Audrey's Door Part 11

"Probably," Audrey said. "But it's still not a good sign."

"If you love him, you should answer it." Jayne fixed her eyes on Audrey, like she was willing her to be brave, because maybe she didn't think she'd ever find love, but she wanted it for her friends.

"Bam!" Saraub knocked again, but she could tell that he was getting tired, and the knocks were becoming less frequent. Soon, he'd give up and go home. And pretty soon after that, he'd move on and find someone else. It can happen like that, even when it's the real thing: love dies all the time. Saraub knocked again, but she could tell that he was getting tired, and the knocks were becoming less frequent. Soon, he'd give up and go home. And pretty soon after that, he'd move on and find someone else. It can happen like that, even when it's the real thing: love dies all the time.

"I should should answer it, shouldn't I?" answer it, shouldn't I?"

Jayne's dimples deepened. "Well, duh! He's a total hottie."

Audrey took a breath and headed for the door. She realized then, that if Jayne hadn't been with her, she would never have answered the intercom. She would have stayed in this vast, miserable apartment, lit only by the light of the television, as she'd rearranged the furniture, or G.o.d help her, worked on that door, and the night had pa.s.sed into day. And another day. And another. Until this mistake of an apartment became her prison. Thank G.o.d for Jayne.

As she pulled the latch on the door, Saraub banged once more: Bam! Bam!

Then, suddenly, an old woman shrieked, "No subletting! I'm calling the police!"

This was followed by another raspy, feminine shout: "She's not home. Leave her alone!"

And then a baritone: "What's this, young man? You don't live here!"

Audrey swung the door wide and wondered for a moment if she'd accidentally moved into an old-age home. About ten residents were standing in the hall. Unlike at Betty's loony bin, none had shoulder dandruff, or drooled. Instead, their hair plugs, wigs, and sprayed-over bald spots were coiffed into Claudette Colbert curls and dapper pomade comb-overs. A few clutched gimlet gla.s.ses filled with brown liquid and cherries-Manhattans? They wore c.o.c.ktail dresses or dapper suits that had faded over the years, but were fine nonetheless. Their skin was pulled taut, so she could see the ridges of their skulls and blue veins. More surgery. Some of it was good, some of it, horrific. It was close to midnight on a Monday night, and these fossils had been having a c.o.c.ktail party.

One of the old men was even wearing a white porcelain mask with holes for his eyes and nose, but no s.p.a.ce for his mouth. She thought he might be recovering from a recent, drastic procedure. Galton-Jayne had mentioned him.

The old lady from 14C next door-Mrs. Parker-had traded her dressing gown for a sequined black c.o.c.ktail dress that revealed dimpled chicken legs. Bad. Worse, her orange lipstick feathered along the skin of her upper lip. "No subletters!" she shrilled.

"I don't like strangers. They give me terrible dreams," Galton mumbled through his mask.

A tall man wearing a bow-tie tuxedo bellowed, "Siamese twins belong in Siam!" He banged what looked like Edgardo's k.n.o.bby cane...In a fit of senility, had he stolen from his own super?

"Shaaddup, Evvie Waugh, before I throw a drink at you!" Mrs. Parker shrieked back at him.

The guy closest to Audrey's apartment crouched, so that his center of gravity was level, then raised his Parkinson's-shaking dukes at Saraub like he was going to throw a punch. His face got so red that she thought it might burst: "You leave the little lady alone!"

Audrey's eyes met Saraub's, and they exchanged a single, half-formed thought: what the h.e.l.l? what the h.e.l.l?

Saraub lifted his hands above his head, open palms facing out. Sweat rolled down his thick, black brows, and he wiped it away with his raised shoulders. His wax jacket lay in a crinkled pile in front of her feet, where he must have dropped it.

Parkinson's didn't budge. Audrey feared that the stress would give him a coronary seizure.

"I'm sorry," she announced to the c.o.c.ktail party. "It's fine. Please, it's a personal matter. I hope we didn't disturb you."

Instead of backing away, the shaking old man inched closer, like he'd decided she was a battered wife defending her abusive man.

Evvie Waugh (14D?) lifted the k.n.o.bby cane like a baseball bat, and got ready to swing. The sight was both terrible and ludicrous.

Saraub panted, and his eyes bugged. He hated getting in trouble, even imaginary trouble. "Really, folks. It's fine," she called out.

Jayne peeped her head from behind Audrey's shoulder and waved at them. "It's fine!" she agreed with bouncing, irrepressible delight. "We were having a girls' night!"

Audrey put her hand on Saraub's back and he lowered his arms. "This is my boyfriend"-she winced at the misuse of the word, but now wasn't the time for fine distinctions-"I'm very, very sorry. We don't usually fight...This won't be a regular midnight show," she said. "You can all go back to.... your party."

"Boyfriend! Edgardo said she was single. I wasn't expecting it. I don't like surprises. Party's over! My whole night is ruined!" Mrs. Parker screeched, then stomped back into 14C.

