Authors: Alafair Burke
A
n hour later, McKenna gave up her surfing efforts, no closer to learning anything about Susan’s disappearance than when she’d started.
McKenna used to think about Susan constantly; then, with time, for only a fleeting moment per day. Like she’d pass the bar where Susan had been asked to leave after breaking multiple strings of Mardi Gras beads on the impromptu dance floor she had created. Or McKenna would see a trailer for a new comedy aimed at teenage boys and think, Susan will see that with me. Or her phone would ring a little too late for any polite caller, and she’d expect to hear Susan’s voice on the other end of the line. In retrospect, McKenna struggled to pinpoint the last time her mind had really focused on a memory of her friend.
If forced to guess, she would have to say it was five years earlier—on a Sunday morning, two days after McKenna and Patrick’s wedding. She remembered because she hadn’t meant to think about Susan that day. She hadn’t meant to cry. Even five years ago, the tears had been less for the loss of her friend than for her guilt at having moved on without her.
The morning hadn’t started on a heavy note. She and Patrick were next to each other on the sofa, opening the wedding gifts their friends had given them, despite pleas to the contrary. She could still picture Patrick blushing as he pulled a hot-pink rabbit-shaped vibrator from its beautiful wrapping.
“All righty, then. This one’s clearly for the wife,” Patrick announced, wiggling the rubber device in McKenna’s direction.
Husband. Wife. After five years of playing other roles in each other’s lives, boasting that marriage was only a piece of paper, McKenna and Patrick had pulled the trigger. As a lawyer, she should have realized earlier that papers mattered. Papers created rights and responsibilities. Papers defined families.
Today, she couldn’t imagine a world in which she wasn’t married to Patrick Jordan, but that morning she and Patrick were just beginning to enjoy their new spousal titles. She’d shaken her head and pursed her lips like a stubborn child refusing a floret of broccoli. “But I would never stray from my husband,” she’d said in a Scarlett O’Hara voice. “Not even with a battery-operated bunny.”
The pink toy was from Emily and Glenn. McKenna could barely imagine reserved, preppy Emily perusing the aisles of a tawdry adults-only shop.
McKenna and Patrick hadn’t wanted a wedding. Just a couple of rings, a few nice words, and a great party. No walking down the aisle. No puffy dresses. No white tulle vomit. And no gifts.
As a pile of wrapped packages accumulated in the corner of their private dining room at Buddakan, they’d realized that their friends hadn’t complied with the request. “What part of ‘no gifts’ do our friends not understand?” Patrick whispered. “There better not be a toaster oven in there. Where in the world would we put a toaster oven?”
As it turned out, their friends may not have obeyed the stern no-gifts admonition, but they’d known better than to clutter the overstuffed apartment with nonsense like crystal vases and bread makers. Instead, they had conspired to find the tackiest gag gifts imaginable.
The rabbit wasn’t the only X-rated toy. There were the his-and-her G-strings. The bubblegum-flavored massage oil. The “just married” condoms. Especially creative: the pasta shaped like boy parts.
That Sunday morning, their two-day anniversary, Patrick and McKenna were showing their gratitude in a similar spirit, giddily opening the presents while sipping champagne and taking turns writing ironic thank-you notes.
Dearest Emily and Glenn
, McKenna had written.
Thank you so very much for the delightful personal massager. Its rabbit-like shape is at once both whimsical and bold. We would be remiss, however, if we did not ask: where is our fucking tea set? Lovingly, McKenna and Patrick.
McKenna had saved a special present to give to Patrick last. She reached over the edge of the sofa and lifted a shoebox-sized gift from the floor. “The final one.”
“Feels pretty hefty,” he said. “If it’s another one of those”—he gestured toward the personal massager—“you’re going to be walking funny for a week.”
“This one is for the husband from the wife.”
He tore away the elegant white-and-silver wrapping paper, opened the box, and removed a tight mass of bubble wrap. Beneath the transparent layers, the shape of a glass beer mug was visible.
“Is this like when Homer Simpson gave Marge a bowling ball for her birthday?”
McKenna was the beer drinker in their household. Patrick was strictly a Scotch and wine man.
He placed the beer stein on the coffee table. Pint-size. Thick handle. A shield insignia on the side, embossed with Westvleteren, the manufacturer of a Belgian Trappist beer.
“So what gives?”
For the first time, McKenna told Patrick about the night she and Susan wound up with that mug. And then she felt guilty for not thinking more often about Susan over the years. And then she cried. And then she apologized for ruining the last day of their wedding weekend with silly drama. Then she blamed it on too much champagne.
That was five years ago. How could she have gone five years without thinking about Susan?
Susan and that stupid mug. The night McKenna met Patrick. The year Susan left. The year her job fell apart. The stories all belonged together.
She heard once that a novel was really a collection of fifty to seventy scenes that could be woven together at the author’s will. The agent wanted McKenna’s book about the Marcus Jones case to read like a novel.
