How Many Letters Are In Goodbye? (19 page)

He makes his eyes bigger and that's when I notice how bloodshot they are.

“Wow,” I go. “That's crazy.”

“Crazy?” he goes, “it's fucking bullshit, that's what it is. It's fucked up.”

He's silent then, for thirty seconds, or a minute, and he's looking at the wall behind my shoulder instead of at my face, and it's like he's forgotten I'm there. But then his eyes snap back to mine and his grip is tight again.

“How much rent you got for me?”

“What do you mean, rent?”

I know what he means. Sergei said it before, right at the beginning, that people had patches, territories we might not even be aware of. Fuck Sergei.

“Come on,” he goes. His voice is gentle now, as if he's talking to a little kid even though he's probably not that much older than me. “Don't worry, show me what you got. I get some, you get some. That's how it works.”

I have $6.83. That's all I have. $5 of it is in my sock.

“I don't have anything.”

He pushes and twists my arm at the same time.

“Ow!”

“Come on now, we both know that's not true.”

It hurts like a bitch, my elbow and my shoulder socket, all of it.

“Okay, so I have a couple of dollars. You'll have to let go of me, so I can get it.”

He lets go, slowly, and I take the dollar bill from my back pocket, and eighty-three cents from my front one, put it in his cupped palms. He's not getting the $5 in my sock. “That's everything, that's all I have.”

He puts it on the floor next to him and lets go of me to count it out, real slow. His fingers are long. Piano-playing fingers. He slides each coin along the tiles before he picks it up, stacks the dimes on top of the quarter, the pennies in a tower of their own. “That's it?”

“I told you, that's all I have.”

He puts the dollar in his pocket, then the change. “That's a real shame.”

“You can't take it, please! You can't leave me with nothing! What am I supposed to do with nothing?”

He takes off his cap, turns it in his hands. His hair is only bristles, shaved tighter than mine.

“Don't worry, I'll hook you up. Good money. You want to earn, right?”

I squirm to one side, wiggle my legs out a little.

“I don't beg, if that's what you mean.”

He shakes his head, puts his cap back on. “No begging. Earning. Cute one like you—your accent, the he/she thing. People like that.”

He's not holding on to me anymore, but my legs feel numb. Even if I managed to kick him, I don't know if they'd hold my weight when I stand up, if they'd be able to move fast enough to take me down the corridor.

He keeps talking, his voice slow, mesmerising. “You might not think it, but your arm—people are into that shit. People pay for that shit.”

I cup my stump, I can't help it. “I'm not a prostitute. I'm getting a job. I'm not even homeless, I'm just in between places.”

He laughs, tipping his head back. The laugh goes on for ages. When he stops, he wipes his mouth. “Honey, we're all just in between places.”

There's a sound then, voices, two guys' voices. I can't see them but I can hear them, talking about the Knicks game. If I screamed, they'd hear me, they'd definitely hear me. I want to scream, but somehow I can't.

Their voices fade away and he keeps looking in the direction that they went, long after it is silent. When he turns to me again, his eyes are different, as if they are seeing me for the first time.

“What's your name?” he goes.

My brain can't think of another name. “Rhea.”

“Rhea.” He smiles. “That's cute. I'm Jay.”

He holds out his hand and I take it. He lets go and reaches into his pocket, takes out the eighty-three cents. “Here,” he goes. “When that runs out, come back and see me, okay?”

“Okay.”

I take the change from him, hold it tight. I nearly thank him, but I don't.

“And don't be reading the
Times
. You pick up the
Journal
, remember?”

“Okay, I'll remember.”

He gets up really slowly, he's almost graceful the way he does it, he doesn't have to push himself up with his hands or anything. I watch him as he walks away, towards where the voices were, and I notice he has a wonky foot, his left one. I'm watching how it moves, sloping out to one side and kind of dragging along the floor, when he turns around and tips his baseball cap at me and smiles.

