In Between Days (6 page)

When he finally finishes scribbling, she looks at him. “By the way, I’m not going to be coming in next week.”

“Why not?”

“I have a test that night. Not for my business class. A different class.”

“Maybe we can schedule a different time then.”

“No,” she says. “I actually think I’d like a week off from this anyway.”

“Okay,” Peterson says. “Fair enough.” He looks at his watch. “We still have fifteen minutes.”

She smiles at him. “Maybe you can give me a discount today.”

He grins. “I’m afraid that’s not how it works, Cadence.”

“Well, then, why don’t we just say I’m giving you those minutes. Okay? You can call up your wife. Tell her you love her.”

Peterson looks at her, then finally concedes. “Okay,” he says, smiling now. “Sure. I might just do that.”

Then he stands up and shakes her hand and lets her out the door.

Without stopping by the receptionist’s desk to pay her bill or to schedule another appointment, Cadence starts down the hall toward the elevator. Another pointless session with Peterson, she thinks. But as soon as she gets to the elevator, as soon as she gets in, she realizes she’s crying. She has no idea where this sudden outburst has come from, or what it means, only that before she knows it, she is rubbing her face, drying her eyes. She reaches into her purse for a Kleenex. There’s a woman standing beside her in the elevator, watching her, and as they get off at the first-floor lobby, the woman turns to her and reaches out her hand, touches her.

“Are you okay?” asks the woman.

In the distance, through tall glass windows on the other side of the lobby, Cadence can see the city of Houston, shimmering and bright in the mid-afternoon sun.

“Yes,” she says, smiling at the woman, touching her arm. “I’m fine.”

CHLOE HAD THOUGHT
about her for years, had dreamed about her, and now it suddenly seemed important that she see her. She had called her up earlier that day to suggest lunch, and when she’d answered her phone it was like nothing had ever happened, like no time had passed, like they were still back in high school planning a trip to the mall. Her voice had sounded different, though. Chloe had noticed this. More serene perhaps, more removed. She’d suggested that Chloe stop by her store and that they eat there. She could make them something in the back, she’d said. Some tofu, or perhaps a simple salad. Nothing fancy. She’d opened up her store in the year after Chloe had left for college. It was a New Age store, as far as Chloe could tell, a store that sold books about spirituality and holistic healing, a store that sold herbal lotions and beads. Chloe had never been inside, but she’d driven by it once or twice and had read about it on the Internet. They offered back massages and meditation sessions and Tarot card readings. They offered retreats to the Hill Country for what they called spiritual replenishing. She wondered, even then, what had happened to her friend. The girl she used to go to Nordstrom’s with, the girl she used to talk to for hours about boys in their class.

In the spring of their sophomore year, Simone had dropped out. It had happened suddenly, unexpectedly. Her parents had pulled her out, and the next thing she knew Simone was in Colorado at some counseling facility, a place for troubled youth. It was true that Simone had had some trouble that year, some trouble with drugs, an eating disorder, a boyfriend who didn’t treat her well. But still, the whole idea of pulling her out of school seemed a little extreme.

Chloe had always suspected there’d been something else, something she didn’t know about. She’d also always suspected that Simone would
eventually return, return to school, but she never did. In the beginning she’d written her letters, mostly updates on the latest gossip at school, and occasionally Simone had written back. But over time those letters became less frequent, and after a while she just stopped trying. She fell in with a new crowd, started dating Dustin O’Keefe, and pretty soon it was senior year and she was off to college. Simone was back by then, back in Houston, but she hadn’t heard from her. She’d heard through the grapevine that Simone was getting her GED and working at the Whole Foods store in Montrose, but she’d never seen her there, and then one day during the fall of her first semester in college, she’d received an e-mail from a friend with a link to Simone’s store. The title of the e-mail had read: “Fucking Bizarre.”

Ever since she’d received that e-mail, though, she’d been curious to see her, her former best friend, curious to hear about her life and her husband, who was referenced on the Web site. So she’d called her up that morning, out of the blue, and now she was here, sitting in her store.

