There was a knock at the door.
Sophie ignored it.
“Hello?” Mandelbaum shouted. He knocked until she gave in.
She swung the door open. “What do you want?”
“Are you up for a walk, young lady?”
Sophie blinked at him, infuriated.
“Right to the store and back?” He wedged his foot inside before she could get the door closed. “Come on. It’s a beautiful day.”
“I can’t.” She tried to squeeze the door shut, but he was stronger than he looked.
“Why not, for Pete’s sake?” He leaned against the door with his shoulder and poked her in the stomach with the end of his cane.
She grabbed the wooden cane and made him stop. “What is this? Some kind of a sick joke?” They tussled for a bit, dragging the cane back and forth between them.
“No joke,” he said, retrieving his cane with a surprising burst of energy and shoving his way inside.
Sophie gave up and stumbled backwards, working her fingers over her temples. “What the hell do you want?”
“It’s not what I want that matters, Sophie. It’s what
you
want that counts.”
She laughed angrily. “Okay, fine. I want to know how you know all these things about me? Who’s feeding you my personal business? I want to know why you keep bothering me?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I can’t blame you for being upset. I don’t blame you for being confused. I’d be happy to answer your questions, if only you’d take a short walk with me. The fresh air will do you some good.”
“No.”
“No?” He shrugged and retreated back into the hallway. “Are you sure?”
“Go to hell!” She slammed the door in his face and burst into tears. She sobbed for a full minute before catching her breath, changing her mind and throwing the door open. He was still standing there. “Fine,” she said furiously.
“Great. I have to pick up some eggs at the market.”
They trudged slowly past brick buildings and bus benches, storefronts and weed-choked lots. The grocery store was only ten blocks away, but it felt like 100. Tobias wore a brown cowboy hat and a pair of red-and-white cowboy boots that emphasized his John Wayne limp—except that John Wayne never used a cane. Sophie wore a hideous lilac jogging outfit with a sunny yellow visor pulled down low over her eyes. Her hair stuck out all over like the feathers of a baby bird. She didn’t care how she looked anymore.
“You remind me of someone,” Mandelbaum said. He took off his hat to wipe his brow and the morning sunlight revealed the contours of his skull through his thinning white hair. “Something about the way you bite your fingernails.”
She stopped biting her thumbnail.
“And you have the same lovely soprano as…” His voice trailed off and he slid the cowboy hat back on.
“Who? The same lovely voice as who?” she asked impatiently.
“Estelle. My wife of eleven years. God rest her soul.”
“I thought you said it was 42? Your wife of 42 years?”
“Did I?” He frowned. “No. She died 42 years ago.”
Sophie figured he was confused and didn’t want to embarrass him further.
They waited at the intersection for the light to change.
“I know a few things,” he said after a moment.
“Excuse me?”
Tobias held her eye. “For instance, I know you’re not a happy person.”
Her heart began to pound uncomfortably hard in her chest.
“You think I didn’t notice all those liquor bottles in your apartment the other day? Am I supposed to be stupid just because I’m old?”
Her heart thundered in her ears, the bluntness of his remarks wounding her.
“I’m worried about you.” His voice seemed to be coming from far away.
“Nobody asked you to worry about me.”
“We can’t help who we worry about. So? What’re you going to do? Sit in that apartment all day watching TV? Getting drunk all by your lonesome?”
“None of your business!” Sophie shouted. She lowered her voice. “It’s none of your business what I do in my apartment all day.”
“Too bad the Olympics are over,” Mandelbaum said. “You could win the sit-on-your-atholon. Ha, ha.”
She stared at him, not knowing whether to laugh or scream.
“What happened to you, Sophie, has happened to so many other people throughout the ages,” he said, piercing through her defensive armor. “The loss is so devastating, it’s made you crawl into your shell, but you’ve crawled so far into your shell you think that you’re invisible. I’ve seen it so many times, but pretending you’re invisible doesn’t work. People can still see you. I can still see you. You exist. You can’t pretend that you don’t.”
Suddenly everything was swallowed in whiteness. Her vision buzzed with the sun-struck brilliance of the day. Mandelbaum and the buildings behind him grew more and more blinding with every breath she took.
