Page 9

NINE

E ddie’s deep in a dream, walking with the dark-haired, sharp-jawed boy from the portrait across the room. They amble through a dark, foggy alleyway down near the docks of a city Eddie doesn’t know. It rained a few minutes ago, so the asphalt underfoot reflects misty light up against the boy’s chin, creating a shadow just below his lower lip. Eddie, brave here in his dream, reaches up to touch it with the tip of his thumb, gently pressing in, feeling it give. They move closer, bodies pressing slowly but urgently together as they kiss.

And they kiss again.

And again.

Once more. And another.

“What do you want, Eddie?” the boy asks, and Eddie wonders what he means.

As he searches for an answer, a distant trill of laughter distracts him. He pulls back from the boy and cranes his neck to discern who it is, but sees no one.

“Let’s go back inside,” the boy says, tugging on Eddie’s hips. “One more time.”

Before Eddie can say yes, the sky above them splits, as if it’s not a sky at all but a giant piece of paper tearing itself into two to reveal a blinding light, so harsh and cold that it stirs Eddie from the dream. He’s back in Cookie’s den, back on the fainting couch, alone again.

But the laughter is still there. Soft, muffled. Is it coming from outside the window? Eddie gets up and pulls his sweatshirt over his head, stubbing his toe on the side table. He swallows a yelp and catches himself on a standing lamp, nearly pulling it over. He freezes, hoping he hasn’t disturbed Cookie’s sleep.

He peers out the window onto the sidewalk below. No one is there.

Another laugh, this time from behind him, from the direction of Cookie’s room. Is someone in there with her? He pads silently out into the hallway, then stands outside Cookie’s door, listening. The laughter has stopped, but he does hear voices—no, only one voice, Cookie’s voice, speaking quietly and pausing intermittently as if she’s on the telephone. But the telephone is in the kitchen. Is she talking in her sleep? Is she all right?

He remembers the flamingo bell. She’d ring it if she wanted him, and the voice doesn’t sound loud or angry or panicked. She must just be talking in her sleep or something. Eddie exhales and slinks back into the den. He curls onto the fainting couch and closes his eyes, hoping to get back to the docks, back to the boy, back to the question: What do you want?

The sound is shocking, the way it slashes through Eddie’s sleep, waking him much too early. It’s not an alarm clock, or the traffic outdoors, or even Cookie’s flamingo bell. The sound—the searing, deafening sound—is a sigh. A ferocious, violent sigh, the kind that fills the room with a palpable and aggressive air of disgust. It jars Eddie from post-dream early morning sleep (the deepest kind) into disoriented wakefulness. Where is he again? Oh yes, New York City. The thought sends a wave of excitement through him, but then another sound douses it.

“Hells bells. Look at all this crap.”

Eddie relaxes his eyelids just enough to allow in a tiny sliver of light. Through the slit he sees the source of the sounds. It’s a man, bald (as a bat), wearing a pale gray tunic over a pair of knee-length shorts, his ankle socks tucked awkwardly into a pair of plastic flip-flops. He’s got rings on at least four fingers and one thumb, and a long silver chain around his neck with a gold sun pendant that, if the chain were a few inches shorter, would dangle just at his solar plexus but instead rests on his round belly, creating slack in the chain. The bald (as a bat) man sighs again and curses: “This goddamn room is a goddamn mess.”

Eddie, frozen, doesn’t move. He holds his breath, reaching for inconspicuousness, but inconspicuousness is a lot harder to pull off when you’re the only other person in the room. Maybe he should say hello. Or not. This person seems like they might not appreciate it.

This person, of course, is Albert, just as bald and irritable as Cookie warned. He’s huffing and groaning around the den, jerking furniture an inch to the left or to the right and kicking Eddie’s shoes out of the way. “Honestly,” he mutters as he flips the switch on the vacuum cleaner, which roars to life.

Albert wields the vacuum like a weapon, a jousting lance, stabbing it into the corner just beyond Eddie’s head, then whipping it around and attacking the floor underneath the fainting couch, banging into the legs and knocking into Eddie’s feet, still hanging off the end.

Eddie doesn’t move, and soon Albert is vacuuming his way into the hallway in a cloud of curses, rounding the corner and out of sight. A lingering scent of sandalwood cologne stays behind.

Eddie exhales in relief. But the respite is fleeting: He has to pee, and that means he will have to get up and, unless he’s extremely stealthy, cross paths with Albert. He tries to wait, but soon it’s unbearable. He rolls himself off the couch, hoping to slip unnoticed into the bathroom. But of course, Albert is vacuuming in there now, so Eddie has to pace the hallway, dancing a toddler’s gotta-pee dance, taking care not to trip over the vacuum’s power cord, which is growing more and more taut as Albert drives deeper into the bathroom and farther from the wall outlet.

And then, suddenly, the roar cuts off as the plug abruptly dislodges from the wall. The cord goes slack, a flaccid orange twist on the floor.

“God bless America!” Albert barks, stomping out of the bathroom. He glares at Eddie with mismatched eyes—one dark, one light, just like David Bowie. “Why did you unplug me?” he snaps.

“I didn’t,” Eddie says quickly. “I think you pulled too hard—”

“So I unplugged me? It’s my fault?” Albert jerks the cord up off the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, pitching his voice upward, trying to sound harmless, friendly, small.

“What the hell are you apologizing for?” Albert hisses. “I thought you didn’t do it.”

Eddie doesn’t know what to say, so he defaults to an introduction. “I’m Eddie.”

“Good for you.”

“You must be Albert.” Eddie holds out a hand to shake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Yes, it is a pleasure to meet me,” Albert says. “Lucky you.” He waves away Eddie’s hand and, with a swoosh and another sigh, disappears into the kitchen.

Eddie locks the bathroom door behind him. He has a hot shower and brushes his teeth. He even flosses, a rarity for Eddie, but he’s in no rush to emerge. When he finally does, Albert is gone.

Eddie looks around the den for a place to stash his stuff so it won’t be in Albert’s way next time. He tucks his duffel carefully in the corner, under a side table where it’s almost invisible, and nestles his sneakers neatly next to it. He’ll put his phone on top of the table.

Except, where is his phone? It was tucked under his pillow. But now the pillow is fluffed and repositioned, and his phone is not there. Maybe Albert stuck it on a shelf?

He looks. Nope.

In a drawer?

He looks. Nope.

Atop a stack of books?

He looks under every piece of furniture, behind every row of books on the shelves, in every nook and cranny in the room. Nope. He checks the kitchen, the living room, even the bathroom. Nope, nope, and nope. His phone is gone.

And he feels the panic, that acrid bile, gathering in his throat. He swallows it back, straightening himself. Don’t fall in, Eddie. Don’t panic. It’s here somewhere. It has to be.

To soothe himself, he pictures walking through New York as if he were born here, knowing every street and every address and which shops are better than the others. He pictures taking lefts and rights and shortcuts through the narrow alleyways, recognizing everyone he sees, never getting lost. He feels free in this vision, unencumbered, powerful, like he knows his way. It holds him just long enough to regain his breath.