Wired (4 page)

I sat up and pulled the shoe box toward me, turning it around to look at the size.
My shoe size, all right. My shoes
.

My gun?

I looked over my shoulder as if I were being really naughty and didn't want to get caught and then picked up the gun, weighing it in one hand. With the other, I plucked a couple of bullets from their tissue-paper nest. The equipment was surprisingly heavy, and there was no question in my mind that all of it was real. Very carefully, I put the gun and ammunition away, fit the lid back on the box, stood up, backed out of the closet, and closed the door.

Denial. It's an important emotional stage often overlooked in favor of the others involved in traumatic situations, such as anger and acceptance. But I focused on denial as I shook my damp hair out, grabbed the jacket off the hanger and the messenger
bag off the chair next to my bed, and headed for the bathroom to put on a quick face.

But I couldn't find my makeup bag. It wasn't next to the sink.

I pulled open the top drawer under the sink and gawked at the contents. It was packed with unopened boxes of makeup, the cellophane not even sliced open. I closed the drawer very carefully, very quietly, as if doing so would contribute in some way to the maintenance of my fraying sanity. I hesitated for a moment, then opened the second drawer. More boxes of face powder, tubes of lipstick, mascara, containers of eyeshadow. All sealed, unopened, unused.

I pulled the third drawer open without any ceremony. Skin care. At least I was organized, even if I couldn't remember having spent the hundreds and hundreds of dollars it would have cost to buy all of this.

Almost defiantly, I opened the top drawer again, grabbed a mascara and a lip gloss, and ripped open the packages. I stuffed the lip gloss into my pocket, applied the mascara, and gave up on the rest in favor of breakfast.

Still working hard on denial, I wandered down to the kitchen. I looked around and breathed a sigh of relief. There was nothing I didn't recognize, though I still had the feeling I'd had upstairs—like I was having culture shock after a long stint overseas. Maybe it was me who was the foreigner.

I opened the fridge and scanned the sparse shelves. Eggs, milk, juice, carrots. Well, what else did a person really need? My hand froze on the milk carton; I remembered that I'd been on the way to the 7-Eleven
when things started to get strange. I must have needed something.

In the chaos of the prior night, I'd never actually made it to the store and, accordingly, never purchased what I'd set out to buy in the first place. Which shouldn't have mattered, really, given the circumstances, except that when I tried to think about last night, there were . . . holes. Holes in my memory. What was I craving so badly at two a.m. that just couldn't wait? I stared into the emptiness of the fridge and tried to focus, but it was the strangest sensation, this mental hole.

A magnet slipped off the door and pinged on the ground, followed by a shower of menus. With a sigh, I crouched down and started picking them back up. Sweeping my hand under the edge of the refrigerator, I pulled out a plastic packet of twigs or something. I used to find the same kind of stuff all the time, various bits of Kitty's New Age paraphernalia, flotsam and jetsam from her latest woo-woo obsession. I hated finding the stuff. It reminded me that we hadn't spoken since the day she left for Europe. I guess I was embarrassed about not making anything of the big plans I'd once confided to her. Though I hadn't tried to get back in touch, it nonetheless bothered me intensely that she hadn't either. I tossed the packet on the kitchen counter and finished collecting the fallen menus.

Holding a handful of flyers in my hand, I focused on the already packed metal surface of the refrigerator. The sheer number of take-out menus plastering the doors was staggering, with five pizza delivery services alone.

I don't remember these
.

I took the milk out and stuck it on the counter. I pulled a box of cereal from the cabinet, then poured a healthy serving into a bowl. I ate my breakfast contemplating the wall of menus on the refrigerator door.

These holes—maybe they weren't a blankness so much as a blackout. Like, if the electricity went back on, I'd be able to see, and I'd remember what recipe ingredient was missing from an early morning cooking project, or what candy bar commercial had played just before I absolutely had to get myself to a 7-Eleven at two a.m. What was it I'd absolutely had to have?

For that matter, what was it really that Mason and that Leonardo Kaysar guy had to have? After all, I was still here. I was eating breakfast in my apartment with neither of them holding a gun to my head.

