What Strange Creatures (6 page)

“No . . . uh . . . I’ve got Wayne.”

“Oh, poor you,” said Brittany, cocking her head. I wasn’t sure if this was imitative of Wayne or simply her natural mannerism. “Wayne can be challenging.”

“So Kim didn’t say when she’d be back?”

“She said she’d be back Monday. I haven’t heard from her.”

“Are you worried about her? ’Cuz I’m starting to worry.”

Brittany looked at her feet for a moment, then opened the door a bit wider. “Do you . . . uh, want to come in for a second?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

I stepped into the living room, which resembled an IKEA showroom—all aqua and white furniture and carpet with brittle black end tables. Throwing off the freshness of the room was a ketchup-colored beanbag chair covered in dog hair.

“How’s it going with old Wayne, then?” Brittany asked.

She perched on the very edge of the sofa and motioned for me to do the same.

“He’s okay. He barks a lot when I’m not there, I’m told.”

I sniffed at the air of the apartment. It smelled like Whitlock’s Lemon Curd candle. Lemon Curd was another one of those candles I was responsible for naming. I’d convinced the fragrance team to change it from Lemon Zest, which I felt was too pedestrian. Curd was more British, and the older ladies love that.

“Yup. That sounds like Wayne. That’s why I never let Kim leave him with me. One time, and never again.”

“What happened?”

“He ate my favorite jacket.”

“Leather?”

“No. Leather I could understand. Black denim. From J.Crew. What kind of dog eats denim?”

“Maybe there’s something missing in his diet,” I suggested.

Brittany scoffed. “That dog’s not missing anything in the food department. What he needs is an obedience class. I’ve been telling Kim that for a
long
time now.”

“So you and Kim are friends? Not just roommates.”

Brittany rolled her shoulders, looking thoughtful. “Not really,” she admitted. “I’ve told her that as someone who has to live with Wayne. Not so much as a friend. I don’t mean I have anything against her. We’re just not friends.”

Brittany got up and walked over to the coat closet beside the door to the apartment.

“So if she was in some kind of trouble, she wouldn’t call you about it?” I asked.

“No.” Brittany pulled a black jacket out of the closet and carried it back to the sofa. “Not unless there was no one else for her to call, maybe. The thing is, I’m not so surprised she’s saddled you with Wayne and then flaked out. She does stuff like that sometimes. I’m sure she’ll turn up.”

“What do you think happened?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say she reconnected with her old boyfriend.”

Brittany thrust the jacket into my hands so I could see the jagged, stringy fabric where a cuff had once been.

“Wow,” I said, holding it in my lap for a moment, hoping to appear sympathetic. “So her boyfriend. You mean Jeff?”

“Jeff? No. Is he the alcoholic? No. Her
old
boyfriend’s named Kyle. All of Kim’s drama always boils down to Kyle. That’s my theory anyway.”

“Right . . .” I gave my best knowing nod, trying to ignore the leaden feeling in my chest. I avoided the impulse to point out to Brittany the difference between alcohol
ism
and alcohol
abuse.

“If she’d only cut it off with him, she’d probably be a lot happier. Sometimes you
can’t
be friends.”

“I know, I know,” I said. Was the second “I know” too much, I wondered. Too fake?

“I think Jeff’s onto the whole thing. I heard Kim talking on the phone with him once, and she’s all like ‘We just had to talk about one thing. We have a mutual friend, and she’s having a problem.’ Or some bullshit like that. ‘I can’t go into it, I can’t go into it,’ she kept saying. By the time she got off the phone, she was crying. I think that Jeff was really laying into her. Can’t say I blame him, I guess. I
know
she still saw Kyle, still talked to him. And more than once.”

“Why didn’t she just end it?” I asked.

“Well . . .” Brittany cocked her head at me again. Maybe that was one too many questions. Maybe it sounded terribly naïve. Maybe anyone who knew Kim at all should have the answer.

“I actually don’t know. She said he’d drunk-dial her sometimes, but what I don’t get is why she would answer.”

Brittany shrugged and folded her arms.

“So maybe if I could track down Kyle, I could track down Kim?” I asked her.

“I’d think,” Brittany said, then clucked her tongue. “You ever met Kyle?”

“No.” I folded Brittany’s jacket and placed it between us on the couch. “You?”

“Nope.”

“Now, what was his last name?”

