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"Sometimes something hurts so much it doesn't seem right to share it with anyone else."
-- Maggie Costello, The Outside Edge
Cindy came back from the rush hour shift at the nail salon and opened the rotting door of the efficiency apartment. She was unaffected by the miasma of burnt incense, stale cigarette smoke and candlewax that came wafting out, nauseating anyone who was unfortunate enough to be caught in the unclean corridor of that desolate fourth floor. Once inside, she reflexively flipped Tony’s computer on, and could hear the computer wheezing and sputtering as it tried to load an operating system meant for a computer five years its superior. Tony complained that he needed more power to work on his drawings on the computer, but with the way their jobs were currently working out, a new computer was as much a possibility as a new car, a new house, a new life. As Cindy sat down in the reupholstered office chair, the black pleather already cracking and splitting, she noticed how the computer desktop looked empty, barren without her chat programme running, even all these months after deleting it. Then she wondered when Tony would get back, how she could please him, if he was even coming back tonight, if she deserved him. If she really loved him anymore.
As one of Tony’s more sinister depictions of demons came up as the desktop wallpaper, Cindy caught herself looking at her reflection in the monitor. The navy blue of her discount-rack sweater seemed to give her raven-black hair blue highlights; her crimson lips were a match for the colour of Tony’s drawing, seeming to blend into the linework near the demon’s neck. Cindy’s skin wasn’t as pale as it normally was, not as pale as she liked it to be, because she’d been stuck working the station by the window at the nail salon. Still, what sun there was in her skin was barely noticeable; she could camouflage herself in an off-white bedsheet quite easily if she wanted.
Cindy tried to look into the demon eyes on the computer, but found herself going back to her own eyes, staring back at her in the reflection of the monitor. Of course she wore heavy mascara; she would look horribly out of place without it. The mascara formed two giant black holes in her face, into which it seemed like all the sadness in the world fell, pooled in those two painfully perfect eyes. Cindy thought about all the goth girls in denial that she saw at the mall. No matter how blonde they bleached their hair, no matter how many white t-shirts and trendy sneakers they wore, Cindy could see the goth within all of them, trying to come out through their eyes. That pained look, that spacy look you get when you’re trying to hold onto the last shred of innocence you have while looking at the world’s atrocities. If ever a name was invented for that look, Cindy was sure a picture of her eyes would be in the dictionary next to its definition.
At least she knew Tony liked the look; he should, since he was the one who cultivated it. Cindy could still remember that October wedding, when Tony showed up hungover, his eyes sloppily Kohl-lined, his lips rouged, his rented tuxedo slit haphazardly by a kitchen knife in a frenzy of artistic inspiration. Cindy’s parents hated Tony already, hated how his pagan ways were corrupting their good, Catholic daughter, but after the wedding, and one last heated argument with Cindy about Tony, they disowned her and told her never to darken their lives again. Cindy burned her wedding dress in response, the last piece of white clothing she ever wore.
Cindy got up from the computer long enough to microwave one of the bags of popcorn she took from her most recent hotel-cleaning job, then came right back and started looking for music online. Napster, Audiogalaxy and all the music server systems were disappearing like she had, but she knew the tricks to finding the files she wanted online. As she started downloading a Skinny Puppy bootleg, she nearly tranced out watching the animation of the piece of paper moving from folder to folder, over and over again, one piece of regularity in a highly fucked-up world.
Everything had seemed like it would be okay after the wedding. Tony’s drawings were magnificent, and with his wages from the pizzeria where he worked part-time, and her new job at the supermarket, they were making enough money to survive on, until hopefully Tony’s drawings started to sell. Then Tony’s drawings failed to generate much buzz, let alone sales, in the few places that would accept his work. Then Cindy got fired from the supermarket job for talking back to a customer, and over the next few years Cindy lost count of how many jobs she’d had. Yeah, they could pay the bills, but that was about it, and as the months went on, Tony seemed less and less interested in her. Was he just upset about his paintings not selling? Or was he upset that she’d done something horribly, horribly wrong?
In her heart, Cindy knew she had done wrong. Cindy didn’t know when it happened, but there just came a point where things weren’t satisfactory to her anymore. This wasn’t the life she wanted to lead, she was totally and completely unfulfilled. All her life was, was a string of low-paying, low-esteem jobs that left her little time to do anything but surf the Internet and watch television. Tony was so wound up in his paintings that he hardly seemed to notice her anymore, and when he did notice her, he seemed to treat her just like the customers at the pizzeria; with the bare minimum of courtesy needed to get a good tip, or a good fuck. Cindy didn’t want this life anymore, any of it.
But where was she going to go? None of her family wanted anything to do with her, and her few friends from Catholic school had gone off to colleges in other states. Ping-ponging from job to job every few months, it was hardly like she could make friends at work. And all of Tony’s friends just wanted to talk art with Tony, they didn’t want to have anything to do with her unless she was going to get them something to drink. Cindy found a great chatroom on the Internet a couple of years back, but when someone from the chat started e-mailing her incessantly, telling of all the things he planned to do to her when he finally met her, Cindy had to disappear from the chatroom entirely, cutting everyone off. That chatroom had been her one place of comfort from the hell of her life, even if it was only a virtual place. Now she didn’t even have that.
Cindy was still mesmerized by the graphic on the computer as the Skinny Puppy song finished downloading. Even after the file transfer had finished, Cindy still sat there. Her trance was only broken when the phone rang its shrill song.
"Hello?"
"Hey babe, just wanted to let you know that I’ll be out late tonight, I’m gonna check out an installation being put up on the east side."
"Oh ... I see."
"Something the matter?"
Cindy paused, unable to articulate a single world, but knowing she had to say something. "Um ..."
"Okay. See you when I get back."
Cindy hadn’t even finishing unpursing her lips from the "um" when Tony hung up the phone. Of course she wanted to say that she wished he didn’t stay out all those nights, that she wanted company at home, that she wanted a new goddamn life because this one sucked, but how was she supposed to say that? If Tony left her, who would she turn to? How would she survive? Best to stay silent, again. Hopefully Tony won’t be too depressed from seeing someone else’s success this time, and she won’t have to endure too much of his bleating about his own art and how no one will buy it.
As Cindy filled her cracking coffee cup with tap water that reeked of boiled eggs, she chastised herself for thinking so poorly of Tony’s complaining. Of course he had plenty to complain about; his drawings are outstanding, better than any of that pseudo-goth rubbish she saw whenever she accompanied him out to installations. It wasn’t exactly like the pizzeria job was making him feel any more fulfilled than her jobs, either. And worst of all, he had to put up with a wife who couldn’t do much to please him except for providing him with sex and food, who thought so ill of him when he was the only one who accepted her anymore.
Cindy hated herself more than ever as she went back to the computer. She filed away all her problems and complaints as best she could, because those things didn’t matter. What mattered was how she was going to make her most recent string of bad thoughts up to Tony. It was hard to know when he’d show up, though. If he only got mildly disgusted while he was out, he’d probably just drive back early, well before the late local news broadcasts. If he got really pissed off, though, he and his friends would likely go buy bottles of cheap plum wine, get hammered, and wait until one of them sobered up enough to drive the rest of them home. Cindy walked over to the television and turned on the latest droll situation comedy. Anything to drown out the silence, before her mind started going off again.
The sun had already risen when Tony finally came back to the apartment. Even for Tony, that was far too late to be returning. Cindy had let herself go to bed by promising herself that he’d return soon, but it was six hours later that Tony finally stumbled into the apartment, and collapsed onto the worn-out mattress they shared.
As Cindy sat in front of the salon window, filing the nails of another decrepit old lady with wrinkles in her face deep enough to hide coins in, she thought about being woken up by Tony so early in the morning. Even when Tony got really drunk, somehow he had an elegance in his elephant-like frame that let him get into bed gracefully, but this morning was another story entirely. At first, when Cindy was startled awake, she thought that maybe he’d been the one to drive his friends home, but now she realized that there was no way Tony could operate a pencil, much less a car, in that condition. It must have been really bad at that installation he went to, Cindy thought. But why did she have to suffer for it?
Thoughts of Tony kept coming into Cindy’s head as she put in yet another eight hours of demeaning minimum-wage work. She had to have something running in her head, because the muzak they played in the salon made her want to rip her ears off, and she didn’t want to pay too much attention to the insipid conversation her customers made. Mostly Cindy ended up dealing with women old enough to be her mother, women who couldn’t do their own nails either because their hands shook too much, or they had too many rings on their fingers to move them properly. Even when Cindy got a customer that was around her age, it was usually some rich bitch who was probably spending more money in the mall that day than Cindy would make that month. At least Cindy got all the male customers, since she was the youngest employee and was "tolerant" of them and all. And why not be tolerant of them, Cindy thought, they’re the only ones worth listening to.
Cindy was even more spaced out than usual about Tony, though. She had tried to go back to sleep, after Tony fell onto the bed so heavily that she swore her body left the mattress in the resulting spring-coiled tremors. It was no use, though; first the idiot had to stay out until the sun was up, Cindy thought, and he got so liquoured up that he woke her. The rays of sun reflecting off the office window across the street, the syrupy stench of plum wine, and her anger at Tony all kept Cindy from falling back asleep, until finally her alarm clock started beeping and it was time to start the routine all over again. It was a routine that Cindy was growing increasingly intolerant of, especially as Tony neglected her more and more.
At least it was Saturday, though, and that meant she’d have an e-mail from Michael to read. Michael had been her best friend back when she was chatting online, back before she had to go into such total seclusion. It had been nearly a year since Cindy left the chats, but Michael still sent her an e-mail every Saturday, letting her know what he was up to, and how much he missed her company. Cindy didn’t know too much about Michael other than the basics; 29, single, living quite a ways away of her, working as an architect (whatever those were). But Michael had a quality to him that Cindy couldn’t place; she only knew she felt the same quality inside her, that despite their coming from totally different backgrounds, they shared a common bond. Michael used to tell her about the books he was reading, the movies he was watching, and Cindy was fascinated. But those kinds of books and movies weren’t part of her life, and they’d certainly never be a part of Tony’s. They were nice to fantasize about, though, to dream about how wonderful they all must be.
