Part 21 (2/2)
FOR THE NEXT TWO days I drank, slept, and somehow set up my new computer, which came complete with its own schedule, contact, andon it, and opened a new e-h a free online service And then I waited
How strange it was to see that expanse of pristine days, each of thes or deadlines
I have no life I found this insanely funny I found this insanely funny
It wasn't, really, but I had just finished the second bottle of boutique merlot on an empty stomach, and terrifically funny seemed better than horribly sad
THE NEXT DAY, AMID a pounding headache and tripping heart, my entire body sore and swollen, I calledweek
I checked
Perhaps with the status of my manuscript uncertain, he had no more use for me
I ate and slept at odd hours Helen's new henchwoman called to request the last of the manuscripts on ain-no need to co theht it best to wait Meanwhile, the only thing thatan end to , the calendar alive in the corner, waiting, the volu from any place in my apartment if I were away fro I returned to h it, rewrote sentences and then entire passages that did not need it My back hurt, and ht of day and early afternoon twilight When the screen and the laot up, turned on another laotten so dark, and returned to ain
DAYS PassED
I realized I was growing an inadvertent beard I wondered if I was slipping into so botto
Butback at ard it with conte it nahth day, I sat on low of it like an oversized LCD nightlight I foundhow she ishi+ng I had her phone nuize for ht have made a mistake, but she had obviously suffered for it in ways Aubrey never had
I thought also about how centerless and adrift I had been after Aubrey's leaving-until I found a new,body by which to fix my existence: Lucian But noondered if he would leave me, too, and what could possibly take his place as he had taken Aubrey's Even in losing Aubrey, I had not felt this level of anxiety, these jolts of panic, had not gone to these ths I felt sad about that, in retrospect, sad and regretful While I ht not have prevented her leaving, I saw so s now that I could have done-if not to keep her, then at least to have allowed o into hibernation As I got up to tap it awake, it blinked to life I sucked in a breath
4:30: Hurry
It was 4:28 I stuffed rabbed a jacket, and left
I WALKED ON SHAKY legs to the closest restaurant, a wrap-sandwich-and-soup joint on the corner of Norfolk and Massachusetts Avenue I had never eaten here; I had always thought it looked dingy Scanning the sparse, stained tables, I saas right A college student talked on the phone behind the counter A couple ate in chilly silence on a pair of bentwood chairs A blonde woman, the only other patron, waved impatiently to me
Her eyebroere too dark for her sallow coht She did not smile at me as I sat down
A wrap sandwich lay on a plate between us She pushed it toward me I didn't want it
”I lost ardedI had been sick aiting, with the need for explanations, and now she sat, looking ather time untilthe contract, Helen says I hadn't signed it yet-”
”I'd be surprised if they take it”
My mouth opened, but no sound came out
”You ruined it, Clay”
I blanched ”But you said they'd publish it”
”No, I said you you would publish ue se doesn't arded h cheekbones that seemed too patrician for the bad bleach job and cheap makeup And I saw my hoped-for payoff in all of this, the reward I felt I had coin to trickle away
”Then-then I'll suber than Brooks and Hanover anyway”
She see with a strand of pale hair, her gaze returning to et to it”
And then I noticed her eyes They were the least hue of mercurial colors beneath a brown veneer I sat, transfixed, not knohat to do, hearing again the voice in my head: Leave! Leave!
”How does it end?”
”With you,” she said simply ”As I said, it has always been about you”
”You say that, but what do you mean?” My every question seeh
”My story has given way to yours Don't you see? No, of course you don't Listen toto life like kernels of corn popping into bloom Suddenly, El was everywhere, ift of spilled blood drunk frootten, disinherited in favor of thebeneathday We all did And we could have given up, lain down Instead, we struck outpain with more pain Our hearts turned numb, and our fear became the more palatable mission of hatred We felt better because we felt less We were bent on only one purpose: the destruction of El's believers”
”But you played havoc with them before”
”Not like this Noith the bellow of Satan loud in our ears, ent to war As in any ca, we struck out at their enerals They're not who you think”
”What do you mean?”
”There's a reason Jake Salter is dead, Clay”
The flesh rose on my arms Jake Salter, the punk kid who, I had learned that day in the Coo ”He drowned,” I whispered