Catherine (26 page)

I couldn’t go back to the apartment and sit by the phone, just waiting. I tried wandering
the streets around Chelsea, thinking luck would bring me to Hence just as it had brought
him to me so many months earlier, hoping maybe I’d bump into him—but what were the
odds of that? Finally, I went to our favorite diner. I ordered a cup of coffee that
I couldn’t drink, and sat in front of it as it cooled, trying to think of a plan.
The idea that Hence was walking around somewhere, angry, hating me, knowing I acted
behind his back and thinking I was about to break up with him—it was too horrible
to contemplate. Somehow, I had to track him down and explain.

For the next three days, I sat by the phone, willing it to ring. I didn’t dare step
away from it long enough to shower, sleep, or eat. While I waited, I wrote obsessively
in my journal, trying to straighten out my scrambled thoughts. When she heard what
was going on, Jackie’s mom agreed to let her come sleep over at the band’s apartment,
something she never in a million years would have done otherwise. The guys were almost
as worried as I was. Days and nights, they wandered through lower Manhattan, hitting
his favorite coffee shops and nightclubs, talking to everyone Hence had ever met on
the club scene. On the third day, I overheard Andy tell Stan that if Hence was blowing
off a chance to record he was probably lying in a ditch somewhere. He probably wouldn’t
have spoken so frankly if he’d known Jackie and I were in
the next room listening, but Andy’s words had the ring of a terrible truth.

“God wouldn’t be that cruel,” I whispered to Jackie, to keep from dissolving into
utter despair. “To let Hence die thinking I didn’t love him.” Dad had never been into
organized religion, and I hadn’t been to church since Mom’s funeral, but the next
morning I dragged Jackie with me to Our Mother of Good Counsel for the nine thirty
mass. Before the service we lit candles for Hence.
Let him be safe
, I prayed silently, over and over, the whole time the priest was talking.
Give me a chance to explain. Please, God, just give me five minutes with him.
After mass, there was nothing to do but the same pathetic thing I’d been doing for
the last three days.

Stare at the phone.

Will it to ring.

Another night passed. Then another day. Then another night.

Then, for the first time in what felt like forever, something like hope. Ruben came
screaming up the stairs to the apartment. “I’ve got a lead! I’ve got a lead!”

“He’s alive?” I threw my arms around Ruben, and he hugged me back, hard.

“I hope so.” That morning, Ruben had tracked down the bouncer at Max Fish. “He thinks
he saw Hence there last night.” Ruben’s words came so fast they ran together. “At
least he saw some guy who looked like Hence, talking to that girl with pink
hair. The slutty-looking one who’s always up against the stage with her blond friend.”

Nina.

After that I knew what I had to do: figure out where she lived and track her down.
From what little I’d seen of her, I could bet she’d made it her business to know exactly
where Hence was and what he was doing. And if she wouldn’t tell me, I would have to
follow her night and day until she led me to him.

As much as I despised her, I needed her help.

That night, after Jackie went home, the guys and I split up, hitting club after club,
trying to track down Nina. At the first few places I tried the bouncers and bartenders,
thinking maybe they’d seen the girl with the fuchsia hair. Some of them had (because
who could miss Nina?), but none of them knew her full name or where she lived. Finally,
in a little hole-in-the-wall club on Warren Street, I found someone who actually knew
her. Jerry, the rumpled bouncer, gave me the name of a guy who used to be Nina’s boyfriend:
Dane Slater, the drummer for Pineapple Crush. He wasn’t hard to track down; by some
fluke, his phone number was listed in the white pages.

So I stayed up all night, calling every half hour, letting it ring off the hook, but
he didn’t pick up until the next day at a quarter to noon. His voice was husky, like
maybe I’d woken him up. “Why should I give you Nina’s number?” He sounded suspicious
over the phone. I couldn’t tell whether he was being protective of Nina
or if he disliked her so much that he resented even having to hear her name.

It turned out to be the latter. When I explained that my boyfriend had gone missing
and that he’d last been seen talking to Nina, Dane laughed derisively. “Your boyfriend’s
in a band? And Nina is sniffing around him? And you say he’s been missing for a week?”

I didn’t like the implications. “It’s not like that,” I said, because I thought it
couldn’t possibly be. “I have to find him. Please help me.”

For what felt like an eternity, the line was silent. “What do I care?” he said finally.
“She’s not my problem anymore.” And he gave me her last name and her phone number.
“She lives on Avenue B, over a pet-supply store. That’s all I can remember.” And he
hung up without so much as saying good-bye or wishing me luck.

Not that it mattered. I had a phone number! So I called, but the line was disconnected.
Good thing I had an approximate address. I ran the whole way to Avenue B. I knew Nina
wouldn’t be thrilled to share Hence’s whereabouts with me, but now that I knew he
was alive and close by, I would find a way to convince her to help me. We were both
women, and we both cared about Hence; shouldn’t we be able to put our heads together?

I walked block after block, until I found the pet-supply store; sure enough, Nina’s
last name was taped under a doorbell in the entryway. I took a deep breath and rang
it. No answer. I counted to ten and rang it again.

“Yeah?” It was her voice all right, even through the static.

“Can I talk with you? Please?”

“Who is this?”

“Catherine Eversole.” And though I had a feeling she would recognize my name, I continued.
“Hence’s girlfriend.”

To my surprise, she buzzed me in. I climbed the stairs to the fourth floor and found
her waiting for me in the doorway, dressed in a sheer black lace slip. It seemed like
a strange way to answer the door, but, hey, it was Nina, so why should I be surprised?
Her fuchsia hair was mussed, and she smelled like stale Obsession.

