Anybody Out There - Marian Keyes (31 page)

N    icholas was already waiting in the corridor. This week his T-shirt said DOG IS MY COPILOT.
He was reading a book called The Sirius Mystery and I made the mistake of asking him what it
was about.
"Five thousand years ago, amphibious aliens came to earth and taught the Dogon tribesmen of
West Africa the secrets of the universe, including the existence of a companion star to Sirius, a
star so dense that it's actually invisible--"
"Thanks! Enough! Okay, do you believe Princess Diana is working at a truck stop in New
Mexico?"
"Check. And I also believe the royal family murdered her. That's how good at believing I am. I
am a true believer."
"Roosevelt knew in advance about Pearl Harbor and let it happen because he wanted America in
the war?"
"Check."
"They faked the moon landing?"
"Check."
Along lumbered Undead Fred--while everyone else was sweltering, he was in his black suit and
barely breaking a sweat. Next to arrive was Barb.
"What about this heat?" she asked.
She dropped down beside me on the bench, her thighs apart, lifted the hem of her skirt, and
flapped vigorously. "That'll get a bit of air up there." She added, "Not a day to be wearing
underpants."
Oh God. Had she just told me she wasn't wearing knickers? My head went spinny: this was what
Aidan's death had reduced me to, hanging around with these oddballs.
But were they oddballs? (Apart from Undead Fred, who was as odd as they come.) Were they not
just broken people? Or broke people, as Mackenzie thought herself.
"Don't tell the guys." Barb winked and indicated the hem of her dress. "Drive 'em wild if they
knew I was bushing."
As "the guys" consisted of Nicholas and Undead Fred, I wasn't so sure but said nothing.

Her dress was a button-down and it gaped at the hips. I didn't want to look, I did everything I
could think of to stop myself, but it was like Luke and his crotch, the draw was simply too
powerful. Entirely against my will, I caught a glimpse of her pubes.
"Barb," I said, a little high-pitched, as I fastened my eyes firmly on her face, "what brings you
here every Sunday?"
"Because all the interesting people I know are dead. Drug overdoses, suicides, murders, awww, I
tell ya!" She made it sound as if people didn't know how to die properly nowadays. "And I can't
afford even two seconds of Neris Hemming's time."
"You'd like to talk to her?"
"Oh yeah. She's the real deal." My heart lifted. If Barb, with her gravelly voice and her
grouchiness, said Neris Hemming was the real deal, then she really must be. "If anyone can
channel your husband for you, it's Neris Hemming."
"You talked to her?" Mitch had arrived.
"To her office. They said I'd get to speak to her in eight to ten weeks."
"Wow. That's great."
Everyone agreed it was fantastic. Their wishes were so warm and their excitement so genuine
that I forgot that what we were celebrating was actually very unusual.
We all went into the room and Leisl started. Great-aunt Morag came through for Mackenzie and
reiterated that there wasn't a will. Nicholas's dad advised him on his job--he seemed like such a
nice man, he really did. So concerned. Pomady Juan's wife told him to eat properly. Carmela's
husband said she should think about replacing the stove, that it was dangerous.
Then Leisl said, "Barb, someone wants to talk to you. Could it be...it sounds like..." She seemed
a little confused. "Wolfman?"
"Wolfman? Oh, Wolfgang! My husband. Well, one of them. What's he want? On the scrounge
again?"
"He says...does this make sense? Don't sell the painting yet. It will rocket in value."
"He's been telling me that for years," Barb groused. "I've gotta live, you know."
By the end of the hour, no one had come through for me, but still on a high from my Neris
Hemming contact, I didn't mind.
I said good-bye to everyone and went toward the elevator, joining forces with some of the belly-
dancing posse, then behind me someone called my name. I turned around: it was Mitch.

