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I don’t reply. Andrew doesn’t deserve one. Just like he didn’t deserve me.
Only now do I understand that we never should have started dating in the first place. We had nothing in common. But Chloe had just started seeing Paul, and I was feeling lonely. Suddenly there was Andrew, the cute janitor I always saw emptying the office trash as I left work each day. Soon I started saying goodbye to him on my way out. Which led to small talk by the elevator. Which led to conversations that seemed to grow longer with each passing day.
He seemed friendly and smart and just a little bit shy. Plus, his dimples grew more pronounced when he smiled. And he always seemed to be smiling whenever I was around.
Eventually, he asked me out on a date. I accepted. A natural progression ensued. More dates. Sex. More sex. Moving in together. An unspoken understanding that this was how things were going to be from here on out.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
In the days after I left, my feelings toward Andrew veered from hurt to rage to a sense of feeling abandoned yet again. I hated him for cheating on me. I hated myself for trusting him. After that came another, worse emotion—rejection. Why wasn’t I enough for him? Why wasn’t I enough for anyone? Why do all the people I love keep leaving me?
I take another glance at my phone. Ingrid is now ten minutes late.
It occurs to me that maybe I got our meeting location mixed up and that we were supposed to meet in Central Park instead. I picture Ingrid there now, flirting with one of the buskers at the Imagine mosaic and thinking I had ditched her.
I send a text.Were we supposed to meet in the park?
When two minutes pass without a response, I decide to walk to the park and see. It seems more sensible than texting again. On my way out of the Bartholomew, I look for Charlie to ask if he saw Ingrid leave the building. Instead, I find one of the other doormen—a smiling older man whose name I’ve yet to learn. He tells me Charlie worked the night shift and called in sick for his shift later today.
“Family emergency,” he says. “Something to do with his daughter.”
I thank him and move on, crossing to the park side of the street. It’s more overcast than yesterday, with a slight chill that foreshadows winter’s rapid approach. Definitely not Heather weather.
Soon I’m in Strawberry Fields, where two buskers strum dueling versions of the song on opposite sides of the Imagine mosaic. Both have gained a few easy-to-please onlookers. Ingrid isn’t among them.
I check my phone again. Still nothing.
I move on, heading toward the lake and the bench we occupied yesterday. I take a seat and send another text.
I’m in the park now. Same bench as yesterday.
When five more minutes go by without a reply from Ingrid, I send a third text.
Is everything OK?
I realize how overly concerned it sounds. But something about the situation doesn’t sit right with me. I think about last night—the scream rising from her apartment, the uncomfortable delay between my knocks and her opening the door, the dark glint in her eyes that seemed to signal something was wrong.
I tell myself I shouldn’t be worried.
Yet I am.
I have Jane’s disappearance to thank for that. The day it happened is notable for how unconcerned we all were at first. She was nineteenand restless and prone to wandering off on her own unannounced. Sometimes she’d skip dinner without notice and not return until after midnight, smelling of beer and cigarettes consumed in the basement of one friend or another.
When she failed to come home that night, we all assumed that was the case. We ate dinner without her. We watched some stupid movie about aliens on TV. When my parents went to bed, I stayed up to reread my favorite parts ofHeart of a Dreamer. It was, all things considered, a typical night at the Larsen home.
It wasn’t until dawn the next morning that we realized something was amiss. My father woke up to go to the bathroom. On his way there, he noticed Jane’s bedroom door was still ajar, the room empty, her bed untouched. He woke up my mother and me, asking if we’d heard Jane come home the night before. We hadn’t. After several rounds of awkward, early-morning phone calls to her friends, we finally understood the terrible truth of the situation.
Jane was missing.
In fact, she’d been missing since the previous afternoon, and none of us had immediately thought to check on her. When I look back on our initial lack of concern, I can’t help but wonder if Jane would still be here if we had acted sooner or been the least bit worried right away.
Now I worry too much. In college, I drove Chloe nuts by insisting she check in with me throughout the day. On the rare times when she didn’t, a twinge of anxiety would form in my gut. I feel one there now about Ingrid—a tiny acorn of worry. It expands slightly when I check my phone again and see that it’s now quarter to one.
I leave the park, worry tugging me back to the Bartholomew. On my way, I send another text simply asking Ingrid to please respond. Again, I know I’m overreacting. I also don’t care.
Inside the building, I pass Dylan, the other apartment sitter. He’s dressed for a jog in the park. Sweats. Sneakers. Electric guitar screeching from his earbuds. I enter the elevator he just vacated and almost press the top button but instead hit the one for the eleventhfloor. I tell myself it won’t hurt to check on Ingrid. I even come up with reasons for why she was a no-show. Maybe she’s sick and not checking her phone. Maybe the battery died and she’s impatiently waiting for it to charge.
Or maybe—just maybe—my instincts about last night are right and Ingrid was in some kind of trouble but was too scared to talk about it. I close my eyes and recall the flatness of her voice, that plastered-on smile, the way that smile vanished just before she shut the door.