Authors: Katia Lief
I had stopped needing my father out of necessity – he was gone – but I had never stopped needing his “powerful friend”. I had employed imaginative
escape
many times, from the moment my father fled life. Had he deliberately taught me this skill to prepare me for his loss? All the hours he spent playing with me, lying stomach-down on the living room floor building castles and houses and amusement parks for my dolls. Later, I learned that reading was one way to escape. Writing, another. Love was an ideal escape in which imagination linked hopes and reality into a resilient web that could cradle you for years. You could escape into the eyes of your child and lose yourself in their needs. Or take up a cause and escape into that, believing your work important enough to give your life to. It was even possible to escape into every nook and cranny of your house, correcting its every imperfection. I had escaped all these ways. But one thing about escape was that you had to welcome the conduit that got you there. Work or love or children. To escape, you had to allow yourself to shift directions in a way that felt compelling.
My father had escaped life-threatening danger through a forest.
My mother was escaping old age by spooling herself back in, rewinding her life to the beginning.
I had escaped my husband’s death by returning to my childhood city with the hope that I could help anchor my mother as she gradually departed into the past.
And now I had to escape a man who appeared to be pursuing me.
I had a problem: Joe Coffin. I no longer doubted that he was following me. He had a crush on me – or something – yet there was no one I knew whom I wanted less in my life. Escaping him would take ingenuity. We worked in the same office and soon he was moving to my borough in the general vicinity of my neighborhood. I lay on my bed that night thinking about how to handle it. Picturing myself alone in a snowy forest – an emotional forest, which is where Joe had left me, because that moment when I saw him on West End Avenue I
feared
him in a brand new way – I put myself to the test. What if, in a turnaround, I pretended he didn’t exist? I would stop trying to convince him to keep a distance. I would stop talking to him, period. While there was no real comparison between my father’s plight and mine, I would pretend, just as he had over sixty years ago, that there was nothing to escape from.
Lying on my bed with my laptop open on my stomach, I pulled up the instant message screen to see if Sara was online. She was; in fact, she had been looking for me.
“How’s by you?” she asked.
“You first.”
“Melanie had an abscess in her mouth today so
she
skipped school so I could take her to the dentist. Which meant I had to miss my appointment with the washing machine repair guy which I’ve been waiting for for two weeks. Which means he can’t come back for another two weeks. Which means the Laundromat in Sin City’s gonna be seeing a lot more of me in the near future. Fun.”
“Hasn’t been brushing her teeth again?”
“Evidently.”
“Don’t you check for wet toothbrushes?”
“What am I, a spy?”
“If necessary.”
“So that was the high point of my day. Now you.”
“Joe Coffin is stalking me.”
It was the first time I had thought of it in those terms and it shocked me as much as it probably shocked her. The screen dialogue froze for a minute before her response streamed onto the screen.
“Shit. Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“How bad is it? You mean stalking for real?”
“Probably not. I shouldn’t have used that word. He followed me once definitely and maybe another time but I’m not so sure about that one because as you know I’m insane and I
see
things. And he keeps leaving breakfast on my desk. Stuff like that.”
“You don’t see things. If you think you saw him you probably did.”
“Anyway I saw him after leaving my mom’s tonight. So I’ve got a problem.”
“Avoid him.”
“How? We work together.”
“Kind of, sweetie. He’s in the mailroom, you’re not. Ignore him if you pass him in the hall and stuff like that.”
“That’s what I was thinking. That he would get the message.”
“Sure he’ll get it. And he’s got to be mortified that you saw him tonight.”
“True. He was embarrassed after he called me all those times. This is worse.”
“It really is. He’ll feel like such a jerk. Maybe he’ll even quit his job!”
“I can only wish. But you’re right. I’ll just ignore him and let his conscience do the rest for me.”
“Meanwhile want me to check him out here on the Vineyard? I could stop at Copy Cats and ask what they know about him.”
“Why not?”
“Will do then. I’ll keep you posted. Meantime keep a low profile and get to sleep now because it’s already past our bedtimes.”