"Hey, Anna, do you have to be someplace now?"
I shook my head.
"Want to do something?"
"Like what?"
"I dunno. Get a coffee?"
"I don't want to get a coffee," I said. It had started to make me feel nauseous. I feared I was
going to have to start drinking herbal teas (pronounced "horrible teas" by me and Aidan) and run
the risk of turning into those aggressively calm people who drank peppermint-and-chamomile
infusions.
Mitch's face didn't change. At the best of times his eyes were those of a man who had lost
everything. Someone refusing to go for coffee with him didn't even touch the sides.
"Let's go to the zoo." I had no idea why I'd said this.
"The zoo?"
"Yes."
"The place with animals?"
"Yes. There's one in Central Park."
"Okay."
T    he zoo was busy, with loved-up couples twined around each other and straggling family
groups with strollers and toddlers and ice creams. Me and Mitch, the walking wounded, didn't
stand out; only if you got up really close to us would you see that we were different.
We started with the Rain Forest, which was mostly monkeys, or apes or whatever their technical
name is. There were quite a selection--swinging from trees and scratching themselves and
staring grumpily at nothing--too many to be interesting and the only ones who caught my
attention were the ones with bright red bottoms which they wiggled at the crowd. "They look
like they've shaved their butts," Mitch said.
"Or," I said, "had a back-to-front Brazilian." I looked at him to see if I needed to explain what a
Brazilian was, but he seemed to get it.

As we watched, one of the red-bums fell off a branch and two more red-bums came along to
taunt and make high-pitched laughing sounds, which pleased the crowd enormously. They surged
forward with their cameras and I got separated from Mitch. It was only when I was looking
around for him that I discovered I didn't really know what he looked like.
"I'm over here," I heard him say, and I turned and found myself looking into those wells of
bleakness. I tried to file a couple of other details about him for future reference: he had very
short hair and a dark blue T-shirt--mind you, he mightn't wear that all the time--and he was a
bit older than me, late thirties probably.
"Shall we move on?" he asked.
Suited me. I didn't have the concentration span to linger on anything. We found ourselves in the
Polar Circle.
"Trish loved polar bears," he said. "Even though I kept telling her they were vicious guys." He
stared at them. "Cute-looking, though. What's your favorite animal?"
He caught me on the hop; I wasn't sure I even had a favorite animal.
"Penguins," I said. They'd do. "I mean, they try so hard. It must be tough being a penguin; you
can't fly, you can barely walk."
"But you can swim."
"Oh yes. You know, I'd forgotten that."
"What was Aidan's favorite animal?"
"Elephants. But there are no elephants here. You have to go to the Bronx Zoo for that."
We arrived at the sea lions' pool just as feeding time was about to begin. A large crowd of
people, mostly family groups, were waiting, the air electric with anticipation.
When three men in Wellingtons and red overalls appeared with buckets of fish, the atmosphere
became almost hysterical. "Here they come, here they come!" Bodies pushed toward the barrier,
the air filled with the clicks of a hundred cameras, and children were lifted up in the air for a
better look.
"There's one, there's one!" An enormous shiny gray-black force erupted out of the water,
stretching up for his fish, then belly flopped back into the water, sending a huge wash across the
pool. The crowd breathed "Wow" and children were shrieking and cameras were flashing and
ignored ice creams were melting, and in the middle of it all, Mitch and I watched impassively,
like we were cardboard cutouts of ourselves.
"Here's another one, here's another one! Mommy, look, it's another one!"

The second sea lion was even bigger than the first and the splash he made on his return to the
water resulted in half the crowd getting spattered. Not that anyone cared. It was all part of it.
We waited until the fourth sea lion had eaten a fish, then Mitch looked at me. "Keep moving?"
"Sure."
We walked away from the people who were still starry-eyed and in thrall.
"What's next?" he asked.
I consulted our map. Feck. It was penguins. I'd have to pretend that I was thrilled to see them,
what with them being my favorite animals and everything.
I enthused as best I could, then Mitch suggested we walk on. We'd spoken very little. I wasn't
uncomfortable with it, but I knew next to nothing about him, except that his wife had died.
"Do you have a job?" I asked. It came out a bit bald.
"Yeah," he said.
We kept walking. He said nothing further. After a period of silence, he suddenly stopped. He
even laughed. "Oh my God! I should have told you what it is. That's why you asked. You
weren't wondering if I was on welfare."
"Well, no, no," I blustered. "Not if you don't want--"
"Sure, I want. It's a regular question. It's what people ask. Jeez, it's no surprise I don't get invited
to dinner parties any longer. I'm a mess."
"Not at all," I said. "I'm the one who forgot penguins could swim."
"I design and install home-entertainment systems. I can tell you more if you want to hear it, as
much as you like. It's kinda technical."
"No, it's okay, thank you, but I couldn't pay attention long enough to understand. Hey, we've
missed the Temperate Territory--snow monkeys, red pandas, butterflies, ducks."
"Ducks?"
"Yes, ducks. We can't possibly miss them. Come on."
We retraced our steps, halfheartedly admired the Temperate Territory animals, and took an
executive decision to skip the kiddie zoo, and suddenly things started to look familiar; we were
back where we started. We had walked in one big circle.

