We Are Here (19 page)

“But this reversal …”

“It can take place over weeks or months or years. It can happen early or it can happen late. You and I were unusually late, but then it fell apart
fast
.”

“You’re saying we were friends,” David insisted doggedly.

“
Yes
. For God’s sake.”

“But where?”

“From that moment under the table. Here, too, almost the whole time you lived in the city.”

“So how come I don’t remember you?”

“You grew up. Kids are born without all the made-up rules, but then the world spends the first twenty years of everybody’s life drumming the magic out. Training them to draw a line around each individual to separate them from the rest of the universe, turning them into ‘I’ instead of being part of a cloud of interaction that stretches in all directions. Once the line’s been inked around you, the shutters come down. That’s what Lonely Clive used to say, anyway, and I figure he was right.”

David stuck with it. “Who
was
this Clive?”

“He took me under his wing after you left the city, and he’s the only one of us who ever got this close to a reconnect. It didn’t work out, and that was the beginning of the end for him. He’s hollow now.”

“I’ve tried,” David said. “I really have. But I don’t understand
a single thing you’ve said
.”

“You just don’t
want
to remember,” Maj snapped. “Which proves some part of you remembers
something
.”

“Yo, Maj!”

A teenage girl wearing a gray hoodie over a strange array of other garments came up the sidewalk toward them. David recognized her from the park, the girl who’d been near the woman in the ball gown. She looked like a runaway, about seventeen, and as if she’d selected her wardrobe in a concerted effort to piss off or perplex anyone over the age of twenty-three.

Maj smiled back. “S’up, girl?”

“It’s all epic.” She grinned. “All the time. We’re headed to a party down in ’packing. It’s going to be awesome. Wanna come?”

“Love to,” Maj said. “But I’m busy right now.”

She pouted. “You’ve
always
got shit to do.”

“Shit don’t get done by itself, right?”

The girl laughed and went off down the street. She seemed to turn her head a couple of times, as if to talk to someone beside her.

“Okay,” Maj said to David, starting to walk in the other direction. “Come meet a guy.”

I’m so loving my life right now. It’s amazing. I’m just chilling, doing my thing. I’ve got some great new girlfriends, and every morning we wake up and it’s like, “What are we going to do today?” and we walk out of wherever we crashed without looking back and then we’ll hang in a park or go look in stores or whatever. It’s all so totally laid-back and at night we’ll find somewhere new to sleep and there’re always new people to meet, too, and always a party somewhere. Lately I’ve been meeting a load of these super-cool friends called Angels, who are dressed in black the whole time, and I never thought that look would be for me, but I’m starting to kind of like it, especially as it’s not like total goth or anything because they’ll wear these bright clothes underneath, like a dress or shirt or whatever. I’m not even sure why they’re so friendly to me because I don’t really know them and they didn’t go to the school or come from the neighborhood, but basically they’re these super-nice people and they go around doing epic things and helping people out. Sometimes some of them steal stuff, but not often and only from really big corporations and so it’s not a big deal. There’re some other people who take a lot more stuff and they steal from normal people. They have, like, this leader or whatever, but they’re not like the Angels. They’re kind of heavy and scary instead and they don’t do good things for other people and they have this idea of a place and it’s like their heaven or something. There’s twelve of them and I don’t really get it, but I don’t hang with them anyway because I think maybe it’s okay if you just steal something every now and then, but if you’re totally doing it the whole time that’s so not cool. That’s what Lizzie says, and she even says any stealing at all is not good and she doesn’t do it anymore. She’s one of the key Angels and I agree with her. She’s like a big sister to me, and she said if I ever start to feel confused I should go talk to her and she’ll explain things. I think maybe I might get into that whole Angel thing at some point, but not yet, because it’s too much fun hanging out and partying with my friends even though sometimes it’s complicated because they can’t remember their names, and I can’t either, so it’s hard to make arrangements. But it always seems to work out and it’s not a big deal.