She turned and ran the eight or nine blocks back to their apartment complex. Mica sparkled on the sidewalk, the chipped bricks bled rust red, the greasy doorknob slipped in her hand, her feet kicked up dust motes on the stair treads, she gasped for air… at last, she slammed the door shut, safe and sound in her own apartment, and closed her eyes against the dusty silence whirling all around her.
*
Sophie stayed in her apartment for as long as she could, avoiding the neighbors and getting quietly drunk. A few days passed. Then she had to do a load of laundry.
Down in the basement, just as she was about to remove her clothes from the dryer, Ryan approached her, looking more solemn than usual.
“Excuse me,” she said coldly, attempting to flee, but he blocked her path.
“You don’t believe me? Okay. Watch this.” He took a knife out of his pocket, unsheathed it and sliced one of his wrists right in front of her.
Sophie screamed as arterial blood sprayed across the cement walls and Ryan collapsed to the floor. “Oh my God!” She grabbed a T-shirt out of her laundry basket and pressed it against his wrist, then found her phone and was about to dial 911 when he reached out and stopped her.
“Don’t,” he said, eyelids fluttering.
“But you’ll bleed to death!”
“No, I won’t. Look.”
She followed his gaze. The blood spatters were coalescing on the walls, worming together and gathering speed as they trickled down toward the floor, where they formed puddles that jiggled and bounced and moved along of their own volition, spilling across the cement toward Ryan like a thousand ants, swarming and crawling back to base camp. The blood pooled around Ryan’s left hand and, defying gravity, oozed up from the floor like amoebas on a glass slide, and sucked back into his open veins, slurping and disappearing into the gaping wound.
“See?” he said thinly. “Told you. I can’t die.”
She couldn’t believe her eyes.
He sat up slowly. “I know this comes as a shock, Sophie.”
“
You think?
”
“I know it seems impossible, but you can’t deny it anymore.” He stumbled to his feet and rubbed his wrist—there wasn’t even a scar left behind to show that anything had happened. “Things exist in the real world that most of us aren’t aware of. I’m a testament to that fact. So is Tobias.”
She was speechless. He looked just like a normal person.
“Now listen, I’ve been thinking.” His face grew soft as he pleaded with her. “I’ve been following Tobias around for a couple of decades, trying to get him to reverse my stupid wish. I’ve tried just about everything, and he won’t do it. But you could help me, Sophie.”
“How?” she barely breathed.
“I may not look it, but I’m a pretty rich cat. I’ve got lots of money stashed away, and here’s what I’ll do. If you use your wish to help me become mortal again, then I’ll give you all my money. I wouldn’t need it anymore. I’d probably just keel over on the spot. Would you do that for me?”
She nodded slowly.
His eyes lit up. “You will? Seriously? Wow, that’s great. Seriously?”
“Sure.” She left her clothes in the dryer and moved toward the stairs. “I’ll get back to you.”
*
Sophie raced up the stairs, locked herself in her apartment and tried to catch her breath. Okay. What had just happened here? What had she witnessed with her own eyes? A miracle? A hoax? A hallucination? Was it true? All of it? She couldn’t stop thinking that her worldview had just been radically altered. She was in shock, cold and shivering, but she felt more alive than she’d felt in ages. Ever since the accident. Could it be? Was it possible? One wish? Should she do it? Should she take a chance? Why not? What did she have to lose?
She already knew what her wish would be, and it had nothing to do with Ryan or his money. It took her a while to gather her courage. She poured herself a drink. And then another. Once her nerves had settled and the world had taken on a comfortable blurriness, she felt safe enough to confront the impossible. She inhaled slowly, stood unsteadily on her feet, and went to unlock the front door. Yes, she thought. Why not? One wish was all she needed. One little wish.
She went out into the hallway, straightened her clothes and smoothed her hair, then knocked on Mandelbaum’s door. “Hello?” she said. “Hello?”
Nobody answered.
“It’s me, Sophie. I want to talk to you. Mr. Mandelbaum?”
Still no answer.
She pounded on the door. “Hello? Tobias? I’ve decided to take you up on your offer.”
The door swung open. “So you’ve thought about it, have you?” He stood peering up at her. The cowboy hat was gone, and so were the cowboy boots. Instead he wore a pair of old slippers and a smoking jacket, cinched at the waist. His face was taut and drawn, and some of his white hair was sticking to his sweaty scalp. “You’ve thought about this long and hard?”
