Audrey’s Door (12 page)

T
he rest of the afternoon was a slog. She delegated the entire lower engineering and plumbing plans to Simon, David, Mark, and Craig, and to her shock they were grateful to have something to do. After that, she sat at her cube, refining the roof-garden plans for the brainstorming session Jill had scheduled for the next morning (they needed to position return drains in a way that kept mold to a minimum), and thought about what had happened during the night. She’d sleepwalked, obviously. It could happen to anyone, given enough stress. Still, those cut wires. That lunatic cardboard door. And the man in the three-piece suit with the bone finger today, at the meeting. She hadn’t guessed she was capable of imagining something so bizarre.

She looked down at her paper, and saw that over the mourning wall, she’d drawn a rectangle with a handle. A door.

“That’s it,” she mumbled aloud, as the plans rolled
together, and she visited her health-care plan online. Three local shrinks looked best. She made appointments with each of them. The earliest she could schedule was Wednesday afternoon.

“Sleepwalking? Delusions?…Siamese twins. Like Chang and Eng?” the last woman asked.

“Who? No. Like De Palma.
Sisters.
But forget that part,” Audrey whispered. “I’m under some stress, obviously.”

“Is there a possibility you’ll hurt yourself?” Her accent was Staten Island: Ya gonna hoit yaself?

“I don’t know. Is that a thing people know?”

“Yeah. Ya’d know,” the woman said.

“Then I doubt it,” Audrey told her. “But I do have OCD. The kind that can’t be medicated.” She whispered this part and made sure no one nearby was listening. It was four o’clock, and everyone was playing with the new espresso machine in the kitchen. It infused chocolate, apparently. Jealous Simon, pleased with the role she’d given him as manager of all nonroof floors, asked her to join them, but she’d decided to make this call instead. “When I got diagnosed, they told me I didn’t need pills or therapy. It’s psychological only. Not physical,” she said to the shrink.

“Who told ya that?” the woman asked.

Audrey prairie dogged over the cube wall, but she didn’t see anyone nearby. “My nurse practitioner in training at the University of Nebraska…about fifteen years ago. She told me I could fix it myself—I’m just a nervous person,” she whispered. Even as she said it, she knew her mistake. A diagnosis that serious, you get a second opinion. From a real doctor, and not the kid with the clipboard.

“Sweetie, I don’t know what kinda Kool-Aid they fed you, but all obsessive-compulsive disorders are physical.”

Audrey blushed. “Really? What about the kind where
you’re so nervous that you change your own neurons and give yourself the disease because you had a traumatic childhood?”

“That’s the nuttiest thing I’ve heard in…twenty minutes. There’s no extraspecial self-created disorder. It’s not your fault if you got blue eyes, is it? OCD is OCD. If you’ve got records, bring them. See you Wednesday, honee.”

“Okay,” Audrey said. She must have sounded shaken because the woman softened.

“Hey. It’s life. Ya learn, right? You can’t start off a genius, or there’s no point.”

“They pay you to be an optimist. That’s your job,” Audrey said, then squinted. Sweet Jesus, she was socially inappropriate.

“Sure,” the lady said. “Between the malpractice insurance and Blue Cross, I’m a billionaire. Take care, and go to the hospital if you have an emergency. Bellevue’s the best, if you live near there. If they’re full, try NYU at 34
^th
and First.”

“Thanks.”

Audrey hung up, then looked at the black phone. Her desk walls were adorned with a David Hockney calendar for creative inspiration, two Parkside Plaza sketches, a photo of her and Saraub at the Long Beach Boardwalk in February, and the framed
New York Times
twelve-line article about her New York Emerging Voices Award in Architecture. Their sizes varied, but she’d assembled them so that their corners aligned, and the spaces between them were equidistant. Her pens were arrayed in a jar by color and thickness of tip. Her desk reeked of bleach because at least once a day, she swiped it with Clorox. In her lap, she noticed that her hands were not evenly placed. She separated them now, so that each hand held an equal amount of each corresponding thigh, and her thighs were equidistant apart, too.