Evvie lowered the k.n.o.bby cane. He, Galton, and a handful of others followed Mrs. Parker back to 14C, where Audrey imagined they'd been having a Bengay orgy. They smelled like it. Thank G.o.d for soundproof, plaster walls.

"Just as long as you're okay," Parkinson's announced to Audrey without ever looking at Saraub.

"Marty Hearst, she's fine," Jayne told the shaking man. Then she waved her hand at him like it was a broom, sweeping him away: "Skedaddle!"

Sheepishly, Marty Hearst dropped his dukes and retreated with the others. Drinks in hands, the rest of them meandered toward the apartment near the fire stairs.

"Good night, everybody," Audrey called, then picked up Saraub's wax jacket from the floor where he'd dropped it and entered 14B. Hopping at her heels, Jayne followed. Saraub brought up the rear and shut and locked the door behind him.

"Bananas!" Audrey announced.

14.

We Pick Our Own Families They walked down the fifty-foot hall. Though they'd never met, Saraub took Jayne's upper arm and helped her as she limped.

"Jayne," Audrey heard her say, and he answered, "Saraub Ramesh. Pleased to meet you. Do you live in the building?" He sounded fl.u.s.tered, but polite.

When they got to the den, he helped Jayne into the fold-out chair, seeming immediately to understand that she required kid gloves. Jayne grinned, delighted by the attention.

"That was, indeed, bananas," he said to Audrey.

She smiled. "Yes, but could you have taken Marty?"

He shook his head, like she was incorrigible. "Funny girl." Then he picked up the mostly empty bottle of wine and pointed it at her. "Liquid dinner?" His eyes followed her shape from turquoise pumps to coffee-stained blouse, and the slack belt that cinched nothing, in between. "Looks like too many liquid dinners."

She shrugged. "The breakfast of champions." She was out of breath as she spoke. Surprisingly nervous. Surprisingly happy. What if he'd come here to apologize? What if she left with him right now and never had to breathe the depressing air of this apartment ever ever EVER again?

"You should know that my phone got stolen by a band of roving dwarfs. I hope you didn't call and get hung up on by one of them," she added.

"Oh, I just thought that was you, being a bi-" he didn't finish, and looked down.

"Bird?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Something like that." Their eyes met. She willed herself not to look away.

Jayne grinned ear to ear like a kid, and Audrey felt a swell of affection for her, and Saraub, and even for herself. They were all pretty okay people. You make me happy, You make me happy, she wanted to tell him, and Jayne, too. she wanted to tell him, and Jayne, too.

Saraub sighed, as if just then remembering something. "I came here for a reason. Can we talk alone?" he asked.

Audrey nodded. "Yeah, but Jayne's my friend. It's fine."

A car alarm resounded, beeping and thrumping like a siren getting closer, then farther away. He closed the turret window. Doubled birds became single. The room got darker, and the air thickened. She hated this apartment, she really did. She hated everything it represented, too.

"It's bad news. You should sit down." His grin had gone from tense to rictus. She noticed that he was wearing a suit instead of his usual corduroys. A job interview? Had Maginot Lines Maginot Lines finally gotten backing? finally gotten backing?

"I tried to get you at work, and here, too. I stopped by a few hours ago, but you weren't home yet."

"What?" she asked, still without sitting. She tried to sound natural, but her voice had a frog in it. Was he leaving town?

Saraub squatted, so that they were eye to eye. "The hospital's emergency contact was the landline at our apartment," he said. "I didn't give them your cell-phone number. Maybe I should have, but I wanted it to come from me."

Something clicked. It took her a second, her mind raced forward, then back. At first it was a possibility, then she knew without a doubt. There was only one thing it could be.

"There was an emergency at the Nebraska State Psychiatric Hospital?" she asked.

Saraub nodded.

She got breathless. In her mind, the birds flapped their wings inside the stained gla.s.s but couldn't break free, and the rotted floor under the piano opened along broken, uneven lines. Something intelligent, but not sane crept out. She looked down at the wood, and thought about how high up she was-the fourteenth floor. What hubris to believe that men could erect buildings in the clouds and trust that they didn't collapse into ashes. What hubris to believe that she'd escaped the Midwest, when all along, it had only been biding its time, waiting to snap her back. Clever Betty.

Her knees buckled, but Saraub clamped his hand around her upper arm and held her steady. Crippled Jayne reached up from her seat, and held her other arm with an ice-cold claw.

She knew what had happened. Betty had gone AWOL, just like in Omaha, and Hinton, and Sioux City. "Have they looked in the bars nearby? That's usually the first place. I'll need them to come up with a list. Or maybe you guys could help."

Saraub pushed her down into a chair, and then knelt in front of her. His skin had gotten sallow since she left. Drinking? Eating every meal out? The man was good at taking care of other people but terrible at taking care of himself. She regretted that it hadn't occurred to her to worry about him until now.

"Audrey," he said.

She nodded, to let him know that yes, she was ready for this. She was prepared.

"Your mother tried to kill herself. She's in a coma."

15.

