Close to You Read online

  I refilled glasses, washed dirty ones and stacked clean ones. Anderson, the owner, was in tonight, working the door and inspecting light bulbs and pushing at tables to see how wobbly they were. He barely looked at me.

  How long would I keep doing this? How long could I? My life had settled into something boring - much easier, I supposed, than before, when I had lived a life of idleness, always in a state of ennui. I thought of all those days I stared at screens and books and windows. Waiting for a snake bite.

  What was Brandon doing right now? What did he think? Did he wonder where I was? Did he know where I was?

  And, was it naive to hope he didn’t? To assume the best, dread the worst?

  The glass I was absently cleaning slipped right out of my hands, knocking against the sink and shattering loudly when it hit the ground. Glass went everywhere, and Pete, his buddy, and Anderson all turned to look at me.

  “It’s nothing, just dropped a glass,” I said, waving their concern off. I grabbed the handheld broom and dustpan, bending down to sweep up the sharp remains of the glass, colorful pieces of its logo broken into so many places I couldn’t even tell which brewery it belonged to.

  As I was sweeping, something white and small caught my eye under the sink. I used my broom to push it toward me, intending to sweep it up, but I saw that it was a piece of paper. Probably an old receipt or something, but out of curiosity, I picked it up and opened it.

  Familiar, all capital letters handwriting greeted me, with the phone number I’d been trying so hard to remember these past couple of days.

  I stared at it in disbelief. I’d thrown it away. Hadn’t I? I remembered crumpling it up and tossing it toward the trash can. Obviously, I’d missed.

  I’d like to take you to Central Park sometime.

  Was this a sign? Some divine intervention, or something like that? I clutched the paper, staring at all those details - the date, the time of the transaction, the IPAs he’d drank. I remembered the way he’d looked at me when I told him I’d been married. I remembered the $50 bill poking out from under this very receipt. It had been too much, but I took it anyway.

  “Lila, can we get another round?” I heard, and I pocketed the receipt quickly, standing up and seeing Pete and his friend at the bar, watching me expectantly.

  Nodding, I slapped on my best smile, shoving Iain out of my head.

  “Of course.”

  Chapter 11.

  Iain

  She didn’t call me.

  That thought had pounded through my head like some sort of fucked-up mantra over the past few days, but I had come to terms with it. It was, I supposed, for the best. I was completely out of line giving my number to her in the first place.

  I was supposed to be a private investigator, not some flirtatious douche-bag hounding a hot girl at a bar.

  I’d found her by accident - again, walking the same street we’d run into each other on that day I’d asked her if she was lost; I’d been trying to decide on my next move. I had, up until that point, been dragging my feet on scoping Michele, and I knew that if I didn’t find her again soon, this case would drag on and on forever. Brandon hadn’t called me again, but I knew it was only a matter of time.

  Part of me wanted to call and tell him that I couldn’t do it. There was no shame in that. Something about her with that wide-eyed stare and inquisitive expression made me feel incredibly dirty in thinking I could turn her back over to her husband when she so obviously wanted to be apart from him. But I had made a promise, not only to him, but to myself, that I would finish the job.

  I’d thought that until I had by chance seen her head into Catfish with an apron draped over her arm. It was barely two blocks from my apartment, and two blocks from that same street corner where I’d run into her last week. Seeing her hadn’t forced me into work mode like I would have thought. Seeing her invoked something within me that I couldn’t ignore.

  I had wanted to go inside, just to see her again.

  And what kind of luck was that, anyway? All this time and this woman had been so close, right down the street from me. How many times had I passed her on the street and hadn’t even known it?

  I passed the door several times, back and forth, indecisively. I’d gone back home and forced a cup of coffee down and idled while telling myself that I was being absolutely fucking stupid. I knew where she worked. This had been what I wanted. This had been exactly the shove I needed to do the right thing for Brandon.