“Crap,” she moaned. For how many years had she been like this? Triple-checking that the toaster was unplugged, worrying that the floor would open, lingering in bed some mornings, because she was afraid the day would bring something that she couldn’t tame by rearranging it into right angles? Of course this was physical. How could she have gone so long without getting a second opinion?

As if willing it to do so, the black phone rang. She picked it up, a welcome escape. “Hello?”

Saraub’s voice. “Aud—” She hung up. The phone rang again. She took it off the hook. Her cell phone chirped. She pulled out its battery, too unnerved to spend the time turning it off. It didn’t matter what he had to say; apology or condemnation, the sound of his voice would start her bawling.

She put down her drafting pencil and did something she’d sworn she’d never do at any job, ever. Not even when the high-school kids at IHOP smeared her face with Reddi-Whip, or when she’d organized all the Jell-Os at the college dining hall by color, and the fry cook had told her, “You’re pretty weird. Like somebody broke you, and you keep trying to put yourself back together, only you do it wrong. You know?”

She ran into the Vesuvius bathroom and cried in a stall. When she got out she saw Jill at the mirror. Her eyes were also red and swollen. They nodded at each other, then Audrey headed out. Before she got to the door, Jill called her back. “Audrey?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?” she asked, wiping her hands on her trousers, because the women’s room never had towels.

Audrey shook her head. “No.”

“Me, neither,” Jill said.

“Well, that’s some consolation,” Audrey answered.

Jill’s somberness cracked, and she gave Audrey a lop
sided grin. “Cute,” she said, then peeled open her purse and applied a coat of jarring, bright red lipstick, as if to let Audrey know she was excused.

Audrey lingered, thinking about what Collier had said over lunch. “I’m sorry your son is sick,” she said, then headed out.

Before she got to the door, Jill stopped her. “Audrey?” she asked.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.” She seemed genuinely touched, like it was the first time anyone at the office had offered their sympathy. Audrey nodded, and started out. As she opened the door, Jill called, “Take care of yourself. Whatever it is that’s troubling you…” She paused for a second, and Audrey understood that the sentiment bore a specific, human-sized weight: “It will pass. Good or bad, nothing lasts.”

For once, Audrey thought before she acted, and chose not to speak but instead to nod.

When she got back to her desk, she rolled open the plans and began calculating distances between hedges and the building’s internal plumbing. She worked until her shaking stopped, and her worries left. After a while, she got lost in it, as only someone with OCD can do.

An hour passed. And then another. Pretty soon, she looked up at the clock, and saw that it was eight o’clock. Most of the lights in the office were out, the cleaning staff was vacuuming near her feet, and upon the blueprints, she’d drawn nearly a hundred doors.

A
s Audrey keyed her way back into 14B at The Breviary, Jayne came thumping out of 14E on a pair of wooden crutches. On one foot she wore a strappy, three-inch black stiletto. On the other she wore a green wool knee-high sock. Beneath the sock, an Ace bandage peeked. She pointed the socked foot at Audrey’s trim waist, like she was challenging her to a karate foot duel. “Lady!” she cried.

Audrey was in no mood. She’d had enough crazy for one day. Besides, this was nutty. Jayne must have been listening for the sound of Audrey’s jingling keys all evening.

Jayne wiggled her toes inside her socked foot. “Lady!” she repeated nervously, like this wasn’t the first time she’d stalked a new friend, and if she got ignored right now, or insulted, that wouldn’t be new, either.

Audrey put her out of her misery. “Tramp!”

At 14C, the same old woman who’d worn the vintage dressing gown this morning opened her door and stuck out her nose. Not her face, but her small, sharp nose, and a spill of glossy white hair. On the other side of 14B, at 14A, another door opened a crack—just enough for Audrey to see the tip of a gender-indeterminate, old, and sun-damaged forehead. The moment was surreal. Just as quickly, both doors closed.