Cindy missed Michael most of all, and she longed to tell him about what had happened with the stalker, about how she wanted to keep talking to him, about how she was so fascinated by everything he did. Every time she thought about responding to his e-mails, though, her mind went back to that man, the one who said he just wanted her address to send her a CD of some cool new goth rock singer, but then sent her letters promising to fry her brains up and serve them to the descendants of Neferati. Cindy called the police and got them to take care of the stalker, but she was so afraid of something similar happening again that she deleted the chat programme off of Tony’s computer and stopped answering all her e-mail. It hurt to have to leave Michael and all her other chat buddies like that, but she knew that it was the easiest way to deal with things. And with things with Tony continuing to get worse, she needed everything else in her life as easy as she could get it.
Still, there was no harm in reading the e-mails Tony sent, and so that made Saturdays easier for Cindy to deal with. Better still, she had Sundays and Mondays off, although Sundays were mostly spent watching TV while Tony worked on his drawings on the computer, and some Mondays it was hard to stay sane with the apartment all to herself and absolutely nothing to do but listen to songs and surf the net. It was a lot easier than having to make the liver-spotted hands of women thrice her age look pretty, though. And with the way other people treated her, Cindy cherished her solitude, wrapped herself up in it like a blanket. No one else understood her, but she did, and even as much as she criticized herself, those nagging voices in her head were a lot easier to deal with than some of the assholes she had in her life.
Cindy clocked out Saturday evening as usual, although she was a little fuzzy-headed from lack of sleep, and still seething at Tony for being such a bastard the previous night. She craved that e-mail from Michael the way she figured Tony craved his Camels; there was a heavy emptiness in her pit that she knew only hearing from Michael would cure. No matter what Michael said, at least she knew he was out there, and that he still cared about her, and that would be enough to get her through another few days of drudgery and disappointment.
As soon as Cindy opened the final lock on the apartment, she threw her purse onto the big bald spot on the couch’s middle cushion, flicked Tony’s computer on, poured a cup of disgusting tap water and sat down in front of the monitor, tapping her foot in frustration as the computer struggled to boot up. Every time that desktop came up, she had to face another of Tony’s works, and as great as his art was, it didn’t make up for how he’d treated her, how he valued his art more than her. Sure enough, up came the same demon from the previous night, the one he’d nicknamed "Fetish" but promised to rename when it sold. As the hourglass cursor lingered on the screen like some bizarre torture device, Cindy saw the crimson letters on her black t-shirt reflected on the monitor, reading "f*** the world" in reverse. Good thing the other ladies at the salon stopped asking her about her t-shirts long ago, Cindy thought.
Finally the mouse pointer came up, and Cindy logged onto her Hotmail account. There was a lot of spam in it, as usual, but all she had to do was look for the message title "October 5." Michael always titled his messages to her with the date; she never knew why, but it made them stick out amongst all the offers to help her quit smoking, cure her baldness, help her get a mortgage and extend the length of her penis. Cindy clicked on the message title, leaned back in the sticky chair, and read.
Cindy:
I hope you’re doing well. Sometimes it seems like I say the same silly things over and over again in these letters, but that doesn’t mean they mean any less.
Rough week at work. Had to work overtime Monday, Wednesday and Thursday just to get this one job done, and we’re backlogged with old work that needs finishing. Better to have too much work than too little, I guess.
Saw a t-shirt at the mall today that made me think of you. It said, "Jesus Saves, He Buys in Bulk!" Couldn’t help but laugh at that.
Listen, I don’t know what’s going on at your end, but the longer it takes to hear from you, the more worried I get. All the gang from the chat still misses you, but I guess maybe I miss you even more. That sounds so silly, I know. Just know that no matter what’s going on, no matter how bad things seem, I’m here for you.
Michael
Cindy waited for the small dose of comfort she usually felt reading Michael’s letters to wash over her, but it wasn’t coming. Her eyes kept focusing on those last words, "I’m here for you." Yeah right, Cindy thought, here for her when he was three or four states away. Maybe he was there for her, but certainly not here for her. It wasn’t like he could come in and fill the parts of her life that Tony was slowly abandoning. Cindy had thought being a loner would be so cool, like all those comic book heroes she used to read, but she realized long ago that being a loner just meant being lonely.
Cindy started to move the mouse so she could go back and delete all that spam from her inbox, but something stopped her. "I’m here for you." Cindy stopped and thought some more about them. Michael had sent her too many e-mails to count since the disappearance, and all this time, without even hearing from her, he was still offering himself to her. After all that time, after abandoning him and all their mutual friends, Michael was still there. But why? Cindy didn’t know. But she began to realize that Michael was there for her a lot more than her husband was. When Tony wanted a quick fuck before bed, or his friends wanted more wine from the fridge, or her co-workers wanted her to fill in for someone else’s sick day, Michael just wanted to know how she was doing, wanted to talk to her, wanted to actually listen to her. She hadn’t really thought of it much before, but looking at those last four words of Michael’s e-mail on the monitor, Cindy felt like the chair was about to swallow her whole, she felt so small, so heavy.
The phone rang. It was Tony, Cindy knew it; who else would know how to call her just when she had gotten back to the apartment? She didn’t need to pick up the phone to know who it was, and she didn’t need to pick up the phone to know what he was going to say; he was going out with his friends again.
The phone rang four times, five. Cindy sat, staring at Michael’s e-mail.
Six times, seven. Cindy closed her eyes, trying to drown out the phone’s bristling ring.
Eight times, nine. Just hang up the phone, Cindy thought, no one is going to pick it up. There was no need, she already knew what would happen.
The phone kept ringing, and Cindy lost track of how long it had gone on. With every ring, Cindy could feel Tony’s quiet insistence, that ability he had to make huge demands sound like small things, growing all the more. She could see Tony shuffling around the pay phone outside the pizzeria, puffing away on a cigarette, almost trying to will her into picking up the phone, just to tell her he wouldn’t be home that night. Stop it, Tony, Cindy thought, just stop it.
Stop it.
Stop it.
STOP IT!
Cindy grabbed the base of the phone, leapt out of her chair and threw it across the room, right beside the television. The drilling sound it made as cheap plastic hit cheaper wall echoed in Cindy’s head. When she saw the receiver on the pea soup green carpeting, off its hook, she quickly grabbed the cord connecting the phone to the wall jack, gave a hard pull, and had frayed wires nearly scrape across her eyes as the cord flayed in front of her face.
Cindy slumped back into the chair, put her hands on her face, her elbows on her knees, and started sobbing. She knew that was a stupid thing to have done, but she couldn’t help herself. How was she supposed to keep putting up with his crap? How many times was he going to go out with his art buddies and get shit-faced while she sat up, downloading music off the Internet, watching bad television shows, trying to ignore everything he was doing? She’d put up with so much from him, but she was getting nothing back. It was like she worked one job outside the apartment, then worked at the apartment as his party host, his maid, his cook, his waitress, his hooker.
After Cindy thought all the tears were out of her system, she lifted her head back up. Michael’s last e-mail was still there, and her eyes immediately gravitated to "I’m here for you." Cindy wondered if he really was there for her. Tony wasn’t. Tony’s friends sure as hell weren’t. Her co-workers? She’d be at a new job by next month anyway. Her family? Fuck ‘em, they didn’t want anything to do with her and the feeling was mutual. So who then? Who was there for her? Michael?
Cindy thought back to last night, watching the stupid shows about the suburban families and their butt-ugly kids and dumb jokes. Downloading Skinny Puppy songs, listening to them. Dining on popcorn and tap water she could barely bring to her mouth, the smell irritated her nose so much. Going to bed while her husband was out getting drunk, then getting woke up too early when he stumbled back, reeking of alcohol and cigarettes. Cindy realized that she was just in for more of the same that night.
No, Cindy thought. Not tonight.
Cindy went back to her inbox and paged through old e-mails Michael had sent her. Shortly after she disappeared, Michael had given her his address, but Cindy couldn’t even glance at it before, not after the incident with the stalker. When she found it again, she wrote it down on one of the pads of sticky notes Tony kept by the computer.
Fifteen minutes later, when Cindy was done packing a worn-out navy blue suitcase, she went back to the same sticky pad and wrote, "I’m sorry." She left the note on the kitchen countertop where she knew Tony would find it, whenever he got sober enough to go hunting for some more booze. She grabbed her purse off of the dusty couch, grabbed her suitcase, walked out of the apartment and closed the door behind her, never looking back for fear that she’d change her mind.
The previous couple of hours seemed like a blur to Cindy as she sat down in the Greyhound terminal, her hands shaking as they held her suitcase and her ticket out of town. She could make images out – going through her drawers and pulling clothes out, walking down to the cheque cashing office to withdraw all she had in her chequing account, catching a taxi to the terminal, getting the ticket – but she was only now coming to terms with what she had done. She realized how she’d packed clothes but nothing else, how the cash that paid for all this was supposed to go towards the electricity bill, how monumentally stupid this all was, but it was too late now. The bus ticket took all of her cash, and most of the change in her purse. She didn’t even have any quarters left, just nickels and pennies, maybe a dime or two squirreled away in some corner. The taxi ride cost nearly twenty bucks, and even if she called the apartment to have Tony come pick her up, she never knew when he might be back there, or what shape he’d be in when he was there.
At least they’d put her on a bus that left that night, so she didn’t have to spend the night in the terminal, or someplace worse. Cindy remembered being at this terminal when she was very young, when one of her uncles came from out west to visit, but that was a long time ago. Cindy was used to squalor, what with her apartment and all, but this Greyhound terminal seemed to be even more intolerable. The soda machines all looked new, but the television sit built into the armrest of her chair was black-and-white, and Cindy couldn’t get it to tune into anything but some PBS show about mollusks. The only other form of entertainment she could see was an old pinball machine, but Cindy didn’t like pinball, and it was hardly like she could afford a game of that.
