Audrey's Door Part 6

"The hippy thing-your young-life crisis."

He made a fist and squeezed. "Right."

"Well, that's wonderful! But don't be too hard on Servitus. We've got half our stock invested. They paid for your college. And that beautiful wing at the Met, too."

"I know," he said, though it seemed like c.r.a.ppy timing to bring it up, just now.

"Only company that's up this year. Thank G.o.d! Anyway, this is wonderful news, dear. We can celebrate tonight. I'm so happy you called. I was just thinking about you because I don't have any recent pictures for the refrigerator. What do you want to eat? I'm about to give Innocencia the list. I thought puran polis-you like them, yes?"

He nodded, still wiping the crumbs from his backside. It occurred to him that he'd been down lately because normally he washed his clothes after wearing them. Working at home this last month had come at a bad time. He needed to be around people. "Dinner sounds great. What can I bring?"

"Wonderful! I'll set an extra place. So much to catch up on. Did you know your two cousins took over the business? It's still Ramesh and Ramesh, of course."

He smiled. Better news than he'd hoped. It meant his mother and aunts had sold their shares, and likely, each eldest son, except for Saraub, was now a partner. Which also meant that he was out of the rug business for good.

"Great news. I'll bring red wine. How's that?" Saraub asked. He walked as he talked, feeling energetic for the first time since Audrey left. Feeling good. He started picking up clothes off the floor. Maybe the worst of it was over. Maybe that first two weeks after she left, when he hadn't shaved or brushed his hair, were in the past. h.e.l.l, maybe he was even ready to start dating again.

"Yes. How about a nice Bordeaux? Two bottles. Oh, and Whiskers is good, but he'll be happy to see you. No one ever scratches his ears."

Saraub by now had piled his clothes into a heap on the kitchen table and was deciding whether to carry them to the Laundromat two blocks north, or burn them. "Okay. Two Bordeaux!" He was surprised by how well all this had gone. It was as if they'd never fought. And why had they fought? Over Audrey? It all seemed so ridiculous now. He'd built Sheila up in his mind as unreasonable, but maybe it was Audrey's influence that had done the damage.

"Six o'clock for c.o.c.ktails. Seven for dinner. But come earlier if you want."

"Great!"

"Oh, and one more thing, darling. I'm only setting one extra plate."

Saraub's pulse throbbed in his temples. "How's that?"

"Only you."

He took a breath. Thought about telling her he wanted to come home for a night, and have a meal cooked, and be loved, and safe, and treated like he was special. He thought about telling her Audrey was gone, and he was the most down he'd ever been in his life. "You know that won't work, Mom," he said instead.

There was a long silence. He counted to ten. The silence continued. Always a game with her. Always about winning, because she was so sure she was right. His father, when he'd been around, had softened her. After he died, she turned into a frightened, clinging person, and even for his younger sisters, home stopped being home.

"I should go," he said. "I just wanted to tell you my good news."

"Don't," she said. "Come for dinner. I miss you. And we should talk about your trust fund, too. I've added to it, but I haven't put it in your name. Tax reasons."

He winced, and remembered now, why they'd stopped talking. It hadn't just been about Audrey. "I miss you too, Mom. Take care of yourself, and call me if you need me." He didn't say good-bye; he just hung up.

When he got off, his head was pounding. The apartment was veiled in a layer of filth. He shoved the clothes from the table, so they landed in a heap on the floor. In the kitchen, he mixed a large, crusty bowl with flour, milk, and eggs, and fried it in b.u.t.ter so that it resembled a huge pancake. It tasted like the stuff inside a horse's feedbag, but some syrup did the trick, and soaked up the acid in his stomach. When he was done, he looked around the home he'd made with Audrey, with its empty s.p.a.ce where a piano had been, and punched another hole through the wall.

8.

Everything Old Is New Again (Rats!) Monday morning, Audrey woke with a start. Her alarm clock read 3:18. She jumped up from the air mattress. Her throat! The man! The swarming ants!

Heart pitter-pattering, she rubbed her eyes and spun around the room like a windup toy. Her body was wet. Was it blood? Was she dead? No, it was sweat. Her black cotton trousers were soaked through. She felt uneasy, ashamed. A dream?

And then her cheeks turned crimson. Something was really wrong. Her thighs itched, and were too hot. She inspected the coat she'd slept under, and the wet mattress, and her crotch. Her breath came fast. She didn't want to believe it. She hadn't done this since Hinton.

But the smell. The heat. Oh, G.o.d.