  Totally wired, I had bundled back up and walked back to the bar. I peeked through the window and saw her talking with a dark-haired guy who was leaning against the bar, a look on his face that I just didn’t like. Something urgent and primal ran through me, and I walked inside without even thinking about the implications.

  And what followed was enough to confuse the shit out of me. She told me she was married. She also told me that she had escaped her marriage. She didn’t say why, but the look on her face had given me plenty to think about.

  Had Brandon… done something to her? Hurt her, or worse? I thought about the things he had said, the reasons he needed me to help him. To keep it quiet, to bring his wife back home… he had said he loved her, but what did I know, really?

  My own experience with love had taught me that it was so fleeting. And love was so easily faked, like that text message Emily had sent me while I was thirty thousand feet above the ground, oblivious that my life would never be the same once I’d landed.

  It was hard to believe that Brandon would have anything but pure intentions. Sure, he had a temper in the Army. We all did. We were at war, being shot at on a daily basis. We were hot and dirty and running on hardly any sleep.

  All too vividly, I remembered the explosion, the screaming of metal against sand and the heat of fire and smoke billowing against my face. I had felt the rough grit of sand and something worse against my mouth, the blinding sun in my eyes, and the knowledge that whatever happened, I couldn’t stop it from spreading.

  I remembered Brandon’s shout - “Move out of the way, soldier!” - I could still feel the rough blow against my chest as he shoved me, the weight of his body on mine as he lay on me, his elbow crushing against my sternum. My eyes had been blind wide open; I couldn’t remember seeing a single thing. Only whiteness. And then, too suddenly to even comprehend, there was another explosion, and the sound of his voice in my ear: “I got you. I got you.”

  I should have died, but I didn’t. Because of him.

  But did that mean anything now?

  The sound of my phone ringing jarred me out of my memories. I blinked, half expecting to see that high Iraqi sun, but I only saw the dull brown ceiling fan above my bed. It was after eleven, and I couldn’t imagine who would be calling me this late.

  “This is Iain.”

  There was a split second of silence on the other line, a sense of hesitation.

  “Hi Iain. It’s Lila.”

  The sound of her soft voice in my ear brought me up out of bed and onto my feet. I clutched the phone tighter, as if certain it would disappear if I didn’t.

  “Lila. How are you?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Good.” I swallowed, struggling for something to say. “Did you work tonight?”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry for calling you so late,” she said, and I thought I heard a twinge of fear in her voice. “I just… I’ve been thinking about you.”

  Her words sped my heart up. “Don’t be sorry. I was up anyway.” I paused. “I’ve been thinking about you, too,” I admitted. “A lot.”

  Saying those words made me realize just how true they were. Ever since Brandon called me, there’d been little else on my mind. I thought that maybe now was a good time to tell her the truth. To admit that Brandon was onto her, to tell her to hide somewhere else while she still could. But the selfish part of me, the part that wanted to take her to Central Park and know her better, consumed me. The idea of pushing her away before I even had the chance to know her felt so empty and wrong. />
  “I thought I’d take you up on your offer. To see Central Park,” she said, and I could hear an uptick in confidence as she spoke. “Or the Empire State Building.”

  “How long have you been in New York?” I asked, hating myself for pretending to not know. I began to pace back and forth in the small space, nervous energy overcoming me.

  “Just over four months.”

  “Okay, so what have you seen so far?”

  There was an obvious and prolonged beat before she said, “Nothing. Except what I saw of the park last week.”

  “No shit? I guess I’ll have to be your own personal tour guide. I won’t even charge you an arm and a leg for it.”

  Michele giggled, one of the cutest fucking noises I’d ever heard, and I forgot all about my ethical dilemma for a moment.

  “Sounds good,” she said. “When do you want to do this? Will you plan a route? Will you dress up like a professor in a history museum?”

  Laughing, I asked, “Why the hell would I dress up like a professor to take you on a tour of the city?”

  “I dunno. It just seems like something tour guides do,” she said, earnestly. And then she giggled again.