The walls of the station were yellowed with age, and starting to peel. Nothing hung on them but framed Greyhound posters, most of which were in Spanish and English. Cindy looked out the plate glass windows in the entryway to the seedy motel across the street, no door on the front so as not to embarrass its customers. The women in big hair and small, tight-fitting clothes that streamed by it, though, told all that needed to be told about what went on inside. Cars would pass in herds, then there would be silence, then the cars would come back. Twice, a police car came rushing past, its siren drowning out the idle chatter of the terminal, its lights made more severe as sunlight faded from the scenery.
Cindy looked down at her ticket, then behind her to see the clock high up on the wall above. She had about ninety minutes until the bus left. There wasn’t much else for her to do but to sit and think about things. Her mind kept going back to the stalker, how she could be setting herself up for something like that. For all she knew, Michael could have been the stalker, logged in under a different name. Cindy realized it didn’t matter, though. She had no place else to turn at this point, and if Michael was one of those crazy people, well, it wasn’t like she had much of a life to lose. At least it’d be over. Hopefully it’d be quick.
Cindy caught herself thinking that, tried to pull herself back out of that fit of fear and desperation, but failed. She thought of positive ways to spin the situation, how Michael was her only hope, how of course Michael would deliver her from her suffering, but she just couldn’t buy those lines. "Just click my magic slippers three times," Cindy thought, her brain-voice taking on a mocking tone. As the ninety minutes ticked away, Cindy thought again of how hard a struggle Tony was having with getting his paintings sold, how he didn’t deserve the rejections he got, how she should be more supportive of him. She began to wonder if she could hitch a ride back to the apartment, tear the note up, and just pretend that none of this ever happened.
When the call to board the bus came, Cindy sat, mobilized in fear for an instant. She studied the people lining up at the gate she was boarding, looking at all the kids she knew would yell through the trip, the obese people she hoped she didn’t sit next to, the sweaty men with their beer bellies and ass cracks both hanging out over their jeans. Finally, she stood up and got into the back of the line, her eyes glazed over as she handed the driver her ticket. Cindy couldn’t bear to look back as she climbed into the bus, not knowing what waited for her at the end of the trip. She just prayed she hadn’t made the wrong decision.
After sitting down in an empty row in the half-full bus, the driver said some gibberish she didn’t pay attention to, and the bus got moving. It traversed some of the same roads her taxi ride took, before finally making a sharp right turn onto the interstate. Cindy strained to recall the last time she left town; it must have been when she was sixteen or so, when she went to visit her grandmother at her farm up north. Her grandmother died the night after Cindy announced her engagement to Tony to her parents, and in the weeks that followed Cindy’s mother accused her of killing her grandmother by agreeing to marry a pagan. Her mother half-heartedly took back the words, but after the marriage she accused her again.
This was the first time she had headed west out of town, though, and it wasn’t long before Cindy was in virgin territory. It still all looked the same, though; billboard, billboard, farm, billboard, exit ramp, billboard, billboard, town. Cindy didn’t want to look out, but there wasn’t much else to do besides look at the people in the bus, and she wasn’t about to do that. Finally she fell asleep, but it was an uneasy sleep, thanks to the rigid position the bus seat forced her into, and the fact that she hadn’t had any solid food since the popcorn the night before. When Cindy woke up in the middle of the night, she cursed herself for not eating anything before leaving the apartment, as her hunger tore at her insides, made her eyes feel too light inside her head.
Cindy watched the sky at her side lighten as the sun rose behind her. She realized that Tony must have got back to the apartment by now, must have realized what was up. She wondered how he reacted to her not being there, whether he was glad to have her out of his hair, or upset because she wouldn’t be tending to his friends the next time they came over, or what. Tony’s emotions were never the most stable, and it was hard to guess his reactions to even the simplest things day to day. Except his indifference towards her; that was the one constant in their relationship these past several months. That was it, Cindy thought, he’d just be indifferent about the whole thing. Yeah.
A few hours after the sun came up, Cindy came to the town where she transferred buses. The employee who gave her the ticket had warned her about watching out for time zone changes, but that didn’t matter to Cindy because she didn’t have a watch. She just kept waiting for the driver to announce the name of the town, and when he did, Cindy grabbed her suitcase from the compartment over her head and switched over. As the day wore on, it seemed like more and more people had boarded that first bus, and Cindy could barely find a spot on that second bus, forced to sit next to some nerdy guy she guessed was about his age. Cindy didn’t like the aisle seat, but she wasn’t about to ask to switch places with him. Not wanting to make eye contact with him, she looked out the front of the bus instead of the side window as the bus got moving.
A half-hour after that transfer, the bus stopped at some sort of mega-gas station. Cindy hadn’t seen anything like it before, but she was hardly in a mood to enjoy it. There was a Subway inside the station, and everyone else from the bus lined up in front of it to get sandwiches and such, the driver in front of everyone else so he could get his food first, and eat before getting back on the road. Of course, Cindy couldn’t join any of them, because she only had half a handful of change in her purse. She sat at a table by herself for a moment, trying to figure out if she could at least get a soda or something, but decided against it. Instead, she bent down over a drinking fountain for a good minute, hoping she could trick her stomach into thinking the water was solid food, and then went to the ladies’ room because the bus toilet looked atrocious.
The bus finally got going again and Cindy kept looking out at everything they were passing. She still couldn’t notice much of a difference, other than the places the billboards advertised. Cindy began to wonder if even after heading out all this distance, if the place she wound up at would be the same place she was at before. Maybe things weren’t really different out here, Cindy thought. Maybe Michael will end up being just like Tony. Hell, maybe Michael really is Tony, maybe he just tricked me into thinking he was someone else. No, Tony had been in the room with her when she’d talked to Michael before, Cindy realized. Still, she had done all this hoping to change things, and if things looked the same as ever out there, how was she supposed to expect anything else would ever be different?
As the sky in front of her began to yellow as the sun made its descent, the bus driver called out the name of Michael’s town as the bus made what felt like its eightieth stop of the day. Cindy realized that this was it. She’d finally made it across so many states, traveled so many miles. She never thought she could feel so exhausted from just sitting in a bus all day, but her muscles seemed to be sending messages to her brain that it was time to shut down. The waves of hunger came and went, and thankfully were in a stage of "went" as she got off the bus. She felt incredibly slimy and greasy from the trip, though, thanks to the decades-old covering of the bus seats and the fact that she hadn’t showered in thirty-six hours. Cindy avoided looking at anything reflective to confirm what she knew had to be the case: she looked like crap.
As Cindy entered the Greyhound station, though, her eyes immediately caught how much better this place seemed. The walls were brick, and looked to be fairly new. All the posters were still in English and Spanish, but they looked a lot better than they did the last time Cindy saw them. Cindy could see a row of seats off to the side, and it looked like they had newer televisions built in, and there was a big monitor showing CNN off to the other side. The people waiting to the bus even looked nicer; their shirts looked cleaner, their luggage looked newer. Cindy wondered just where she had gotten off at.
Things seemed even stranger when Cindy found her way out the front doors of the terminal; this was a downtown, all right, but it wasn’t like the downtown she was used to. The skyscrapers weren’t even half as tall, the streets weren’t riddled with potholes and litter, the cars didn’t choke you every time they passed. She could see a fruit market down at one of the street corners, and a clock that looked like something out of one of those sickening Norman Rockwell pictures.
Cindy wanted to look around at things, but she knew she couldn’t. She flagged down a taxi as it came towards her, and spoke to the driver through the rolled-down passenger side window. "Excuse me, do you know where Hunter Rose Lane is?"
"Hunter Rose Lane? Yeah, it’s about five miles due west of here, down by the Heritage Mall."
Five miles? Cindy realized she had a long walk ahead of her. "Okay, um, thanks."
"You can go ahead and hop in, I don’t have a fare right now."
"Um ... that’s okay, I ... don’t have any money."
The driver looked at Cindy as if she’d just told him she was the President of the United States. "Oh."
Cindy tried to plaster on that smile she always put on at her jobs, the one that pleased her supervisors but disgusted her. She couldn’t muster it, though, not with her hunger beginning to bother her again. "I’ll be okay, really."
Before Cindy could turn and walk away, the taxi driver said, "Get in."
"Excuse me?"
"It’s on me."
Cindy had seen too much since leaving the Greyhound station to question whether or not she should take this guy up, whether or not he might be another sicko. She just opened the back seat, heaved her suitcase onto the seat beside her, and got in. "Where you headed on Hunter Rose, miss?"
"Oh ..." Cindy had to get the sticky note back out of her purse. "Sixty-four eighty E."
"Oh, that new apartment complex. Nice place. You have family out here?"
"Not ... exactly."
"Okay." From that point on the taxi driver didn’t say a word to Cindy, and Cindy appreciated the silence. She couldn’t help but realize that even the taxis here looked nicer somehow, and the driver looked unlike the greaseballs and man-beasts she was used to. Cindy passed by houses that looked like the ones in the sitcoms, until finally they came into a group of buildings that didn’t look like apartments to Cindy. She wasn’t sure what they looked like, but they were too nice to be apartments.
"Here you go, miss." The display in front of her said that her fare was ten dollars, but with a push of a button, the taxi driver made the "1" on the display disappear, so it only read "$0.00."
"Thank you." Cindy’s voice was barely a whisper from hunger, from shock, from fear. Cindy slowly got out of the taxi, dragging her suitcase across the backseat until it came to rest on the pavement underneath with a dull thud. The building in front of her had "6480" in huge letters in the upper-right hand corner, and a door marked "E" was just to her left. She was just a few yards away from Michael, she realized. If she’d had any strength left in her, Cindy knew she would have bolted from the spot right there, ran as far away as she could, found a way to get back home. But now, now all she could do was slowly lug her suitcase up to that door.