"Is that it?" Mitch asked. "Are we done?" Like it was a chore.
"Looks like it."
"Okay, I'm going to hit the gym." He shouldered his kit bag and made for the exit. "See you next
Sunday?"
"Okay."
I waited until he was good and gone. Even though I'd spent the last couple of hours with him I
was suffering from fear of the "false good-bye syndrome": when you don't know someone that
well, and you've just said a lovely warm farewell to them, maybe even kissed them, and then you
unexpectedly bump into them a few minutes later, at the bus stop or the subway station or on the
same stretch of street, trying to hail a cab. I don't know why but it's always mortifying and the
nice, easy conversation that you'd been having only a few minutes earlier has dissipated entirely
and the mood is tense and strained and you're looking at the tracks and praying, Come on, train,
for fuck's sake, come on.
Then when the train or taxi or bus comes, you say good-bye once more and you try to make a
laugh of it by saying gaily "Good-bye, again," but it's nothing like as nice as the previous time
and you're wondering if you should kiss them again, and if you do, it feels fake, and if you don't,
you feel as if you've ended on a bad note. Like a souffl�, a successful goodbye can really only be
done once. A good-bye can't be reheated.
While I waited until it was supersafe to leave, I watched the normal people still flooding into the
zoo and I wondered about Mitch: What had he been like before? Or what would he be like in the
future? I knew I wasn't seeing the real him; at the moment all he was was his bereavement. Like
me. I wasn't the real Anna right now.
A thought struck me: maybe I wouldn't ever be again. Because the only thing that would snap
things back to the way they were would be if Aidan hadn't died, and that could never happen.
Would I be holding my breath forever, waiting for the world to right itself?
I looked at my watch. Mitch had been gone ten minutes. I made myself count to sixty, then felt I
could chance it. On the street, I did a few furtive look-arounds and there was no sign of him
anywhere. I hailed a cab, and when I reached my apartment I was feeling quite good. That was
most of Sunday taken care of.
56
B    efore hitting my desk, I did a quick dash into the ladies' room and found someone bent over
one of the basins, sobbing her eyes out. Because it was Monday morning, it wasn't unusual for
someone to be crying, in fact the cubicles were probably packed to capacity with girls throwing
up because they hadn't enough coverage to bring to the Monday Morning Meeting. But I was

surprised to see that the crying someone was Brooke Edison. (Wearing some elegant taupe linen
getup while I was in a cerise suit from the fifties with a boatnecked jacket and a pencil skirt,
worn with rose-patterned ankle socks, pink patent peep-toe sling-backs, and a handbag shaped
like a two-story house.)
"Brooke! What's happened?"
I couldn't believe she was crying. I had thought it was practically illegal for WASPs to show
emotion.
"Oh, Anna...," she wept. "I had a little spat with my dad."
Oh my God! Brooke Edison had spats with her father? I admit it: I found it a little thrilling. It
was a comfort to know that other people had problems. And maybe Brooke was more normal
than I'd realized.
"There's this Givenchy gown," she said.
"Couture or off the peg?"
"Ohhh." She sounded like she didn't understand the question. "Couture, I guess. And...and..."
"And he won't buy it for you," I prompted, finding a packet of tissues in my house-shaped
handbag. They were patterned with shoes, which sort of shocked me. This kookiness thing really
had me in its grip.
"No," she said, her eyes widening. "Oh no. It's because Dad wants to give it to me as a present
and I said I already have enough fabulous gowns in my closet."
I just looked at her, aware of a sinking feeling.
"I said that there's so much poverty in the world and I really didn't need another gown. But he
said he couldn't see what was wrong with wanting his little girl to look beautiful." A fresh crop
of tears sprang from her eyes.
"My dad is my best friend, you know?"
Not really, but I nodded anyway.
"So it's horrible when we don't get along."
"Well, I better get going," I said. "Keep the tissues."
The rich really are different, I thought: they're fucking freaks.
I hurried toward the office, keen to share my insight with Teenie.