Crazy Love You (26 page)

“Most people don't realize that there are cameras everywhere these days,” said the detective. “Especially in New York City. It's a veritable grid of electronic seeing eyes.”

The movements of the people on the platform were choppy and unnatural-looking. And I stared transfixed, searching for Megan. I finally caught sight of her, the familiar shape of her head, the delicate lines of her profile. Her face was paper pale on the black-and-white feed. She had her headphones on, leaning against the metal beam. I watched as she walked toward the edge of the track, leaned over to look for the oncoming train. Then she moved back to her spot near the beam.

“You should be seeing it right about now,” said the detective.

I stared at the screen, and suddenly I saw a hooded form moving through the crowd, pushing toward Megan. The sea of waiting commuters parted as the figure moved nearer to her. Megan was oblivious, staring off into space.

She did look tired, as she said she'd been, and a little down. I remember what Binky said:
It seems like you two spend a lot of time talking about you. But have you really been there for Megan?
I hadn't been.

“Do you see him?”

I noticed that the detective didn't say “her.” But
was
it a man? I couldn't tell. The form was hooded, hunched over. Something about the fuzzy quality of the footage, the crowd . . . I just couldn't judge the size of the figure; it was a black blur.

“You said ‘him,' ” I said.

The detective gave me something that might have been a smile. “Keep watching.”

I saw Priss then. Not on the platform but here in my apartment. Still I didn't say anything. She'd pushed the bedroom door open, and was standing in the shadows of the dark room. What was she doing? All the cop had to do was turn around and see her there. Then he'd see that she was real. But he'd also see that I was hanging out with the girl who was suspected of pushing Meg onto the subway tracks. I had stayed silent about her being here in the bedroom all this time. How would that look?

I put my eyes back to the screen and watched as the black form in the film moved closer. And then there was Megan once again. She pushed herself from the metal beam and walked over to the tracks, inching closer.
Stop
, I wanted to say to her.
Get away from the tracks.

The hooded form picked up speed. It was big; I could see that now. Bigger and taller than a lot of people on the platform. And the shape of the head was unfamiliar. It wasn't Priss. It wasn't her. I felt a mingling of relief (she's not
that
bad!) and fear (then who is it?).

But Megan stepped back again. I felt the agitation that fills the air of a crowded subway platform when a train is running late during rush hour.

“Did you know that the incidence of stranger crime is an anomaly?” Crowe asked.

“I'd heard that.”

“This dangerous
other
that we all fear? In actuality we have the most to fear from the people closest to us.”

“Right,” I said.

Priss had now stepped out of the room and was moving toward us, stealthy as a cat.

On-screen, Megan moved toward the edge of the platform again. And this time the form was on her. Two big hands reached out toward her back, the people around her oblivious, staring at the tiny screens in their hands or out into space. The shove was hard and definite, and she was just far enough over that she toppled, her bag swinging forward, the weight of it taking her down.

The crowd sprang to life then. Hands went to eyes and mouths, some people stepped back, a couple of people immediately started dialing—presumably calling 911. Others stepped forward with cameras poised. Two men—from opposite ends of the platform—seemed to move in unison toward Megan, then jumped onto the tracks. They quickly moved her out of the way of the train. After it had passed, hands reached down to help and I watched as Megan was lifted up, then lay motionless on the platform while a woman knelt beside her, put her hand on Meg's head. The two men climbed up off the tracks.

I was transfixed, watching all of this, and I had lost sight of the black form. But then I saw it, moving toward the camera, head down. Just as it was about to move out of range, it looked up. The features were an ugly blur, the face of a demon—black holes for eyes and a gaping wound for a mouth.

“Recognize him?” asked Crowe. He wore an unpleasant smile.

“No,” I said. I shook my head vigorously. “I don't understand. Is there something wrong with the camera? It looks like a ghoul.”

There wasn't time to stop her. She held the hammer high above her head and brought it down hard. A hot, warm spray of blood sluiced across my face. Crowe stared at me wide-eyed, jaw slack for a moment, then fell in a heap to the ground. Priss stood looking down with an expression of mild concern.

“Priss,” I said. I could barely breathe.
“What the fuck?”

“They are going to lock you up like your mother,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” The room was spinning. A wave of nausea hit me, and next I was puking into the sink.

“Just get out of here,” she said. I heard the detective moan. “I'll handle this.”

“No, Priss,” I said. “Don't do this.”

“Look,” she said. She nodded toward the phone that was still in my hand. The frame had frozen. I stared as the features of the ghoul came into focus.

I left the building and ran and ran, through the city streets and the darkness and the filth of garbage bags and the crush of pedestrians. I ran until my chest felt like it was going to explode and my thighs were on fire, my calves cramping. I don't know how long I was out there, walking and walking. The time since I left Megan in the park seemed warped and blurry.

The sun was aglow on the horizon as I found myself in the first place I'd ever visited with Megan, on the bench beside the bronze
Alice in Wonderland
statue near Seventy-fourth in Central Park. The rain had stopped and the sun was coming up, I sat soaked and freezing and called Meg for the hundredth time with a phone that was miraculously still working. She finally picked up.

“Ian,” she said. “
What
do you want?”

“I need to see you,” I said. I was shivering.

“Did you talk to the police?” she asked.

“I did.”

“You told them about Priss?”

Anything I said now was going to be a lie, so I just kept my mouth shut. My brain was in overdrive, trying to process everything that had just happened. I was having some kind of mental brownout.

“That's what I thought,” she said when I didn't say anything.

“They know about her already,” I said quickly. “You told them, and they're investigating.”

I sensed that she was about to hang up. “I need to see you. Please, Meg. Please.”

A pause, during which I could hear her breathing, feel her considering. “Where are you?”