Cindy’s arm felt almost hollow as she lifted it up, pounded it against that door. Cindy thought she was expending quite an effort, but only seemed to get the quietest of noises as she hit her fist against the dull red door, its length marked by perfect rectangles carved out of its exterior, a brass doorknob to the right, a peephole, and a big brass letter "E" above the peephole. Maybe Michael wasn’t there, Cindy thought, maybe he was out someplace. Where was she going to go then? And what if Michael was there, but he didn’t want anything to do with her? The suitcase fell out of Cindy’s limp fingers as she stared off to the side of the door, her eyes not really focusing on anything.
Then the door opened.
Cindy wasn’t sure if her mind was playing a trick on her, or if time really had stopped in its tracks. She knew one thing, though: this was Michael. She remembered his photo from the chat service so long ago, that short black hair perfectly combed and parted on the side, those thin, almost feminine eyebrows, that tiny nose, those small lips that barely protruded from his face. He was wearing a plain white polo shirt and khakis, and looked pretty average from the neck down. But those eyes, those were the eyes of a closet goth, or at least a half-goth, and they were eyes that she could understand, eyes she thought could understand her, even if right now they were suspended in a stare of disbelief.
Cindy could feel her heart exploding inside her chest, unable to keep up with any commands her body was issuing it. She could feel her scalp itch from the dirt that had worked its way through her dirty hair. She could feel the cool breeze of twilight kiss the side of her face. But she was transfixed, looking at the man she had spoken to so much in the past, the man she hadn’t spoken to at all for much of the past year, the man who provided more comfort in her life than she ever had after she married Tony.
"Cindy?" Michael’s boyish voice broke everything. All at once Cindy felt herself lunge at Michael, reaching her arms up to grab his shoulders but only clutching at his shirt, her head pressing itself against Michael’s bosom as hard as she could, all the anger and fear and confusion of the past few days finally overflowing, reducing Cindy to a sobbing heap. Michael put his hands on the back of Cindy’s shoulders and drew her in gently; Cindy could feel Michael’s chest rise up and down with his heavy mouth-breathing. Cindy thought that this was what giving birth must feel like; expelling something inside you with all you have, no matter how painful it is, just letting it out, letting it go.
Memories of the old chats flowed back into Cindy’s mind: the stupid jokes they’d tell each other, the word games they played, their discussions of their bosses and their co-workers and, for some of them, their families. All those private chat sessions with Michael came back too, where they talked about deeper things like religion and growing up, their desires and goals. Even with all his success, Michael still seemed to want a lot of the same things she wanted out of life, and that was probably what she liked most about him. But now all of a sudden she was in his arms, and it didn’t matter how she’d gotten there, all that mattered was that she was there.
After she lost the energy to keep crying, Cindy took a deep breath, and pulled up from Michael’s chest to look back in his face. Michael looked right back at her, his eyes no longer staring in disbelief, but his jaw hung low on his mouth to indicate that he still couldn’t believe this was happening. There was no joy in his face, no anger; just concern. Or at least what Cindy remembered concern looked like.
Michael blinked his eyes rapidly. "What –- what’s going on?"
Cindy found herself unprepared for the question. She was having a hard time remembering all the details herself. "I ... I had to come."
"Wh –" Michael didn’t seem to be able to make the words come out of his mouth. "What do you mean?"
"I just ... no one is here for me anymore, Michael. I’m ... alone."
"Alone? Did something happen to Tony?"
Cindy almost flinched when Michael brought Tony’s name up. "No, it’s just ... I couldn’t ... I ..." Cindy stopped, held her hand up in a sign of exasperation and let it drop, lifeless, beside her.
Michael’s expression was still unchanged. "You don’t look so good. Come inside."
Even now, Cindy could hear a voice in her head telling her not to accept Michael’s offer, but she knew she had to block it out. "I ... thanks."
"Go ahead and sit down anywhere." As Cindy started walking over to the off-white couch, Michael reached around her, grabbed her suitcase, brought it inside, and then closed the door behind her. The air conditioning in the apartment felt almost too cold, but Cindy felt she could tolerate it. As she sat down on the end of the couch, Michael went into his kitchen area and asked her, "Do you want something to drink?"
Cindy heard the question, but for a moment she was too occupied trying to get her eyes to focus. She was trying to look around her, see what was there, but while her eyes could adjust to things, her brain just wasn’t processing any images except the coffee table in front of her, the books on top of the table, and Tony off in the distance. Finally Cindy answered, "Um ... yeah."
"What would you like?"
Cindy didn’t know what Michael had, and it didn’t even occur to her to ask. "Wh –- whatever."
Michael took a couple of steps towards her. "Cindy, are you sure you’re okay?"
"I’m sorry, I just, I haven’t slept that well in a few days, and I haven’t eaten in a while." Voices inside Cindy’s head screamed at her not to say that, but she couldn’t fight the emptiness in her stomach and head any more.
"Uh ... okay, I have some leftover pizza in the fridge, would you like that?"
Cindy strained her neck up so she didn’t have to roll her eyes up to look at Michael. "Sure."
"Okay." Michael shuffled things around in the kitchen, until finally Cindy heard the familiar hum of a microwave oven. After the hum started, Cindy heard a pop bottle open, some pouring sounds and a faint fizzing. The smell of the pizza cut straight to her stomach, making it feel like her intestines were being torn apart. She almost wasn’t aware that the food that smell was coming from would soon be in her stomach. As soon as the microwave stopped beeping, Michael opened the door, pulled the paper plate out of the oven, and brought it over to Cindy, along with a clear glass filled with cola of some kind.
Cindy started devouring the pizza, but stopped soon after as she found her breathing laboured. She never knew eating could take so much effort, but she was so weak from everything that she had to slow down. Michael sat on the other end of the couch, in silence, as Cindy figured she must look like a crazy woman, eating like that. She didn’t care, though. Slowly that gnawing inside her belly was going away, and the sugar rush from the soda was slowly restoring her ability to function. She was still tired, but at least now she felt like she had some control over her brain.
As Cindy finished the last of the pizza, she let her hands fall loosely in her lap. She had gotten through the hunger, and already she thought she was so deep in Michael’s debt that she could never make up for it. A hushed "thank you" escaped her lips as Cindy breathed deeply but slowly through her mouth.
Michael still sounded perplexed. "What – how did you get here?"
"I took the Greyhound."
Cindy could feel Michael moving on the couch beside her. "All this way? That must have taken ... I don’t know how long."
"About a day."
"Wh –" Cindy knew the word Michael was trying to articulate, but she didn’t want to answer it. Finally, after an exasperated sigh, Michael finally got it out: "Why?"
Cindy finally looked up at Michael again, leaning the side of her back against the couch’s comfortable armrest. "I didn’t have anywhere else to go, I didn’t have anyone else to turn to, I ..." Cindy raised and lowered her arms in an effort to get the words out, but she couldn’t even think of what to say.
Michael scooted closer to her. "Does this have anything to do with why you left the chatroom so suddenly?"
"No," Cindy blurted out, not even thinking about it. "No. It’s just ... where do I start?"
"From the beginning. Just take your time, there’s no rush. Just go one step at a time." Michael leaned forward, still looking into her eyes.
Cindy took a deep breath. She started talking about Tony not coming back a couple of nights ago, then backtracked and talked about how Tony had been ignoring her more and more and how she was so sick of just waiting on his friends and not even being thanked, then talked about how Tony’s drawings weren’t selling so well and how tough things had been financially, and how it just felt like no one was there for her anymore. She tried to recall what had driven her to go to all this trouble to come see her, but she couldn’t recall it all that well. She just knew she was there now.
When Cindy finally stopped speaking, Michael leaned back. There wasn’t any surprise left in his face, but it was obvious he was still trying to come to terms with it all. "So, does Tony know you’re here now?"
Cindy tried to think of what she wrote on that note to Tony, but she couldn’t remember. "I ... I don’t know. I think so ... no." Cindy let out an exasperated sigh as her brain failed her.
"Do you want me to e-mail him? He may be worried about ..."
"No." Cindy didn’t even feel that word in her mind before it escaped her lips; it was almost as if she was hearing someone else say it. She paused. "Not now."
Michael looked uncomfortable. "Okay. I just ... I’m sorry, Cindy, this is just so unexpected."
Now the voices were back in Cindy’s head, the voices asking her what gave her a right to impose on Michael like this, what gave her the right to leave Tony like she did, what the hell she was thinking pulling a stunt like this. "If I’m a bother, then I can go away. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to ..."
"No!" Michael almost seemed to lunge forward, putting his hand beside her knee on the couch. "Cindy, please, you’ve come all this way, the last thing in the world I want to do is throw you out. Please, stay."
"You’re sure?"
Michael stood up and held his hands in front of Cindy. Cindy took them, and let Michael help her to her feet. "Cindy, I ... I don’t know what happened last year. I just know that ever since you left the chatroom, I’ve been worried sick about you, scared that something had happened to you. I just, I ... I don’t know what this feeling is inside of me, but I feel like I can confide in you like I can’t confide in anyone else. You were such a good friend to me. And ... I’m not sure I understand this whole business with Tony, but I just want to do what I can for you. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d be here for you. I just ... I’m so relieved to know you’re still here, but after hearing you talk about Tony ... I don’t know. I just know I want to help you however I can. Please, please don’t go."
Tears had started coming down Michael’s cheeks. Cindy wished she could cry along with him, but she just didn’t have it in her anymore. Instead, she just put her head back in Michael’s chest and hugged him with what little strength she had left. "Thank you."
Time seemed to stop again as the two hugged. Michael wasn’t sobbing, but his breathing was heavy again. Cindy felt ashamed for not talking to Michael all that time, making him worry so much about her. And she still had to explain the whole stalker mess. But not tonight. Cindy could feel herself losing consciousness as the two held onto each other. She wouldn’t break the hug, though. She was convinced that Michael needed it even more at this point.
Finally, as Michael began to pull away, he asked, "What do you want to do?"