My future, Mason had said.

But then, Mason was full of crap. He'd always been full of crap. Not that that made him any less appealing on the basest of levels, of course, but it was something to keep in mind if he really did come back around.

Mason Merrick. Good God. That guy could charm the granny undies off a girl who'd taken a virginity pledge the prior night. He'd certainly charmed my old roommate's off on a regular basis. I remembered that well—how they'd put the stereo on 10 and I wouldn't see them for the rest of the night.

In the mornings, while I was sitting at the table nursing the thickest, oiliest, strongest cup of coffee I could force out of an ancient Mr. Coffee machine, Mason would often wander out of her bedroom
scratching his balls. He'd honor me with a rhetorical grunt, yawning and stretching so that the snake tattoo around his biceps writhed, his hair sticking out all over the place and his cock practically falling out of his boxers; then we'd ignore each other for approximately fifteen minutes while he fixed himself a bowl of cereal and commandeered my morning paper. It was always a bowl of
my
cereal, although neither of us ever referenced that fact. I suppose it was a fair trade.

During this portion of the ritual, I'd pretended to be engrossed in my reading while I wondered for the millionth time what on earth he and my roommate saw in each other. Finally, I'd get up and pour the remaining coffee into a battered Starbucks travel mug, and as I passed Mason at the table I'd sneak a peek at the slit in his boxers, hoping to see a little action. When I got past him, he'd look up from my morning paper and nod an almost imperceptible farewell as I packed up my stuff.

There was usually a smirk in his expression, and at first I'd wondered if he realized I was ogling him unapologetically every single one of these mornings, but I soon figured out that it was more likely about the rubber cockroach he'd planted in the bathroom or the bra he'd stuck in the freezer. Who was I kidding? I didn't know why I refused to admit it the prior night, but Mason was right; I guess we did have a thing with the jokes and the pranks and the silly toys showing up in my book bag. Judging from the shenanigans of last night, he'd apparently moved on to more elaborate schemes.

Anyway, after the smirk-nod, Mason would go
back to my paper, slopping milk and cereal all over the sports section, and about ten minutes later I'd leave for class feeling caffeinated and pleasantly sexed up, which was, in my opinion, a great way to start the day. I'd forget all about him until the next morning. This ritual went on for months.

Then one morning I sat there in the kitchen and Mason didn't come out of my roommate's bedroom. Three days passed and he still wasn't around. Finally, I was doing the laundry and discovered a pair of his boxers, the green ones with the pink-and-orange fruit slices—I remember this because they were my second-favorite pair of his—and I kind of realized as I stood there with a wad of Mason Merrick's underwear that he probably wasn't coming back.

I asked my roommate about it the next time we crossed paths, because it seemed like a big deal after all that time. She just matter-of-factly said they were over. I got the feeling I was more upset about it than she was. At the end of the year, she moved out, Kitty moved in, and Mason Merrick became a distant memory.

That was, until last night.

I took a last bite of cereal, tipped the bowl and sucked down the remaining milk, then dumped the dishes in the sink. Denial is the best friend of the easily frightened, so after running upstairs to brush my teeth, I grabbed my stuff and headed out the door as if everything were completely normal.

I took the bus to Market Street and hopped off at the end of the block. The agency was located between one of those big-and-tall suit shops and a picture-frame
store. I was sure the agency could have afforded a much better location, but I guess they either liked the rent or the anonymity, or both.

The building looked deceptively small from the front but extended quite a way back into a long, narrow building. Dodging a pile of take-out food spilling from a dropped foam box, I pushed through the door and went to the reception desk. The phone was ringing off the hook, but the desk clerk was nice enough to put the callers on hold for me.

“I'm Roxanne Zaborovsky. I'm here to pick up a new project,” I said.

The clerk looked at me blankly, then grabbed a pencil. “What did you say your name was?”

“Roxanne Zaborovsky. Z-A-B-O—”

“Got it. I wasn't sure if that one letter was an A or an O. You've worked with us before?”