She couldn’t stand it any longer. What did she have to lose? “Yes,” she said. “I’m ready.”
His cheeks fluttered as he let air out of his mouth. “Are you absolutely positive, young lady?”
“Yes!”
He smiled and reached for her hand. He pulled her into the apartment and shut the door behind them. “You’ve thought about this very carefully, have you? You only get one chance.”
Sophie felt a burning sensation in her chest, as if her heart had cracked open and was leaking blood into her chest cavity. This sudden intimacy, this damp intensity, frightened her. She slowly wormed her fingers out of his grip, but the hand came back. Moistly insistent. Confident that whoever held it must trust its owner.
“What are you?” she asked breathlessly. “How will you do this?”
“That’s not important.”
She stiffened. She wanted her hand back.
“Don’t worry, Sophie,” he said warmly. “It’s easy. It’s painless. All you have to do is stand there. I’ll do everything else.”
“I want her back alive,” she whispered fervently.
“Jayla?”
“Yes. I want everything to be the same as it is right now, but I want my daughter back alive.”
“So you want everything to be the same, but you want Jayla back alive?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Not Peter. Just Jayla.”
“Are you sure about that? You’ve thought about it carefully?”
“Yes.”
“And you want me to grant you this one wish?”
“Yes, yes.” Hope swelled in her heart.
His face suddenly ballooned toward hers, and he kissed the salt off her lips. Sophie tried not to look stricken as she jerked away. “What are you doing?”
“Kiss me,” he said, and she felt a horrid revulsion. She could hear the static of his smoking jacket rubbing against his chest and his sour breath whistling through his nose. “It’s part of the deal,” he told her. “We’ll seal it with a kiss.”
She balked, but then she worried that her hesitation might make him change his mind. She could smell eggs on his breath. She could see his long yellow teeth. But she had to do it. She didn’t have a choice. Closing her eyes, she leaned forward and kissed him.
He dragged it out. He let his lips explore hers. He worked his tongue inside her mouth, and she felt his mossy urgency. His tongue probed a little deeper, and she couldn’t stand it any longer. She pulled away and said, “Okay. That’s enough.”
“That’s it?”
She wiped her mouth with her hand and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Not so bad, huh?”
She laughed and looked around anxiously. “Where is she?”
“Not so fast. Now close your eyes.”
She closed her eyes, snowflakes dancing on the insides of her eyelids, exploding white dots. She was walking on dream feet. Dream arms, dream legs. And Mandelbaum was leading the way. They were drifting along a beautiful stretch of sandy beach. Their pace was brisk and effortless. They were gliding along, and ahead of them was a little girl in a red bathing suit. She was dragging a bag of popcorn across the sand, and sea gulls were hovering overhead, and every once in a while one of them would swoop down and snatch up a yellow kernel.
“Open your eyes,” he said.
She blinked from deep inside a haze of memories, hoping for a new day. Bright and sweet-smelling. Filled with birdsong and sunshine. A brand new day.
*
Sophie woke up inside her apartment, sprawled across the living room sofa. It was early morning. Golden sunlight filtered in through the cracks in the old window shades. She was wrapped in a quilt that smelled of wine. She untangled herself and stood up. Nothing had changed. Her apartment was the same as it had been the night before.
Okay, what just happened here? Had she imagined it? Was it a dream? A lie? A hallucination? A ruse? Had she been drugged? Tricked? Were they in on it together? Tobias and Ryan? Were they swindlers? Con men? Was this some sort of an elaborate scheme? What else had happened last night? She must’ve blacked out, because she couldn’t remember. Oh my God. She’d kissed a dirty old man.
“Mommy?” came a small sweet voice from inside the apartment.
She froze and looked around. The bathroom faucet was running. “Jayla?” She ran to the doorway. Her six-year-old daughter was standing on the step stool, washing her hands in the sink. Wearing her favorite penguin pajamas and faded pink flip-flops.
“
Jayla?
” she gasped, afraid to move.
“Did you forget to buy more soap? I like strawberry soap the best.”
Sophie grabbed her around the middle and squeezed tight.