Set the Night on Fire (5 page)

I
t was nearly ten by the time Lila finished transferring her father’s files. She dropped the CDs into one of the boxes, wondering how she was going to get the boxes home. Fortunately, Brian came back and told her the mail room would ship them wherever she wanted.

She hesitated. “I’m staying at Danny’s condo in Evanston.”

“We’ll have them sent there. Now don’t worry about anything more tonight. Just go home and relax.”

“Thanks, Brian. You’ve been a big help.”

She shrugged into her coat and took the elevator to the lobby. As it descended, she realized she was famished. She recalled some vending machines in the cafeteria one floor below. She went down, bought a package of Oreos, and shoved it into her pocket. Outside, she put on her gloves, braided her scarf around her neck and headed east to the parking garage.

There was no snow, but a bitter wind threatened to scrape the skin off her face. She picked up her pace, glad she wouldn’t have to take the El or a train back to Evanston. She pulled out the cookies and slid one in her mouth. The sensation of dissolving chocolate and sugar made her realize she couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten. A bowl of cereal this morning?

She walked briskly, planning the route back to Danny’s condo. Lake Shore Drive to Sheridan or maybe Ridge. She was trying to estimate how long it would take when, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted movement across the street. A figure was walking on the opposite sidewalk. A man. Tall. Dark pants, sneakers, what looked like a bulky parka. A wool hat pulled low on his forehead. Walking in the same direction as she.

An uneasy feeling came over her. There weren’t any other pedestrians on the street, and traffic was thin. Despite its pretensions as a sophisticated American city, Chicago was essentially a day town, bustling from dawn to dusk. Once night fell, especially in winter, a dark quality descended, rendering the Loop unfamiliar and ominous.

She looked straight ahead, refusing to glance at the figure. What was it about the refusal to make eye contact with a predator? Did anyone really think pretending not to see danger would make it disappear? Maybe it was a primitive instinct, like rabbits that freeze, hoping the fox won’t notice them.

When she reached the corner of State and Madison, she stole a glance across the street. The man was matching her pace. Her heart started to race. A friend once told Lila she should carry hair spray in her bag to use as a weapon. She’d laughed it off, but now she thought back to the other things her friend said. Never surrender your wallet. Throw it on the ground as far away as possible, then run like hell. If you had to defend yourself, use your elbow. It was the strongest part of your body.

She started to trot up State. She heard the clatter of the El as it rattled around the Loop. Light spilled from the windows of stores closed for the night. No one would mug her in such a well-lit area, would they? Maybe he wasn’t following her. Maybe it was just her imagination.

The thud of footfalls made her twist around. The man was crossing over to her side of the street. She went rigid. She was in the middle of the block. There was no alley to duck into. No store to lose herself in.

Then an idea occurred to her. The Palmer House, a grand old Chicago hotel, was around the corner on Monroe. People would be there. A doorman. She sprinted up the sidewalk, trying to run on her toes. The footsteps behind her accelerated too, but she kept going. Icy air whipped at her. Her heart pounded. She raced the last few yards and barreled around the corner.

Relief flooded through her. Two taxis were idling on Monroe a few feet from the hotel entrance. A canopy of lights under the awning threw bright illumination on the sidewalk. A uniformed doorman was helping an elderly couple out of one of the cabs. As Lila ran past them, the woman threw up her arm.

The doorman spun around. “Hey. What’s going on?”

Lila was struggling for breath, and all she could do was point behind her. She threw herself against the revolving door. Thankfully, the stalker was too far away to slide inside behind her. Meanwhile, the doorman hurried through a stationery door and waited for her on the other side.

“What’s the problem, miss?”  He said crossly.

“Call . . . call the police!” Lila gasped. “A man is following me. Right behind. Please. I’m afraid!”

The doorman rushed back outside past the elderly couple, who hadn’t moved since they exited the taxi. Rabbits, Lila thought. She watched the doorman raise his whistle to his mouth peering in one direction, then the other. Then he looked again. Finally he came back inside, shaking his head. “There’s no one out there, miss. No one at all.”

