.” Apropos of nothing. “It’ll take me a few. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” My brain is white hot. My hands shake as I hang up and dial Cash. I tell him about the shop. “Come with me?” I hate to ask him another favor.

He doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll meet you there.”

? ? ?

I meet Cash outside La Fleur d’Elise and survey the damage from the street. The storefront windows are smashed in, the glass splintered inward toward a single point, as though hit with a heavy object. I step over the pieces in the doorway. Inside, the exposed bulbs in the ceiling are broken, shards of glass screwed into fixtures are all that remain. The glass counter has been crushed, the refrigerator door hangs off its hinges, the arrangements inside have been ripped apart and flower heads scattered around the floor, which is wet with large puddles. The water buckets have all been upended.

“Two weddings’ worth of inventory, gone,” Elisa laments as I come through the door. She stands up when she sees me and crosses the room. Her spindly arms fold around me in a limp, defeated hug. Javi works the broom in the corner pushing all the glass and floral carcasses to a sopping pile in the center of the room and then looks at it impotently, like now what?

Lydia hovers in the doorway, a drooping amaryllis dangling between her fingers.

The counter in front, next to the register, is heavy, stainless steel. Meant to be a table for last-minute arrangements and trimming, if necessary. It’s more functional than aesthetic. The top is etched with a thinly carved message. A message that is meant for me, I feel it in my bones, heavy and leaded. I run my fingers over the metal.