She opened a file on her computer and typed: “Chapter One.”
I
t was a Thursday, right around the time when single, childless city dwellers had labeled Thursday “the new Friday,” meaning it was the night to go out, get drunk, and forget that one more day of work—albeit a casual-dress one—still awaited us.
It wasn’t just any Thursday but a first Thursday of the month, meaning it was the night of a Susan Hauptmann happy hour.
I arrived late, even relative to the obscene hours we all kept back then. I had been burning the midnight oil that entire week. I told my colleagues I was taking the extra step of preparing written motions for all my upcoming trials. Their deadpan looks were the silent equivalent of “Whatever, nerd.” But I’d been in the district attorney’s office for four years and was still trying drug cases. I had vowed that this would be the year when I got some attention.
By the time I made it to Telephone Bar, it was well past ten o’clock. The party was in full swing, meaning fifty or so friends and at least three times as many drinks consumed.
Susan raised her arms in the air and reached across two guys from the usual crew for a long-distance hug. “McKenna! You made it!”
Vocal exclamation points were a sure sign that Susan was getting her drink on. The girl worked her ass off at one of the biggest consulting firms in the world. She deserved to cut loose every once in a while. Back then, we all did.
“Pretty good turnout,” I yelled over the thumping soundtrack. That was the year when you couldn’t help but Get the Party Started with Pink everywhere you went.
Susan was beaming, which made her even more gorgeous than usual. She was always so proud when the happy hours went well, as if they somehow validated all the steps she’d taken in life to lead to all those friendships. Now some people were leaving the city. Others were getting married and having children. They couldn’t stay in their twenties forever. That night, though, everyone seemed to be there, just like the old days.
“McKenna, this is my friend Mark Hunter.” He was one of the two guys I recognized next to us. “McKenna was my roommate the first year I came to the city. She went to Stanford for undergrad and law school at Berkeley. Mark just left a dot-com, but his MBA’s from Stanford. You guys could have bumped into each other at a Stanford-Cal game.”
And then off she went to introduce some other solo attendee to another friend. That was Susan’s thing. She collected friends. Back before random strangers “friended” each other online after a chance meeting, Susan was that person who found something interesting about every person she met, then pulled out her cell phone with an easygoing “Give me your digits. I’m getting some friends together in a few weeks. You should join us.”
Unlike most of the people who do those things, Susan would actually cultivate the friendship. As a result, her happy hours brought together an eclectic crowd that mirrored the divergent pieces of Susan’s impressive life: military friends, business school friends, gym friends, “just started talking at the bookstore one day” friends, childhood friends from all over the country, thanks to her army-brat youth. Her capacity for socializing had earned her the nickname Julie the Cruise Director, at least among those friends who remembered
The Love Boat
.
Unfortunately, Susan didn’t always recognize that she was singular in her ability to connect to people. To her, my non-overlapping undergraduate years at Stanford should have been common ground to bond with Mark the former dot-commer. Instead, the two of us stumbled awkwardly through a series of false conversational starts before Mark pretended to recognize a friend farther down the bar. I let him off the hook before he felt pressure to pay for the Westvleteren Trappist I had just ordered.
As I took the glass from the (of course) scantily clad bartender, a small wave of foam made its way over the rim onto my hand. I was licking away the spilled beer—and not a sexy, titillating, “I’m coming for you next” lick but a spazzy kid with jam on her hands kind of lick—when a girl yelling “Woooo” bumped into me. A second, larger wave of beer foam cascaded onto the man next to me.
“Sorry. Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” I patted at his sweater futilely. Again, not a sexy, titillating, “I’m taking my time” pat, but a clumsy, ham-handed, “this might really hurt” pat.
“Ah, beer and boiled wool. That’ll smell great in the morning.” Another person might have made the comment sound prissy or even cruel. Thanks to the friendly smile that accompanied the words, I found them comforting. It also helped that my beer-soaked victim was six feet three with wavy dark hair and hazel eyes. After getting a better look at him, I registered how firm his stomach had felt beneath that wool sweater.
“Seriously, I’m really sorry.”
“It’s not a problem,” he said, accepting a bar towel from the bartender, who apparently noticed the needs of this kind of man without request. He wiped the beer off my hands and shirtsleeves, ignoring the drops of ale on his own clothing. It sounds corny, but there was something familiar about the feel of his skin against mine. “You’re here with Susan, right?”
“Um, yeah. I guess you are, too?”
“Patrick Jordan.” He offered a firm handshake. “Susan’s pointed you out a couple times at these things, but we’ve never managed to meet.”
“Oh sure, you’re Patrick from West Point.”
That’s right. Susan’s wildly diverse and impressive background included college at the United States Military Academy at West Point. According to her, the predominantly male student body might not have treated her as well if it hadn’t been for a popular trio of supportive cadets led by Patrick Jordan.
