Audrey’s Door (29 page)

She pulled the shirt over her head and buckled her overalls. When she stood, she pressed the side of her face into the crook of his arm. Above her, he sneezed. Then said, “I saved the lilies because I know you like them, but let’s take out the rest of the flowers when we go.”

She and Tom had weathered big fights and big egos, badly trained dogs, sick parents, sick kids, and a yearlong separation. She knew then that they would weather this, too. It reassured her that she could believe in that, in him. She’d been wrong last week when she’d told Audrey that nothing lasts because not everything dies. Sometimes love endures.

“Forget Monteleone’s. We’ll just wind up crying in our beers. Let’s walk down Broadway ’til we get hungry.”

“Deal,” he said.

It did not occur to her until three hours later, as she sat across from her husband eating buttermilk pancakes at Around the Clock on 8
^th
Street and Astor Place, that the voice on the other line had belonged to Audrey Lucas.

A
week after Audrey discovered Jayne Young’s body, Saraub Ramesh was high on Vicodin, watching the Vikings hose New York. His hospital bed was one of those Craftmatic adjustable jobs, just like he’d seen on TV when he was a kid. The game wasn’t nearly as disheartening as it might normally be. Then again, Vicodin.

In the wooden chair next to him, Sheila fiddled. She’d come to visiting hours every day since the accident, and even feigned an interest in football. Tuesday and Wednesday had been season recaps narrated by Mike Ditka. His sisters and their husbands had sat through that. His excuse, as he’d silently watched the boob tube instead of entertaining them at his bedside, had been his drug-induced stupor—it made conversation hard, and ESPN easy. The truth was, he’d never much cared for grand shows of affection, and they’d all kept staring,
like the second he turned his head from the screen, they’d pounce, and weepingly declare their love for him.

His cousins, the new Ramesh and Ramesh, had come Thursday and Friday during NCAA rerun games. They’d razzed him about being the only person injured on the entire plane:
You always were a spaz.
Then they’d gotten teary-eyed, which he hadn’t expected.

“Why are you always flying all over the place? Why can’t you just stay still?” his cousin Frank had asked.

“Because,” Saraub answered.

Frank, a man with three kids, a nice house, a cashmere coat, and a smart, efficient wife, had sighed. “And your girl puts up with that. I envy you.”

Until that moment, Saraub had always considered himself the black sheep of the family. Over the years, he’d seen less of them because on a very fundamental level, they’d stopped understanding each other. Now, he reconsidered that assumption, and he reconsidered them, too.

That weekend—all twenty-six of them visited. Sisters, brothers-in-law, cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts, and uncles. They brought several four-hundred-dollar bouquets, made a racket, then tromped off for lunch at Ottomanelli’s. Their arrival had made him realize what had been missing from his studio apartment in Audrey’s absence: noise.

And today, Monday. A week since the accident. Sheila sat next to him, her glazed eyes on the game. Through it all, to his surprise, and perhaps hers, she’d been his constant. She’d cheered teams she didn’t care about, yelled at nurses to make sure he got his meds on time, interrogated doctors about their diagnoses, and in general, irritated everyone who worked at New York-Presbyterian into giving him special treatment. It was like an alien had possessed her and forced her into acting like a parent again.

“Here,” she now said, and handed him the heel of
some fresh-baked bread while they watched the game. When he dozed sometimes, he woke to find her reading
Vanity Fair
or
Better Homes and Gardens.
Until then, he’d never imagined she was capable of entertaining herself. Always at home, she spent her time dining with friends, preparing meals, or on the phone with her daughters, foisting child-rearing advice and inquiring whether their husbands were spending enough time at home.

He took the bread and chewed. The Vicodin waned in the afternoons, and he was usually a little more coherent. “What’s the spice in that? Clove?”

“No spice. It’s Pillsbury Italian Loaf. Easy peasy.”

He nodded. She put her hand on the bar of the bed, which was as close as she’d gotten, so far, to touching him. Even when he’d first arrived, she’d only leaned over the bed and bent her face close to his.
Open your eyes:
she’d commanded, presumably to make sure he was alive. So he’d opened them.

