She waited for a minute for the throbbing to relax a little before continuing along.
The bathroom was less distinctive than the bedroom, though a WXKB bumper sticker had been stuck to the top of the toilet tank.
The sink was littered with brushes and parts of several makeup kits, a hair dryer balanced precariously on a towel bar. Heidi approached the mirror reluctantly, apprehensively. Her dark eye makeup was smudged and smeared.
“Jesus, Steve,” she said. “I’m a fucking raccoon.”
Hearing his name the dog slowly padded into the bathroom. He stared expectantly at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me I forgot to take off my makeup?” she asked him.
When Steve tilted his head in confusion, she shooed him out and shut the door. She sat on the toilet, leaned her head against the cool porcelain of the sink next to her, and gave a little groan. Her head really hurt. No, she had to stop telling herself she’d just have one little drink. One drink was never one drink anymore. Peeing, she stared at the side of the tub, her eyes slowly losing focus, and a moment later, she found herself beginning to slip off.
No sleeping on the toilet
, she told herself.
Sleeping on the toilet bad.
How late had it been when she’d gotten in? Three? Four? Too late in any case, especially when she had to work the next day.
She was already starting to lose herself in her thoughts again, her eyes beginning to blur and sleep threatening to come. She lifted her head away from the sink and then reached over and turned on the water, splashed some in her face. It was cold enough to make her catch her breath.
There, that ought to do it
, she thought. But a minute later, her eyes were blurring again. She needed more sleep. But there wasn’t time. She needed coffee, then, something to perk her up, something to make her feel better.
And when she thought that,
something to make her feel better
, she had a brief flash of the needle pushing in her arm again. The way it had felt back when she used to use, when she’d draw back just a little and watch her blood drift into the cylinder and then depress the plunger and tear the tourniquet off. The way it would hit her all in a rush, all at once, and how much better that made her feel. The way it
felt to nod off and float into it. Until the moment it wore off and she felt not good but anxious, unable to wait for the next time, the next rush.
And that was enough to wake her up. No, she was out of that, wasn’t even in touch with any of the people she’d known in that world. Not all of them were still around, in any case. Some had moved away, some had quit just like her, and at least one was dead. Her friend Griff, dead, heart just stopped. No warning, just didn’t wake up. Just lay there for a day and a half until someone stumbled across him. She’d known him since junior high, back when they’d both been just normal kids. He’d always looked out for her. How he’d started using, how she had, it was a little hard to say now, and didn’t make much sense. She’d had okay parents, good friends, had grown up going to church. Sure, she’d rebelled a little, but didn’t everybody? And she didn’t understand the steps that had led her from that to using. Griff’s death should have been a wake-up call for her, but even with that, it had taken Whitey checking her in to get her to stop.
She thought about using every day, couldn’t help it most of the time—the ex-addicts who had helped her break the habit had told her that those thoughts were natural, that they would go on for a while, maybe forever. But thinking about it wasn’t the same as doing it. She could feel a craving for it but still not do it, and as long as she stayed clean, the craving would diminish little by little. Or at least that’s what they said. She still felt it quite often and quite strongly. And when she did, she tried to remember Griff. She didn’t want to end up like that. And now, thinking back, she remembered feeling it most strongly just after her first drink. Which is maybe why she’d had her second drink, as a way of not thinking about it. And her third. And her fourth. Maybe this is why that same group said that alcohol was also a drug and would lead her right back to where she was before. They claimed she must abstain from all drugs in order to recover. And yet most nights she found herself back at the bar.
She flushed the toilet and then stood in front of the sink, scrubbing
the makeup off her face until she was satisfied, beginning to move out of her thoughts and out into her day.
Put on a happy face
, she told herself.
Act okay and maybe you’ll be okay; maybe you’ll get back to what you know you are.
Shuffling into the bedroom, she saw that Steve had jumped up onto the bed, was curled up in the blankets where she’d been sleeping. She quickly slipped on shorts and a T-shirt. She whistled once and he lifted his head.
