The Vanishing Year (3 page)

In the afternoon, I nap. Later, I wander the penthouse as dusk settles, enveloping the apartment in darkness, almost without my realizing it, until suddenly I can barely see. I wander to the great room and flick on a single lamp. I love
our home. You can see every inch of Manhattan, I swear. I've spent cumulative hours staring out the windows in each room, down to the street below, where the cars look like toys and the people scurry by, busy as mice.

The building is a converted textile warehouse,
prewar,
Henry drops in casual conversation. People seem impressed by this. The floors are deep cherry and the moldings are ornately carved. Everything is heavy and big,
big,
decorated by a man. Twenty-foot ceilings and elaborate archways give way to sleek furnishings with simple lines. The contrast is a designer's dream, and when I first moved in I explored every corner, ran my fingertips against every brocade carved mantel, every marble surface. The whole place looked dipped in shellac. I asked Henry once if I could redecorate it, maybe add some light, floral touches. He gave me a funny look:
Oh, but Penny does the decorating.

Penny. Henry's right-hand woman—housekeeper, cook, life organizer, home decorator, retriever of lost keys and wallets, and finder of obscure late-century credenzas. She's in her sixties, I think, but looks older, weathered like she'd sat too long in the sun, browned like a raisin. I felt stung at the time. I majored in design in college, although I couldn't tell him that then. I wonder if I can tell him that now? I open my book.

I wait for Henry to come home.

CHAPTER
3

JUNE 2009, SAN PABLO, CALIFORNIA

The bar smelled like old men, the kind of permanent sweat stain that leaches into everything: the unfinished wood grain of the chairs, the thick, ancient varnish of the bar top, the heavy brocade drapes. The air felt hot-wet, like maybe the air conditioner had been on, and now it was condensing on every flat surface in the heat wave. Even the neon bar signs had given up, flickering on and off halfheartedly:
Max's Cocktail Lounge
. The name conjured up some kind of 1940s velvet-lined art deco salon, but the reality was shrouded in wood paneling.

I sat at the end of the bar, the beginning of a nightly ritual that started with vodka tonics and ended with whiskey. I had no place to go. Except this place.

I heard him before I saw him. “Well if it isn't little Hilary, who ain't so little.” The voice cut through the smoke and the booze and gave me a chill. He stood next to me, his fingertips dancing across the back of my barstool, and all I could think was
don't you dare touch me
. The anger filled my throat.

“Mick.” I faced him, and he seemed surprised. His blond
hair flopped in front of his green eyes. His face was tanned, lined, but in a broken, weathered way that made women want to fix him. One woman, in particular. “She's dead. But thanks for stopping by.”

I watched his reaction through slitted eyes and he was appropriately surprised, then sad.

“Ah, I'm sorry, Peach. I knew she was sick.”

“But you didn't come?”

“Your mama and I . . . I loved her, but we just aren't the same kind of people.” He made a coughing sound, which almost sounded like a sob. For a second, I looked up. His eyes were dry.

“I don't know what that means.”

“It's easy, sugar. She's a good person.”

“Was.” I pushed my glass away, the liquor sliding up over the lip and onto the bar top.

“What's that?”

“She was a good person. She's dead now. She's actually in the county coroner's office because I, her daughter, and possibly the only person who truly cared about her, can't afford to bury her.”

He sat on the barstool next to me, his palms flat on the wood in front of him. “When?” His voice was soft, the swagger kicked out and his grief coming too late.

“A week ago, Sunday.”

“Your mama had a million friends, H. Everyone loved her, she was a spirit, you know?” He said this to me, like I didn't know, and I wanted to kick his shins with both feet, hard. I pictured that, the toe of my high heel making small, pointed, bluish green marks, like the ones he'd left on Evelyn's arms, dotting his flesh like tiny fingerprints.

The truth was, she used to have friends. Before Mick. Before cancer.

“Yeah, well, where are they?” I pulled the corner of my
napkin back, pressing the pad of my finger into the puddle of whiskey and touching it to my tongue.

“I don't know. I have some phone numbers, we could call some people. Get help.”

“Why don't you help? She loved you, you know.”

He looked pained. “I was never good enough, that's all, Hilary. I'm sorry about Evelyn. I'm sorry about everything.”

I waved my hand. It didn't matter. Mick had been in and out of our lives so much, he'd hardly been a stabilizer. I hadn't seen him in more than six months. Just enough time for Evelyn to get sick, really sick. For the cancer to come back with a vengeance and for her to die. Alone.

“I can help you. I can get money, what do you need?”

“Three thousand dollars.”