“Mmm . . . Spicer? Yeah. I remember thinking it reminded me of cinnamon.”

“And you think she’s with him?”

Brittany shrugged again.

“Where does Kyle live?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, but he lives close. Maybe Ricksville. I know he works at Carpet World in Ricksville.”

I nodded. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with this information.

“Did Kim happen to mention someone sending her nasty texts?” I asked.

“Texts?” Brittany shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.”

“What about Donald Wallace? Did she ever mention that name to you?”

Brittany looked at me like I was a lunatic. “Donald Wallace?” she repeated. “You mean the Senate candidate?”

“That’s the one.” I tried to sound casual.

“Uh . . .
no.
” Brittany twisted her lip to show how weird she thought I was for asking.

“So, then . . . this friend of hers . . . Missy? Do you think she’d know where Kim is?”

Brittany shrugged. “I’m not sure. I know Kim would walk Wayne with her sometimes. I never met her. Kim mentioned she was an old friend she’d recently gotten in touch with again.”

“Do you know Missy’s last name? Where she lives?”

“No. I just know that they’d walk Wayne in Higgins Park in Folston. She mentioned it to me as a nice place to jog, ’cuz I’m always looking for a place to jog besides the campus. I hate jogging on campus. But anyway, Missy’s got a baby. They’d walk with the stroller and Wayne. Personally, I wouldn’t want that slobbery thing near my baby. But whatever.”

“Uh-huh,” I said uncertainly.

Brittany hesitated, then gave me a sympathetic pout. “You know, I’m sure Kim will turn up. She’ll show up all apologetic, all wanting big, sloppy Wayne kisses.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“I’ll tell her you were looking for her. If I hear from her.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Driving home, I considered the concept of enabler. It was something I’d been thinking about a lot lately. I never meant to be one, you see. I’ve noticed that there’s little sympathy out there for enablers. Not that there should be a great deal, but this is something I wish people understood: It’s a role that sneaks up on you.

A few years ago, I seriously thought that it was Jeff enabling
me.
I was the one going through a divorce, after all. Jeff would visit me with a six-pack and a carton of cashew chicken. Or I’d invite him over for spaghetti Bolognese—the recipe takes a dash of wine, and then we’d finish the bottle while we ate. And maybe another if I had one on hand. I really
liked
drinking then—more than I ever had before. It was the first time in my life when I felt as if I
needed
a bit of numbing each night.

After each of my subsequent breakups, Jeff was always there with at least a six-pack, and more often the makings of a Manhattan or an Old-Fashioned or whatever “vintage” cocktail (his phrase) he’d been meaning to try. I was usually too self-involved at the time to ask myself if he was drinking as much by himself—or with his friends—when I was between breakups.

But after he lost the school-bus job, the alcohol he’d bring to my place got cheaper and cheaper. Popov vodka and orange juice. Screw-top wine, then boxed. Sometimes I’d wonder where he got the money even for that. The word “vintage” was no longer used. When I’d stop by on a Saturday or after work, I’d often find him halfway through a bottle of something or dozing heavily on his couch.

If we were from a family that talked directly about feelings or worries or troubling behaviors or anything at all, really, this would perhaps have been when we would have talked about it. But we don’t, so we didn’t.

That’s how it sneaks up on you, see?

And then you find yourself standing in a Lemon Curd–smelling living room with a girl with Twizzler lips saying your brother’s a drunk. And it stabs you right in the stomach, because you knew a long time ago that this was coming but were selfishly afraid to think it. To think it for real—that is, in a way that required something of you.

As I pulled in to my neighborhood, I started to plan my evening: sad Lean Cuisine chicken, salad, maybe some frozen yogurt if it wasn’t too freezer-burned. And Marge: work on the section about Marge’s time in Jerusalem. A little wine. Then watch some DVRed
Mad Men
if I earned it with sufficient Marge work. Fall asleep with Sylvestress.

But when I reached my driveway, I couldn’t bring myself to turn off my car. I let the engine idle for a moment. It wasn’t, I decided, the monotony of my plans that made me reluctant. Lately, after the last couple of breakups, I enjoyed the monotony.

It was Jeff. Jeff in pain again. Me carrying on with Marge as usual and pretending all was fine in Jeff Land. I was used to it. But I didn’t ever like it.