The piano bench was askew, so she righted it-exactly hip distance from the keys. Her ballet flats were scattered, so she placed them next to each other, then on top of each other, then next to each other, then willed herself to drop them. The muscles of her face contracted into quiet sorrow. Saraub. The nightmares, and now, good grief, she'd p.i.s.sed the bed!

She took a breath. Then another. One! Two! Three! Four!

(And Mami makes Five!) She swiped the air mattress with a wet rag, peeled off her pants, and headed for the shower. Her wrist ached. Something sore and tight. She looked at it, then sighed with disappointment: she'd been so out of sorts last night that she'd fallen asleep wearing her watch. Its k.n.o.b had worn a welt into the bone there. She unclasped the steel band and freed her inflamed skin, then glanced at the time. 10:05 A.M. A.M.

What!

She scrambled to the turret. Chiaroscuro shadows rushed as she ran so that the stained-gla.s.s birds looked like they'd been freed and were cras.h.i.+ng against the walls. It was so dark in here-how could the sun have risen already? But when she got to the window, she saw that her watch was correct. It was midmorning. She'd slept twelve hours for the first time since...her hash-smoking days back out west. Down below, college kids rushed toward Columbia University, and throngs of Manhattanites disappeared into the sooty mouth of the 110th Street subway. Street subway.

The alarm clock, she realized, was dark. Why had she thought it read 3:18 A.M.? She picked it up and found the problem. Its wire had been severed. Not cleanly sliced, but ragged, so that pieces of copper hung loose like Shredded Wheat.

A rat? A lot of rats? She hated hated rats! rats!

She started for the bathroom-a quick shower. Saw that even after an entire night's sleep, the bags under her green eyes had deepened. She ran the tub, since the shower didn't seem to be working. Brown water glugged. A red ant crawled out from the drain, and she smashed it. She really hated ants. Always had. Then she remembered the thing she'd forgotten: she had an eleven o'clock status meeting. Big day. Huge, career-making day. And she was really late.

She raced. Found the only business attire that wasn't wrinkled-a black skirt, white polyester blouse, and clas.h.i.+ng turquoise pumps, then reached for her jacket inside the double-doored den closet.

She would have missed it if she hadn't b.u.mped into it. The sound was pretty, like the light footsteps of small children (One! Two! Three! Four!). Boxes scattered. They didn't bounce against the hardwood floor, or roll. Instead, they skated.

The empty cardboard boxes from her move. About twenty of them. They'd been recorrugated into new shapes; doubled-up triangles, squares, and rectangles, and were taped together end to end with clear packaging tape. Leaning against the far closet wall, they formed a solid, six-foot-by-four-foot rectangle. At the center edge of the rectangle was a circular cutout. A hole for a handle...This thing was a door!

She ran her hands along the side of the structure. Sparks of electricity ignited in her fingertips like touching dry ice. The materials were shoddy, but the construction professional. The various shapes fit perfectly, like a jigsaw puzzle, and each one b.u.t.tressed the next. They'd all been turned inside out, so their writing (PALMOLIVE, SERVITUS, PFIZER, HAMMERHEAD, UNITED CHINESE EMIRATES) didn't show.

She remembered a snippet of her dream. The man in the closet, and her mother's accusation: It's a bad place, where you live It's a bad place, where you live.... and something else, too. Something about Hinton that she couldn't quite remember: a mirror layered with ants, down a muddy hole.

Who had built this door? Edgardo, playing a mean prank because he'd gotten fired? One of the neighbors? Saraub? Clara? The man from her dream?

She sighed. But her sharp box cutter lay on the piano, its blade open. Her arms hurt, and so did her back. Even her legs ached. But it's hard for your watch to dig a welt into your wrist when you're sleeping soundly. A truth she preferred not to admit was now too obvious to deny: a professional had done this thing. She She had built this thing. had built this thing.

She took a deep breath and turned away from the closet. Its evidence was too unsettling. Sleepwalking. Strange dreams, sleeping in front of a television instead of in a proper bed. Moving into a haunted and crumbling apartment like a modern-day Miss Haversham. These decisions were pathologically stupid. No doubt about it: she was turning into her mother.

Audrey's lower lip got quivery. But no. She wasn't like Betty! Why couldn't she ever give herself credit? She'd gotten herself to New York. A scholars.h.i.+p to Columbia University, for Christ's sake! Everybody knows those programs aren't easy. It's like being a doctor! She paid rent once a month, and on time. When Saraub got cut off, she'd been the one to draw up a budget so they'd been able to afford orange juice and winter coats. She'd been the one to keep him from taking an office job, so he could push forward on Maginot Lines, Maginot Lines, too. So yeah, she'd peed her pants last night. But that didn't make her crazy. too. So yeah, she'd peed her pants last night. But that didn't make her crazy.