“That's not a whole lot.” He rubbed his jaw, his three-day stubble, flecked with new gray. “Can I give you a ride home?”

“Just go away, Mick.” I rested my forehead on the back of my hand, which cupped the top of my glass. Everything felt so heavy. When I looked up he was gone.

•  •  •

The days had started to blend into each other. I ignored my phone, which rang incessantly with professors and friends, people I'd blown off when I left that night. When the call came from the care nurse:
Come home now. Evelyn won't make it through the night.
I hopped the BART to Richmond with little more than the clothes on my back and my pathetically near-empty wallet. Almost two hours later, I arrived home, too late. Evelyn had passed away before I could say good-bye.

Professors wanted me to come back to class, to take the final, to graduate. I listened to exactly three out of twenty-­two voicemails. Molly:
Hilary, what the hell happened to you? Just call me.
And then,
Hilary, you have one final, that's it. Please don't throw it all away. Call me, we'll make arrangements for you
. That was Dr. Gupta, her delicate accent floating
through the line, comforting only in its familiarity. I almost called her back, the one person who seemed to have some empathy, who had always been a presence for me, an ear. I sat with my finger on the button, thinking, but eventually hit delete.
Hilary, if you don't come back this week and take your final exam, you will not earn your degree. This is the last time I'm calling you
. Dr. Peterman. Asshole prick. I deleted them all. It all felt so hopeless.

I couldn't scrabble for money from within the walnut walls of an exam hall, especially since if I had any hopes of passing, I'd need to study. I had two weeks left to bury Evelyn, before the state intervened. But I had no real way of getting my hands on any money. I tried to apply for a credit card, but with no history, I'd been denied.

I went to see Evelyn's “estate” lawyer, a thin, rumpled sort of man who operated from his damp basement in Elmwood, and he'd laughed at me. There was nothing but debt. I had to pay the debt before I could pay for Evelyn. I was stuck in this quasi purgatory, hopeless and bottomless. The self-loathing felt like a thick, wet blanket. The haze of alcohol dulled the sharp edges. Just a little.

“Here's what will happen,” he explained to me, his twitchy fingers ashing a cigarette so frequently, so nervously, he lost the cherry more than once and had to relight. “The state will do what's called a state-funded burial. It's not actually a burial. They'll cremate the body. You have time after that to claim the ashes, but then you owe the funeral home fees, as well as the state. Then they dispose of the ashes how they see fit.”

A wave of intense nausea overtook me. “Dispose?” I squeaked, breathing through my mouth. His breath smelled like fish.

“I don't know the protocols. The funeral homes generally have individual protocols.”

I left him in his office, the ashtray tilted up to his face, chasing the red hot ember around the glass with a broken Camel between his teeth.

Mick came back to Max's a week later, throwing a dirt-streaked manila envelope in front of me, thick with bills. I sat in the same chair, with the same drink, the same shoes, the same hatred on my tongue.

“There's a thousand there. I'll get more. How much time do we have?”

“Four weeks from the day she died, so that's only two more.” I flipped the envelope back and forth between my index and middle fingers. “Don't even bother.”

He sat on the stool next to me. “I failed Evelyn a lot. I failed you.”

“You don't owe me shit, Mick.” I needed to stave off some kind of misplaced daddy syndrome, which churned my stomach.

He ordered a whiskey. Then another. He clasped my shoulder and the gesture seemed almost paternal. Caring. He bought me another drink. I felt the tear work its way down my cheek, splashing on the bar top, and under his thumb he slid the white pill across the bar top. It didn't feel like exploitation. It felt like friendship. It melted on my tongue, acrid and bitter, and when I closed my eyes, I floated. That night, Mick took me home, left me in Evelyn's apartment, a three-story walk-up on Market with peeling paint and a useless front lock. I slept on her bed, in her nightgown.

When I woke up the next morning, I didn't feel bad. No real hangover, just the faded memory of happiness. It wasn't a high like I'd ever known, back in college we'd tested E, a warm liquidy pooling between my thighs and a bursting in my chest like we were in love with the whole world. This time, there were no hallucinations, no real elation, just a lighthearted easiness that I hadn't felt in months. I wanted it
back. It tugged at me like physical craving, but as innocuous as caffeine.

I hung out at Max's every day after that, waiting for Mick, but telling myself otherwise. I'd turn and look at the door every time it opened. Truth be told, I was starting to like the smell of the place. Evelyn's apartment smelled like expired Calvin Klein. When he came back, the envelope in his hand was thin. He tossed it down and sat with a grumbled sigh.

He ordered us drinks without asking. “You're not taking care of yourself, Hilary.”

