American Subversive (35 page)

Let me put it another way: I suddenly couldn't bear the thought of her leaving.

I dried off and dressed and emerged from the bathroom. She was reading through what she'd just written, her back to me.

“I've listed the key points you should include,” she said, without turning around. “Everything I know about the N3 Action, and enough about Indigo so the authorities will believe you. And now I need to go. Thanks for, you know . . .” She nodded toward the couch, immaculate now, the blanket folded on the armrest as if a soldier had slept there.

“Stay.”

“It's okay, I don't need a ride anywhere.”

“I mean . . . for longer.”

She sighed. “This isn't a game, Aidan. Just do what we discussed. Post the thing when you get back tomorrow. That'll give me enough time to get away. The Feds will show up here pretty quickly after it
appears, but just do as they say and you'll be fine. I wiped down the counter and the couch area while you were showering, so they won't find any prints.”

She picked up her bag and took a last look around the room.

“What if I
don't
write it?”

Paige went still. “Then people will die.”

“And if I do, Keith and Lindsay will just come out of hiding with their hands up and call it a day? From what you've told me, I seriously doubt it.”

“Yes, but they'll have been
exposed
. By tomorrow night, their names and faces will decorate every precinct wall in the city. There'll be a manhunt under way. And N3's headquarters? They won't be able to get near the place. It'll be a fortress.”

“But the cops will be looking for you, too.”

“I'll take my chances. Anyway . . . it's not like I'm innocent in all this.”

“You weren't trying to kill people either.”

“No. Somewhere back there, I was trying to help them.” For a moment she looked wistful, lost, but just as quickly she recovered and started for the door. “It's too early for this conversation. Or too late. Just write the post. If it makes you feel better, don't include my photograph. They'll dig it up later, though, in your hard drive or on Roorback's server. They'll find pictures of Keith and Lindsay, too. Everyone exists somewhere else, even them.”

“Stay,”
I said, again. “Until I get back.”

“No.”

“Fine, but I'm not writing anything. Not yet.”

Where was this coming from? It was more than desire, I realized. It was the culmination of months—of years—of hyperactive stasis, running in circles on an oval-shaped island, twelve posts a day, four parties a week, and a personal life in permanent flux. A decade had passed in the back of countless cabs, at fancy dinners and midnight pizzerias; the drug dipping and surprisingly functional alcoholism that consumed our nights and destroyed our mornings; nothing stimulating, nothing surprising, our thirties spreading out before us like our twenties, but with the lessons still unlearned. We were a tough lot to teach. We only listened to ourselves.

I keep saying
we,
when what I mean is
I
.

I was thinking of everything. I wasn't thinking at all.

“What are you trying to do?” she said, her voice suddenly flat as a steppe.

“There has to be another way. One that doesn't involve you ruining your life.”

“No, I mean . . .” She was gesturing toward me, past me. I turned around. I had unintentionally—or at least subconsciously—gravitated to the front of the apartment and was now standing between Paige and the door.

“Oh, I didn't mean to . . . here, you can go, of course, if you want, I was just . . .” I turned sideways, made a sweeping motion with my arm. She didn't move, which I took as a sign to keep talking. “I was just thinking,” I sputtered, “that, well, maybe you—maybe
we
—could, I don't know, try to stop Keith ourselves. Before he plants the bomb.”

She frowned. “I have no idea where he is.”

“So, we'll figure it out. Look, I'll only be in Connecticut one night. You can stay here, relax, sleep, figure things out, whatever. And if you haven't come up with something by the time I get back tomorrow morning, then I'll write the blog post. There'll still be time. You said it yourself: the original action was planned for this coming Saturday night.”

“It's not safe, Aidan.”

“Outside this door is where it's not safe. Do you even have a place to go?”

“I meant that it's not safe for
you,
” she said, ignoring my question. “Having me here. Everything's coming undone. Forget the cops for a second. And the FBI. We still don't know who sent you my picture. It's just . . . it's not the time to sit tight.”

No, it wasn't. I'd been sitting tight my entire life.

Paige had this sweet, sour look on her face, at once tender and slightly patronizing. Or maybe she really was conflicted. Because she still wasn't moving.

“One more night,” I said. “And when I get back, if Keith and Lindsay haven't been caught, or you haven't come up with another way to stop them, I'll write the post, and then you . . . you can disappear forever.”

She rolled her neck and rubbed her eyes. She looked outside, then back at me. “I wish you'd listen to what I'm saying.”

“I have been listening.”

“This isn't what I want.”

“I realize.”

She sighed. I waited.

“Fine,” she said. “Do you have anything for breakfast?”

We ate eggs and drank coffee, and afterward I uploaded the posts I'd written before Paige showed up, time-stamping them to appear at intervals throughout the day (the last thing I needed was Derrick on my case). I didn't want to leave the apartment and let this strange dream reach its inevitable end. Still, there was my life, and in the late morning I told Paige I needed to run a few errands, then head over to Charles Street to pick up my rental car. She could come, of course, but—

“Aidan, no.”

“I didn't think so. Make yourself at home then. I'll bring back some lunch.”

“Okay,” she said. “I'll be here.”