L
ila burrowed under the covers in her brother’s bedroom, unable to sleep. She flinched every time the building creaked or the refrigerator motor kicked on. Her eyes raked the darkness, alert to stray noises and movements. She kept the cordless next to the bed, just in case, although calling 911 wouldn’t help. If someone broke in, they’d have plenty of time to do what they wanted before the police showed up. Any sense of control the phone gave her was illusory at best.

She checked the clock. The dial read 2:00 a.m. She turned on the light and got out of bed. Danny’s condo was in a recently renovated three-story Evanston building a few blocks from Lake Michigan. The view was mostly obstructed by other buildings, but on a clear day you could glimpse slivers of silvery water between the structures. Little details inside the apartment, like decorative moldings and hand-painted woodwork, gave the place some character, but, like his office, Danny hadn’t invested in decorating. The furniture was minimal, there was no art on the wall, no blinds covered the windows. Lila had taped up sheets but held off buying anything permanent. She’d be going back to New York.

She made sure the deadbolt was seated, even though she remembered doing it when she came in. She heard the satisfying click as the cylinders dropped. Then she began to wander. She went into the room Danny used as an office and opened the closet door. Tucked away on a shelf was his old baseball glove. He’d played second base. She pulled it out and slipped her hand in. The leather still felt soft and supple. She held it up to her nose, inhaling the faint residue of saddle soap and leather. Danny had squirted shaving cream on the glove right after he got it. Lila thought he was crazy, but Danny swore it was the only way to break it in, and her father said Danny was right.

She clasped the glove to her chest. It was tangible proof that her family had existed. That she had been part of a bigger whole. That there had been a “once upon a time.” A photo album would have helped. But Danny didn’t have one, and the “official” family album kept by her father was destroyed in the fire.

She put the glove back in the closet. The album had been important for one big reason—it contained the only photo of her mother she’d ever seen. It was on the first page, as soon as you opened it. Lila had gazed at it so often that, years later, she still could call up every detail.

Her mother was fair-skinned with long blond hair. Petite and pretty in a delicate, waiflike way. Her father used to tell Lila that except for her dark coloring, she had inherited her mother’s looks. The photo showed her mother from the waist up. She was squinting into the sun but smiling. It had been taken in the summer, and there must have been a breeze blowing, because wisps of blond hair framed her face. She was wearing a white peasant blouse, and there were flowers in her hair. Real ones, it looked like. Behind her was a stand of trees, and if you just glanced at the picture, you’d think she was one of those forest nymphs from Grimm’s fairy tales.

Lila remembered asking Gramum about her. Her name was Alice Monroe, Gramum would say, her lips tightening, and she came from someplace in Indiana. Gramum never met her, she would add. Her grandmother wasn’t trying to be cruel, but Lila understood that any mention of her mother evoked memories—few of them good. Her father’s marriage was something he and Gramum refused to revisit. It wasn’t a mistake, mind you, Gramum would say over and over. She and Danny were blessings, and if it hadn’t been for their mother, they wouldn’t be here today.

Indeed, her mother had died giving birth to them. Her delicate constitution just couldn’t bear children, Gramum said, especially twins. Gramum would tell her how they’d named her Lila, from the Aramaic word for “night,” because her father had brought them both home in the dead of night. Then she’d change the subject and remind Lila not to bother her father with questions—he was just too busy.

She’d defied Gramum only once, when she was a teenager full of insatiable curiosity. She’d waited until Gramum was in bed, then crept down to her father’s study to ask about her mother. He didn’t know where her mother’s family was, he said; she hadn’t been on good terms with them. As far as he knew, they never knew she was pregnant. Yes, it was a shame, he added, but he wouldn’t have the slightest idea where to find the Monroe family. With such a common name, they could be just about anywhere. When Lila asked him why he never married again, he said he was just too busy.

Exactly what Gramum said.

