The domestic scene comprised of our disorder now seemed almost comforting, and my anger wavered. Had I been wrong to look through his things? Had I “broken his trust,” as he’d said? Was I no better than Del had been when as children she’d gone through my things? Then I fingered the sore place on my breast, replayed the night in his office, the sex. Hadn’t he broken my trust? He would need to prepare for his upcoming classes. He’d have to return for his notes, his slides. Maybe the weather had kept him away, but the streetlights had come back on; electricity hummed along the wires overhead.
I undressed and got into bed, hoping to finally sleep. William would be moving along the sidewalk beneath the elm, slipping in through the front door and climbing the stairs to me. I would play his dutiful wife, waiting for him. I remained awake and watchful, but he didn’t return. Rather than try to sleep, I began straightening up the room, putting the clean pot under the sink, stuffing laundry into a basket in the closet. Through the window the elm’s branches shifted, brittle with ice. I opened the apartment door. Below me in the vestibule a door’s latch clicked. Del’s door opened, quietly, carefully, as if the person knew the way the hinges groaned. I stepped back into my doorway and listened as whoever it was stepped into the vestibule and moved stealthily to the front door. I peered, careful not to be seen, but just missed whoever it had been. The front door closed and footsteps crunched the snow on the porch.
On the landing I felt the cold creeping under the front door and reminded myself of Geoff the time we’d caught him standing there in his robe. I moved down the stairway to Del’s door, light-headed with fear, but slowed. Had it been William? He couldn’t have gone into her apartment the same way he’d once come into mine—not with Del so adamant about locking doors. I tried her door and found it locked. Had Del let in whoever it was and let the person out? I felt a wave of doubt. I opened the front door and looked down the sidewalk, but there were only the piles of snow, the cold house fronts, their windows black, and no sign of anyone. Maybe it had been Randy, his car parked around the corner. But there were no cars out on the roads. I returned to my apartment and quietly closed the door.
Outside the snow still fell. The streets echoed with the passing snowplows. I sat on the bed. I could go down to Del’s and ask her if William had been there. But what if she denied anyone had been there at all? Was this what I’d done to her all those years in the guise of being a custodian? Established the parameters of what was real and what wasn’t?
I finished organizing the apartment—numbly folding and sorting the clothing, returning each item to its place, washing the dishes and putting them away. I piled William’s things—those he’d left behind—neatly on his desktop.
Things were shifting, becoming not as they had seemed.
I climbed into bed and slept all day until evening, lulled by the sound of the snowplows, the settling and contracting of the old house’s bones. When I awoke my mother’s little travel clock read six thirty. The windows were dark, but the streetlights shone in. I sat up and turned on the lamp. The apartment wasn’t as I’d left it. The drawers had been gone through, and not closed all the way. The cabinets were open, the closet door—things I’d purposely closed hours before.
I heard knocking at my door, a gentle, repetitive tap—Del using our old séance knocking. I rolled over and burrowed deeper. I didn’t trust what I would say to Del. Since the heat had come back on the apartment had warmed a bit. William was still gone, but he’d been there, searching for the portfolio. He had every right to it. But the prints themselves weren’t that precious—he had the negatives and could make new ones. The hidden negatives of Mary Rae were what he wanted. I ignored Del, and soon her knocking ceased and she headed down the stairs.
I couldn’t sleep any longer. I got up and took a shower, nervously listening for footsteps. Something dark and lonely had settled over me.
In the refrigerator I found the makings of a sandwich—cheese and a bit of lettuce. Del had been cooking—I could smell it coming up the stairwell—roasted meat, like our grandmother used to make on Sundays when we were small. Still my sandwich was fine. Nothing came from Geoff through the wall and I wondered if he’d unburied his car. I took my plate with me into the cold hall and I knocked on his door. Del must have heard me. Her door opened below, and she came out into the vestibule.
“He’s not there,” she said. Her voice echoed slightly as it came up the stairwell. “You must have been knackered. You slept all day.”
Del was using Geoff’s slang again. I went to the top of the stairs and looked down at her. Her hair was dyed platinum blond—so bright and different, I barely recognized her. She smiled when she saw my reaction, and she ran her fingers through the long, whitish strands.
“Very Marilyn Monroe,” I said. “Or Jayne Mansfield.”
“Or Jean Harlow,” Del said. Then she posed with her hip out, her hand in her hair. “‘Mind if I change into something more comfortable?’”
Now she looked like the Del from our childhood.
“Why don’t you eat with us?” she said.
“Who’s down there?” I asked.