The landing a week ago had been lucky. If the pilot of the 767 hadn’t caught a patch of cold air at thirty-five hundred feet, they might have crashed. Most people wound up unharmed, but like an idiot, Saraub had unbuckled his seat belt to try to catch the flying parakeet. He got thrown, broke three ribs, a cheekbone, and both arms. On the plus side, he’d managed to save the stupid bird.

He’d stayed overnight at the hospital in Bethesda while they waited for Hurricane Erebus to pass. He’d been badly hurt, but none of the injuries were serious. Instead of waiting at the airport, his cameraman Tom Wilson wandered off, then showed up drunk at the hospital the next morning. “Your movie almost got me killed,” he’d croaked, then pointed at a mosquito-bitesized cut on his forehead. “I’ma sue your ass off!”

Saraub had looked at Wilson’s red-threaded eyes right
then and said what he should have said a long time ago. “You’re fired.”

Incoherent and raging, Wilson didn’t leave until security escorted him out.

After he was gone, Saraub was not sad, even though they’d worked together side by side for years. He was relieved.

That afternoon, American Airlines flew him first class to JFK, and checked him into New York-Presbyterian Hospital on their insurance company’s dime. Probably, he should have been discharged by now, but since he’d signed a waiver agreeing not to sue, they were giving him gold-star treatment. His room was private, he had his own nurse, and his dinner came with a sixteen-ounce bottle of gourmet beer.

His cell phone and laptop were destroyed on impact, so aside from his family and agent, he hadn’t talked to anyone in a week. He’d called Audrey every day and left a message from his bedside hospital phone. So far, she hadn’t called back. A lot had happened lately. His girlfriend moved out on him, he’d almost died in a plane accident, he’d fired his assistant, and overnight, his promising film debut had morphed into a lemon. These things had given him a new, no-bullshit lease on life. In keeping with that, Audrey’s silence didn’t hurt his feelings; it pissed him off.

He had one interview left to conduct for
Maginot Lines,
with the former CEO of Servitus. Unfortunately, he’d missed the appointment because he’d been in the hospital, and the guy was now in Europe on an indefinite holiday. Sunshine Studios wasn’t returning his agent’s calls. Still, as soon as he got out of the hospital, Saraub had decided to finish what he’d started and edit the movie. A recovering idealist, he’d given up high hopes for a wide release, or any release at all, but would instead take one step at a time.

“Lamb?” Sheila asked, then pulled out a Tupperware container from her Metropolitan Museum tote bag. She looked older than he remembered, and smaller, too. She’d stopped dyeing her black hair and let it go white. He admired her more now than he ever had before. She was a strong woman, and on day five of her vigil, while she’d shooed the family out so he could get some rest, it had occurred to him that if he’d acted more like a man from the start, instead of always borrowing money and begging approval because the road he’d chosen was so different from anything the Ramesh family understood, maybe she would have treated him like one. But such is the nature of bones and families alike; they break all the time, and it’s how and whether they knit back together that counts.

Sheila opened the Tupperware. “I baked it last night,” she said.

He smiled. “They feed me here, Mom. I’ll just be full. But maybe you could give it to the nurse, and ask her to serve that, instead of my dinner.” On-screen, Biddle caught Manning’s pass.

“Oh, I didn’t think of that. Good idea,” she said, and placed the Tupperware back in her bag. Her hand moved closer to his. “It’s not this girl, is it?” she asked.

“What?”

“She didn’t put you on a diet, did she? Why doesn’t she come? Is her job too important for you?”

Saraub shook his head. He’d called at least ten times this week, and was starting to wonder the same thing. “Leave her out of this.”

Sheila sighed. Then sighed again. Saraub looked at her and realized she wasn’t sighing, but crying.

“Hey, stop! I’m not dead. It’s not even serious. I promise.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!” she’d told him.

“For what? You didn’t make the plane crash! I’m fine, Mom. Really.”