She beckoned me in, an inexplicable smile on her lips. I had time to register the
décor in her living room—lamps covered with fringed scarves, a large painting of a
fleshy, redheaded nude that could have been Nina herself, and framed, signed posters
of Hüsker Dü and The Cult. The remnants of a meal—beer cans and pizza crusts—were
strewn across the table. Under a jumble of laundry, a red velvet sofa was barely visible.

I stood there for a moment, stupidly expecting her to act civilized—to maybe sweep
aside the laundry and offer me a seat, to ask me why I was there and how she could
help. Instead, she stood with her hands on her hips, looking me disapprovingly up
and down, as if I were the half-naked one. Her eyes on mine, like one feral dog challenging
another, she called to someone in the other room: “You’ve got company.”

In the silence that followed, I could hear my heart pounding in my ears.

“In there.” With a long purple fingernail she pointed to a closed door and I knew
all at once that I’d found Hence. Not only was he alive, he was one room away, and
in a second I would throw my arms around him. I’d explain everything and get him to
come
home with me, and our life would be even better than before because he would know
about Harvard and would forgive me anyway. But even as these thoughts flooded my head,
my feet refused to budge. I guess they understood before the rest of me that something
was terribly wrong with this picture.

When I didn’t move, Nina moved for me. She threw open the door to her darkened bedroom.
At first I couldn’t see who or what was in there.

“Come on.” She grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me into a room so small it was almost
all bed, a dark, airless den that stank of sweat and perfume. She flipped the light
switch and I felt the air leave my lungs. There, amid a jumble of blankets, lay Hence,
naked, covered by nothing but a sheet.

Had I expected him to be happy to see me? He wasn’t. His eyes were cold and full of
distrust. They bored straight into mine, and I had a crazy thought that maybe this
wasn’t Hence after all, maybe this was just some angry stranger who happened to look
exactly like him. Someone who hated me without even knowing me, who had made up his
mind to never listen to a word I had to say.

We stayed frozen like that, staring at each other, until his beautiful lips twisted
into a smirk and he lifted his hand and crooked a finger, beckoning at something over
my shoulder. For a moment I thought he was inviting me to lie down, and I started
to move toward him, but Nina breezed past me in her flimsy slip and climbed into the
empty space beside this stranger who was Hence. She looked at me and laughed, as if
my presence in her bedroom was hilarious, and he joined in laughing with her. As if
I weren’t
even there, she leaned over and started noisily kissing him, and he let her, their
tongues down each other’s throats, by the looks of it; like they were putting on a
show for me. Or worse—they didn’t even care that I was there, watching.

The kiss went on for what felt like a million years, and though I knew I should leave,
I couldn’t seem to move. Her purple taloned hands grasped his shoulders, and then
ran over his chest, but his hands weren’t on her; they were beside him on the bed,
each making a fist, clutching the sheet like it was something he wanted to crush.

And then Nina pulled back to murmur something in his ear. He nodded, his eyes still
closed, and she began to nibble his neck. And over her pink hair, he opened his eyes
to make sure I was still there, his gaze hard. As Nina kissed her way down his throat,
pausing to nuzzle his chest, he stared past her at me. A challenge.

When she dipped lower, to his stomach, he was still staring defiantly into my eyes.

I knew without a doubt they would have kept going like that, her head moving lower
and lower, his eyes on my face going colder and harder, for as long as I stayed there
watching. But finally, thank God, I found my feet. I tore away, leaving the apartment
door swinging open behind me, down four flights of stairs to the street below, and
even as I ran I thought Hence might come after me to say that it was all a joke, he
didn’t really mean it, he was just trying to show me how much I’d hurt him, he could
never love Nina the way he loved me—could never love anyone the way he loved me. That
this whole terrible thing had been a mistake.

Like an idiot, I waited, trembling, out on the street, but he
didn’t come after me. Cars passed, a bicycle messenger swerved to miss me and sped
off, an old woman pushing a shopping cart slowed to look me over with eyes that broadcast
curiosity and pity. None of it meant anything. Finally, I tore myself away, heading
for the only place I had left: Jackie’s house. I huddled on her front stoop, cold
and miserable, waiting for her to get home from wherever she’d gone, though I had
no idea what I would say to her, how I would give voice to what I’d learned about
Hence. I certainly couldn’t go back to the apartment and tell the guys; I couldn’t
stand the pitying looks they would give me. They would try to be nice, I was sure
of it. They would say something comforting about what a dick Hence was being, but
I knew their loyalty lay with him and not me. There was no way I could stay in the
apartment with them for even a minute longer. I hoped I could move into Jackie’s house
until I could breathe again.

While I waited on Jackie’s steps, night fell and the streetlights switched on, their
cold blue light falling on the sidewalk.
Hurry home, Jackie
, I kept thinking.
I need you.

I sipped a papaya-mango smoothie at the juice bar café while I read my mother’s journal.
From my table, I could lean forward and peek out the window for a view of The Underground,
but for a long time there was no sign of Coop. Finally, a van pulled up and Rat Behavior
piled out onto the sidewalk; I recognized them from pictures I’d seen online. The
tall one with pale skin, black hair, and a long nose that looked like it had been
broken once or twice was Stan Hodicek, Riptide’s former drummer. He ran to Hence and
the two of them executed one of those manly hugs, clapping each other on the back.
After that, they talked for a long time. I mostly leaned back so Hence couldn’t catch
sight of me, but every sixty seconds or so I’d sneak another peek. Talking with his
old bandmate, Hence looked more animated and less sullen than I’d ever seen him. After
a while, he and Stan strode off somewhere
together. Figuring the coast was clear, I hurried across the street and slipped in
the front door.