  “I will definitely plan a route to make sure we get the maximum amount of sight-seeing in one trip. And we can do it as soon as you’re able. I’m a pr- a… freelancer, so I’m able to choose my own hours most of the time.”

  My face burned at my near slip-up. I’d almost told her I was a private investigator, which would have totally freaked her out. Frustrated, I walked back to the bed and sat, running a hand through my hair.

  Would I have blamed her?

  “That sounds great,” she said. She sounded so genuine, I felt guilty all over again. “What do you freelance?”

  “Er - writing. Journalism, I mean,” I replied, the lie coming out so roughly I was half expecting her to call me out on that bullshit right then and there, but she didn’t.

  “That’s so cool! I’ve never met a journalist before.”

  “Well, um, now you have.”

  “I’m off the day after tomorrow,” Michele said, seemingly oblivious to my discomfort talking about my fake profession. “Why don’t we meet again on the same corner where we first met? Say, nine?”

  I was not surprised that she didn’t ask me to show up at her door. With everything she’d done to fall off the radar, I was honestly quite surprised she’d agree to this at all.

  I wished I could have agreed to this guilt-free, but there was no way around my conscience. I knew, without a doubt, that this was wrong. It was worse than leading her on - it was treachery. And this was Brandon’s wife, no matter the circumstances. No matter what he’d done, she didn’t belong to me.

  But she didn’t belong to him, either. She was free to make her own choices, and her choice was to spend the day with me.

  I could agree to this for one day, but then that was it. We’d part ways, and I’d call Brandon and tell him that I had a family emergency and couldn’t continue the case. He wouldn’t be able to dispute a family emergency, right? He could hire someone else. With his money, he could hire anyone.

  Why I would torture myself with only one day with this fascinating woman, I had no idea, but something inside of me was bidding me to do this. Stumbling upon her that day didn’t feel like simply chance. At the very least, I had to figure out why I felt so drawn to her. I could do that in a day.

  “It’s a date,” I said, and she laughed, causing my heart to warm in my chest for reasons I couldn’t explain.

  I could do it in a day, right?

  Chapter 12.

  Michele

  My upcoming date with Iain was on the forefront of my mind the entire day after our conversation on the phone, and well into the night. I was a combined bundle of nerves, excitement and anxiety. Agreeing to going out in public with him felt equal parts stupid and wonderful all at once. The paranoid part of me, the part that screamed at me to stay inside and not rock the boat - that part wasn’t strong enough to keep me away from him. Something drew me to him, and I couldn’t say why.

  It wasn’t too late to cancel. But every time I’d almost talked myself into doing so, an almost physical force stopped me from reaching for my phone and calling him. I had begun to think that maybe running into him again wasn’t just some happy coincidence. Maybe there was something, after all, drawing us together, something that couldn’t be explained.

  Or maybe I was just attracted to him and wanted to contrive any excuse I could to pursue it.

  The morning of our outing finally came and I woke too early, but I was too restless to fall back asleep. The day was bright and the forecast promised cold weather, and the sky was so clear and blue that it hurt to look at for too long. I dressed warmly and then made myself a cup of coffee in the kitchen.

  Mornings like this, back home, I would have pulled out my phone and scrolled endlessly through Facebook or Twitter while waiting for my coffee to cool down, reading the endless updates on my feeds. But I didn’t have social media anymore. When I moved here, I had gotten rid of everything in an effort to rid myself of my past life; I’d powered down my iPhone on Brandon’s phone plan and shoved it in my underwear drawer then bought myself a cheap prepaid phone with no data plan, registered in my fake name.

  It had been an adjustment at first. The time that’d been freed up from staring at screens seemed to stretch on forever. Now, I barely felt it at all, that pull to constantly grab for my phone to check it. I enjoyed the silence of my own thoughts most of the time, except on bad days when my paranoia manifested into something tangible inside of me. On those days, I wished I had something to distract me, but never did I miss my iPhone.