The only thing that’s a bummer is I don’t see much of Jessica anymore. I go watch her every now and then, and sometimes if I can get in the house I sleep on the floor under her bed, but she’s, like, doing this thing right now where she pretends not to see me the whole time, or even hear me, and she doesn’t hang in the places we used to go. If I see her in the evenings, she’s out with all these other people she knows from high school and I realize, how freaking long
is
it since we really hung together? And I think, huh, if she’s in high school then it’s got to be like a year or two or maybe four, but I’m sure it’s all fine and she’s just super-busy or something. We’re are so best friends forever and that never dies. It’s not like she was with Cynthia Markham, a total bitch she was tight with in the sixth grade but who screwed her over and was like suddenly I’m not your friend anymore, end of story, and I stuck with Jessica through that time even though she wasn’t friendly to me at all. That’s what best friends are for, right? Okay so she’s got like a boyfriend now, and if it’s really five or six years since we spoke, then I’ve been living in the city a lot longer than I realized, but that’s not going to change anything because when you’re best friends nothing in the world can change that,
ever
. There was a while when I’d throw things around in the house and try to scare her, but it didn’t work and I gave up and it was dumb anyway. She’s just going through, like, a phase or something, but it’s all good and it’ll be okay in the end because true friendship never dies.

It never dies.

As I walked across 16th I heard the sound of the piano. Once again it sounded like it was coming from one of the upper windows of the town house next to the church. The piece was familiar, measured and sane and beautiful. Bach, in other words. I drew to a halt beneath a streetlight. The player fumbled, stopped, repeated a section with the stress on different hands, then returned patiently to the beginning. Though he or she was not destined for Carnegie Hall they were better than competent, partly because the playing had the freedom of someone who is rehearsing for their own benefit and does not realize they are overheard. There are people for whom an audience is essential, who raise their game and feel more real when observed. The rest of us do much of what we do in an attempt to fill ourselves up, and that is more easily done in private.

I let myself in through the low iron gate and walked up the right staircase to the door of the church. I knocked. As before, there was no response. I tried the handle, but now it was locked.

I was about to knock again but noticed a tarnished buzzer on the side. I pressed it. It didn’t sound like anything happened. I hadn’t banked on being stymied so quickly and was about to press it again, largely out of frustration, when I heard the sound of a window opening.

I stepped back and looked up to see a head and shoulders sticking out of the window on the second floor of the town house. It was the priest.

He waved. “Just a moment,” he said, and disappeared.

I walked down to wait for him out on the sidewalk. He appeared out of the house a few minutes later and trotted down the steps, not looking at all put out.

“Had the bell rewired over to my quarters,” he said cheerfully. “If I’m in the church, the door’s always open. If I’m not, what’s the point of the bell ringing in an empty room?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt your practice.”

“Oh, it’s not important.”

“Bach?”

“Indeed.
The Well-Tempered Clavier
, Prelude Five.”

“You’re pretty good.”

He made a face that was polite but dismissive, the expression you use when someone praises you for something they don’t really understand.

“Seriously. Good separation, not too clinical or fast but you don’t lean into the bends either. Difficult to guess whether you’d prefer the Barenboim or Angela Hewitt. Certainly not the early Gould.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You play?”

“I used to, a little. Back in the day.”

“No longer?”

“I lost my audience.”

He nodded affably. “I’ve never wanted one. It’s something I do for myself. A kind of meditation, perhaps. It doesn’t matter whether anyone hears.”

“That’s what I used to tell myself. But it matters.”

He smiled in a way that remained friendly but was also final, which said I was wandering into territory he knew better than me, and which he had no wish to discuss.

He stuck out his hand. “Father Robert,” he said. “Or Robert Jeffers, if you’d prefer.”

“John Henderson.”

“How can I help you, Mr. Henderson?”

“I was here earlier today,” I said. “The door to the church was open then.”