Cindy looked back up into Michael’s eyes, reddened by all the crying he’d done. "I just ... I need to sleep, I’m blanking out here."
"Okay, I’ll, um, go get my bed cleaned off; I can sleep on the couch ..."
"No," Cindy interrupted. "I’ll sleep on the couch."
"Cindy, I .."
"No, it’s okay. Please. Just let me sleep out here. I promise, I don’t snore or anything."
Michael sighed, then nodded his head repeatedly. "Okay. At least let me get you a blanket, or something."
Cindy sat back down on the couch, tossed the throw cushion on one side of the couch on top of the one on the other side, and laid down with her head on top of both of them. She was finally able to make out the watercolour prints on the white walls of his apartment, his fabulous-looking entertainment centre with a huge television and a space age-looking stereo, the potted plant in the corner. All these things barely registered in Cindy’s mind, though, as Michael came back with a sky blue blanket. He draped the blanket over Cindy’s body for her, and Cindy clutched the edge of it by her neck, holding it tight.
"I can turn off the lights in here and go back to my bedroom. I was doing some stuff in there anyway."
"I ..." Cindy was going to say something about not needing the lights off with as tired as she was, but she figured that should go without saying. "Thank you."
"Sleep well." Michael went over and closed the blinds of his window, although the sun was so far down at that point that it didn’t matter much, then flicked a couple of light switches so that the only light in the room came from the hallway on the other side of the television. She watched Michael’s silhouette go down that hall, then all of a sudden the room was dark as she heard a door gently close.
Somewhere in Michael’s entertainment centre, a clock seemed to indicate it was before 10:00, as she could only make out that there were three digits lit up. Cindy’s head was swimming with images of farms and cities passing by her on the bus, of Tony’s body writhing beside hers that last morning they shared the same bed, of that door opening and her seeing Michael’s face, those eyes piercing her own. All of it seemed to blend together, though; Cindy knew she was starting to place people and faces in the wrong places. Finally, Cindy slipped into unconsciousness, let her first real sleep in three days wash over her.
Cindy could still feel the warmth of Michael’s kiss on her cheek when she woke up just before noon that next day. She broke out of her dreamless sleep when Michael placed his lips, soft as her own, on her face, but caught herself just in time to not let on that he’d disturbed her slumber. That was a few hours ago, though, and Cindy had drifted back off after that. Finally, though, Cindy knew she had to get up, that she couldn’t just lay on that couch all day, especially as it was starting to make her ache. Cindy thought she might sleep the rest of the day away, but this couch was just too hard to properly rest on.
Cindy rolled into a sitting position, used her fists to push herself up closer to the edge of the couch. A note, exquisitely written in perfect cursive handwriting, sat atop the books on Michael’s coffee table:
"Gone to work. Should be back by 6:30. Please make yourself at home. If you need anything from the store, call me at 555-9876 and I’ll pick it up on the way back. –- Michael"
Make myself at home, Cindy thought. Well, I’ll try, at least.
The first order of business was to grab a shower and change clothes. Even Michael’s shower was immaculate, she thought, smelling of exotic soaps and shampoos. At least more exotic than the stuff she was used to buying at the supermarket. Standing in the middle of that almost-too-hot shower, washing away the grime of the bus trip, Cindy could feel at home, even in a place so unlike anywhere she had ever been in her life. She almost didn’t want to put on the Depeche Mode t-shirt she’d pulled out of her suitcase, but it was the nicest shirt she’d brought with her. Cindy wondered if Michael even had any t-shirts, or if t-shirts were just some uniform of the lower classes.
Cindy went straight from the bathroom to the kitchen, as she was still hungry, and the hot shower made her feel even more lightheaded. Foraging through Michael’s cupboards and refrigerator, Cindy smiled as she came upon several boxes of kiddie breakfast cereal, each about half-full. It was almost like those jokes Michael used to tell her in chat, the kind that she couldn’t help but type "lol" back to, because she really was laughing out loud at them. Cindy was sorely tempted to fry up some of the hamburger she saw in the refrigerator, but she was too hungry to wait for that, so she grabbed a box of some corn-tasting snack food and made her way down the hallway to find his second bedroom.
Michael had told her about it when they were chatting one night, but Cindy still had to see it to believe it: he’d rented a two-bedroom apartment, but the second bedroom was full of nothing but bookcases, housing books, magazines, video tapes, CDs and DVDs. Like a mini-library, Cindy thought, straining to remember the last time she was actually at a library, back in high school. Cindy wiped her fingers on the sides of her jeans, trying to get any oil from her snack off of them, and started leafing through some of the magazines. Most of them seemed to be about architecture, and Cindy couldn’t understand them. She found a photography magazine, and she liked the pictures a lot, but the words were just out of her league, almost like a foreign language. Skipping the books, Cindy went straight to the videotapes, pulled a few titles that interested her, and went back out into the living room. Cindy thought about looking at the DVDs, but even though she had sold a few DVD players at an electronics store some time ago, she didn’t know how to operate the contraptions, and decided it best not to tamper with Michael’s and accidentally mess it up.
After finally frying up the hamburger in the refrigerator, and grabbing a tepid root beer from the pantry, Cindy turned the television and VCR on, popped one of the tapes she’d brought out into the machine, and sat back down on the sofa. When the film started, it was in a foreign language, and Cindy couldn’t read the subtitles quickly enough. It was too confusing to Cindy, so she tried another tape. Again, it was in a foreign language, and the subtitles disappeared from the screen before she could finish reading them. She tried the last tape she brought out, and thankfully it was in English, so she sat down to watch it.
Cindy tried to follow the movie, shot in black-and-white but obviously made very recently given the film quality, but even in English she wasn’t getting the gist of it. Something about love and walks on this dock and all these people being mentioned, but the film only followed this young couple as they spoke. Cindy thought that this was what she wanted, this was the kind of life she wanted to leave, where she’d be watching movies like these and waxing poetic on how wonderful they were. But Cindy couldn’t understand this film in front of her, not for the life of her. Cindy was determined to understand it, though, to force herself to understand stuff like this, because this was what she wanted. Cindy toughed it out, but she just couldn’t understand what was going on. It seemed like three hours passed before the credits finally came up, prompting Cindy to shut the television and VCR off.
After a pause to shake the strange images of the film out of her head, Cindy thought about heading out. She felt she needed the fresh air, and she was having trouble remembering what the area around Michael’s apartment looked like. Cindy shot down the idea, though. Once she was outside, she had no idea where to go, and wherever she went, she might not know how to get back. Not only that, but Michael didn’t leave her a key to the apartment, so if she locked up before she left (which she always did with her apartment), she’d have to wait until Michael came back to get back in. Besides, as confusing as the stuff she looked at was, Cindy was still utterly fascinated by it all, and wanted to check out more.
Cindy moved over to the stereo. She hadn’t looked too much at Michael’s CDs, but she figured she might as well just start playing whatever was in the machine. Some piano music came up; Cindy thought it sounded modern, but she wasn’t sure. At any rate, it was far from the rock, goth rock and death rock she feasted on. Still, she could live with it, and Cindy figured it was probably good music to read a book to.
That thought brought Cindy back to Michael’s second bedroom, where she started looking over all his books. Why would anyone keep a set of encyclopoedias at home, Cindy thought as she browsed the shelves. Cindy veered away from what was obviously the architecture section of the library, and found a few books on photography. She began looking at them, again marveling at the beautiful pictures, but unable to grasp the technical mumbo-jumbo that accompanied them. Finally, Cindy found a paperback entitled The McHolland Clan that caught her eye with the silver foil shadowing the title on its forest green spine, and began reading it. Cindy sat down Indian-style as she flipped through the book; she knew she wasn’t quite getting the gist of it, but it was a lot easier to understand the book’s tale of family betrayal than it was to understand those movies she just watched.
Finally Cindy just put the book aside and tried to take everything in: the movies, the music, the books she’d experienced that afternoon. This was the life she wanted, Cindy thought, these were the things she wanted in her life. But now that she was immersed in them, she found that she couldn’t understand any of them. Cindy wondered if it was because she didn’t go to college, or her high school wasn’t that good, or if she was just plain stupid. Maybe I’m not meant for this kind of life, Cindy thought. Maybe all that dreaming about being so artsy and talented didn’t amount to squat in the end. These were all familiar voices to Cindy, but somehow they seemed a bit more hushed than they had in the past. Cindy still heard them, but they weren’t having as much of an impact on her as they usually did.
Looking up, Cindy saw a book on music theory that wasn’t quite set in the shelf properly. Cindy pulled the theory book out and gave it a glance, unable to make any sense of the diagrams. Everywhere she turned, though, she kept coming upon leaves sandwiched between sheets of wax paper, pressed into the book. Cindy could remember doing that as a kid, how she and her mother would always go out in back of the church in the fall, when all the leaves were red and yellow and purple, and they’d pick leaves off the ground to take back and press into books. Whenever Cindy went back to the books to look at the leaves, though, they were always gone. Cindy never thought much about why this was, but now she realized her mother probably threw them away after she went to bed. Can’t have those filthy leaves messing up her precious books, she thought. In any other time, at any other place, Cindy would have scolded herself for having such a thought, but now she was angry. She was upset, and she wasn’t going to fight it anymore. She’d spent too much of her life apologizing and trying not to think ill of anyone, not even her family after they disowned her, but that small bit of comfort she felt in this foreign place was rerouting her synapses. Damn you, Mother, Cindy thought. Damn you to hell.
"Cindy?"
Cindy was so wound up in her thoughts that she didn’t even hear Michael enter the apartment, then the second bedroom. She whirled her head around as Michael stood in the entryway to the bedroom, wearing a perfect white dress shirt and black slacks, his hands on either side of the door jamb.
"Oh Michael, hi."
"Find something interesting?" Michael started walking towards her.
"Um ... actually, I was looking at all these leaves you have in here."
"Yeah, that’s something I’ve done since I was a kid. It’s probably silly for someone my age to still be doing that, but I don’t care."