Her hand clasped the parts of his fingers that poked through the cast. He’d missed his mother; he’d missed the rest of his family, too. “Do you love this woman?” she asked.

He shook his head, like he was disappointed in himself. “Yeah. I do, Mom.”

“Well then, I’ll try to love her, too.” On-screen, the Giants scored a touchdown, which, high on pills, he decided was a sign from God.

“She’s had a rough time. She could use somebody being nice to her.”

Sheila nodded. “I’ll bake her some lamb.”

Saraub smiled. Sheila let her hand drop. For the rest of visiting hours, they watched New York steal a victory from Minnesota. When it was over, she reached between his plaster-cast arms and hugged him good-bye.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he said.

“Me, too, sweetie.”

Just two miles away, trapped and bleeding, Audrey Lucas pressed her body against the locked turret window of 14B and screamed into the void.

July 11, 2001

I read Phil Egan’s story on the hauntings in The Breviary apartment building with deep concern. He seemed under the misapprehension that ghosts and demons are the same thing: they’re not. Ghosts are the lingering stain that humans leave on earth once their mortal coil is abandoned. Demons were never human and don’t exist in this dimension. They can only interfere with the lives of men when invoked by séances, or through some other means, offered a portal. The nature of the haunting Mr. Egan described is not specific to any one person, nor does its author seem to want redemption. So you see, it’s not a ghost haunting the tenants at West 110
^th
Street. Ghosts can be reasoned with. It’s a demon, and the building itself is the portal. I strongly caution against exorcism or the use of psychics under these circumstances, as attention gives these beasts strength. I’d also recommend an immediate evacuation of the building.

Sincerely, Ronald McGuinn,
University of Edinburgh, Parapsychology Ph.D.

Letter to the editor,
Star Magazine

May 4, 2004

Once again last night, The Breviary reasserted its infamous reputation. This time, a fire broke out on the fifteenth floor after a group of tenants got together and ignited lighter fluid along the hallway carpet. The flames claimed the lives of seven victims, and three more are in critical condition from smoke inhalation.

Mr. Evvie Waugh (78) of 15C, was interviewed at the hospital. When asked why he’d done such a thing to his own apartment, he replied, “I guess we got bored. Nothing happened at the séance, and after all those Manhattans, we were pretty ripped.”

Turn to page 6 for details.

From The
Enquirer

T
he night she’d found Jayne’s body was a blur. Fast breaths and dizziness. A creaking rope. Her hand extended to the sole of the woman’s swaying saddle shoe. She’d held it in her palm, as if to offer it consolation, and imagined a reversal of events: The metal ladder she’d tripped over rising up like a roused beast. Jayne’s neck straightening, and the blood flowing from her face so that her skin became pale and freckled again. Her feet gaining purchase on the top step. Her hands swinging backward toward her neck, and loosening the noose. A prayer, perhaps the Lord’s, begged backward, too.

She’d inserted herself into the dream. This time, instead of letting Loretta Parker distract her, she got off that elevator and knocked on 14E. Jayne’s face peeked out from the rope, eyes bright, just as Audrey’s shadow
self appeared in the doorway, catching her friend before it was too late.

The dream withered as the tenants approached. Some walked. Some gimped. Some crawled down the hall. They wore suits and fitted dresses, like the occasion of Jayne’s death was cause for celebration.

“You did this!” she’d cried as she let go of Jayne’s sole and slumped down the side of the wall on her ruined knee. Their man-made faces bent over her. So close their features lost proportion: wide eyes, jutting noses, closed lips, all gargoyle sharp.

“Give it here,” a grainy male voice ordered, and something was passed down the line. The man above her had gray, closely trimmed brows, blue eyes, and yellow, jaundiced scleras. He looked handsome and trustworthy as he lifted the needle. “Help me,” she mouthed. Then came a prick. Her elbow or her forearm? Her nerves were firing off so many impulses, she couldn’t tell. As the cold stuff dripped through her arms, then sloshed its way to her chest, her breath came faster. Her vision blurred and stretched, a movie still pulled taut as skin. She pressed down on her heart as if to calm it as she fainted.