“Of course. I was inside.”

“I’d just seen you walk off down the road.”

I assume priests get a lot of practice in developing a facial expression that says they’re listening without judging. “Of course,” Jeffers said. His eyes were tired, and his shave that morning, though close, had not been perfect. “I received a call midafternoon, someone who wished to see me urgently. And you’re correct—when I got back I realized I’d forgotten to lock up. Luckily nobody entered while I was away.”

“Actually, they did. Me.”

“Well, you seem like a person of good intent.”

“It comes and goes. The funny thing is, I thought I saw you exchange words with someone inside as you left.”

“Well, of course.”

“I didn’t see anyone while I was in there.”

He smiled. “I’m sorry. It’s a conceit of mine. I meant the Lord. I always exchange a few words with him on entering or leaving the building.”

“Does he reply?”

“Naturally. You should try it sometime.”

“I will. If I ever think of something to ask.”

The priest smiled tolerantly, and it struck me how wearying it must be to work in a profession where people either ask too much of you or else don’t believe a word you say. “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

“Yes. Yesterday afternoon.”

“Of course. The running man. Did you find the person you were looking for?”

“No. She disappeared. Funny thing is—sorry to use the expression again, but it
is
kind of strange—I think the same woman disappeared in this same street a couple of nights before.”

“Are you a policeman?”

“No.”

“Then what is your interest?”

“She’s has been following a friend of mine.”

“Following?”

“Tracking her home from social engagements. Waiting when she picks her daughters up from school. Maybe even standing out in the street at night looking up at her windows.
That
kind of following. The not-good kind.”

“How unsettling.”

I didn’t say anything. The best way of getting someone to volunteer information is to leave them hanging. People feel the need to fill awkward space, and while they won’t give up what you want straightaway, often they’ll show you the beginning of the path.

Jeffers had more self-possession than this, however—or else genuinely had no idea what I was talking about. He merely stood there, looking composed.

“A tall woman,” I said. “Young, dark hair, long dark coat, red dress.”

“Doesn’t sound like one of my flock, I’m afraid.”

“You guys really still say ‘flock’?”

“I do. I can’t speak for others.”

“The
other
funny thing—and this really is the last time, I promise—is I’m pretty sure I saw the woman again after I left your church. In Union Square.” His face was blank now. “Was she the person you left the church in such a hurry to see?”

“No. That was an elderly gentleman in quite the other direction,” Jeffers said. “So I’m afraid you must have been mistaken.”

I took out one of the Adriatico’s cards and wrote my number on the back. When I offered it to the priest, he looked at it and then at me as if my meaning was unclear. I kept holding it out until he took it.

“Is there anything else?” he asked.

I thanked him for his time and remained where I was while he headed back up the stairs and into his house. He walked more heavily this time, without the personable trot he’d arrived with, but he did not look back.

As I set off down the street I heard him start the second Prelude. It was good—nearly flawless, in fact, at least the portion I caught before I got out of range and the music became buried beneath the sound of traffic. That prelude is a compact little pocket of baroque fury, tight under the hands, and no one’s idea of easy. A risky choice to switch from the fifth to that, unless perhaps you knew someone was still likely to be in earshot and might know enough to be impressed.

I thought the priest was kidding himself, just a little. He wanted to be heard.

He was also deluding himself if he believed he’d convinced me. Kristina had followed him to Union Square. I’d seen him there too. Had I learned anything by talking to him tonight? Only that he was willing to lie to me—but from this followed other things. First, there was some connection between him and the woman who’d been following Catherine. Them being together in the park said this, and that maybe she
had
come down this road the day before and he knew where she’d disappeared to.

Second, he was an amateur at misleading people. If someone puts you on the spot, you either avoid saying anything of consequence or tell the truth and dare the motherfucker to make something of it. This made me wonder how he’d gotten himself into a position where he was covering up for someone else.