I drifted off to sleep that night calmed to have touched base with my dear friend and content with the solution we both agreed was best.
I decided not to tell Nat about having seen Joe last night; my son did not need this worry. So in the morning, after a quick breakfast together, we went about our usual business. He headed off to school, taking the city bus to Park Slope, and I made my way to the office.
Where I couldn’t resist telling Courtney all about having seen Joe. I cornered her in the bathroom when she emerged from a stall as I was stationed at a mirror over the sink applying lipstick, a pale shade intended to appear invisible. Our mirrored faces suspended side by side in rectangular frames, we spoke to each other’s reflections.
“He’s not cute anymore,” she declared after hearing the latest.
“For me he hasn’t been cute since Monday, over lunch. And then he was only marginally cute, as in earnest-young-man cute.”
“Four days later and he’s gone from cute to creepy.”
I echoed her final word: “
Creepy
.”
“I think your idea to ignore him is good. Pretend you don’t see him. Don’t return his calls if he calls. Don’t say anything if he brings more of those bagels. Nada. Zippo.” She drew a beautifully manicured fingertip across her neck. “He’ll figure it out.”
“I hope so. I’m still in my review period and the last thing I need is to bring a complaint to Human
Resources
before I’ve been officially approved, you know?”
“Absolutely. And I’ll tell you, the director of HR, Paul Assholedley?”
“No!”
“OK, Ardsley. I just can’t stand him. He hit on me big time at last year’s Christmas party.”
Her expression in the mirror was wide-eyed with recalled outrage. I paused on her eyes a moment before asking:
“I thought you liked that kind of response. Gives you power, and all that.”
“Not from guys in HR. That’s just unethical, you know? It crosses a line.”
I did know. Gender politics at work were tricky and could be dangerous and were best avoided if at all possible.
“So you think Paul Ardsley won’t think Joe is a real problem, then?”
“I don’t know, but my feeling last Christmas was that he thought there was a hands-on policy at work.”
“I could tell Elliot.”
She considered it. “Not yet. Wait. See if the silent treatment works. I really think it’s better to handle this stuff on our own before we complain to a superior.”
Complain
being the key word. Every woman knew that men thought there was something wrong with us if we didn’t like them enough or not in the
ways
they wanted us to like them. If we asked them to keep their distance it was a
complaint
. If we insisted, we were
shrill
. If we raised our voices, we were
hysterical
. My being offended by these close encounters with Joe Coffin could be perceived as
oversensitivity
or, worse,
frigidity
. I knew that. Especially so soon on the job, when Elliot didn’t know me very well yet.
“You’re right,” I said. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“Any time, sister.” She flipped her long hair over her right shoulder and faced me. “Bones, anyone?”
I laughed. “You need to call Anand for a delivery receipt. Russet Cleanup doesn’t have one.”
“I’m on it.”
We left the bathroom together and got to work at our desks. From mine I could hear “Princess” talking with Anand over the phone, chatting, zeroing in on the purpose of her call. I eavesdropped, fascinated with Courtney’s flirtatious interview style, which obviously she deployed selectively. I had heard her interview other people and she could be tough as nails. I still wasn’t sure exactly what to make of this young woman whom I was just getting to know. From a distance she might have both intimidated and repelled me for bringing cleavage into the office; but up close complexities appeared, shades and textures that belied the
Sex and the City
thing she did so well.
After the call she grinned at me across the space
that
separated our desks. Then she did something that surprised and pleased me for its intimacy: she wheeled her chair out of the port of her desk until she was sitting facing me, our knees touching. She leaned in and kept her voice low.
“Here’s why I love Anand,” she said. “The guys who delivered the evidence bags that day didn’t have a bill of lading. Anand knew they weren’t regular city contractors and he refused to accept delivery without paperwork. So they made some up on the spot and guess what?”
Just at that moment the rattling sound of the mailroom cart materialized in the newsroom. Courtney and I turned our heads in a synchronized movement that caught the attention of the reporter two desks over. His attention glanced off the two-headed joined-at-the-knee creature that was Courtney and me before returning to his work.