I knew I looked like hell. I didn't know what to say. I was falling apart? I wondered how many of those little white pills I'd need to stay oblivious forever? I hadn't washed my hair in more than a week, and it shone wet with grease. I wore the same pair of jeans because everything else fell off. Evelyn didn't have a washer so I'd worn them in the shower, scrubbing shampoo into them with my fingernails and hanging them over the curtain rod to dry.

The landlord had started coming around, knocking. He hadn't heard Evelyn died, but he still needed his rent, cancer or not. I had begun sneaking in and out, looking furtively up and down the hall before darting down the steps and into the street. The bills were stacking up.

This time, he put the pill on the cocktail napkin. I almost didn't see it.

“What if I want more?”

“You don't have money, Peach.” He picked something out of his molar. I stared at the envelope between us.

“I need money. I need to bury my mom. Pay her rent. Pay her credit cards.” I licked my pinkie and pressed it to the pill, lifting it to my mouth.

Mick blew out hot, sour breath, leaned back, and dug in his jeans pocket. He came up with a small, white envelope, about the size of a playing card. He slid it under my thigh, his
palm resting on my knee for a beat too long. “Unload these for ten each. We'll split the profit, you can keep one for every ten you get rid of.”

I pulled the envelope out and pinched it open. Inside were ten little white pills. I gave him a look. “No.” But my heart thumped in my chest.

“Okay, then. Got a better idea?” The smirk on his face made me want to slap him. I sealed the envelope back up and stuck it in my back pocket. All those little tickets to oblivion.

“See you in a week, Peach.”

•  •  •

At first we met weekly, but then I started seeking Mick out, calling his phone. I needed more than one of those little tabs. They made me feel like I could solve my problems. I figured out that the stay-at-home moms in Berkeley loved “legal” pills. Oxy, Vicodin, whatever Mick gave me. It didn't matter. Plus, I didn't look like a drug dealer: I took a shower, washed my hair. I was “in college.” I took the BART down a few times a week and hung out in Cragmont Park. It was all so fucking civil. I never felt weird or creepy hovering around playgrounds peddling pills to pristine little blonde women. I was one of them.

I'd watch them pay their ten bucks, pulling from stacks of green tucked inside Chanel purses. They parted with it so easily, and then they'd slip the pills between their teeth, swallow once, and kiss their fat, drooly babies, burying their noses in downy soft hair. They'd wander away, pushing Bugaboo prams, holding hands with their skipping six-year-olds, and I'd sit under the gazebo, watching them sway and giggle until I couldn't see them anymore.

I felt weird about selling to students, that somehow it was less destructive to supply professor's bored wives with “pep” pills. Besides, the students scared me. Their fresh-faced happiness was so familiar, it gave me a pain right below my
breastbone. I couldn't look them in the eye, couldn't pull off being “one of them.” No, the moms were easier. At least, if I didn't think about it too hard.

Sometimes, it was too tempting to take more than I was supposed to for myself. I started charging them double, literally eating the profits. What did they care? A twenty was as easy to hand over as a ten, and then at least they didn't have to worry about change.

I called Mick, needing almost double the supply, running a game with myself. Meanwhile, I was getting higher and higher every day. Two pills a day. Four. Then two at night. All the while spending my nights at the bar, my nose buried in a tumbler of vodka. I didn't even bother with the lemon anymore.

“What am I gonna do with my life, Mick?” I was whining.

“Bury your mom. Live in her apartment. Get a job.” He shrugged, a toothpick between his teeth. “It's what people do, Hilary.”

I didn't need life lessons from Mick. He was a bigger mess than me. I threw what little money I had on the bar and stood up and wobbled. Mick stuck his arm out and caught me. He led me out the door and we walked the four blocks to Evelyn's apartment.

In the morning, I crept out and vomited in the street. Maybe it was the booze, maybe it was the pills. Mostly it was just me and my self-loathing. In oblivion, the pain in my stomach went away. I could eat, albeit small amounts. If I stayed high enough, I no longer felt high. I felt normal. Functioning. I could conduct small talk with the sales clerks and passengers on the bus, cabdrivers and people in elevators. The pills became a necessity. They kept me feeling normal. They calmed my racing heart and the all-encompassing anxiety.

My money stack was growing, but it still wasn't enough to ward off the eventual eviction notice. I thought about
throwing a few hundred dollars to the landlord, a fat, greasy bald man I'd seen lumbering around the hallways knocking on other deadbeat's doors. I thought about taping an envelope to the door in good faith. I worried it would get stolen. Sometimes details hang you up, propel you to inaction. More purgatory.