When she woke, a man whose breath smelled like peanut butter was leaning over her. She shuddered and tried to push him away. Then her eyes focused again, and she saw that he was not one of the tenants. Too young by fifty years. His white uniform read: EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN.

Over his shoulder she saw more EMTs dressed in white. Was she in a hospital? A mental institution?

No, there was Jayne. High up, her open skirt like a flower. The EMTs prodded. Jayne’s legs swung in tiny semicircles, and then—
clop!
Her loose saddle shoe slipped off her toes and landed between Audrey’s knees. Like the poodle skirt, it seemed costume, and Audrey wondered if she’d gotten dressed for her act at The
Laugh Factory three days ago, but lost courage when the hour arrived and never made it to the show.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Peanut Butter asked. He was shining a penlight in her eyes.

She whispered her answer. “It looks like a thumb.”

“Fat hands. Are you okay?”

She nodded, then leaned against the wall and hoisted herself up on what felt like a broken knee. It didn’t hurt as much as she expected. Everything felt far away, like she was a spirit tethered to her body by cobwebs.

More people entered the den. A man and woman in plainclothes polyester suits flashed their badges. “Suicide,” Peanut Butter told them. “We just got here.” Someone shoved the metal ladder aside, while another EMT began to cut Jayne loose from the rope.

The sound was that same
creeeeaaak!
and Audrey remembered, suddenly, the thing that had been in this hall with her. Spidery bones, guarding the trophy of Jayne’s body.

Jayne’s open, unblinking eyes were fixed upon the long hall. Urine sopped the edges of her doilylike socks. Audrey hopped down the hall as fast as she could, following her own bloody trail, so she wouldn’t have to see the girl as she fell.

A few feet down and to her right was the master bedroom. Family photos of redheads littered the floor. Jayne’s face in all of them was blotted out. Audrey let her eyes focus on the inky smears, juxtaposed against a sea of voluptuous smiles.

Loretta and Marty Hearst, the guy with Parkinson’s, met her halfway down. They scooped their hands under her shoulders and walked with her, little baby steps.

“No,” she said, as she tried to break free, but the slanted floor was spinning.

They took her into the common hallway across from the elevator, where the rest of the tenants waited. More then ten, less then twenty. She started counting, but
got confused. Except for Francis Galton, their faces swirled. From ten feet away, she could hear the echo of his breath beneath the porcelain mask.

Her heart pumped fast, and she pressed her hand against it, to rub it calm. Her thoughts circled and sank. Rorschach letters and images merged, then separated. Schermerhorn in his suit, only his arms and legs had multiplied, spiderlike, as he perched upon a pile of metal bones—The Breviary was a greedy God. Clara over a tub, slicing length-and width-wise, so that her wound would bear four points. Betty tethered to a hospital bed, dreaming of what she could have been, only she’d been born with black wings too heavy to flap. Jayne, all dressed up, but too scared to go to her act, so she’d stayed home and rubbed out her own face. The tenants at a cocktail party, screaming with delight. And then, in her mind, a terrible door opened, and everything went black.

“Letmeohhh,” she whispered. Her voice slurred like her mouth was filled with hardening wet cement. “Ahhllscream.”

Their faces up close were worse than she’d remembered. Paper-thin skin pulled so tight it looked as if it might split apart and bleed.

Marty didn’t have any eyelashes, and she wondered if it was because the doctor had cut them out when he’d widened the man’s eyes. Only his hands showed his age. She remembered, then, that Jayne had known Marty’s name that night they’d all crowded outside her door. The sneakered outfit she’d worn on the date with the old man—it had been too casual for dinner at a restaurant, or even a walk in the park, and now she knew why. The date had taken place inside the building.

“Itwasssyou?” she asked lashless Marty as a pair of uniformed cops got off the elevator. “You hurt my best friend?”

Marty blinked his slits. His grip on her arm tightened
until it pinched, and she
knew.
It was him. The man who was so good and kind and full of promise that Jayne had been afraid to say his name. She looked up at him now, and saw that in his vanity, he’d lined under his eyes with brown pencil, and his fake hair was slick with pomade. Jayne. Poor Jayne. She’d trusted too much.

The EMTs were the first to leave 14E. They wheeled Jayne out on a gurney with a white sheet over her body. One of her saddle shoes stuck out. Its sole was broken, and her feet were geisha-tiny. Audrey would have cried, but her chest hurt too much.

After asking some questions of the tenants, the uniformed cops were the first to leave. It happened so fast, and she was shaking so hard, sweating, too, that she didn’t think to speak or even try to stop them.

“I can’t believe this. Can you believe this?” one of the tenants asked.

“She was always so quiet. I had no idea,” Loretta answered.

“—Kept to herself, mostly,” Evvie added.

“—Poor girl!” Galton said as he clapped his hands together, unable to contain his jubilation.

The last to leave were the detectives—a man and woman dressed in brown suits a few sizes too tight, like they’d bought them when they got their promotions and hadn’t upgraded since.

“Her name was Jayne Young. Her family came from Salt Lake City. Like we told you, Loretta found her and called 911,” Marty told them. “That’s all I know.”

“Terrible,” Loretta chimed in. “She left her door open and the light on. I didn’t even have to go inside.”

“The killer,” Audrey said. Marty and Loretta squeezed her arms. The feeling was a sphygmomanometer’s sleeve, tightening.

“Killer?” the male detective asked. He had black hair that was gray at the temples, and he looked tired, like he’d been woken from a sound sleep and was still de
bating whether he gave a shit about the dead girl in the poodle skirt.

“Them. All of them. Got inside her. Mader do it. Sacrifice, so their door would open,” Audrey panted.

The man came closer, and Audrey saw he didn’t believe. He was looking at her the way people used to look at Betty; with narrowed eyes and poker faces. “How did they do that? Because it looks like she hung herself,” he said.

Audrey blinked. She thought she felt a tear roll, but her cheeks were numb. The left side of her chest throbbed, and she wondered if the injection that the kind-looking old man had given her might induce a heart attack.

“Do you know something?” he asked.

“They do,” she said.

He looked Audrey up and down, from soiled blue sweat suit to blood-crusted bare feet. “Would you like to come to a hospital?” he asked. Then he turned to the other detective. “Donna? Why don’t you call another van for this nice lady?”

She winced. Nice lady—code for crazy. That van wasn’t going to a hospital, it was going to Bellevue. She realized then that these detectives were in on it. So were the EMTs. Everybody in the whole world, including Saraub, was in on it. A genuine gaslight, just to drive her mad. They’d done the same to Betty. Jayne wasn’t even dead. The tenants had paid her off. All fun and games for the idle rich.

She took a breath. The floor was spinning. The walls were slanted. Nothing in this entire building made sense!

Donna opened her phone. She sounded cheerful, like maybe she got a commission for every lonely woman she helped lock up. “A van—”

Audrey interrupted. “No docore. I’maset…” She bit her lip. “She was my friend.”

“You sure?” the man asked.

“She’s my niece. Too many vodka tonics,” Loretta said, then clapped her hands together. “Back to Betty Ford for you!”

The detective waited for Audrey to answer.

“I’ma sore,” she said.

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a business card. Audrey’s eyes were so bleary that she couldn’t read the number or title, only the name: AIDAN MCGIL-LICUDDY. “Well, when you’re feeling better, if you think of anything you want to tell me, give me a call.”

Aidan and Donna got on the elevator. The tenants closed in around her. More than twenty now. At least thirty. Loretta’s eyelids blinked over opaque cataracts. The wise, gray-haired man pulled out his needle, and masked Francis straightened her arm. Another shot. Fluid sloshed. The left side of her chest cramped like a charley horse.

The detectives closed the iron elevator gate behind them with a crash. It was then that she realized her mistake. “Waaaait!” she rasped. But by then, it was too late.