That was last night—I think it was last night, not the night before—but it's hard to tell anymore. I'm not going to tell you how much of the $5.83 I have left. I haven't eaten since I've been down here on my bench by the water. It's kind of handy, not needing to eat, because I don't need to move, even to find a toilet, all I have to do is sit here and listen to the river lapping and watch the boats. In an hour or so, it'll get dark, the water will be black and in the blackness you wouldn't be able to see someone lowering themselves into the water, someone holding on to the bars of the railing, someone letting go.

It'd be cold, I know that. It would seep through my clothes, make them ice, make them heavy. Like a stone. “Stone Free.” It's calm, though, flat, like in Rush. That day—you know the day I'm talking about—it was flat as a pancake, that's what they said. If someone who swims every day, someone who's such a good swimmer, can drown in calm water like that, it must be easier for someone who can't swim, someone who's never learned. It must be faster.

There's a payphone behind this bench. I can't see it because I'm looking at the water but I know it's there, five or six feet from where I'm sitting now. I could call Aunt Ruth's cell number, the one on the poster, I wouldn't have to talk to Cooper. I can imagine myself making the call, feel my neck holding the receiver, my finger punching the keys, hear the phone ringing, stretching out. You know how in films when someone is missing, the person answers the phone straightaway, all breathless and hopeful? I keep wondering if Aunt Ruth would answer like that.

This is how I imagine the call:

The phone would ring once, maybe twice, and then I'd hear Aunt Ruth at the other end.

Aunt Ruth: Hello?

Me: Breathing.

Aunt Ruth: Hello? Hello? Rhea? Is that you?

Me: Breathing.

Aunt Ruth: Rhea, please come home! I'm sorry, honey. You know I didn't mean it! I lied, what I said, I was only trying to hurt you—

And then I hang up.

I'm not going to call, though. No matter what happens, Mum, I'm not going to call. Even if Jay shows up at this bench, even if all the rats in New York come teeming out of the water.

The only possible reason in the world that I'd call would be if I was scared of dying. But people die, Mum. I mean you died, that's just what happens.

And I'm not scared of anything. I need to remember that, to keep remembering that, that I've never been scared of anything, of anything at all.

Rae

Grand Central Station, New York
9th May 1999
4:12 p.m.

Dear Mum,

I went to Michael's to give him his Discman back. Everything bad that started to happen, happened since I took that Discman, as if taking it was bad karma or something, and the only way to undo it is by giving it back. That's what I tell myself the reason is, but on the way I think there might be another reason, like that I've no CDs or batteries. That maybe I'm going there to remember that only two weeks ago Sergei and I were in his apartment, eating dumplings and Pop-Tarts and watching a
Law & Order
marathon. I don't get time at all. Nothing interesting happens for months and months, sometimes even years, and then your whole world can change in only two weeks.

I don't expect to actually see him, he's upstate on the weekends, and I haven't figured out how to give him the Discman back, except maybe to wait until one of the neighbours is going in and ask them to leave it outside his door. That's what I'm thinking, but when I get there, there's a big people carrier outside his building, almost exactly like the car Cooper had except this one is black. The door of the building is propped open with a box and the lid doesn't shut properly and I can see there are CDs inside.

I have to be honest, Mum, I think about lifting the lid and taking one, which I know goes against the whole karma thing, but right then the idea of closing my eyes and listening to music, any music, is worth all the bad karma in the world. But before I have a chance, I hear voices coming down the stairs and that's when I hide in the doorway of the apartment building next door. Michael walks right past me, but he doesn't see me, and then a woman walks past, behind him. He's wearing a grey T-shirt with a line of sweat down the back and he's carrying a box. The woman is wearing a pink tracksuit and she's not carrying anything.

They put the box in the car and when they go back into the building, I run across the street, to where the lane is, so I can get a better view. It takes ages for them to come out again but when they do I get a proper look at the woman. She has sunglasses on, pink ones, and her blonde hair is in a ponytail, scraped back really tight so it pulls at the skin on the side of her face. It must be the woman from the photo, it has to be, but she doesn't look the same. She doesn't look the same at all.