“And you’re—”
“McKenna Wright. Susan and I lived together for a while a couple of years ago.”
“Wait. Are you the one who calls her Bruno?”
Yep, that was
moi
. “The first time we met, she said her name—‘Nice to meet you, I’m Susan Hauptmann,’ like any normal person. And then I go and blurt out ‘Bruno!’ It was the first thing I thought of.”
“Of course, because doesn’t everyone know the name of the kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby off the top of their heads? Basic knowledge, really.”
He raised a finger toward the bartender and I soon had another Westvleteren Trappist in my hand. The truth was that I usually dreaded Susan’s parties. I’m neither a mixer nor a mingler, so a night of serialized chitchat, yelled between casual acquaintances, was my version of being poked in the eye with a needle for three hours.
But that night involved no further mixing or mingling. I barely noticed as the crowd thinned and familiar faces paused for a quick shoulder grab or a “Sorry we didn’t get to talk more.” Before I knew it, the bartender was announcing last call.
Patrick and I paused our conversation only when Susan showed up and squeezed between us, throwing an arm around each of our shoulders. “Yo, I’ve been sippin’ on gin and juice.”
Yes, the song was already old by then. It didn’t matter to Susan. It was newer than her other hip-hop standby—“Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang, the long version if she was wasted on mojitos. She gave Patrick a peck on the cheek. “That’s your prize for keeping this one here so late. She’s not usually a closing-time lady. Let me get you guys another round.”
The bartender shook her head and made a cutoff motion. Susan made an exaggerated sad face. “Party pooper.”
Patrick patted his hands against his pant legs. “Well, I guess that’s a sign that we’re out of here. Any interest in sharing a cab?”
The words were spoken to both Susan and me, but his gaze was directed at me.
Susan made a loud buzzing sound. “Not tonight, Patrick. She’s heading downtown. And not in the dirty way, like you’re thinking,” she said with a devilish tone and an accusatory index finger. “You can get to the Upper East Side on your own.”
“All right, then. Very nice to meet you, McKenna.” We ended like we began, with a handshake, but this time I didn’t want to let go.
Susan hugged me as we left the bar. “Aw, you look like a puppy who got left at the shelter. Don’t worry, girl. I just did you a favor.”
“How’s that?”
“You don’t get out enough. You don’t know the rules.”
“What rule was I about to break?”
“You put out on the first date, and a guy never respects you. And don’t you go looking at me with all that virgin-y indignation. If you’d left with him, you totally would have dropped those drawers. Knowing what a dry spell you’ve been in, they’re probably granny panties, aren’t they?”
All I could do was laugh.
“Ah, see? I did you a favor. Don’t worry. He knows how to find me, and I know how to find you. He’ll call.”
As crass as Susan could be, she always managed to do it in a silly way that was never threatening or offensive. When we were roommates, I had hoped that her brand of infectious directness might rub off on me, but no such luck. She told me once that her sense of humor had gotten her through army culture. Susan was by no means the first female West Point cadet, but even now women made up only a tenth of the class, and cadets still referred to military-issued comforters as their “green girls.”
As one of the most attractive women on the West Point campus, Susan could have had her choice of boyfriends. But she was the daughter of a general. All eyes were on her. She had to choose her company carefully. For the most part, she stuck with the “Dykes in Spikes,” as the female athletes were called, but got along with the men by joking around like a kid sister.
I thought Susan had fallen asleep in the cab, her head resting on my shoulder, but then she reached into her briefcase and handed me something wrapped in a white cloth napkin. She pulled out a Westvleteren beer stein.
“You stole a glass? That’s a Class A misdemeanor, I’ll have you know.”
“Then you’re about to commit receipt of stolen property.” Her speech was slurred. “Because I saw how you were with Patrick. And I saw him with you. And neither of you is ever like that with anyone. Someday you’re going to marry that man, and you’re going to want a souvenir from this fateful night.”
Five years later, on my two-day anniversary, I gave that glass to my husband as a wedding gift.
I saved that beer stein for five years, through three moves, two changes in profession, and countless on-and-offs with Patrick. I saved it because I wanted more than anything for Susan to be right.
When the cab stopped that night outside my apartment on Mott, Susan tucked the beer stein into my bag as I kissed the top of her head. “Drink some water when you get home. I love you, Bruno.”
I made sure the cabdriver knew Susan’s address, and I covered the fare plus a generous tip before hopping out.
I was too distracted to take seriously Susan’s prediction about Patrick and me. At the time, my entire focus was on making this the year when I finally got the attention I deserved at work.
Both Susan and I turned out to be right.
M
cKenna stopped typing and read the last sentence again.
Both Susan and I turned out to be right.
Neither McKenna nor Susan had been prescient enough to realize that 2003 would also be the year when Susan would disappear without a trace.
Now McKenna wondered if Susan was finally back, resurfacing to pull Nicky Cervantes from the tracks of a 1 train.