When she’d first arrived there’d been a young guy working behind the counter, a boy her age, and she’d assumed at first that this might be Simone’s husband, but when she asked her later Simone had corrected her.
No, no
, she’d said.
That’s just Dupree. He works here
. Dupree. A strange name for a boy, a hippie boy no less. When she’d first walked in, Dupree had regarded her absently, then smiled and gone back to his work. There was something about him that disarmed her. She was glad, in the end, that he wasn’t Simone’s husband. As it turned out, Simone’s husband was a sculptor, an artist. He had a little studio in the back of the store, Simone said, but that day he was away in Austin, setting up a show. She’d shown her a picture of him, and he’d looked old, Chloe thought, a little weathered. Maybe forty, forty-five. He had a tiny goatee-style beard and wavy hair. He looked like he’d been through the sixties, or maybe a war.

They had talked about him for a while, Simone explaining how they’d met at a ranch in Marfa and how he’d courted her for years, sending her twenty-page letters from the ranch. He was living on the ranch at the time, with a bunch of other artists, a sort of commune situation, an artists’ community. Then one day he just showed up at her door in Houston and said that he was moving there. He didn’t have an apartment or a job, so she’d let him move in. Two months later, they were married. And two months after that, she opened up her store. “He really broke me down.”
Simone laughed. “But I’m glad he did. He’s a gentle man, you know, a very kind soul.”

Chloe had looked at her and smiled, told her how happy she was for her, but a part of her still couldn’t get past what had happened to her friend, how different she seemed. Every time Simone spoke, it was like she was speaking from behind a veil, couching her words with euphemisms, casting everything in a positive light. Everything she spoke of was very beautiful, every person she mentioned was very kind, very nice. She wondered after a while if they were living in the same universe. She wanted to remind her of certain things they had done: sneaking out behind the gym to get high during seventh period, stealing her father’s car to take a joyride with some boys from Montrose, lifting mascara from the Lancôme counter at Macy’s. She wondered if Simone even remembered these things, if she ever thought about them, or if they’d simply been repressed, like so many things, at the back of her mind.

When it came time for Chloe to share her own news, she’d spoken calmly at first. She talked about her college, the classes she was taking, the professors that she liked. She had tried her best to steer the conversation away from Raja and what had happened, but inevitably the question came up: why was she back here in Houston in the middle of the term?

She didn’t have an answer at first. Not a real one. She told her that she was taking some time off, a little break, regrouping. But eventually the conversation turned toward Raja, and she found herself talking about it, mentioning things that she hadn’t mentioned to anyone. There was something in the way that Simone looked at her, a calmness in her gaze, that made her want to confess. She told her there’d been an incident, a serious incident back at school, and that certain people seemed to think that she had been involved in this incident. She told her that she knew the people involved and that one of them was her boyfriend, Raja, but that was as much as she said. She said nothing of her own involvement, her own complicity. The upshot was that there was a boy who had been hurt very badly during this incident and this boy was now lying in intensive care, recovering. He was in critical shape. She looked at Simone very calmly as she said this. She was trying to remain composed. But Simone didn’t seem the least bit surprised or concerned. She just sat there, drinking her tea, a placid, almost vacant look in her eyes. She wondered what Simone was thinking, whether she knew that she was lying or only telling half the truth.

She went on to tell her other things, things she’d spared her father the previous day at lunch. She told her about the article in the school paper, the one with the fuzzy snapshot of her and Raja walking across the quad, and, beneath that, the picture of Raja’s friend Seung. The article itself had been mostly lies, of course, but still, it had hurt her, she said, as had the headline above it:
“Busted!”
She told her about the aftermath, about the conversations she’d had to have with the police and later with the dean of students, the Student Judiciary Council, the Faculty Senate, and the Faculty Committee on Student Conduct. She told her about the endless interrogations, the questioning, the going-over of the facts. She told her about the tricks they’d tried to use on her, the ways they’d tried to trip her up, the ways they’d tried to get her to turn against Raja. Then she told her about the way that Raja himself had been arrested, handcuffed right in the middle of class, right in the middle of a giant lecture hall, right in front of all his friends, his professor—a calculated humiliation no doubt—and the way that she hadn’t spoken to him, not really, since she’d been home.