They make twelve trips up and down to the car. Each time, Michael is carrying a big box that he loads into the boot and then when that's full he starts to load things into the back seat. The woman never carries anything except once when she carries a lamp. She could have just sat in the car and waited, but she follows him, a step behind his step, and it looks like she's talking all the time, even though he's not saying anything at all.

I don't know why watching them makes me sad, except that since that night at the Y, everything makes me sad. It's not like I even know Michael, not really, so it doesn't make sense why I don't want him to go. But I don't want him to go.

The last time they come out, he's carrying a backpack and a denim jacket, she has a white plastic bag. She says something and goes back into the building. I lean down and see her runners climbing the stairs. My brain is still deciding what to do when my feet decide first and run across the street. Michael is in the passenger seat with the window rolled down. At first he doesn't see me because he's looking in the mirror, doing something with his hair. I'm about to say his name when he glances over, sees me, does a double take. He jerks his head around to look over his shoulder, as if she's going to be right behind him, but she's not.

“Holy shit! What are you doing here? You got to get out of here.”

“I came to give you this.”

He looks confused at the Discman I'm holding up to the window. He twists around in his seat to check the door of the apartment building, but she's still not coming.

“I shouldn't have taken it, I'm sorry. I haven't even used it, it still works.”

“What the fuck? You scam me for over a thousand bucks and you come to bring this back?”

My stump hurts and I want to cup it but my hand still has the Discman.

“I didn't know about the money.”

“Yeah, yeah, you probably put him up to it.”

“I swear, I didn't know. He only told me after.”

He's shaking his head, he doesn't believe me. He lowers his voice.

“You know what's fucked up? I can almost get the money thing, you know. I nearly can. But calling Melanie? What the fuck did you guys get out of that?”

“Melanie?”

“She's pregnant, you know. Did he tell you that? She could have lost the baby because of you.”

His eyes are shiny and his hand is in a fist. I scrunch my toes up in my Docs. I hold out the Discman, but it's like he doesn't even see it. He glances over his shoulder again, his voice a whisper. “Where is he?”

“I don't know, I haven't seen him.”

He looks at me then, his eyes properly look at me, take me in.

“You really haven't seen him?”

I shake my head.

“You have anyone else in the city you can go to? Any family?”

I bite down hard, clench. Inside my cheeks, I've all these sores, mouth ulcers, even though I keep brushing my teeth. Eating pizza hurts and so does eating bagels. He reaches into his pocket, takes out two twenties, holds them out the window in between his index and his middle fingers, like forty dollars is nothing at all.

“That's all I have on me, just take it.”

I shake my head; that's not why I'm here. And then the fucking tears start leaking out, they're on my cheeks and I can't wipe them away without dropping the Discman and now he feels sorry for me, now he is pitying me.

“I don't want your charity.”

“Fine,” he says. “Give it to someone else who needs it.”

He lets go of the notes and they flutter onto the road. One lands near my Doc, the other is next to the tyre.

“You have to go,” he says. “Just take the fucking money and go.”

I shove the Discman through the window at him, scrunch down and grab the notes. When I stand back up, he's looking at me differently, frowning this time.

“Hey,” he goes, “did I see a poster with your face on it in the subway? Some girl missing from Florida. Is that you?”

My heart is kicking. I hoist my backpack higher on my back.

“Where?” I go. “Which subway station?”

We both hear it then, the noise, the sound of the apartment building door closing. There's panic in his face, but I know what to do. I cross the street, real slow, casual, like I was just walking by. I don't run. When I'm on the other side, I see the blonde woman. She hasn't even noticed me.

Melanie, her name is Melanie. Her hand is on her stomach, a little bump under her pink tracksuit top, a little bump that's a baby.