As for the boxes and alarm-clock wire, she'd just been sleepwalking. Growing up, she used to sleepwalk all the time. Pretty reasonable, given the circ.u.mstances. Whose subconscious wouldn't run from Betty?

She sighed and put her hand to her throat. Sore. She knew what she had to do next. An unpleasant but unavoidable necessity. She needed to find a shrink. Fast. Because Saraub wasn't around anymore, and there was n.o.body left to catch her if she fell.

Then she looked at her watch, which she'd put on the other wrist: 10:30. "Cripes on a cross!" she shouted. How the heck had she just wasted an entire half hour? She opened the door and fled.

While waiting for the elevator, a tubercular-skinny old woman with a yellow, spray-on tan peeked out from 14C, the apartment next door.

"Hi, darling," she said.

Audrey startled. It took her a second before she realized to whom the old lady was speaking.

"Hi!" Audrey said. The arrowed, ivory b.u.t.ton pointing down was carved, not stamped, and time had worn a finger-shaped groove into its center. She pressed it again.

"A lot of unpacking, sweetie?" the woman called. Her face shone, pasty and slick with what looked like cold cream. Something about her was off. It took Audrey a beat before she figured it out: plastic surgery. The woman's pale, paper-thin skin was without wrinkles, though she had to be at least eighty-five. Her cheekbones were preternaturally high, and her chin was too sharp, as if its bone had been sawed to a point. The effect wasn't pretty, but insectile-a praying mantis. Even her eyes were wrong. They were too wide for her narrow face, and as Audrey looked more closely, too perfect in their roundness, like a doll's. Man-made holes like slits in fabric. Audrey couldn't help it. She gasped. The woman looked inhuman.

"I said, a lot of unpacking?" the woman repeated, slower this time, like maybe Audrey was simple.

"Uh-huh," Audrey answered. She tried not to look at the woman, then couldn't help looking, and imagining the surgery. Skin sliced open, pulled tight, stapled closed. Bone and flesh separated like strangers.

The woman opened the door wider. Audrey blinked, then blinked longer, but both times, she saw the same thing. The woman wore an aged and yellowed dressing gown. Nineteen-twenties vintage silk-something Jean Harlow might have strutted through an old gangster movie. It fit her like the clear plastic casing butchers squeeze over sausages. Her saggy arm flesh disgorged from its short sleeves, then hung all the way down to her wrinkled elbows. Oh, Audrey hated wrinkled elbows worse than knuckles. They were like giant gerbil babies!

"You building something in there?" the woman asked. Audrey saw now, that her eyes were clouded with cataracts. Partly this was rea.s.suring. Maybe half-blind, she didn't realize she'd gone overboard on the surgery.

"What do you mean?" Audrey asked. A few floors down, the elevator hummed.

The woman smiled. "All that hammering about last night."

Literal hammering? Audrey wanted to ask, Audrey wanted to ask, Because I don't remember that so well. Because I don't remember that so well. Instead she said, "Sorry if I kept you up." Instead she said, "Sorry if I kept you up."

"Oh, don't you worry, sweetie. Everybody here builds. We all try our hand, but I know you'll be the best," she said. Then, with one useless eye, she winked.

The elevator pinged, and 14 lit up. Audrey got inside and pressed "L" just as the woman planted her bare feet on the hallway carpet. All that money spent on a wrinkle-free face and a liposuction-skinny body, but her toenails were yellow with fungus. "Don't be a stranger!" she called.

Audrey nodded, too shocked to speak. The metal cage closed, separating her from 14C's strange beast. "Leaping Jesus!" she muttered, as the car plunged.

9.

The Business of Grief A shooting spree in Times Square closed off Broadway, extending gridlock all the way into Harlem, so she took her chances and headed for the subway. On her ride, the #1 train slammed to a stop at Columbus Circle. Audrey clung to the metal strap in the ceiling with both hands while a middle-aged Dutch tourist in an "I shooting spree in Times Square closed off Broadway, extending gridlock all the way into Harlem, so she took her chances and headed for the subway. On her ride, the #1 train slammed to a stop at Columbus Circle. Audrey clung to the metal strap in the ceiling with both hands while a middle-aged Dutch tourist in an "I[image] NY" T-s.h.i.+rt and Mickey Mouse backpack stumbled down the aisle with his arms outstretched, like he was racing toward his long-lost true love, lederhosen-clad Minnie. NY" T-s.h.i.+rt and Mickey Mouse backpack stumbled down the aisle with his arms outstretched, like he was racing toward his long-lost true love, lederhosen-clad Minnie.