  The mug warmed my chilled hands and I heard the sounds of footsteps creaking behind me. Turning, I saw Evan emerge from his and Shannon’s bedroom and head to the kitchen.

  “Morning,” he said, when he noticed me. His sand-colored hair was sticking straight up in the back, and I suppressed a laugh.

  “Good morning.” I took a sip of coffee and smiled. “How did you sleep?”

  “Eh, I would have slept better if I wasn’t fighting this cold,” he replied, sounding unbearably stuffy and grabbing a mug from the cupboard. He poured himself a cup, then took a sip. “Coffee heals all, though.”

  “Yeah, it sure does.”

  “Shannon said that you got to see Central Park last week,” he said, coming around the island and leaning against it.

  “Uh, yeah, I did. Finally.”

  “There’s a lot of nice parks in the city. There’s a lot to do here.”

  “Yeah, I… I noticed. It’s just, you know, hard sometimes. To make the time.”

  Evan nodded as if he understood what I was saying, but I saw a certain look in his eye that told me he didn’t at all. He took another sip, the sound accentuated in the still room.

  “Next week they’re doing an open house at an art gallery in Carroll Gardens featuring a mixed-media artist that I think you and Shannon would really like. And there’s free wine and hors d’oeuvres for the showing.”

  “Is this artist one of yours?”

  “Yup. Chantrea Meng. I’m hoping to move at least three of her pieces that night, and I’ve already got several interested buyers. I’d love it if you came.”

  “Wow, it sounds like you know what you’re doing,” I said, smiling. I felt flattered he’d offer me a spot at one of his open houses, which I’d come to understand were uppity events, classy and elegant. I wondered if I’d fit in at a place like that, but figured that if Evan was inviting me, then he obviously thought I would. “I’ll ask for that night off. When is it?”

  “Next Friday. Shannon will be glad to hear you want to come.”

  As if on cue, the bedroom door creaked open again and Shannon came out, hair a tangly, curly mess, oversized pink pajama bottoms hanging loosely on her hips.

  “Did I hear my name?” she asked sleepily.

  “Yup,” Evan said, winking at me and wrapping ba
ck around the island to pull a mug out for her, pouring and doctoring a cup of coffee to Shannon’s liking. “Michele is going to the open house next week.”

  Shannon smiled and took the offered mug graciously. “Thanks, babe. And that’s awesome! We’ll have so much fun pretending to be filthy rich, drinking all the wine and eating all the cheese.”

  I nodded, smiling, perking up at the picture her words painted in my head. “Sounds like a good time.”

  “I mean, not all the wine and cheese, right?” Evan asked, feigning distress.

  “Um, sure, honey.”

  Shannon caught my eye, and we both burst into laughter.

  xxx

  It was 8:50 when I arrived at the corner, and Iain was already there, hands in his pockets. His cheeks were pink from the cold, and he was dressed in a warm-looking pea coat and jeans, his eyes bluer than I remembered them being. I smiled, the sight of him sending butterflies straight through me. Suddenly, I felt shy.

  “Hey you,” he said, stepping forward, intent in his eyes. I thought he might touch me, but he seemed to think better of it and didn’t.

  “Hi,” I said. I stepped closer to him, only dimly aware of the passing cars and people surrounding us. I only saw him.

  “Are you ready for our magical adventure in Manhattan?” he asked, his tone playful. I tried to ignore my speeding heart.

  “Yes.”

  He smiled, and his face completely transformed into something lighter. I wanted to step closer to him, to feel his warmth. But I didn’t.

  “Good.” He held his hand out, hovering there in the space between us. I thought that this was the moment of truth, as if that hand was asking me, symbolically, if I was sure I wanted to do this.

  Throat dry, I reached out and interlaced my own hand in his. His fingers were cold and rough, but I fixated on his hand as if it were an anchor keeping me grounded. We walked to the subway.

  I was holding someone’s hand that wasn’t Brandon’s for the first time in over six years.