"I don’t think it’s silly at all." Cindy felt something on her lips. It was a smile. Not one of those fake smiles she used at work either, a real smile. She couldn’t remember the last time she actually smiled because she wanted to.
Michael squatted down by her, picking up the paperback she’d left by her side. "You’re doing better, aren’t you?"
"I guess. I’ve just been trying to make myself at home, like you said."
"Sorry I had to leave like that, but I had to get to work. If I’d known you were going to sleep that long, I would have thought more about things you could do while you were here." Michael got up and went towards a small table by the entryway to the bedroom, grabbed a bookmark out of a small fluted vase, placed it where Cindy had left the paperback open, and closed it. "But you were able to entertain yourself?"
"Kind of. I mean, I tried looking at some of this stuff, but so much of it seems so ... hard. I can’t, I mean, I don’t know what to make of it." Cindy got up and walked out of the bedroom, back into the living room, with Michael following closely behind her.
"Well, what was giving you trouble?" Michael suddenly detoured, and Cindy turned around to see Michael going towards his entertainment centre.
"Just ... all of it. I’m sorry, I just ..."
Michael ejected the tape Cindy had left in the VCR. "Oh geez, a D’Arcy film?" Michael looked up as Cindy just stared at him blankly. "Cindy, it took me about a dozen viewings to understand what his work was about."
Cindy felt herself smiling again. She felt like a burp had escaped her, but then she realized she’d let out a tiny little laugh.
Michael looked up and smiled back at her. "What’s so funny?"
"I’m sorry, I just ..." Another laugh escaped Cindy. "I never expected you to say something like that. I thought you just knew all this stuff."
Now Michael was laughing. "Cindy, no one’s born knowing all this stuff. Believe me, it took a long time for me to understand a lot of what you saw in that bedroom."
Cindy smiled as Michael started rewinding the tapes she’d brought out. "I guess," Cindy replied. "I’ve just always been so interested in the things you were reading and watching, but maybe I’m just not cut out for them."
Michael looked back at her. "Maybe you are. Just give yourself time."
"Yeah." Cindy still didn’t believe she could understand any of that stuff, but knowing that Michael thought she could made her feel better inside.
Michael pulled the last tape out of the VCR, stacked it on top of the others, and walked back to the second bedroom. "Have you given any more thought to what you’re going to do?"
"About what?" Cindy let her voice rise as Michael rounded the corner into the bedroom.
"About Tony."
Tony. Cindy realized she hadn’t even thought about Tony that day. All that time she’d been watching those movies, reading those books, living in Michael’s apartment, living in his world, she hadn’t once thought about Tony. Her husband. Thoughts of Tony’s neglect began to flood back into Cindy’s mind as she stood there, paralyzed. She was only vaguely aware of Michael coming back out of the bedroom.
"Cindy, are you okay?"
Cindy took a deep breath. "Yeah, just ... yeah."
"Did I say something to upset you?"
Cindy walked over to the couch and sat down. "I just ... I don’t know what to do, Michael. I mean, how am I ..."
Michael sat beside her on the couch. "Look, Cindy, I only ever chatted with Tony that one time. I can’t say that I know that much about him. But I’d like to think I know a lot about you. And I can’t believe that you wouldn’t have married Tony if you didn’t love him."
Cindy had to stop and think about that statement for a moment. "Yeah, I do. Or I did. But ... how am I supposed to love him when he barely even notices me anymore?"
"Have you talked to him about it?"
"About what?"
"About how he’s making you feel."
For a moment, Cindy thought about trying to talk to Tony about how she felt. She figured he probably wouldn’t even look up from the drawing he was working on, just mutter something and ask her to get him another beer from the fridge. "What’s the use in talking to him?"
Michael shuffled a bit, moving closer to the edge of the couch, moving closer to Cindy. "Cindy, you’ve got to talk to him about these things. I mean, if you don’t tell him how you feel, how is he supposed to know something’s wrong?"
"I ... I just can’t talk to him. He doesn’t listen anyway." Cindy looked down, fidgeting with her fingers.
"Cindy, you’ve got to try. As long as he doesn’t know what’s going on ..."
"How is he not supposed to know what’s going on? How is he not supposed to know that I’m sick and tired of waiting on him like a fucking waitress? How is he not supposed to know that I hate it when he spends all his time with his friends and none of it with me? How am I ... how ..." Cindy surrendered herself to the fit of crying that forced its way up through her lungs. She was angry at Tony, but more than that, she was angry at herself for blurting all those things out to Michael. She knew Michael didn’t deserve that.
Cindy could feel Michael’s hand on her knee as her crying fit began to work itself out. "Cindy, I ... I know it’s hard. It sounds like you’ve been building this up for a long time. I think I’d be just as angry if I was in your position. But ... look, I don’t know. You know I’ve never had a girlfriend, I’ve never really felt like I was ready for that, so I can’t pretend to understand the bond between you and Tony, or at least what it used to be. But I know you must have really loved him at one time. Maybe you can’t love him anymore. But ... what if things just keep going on like this? I mean, do you really want to keep all of this stuff bottled up inside for the rest of your life? Do you think you could live like that?"
Cindy wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. "No."
"I ... I don’t want to think about you losing Tony. But if you’re not going to be happy with him the way he is now, you should at least try to change him. It just seems to me like you’re got nothing to lose here. It doesn’t sound like things with Tony could get any worse than they are now. I mean, unless ..."
Cindy looked up at Michael. "Unless what?"
Michael closed his eyes, then looked back at Cindy. "Unless he’d hurt you. I mean ..." Cindy could see Michael trying to communicate with his eyes. "... he wouldn’t ... would he?"
Cindy shook her head. "No. No."
Michael sighed. "Cindy ..."
Cindy felt exasperated again. "Why? Why is it that I can tell you all these things? Can you answer that, huh? Why?" Cindy could feel all the muscles inside her bracing for another huge cry, but she knew no tears would come. She was too tired for them.
Michael took his hand off Cindy’s knee, placed his elbows on his knees, and bent over. "I ... I’m not sure I understand myself, Cindy. Ever since you and I got to know each other, I’ve felt something that goes beyond friendship. I’m not sure what it is. Maybe I am in love with you, I don’t know. But you’re a friend, and I don’t think I’d be that good a friend to you if I did anything to hurt your marriage. I don’t know what to think of this feeling the two of us seem to share. I just ... know that I like it. And I know it made me miss you so much this past year, sometimes I thought it would tear me apart. Now that I know you’re still here, I just ... I want to help you any way that I can."
Cindy wasn’t sure what to think now. She felt honoured that Michael thought he might be in love with her, but she thought what he just said also sounded a bit like he was turning her down. More than that, she just knew that Michael knew that feeling inside of her she couldn’t explain, and that he shared it. She was acutely aware of it back in the chat days, but actually being right next to Michael, she thought she could feel it inside of him, like they were both emitting the same wavelength. She wasn’t sure what to blame herself for now, but she knew something had to be done.
Cindy sat in silence for a while, trying to figure things out. Finally, she gave up, turned to Michael and asked, "So what do I do now?"
Michael sat up. "I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. Honestly, I think you should just go back to Tony, try to talk this through with him. I mean, you can stay here as long as you want, but as long as you don’t talk with him, you’re not going to know one way or the other how this will go. I just think that, if I were in your position, I’d want to know as soon as I could."
The thought of returning to Tony terrified Cindy, made it feel like ice water was being poured down her spinal cord. But she also knew that what Michael was saying made perfect sense. "Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. But ... but how am I supposed to return to him now?"
"What do you mean?"
"Michael, I came all this way to see you, I mean ... isn’t that ..." Cindy didn’t want to say it.
"Cheating?"
The word that had been stuck in her throat seemed to free-fall into her stomach, landing with a thud that sickened her. "Yeah."
Michael only smiled. "Cindy, it’s not exactly like you and I have been having wild sex all this time, right?"
Cindy cast her eyes downward. "Yeah, but ... isn’t this ... is this right, what I’ve done?"
"Cindy, we are friends. Nothing more. We have only been doing friend things here. I would never dream of doing anything else. Like I said, I won’t do anything to screw up your marriage."
Cindy looked back up at Michael. "Yeah, I guess."
"Come on, I’ll get online and find a way to get you back home."
As Michael stood up, Cindy realized the flaw in this plan. "Michael, wait, I don’t have any money!"
Michael looked down at her. "I’ll take care of it Cindy, it’s okay."
Cindy felt the muscles in her neck begin to unclench. "You mean, you’ll pay for it?"
"Cindy, I’ve got a whole bunch of money saved up for the down payment on my first house. Believe me, this won’t be a problem."
Cindy turned her head away in shame. "Thank you."
"Come on, let’s go to the computer."
As Cindy stood up to follow behind Michael, she realized something. "Wait, I never did see your computer, where is it?"
"In here." Michael opened the door to his main bedroom. Cindy almost felt embarrassed looking in, but when she looked around she realized that it looked just like the rest of the apartment: white walls with watercolour prints, the computer on a table beside a small dresser, and a bed with nondescript light blue sheets on it. Michael flipped the computer on as Cindy stepped in. "Would you like dinner after we’re done with this?"
Cindy sat down on the edge of the bed, by the computer. "Yeah."
"I was planning on cooking up some linguini, but we could go out if you like. I know a nice ..."
"No, that’s ... fine. We can stay here."
Michael turned back to the computer, typed something on the keyboard, and then a strange Website appeared on his monitor, unlike anything Cindy had ever seen before. "Let’s see, the closest airport to here would be Metro in the city ..."
Airport? Cindy had never flown before, never particularly wanted to. "Michael, wait. Airport? You mean you wanna fly me back?"
"Yeah. I mean ... is that okay?"
Cindy didn’t know how much an airplane ticket cost, but she was sure it was a lot more than the Greyhound ticket that had wiped out her savings. "Michael, I ... I’d be happy on the Greyhound, it’s okay."
Michael turned around to get a better look at Cindy. "Cindy, the airplane will only take a few hours. Do you really want to spend another day on a bus?"
