Page 7 of Below the Shadow of the City
CHAPTER 7
SATURDAY, LATE SEPTEMBER
I stand in a used bookstore holding a copy of The Bell Jar on sale for $3.99. It’s one that I’ve never read but I’ve always felt like I’m supposed to have. If it’s sitting on my bookshelf, maybe some intellectual person will lean against it and make some flirty quip about tortured poets and whatnot. Maybe I can conform and sculpt myself into a better version of myself that actually is dateable. Even if that version of myself doesn’t exist.
I snap a photo of the weathered cover and send it to Maybe: “Adam.”
Thoughts?
I tried it years ago when I was trying to impress a girl.
I couldn’t get into it.
I shelve the book and continue wandering as a jealousy forms for the aforementioned moody girl. Him mentioning interest in anyone at all makes me ill with a catty envy I haven’t felt since high school. Another message pops up.
You trying to impress someone? ;)
I find it almost frightening how he could call me out from such a distance. It’s like he can see me as the faux intellectual fraud I tend to be. Of course when I imagine someone leaning against my bookshelf commenting on Sylvia Plath it’s him, or at least the weird fuzzy outline I picture when I think of him. My head whips around in the middle of an aisle to see if he’s standing nearby. Not that I would recognize him if he was.
Sometimes, I wonder if I would recognize him if I saw him, like if there was a piece of me that would know somehow. I wander up and down the shelves barely paying attention to anything on them, instead thinking about “Adam” and new ways I can convince him to actually go out with me. Over the past two weeks I’ve stopped bothering to ask the question.
I wander aimlessly and collide directly into a frazzled Margo as she rounds a corner.
“There you are, when I said to meet me here I assumed you’d be up front.”
“I got distracted waiting for you,” I reply. She waves me off.
“The city decides to do maintenance on the Seven train at the literal worst possible times, I’m so sorry I’m late,” she’s sweaty and flustered. She unwraps her scarf from around her neck and stuffs it into her tote bag. “And tell me why I made the assumption that the first day of fall in New York would actually be chilly, I’m actively dying of heat stroke.” The bag is shoved into my hands and she sheds her jacket with excessive huffing and puffing.
“Hi to you, too,” I say. “You’re not that late, aren’t we meeting the others at six?”
She snatches her bag back and checks her phone. “You’re right, damn I’m good, despite the entire New York subway system being out to get me. ”
The “others” are Matthias and Declan, my best friend from my first waitressing job who happened to fall in love with Margo’s best friend from college. Matthias’ improv troupe is doing a show at a comedy club and being the supportive friends we are, Margo and I are attending. The four of us are the perfect ragtag bunch of differing personalities that somehow meld together perfectly.
“You don’t think they’re going to do the sketch with the raw eggs again, right?” I ask cautiously.
Margo, Declan, and I all have a shared distaste for the absurdist gross-out comedy Matthias’ troupe tends to overutilize. Matthias is trying to break into the New York comedy scene, which is already oversaturated with plenty of other snarky native New Yorkers, but he’s found this troupe and is pushing through until his big break. Which for his sake I hope is sooner rather than later.
Margo groans, “I sincerely hope not, but my standards are incredibly low. Poor Matty, I can’t imagine how much shampoo it took to get all that shit out after last time.”
“And poor Declan, he had to stop it from dripping on the subway the entire way home.”
We wait outside a tiny dim sum place for them to arrive, I smile at my phone as another text from “Adam” comes through. Our communication is nearly constant, my phone buzzes with the same frequency as a pestering fly. I’m not the kind of person who’s glued to my phone, but every text he sends sends a little flutter to my heart and I just have to reply immediately. It’s so easy to keep a conversation going with him. We share our streams of consciousness with each other, and flirt, and sext, a lot. I’ve had more orgasms in the past two weeks from only his words or his voice than I have since Perrie left.
“I still don’t understand how you haven’t met the guy yet,” Margo rolls her eyes at the flush that’s formed across my cheeks. “I haven’t seen you like this with anyone else before. ”
“He’s weird, I guess? I don’t hate being his pen pal but it’s definitely getting old.” I’ve mentioned meeting up a handful of times but he always manages to change the subject. There’s a disappointment that crumples my heart each time he redirects us to talk about anything but making this real, but it’s pleasant to finally have someone to talk to. Plus, I have yet to even mention the phone sex to Margo.
“Maybe he has some actual reason to hide his identity, like he’s a mob boss or serial killer or something,” she offers while we stand on the sidewalk.