“Come on, buddy,” she said. “Let’s eat.”
At the word
eat
, Steve bounded up and off the bed and rushed toward the kitchen. With a laugh, she followed him.
She refilled Steve’s water and poured him a bowl of kibble. He immediately began wolfing it down. She dumped the used coffee filter out and put in a new one, filled it with fresh grounds.
After starting the machine dripping, she stayed leaning against the counter a moment, listening to the sound of Steve crunching up his food. Her head felt like it had been filled with wet sand.
No more drinking
, she promised herself again, but knew that as the day went on she’d take it back.
Powerless.
She sighed and went to get the paper. When she opened the door it wasn’t on the mat and for a moment she thought it hadn’t been delivered. She stepped out and peered down the long drab hall and there it was, halfway between her door and the next one.
Would it kill him to put it on my mat?
she wondered. Sighing, she made her barefoot way out into the hall to grab it.
She’d just bent down and picked it up when she felt the air out in the hall shift and change. She had the sudden feeling that she was being observed. She looked up and saw that the door to the apartment at the far end of the hall was ajar now, though she hadn’t heard it open. The apartment had been unoccupied as long as she’d been in the house, and it was a surprise to think that the landlady had finally managed to rent it. Maybe they’d left it open because they were in the process of moving in. Or maybe the apartment wasn’t rented after all and the door had simply come unlocked for some reason, had been
left open when someone had walked through it looking at it or when a repairman had come.
For a moment she considered walking down and closing the door but as she straightened up she realized that there was something strange about the doorway. The darkness wasn’t consistent within it.
As she peered closer, she realized with a start that there was a man standing there, motionless. He wore dark clothing, was mostly hidden in shadow, but he was there. And he was watching her.
“God,” she said. “You startled me.”
The man didn’t say anything. Didn’t even move. Just remained standing there with his arms crossed, just within the apartment.
Weird
, thought Heidi.
Fuck him
.
But maybe there was an explanation. Maybe he hadn’t heard her. Or maybe he was just shy. She decided to make an effort to be neighborly and try again.
“Hello,” she said, moving a step closer. “Are you the new tenant?”
Still he did not answer, did not even move. Was there really someone there? Was it some sort of optical illusion and she was seeing things? No, she could see him, could even, if she paid very close attention, tell that he was breathing.
“I live here in number two,” she said, her voice losing its friendliness now. “My name is—”
Before she could finish, the door slammed shut. The man had moved so quickly she had hardly seen him. It was as if one moment he was there and the next not; one moment the door was open and the next closed. She stared at it in astonishment. So much for the new neighbor.
Shaking her head she returned to the apartment and poured herself a cup of coffee. What an asshole. If Lacy was going to rent it to someone like that, it would have been better if number five had remained empty.
She took a sip of the coffee and groaned. God, it was good. Maybe she could survive her hangover after all.
She’d have to call her mother, she thought, taking another sip. It had been a while since they talked, and she’d be worried, and ever since her dad had died, she didn’t have anyone to talk to.
She sat down at the table and opened the
Salem News
. She’d always found the little icon of a witch riding a broom past the moon on the paper’s masthead ridiculous. Why would a town cling so tightly to an awful history of witches and murder? If she had to bet, she’d say the majority of women executed in the Salem witch trials hadn’t done anything at all, had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But being on-air at a radio station in Salem meant that she had to play along with the witch business in the same way that so many of the businesses around here did.
Even less going on around town than usual, if the paper was to be believed. She sighed and took another sip of her coffee and her thoughts turned back to toying with the idea of a fix. She shook her head and steered them away. She thought about the man in apartment five. His face had been difficult to read, expressionless as it was, and she had a hard time knowing why he’d reacted as he had. Maybe she just hadn’t gotten a good look at his face. But now it was difficult for her even to imagine what he had looked like. Was he some sort of recluse? Or a mute, maybe? She’d have to ask her landlady about him.