Jayne dropped her socked foot gently to the floor. “I fell,” she announced. “Now it’s sprained. My knee. I’m a gimp. I’m still appearing at the Laugh Factory Saturday night. Wild horses couldn’t drag me. This shit happens all the time, but you’ve got to keep going, you know? You can’t ever give up…can you?” Jayne looked up at Audrey with tears in her green eyes and Audrey thought:
This woman is a raw nerve of emotions. More aptly put, this woman is plain raw, like skin rubbed so tender it’s bleeding.

“No. You can’t ever give up, Jayne. I’m so sorry. What happened?”

Jayne wiped the water from eyes by running her thumbs just under the skin of her lower lashes so she didn’t smudge her makeup, which looked like it might have been applied with a spatula. For the first time in a long while, Audrey was tempted to touch another person. So she did. She put her hand on Jayne’s bony shoulder, then wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

Smiling brightly, but with a quivering voice, Jayne said, “Cab hit me on my way to work. I didn’t sleep well—I’ve been having nightmares for a while now. So, anyway, I wasn’t looking when I crossed the street. Like an idiot. I’m so stupid!” She shook her head in disgust, still wearing that uncomfortably bright smile. “I rolled over the hood, like a stunt man or something. I’m all scraped up, but nothing serious except a bruised kneecap,” she said, then her voice got higher pitched, like at
any second it would crack. “Wouldn’t you know it? I have a big break on the eve of my big break?”

“That’s awful,” Rachael said. To her surprise, tears pooled in her own eyes, too. What a crappy thing to happen to such a sweet, fragile girl. “Did they catch the driver?”

“No. Some towel-head Indian guy. They should deport them all back to Iran. Bomb that whole desert into a sheet of glass.”

Audrey frowned. “India, or Iran?”

Jayne nodded. “That’s right, I forgot. Indians are from India. Whoever’s hoarding those nukes. That’s who hit me…The thing is, I’m so funny, Addie—do you mind if I call you that?”

“I guess not.” Audrey dropped her hand from Jayne’s shoulder.
Bad idea, this touching thing.

“Good. I like Addie better. Audrey’s so uptight, and you’re so cool.”

Audrey smiled. She’d been called a lot of things in her life. Cool was a welcome newcomer.

Jayne kept talking. “You wouldn’t believe how funny I am. Really, you wouldn’t. This won’t slow me down. I’ll make it part of the routine. They’ll piss their pants.”

“Of course they will,” Audrey said.

Jayne grinned so sweetly that Audrey grinned, too. “I KNEW you were awesome. Are we still having dinner? I’m starved.”

The idea was tempting. But she was tired, and not sure she could hold herself erect while Jayne blabber-mouthed her way through an entire meal. “Sure,” she finally said, deciding she’d prefer the company.

She opened the door to apartment 14B, then remembered the thing she’d built inside the open closet door and stopped short.

“What’s wrong?” Jayne asked.

She let out a breath. Impossible to explain. Still, it
was far away, down the long hall and in the den. Maybe she could hide it before Jayne saw. Maybe Jayne was so batty she wouldn’t even notice it.

“Is it boys?” Jayne asked.

Audrey was about to shake her head, then realized that yes, in a way, it was boys. “Yeah…”

“Are you okay?”

Audrey looked at the brass lettering that read 14B. The movers had left a black skid mark, which she wiped clean with the heel of her palm. “No. I don’t think I am. I’ve got obsessive-compulsive disorder, and it makes me do things. I never got treated for it, but I guess I should have. There are other problems, too.” This was a perfect stranger. She couldn’t believe she’d confessed such a thing. For cripe’s sake, she’d never even been able to say it to Saraub. But maybe that was why she was saying it now. Because she
should
have told him.

“Does OCD make you sleep around?” Jayne asked.

Audrey laughed in a quick burst, then sobered when she realized Jayne was serious. She walked into the apartment, and Jayne followed at her heels like an eager puppy, so she broke into a jog, and widened the distance between them. Jayne couldn’t keep up.

“Sorry. Was that stupid? I was thinking maybe it compelled you to go home with strangers. That’s a compulsion, right?” Jayne called down the long hall.