“Who’s a serial killer?” Declan walks up arm in arm with Matthias. They’re wearing coordinating outfits, striped t-shirts, with Matthias wearing black jeans and a denim jacket and Declan wearing the opposite. Declan has a yellow bandana tied around his neck to differentiate himself, cutely contrasting his sable skin and black curls. Matthias’ blonde hair is neatly tucked under a yellow baseball cap.
The matching was likely Matthias’ idea and Declan begrudgingly went along with it. Despite this, they’re sickeningly adorable, and from the glance Declan gives me when I notice their outfits, he’s nauseated by himself.
“Sigrid’s mystery man,” I shoot Margo a glare when she answers so quickly. The whole situation is incredibly juvenile. It’s comparable to a teenager talking to someone in a creepy chat room. Maybe my frontal lobe is too developed to be doing things like this.
“Ooh do tell,” says Declan as we head inside the busy restaurant. A stressed out hostess ushers us to one of the few empty tables in the back as we pass booths full of other twenty-somethings hovering over stacked bamboo steamers.
“Long story short, we met doing laundry, talked through a basement doorway, and I gave him cookies to get his number, but I don’t have a name or any actual information about him.”
“How Phantom of the Opera of him, maybe he’ll whisk you away to his underground lair, you sweet Angel of Music,” Matthias waves his fingers and laughs.
Declan props up the menu and scans the options as though he’s going to order anything but his usual. “He hasn’t even sent you a photo?” I shake my head. I’ve sat zooming in on every picture he’s sent me trying to get a reflection, a limb, even a location.
He’s incredibly proficient at framing and cropping them in such a way that only the intended subject matter is visible. Meals are on white plates on dark wood tables, books are carefully laid on leather couches, and anything on his television screen is carefully centered. I’ve exhausted every avenue I could to find him.
“It’s weird, right?” Margo says, looking for confirmation from the others.
“I know it’s weird, but it’s not like I have all that much going for me right now,” I’m getting defensive. “Plus, I don’t know, he makes me happy, as dorky as that sounds.”
“As long as you’re happy that’s what matters,” Declan lays his hand over my wrist. “You and the Phantom can haunt us once he brings you to his dark side.” I know he and Margo will be debriefing on the whole thing later, they’ll share their theories and concern for my mental health.
“Oh I saw Perrie on Instagram the other day with—” Matthias starts, but swiftly stops when Declan shoots him a look. The sadness and regret that would swirl around my mind like a dark rip current had faded for the first time in months. It was a relief to not be haunted by her for once.
It’s a nice night, and after watching poor Matthias get the raw egg treatment again from another shock-comedy sketch, the walk home in the fresh air is welcomed. The four of us part ways a few blocks from the comedy club, each of us returning to our separate lives and apartments. A headphone sits in one ear while I make the trek back, enough to soundtrack my walk home while still allowing myself to be well-aware of my surroundings.
The hairs on the back of my neck prick up as I walk past the alley beside my building. It’s a familiar feeling, but different than a run-of-the-mill creep lurking in an alleyway late at night.
I glance down past the dumpsters and hanging fire escape ladders. A figure lurks in the shadows and my breath catches.
Months ago, shortly after Perrie left, I got into the habit of taking late night walks. There was a path I wore around my neighborhood, I knew where the next turn was without looking up from my shoes. I’d let one headphone blast the saddest songs I had on my playlist. Like a cat, I’d slink around without being seen. I’d wrap myself in a large black sweatshirt and heavy coat and shuffle silently on the slush covered streets.
No one ever bothered me, my gaze would follow the cracks in the sidewalks. But I’d passed this exact alley and I saw the same shadowy figure. The streetlight cast my shadow down on the concrete as I watched the creature lurk.
I thought it was a figment of my imagination, a physical manifestation of the heartbreak I held. For a moment, we stared at one another. There was little I could see, it was more of a rough fuzzy shape than a tangible form. And then, it vanished.
Now, I’m face to face with it again. I’m almost positive that it’s the same being as before. Something in me wants to call out to it, as if acknowledging its presence would make it real somehow. Instead, I shut my eyes and will it away. The singular cheap beer I choked down at the comedy club certainly didn’t create this hallucination.
When I open my eyes again, it remains unmoving. It stands a little straighter, and turns towards me, now properly silhouetted by the dim streetlights. Its form is large, utterly massive by the way it dwarfs the dumpsters it stands beside. I see horns protruding from its skull, and a tail whips around on the ground like a cat’s. It’s nothing I’ve seen before, and nothing I care to see again. It tilts its head curiously at me, and before it can approach, I run to my building.