Before impact, he squeezed his deli coffee cup. Its lid saucered into the air. As he plunged into her chest, he crushed the cup between them. She swung from the strap while he held her shoulders for balance. The good news: The coffee was lukewarm and didn't burn. The bad news: where to begin? Her s.h.i.+rt was sopping wet, and by the time she got to the office, it was 11:10.

As soon as she walked through the door, Bethy Astor popped out from behind her narrow reception podium like a restaurant hostess, and announced in a loud whisper, "You're in so much trouble. Jill s.h.i.+t a brick. She s.h.i.+t two bricks. It's s.h.i.+t-brick-splatter all over the walls." The sun shone bright through the windows, so Bethy's auburn hair looked like it was on fire. Devil Bethy. Slightly less annoying than regular Bethy.

"That bad?" Audrey asked. Her s.h.i.+rt from the coffee spill on the subway was wet and cold. Sticky, too. Figured Mr. Mickey Mouse was a three tablespoons of sugar kind of guy.

Bethy leaped across her desk so that half her body dangled. She was a friendly, nervous girl just out of college who couldn't transfer callers without disconnecting them. Like most of the people who worked here, she wore thousand-dollar suits and her blood was blue. Also like most people here, she'd gotten her job through connections. "Sooo bad," Bethy exclaimed with both hands on her heart, like it might break if she didn't hold it together.

Audrey sighed. Something squirmed in her gut like acid indigestion, only more, well, squirmy. What kind of a cutesy name is Bethy, anyway?

"And the thing is, I like you, Audrey!" Bethy said, like she was auditioning to perform Audrey's eulogy at the annual Luck Strike Smokehouse company retreat. "If they boot you, I'm gonna put Ex-Lax in that b.i.t.c.h's coffee."

Audrey took a deep breath. "Well, for that it might be worth it."

Jill Sidenschwandt was Audrey's supervisor, and one of only nine other women in the eighty-person office. Jill had entered the business back when architecture had still been a boys' club, so even though she'd given Vesuvius thirty years of hard work, she'd never made partner. She was bitter about that. Or maybe she was just generally bitter, Audrey couldn't tell.

Since Jill's fourth kid got diagnosed with leukemia, she'd stopped working the same long hours as the rest of the 59th Street team. Instead, she'd been delegating, and leaving Audrey in charge. But Audrey was bad at delegating, and besides, she didn't have the job t.i.tle to back her up. As a result, some parts of the project were in great shape, others, a mess. And Jill hadn't been paying enough attention to know the messes from the successes. Street team. Instead, she'd been delegating, and leaving Audrey in charge. But Audrey was bad at delegating, and besides, she didn't have the job t.i.tle to back her up. As a result, some parts of the project were in great shape, others, a mess. And Jill hadn't been paying enough attention to know the messes from the successes.

The meeting was a status report on the 59th Street, Parkside Plaza Project. Six months ago, a Ukrainian man with two hundred pounds of urea nitrate strapped to his back got past security. The metal detectors hadn't sounded, and, remarkably, the guards hadn't questioned the note he'd written on the sign-in sheet: "End Servitus Tyranny." On the elevator, the terrorist had unstrapped the bomb from his waist and held it in his hands. A Good Samaritan had strong-armed him to the roof. During the struggle, the bomb detonated. Twenty midmorning smokers were killed up there, and another eighty-four died on the top floor when the ceiling fell. If not for the Samaritan, mortalities would have been in the thousands. It took the FBI almost two months to identify his remains: Richardo Monge, an illegal immigrant from Costa Rica who operated the street-level bagel cart. He'd been in the middle of a coffee delivery when he'd seen the bomb and saved the building. Street, Parkside Plaza Project. Six months ago, a Ukrainian man with two hundred pounds of urea nitrate strapped to his back got past security. The metal detectors hadn't sounded, and, remarkably, the guards hadn't questioned the note he'd written on the sign-in sheet: "End Servitus Tyranny." On the elevator, the terrorist had unstrapped the bomb from his waist and held it in his hands. A Good Samaritan had strong-armed him to the roof. During the struggle, the bomb detonated. Twenty midmorning smokers were killed up there, and another eighty-four died on the top floor when the ceiling fell. If not for the Samaritan, mortalities would have been in the thousands. It took the FBI almost two months to identify his remains: Richardo Monge, an illegal immigrant from Costa Rica who operated the street-level bagel cart. He'd been in the middle of a coffee delivery when he'd seen the bomb and saved the building.