Audrey jogged. The doors to the empty rooms were open. Their white paint shone. “No. It’s just funny, because I was a virgin until two and a half years ago,” she called, so worried about hiding the door, that she was more honest with Jayne than she’d intended.

Behind her, the sound Jayne’s crutches made was a light
clip-clop!
followed by the slipping sound of her sock as she dragged it along the floor. “Oh. Not me. I lost my virginity when I was twelve.” Jayne twittered.

“Really?” Audrey asked, though she wasn’t paying
attention. She was in the den now, looking at the door. It was smooth and strong, and charged in a way that spread pins and needles through her fingertips. The cardboard fibers were soft as sparse feathers. She’d planned to tear it apart and let the boxes tumble into a pile once the tape was gone, but now that seemed like a waste. All it needed was a handle and frame.

Clip-clop-Slip!

Jayne. The sound got closer, and Audrey shoved the closet closed just as Jayne limped through the hall and inside the den. She was talking, and Audrey realized she’d been talking for a while now.

“—are so mean. I have an act about it: ‘Men you dated who never called: pretend they died.’ Not so clever, but you have to admit it’s true. I’ve got, like, fifty dead boyfriends.”

Jayne’s crutches shrieked against the hardwood. It was strange having her here. Like her organs—her stomach and lungs and heart and even her brain, weren’t inside anymore. They were on display, her body an open autopsy. She wasn’t used to guests. She wanted to be alone.

I want to finish the door,
she thought.

“Stuffy,” Jayne said, and headed with her crutches toward the turret. She tried to pry it open, but it wouldn’t budge. Audrey watched, infuriated. What was this woman doing, touching
her stuff?

The wormlike thing she’d swallowed when she first walked into this den unfurled, as if stretching awake. This thing, she knew it was her imagination. A fleeting obsession that in a day or week or month would disappear, only to be replaced by something just as outlandish. Such was the nature of her disease. Still, it
felt
real.

With a final shove, Jayne pushed open the turret window. Stained-glass blackbirds with red eyes lifted
and doubled on themselves. A crisp fall breeze rushed the room. Fresh air replaced stagnant dust. The change was good. The thing in her stomach went still.

“There!” Jayne exclaimed. “So, can we eat here? I’ve been cooped up all day.”

“But I don’t have any furniture,” Audrey said.

“Got any food?”

Audrey shook her head. “I got lint. That’s about it. Maybe this was a bad idea.”

Jayne balanced on her crutches, then clicked open her cell phone. “No way! It’s a great idea! Chinese. Speed dial. It comes fastest. What do you want?”

Audrey sighed, and surrendered. “General Tsao’s Chicken?”

Jayne placed the order, and added steamed string beans with garlic for herself. “I’m on a diet, so I can only eat every fourth meal. You would not believe how hungry I am right now!” she mouthed while waiting for the guy on the other line to provide a dollar tally.

After she clicked the phone closed, Jayne surveyed the mattress and coat-turned-sleeping blanket, and the ten-year-old box television and piano bench on which it was perched. “You need stuff,” she said. “We should go shopping before my act at Laugh Factory this weekend. It’s kind of
Zombie Apocalypse Meets the Olsen Twins
in here, you know?”

Audrey pulled two folding chairs that she’d found in the kitchen closet and arranged them in front of the turret. “You think it’s creepy?”

Jayne eased herself into the chair and perched her injured foot up on the ledge. “Totally! You should wash the walls with bleach to clear the bad psychic residue. Fuckin’ A, you should set a Raid bomb off in this place. That lady was like a roach, anyway.”

“You knew her?” Audrey asked.

Jayne nodded. Her foundation and blue eye shadow were cartoonishly thick, like a Mary Kay lady from
1986. Up close, Audrey could see chicken pox scars under her makeup, as if her cheeks and forehead had been scored by a putty knife.

“What was she like?”