Cindy thought about the nerd that sat next to her on the second trip, of watching fields and cities pass for hours on end, nothing to break the monotony. "No," she whispered meekly.
"It’ll be okay, Cindy, I promise." Michael went back to the computer, typed some more things in, clicked the mouse button a few times. "Crap. It doesn’t look like I can book you on anything for two weeks. You want to stay here until then? It’s no problem."
Cindy thought about how much of an imposition that would be. "No, please, just ... just find me something on Greyhound."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
Cindy looked down as she heard the clatter of keys being pressed and mouse buttons being clicked in front of her. First Michael offered to send her on a plane, then spend two weeks at his apartment? How could he do something like that? How could she have accepted something like that? Cindy felt unworthy of Michael and his generosity. She was so grateful for all he had done, but at the same time she wanted to push him away before he made any more offers. She didn’t deserve them.
Michael turned around. "Okay, I got you a ticket that leaves tomorrow at around two. You’ll be back home Wednesday at around six-twenty."
"Huh? Why so long?" Cindy looked up. "Last time it only took about twenty-four hours."
Michael paused. "Time zone differential, I guess."
Time zones. Cindy thought the timing of everything felt a bit off, and now she knew why. "Okay."
"I’ll take a sick day tomorrow, drive you to the station myself."
Crap, another unreasonable offer. Then again, she still wasn’t up to the five mile walk, and she didn’t figure she would be by tomorrow, either. "Thank ... you."
"It’s not a problem."
As Cindy and Michael dined, they talked about a myriad of things. Cindy finally told Michael about how she’d been stalked, and Michael told her that the guy hadn’t shown up in chat for nearly as long as she had. Michael guessed that he’d gone somewhere else to harass people, but advised Cindy to stay out of the chat for now, since she had enough things on her plate as it was. Cindy agreed. They talked about their jobs, the idiots they had for co-workers, the demands their bosses placed on them. They talked music, managing to find common ground despite their different tastes. Every once in a while, though, the conversation would turn back to Cindy’s impending return to Tony, and every time it did, Cindy needed Michael to reassure her that she was doing the right thing. She wasn’t that sure still, but Michael seemed to think it was the right idea, and Cindy figured she might as well trust Michael, because she wasn’t going to figure it out herself.
Michael offered to sleep on the couch again that night, but Cindy insisted that she do so. As Cindy pulled the blanket up close to her neck, Michael turned the lights out for her again, went back to his bedroom and shut the door, probably to get back online. Cindy didn’t feel particularly sleepy, but she knew she was going to fall asleep quickly. She was still catching up from the past few days. Cindy realized that this was the last night she’d be in Michael’s apartment, and that saddened her as she finally succumbed to slumber.
The next morning Michael made her breakfast as she was showering. She never liked breakfast, but she figured that if Michael would go to the trouble of making her an egg-white omelet, toast and orange juice, she should eat it out of courtesy if nothing else. They didn’t talk much over the meal, just seemed to look at each other. Cindy thought that maybe they didn’t need words to communicate, that maybe that weird feeling they shared enabled them to talk to each other without saying anything. Still, she wasn’t sure what Michael was trying to say to her, if he was trying to say anything.
As Michael opened the door for her, Cindy noticed he grabbed a shopping bag from off the floor. She hadn’t seen that shopping bag before, but then again she wasn’t particularly looking for it while she was there, either. As Cindy sat down in the passenger seat of Michael’s SUV, she looked at the closed door of his apartment, thought of the watercolour prints and white walls in there, the huge television, the computer inside his bedroom. Would she ever see any of those things again? Who could tell? Who could have guessed she’d make it all the way out here in the first place? Not Cindy, that was for sure. Part of her still wondered if this was all just some long dream she was having, even if she knew things had gone on too long for it to be fake.
The Greyhound station looked even nicer this time, Cindy thought as she entered it and Michael went to get her ticket from the desk. Michael held Cindy’s suitcase in one hand, the plastic shopping bag with rainbow-like decorations on it in the other, as he handed her the ticket and they sat down by the vending machines. Cindy looked at the schedule on her ticket, noting how she should be back at her apartment by prime time on Wednesday. Not that it mattered, since she was convinced she would be talking to Tony the whole night through. No, Cindy thought, maybe Thursday.
"Are you doing okay?" Michael’s voice broke her train of thought.
Cindy looked up at Michael. "Yeah." There it was again, that smile that she didn’t have to force onto her lips, the smile that just came out of nowhere. Cindy hoped that the smile would come back with her on that Greyhound trip.
"Can I get you something to drink?"
For some reason, Cindy thought about how long it had been since she had a Dr. Pepper. She wasn’t exactly desperate for one, but she wasn’t about to let that stop her. "Could I have a Dr. Pepper, please?"
"No problem."
Michael quickly got up and walked behind Cindy, to the machines. The shopping bag was on the opposite side from Cindy, its drawstring closed tight. Cindy tried peeking in to see what was in it, but she couldn’t make anything out. Cindy wondered if it was for her, if he’d gotten her a present or something. Nah, couldn’t be that. Besides, he’d done so much for her already, how could she possibly accept anything more? Crossing her legs, the toe of Cindy’s sneaker brushed up against that ugly suitcase of hers, the faded navy blue fabric with green leech-like decorations on it. It seemed so out of place with Michael holding it, but somehow it looked appropriate in the middle of the Greyhound station.
Michael came back with her Dr. Pepper, and a bottled water for himself. Before he sat down, though, Michael pulled out his wallet. As Cindy gulped down a third of the can in one go, Michael asked her, "Listen, do you remember how much the taxi fare was from the station to your apartment?"
Cindy held the can between her legs and stared off in the distance. "Nineteen-something, I think."
Michael opened his wallet up, rustled around a bit, pulled two twenty dollar bills out and held them in front of Cindy. Cindy took one of them, thinking Michael had made a mistake, but as she pulled her hand back Michael stuffed the second twenty into her hand. "Hey, it’s another long road ahead, you’ve gotta have some food sometime, right?"
Images of the Subway from the first trip came rushing back to Cindy’s mind. "Yeah."
"What gate are you boarding at again?"
Cindy had to look back down at the ticket to answer Michael’s question. "Gate 3."
"Looks like they’re already lining up, you wanna join them?"
"In a bit." Cindy didn’t even look over to see who her riding companions were going to be. She didn’t want to see them, let alone be with them. She wanted this moment to just keep on going, to be able to smile and not feel stupid, to be with someone who appreciated her, to be living the life she wanted. All she was bringing back with her from this trip were memories, and they were wonderful memories to be sure, but they were still just memories. How was she going to keep living this life back at the apartment? The courage she’d built up seemed to slip away as her face relaxed from its smile. This wasn’t a dream, but Cindy realized she was in for a rude awakening just the same, once she got back home.
Michael picked the shopping bag off of the floor and seated it in his lap. As he loosened the drawstring, he said, "Listen, I got you some things to take back with you. I hope I picked the right things out."
Cindy turned her head towards Michael, her expression unchanged, as he handed her a book. As Cindy looked down, she could see it was a copy of The McHolland Clan, a brand new copy. It still had a bookmark in it, though, around the same place that she left the book the previous day. That Michael.
"And here." Cindy placed the book onto her lap as Michael handed her a videotape. The title on the box said Drew Places, and the shirtless man-boy holding a fishing rod in one hand, a brush in the other caught her eye. "It’s not as tough to understand as the stuff you watched yesterday," Michael explained. "If you have any problems with it, just e-mail me and I’ll try to explain whatever you’re having problems with."
That smile was back on Cindy’s face, but she had no idea where it came from. "Yeah."
"And finally, this." Michael handed her a CD. The names "Indigo" and "Sound Lab" were on the disc, but she wasn’t sure which was the performer and which the title of the disc. Michael pointed to the disc as he said, "These guys really paved the way for some of the bands you told me you liked. They probably won’t be as hard-rocking as you like, but I think you’ll enjoy them all the same."
It was all here. A book, a video, a CD. Parts of the life she wanted, and she was going to bring them back with her.
Before she could even ask, Michael confirmed, "If you’re interested in this stuff, let me know and I’ll e-mail you some more recommendations."
Cindy’s smile was so high up now that her cheeks were pinching her eyes, squeezing out the moisture she wanted to hold in. Cindy didn’t know if they were tears of joy from these perfect gifts, or tears of pain from having to leave Michael in just a few minutes. But Cindy knew one thing. She was going to talk to Tony. Tonight.
Cindy brushed away the tears that had streaked down her face with the back of her hand, and looked Michael in his eyes. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
Cindy could see Michael’s face grow with concern, even through the excess water in front of her eyes. He reached down and grasped Cindy’s right hand with both of his own. "Cindy ..."
"I’m okay. I’m ... okay." And Cindy actually felt okay. She realized that this wasn’t the end, that this all didn’t have to end just because she was going back to the apartment, to Tony. She wasn’t going back to that life she had. She had a new life now, and she knew she had a lot to learn about music, about movies, about books, about culture and all that other stuff, but she was going to do everything she could to learn all she could. And if she had any trouble, she knew she had a friend to turn to for assistance.
A friend. Cindy rolled that last word over in her mind as she and Michael sat in silence, waiting for the call for her bus. Michael had said the word before, but Cindy never really thought about it before. Not a friend like Tony’s buddies, who neglected her just as much as Tony was. Not a friend like her co-workers at all the jobs she went to, because she knew she wouldn’t be at a job long enough to really get to know the people there. Michael had stuck by her through her long absence, had opened his apartment up to her when she had no place else to turn to, had helped her realize the life she wanted to lead, had given her the courage to go back and face her husband. And he promised he’d be just an e-mail away after she got back. Yes, Michael was a friend. A real friend.
Cindy was about to put her head against Michael’s shoulder when he spoke. "Um ... I didn’t want to mention this to you before, but Tony e-mailed me last night."
"What?" Cindy was puzzled.