Children's Hour It didn't hit her. She didn't believe it. "You're sure? Betty Lucas?"

Saraub nodded. "Positive. Betty Lucas. Nebraska State Psychiatric Hospital. An overdose. She'd been h.o.a.rding her pills, they think."

"A suicide," Audrey heard herself say. Her tongue was dry and flopping in her mouth. "She cycled again."

Saraub let out a breath. "That's the word they used, too...They said you needed to get out there right away if you want to see her before..."

She nodded and touched her throat, which was dry. "Did they tell you what pills, or when?"

He shrugged. Only one bulb in the ceiling was working, so the room was pretty dark. The television still played, but someone had turned down the volume. His s.h.i.+ny face and the water in his eyes reflected the miserly light. "I don't remember what pills. But I checked the airports-there's a flight out of JFK tomorrow morning through the Twin Cities, to Omaha."

"Lithium? Depakote?"

He nodded. "That's right. Lithium, I think."

She let out a breath. Bad sign. Most people don't wake up from lithium comas, and even if they do, the brain damage ruins them.

"They said...she's dying. So if you want to see her, you'll have to leave first thing."

"Dying," she said. In her mind she rearranged. She placed dishes atop one another, stacked papers and topiaries and engraved mourning walls. (How many dead over the years, the centuries? They piled and piled, the ghosts of this world. There weren't enough living to mourn them.) "Yeah. That's what they said."

In her mind, she repeated all the things he'd told her, and heard him. Her mother and best friend had tried to kill herself.

It was then that her thoughts kaleidoscoped into discrete segments of shock, pretty and fragile as stained gla.s.s. She looked around the room, and like a compound-eyed insect, saw each shard clearly: There was the green Parkside Plaza, whose design was too cold. For the first time, she understood why she'd never liked the feel of gra.s.s between her toes, or dogs, or countertop clutter; she was frightened of them because they were unpredictable, like her mother.

There was yellow Jayne, who'd played cheerful for so long now to mask her sorrow that even she could not distinguish the woman from the act.

There was blue Saraub, holding her hand. Like her mother had predicted so many years ago, she'd broken the heart of a man she hadn't wanted.

There was the black Breviary, which she knew right then, without doubt, was haunted.

The center of the kaleidoscope was red, and in it she saw weeping Betty Lucas. An abandoned wretch in a backless hospital gown, no family save the daughter who never called.

The kaleidoscope narrowed until there was only Betty, and for a moment everything around her went red, too. The air, the floors, Saraub's s.h.i.+rt, Jayne's gauze bandage. All like blood.

Saraub knelt at her chair. "It's okay," he said, with his lips so close to her ear that she could feel their warmth. The sound of his voice echoed at first, then went dead, like something in the walls was stealing his words as they reverberated. She knew in that moment that Edgardo and the movers had been right. She was too emotional. Her heartbreak, first from Saraub, and now this, had roused something terrible.

Her grief made all these things clear, and fleeting. They existed as a distraction, flitting about the memories of Betty that were too painful to bear.

Her eyes watered, and to steel herself from a crying jag, she thought about the broken promise Betty had made to her, so many years ago. That lost photo. Thought about the lines on her wrists, unacknowledged. Those bulls.h.i.+t coveralls with holes in all the wrong places.

Her eyes dried, and in the place of tears, a slithering thing radiated from her stomach to the edges of her skin. It unfurled as it grew like a vine. Black spores of rot in berry cl.u.s.ters hung from its branches. It filled first her chest, then her limbs, and the s.p.a.ce between her ears, and then her eyes, so that she lost the knowledge of color, and finally, her mouth, so that even her appet.i.tes were gone. The spores of fury were dry and bitter. They shriveled her insides, smaller and smaller.

"A nurse found her early this morning," Saraub said. "I called all day...I came to your apartment before, too. But you weren't home yet."

She thought of Betty in a bed, all by herself. One moment an angel, the next, a villain. And the thing is, do you blame the sickness, or its host?

The spores thickened. The mold overtook her until she was dry and bitter, too. There were others trapped here with her. Four children and a woman. They opened their eyes, cornflower blue that coalesced, like running ink, into black. Their mouths opened, too.

Build the door a voice whispered. The man in the three-piece suit. Did they hear him, too? a voice whispered. The man in the three-piece suit. Did they hear him, too?

She turned a cold eye on her visitors. Drunk, ugly Jayne, who reeked of cigarettes and stupid decisions. Saraub, a doormat. He'd told her she was a ghost, and she wondered at the irony, if she slit his throat right now and trapped him here forever.

Would you like that, Breviary? She wondered as she watched them. She wondered as she watched them. Shall I cut them for you? Shall I cut them for you?

In her mind she covered them with mold. It grew over and inside them, through their mouths and ears and noses, until all was black. Until the vine wore their skin, and used them dry, and they became dust. Everything, like dust. The whole world a barren place.

"Do you need a gla.s.s of water?" she heard Saraub ask from far away, as if beneath a bathtub full of water.