“Let’s go,” he says, and I rise from my chair and together we leave.
We go to Subway, as always, and as always I have the same thing to eat: roast beef on wheat while he has the chopped chicken salad. And it’s there as we slide into the booth beside the windows, watching the city life pass by on the street, that I admit to Ben, “Esther didn’t come home last night,” adding on quietly and penitently, my voice just above a whisper, “Esther didn’t come home Saturday night, either.”
There’s construction on Wabash and so things are loud: jackhammers, saws, sanders and such. I try to block out the noise, all of it, inside and out. The construction noise outside. The dozen or so patrons inside the restaurant beside us, hovering in a long, mushrooming line, impatient, hungry, talking on their phones. The so-called sandwich artist asking the same question over and over again like words on a scratched CD: White or wheat? White or wheat? I pretend for one nanosecond that it’s only Ben and me in the room, that we aren’t being inundated by the scent of veggies or cheese or fresh baked bread, that we’re someplace romantic, say Trattoria No. 10 on Dearborn, or Everest, up on top of the Chicago Stock Exchange (a place I’ll likely never get to go), dining on rack of lamb or loin of venison while staring out at the Loop from the fortieth floor. Waiters and waitresses who refer to us as sir and ma’am, who deliver champagne followed by a single sorbet for us to share with two spoons—cutlery that I probably couldn’t even afford. Now that would be romantic. I imagine the force of Ben’s knee pressing against me beneath the bistro table, an unswerving hand traveling across the starched white tablecloth to find mine as I admit to him sadly, Esther didn’t come home Saturday night, either.
Ben lifts his fork to his mouth and then sets it back down, neglecting the salad before him. “What do you mean Esther didn’t come home?” he asks. The concern manifests itself in puckers and folds along his forehead and temples. His hands reach to his pocket to find his phone where he pulls up his contacts and flips through to Esther.
“She might be mad at me,” I say.
“Why would she be mad at you?” he asks, and I tell him I don’t know, but the truth is that I do, and it isn’t any one thing, per se, but a series of things leading to the fact that I’m a bad roommate. “I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve let her down, I guess.” But Esther has let me down, too, and now I’m mad and sad all at the same time. I watch as Ben attempts to call Esther on his cell, but with a hand to his arm, I say that it’s no use.
“Her phone,” I tell him contritely, “is at home.”
And because Ben is smart, logical, systematic (all of which I’m not, making him the perfect yin to my yang), he pushes his feelings aside and focuses on the task at hand. He says, “Call the bookstore. See if she showed up for work today. What about her parents?” he asks.
“It’s just her mom,” I say, or at least I think it’s just her mom. Esther has never made mention of a dad, a brother, a sister, a family dog, a guinea pig, though of course there was the photograph of a family—some family, her family?—inside that storage unit, the one Esther nearly amputated my finger over last December when I snuck a peek inside the box. Who’s this? I’d asked, followed by Esther’s pithy reply as she slammed the box lid down on top of my hands: No one.
“Did you try calling her mom?” he asks then, and I shake my head.
“I don’t know her name. Or her number,” I admit, though I tell him I called the police. One step in the right direction, I guess, but more likely one step forward, two steps back. I seem to be making no progress at all.
“Check Esther’s phone,” he suggests, but I shrug my shoulders and say, “Can’t get in. I don’t have her password.”
Unless Esther’s family calls us directly, that’s a dead end. But Ben, not willing to concede defeat, says to me, “I’ll see what I can dredge up.” He gives me a wink and says, “I have connections,” though I doubt he does. More likely he’s handy on the internet and has a log-in for LexisNexis. That’s about the only bonus of working for a law firm, access to a database that allows for a search of public records and background checks.
I’m feeling frustrated, to say the least, like I can’t do anything quite right. I’m not one to cry, but for a whole two seconds I think that’s exactly what I’d like to do. I’d like to smash my face into my Subway napkin and cry my eyes out. But that’s when Ben reaches across the table and runs a brisk hand across mine. I try not to read more into it than there is—just a friendly gesture—but it’s hard not to completely liquefy when he says to me, “I doubt Esther’s mad at you. You’re best buds,” and I think to myself that I thought we were, I thought Esther and I were best buds. But now I’m not so sure.
“So you’ll call the bookstore and I’ll hunt down Esther’s mom. We’ll find her,” he promises. “We will.” And at this I realize I like the sound of his voice, the take-charge, no-nonsense way he’s made this task his own, and I smile because my lone manhunt for the missing Esther Vaughan has now become a two-man job. And I’m quite pleased with my partner in crime.
Alex
I stand at the door to Ingrid Daube’s house, noticing the way the yard snowballs with fallen leaves. I make note of this: bring a rake. Rake Ingrid’s leaves. It’s the least that I can do.
It’s not like she can do it herself because that would involve going outdoors and that isn’t about to happen. The snow will come soon. I don’t want her grass to die.
I carry two paper sacks in my hands. In my pocket is her change, a dollar and seventy-three cents. I have one bag in either arm. I lift up a leg and depress the doorbell with a knee, waiting for Ingrid to answer my call.
Outside there is sun. It’s not warm—far from it, in fact—but there is sun. The day is crisp. The gulls are clamorous this morning, making a rumpus. They soar overhead in their colonies, perching on the roofs on the town’s buildings and awnings.
When Ingrid opens the door, there’s a frowzy look to her. Hair mussed up, she’s still in a nightgown and robe. Her skin lacks makeup, and there are trenches in the folds of her skin, deep marionette lines made visible without the camouflage of makeup. One thought and one thought alone comes to mind: Ingrid looks old.
She says to me, “Good morning,” and I say, “Good morning” back. But today her voice is clipped, and she ushers me in quickly, pushing the door closed against the weight of the wind. She does it in a hurry, trying hard to keep the outside air out. This is Ingrid sometimes. Sometimes the fear of the outside world starts and ends at the doorsill, and so long as her feet are behind the threshold, she’s A-okay. But other times she fears the air itself: germs, pollen, pollution, smoke, breath and whatever other horrors the air may hold. Today is apparently one of those days. She pulls me in by the arm—eyes doing a quick sweep of the street outside to make certain I haven’t been trailed, that the wind isn’t lying in wait behind me, ready and waiting to attack—and slams the door at once, latching the lock and the dead bolt, too.
And then she takes a deep breath, exhales and smiles.