Allied Incorporated American Banking (AIAB), which held a one-hundred-year lease on the 59th Street property, had picked Vesuvius to rebuild the gutted floors and erect a rooftop memorial for those who'd died. Jill was team leader because, before her son got sick, she'd asked for more responsibility. If her team design saw completion, the firm's founders had promised to finally make her a partner. Street property, had picked Vesuvius to rebuild the gutted floors and erect a rooftop memorial for those who'd died. Jill was team leader because, before her son got sick, she'd asked for more responsibility. If her team design saw completion, the firm's founders had promised to finally make her a partner.

Silk blouse sopping wet, Audrey raced to her workstation cubicle, where Jill stood with crossed arms.

"You're late. We're all waiting," she said. Her skin looked pale blue, like her blood had been replaced with black and blue ink, and if you touched her, she'd bruise.

"I'm so sorry," Audrey panted.

Jill was tall and slender, but big-boned. Her uniform was loose-fitting pantsuits and fussy silk blouses that tied into bows at the neck, like an ERA poster from 1972. "I just finished going over floors forty-seven through fifty in the boardroom, but not the roof. That's up to you."

"What?" Audrey panted. As project manager, it was Jill's job to give presentations.

"I decided you should do it," she said. Her voice cracked, but only if you were listening for it. Audrey knew then what had happened. Jill hadn't bothered looking at the plans over the weekend. Instead, she'd come in early and expected Audrey to brief her. When Audrey hadn't shown, she'd panicked and decided that somebody had to take the fall, and it wasn't going to be the lady with the chemo bills.

"Hurry up!" Jill said, her arms still crossed.

Audrey took three long breaths to collect herself. This was bad. She wasn't prepared. She squeezed her hands into fists and let go. Tried to think of a bright side, could come up with only one: she no longer smelled like pee. It was something, at least. "Okay," she said, and started toward the conference room.

"Oh, no you don't," Jill answered. "You can't go in there looking like that." She pointed her chin at Audrey's chest.

Audrey followed Jill's gaze. The blood rushed to her face, hot and uncomfortable. She was reminded of her dream, and the coveralls. Her mother's red-stained hands, and the girl she used to be, because the wet, spilled coffee had rendered her blouse see-through. Her s.e.xy Victoria's Secret nylon bra, which had been a handy, albeit impractical choice this morning, wasn't thick enough to contain the damage. Through the wet was the very obvious outline of nipples.

Jill frowned in disgust.

Audrey looked down at the pink hills of her skin. It wasn't cute. It wasn't s.e.xy. It was white trash, and she wondered, not for the first time, whether she belonged in this nice, clean office among civilized people. She folded her arms across her chest, and remembered depressed teenage days of unbrushed hair and soiled clothes that she'd worn, again and again. What was happening to her? Alone again after all this time, was she falling apart?

"Here," Jill said, taking off her blue cashmere suit jacket that reeked of rubbing alcohol and vitamins, and plopping it over Audrey's shoulders.

Audrey pulled it tight around her chest, pressing the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons through their holes. In that second and that second only, she loved Jill Sidenschwandt. "Thank you," she said.

Jill lifted Audrey's chin in her cold hands. Her bloodshot eyes were wet, either from exhaustion or weeping. "Pull yourself together and stop making me feel sorry for you. I'm not getting fired over this. Do you understand? You can do this. I believe in you. I wouldn't ask if I didn't."

Audrey nodded. "Thanks. Yes. I'll be fine. Don't worry."

Jill held on for a second longer than necessary, and Audrey couldn't tell if the gesture was friendly or hostile. "I'm sorry if you've got troubles," she said. Her tone was dismissive, like because Audrey didn't have a family to care for, she wasn't ent.i.tled to bad days. Her kid wasn't dying, and she had no real responsibilities or attachments, so what was the problem?

Audrey looked at her ballet flats. The thing that had recently invaded her stomach writhed in acid bile. What the h.e.l.l did Jill know about her personal troubles? Unlike every other fat cat around here, she'd never shown up to work crying, or fought on the phone with a lousy husband who couldn't remember to buy the milk. She'd never whined about idiot kids who didn't study hard enough, or forced people to look at professional photos of her terrier poodles (whoodles!). Crazy, yes. But Jill was out of line: she'd never b.i.t.c.hed about it.

"You don't need to worry about my troubles or my performance. I've never given you cause in either department," she said, then picked the plans up off her desk, pushed through double oak doors, and stormed the Vesuvius boardroom.