“Many times.” The minute I said it, I realized I had no idea if it was true. I looked over my shoulder to scan the waiting area, my eyes threading through the people: the jeans, the T-shirts, steaming Starbucks travel mugs, the—

“Excuse me! I asked if you were in the computer.”

I looked at the clerk helplessly.

“What's your clearance? Public, private . . . ?”

I stared at her for a moment, then muttered, “Both,” not quite knowing how I knew it to be true, even though I knew it was. I was remembering bits and pieces, though nothing completely fit. What was going on with my brain?

The clerk punched at the keyboard and frowned. “Who were you here to see?”

“Uh . . .” I had no idea. Who did I usually see?

A guy waiting behind me sighed deeply, the kind of sigh meant to indicate his displeasure with me and my apparent inability to process information on a timely basis.

“Do you have an appointment?” the receptionist asked, clearly losing her patience.

I blinked. “I think so,” I said kind of lamely. “It was on my calendar.”

“Do you normally get your assignments via e-mail?”

“Oh. I . . .” Maybe the notation on my calendar was a reminder to send an e-mail, or maybe to call someone on the phone.

The clerk shrugged. “Just go ahead and have a seat. I'll see if someone's available or if anything's been left for you.”

I'd been working for this agency since junior year in college; I remembered that. I'd done more projects for them than I cared to admit, even lame ones they could have handed off to someone less experienced. This woman was acting like she'd never heard of me, even though they used to recognize my name immediately when I called them on the phone—didn't they?

“Are you . . . new here?” I asked.

She looked surprised. “I've been here for years,” she said, picking up the phone and turning away from me.

I went to the waiting area and found a spot against the wall. Chairs were still available, but somehow I didn't feel like slipping into any of them. Nobody was specifically crowding me, but I felt totally overwhelmed by all of these people, by this company that didn't even remember one of its longest-standing employees.
I wrenched myself away and headed for the bathroom, stumbling with sudden dizziness as I went down a hall and barreled through the swinging door.

Inside, I ran a damp paper towel across my forehead. I'd felt exactly this same way in Mason's car. Overheated. Dizzy. Plus, there was an odd sense of displacement.

Something's wrong with you
.

My face looked so pale, my reddish brown hair and brown eyes were practically black in contrast. I ran my fingers over lips that flatlined into a surprisingly grim expression. Suddenly self-conscious about the way I'd shown up here, I raked my unkempt hair into something closer to a deliberate hairstyle. Then I reached into my bag, pulled out the lip gloss and reshellacked my lips. There was nothing I could do about the bags under my wide, wondering eyes.

Nice job
, I thought.
All that concealer in your bathroom, and you brought nothing with you
.

I grabbed for a second paper towel, but instead rapped my knuckles hard against the metal canister as the lights went out and I completely missed the sheet. I stood for a second in the dark, knuckles smarting, my arm still outstretched, water dripping down the sides of my face.

“Hello?” I said loudly. “I'm still in here.” I don't know what I was thinking; no one had entered and no one had left. Very slowly, I retracted my arm and turned in the direction of the door. Nothing. I spun toward the bathroom stalls. Silence.

I backed away from the mirror, grabbed my stuff, and blasted out of the bathroom into the hall. I didn't care what anybody thought of me.

No matter, because there wasn't anybody there. The hallways were dark, the hubbub of office workers running around now silenced.

I looked behind me for an emergency exit, but I couldn't see a thing, and I hadn't paid attention to the building's layout when I'd had the chance. Turning back in the direction of the reception area, I swallowed hard and said, “Mason?” into the gloom.

No answer.

The only exit I knew of, the only one I could get to in the dark anyway, was straight ahead. Feeling my way along the wall, I moved off in the direction from which I'd come.

My hand hit a doorknob. I tried to open the door but it was locked. So was the next. And the next. No one was working. No one was here. The only light was at the far end of the hall, where the reception area was boxed in by glass windows. The sound of my breathing seemed incredibly loud. I swallowed hard and tried to stay as quiet as possible as I crept toward the light.