She’d even asked her aunt about her mother, but Val quickly changed the subject back to herself. Val—she demanded that Lila call her Val, not Valerie, or God forbid, Aunt Valerie—had been married three times but was childless and currently single. She wasn’t evil, and, on occasion, she was fun to be with, but she wasn’t what Lila would call dependable. She was always dashing off someplace, traveling all over the world.

Now Lila wandered into the kitchen. She opened the fridge, took out a bottle of wine, and poured a glass. The Pinot Grigio was tart but with an underlying sweetness. Danny did have good taste in wine. Clothes and women, too. She was just about to take another sip when she heard a scratching noise outside the kitchen door.

She froze, the wine glass halfway to her mouth. Danny’s apartment was on the second floor, but the back door opened to a porch with stairs down to the street. The scratching stopped. Lila clutched the glass. Her nerves were shot. Was she imagining this, too?

A moment later it started up again. This time it sounded as if someone was lightly scraping against something metal. Not her imagination. Her eyes slid to the phone on the kitchen wall. It would take the police at least ten minutes to respond, but she needed help now.

She heard snuffling and what sounded like labored breathing. Slowly she moved to the kitchen counter, set down the glass, and opened a drawer that housed Danny’s knives. Three lay inside. One was a carving knife with a long curving blade. Another, a short paring knife. The third was a sharp, sturdy-looking knife with a six-inch blade. The long knife would be awkward and unwieldy. The short one, too little. She picked up the sturdy one. The handle fit easily in her palm. Like Goldilocks, it was just right.

She edged her way to the door. She had surprise on her side. Would that be enough? What if there was more than one person? She thought again about the scratching. She had no idea what was making it. Her heart pounded. She smelled the fear on herself.

She tore the door open and went out to the porch. Below, at street level, a dog whimpered and trotted away from the garbage cans.

* *

Lila was being chased by a large dog that turned into a snake and slithered faster than she could run. The snake was almost on top of her when she came awake. It wasn’t quite dawn, but the blackness outside had thinned, leaving a fog of gray.

She ran a bath, threw in a handful of bubble bath she’d bought at Walgreens, and soaked for half an hour. Afterwards, she flitted restlessly from room to room again, like a fly landing on objects only for brief moments. By the fifth circuit, she realized she was being compulsive and made herself stop.

She thought about calling Rich, her ex-boyfriend. A stockbroker in New York, he would be up by now, maybe on his way to the floor. No. They’d broken up three months ago. What if another woman answered the phone? Or she heard a quiet female murmur in the background? Bad idea.

Maybe she’d call a girlfriend instead. But who? There were women she worked out with, colleagues at Peabody Stern she collaborated with, even women in her building with whom she traded elevator pleasantries. But Lila didn’t make friends easily. She wasn’t comfortable with “girl talk.”  She thought about calling Annie Gossage, but pushed away the idea. With her three kids and husband, Annie’s life was too busy already. If Lila called, Annie would make time for her, but she’d feel sorry for Lila, and Lila couldn’t tolerate the humiliation of being pitied.

She decided to check her email. Back in Danny’s office, she sat at his desk and booted up the computer. She clicked on her email program and waded through the spam cluttering her in-box. After deleting them, only three messages remained.

One was from a grassroots political organization to which she’d pledged twenty-five dollars for Internet neutrality. Not only did the initiative fail, but she was now on every mailing list of activists ever known to man or beast. The second was from her “team leader” at Peabody Stern about an upcoming departmental staff meeting, which she would be missing. The third was a message about a genealogy website. It promised to locate ancestors, make contact with long lost cousins, even run background checks. Lila moved it to her deleted items folder. She was about to erase the folder altogether when something made her pause. She retrieved the message, and read it again.

Death had tagged her and run away, snatching everything she cherished. Her father and Danny were gone. But they were only half of her family. Her mother’s family was out there somewhere. If she could find them, connect with them, maybe she could find comfort, even a sense of belonging.

She clicked on the genealogy website.