She took another sip of coffee, yawned, and looked at the clock. Steve was already standing near the door, staring at it. Was it that time already?
“Buddy,” she said, “I don’t want to go to work today.”
Steve gave a halfhearted wag of his tail but didn’t turn away from the door. After a moment he began to whine.
“Hold your horses,” she said, and took another sip. “Why can’t you learn to use a toilet like those dogs on TV?”
Steve was silent for a moment, and then began to whine again.
“Come on, man,” she begged. “Let me get half a cup down before we hit the streets.”
She had thrown on her faux fur coat, a cute scarf she’d “borrowed” from the lost-and-found bin at the station, and black two-ring, knee-high boots. When she went out and bounced down the hall stairs with Steve, she ran into Lacy.
Lacy was a cute woman in her late fifties, still well-preserved. She was wearing a batik dress, a kind of hippie wraparound that Heidi had always suspected could be tied in different ways to become a shirt or a skirt instead, or even left untied and used as a shawl. Her manner was relaxed and easy. She had blond hair streaked through with gray that she left down and let go wild. She was standing in the entrance near the mailboxes, sorting through her mail. She looked up briefly and smiled when she saw Heidi, absently nodded.
“Hey, Lacy,” said Heidi.
“Hello,” said Lacy slowly. She was half-distracted, still thumbing through her mail. She gave Heidi only the smallest glance.
For a moment Heidi started to edge past her landlady, and then she remembered the man in the door.
“I see you finally rented number five,” she said.
Lacy looked up momentarily, a strange expression flitting across her face. “I wish, babe. I wish,” she said. “For some reason that apartment is a total dog.” She stopped long enough to bend over and address Steve. “No offense, Steve,” she said. Steve wagged his tail.
She looked back at Heidi. “Nobody wants it,” she said. “I don’t get it. I’ve looked around town. I know the price is right.”
What?
thought Heidi. Then who was the man she had seen? When she spoke again it was hesitantly, in a confused voice. “But I just saw someone, like, ten minutes ago standing in the doorway,” she said. “Strange guy.”
But Lacy had found the piece of mail she’d been looking for and had begun to tear it open. “Finally, took long enough,” she said. “Of course when they owe
you
money it takes forever.” Abruptly she stopped opening it, having realized that she’d been ignoring Heidi. “Huh? What were you saying, dear?”
“I was talking about the person in apartment five.”
“Apartment five?”
Heidi nodded.
Lacy shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “I hate to break it to you, but there is no person in apartment five.”
Heidi looked at her. Nobody in apartment five? But she had seen someone; she was sure of it. Was she wrong or was Lacy being cagey? Maybe Lacy was just confused by the question. Or maybe she herself was more hungover than she realized.
“Anything wrong, sweetie?” asked Lacy.
“Well, I definitely saw someone in there,” said Heidi. “But when I said hi, he slammed the door right in my face.”
Now it was Lacy’s turn to give her a long look.
“You sure?” she asked. “Honey, nobody’s even asked to see the place in a week.”
Steve, feeling it was past time for his walk, whined.
“I think so,” Heidi said. “Maybe…,” she started, but unable to figure out how to go on with it, she let the sentence trail off unfinished.
“It doesn’t make much sense, but I’ll check it out if it’ll make you feel better.”
Heidi nodded. “Thanks,” she said.
Steve barked, rubbing up against Lacy’s leg. Bending down, Lacy patted him on the back and addressed him in a baby voice.
“Good morning, handsome boy. How are you today? Did you get a good sleep last night?”
Heidi rolled her eyes. “All right,” she said. “Time to walk this handsome boy before he does some ugly business right here on the porch. Bye.”
Lacy smiled. “Have a good one.”
They started off but hadn’t gone more than a few steps when Steve wanted to stop and sniff the bushes. Heidi glanced back to see Lacy there, frozen in the act of locking her mailbox. She was staring up the stairs. There was something strange about the way she held herself. Then Lacy finished closing her mailbox and hurried into her apartment.