By the time she’d finished, by the time she’d told her all about her own hearing, the verdict, the sentencing, the humiliating phone call she’d had to make to her mother, by the time she’d finished with all that, she was nearly in tears. And Simone, in the seat across from her, was simply watching, nodding.

After a moment, Simone reached across the table and put her hand on Chloe’s cheek, then cupped both hands around Chloe’s face and smiled.

“It’s okay,” she said.

Chloe was crying now.

“I’m glad you came here. I’m glad you’re telling me these things.”

Then Simone stood up and said that she was going to make some more tea and that she’d be back in a minute.

Chloe dried her eyes. She watched her walk out of the room, a tiny room in the back of the store filled with ceramic bowls and cups, a giant kiln, and a tiny window overlooking a yard. She heard her turn on the water, then turn it off. She heard her moving around some plates. Then, for a long time, it was very quiet. She kept expecting to hear the kettle go off, or the water boiling, but she didn’t. She called out to Simone at one point, but there was no reply, and so she figured she was in the bathroom or on the phone.

That was over twenty minutes ago, though, and now she’s beginning to wonder what has happened. Suddenly, she feels stupid for unloading on her, for telling her all the things that Raja told her not to tell anyone. She thinks of Raja, sitting in his motel room, how disappointed he’d be if he knew what she’d said. She thinks about the way his voice had sounded the last time they spoke, how depressed he’d seemed. She remembers what he said to her, how now, more than ever, it was important that she didn’t say anything to anyone. He’d called her from a pay phone on the outskirts of town, near his motel. He’d said that he didn’t trust his cell phone anymore, that it was probably being bugged, that he didn’t want to implicate her any more than he already had. There was no reason for them to know that they were still in contact, he’d said. That was the way he’d put it.
Still in contact
. Then he’d told her what he’d told them, the police, that they had broken up, that she had broken up with him. She’d started to cry when he said this, but he told her it was for her own protection, her own good, a necessary precaution. The less they knew about her connection to him the better off she’d be. He was already talking like a guilty man, a man who had already been convicted and sent away, and it bothered her. She wondered what had happened to his initial optimism, his undying belief that things would work out.

When they got off the phone, she had sat in her room for a long time, crying, and that’s when she’d thought about Simone. It occurred to her then that if anyone would understand what she was going through it would be Simone. But now, as she sits here, waiting for her, she wonders what she was thinking, what type of strange, convoluted logic she must have used to bring herself here, to convince herself that this was a good idea. Simone, after all, was not Simone. Not anymore. She was someone else, a walking zombie, a brainwashed moonchild, a concubine for some strange, aging artist. She sits up after a while and looks around the room. She calls out to Simone.

“How’s that tea coming?” she says. But there’s no answer.

After a moment, she stands up and walks into the kitchen, only to find it empty, abandoned. She looks around the room and notices that there’s a tiny teapot sitting on the counter and, next to it, a small stack of paper cups. She starts back to the back room, the office, and there she finds a pile of cluttered papers lying on a desk, an empty chair, and a few watercolors hanging on the wall. But no Simone. She peeks inside the bathroom door, but the bathroom is empty. Understanding now that
Simone is gone, she turns around and starts back toward the front of the store. She finds the boy, Dupree, standing at the counter, flipping through a magazine. He looks at her from behind his shaggy bangs and smiles. Above his head are tiny mosaics, wind chimes, crystal vases filled with beads.

“Have you seen Simone?” she asks.

“She’s not back there?”

“No. We were talking, I mean, she was making me some tea, and then she just vanished.”

Dupree shakes his head. “Yeah,” he says. “She does that a lot. Probably just stepped out.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you think she’s coming back?”