"He said he found my e-mail to you on the computer when he got back, and he wanted to know if I knew what was happening."
Cindy cursed herself briefly for leaving the e-mail on the computer, but quickly got back to the matter at hand. "Did you respond to him?"
"No, I thought I should ask you what I should do first."
"Um ... look, when you get back to your apartment, can you just tell him when I’ll be back? Don’t, uh, don’t tell him I was here or anything."
Michael looked at Cindy quizzically. "Um, I think he’s going to figure it out, when I tell him when you’ll be returning."
Cindy realized what Michael was saying was true. "I know. Just ... don’t tell him anything more than that, okay? Please?"
Michael sighed. "If that’s what you want, then that’s what I’ll do."
"Thank you." Cindy thought about how Tony would react when she got back. Not like Michael reacted when she showed up at his front door, that’s for sure. Oh, why did she have to leave like this, she thought. She started moving her head towards Michael’s shoulder again.
"Gate 3 now boarding eastbound for ..."
Cindy quickly got up to her feet, grasping her gifts from Michael in her hand. Michael took the gifts and put them back inside the shopping bag, then carried the bag and her suitcase with him as they got in line. They didn’t say much as the driver checked everyone out. Finally, when Cindy got to the front of the line, she handed her ticket over to the driver and hugged Michael as he placed her bags on the floor. Cindy thought she should be crying, but she didn’t particularly feel like it. All she could say was, "Thank you."
"E-mail me when you get back to the apartment, please," Michael pleaded.
Cindy nodded her head, hoping Michael would catch the gesture. She just didn’t feel like saying anything else. That smile was on her face again as she bent down, grabbed her bags, walked backwards a few steps so she could see Michael’s face, his eyes still looking a bit exasperated, then turned around and boarded the bus.
The ride home was so much better than the ride there. Cindy read about half of The McHolland Clan during the trip, starting back at the beginning to reacquaint herself with all the people, and rereading bits of it when she wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Cindy knew she didn’t quite understand everything that was going on, but she had the basic gist of the story, and she really liked it. The feuding family members reminded her a lot of what she went through before she married Tony, and she could identify with the plot. Every once in a while she’d put the book aside and look back out at the farms and the towns, and somehow they seemed a lot nicer this time.
She got some decent sleep just before the transfer Wednesday morning, and that afternoon the bus pulled over at another mega-gas station. This one had an Arby’s inside it, and she used the money Michael gave her to buy five roast beef sandwiches and a large Dr. Pepper. She ate two of the sandwiches before the bus took back off, and finished the rest as the ride went on, not minding when they became a bit lukewarm. Cindy enjoyed the relief from the hunger of the last trip, and knew that she wouldn’t have to worry about getting food. She might even have enough leftover after the taxi home to order out a pizza, a luxury for her and Tony if there ever was one.
Finally the bus came back to where the whole trip had started. The terminal still looked as bleak as ever, but Cindy didn’t pay it much attention. She just went outside, hailed a cab, and asked the middle-aged lady behind the wheel to take her back to her apartment, and looked out the side window the whole ride, at the familiar sights of the city she called home. It was still a pretty crummy place, but it was home to her. She knew what was going on there. She could tell where all the bus stops were, where the stores were, where she could get the things she needed. She wasn’t quite sure where to get the kind of books and videos Michael liked, but she could figure that out later.
As the taxi drove ever closer to the apartment, Cindy thought about Tony, how he’d react to what she had done. She wasn’t quite sure what all Michael told Tony. It didn’t matter, though. Cindy could still feel a bit of trepidation inside of her as she thought about facing Tony, but it was something she could manage. She had to. She knew what Michael had told her was true, that she just had to be as honest with Tony as she could be, tell him why she’d done what she’d done, tell him why she was so upset with him, tell him what she needed. Maybe Tony would understand. Maybe he wouldn’t. But at least she’d know one way or the other.
The fare ended up being twenty-one dollars, but Cindy had more than enough to cover it. As she walked up the stairs to the fourth floor, things still seemed a bit foreign, but yet just like home. This was home. And with any luck, Cindy could still call this home for awhile. At least, until Tony started selling more paintings and they could afford someplace nicer. Maybe something out on the west side; the apartments there weren’t as nice as Michael’s, but they were a damn sight better than where they currently were.
Cindy pulled the key out of her purse, opened the lock to the door, and stepped back into her apartment. Tony was sitting on the tired couch, a couple of bottles of plum wine on the chipped table in front. One of them was empty, the other nearly empty. Somehow the apartment looked even dirtier than usual, like she hadn’t done the cleaning in a couple of weeks, but she’d cleaned it just a week ago, she was sure. As Cindy stepped inside, Tony’s head snapped up, his eyes piercing right through hers.
"What in the hell did you do?"
That unforced smile was on her lips, but Cindy didn’t know where it came from. It certainly didn’t seem like an appropriate reaction to the look Tony was giving her, but somehow it felt right. "Tony, I ..."
"What? How could you do that to me?"
"Tony, I just ..."
"How could you go be with him like that? I thought you loved me?"
"I do love you, I just ..."
"Then how could you leave me like that? What did I do to deserve this, huh? Haven’t I cared for you enough? Didn’t I take you in when your own family didn’t want anything to do with you anymore?"
Cindy felt her smile slip away, and with it, the confidence she’d built up over the past few days. "Tony, I ... I ..."
"You don’t love me! You never did! And I never loved you, you whore!"
Cindy thought she should be more shocked by those words, but she was already too shocked by what was going on. "I ..."
"Get out!" Tony took his wedding band off and threw it at the door, but it hit the wall beside Cindy. "I never want to see you again!"
"Tony ..."
"Get out!" Tony walked over to his shelf of art books."
"Tony ..."
"Get out!" Tony picked up one of the books and threw it at Cindy. Cindy quickly dodged, and the book flew out into the hallway.
"Tony, please!"
"GET OUT!" The second book Tony threw hit her squarely in her left elbow, causing pain to shoot up her forearm. As Tony picked out a third book, Cindy grabbed her bags off the floor and ran out of the room, into the hallway. Tony kept throwing books as Cindy started sobbing in heaves, wet, choking heaves. It had all backfired. Tony was mad, and Cindy knew she only had herself to blame for it. She had betrayed him.
Cindy could hear glass breaking as Tony started screaming that barbarian-scream of his, the one he only seemed to let out in the deepest fits of anger over his work not selling. Something came flying out of the door, shattering the wall in front of it. Probably one of their glasses. The other fourth floor residents began peeping their heads out of their doors to watch what was going on. But Cindy could feel all their eyes glaring at her, shaming her for what she had done, even as she held her face in her hands, her palms dripping with tears.
Cindy grabbed her bags off the floor where she’d dropped them, ran down the stairs back to the first floor of the apartment building, ran out of the apartment, ran down the street, ran as far as she could, ran sobbing all the way, ran without ever looking back.
A half-hour later, Cindy was just walking. Her legs hurt from all the running, her right arm was sore from lugging that suitcase of hers around, the fingers of her left hand stung from where the drawstring of the shopping bag cut into them. Cindy wanted to stop and take a rest, but she didn’t want to stop until she figured out where she was going. She didn’t want to admit that she had no place to go.
Her co-workers? Cindy didn’t even know their last names, let alone where they lived. It’s not like they were that close anyway.
Her boss? She was a shrew of a woman, and Cindy knew she didn’t care much for her. She realized then that she’d probably been fired for missing two days of work without notice.
A homeless shelter? Cindy knew where a couple might be, but she didn’t want to go to them. She’d worked at one once, and it disgusted her so much that she swore she’d never go back, not to those people even more unkempt than Tony’s friends could ever dream of being.
Michael? Yeah, maybe he would take her back. But she didn’t even have enough money for taxi fare now, let alone a ticket back to him. Cindy thought about trying to sell the clothes in her suitcase at Goodwill, but realized that wouldn’t be enough. Cindy’s stomach wrung itself dry as she thought about trying to sell the gifts Michael had given her, but realized that even at that, she wouldn’t have enough money for the ticket.
Cindy’s walking slowed to that of an old person’s as she realized she was screwed. No place to go, no one to help her. This was all her fault, she knew it. She should have never gotten on that Greyhound, she should have never gotten back in touch with Michael, she should have just went on serving Tony’s friends, cooking for Tony, fucking him, making what money she could at those miserable jobs, just surviving. At least then she had a roof over her head, food on her table, enough cash to survive on. Not now. Now it was all over.
"Hey there."
Cindy turned to her right, where the voice came from. It came from a clean but disgusting looking man, who had pulled up beside her in a fairly new luxury car.
"Who, me?"
"Yeah, you, wanna party?"
Cindy looked at him and caught the glare in her eyes. Cindy remembered that glare well, back when she went to goth clubs and some of the geeks in there tried to hit on her. She still got that glare occasionally at her jobs, but she just went on about doing her job and the guys usually went away. Suddenly, Cindy looked up and realized she was on 62nd street. 62nd street had been a popular place for prostitutes a few years back, back before the mayor "cleaned everything up." Most of the prostitutes had moved out to the suburbs, but she knew a few were still in this part of town, turning tricks.
"What?" Cindy didn’t want to put two and two together. She looked pretty bad, yeah, but not like a prostitute, and she wouldn’t sell her body, no matter how desperate she was. Even she had her limits.
"Come on, just lookin’ for a good time here!"
Cindy sighed. She thought about punching the pervert right in the face, and trying to get away from him as fast as she could. But she knew her legs wouldn’t hold up, not after she’d exhausted herself running away from Tony.
She thought about telling him to get lost. But maybe he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Maybe that would only encourage him to do more, do something she knew she couldn’t fight back against.
She thought about where else she could go. A bus station? An alleyway? But what of her things, the two bags of all she had left in the world. What if she lost those too? And what else could happen to her while she was out there, alone?
Then she thought of Michael.
Then she looked back at the guy in the car.
Then she thought about that sleazy motel, across the street from the Greyhound station.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon