Fiction by Leslie Kendall Dye

Drugstore

“Suspicion haunts the guilty mind.” Henry VI, Part Three

1.

The woman was back. She was in aisle one: seasonal decorations, calendars, and makeup. Chris was called to the photo counter to help a customer. Perfect. He could watch aisle one from there. In his old line of work, it was called “surveillance.” Aside from his manager, he hadn’t told anyone that he used to be a cop. Maybe he was more suspicious because of what he’d seen in his old life. Or maybe he’d become a cop because he was suspicious by nature. Either way, she caused a shift in his gut when she entered the store, but he wouldn’t call the feeling “suspicion.” Sure, she lingered in the drugstore frequently—which was odd—but after watching her for a few weeks, Chris knew she wasn't a shoplifter.

A woman had a right to spend an hour in a CVS if she wanted to. It was none of his concern. If she made him uneasy, that was his problem. It wasn’t even the woman who disturbed him. It was the dark cloud above her head, a storm front that menaced her alone. Whenever he saw her, his stomach lurched, as if a car were driving straight for her and he had only seconds to shove her from harm’s way.

Maybe that was just something he wanted to do. To this particular woman. He wanted to shove her out of danger. The shoving was as important as the rescuing, although he didn’t care to dwell on this insight. He couldn’t figure out if she was annoying or intriguing. As the weeks wore on, he decided she was both. She annoyed him because she intrigued him. At times, the annoyance swelled to anger. He wanted an explanation, and he was angry because she didn’t owe him one.

She gazed at the shelves as though the sight of Windex or Pantene hairspray transported her to a place no other mortal could reach. At first he’d thought she was transfixed by the products themselves. Then he realized she only seemed to be staring at the shelves. If you looked closer, you could see that her eyes were blind with thought. And then sometimes she’d go numb. It was like she’d been knocked to the mat for a spell. Then she’d snap back to awareness.

Chris felt her in a way he could never explain. Somehow he knew her more intimately because they’d never met. He’d learned her through vibrations, without the distraction of conversation. It was a purer kind of knowing someone. So he knew that she didn’t care about lipsticks, even though she might spend twenty minutes looking at them. So what was she doing here? She liked being here. But why? He had finished with the photo customer and was now pretending to restock the party decorations on aisle one. He wore an expression of bored disinterest. Two could play this game.

It was not just the trouble that shadowed her. There were other things about her that jangled his nerves. She was ladylike. In an outdated way. Not that there was some form of ladylike that was currently in vogue. Quite the opposite, in fact, which Chris thought a damned shame. It would be nice for women to be ladylike again.

She moved like a fawn, and handled objects with a peculiar delicacy, as though a box of animal crackers were a Faberge egg. She slid things off the shelf and returned them with something close to tenderness, sometimes stroking an item as though it were the cheek of an adored child. Other times her fingers moved hesitantly, as though she might detonate a bomb if she touched the wrong spot.

The store was housed in a building that had been constructed for something grander long ago. It looked like a bank from the 1900s, with its thick front columns and engraved detailing. (The CVS logo was a blight on its charm.) But even the nicest drugstore in New York City was not a place people lingered. They rushed in for necessities and made their impatience clear on the checkout line. New Yorkers believed that everything all the time everywhere was taking too long. They had to get where they were going five minutes ago.

2.

Alice liked this store. It was bright and clean and carpeted. It was stocked with cheerful things like magazines and seasonal decorations. It thrummed with the energy of commerce, allowing her to feel connected to society while remaining anonymous. She liked hearing snippets of quotidian conversation and handling quotidian objects. At home with her fiancé, she had begun to feel that she might disappear, either through violence, or just a slow ceasing to be.

She tried not to come every day; she didn’t want to attract attention. Sometimes she’d go into the church across the street instead. She liked the glow of votive candles and the sound of murmured conversation that echoed off the walls. Once, she’d been alone in there, and after a few minutes of engulfing silence she’d begun to hear the pumping of blood through her ears. She’d grown aware of each breath and her eyelids had grown heavy. She’d startled awake a few minutes later—or had it been longer?—at the sound of muffled whispers. But it had only been two tourists with backpacks, admiring the stained glass. 

3.

Maybe Chris wanted to shove her just to knock the truth out of her. With each day, his longing to hear her voice grew. He wished he could wrest the details of her identity right from her cortex.

She looked tired today, pale and waxen, despite the muggy August heat. She seemed to be going through the motions, even for her. He took another glance, and realized something else: she was sad. Sorrow shaped her movements the way a conductor shaped music. Every motion was small and languid, balletic and weary at the same time. Even a buffoon could see this woman needed space. Or did she? Should he approach her, ask her if she was okay? Could he do that without being creepy?

4.

Four days later, he wished he had. That’s how long it had been since her last visit. Four days and counting. Chris took smoke breaks to walk up and down the block, scanning the area in the hope of spotting her. He didn’t smoke on smoke breaks. That was from a school of old-fashioned maleness that disgusted him. Also, he hated the smell of smoke, and the thought of throat cancer even more. But he liked the term “smoke break” because it implied a conscious liberation from mind-numbing tasks for the specific purpose of achieving relaxation.

But Chris never found tranquility on his smoke breaks, even before he spent them scanning the street. Who the fuck could be serene in this city, where on a slow day you still witnessed at least one fight on a subway car and got yelled at by at least one bus driver for not moving back to make room for more passengers, or worse, you had to be the person to yell at the others for not moving back.

She was at the counter when he got back. How the hell had he missed her entering the store? She was actually buying something. He would breeze by and see what it was. Something was different. She was wearing a dress. Pale pink. Pretty. Too pretty. Cloyingly pretty. But also kind of haunting, which offset the pretty part. Distilled it. Made it tolerable. She wore ivory high heels. Bare legs. The two spots above her cheekbones were pink, accentuating the fine lines of the skull beneath her skin. It hurt his insides: she was well-structured and finely animated. She walks in beauty like the night. She was perfect. Of cloudless climes and starry skies. Too perfect. It pissed him off. He was sick of her, sick of the whole thing. Let her live her life, he just wanted to live his. And all that’s best of dark and bright. Meet in her aspect and her eyes. Chris wondered how many cops knew Lord Byron. How many men at all, come to think of it.

Benadryl. She was buying a box of Benadryl. He thought of Ginny McQuire, a girl he knew in high school who had tried to off herself with an overdose of Benadryl. Frank Ellis had broken up with her a week before junior prom. The sirens had started wailing on cue, just as the dance was starting. Poor Ginny had been the talk of the school for months afterward. And Frank never reached out to her once, or even told his classmates to lay off, which would have been easy for him, big football star that he was. That hotshot could have ended her torment, but he couldn’t be inconvenienced.

Why did some men become monsters to the women they slept with? Even back then, when he was just a dumb kid, Chris had hated Frank for taking no responsibility for Ginny McGuire. It was only later that he admitted something to himself. He hadn’t tried to help poor Ginny. Maybe if he’d made an effort, talked to her, came to her house, anything to show she mattered. But he’d done nothing.

Chris had thought a lot about Ginny after she’d left, trying to understand how someone could want to end their life. He’d even read a book on the topic, and found something that surprised him: suicides often brightened just before they did the deed. She was getting her receipt. Would she bother with a receipt if she were going to down the whole bottle? Maybe she was just keeping up appearances. Maybe it was just easier to accept the receipt than to expend the energy required to reject it. She was heading for the exit. Adrenaline poured through his bloodstream. He followed her. He had to make sure that she wasn’t going to hurt herself. He’d figure out how when he got to the street.

A customer was asking him a question, like a housefly buzzing in his ear.

“Sorry, I’m on break,” he said. Chris pushed the heavy door open, the humidity instantly smothering him.

She was walking toward a black town car. A tall man wearing a crisp white button-down shirt stood beside it. He had wavy hair and his skin was slightly sunburnt, like he spent his weekends yachting. Why was she getting in a car with some Etonian psychopath? Maybe he was her brother. Try as he might, Chris could not make that work. No, she was dating this guy. He was probably taking her to the Hamptons.

Chris had once read a true-crime book about a heinous murder that had happened upstate, from which he had gleaned quite a lot about old money. Beneath their patrician composure, they were brutal. And they didn’t live in the Hamptons. They lived in Scarsdale, or Rye. Or Westport. Chris bet that the Oxford Shirt was taking her to his family’s Connecticut country house. His mother’s name was Eunice and his father’s was Harris or something equally dry. Their chintz sofa was probably a hundred years old, because old money didn’t replace furniture unless it literally burned to the ground. So the woman—his apparition, his fawn—probably wasn’t planning to off herself, certainly not up in Connecticut. Maybe they had cats, and she was allergic. Maybe the cat’s name was Eunice. He was driving himself nuts.

The town car made a right toward Central Park West, disappearing from view. He stared at the spot where the car had just been. Like that, she was gone. Forever. Because even if she came back to the drugstore, it would be different. She would be different. She would be the woman who got in a town car with a man named Fletcher, or Spencer or some other stupid name, a man who had gone to boarding school when he was a boy. A man who had a trust fund.

Good. Made it easy. There was no mystery now. She was just another girl with a rich boyfriend, like all the rest. She didn’t have anything roiling beneath her. She wasn’t a fawn or a spy or a dancer. She wasn’t exquisite and easily shattered, like the pretend Faberge eggs she’d handled in the store, her long white fingers curving gently to cup them.

The day felt stale and flat. Well, it was August, what could he expect? Nothing a whiskey and an early movie couldn’t cure.

5.

Every day after work, he walked the neighborhood for hours, his eyes peeled. A few times he thought he’d glimpsed her, but it was just a pink dress, worn by an inferior model. He extended his walks a good twenty blocks south of the store, and ten blocks north, although he doubted she lived above 96th.

He didn’t know what else to do with his evenings. He kept telling himself he’d sign up for something at the Y, like a writing or photography class. He had real fire and focus when he had some sort of creative project. He read a lot, too. People thought assistant managers at CVS were uneducated nobodies. They thought that about cops, too. No one would guess that he had maybe two hundred books in his crappy apartment. It was dusk when he boarded the crosstown bus at 79th Street. He took the same route home every evening, because it meant traveling through Central Park to the nicest part of the Upper East Side. He’d get out at Lexington and walk south to 77th, where he’d hop the subway to 34th street. On the two -block walk to his apartment, he’d pass neon-lit pawn shops and buildings scarred with graffiti, trash on the sidewalk, rats scurrying past.

On the bus, he began outlining a short story in his head. He was so engrossed he missed the stop at Lex and wound up getting off at Third. The air was still oppressive, but even in the heat and stink of summer, Upper East Siders looked crisp and clean in their Ralph Lauren shirts and Bermuda shorts. But what really killed him were the pre-war high-rises. Doormen stationed at every one, waiting to help residents out of taxis or unload a summer’s worth of tennis rackets, swimming gear, and beachwear from the backs of station wagons.

At night, their lobbies glowed with lamplight that accentuated the moldings and the stately furniture. Someday, Chris would enter one of these buildings and the doorman would say, Good evening, Mr. Viscomi. And Chris would say To you as well, Sam. Then he’d go to the desk and the concierge would fetch his packages. On the way to the elevator, he’d pat the standard poodles and golden retrievers on their way to evening walks, their owners offering neighborly smiles.

It was nearly dark. He wasn’t ready for Murray Hill, so he decided to walk down Third Avenue and think more about his story. It opened with a truck barreling around a corner, coming within inches of slamming into a woman in a pink dress. Bystanders froze in horror. Except for this one guy, who rushes over just in time—

Chris’s stomach dropped. He peered into the dim evening light until he was certain. He began to sweat. It was her. His blood turned to ice. It really was her, and no mistake. He’d memorized every inch of her. She was standing outside a pub on 76th. Now she was entering. He stood there for a minute, stunned. Then he crossed the street, stopping a few feet from the pub’s entrance.

What if she was meeting The Oxford Shirt? What if he was already inside? Or on his way? Chris lingered, unable to give up his sudden and startling proximity to the woman who had dominated his mind for a month now. The tavern door opened and a group of college boys spilled onto the sidewalk, laughing and slapping each other’s backs, shouting and cursing, violating public space, then climbing into a taxi without a thought for those whose senses they’d assaulted. The entitlement of these kids. He stomped out a still-lit cigarette one of them had tossed to the street. Then he remembered. She was just inside. Life had given him another chance to make contact. A million-to-one chance. Maybe the universe thought Chris was entitled to something, too.

He opened the door, and the scent of dinner hour wafted over him, mixed with the smell of beer and stale smoke. She wasn’t at the bar. She had to be in the restaurant beyond it. He approached the hostess and asked for a table for one. If the woman was with the trust fund jerk, Chris would just order his meal and never look their way.

The hostess led him to a table and handed him a menu. His heart clanged in his chest. She was really here, sitting at a table in the corner. All that stood between them were two empty tables. Boy, she made sitting alone look fierce. Maybe because she was writing in a notebook, not looking around like a lost lamb.

Chris looked at the menu. Then he looked up, glanced at her, and did a double take. It was risky, but he was a good actor. He pretended that he was trying to place her—like, hey, haven’t I seen you before? Then he pretended to lose interest.

She noticed. Sweat pricked at his armpits, ran down his chest. She was actually looking at him. That gaze, which for weeks he had longed to capture, was his.

For a second. Then she went back to her notebook. Men probably did double takes around her all the time. She’d picked a corner table for a reason: she wanted to be left alone. He stole another look. Something about her was different. Her clothes were different. She was wearing a sweater that didn’t even fit her. Normally she wore things that ever-so-slightly clung to her lithe form. Summer clothes. And it was stuffy in here. Another mystery. He wanted to tear the sweater off her. Just to cool her off.

The waitress returned to take his order.

“I’ll have a salad with chicken,” he said. “No, wait. I’ll have a B.L.T.” A salad was too girly. “And a Guinness.” He let his eyes slowly wander the room, as though he were trying to work out some philosophical problem or maybe just trying to remember something, like if he needed to do laundry. The idea was to look preoccupied with his own life, his own thoughts, so that when he eventually spoke to her, it wouldn’t seem like that had been his intent all along.

The Guinness arrived. He almost gagged on it. Surely, men only drank Guinness to impress women. It was thick and bitter and sour and it hit your stomach like liquid tar. He forced more down. When the buzz kicked in, he looked in her direction with unfocused eyes, then pretended to come out of a reverie and notice her.

“Hey, have I seen you before?” She looked up, surprised. Then she smiled cheerfully.

“It’s New York, so probably!” Her voice. He’d finally heard her voice. It was girlish and musical. And she was friendly. And smart. And she didn’t think he was a weirdo.

6.

Guys like this, if they caught a flicker of annoyance, would only get worse. They’d either try harder to win you over or they’d make under-their-breath comments laced with the words “uptight” and “bitch.” Alice had long since learned the art of concealing her annoyance. But you couldn’t lay out a welcome mat, either. Then they’d cling like lint.

Her wrist throbbed. At first, the ace bandage had helped. Now it seemed to be making it worse. She’d have to go to the restroom to remove it, because if this guy saw it, he’d definitely ask about it. She felt warm in her sweater, but she couldn’t take it off. It covered the purple bruise that had spread from wrist to elbow in twenty-four hours. It ached, but she wouldn’t let herself rub the sore arm. Any movement might attract his attention, especially if he was looking for an opening.

She went back to her notebook. She’d been compiling a list of friends to call. When she was ready. When she was prepared for the commentary. How relieved they were that she'd finally left him. How they’d been terrified for her. How he might have really hurt her. Might even have killed her. These would be sneaky ways to say I told you so. Still, she knew her friends missed her. And she missed them. She liked writing their names down. It was a start.

For now, it was enough to have her mother back. As long as she’d lived at his place, she couldn’t phone her mom. Not that Winnie would have refused to pick up, but that she’d simply run out of things to say. She’d pleaded with Alice, told her his aggression would escalate, told her that her voice sounded meek and sad. The last time they’d spoken—until four days ago when Alice had shown up at her door—her mother had said, “I hope I’ll see you again. I’ll always love you.”

That had done it. I’ll always love you. It had echoed in Alice’s mind for two days. Then she’d been ready. She’d waited until he’d left for his weekly lunch at the Yale Club, thrown some essentials into a duffel bag, and raced to the crosstown bus. When her mother opened the door, the dam burst. Her mother’s blouse was soaked with Alice’s tears.

For the last four days, she’d lain on her mother’s couch, gazing down at Third Avenue. Whenever the phone rang, she’d let it go to the machine. She’d counted nineteen hang-ups the first night. She’d pictured him drinking and smoking, dialing and hanging up, dialing and hanging up.

Two messages had also come in. “Hi, I’m calling to confirm an appointment for Gwendolyn Morgan at Salon 201 at one o’clock on Monday. See you then…” It took Alice by surprise, the sound of the voices, how civilized and appropriate they were.

“Hi Winnie, it’s Pat. Can we reschedule Saturday’s movie? The kids are coming in…” Alice had been in a universe so distant from normal human behavior that she now felt misaligned with polite society. As though she’d grown feral in captivity. It was hard to believe that she was really Alice Morgan, daughter of Gwendolyn and Martin Morgan.

She’d left her mother’s place only once, at Winnie’s insistence. The local precinct wasn’t far. The police had taken photos. Under fluorescent light, her bruise had looked yellow-green. There had also been one under her eye, a subtle one, but they caught it and recorded it. It was like having her clothing stripped off in the middle of the street.

Cops always seemed to be tucking their shirts in, or trying to. She hated the squeak of the guns in their holsters. “You know how many of these situations we see, Ma’am?” This question was directed at her mother, as though Alice were a small child who’d wandered off in the park.

“Always some finance guy. J.P. Morgan, what have you. And these incredible apartments.” He whistled. “‘Course by the time we get there, they look vandalized. Plates smashed, furniture overturned, empty bottles of liquor.” The officer had glanced at Alice, as if seeing her for the first time. He nodded. “Good you got out when you did.” She’d left the precinct with a sense of impotent fury, a temporary restraining order, and some comically obvious advice —“Don’t go back.”

Back at her mother’s place, she’d headed straight for the tub. It had been a long time since she could shower with the door unlocked. She wondered about how she was going to retrieve the rest of her belongings. She’d have to arrange it through an intermediary. This thought caused a pang of sorrow. Was she really never going to see his face again? All at once, just like that? Would he be okay? Would he drink until he passed out? Or worse?

He’d once made a half-hearted attempt on his life, when she’d first tried to leave him. So she’d stayed. Should she call him now to assure him that it wasn’t all his fault? To tell him that she understood how her refusal to get married could have driven him to his possessiveness?

“Hey! I think I know!” The guy with the paunch startled her, interrupting her thoughts. She offered a tight smile that expressed forbearance. It’s not personal, but further conversation won’t bear fruit. 

“Oh yeah?” she said, and looked in his direction without quite looking at him.

“This is strange, but I work at the CVS at 95th, over on the West Side? I’m actually getting my M.F.A. in writing. The job just pays the rent. Anyway, I think maybe I’ve seen you there. But I could be wrong.”

God. The CVS. Of all the luck.

“Oh, yeah, I used to live near there,” she said.

“Oh, really? But not anymore?”

“No. Not anymore.”

“It’s funny, I used to work right near here,” he continued. “His statement hung in the air, the silence impugning her manners. She felt the force of social norms and replied.

“Where did you work?”

“I used to be a cop. My old precinct is a few blocks away.”

What were the odds? Did he know about her? Was this some kind of prank?

“Wow,” she said.

“Well, yeah, being on the force is a whole other thing.”

Ugh. He’d thought she’d been impressed. 

“What made you mention it?”

“What, my old job? I was supposed to meet a friend from those days for a drink, but he had to cancel last minute.”

Why had his friend canceled? Something seemed off.

“The precinct on 77th?”

“That’s the one!”

“When I was a kid, my mom took me there to ask about safety for city kids.” Why has she brought that up? Because it was something that happened long ago. She wanted it to be clear she hadn’t been there since. But she regretted the disclosure.

“How old were you?”

“I don’t remember.”

The waitress brought her order. A bowl of chicken soup and a lemonade. If only she could enjoy her meal unburdened by this developing mess.

“I should get back to my work,” she said, indicating her notebook. “But neat coincidence!” She hoped it sounded as if she were genuinely tickled by this chance meeting of two people who had been inside the same CVS and the same police precinct. It would end the conversation, but end it in a way that he wouldn’t perceive as rejection.

Alice exhaled, hoping her food would arrive soon. She began to write again, any words that came into her head. Please stop talking to me. I want to be left alone. I’m going to lose it if I hear your voice again. Go away.

“It’s good your mom did that. Took you to the precinct for pointers.”

Alice pushed her fingers against the table to keep from screaming.

7.

Her expression had changed. But why? He’d barely said anything. Did she guess he was lying about meeting a friend? Or maybe it wasn’t anything he’d said. Maybe she’d just remembered something and it had upset her right when he was talking. He fought the urge to just explain everything. All cards on the table. How he happened to know that she’d been having a hard time. How he’d seen it for weeks. He wanted to tell her that he felt about her the way he would a sister or a friend. Protective.

Did she think he wanted to ask her out? He didn’t. He knew she wasn’t ready for that. She was still fragile. Which would explain her sudden shifts of mood. He wanted to tell her she had every right to them.

The waitress brought his B.L.T. He savored a few bites, as if he’d lost interest in chatting with her. He hoped it would draw her out, but she remained mute. If only she could get to know him a little, she would see they were both seekers, both hungry for intellectual stimulation.

“Police work is great, but I took a leave of absence because I wanted to clear my head.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I mean, there are other things in life, and I wanted to discover them. Find those other parts of me, you know?”

“I do,” she said.

Other parts of me? He sounded ridiculous.

“But I saw a lot of stuff as a cop. I guess maybe that’s another reason I needed a break.” She smiled and went back to her notebook. After a couple of minutes she went up to the hostess to ask for her check. She couldn’t even wait until the waiter came back?

She wasn’t that pretty, for god’s sake. She wasn’t God’s gift or anything. She returned to her table and took up with the goddamned notebook again. He’d blown it. Maybe he should have waited outside the restaurant and followed her home, then waited a good amount of time before bumping into her.

What had happened with the Oxford Shirt? Probably nothing. He was probably just the wrong guy for her. But why was she wearing a sweater? She never dressed like that before. He should try just being real with her.

“Are you okay?”

She looked up, as though she were really deep in thought over her notebook.

“Because you seemed a little on edge when you came into the store sometimes.”

Suddenly she had a funny look in her eye.

“I’m okay. I just broke up with someone. Now, I’m fine. I’m great.”

8.

Alice had heard the edge of violence in her voice, but had he? She hoped so. You seemed a little on edge? He’d been studying her. She felt sick. She hoped he realized that “I just broke up with someone” was the universal code for back off.

The ex-cop slapped two twenties on his table and suddenly walked toward hers. “Well, I’m going to head out,” he said. Thank god. “It was nice to meet you,” Alice replied. He hesitated.

“Actually, we haven’t really met.” He put his hands in his pockets. “I’m Chris.”

He was waiting. Fine, she’d give him her name if it would help him leave with his pride. “Alice,” Alice said.      

9.

Alice. It suited her. He’d noticed how small her bones were when he’d gotten close. She touched her wrist for the second time. It was the ex. He knew it. Long sleeves in August? Her wrist was so tiny, the Oxford Thug could have snapped it like a twig. But she’d ended it. Smart girl.

“Well, goodnight, Chris.” Woah. Evidently, he was dismissed. Maybe she wasn’t so smart, after all. If she only knew that he knew her. She didn’t know that he knew her. He decided to jab her. Just a little.

“Is your wrist okay? You keep touching it.” Her eyes grew black. But the next moment she smiled at him. “You should see the other guy.”

“A bar brawl, huh?” He was proud of himself for returning the ball, getting it over the net without effort.

“How was your B.L.T.?” She shifted gears so fast he got whiplash. “Excellent. Pubs can surprise you.”

“My grandmother was raised on a farm in the Catskills. She came to the city for a day when she was sixteen. She went into a deli and ordered a B.L.T. She ate the first half and waited ten minutes. When God didn’t strike her dead, she ate the other half.”

Chris didn’t understand. Alice retreated to her notebook, as if this anecdote had been a parting gift. “Why would God strike her dead?”

Alice didn’t look up when she answered.

“The bacon.”

He searched his mind. He still didn’t get it.

“Ha! Right,” he offered lamely. But Alice didn’t laugh at him. She didn’t roll her eyes. She smiled, and it was the sweetest smile he ever saw. Alice’s smile could break your heart.

He didn’t understand. She wasn’t going to clarify, or come out and say it: I come from a different tribe. Anyway, it might not have helped. Some gentiles didn’t care anymore, although she always saw the flicker of surprise in their eyes when they found out. The waiter came with the check, at last. “Listen, I could walk you home. You’ve been through a lot recently—”

“How would you know anything about me or what I’ve been through?” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t. Sorry. I just gathered, but you’re right—”

Alice filled in the tip and stood.

  “Good night,” she said, and walked out.

She cut over to Lexington so that when he emerged he wouldn’t see her. She walked north toward 77th, where she planned to cut back to Third and vanish into her mother’s lobby. But as she passed the Lexington train station, she saw him. He was just about to go down the stairs when he saw her. Goddamnit.

He waved. “Hey!” he shouted. And then he was at her side, apologizing. “I mean, what a jerk I am, getting into your space like that. I just want to say I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she shouted as she sprinted across 77th. But he kept following her.Why didn’t she tell him to fuck off? When they arrived at her building, she had to clench her teeth to hide her rage.

“Well,” she said, “I’d better get upstairs.” She wanted him to understand that they were not friends. That they were not anything. She also wanted him to know that she was looked after, that her family was on alert and vigilant about her whereabouts. “My mother will be worried,” she added. She turned to go inside. The door opened before she had time to push her hand against it.

“Good evening, Miss Alice.”

“Thank you, Henry. Same to you.”

She offered Chris a tight parting smile.

“Bye,” she said.

“Bye,” Chris replied.

She forced herself to walk through the lobby with a steady gait; she could exhale on the other side of her mother’s front door.

10.

Of course Alice lived in a pre-war building, all buffed bronze and marble. Leaving the pub, he had kicked himself for lousing things up. But then Fate had given him one more chance! She had softened after he apologized. She’d even let him walk her home.

And then he’d been a genius. There she was, hesitating, turning back to offer one last goodbye, giving him one more chance to ask for her number, and he’d said goodbye and coolly walked away.

She’d walked extra slow toward the elevator, to the point where it almost broke his heart.. But wouldn't she be surprised when, in about a week, Ol’ Henry handed her a note. He began composing it as he walked home.    

11.

  Chris was back at the photo booth, helping another customer. These people couldn’t figure out how to push a few buttons. He had to quit. If he didn’t quit soon, he’d never pursue his aspirations. He had lied to Alice about getting his M.F.A., but it was also the truth, in that he’d been planning to find a writing class. He’d saved a course booklet from the 92nd Street Y that he’d found on the vestibule table in his building. It was addressed to a tenant who didn’t live there anymore, so there was no harm in taking it. He was definitely going to sign up for at least one class this fall.

In the meantime, he’d written several drafts of the note he was going to leave with Alice’s doorman.

“Hey Alice, So far, no lightning bolt has struck me, despite the B.L.T. I may have to celebrate. If you’re up for it, my number is…”

“Alice, I hope you had time to finish what you were writing. I know I’m always relieved when a draft is done. Here’s my number if you ever want to talk craft…”

“Alice—hope you’re feeling better. -Chris.”

He settled on the last one. He wouldn’t give her his number. She knew where to find him. And if she didn’t he could drop another note. Although two notes seemed desperate. Maybe he should put his number down. 

He wished he knew what had really gone down with Mr. Westport. Had he hurt her? If so, Chris would kill him. He thought about her tiny wrist, and all the tiny bones in her body. He’d protect every last one from now on. Maybe the guy hadn’t hurt her, though. She just didn’t care for him that much. She wasn’t the type to care about swimming pools and country estates. She was the type to write in a notebook in the back of a bar.

***

Chris gazed at the art deco awning. Alice’s building wasn’t ostentatious, it was firm and historical, grounded and handsome. The lobby door opened, and a dad with little kids came out. They were holding model sailboats. A rush of air conditioning poured into the street. A moment of bliss.

Then the heat rose from the asphalt. He watched the dad and his kids hop into a cab. They must be headed to the boat pond in Central Park, where kids climbed the statue of Alice in Wonderland and ate ice cream. And here was his own wonderland. His own Alice.

He felt rooted to the spot. What if it didn’t go well? But that was silly. He was just dropping a note. What could go wrong? He walked in. It was a different doorman today. “May I help you?” Geez, the guy only worked here, he didn’t have to act like he lived in the penthouse. Relax, Jeeves, I know someone who lives here.

“Um, yeah, I wanted to leave a note for a friend of mine—she lives in the building? Her name is Alice.” How bad did it look that he didn’t know her last name? The doorman stared at him. Chris pulled the note from his pocket. Put it on the desk. “She asked me to leave that for her. I mean, what’s inside the envelope.”

The doorman kept staring.

“One moment,” he said. He picked up the house phone. No no no, Jeeves! Don’t call her! I didn’t ask you to do that…

“There is a gentleman here who wishes to leave you a note…” The doorman looked at him. “Your name?”

“Chris. Chris Viscomi.”

“His name is Chris. Viscomi.”

“Understood,” he said, and hung up the phone.

“I wasn’t actually coming to visit, though,” Chris said. “I just wanted to drop the note.”

“Alice can’t take any… notes right now.” The doorman picked it up and handed it back to Chris as though it were a dead cockroach. Chris’s face burned.

Bitch. He wasn’t angry that she didn’t want to see him. He was angry that she had humiliated him in front of fucking Jeeves. She couldn’t have just said to leave the note and she’d get it later? She had to convey a message through the fucking help that she was too good for him? That he had no right to stand in her lobby, much less leave a goddamned note? The doorman glared, and Chris glared back.

Now that he thought about it, something was really off with this chick. Going through that ordeal with the sprained wrist and who knows what else, and she says she’s feeling great? That’s what she’d said. That she was fine. Great. There was something wrong with a person like that.

“No problem,” Chris said. He almost added Jeeves, but he bit his tongue. Just in case Alice changed her mind. He couldn’t burn the bridge. He turned and walked toward the door. He felt fatigued from the exertion, like he was a hundred years older than he’d been three minutes ago. He hauled his body onto the street and collapsed on the steps of a brownstone across the way.

The Oxford Shirt had suffered, no question. She was a monster out to humiliate any man who crossed her path.

Then something occurred to him. Maybe it hadn’t been Alice on the phone. Maybe it had been her mother. Alice had told him her mother was over-protective. Maybe she was dismissing all of Alice’s friends without even letting Alice know. She could probably really use some time away from her mother. If only Alice knew he was downstairs!      

He looked up at the building, wondering if her apartment faced the street. Was she sitting at one of those windows right now, like a princess in a tower, scared of the world because of what she’d been through? And here he was cursing her, when really she’d love to be friends?

He saw her in the pale pink dress, the curve of her muscular calves, her slim ankles, her delicate heels. He thought about the way her long fingers cradled objects with exquisite care. The way she landed a punchline, gazed into space, wrote in her tiny notebook. He could almost understand why her boyfriend had pushed her around. She was so perfect it grated on your nerves.

He was still holding the note. He stroked the parchment paper he’d bought just for her. Alice the Perfect. Alice the Bitch. Alice the Abused. Alice in Wonderland, with a smile that could break your heart. Was she sitting in that window overlooking the street? Maybe she was looking at him right now. She was laughing at him. Or she wasn’t in the window, and she didn’t see him, but she was wondering about him. Wondering why he hadn’t asked for her number the other night. Hoping he’d turn up.

Alice, I did. I did turn up. It made him furious, not knowing. One way or the other, if he just knew what she felt, he’d be free.

Alice had folded into a mystery again. It was her defining characteristic, and it pissed him off. He thought about the truck in his story. The one that narrowly missed the girl, but the hero pushes her to safety, just in time. In the story, the girl was so grateful to him that she opened up like a book. The two became close friends. Maybe more.

If only Alice would come outside and head into the intersection, and a car would make a sudden right turn, and she’d freeze at the sound of the squealing brakes and he’d race to shove her from harm’s way. He’d have to shove her hard, because a half-second would make the difference. He wanted so badly to save her. Because he loved her. Chris admitted it. He loved Alice. Someday, he vowed, he would prove it to her. Even if he had to do it with a really hard shove.

---

Leslie Kendall Dye is a ballet dancer, actress, and freelance writer. Her essays have been published at The Atlantic, The New York Times, Salon, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Millions, Electric Lit, and others. Her short stories have appeared in Thriller Magazine and at Apocalypse Confidential.