Jayne sighed. “She was supposed to have this great voice. All the papers wrote about it, like since she had a talent that never got expressed because she turned into a murderer, it was tragic that she died. Like it’s less tragic when normal murderers die. My sister is a nuclear physicist. She invented those bacteria that eat oil spills in the Arctic. She’s got double my IQ. I’ve got a below-average IQ, but I’ll bet you guessed that. Anyway, nuclear physicist. You’d think that was a made-up job, wouldn’t you?”

Audrey shrugged. “Maybe she lied. She’s really a fry cook at Sizzler.”

Jayne beamed. “Exactly! You’re funny, too. I could tell the second we met, that you were funny and cool.”

“It’s true. Most popular girl in Hinton, Iowa,” Audrey said. She meant this to be a joke, but Jayne didn’t laugh.

“Obviously. I’d kill for those cheekbones. You don’t even dye your hair, do you? Natural brunette.”

Audrey winced. It took her a few seconds before she was sure Jayne wasn’t teasing. Then she laughed. “Thanks, Jayne.”

“Like a model! Anyway, for all that buildup, I never heard her sing. Just the kid. The girl. Clara’s daughter—”

The sound of the monster’s name dried the saliva from Audrey’s mouth.

“—The kid used to knock on the walls in the halls singing ‘Hard knock life.’ She was Annie in the school play. You know: ‘It’s the hard knock life, for us! Steada kisses, We! Get! Kicks! When you’re in an or! phan! age!’” Jayne sang-spoke the words Henry Higgins-style. Her high-pitched voice was surprisingly dulcet.

“—Cute thing. Really cute. If she was older, I’d have
given her a free minibottle of champagne, but not the mom. She could drink Tidy Bowl toilet water for all I care. And then one day…” Jayne’s voice cracked. “And then I came home, and the hallway was wet, because the emergency workers’ boots were soaked in all that water.”

Audrey squeezed her hands into fists and looked out the window. The blackbirds, doubled on top of each other in the open window, looked like they’d been captured inside the glass. Those poor fucking kids.

“Did you have any idea?” Audrey asked.

Jayne pushed down her green sock and unwound the Ace bandage beneath it. Then she pressed her fingers against the wet wound, which was blotted with iodine and green wool sock threads. She pulled the wet threads, strand by strand, from the clot. Squeamish, Audrey averted her eyes.

“I’ve been through a lot, you know? So I should have guessed. But who imagines something like that? It’s unthinkable.” She pulled another thread, and looked at it as if fascinated. Then dropped it to her lap, and pulled another. The clot broke open and began to ooze.

“Is that why the rent is so cheap?” Audrey asked.

Jayne shrugged. “I moved in the same time she did. Before we came, it was only owners. We’re the first renters they’ve ever had. They might not know any better…Since she died, I get nightmares.”

Audrey was looking out the window. She could see the dark top floors of the Parkside Plaza. A lot of people had died when the bomb went off. When you considered all the tragedies that happened, it made the whole world seem haunted. “Do you ever see a man wearing a three-piece—” she started to ask, but Jayne interrupted her.

“I know what we need! Would you mind going to my place and getting some wine? I’ve got a bottle of red on
the kitchen counter. Same layout as 14B, except not so
Romero Meets Cronenberg: Smackdown!”

Audrey started from her chair. She decided that she liked having Jayne around. It was better than being alone. By a mile. “I’d be happy to. Do you mind my going in there without you?”

“Pffft!” Jayne said. “Hell, no!”

“Don’t I need your keys?”

Jayne shook her head. “I never lock it. What are they going to do? Steal my plastic Mardi Gras beads? The people in this building own Picassos, the salty dogs. Old money and bad surgery. You can dress a hag in Dior, but you can’t make her a Cover Girl.”

“Totally! The lady next door is a mutant.”

“Oh, yeah. Mrs. Parker in 14C. The writer. Well, critic, I think. She only calls herself a writer. She drinks, that’s why those funny clothes. They all drink. Too much inheritance and not enough small dogs to spend it on. So, wine?”

“Okay! Wine!” Audrey giggled, and started down the hall. As she walked, she closed the bedroom and kitchen doors. Open things, she’d never liked them. Like something half-done, or an invitation to the unknown.