Joe wheeled his cart through the newsroom, deposited mail on about half the desks – not mine – and then wheeled his cart out. For the duration of his presence, about two minutes, I ignored him as planned. I pretended to show Courtney an imaginary document on my laptop screen, pointing and gesturing as I scrolled through a web page I had randomly accessed. Joe also ignored me, which was definitely progress. When the newsroom door swung shut behind him, I breathed.
“That was good,” Courtney whispered. “See? Now he’s got the message.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“If he doesn’t, he will soon. Just keep it up.”
“What were you just about to say about the delivery receipt?”
“Right! Listen: the delivery guys weren’t so smart. Wait – I’ll show you.”
Across the room the fax machine whirred and a new arrival began to thread its way out. Courtney strode over and held the top of the paper until the bottom end was released. Then she crossed back to me and put it on my desk so we could both examine it.
I immediately saw what she meant about the delivery guys being not so bright. One had scrawled both the pickup and delivery addresses, signed and dated it, and included their company name, Metro Trucking. Anand had neatly written the voucher number in the top right corner.
“Picked up at ‘empty lot Pacific between 4 and 5 Aves’,” I read aloud. “There are nine empty lots on that block right now. For the purposes of this story, does it matter which one?”
“I’m not sure. But this is pretty good, don’t you think? Anand signed it and dated it, and he’s a cop.”
“Is he willing to go on record?”
“For me?” She grinned. “What about Russet?”
“Oh, I doubt it. But that doesn’t stop me from reporting what they told me. Larry confirmed they received drums of chemicals. Bruce found no record of a delivery.”
“But your source wants to stay anonymous – he’d be the deal-breaker if we could quote him.”
“No. I promised. Courtney, it could be dangerous for him if we go public with him as the whistle-blower. He likes his job most of the time. I think he wants to retire in peace.”
“Right.” She stretched her long legs and crossed them at the ankle. Her strappy sandals revealed the pedicure she’d received yesterday: shimmery white.
“I’d really like to see the city analyze the bones,” I said. “See where they came from. Whose they are. But they never will unless they admit they exist.”
“Bones.” Courtney rolled her eyes. “New York real estate’s gotta be full of them. Bones and ghosts, you know?”
“I think we should go to Elliot with what we’ve got. You want to write it up or should I?”
“Me.” She stood up and pushed her chair back to her own desk. “With a shared byline.”
While she drafted the article I researched Metro Trucking and what I found only added to the cloud of mystery: Metro was a general hauling company registered in New Jersey and owned by a second cousin once removed of none other than Tony T. But
if
Tony had been involved in the removal of the bones, wouldn’t he have had them disposed of? The fact that they ended up in forensics storage indicated city involvement in their transfer off the site. It just didn’t make a lot of sense to me that either the developer or the city would hire the job out to Metro Trucking, an outfit so easily connectible back to Tony that I had just accomplished it quickly on the Internet. One thing, though, was clear: this strengthened Abe Starkman’s hypothesis of corruption.
Courtney took the new information and wove it into her piece. Five hundred words later she had a good solid draft. We emailed it back and forth, editing and polishing together, until we both felt satisfied. Our short article would lead the reader to an uneasy conclusion that the city had gone out of its way to cover up the discovery of the bones. It was unnecessary to state the obvious question: Why?
We submitted the article to Elliot.
He was in his office. We knew this because we could see him through the glass wall. And we knew he checked his email every few minutes when he wasn’t in a meeting. So we were fairly certain that he read our piece almost as soon as we sent it. But it wasn’t until the end of the day that we heard back from him that it had been approved for tomorrow’s paper.
He called us into his office and we stood across
from
him as he prepared to go home: collating papers into a pocket in his briefcase, strapping in his laptop, paperclipping a stack of phone messages and leaving it in a conspicuous spot on his desk so he wouldn’t forget to return the calls in the morning. While he did all this – daily movements mostly free of decision-making, performed with the ease of relative thoughtlessness – he spoke to us.