I set my GPS for Carpet World in Ricksville. It was only twenty minutes away.

The moment I stepped into Carpet World, I felt a little sorry for Kyle Spicer. I couldn’t imagine coming, day in and day out, to this place of chemical stink. At least where I worked, you had a different cloying smell every day.

I approached the eager-looking young woman at the front desk and asked for Kyle. She pointed me toward a corner of the store where two men stood with a pregnant woman as she looked through a giant book of carpet samples.

“Which one is he?” I asked the woman at the desk.

“Tall one,” she answered.

I watched Kyle talk to his customers. He had a big, perfect toothpaste-commercial smile. I couldn’t determine the color of his eyes—only that they were dark and oddly shiny, intensified by long eyelashes.

“Well, seeing as how this little girl’s gonna be here sooner rather than later,” he was saying, “I can set the order up right now. I’ll put a hot rush on it, and I’ll bet we can get it to you by Wednesday.”

Kyle was handsome despite an unusually round face and a bad haircut. It was cut too close to his head, making it stand military-stiff at the top. Something in his hair—either natural sheen or some kind of product—made it look wet. He most definitely had the style of a salesman. I wondered exactly what a “hot rush” was.

He led his two customers to the front counter. While the guy of the couple bent over his wallet, shuffling credit cards, I thought I saw Kyle wink at the pregnant wife. She looked as taken aback as I was, so I probably wasn’t imagining it. But then as he rang them up, it did appear that his right lid was a little twitchy. Maybe the carpet chemicals affected his eyes.

“Can I help you with something?” Kyle asked me as the couple made their way out the door.

“I’m actually here to talk to you about Kim Graber. I’m sorry to bother you at work, but I didn’t know how else to contact you.”

“About Kim?” Kyle’s bright eyes widened into a stare. “What about Kim?”

“Well, she’s a friend of a friend. I’m looking for her, and I was told you might—”

“I’m sorry,” Kyle interrupted me. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Margery.” I swallowed. I didn’t want him to associate me with Jeff, whose last name he very likely knew. “Lipinski.”

The name had simply fallen out of my mouth. It was obvious where I got the Margery, but where did the Lipinski come from? Probably from Tara Lipinski. Figure skaters’ names are often at the tip of my tongue. I’ve always kind of wanted to be one.

“Well, Margery,” Kyle said crisply, “you’re a friend of a friend. . . . Who told you to come see me, then? Which friend?”

“Her roommate, actually. Brittany? So I’m wondering if you’ve heard from Kim in the last few days?” I tried to sound casual, friendly. But Kyle looked unconvinced.

“The last few
days
?” he repeated. “No. I don’t know what Brittany told you. I’ve never even met Brittany. But Kim and I aren’t in regular contact anymore.”

“So you don’t know where Kim is?” I said.

Kyle squinted at me. Or his eyelid was twitching again. Hard to say which.

“Why would
I
know where she is? She has a boyfriend, you know.”

There was something snottily adolescent in his tone that unnerved me. I didn’t know how to reply.

“Maybe you should ask
him,
” Kyle added.

“I’ve . . . uh . . . already asked.”

“How about her family?”

“She’s apparently not with them.”

I was beginning to regret that I’d walked in here without much of a plan. Kyle stared at me. He may have been the first person I’d ever encountered whose eyes I’d actually describe as “piercing.” I breathed carefully and shifted my gaze to the nearest wall, which displayed a rug with a red
CLEARANCE
tag. The rug was an ugly pink-brown. Like a raw hot dog.

“Do you know what her deal is with Donald Wallace?” I asked.

Kyle squinted again. In that moment I could’ve sworn his eyes actually sparkled. “Jesus,” he said. “Why would you bring that up?”

“I don’t know. I saw her pictures, and I was . . . concerned.”

Kyle scoffed, then bit his thumbnail. “I told her it was a dumb idea,” he said. His gaze began to dart around—from my face to my car parked right outside the storefront and back to me.

“What do you know about Donald Wallace?” He lowered his voice so I had to step closer. “Did she show you her stupid video, too? I mean, what she had done so far?”

“She was going to . . . but she didn’t.”

Kyle’s face relaxed into a dull stare. “Why didn’t she?”

“Because we didn’t have a chance to arrange it.”

“To arrange it?” Kyle folded his arms. I got the impression he was no longer having a conversation with me—just watching me.