And so I donned a hoodie and left her. The morning was crisp and cloudless . . . and suddenly surreal. How disconcerting it had been, the two of us in that small apartment together, like the morning after a one-night stand—the shy backpedaling after the drunken deed, knowing everything and nothing, too much and too little. I walked east on Christopher, past dog walkers and squealing schoolchildren, past mothers pushing babies, past a cop at the entrance to the PATH. I nodded to him out of habit, then, a half block later, cursed my stupidity. I was at the corner of Hudson Street and had forgotten what I needed to do. Drugstore, wine store, supermarket. Spare keys at the hardware store (Cressida had my other set), a stop-off at the dry cleaner. I hurried from place to place, two lists in my head, for two lives—mine and Paige's, the mundane and the outlandish. I was drawn to her, both
because of
and
despite
who she was, what she believed. But what
did
she believe? How much of all this was a symptom of her grief? And how much came from the woman underneath? Suddenly, I
wanted to run home and ask her, run home and see her, just run home. But I stayed out, stayed away. Give her space, some time to breathe, or bolt. I considered heading over to Paul Smith to find my father a birthday present, but like every man with money and a young wife, he was almost impossible to shop for, stuck as he was between styles and generations, the acceptable and unseemly. Taste, which had once emanated from him, was no longer in evidence in Litchfield. Indeed, the last time I'd been up to see him, a year ago, he'd worn nothing but blowsy golf shirts and pleated slacks. He was getting old.

The thought cowed me. And made me miss him. I gave up on shopping and made my way to the Dollar Rent A Car on Charles Street. Through the glass door I could see the woman behind the front desk. I paused. Should I really be leaving Paige? For that matter, should I be handing my driver's license over to someone with a computer? Yes, and yes. What had Touché called it?
Indirect support
. That's all I was offering. Nothing more. I wouldn't let her rough landing into my life completely disrupt it. And I wouldn't become paranoid either. Of course I could hand over my license. My name wasn't on any lists. I wasn't the one setting off bombs. I could write a single blog post and be free and clear of any trouble.

Fifteen minutes later I was sitting behind the wheel of a soulless Chrysler Sebring. If the Dollar woman had suspected I was harboring a terrorist, she certainly hadn't let on. In fact, she'd offered to upgrade me to a PT Cruiser (I'd politely declined). I turned west and weaved my way through Village streets that never quite pointed in the right direction. Would Paige be there when I got back? I'd been gone more than an hour, plenty of time to take off if that was her plan. And what if she'd stolen something, cash or my computer, or worse, been somehow tracked or traced? By the time I turned onto Weehawken Street I half-expected the block to be cordoned off, cop cars pulled up on sidewalks, a crowd, reporters, cameras.

But the street was empty, as usual. I parked nearby, grabbed my shirts and groceries, and walked briskly home. When I opened the door, Paige looked up from the couch. She was writing a letter, an art book serving as a makeshift table on her lap.

“It's to my parents,” she said, when I asked. “Don't worry. I won't mail it from around here.”

“Okay, good,” I said, as if I might have suggested that precaution myself. “I got you a salad. I thought you might be a vegetarian or something so . . .”

“Thanks. I'm not.”

I started fiddling with things. Plastic forks and napkins, and the hangers from the dry cleaner, which had attached themselves to everything I was holding. Paige went back to her letter, as if this were the most normal day two people could spend together.

“Have you been in contact with them?” I asked.

“My mom and dad? Not really. Just the pay-phone call they told you about—to hear their voices, let them know I was alive. It was stupid; I shouldn't have done it. But I'm glad they realized it was me.”

“Why'd you hang up? You think their phone's tapped?”

“It's possible.”

“But it's okay to write them now?”

“Probably not, but it may be the last chance I get. Plus, you were talking about your father's birthday . . .” She let the thought die.

I got lunch together, and we ate quickly. Then I packed a small overnight bag. I had to get going, and anyway, Paige had turned quiet.

“Are you sure I should leave you alone?” I asked.

“Yeah, sorry. I'm just . . . I'm thinking about Keith.”

“How to find him, you mean?”

“Maybe. I don't know.”

“Why don't I call you when I get to Litchfield.”

“Okay, but wait until later tonight, after dinner.” She peered at me through her hair, like a boy looking through the woods. “Let's say ten o'clock. Let it ring twice, then hang up and call back right away. Use your dad's house phone, not your cell.”

“Meaning . . . ?” I felt for the phone in my pocket.

“Meaning let's not take unnecessary chances.”

“And what if you don't answer?”

She brushed her hair aside. “Then stay up there.”

AIDAN
 

THE MONDAY-AFTERNOON TRAFFIC WAS LIGHT LEAVING MANHATTAN, AND I rolled my window down to take in the breeze off the river. It felt good to be on the road, and then, as I crossed the northern tip of the island, it suddenly didn't. I almost turned around in White Plains, and again as I merged onto I-84. What was I doing, leaving Paige alone at a moment like that? Did she even think I'd come back? My mind raced every which way as my car continued north, but by the time I reached Danbury I'd acquitted myself of any wrongdoing. I had done what I could. The rest was up to her. Of the larger picture I remained decidedly ignorant. Like a junkie—and as a bartender I'd known plenty of them—the vague awareness of my tenuous situation was accompanied not only by denial, but also a strange euphoria, and I didn't want the feeling to end. Besides, I told myself, again and again, I could always write the Roorback post and wriggle free of any trouble or blame. It was like a get-out-of-jail-free card, and it made me play more fearlessly. For this still felt like a game. Make-believe.

I turned off the highway and tried to shift my attention from the mess I'd left behind to the mess that lay ahead. My father and Julie lived in a century-old lake house surrounded by horse farms and rolling hills. It was hard to think of a more picturesque place for a couple to retire to after decades in the city, but Julie hadn't spent decades in the city. She was only a year older than me. A reformed party girl. An absentee
mother. And the only (half) Asian I'd ever seen in Litchfield County. For several years now I'd been trying to figure out what she was doing living a rural life she clearly hated, with a man she didn't love. Was money that important? Or was she running from something?