“I'm at the
Alice in Wonderland
statue,” I said, looking up at it. In the semidark, it seemed grim and menacing, not cheerful and fun as it had always seemed.

It was just a couple of blocks from her place.

“Give me a little while,” she said. She had stopped loving me, I could tell. Now she was just dealing with me until she could figure out how to give that ring back. She would meet me now out of a sense of obligation, listen to me, and then tell me she needed time or space or whatever it was people say when they are trying to be nice about wanting you to go away for a longish time, if not forever.

I waited and waited, almost gave up. But she did finally come. Already, everything that had happened in my apartment was taking on a dreamlike patina. I was distancing myself from it. By the time she arrived, the sun was up and the nannies were strolling babies, and the commuters were hustling by looking harried and important with coffee in one hand, cell phone in the other. I felt almost normal. Whatever that means.

She showed up with lattes and sat beside me but not close. She handed me the drink and it tasted heavenly—milky and sweet. She looked delicious, too, and just out of reach. We were just two normal people sitting on a park bench, sharing a morning coffee.

“I almost didn't come,” she said. Her eyes already looked better, not as black as before. More lavender and gold.

“I know,” I said. “I'm glad you did.”

She was wrapped up in a big sweater and red scarf. Her shoulders were tense, and she kept her hands cupped around her latte.

“Detective Crowe was supposed to call me when the video came in. But I haven't heard from him,” she said.

“Look,” I said. I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice. But I'm not sure that it worked. I leaned toward her but she didn't lean into me. In fact, she moved back a little.

“I was thinking that maybe you and I just need to get away. Let's go to the Caribbean or something. Just take a break from all of this, spend a week alone and reconnect. I love you. And we've let a lot of outside negativity bring us down.”

She shook her head, moved farther away from me on the bench. “I don't know,” she said. But her body language said:
No way, dude. You must have lost your mind.

“I'm totally done with Priss,” I said. “She's not going to bother us again.”

“How can you know that?”

“I just need to clear my head,” I said. “Get out of town for a while. We can leave today.”

“We both have responsibilities, Ian,” she said. Her tone was slow and measured. It was a voice I'd heard her use with Toby. I felt the first tickle of anger. Did she think I was a child? “I have a job and you have a deadline, right? There's an open investigation into my assault. I have a concussion; I don't even know if I can fly.”

“Sometimes you just have to say ‘fuck it,' you know?” I said. “We'll drive someplace if you're worried about the concussion. Vermont? Some B-and-B upstate?”

“You know,” she said. She was holding on to that cup of coffee so tightly that I thought she was going to crush it. “I'm not the kind of person who says ‘fuck it' to my responsibilities.”

Was I really going to marry such a prude? I felt it start to boil in my center, the powerlessness, the desperation, the confusion. It was a dangerous cocktail, a bubbling brew.

“Well, okay,” I said. I tried not to sound angry and peevish. But I did. She heard it and her face went hard. “But
I'm
going to get away. I need to. I can't handle all of this.”

“All of what?” she said. Her voice had come up a couple of octaves. “
I'm
the one who got hurt.”

I remembered that she didn't know about my eviction from the apartment, or about the detective, or about the surveillance video or about my bank accounts. And for some reason this just made me angrier. She didn't even
know
that my life was falling apart, when not long ago, it had been better than it had ever been. I had been sipping cognac by the fire with Binky while Julia and Megan prepared a wonderful meal for my birthday. From that to
this.
How was it possible?

“Come with me,” I said. I tried to push the anger back. “Please.”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I can't. And you shouldn't go either, not now.”

She put the coffee down and pressed her arms tightly against her sides, seemed almost to double over in pain. When she looked at me again, I expected her to be crying. But she wasn't. She looked stronger than I'd seen her look over the last couple of days.

“I'm—” she started to say, and then stopped.

“What?” It was churning inside me.

“I don't want to tell you like this.” She looked away again. I knew what she was going to say.
I'm calling off the wedding. I don't just need some time off. I never want to see you again.

“Tell me.” I was going to make her say the words.

“I'm pregnant,” she said finally. “They told me at the hospital.”

In an instant, all the colors around me seemed brighter; I drew in a sharp breath of surprise. It was the purest rush of joy I'd ever felt. All that anger just dissipated like a fog.

“That's . . . amazing,” I said. I didn't have any words for the happiness I felt. It was a gift, wasn't it? Why did she look so sad? “It's awesome, Meg.”

I reached for her, and she let me embrace her but she was stiff within my arms.

“It's not really a good time,” she said. “For us. For me. I'm not ready.
We're
not ready.”

Then she stood, and I did, too. I grabbed for her wrist, but she pulled her hand back from me. And for some reason that act of withdrawal enraged me all over again; the anger came rolling back through me in an ugly, unstoppable tsunami of emotion.

She was abandoning me, taking herself, her love, our child, all the good she brought into my life—taking it all away. And the veil came down once more. What did I say? What did I do?

All I know is that she was backing away from me then, her mouth an O of shock, her eyes wide with hurt and surprise. People around me stared with frowns of confusion and disapproval. Nannies grabbed children into their embraces and carried them off. Megan started to run. I don't think I went after her. I don't know.

•  •  •

Fatboy wakes to a bright light glaring down on him from above. It is harsh and blue; he has to shield his eyes. He tries to move his arms and he can't. There is a blinding pain in his head and a scream lodged in his throat. Who was it? Who fell over the bluff?

His eyes adjust to the light. He is lying in a hospital bed, his legs and arms bound. He can't move. The light streaming in from the barred window is bright and strange.

“Mr. Paine,” says a voice, easy and measured. “Don't be alarmed. Everything is all right.”