Lisa Unger - Sliver Of Truth

I am a pathetically bad runner. I’m not built for it. No speed, no endurance. But I still managed to elude Dylan Grace, though only, I suspected, because he didn’t get up and chase me with any real determination…and because I managed to hail a cab before he made it to the street.

“Ridley, don’t be stupid!” he yelled.

I waved to him as the cab sped off.

“You shouldn’t run away from your boyfriend,” the cabdriver admonished. I looked at the ID plate: Obi Umbabwai. He had a heavy African accent. “There aren’t that many good men around.”

I gave him a dark look in the rearview mirror.

“Where are we going?” he asked after he’d driven south a block or two.

“I don’t know yet,” I answered. “Just drive around a minute.”

“You must be rich,” he said.

“Just drive please, sir,” I said. I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed the number I’d taken off of Grant’s website. I prayed not to get voice mail as the phone rang. It was one-thirty.

“Go,” he answered.

“I need to see you,” I said.

There was a pause. “Do I know you?”

“Yeah, are you kidding? We met last night at Yaffa. You said you wanted to see me again.”

He started to protest. Then he got it. Not too quick on the draw for a conspiracy theorist. He probably met his buddies on Thursday nights to play Dungeons & Dragons; that’s probably as close as he’d come to any real intrigue.

“Oh, yeah,” he said reverently. “Glad you called.”

“Can you meet me right now?”

“Now?” he said, sounding surprised and a little uncertain.

“Now or never. I’m not a person with a lot of time.”

Another pause. His breathing sounded heavy, excited. “Where?”

I told him where to meet me and hung up. I figured I was probably making his day or even his year. I repeated my destination to the cabdriver, who gave me a disapproving look in the mirror.

“Whatever you say, honey.”

My cell phone rang and I saw Dylan’s number on the screen. I pressed the button and put the phone to one ear but didn’t say anything.

“Ridley, you are making a major mistake,” he said. “Do you really want to be a fucking fugitive?”

I could tell by the pitch of his voice and by the fact that he’d resorted to cursing that he was really upset. I hung up and closed my eyes, leaned back against the faux leather interior of the spotlessly clean cab, and let it speed me toward Times Square.

YOU’D NEVER KNOW it by my adult life, but my adolescence was fairly free from drama. My brother caused enough chaos for both of us, so I always felt it was my responsibility to be the “good” kid, the one who never caused any trouble for anyone. I got caught with cigarettes once (they weren’t even mine), broke curfew now and then. Nothing too terrible. I don’t remember ever even being grounded for anything.

But there was a time after Ace left that I acted out a bit. I was just so sad and angry. I felt as if all this pain was living in my chest with no way of being released. I found I couldn’t sleep well, couldn’t concentrate at school. I lost interest in going to the mall or the movies with friends. I just wanted to stay in my room and sleep. I kept feigning illness so I could stay home. Not easy when your dad is a pediatrician. I’d just tell him I had cramps; he always seemed to accept this without question.

My parents didn’t really seem to notice my distress, maybe because they were in their own states of depression. They’d tried to commit my brother to a drug treatment center against his will. Instead they’d driven him from the house. He was living somewhere in New York City, doing who knows what to himself. He’d dropped out of high school just months before graduation. And there was nothing my parents could do about it because he’d just turned eighteen. It was devastating for them. Sometimes at night when I couldn’t sleep, I’d go down to the kitchen for a snack. Twice I’d heard my father weeping behind the closed doors to his study.

One morning my parents were screaming at each other as I ate my breakfast. I might as well have been invisible. I got my stuff and left the house without saying good-bye to them. Instead of waiting on the corner for the bus, I walked down the hill to the train station and hopped the 7:05 train. I got into Hoboken, took the PATH to Christopher Street, and walked around the West Village for a while. Eventually I worked my way to Fifty-seventh Street. Max had left for work by the time I reached his apartment. Dutch, the doorman, let me upstairs, and Clara, Max’s maid, let me in the apartment. She made me a grilled cheese sandwich and gave me a glass of chocolate milk. After that, I went into the guest room, pulled down the shades, and went to sleep.

Clara didn’t ask any questions, just looked in on me once and closed the door. I felt cocooned in the cool, dark place. I liked the silence, the soft sheets that smelled of lilac. I slept for I don’t know how long.

Clara must have called Max because he came home in the early afternoon. He woke me with a light knock on the door.

“Let’s get some lunch,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

He took me to American Grill at Rockefeller Plaza. We watched the ice skaters make their way around the rink as I wolfed down a huge cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake. He didn’t ask me any of the questions I was expecting. In fact, I don’t remember saying much of anything. We just ate together in a comfortable silence until I was stuffed. Then he took me to the movies. I can’t remember now what we saw-something funny and R-rated that my parents would have never allowed. Max laughed uproariously, drawing annoyed looks and angry hushes from the few other people in the matinee. All I remember is that the sound of his ridiculously loud laughter was contagious and soon I was giggling, too. I felt the heaviness in my chest lift, some of the sadness dissipated, and I could breathe again.

In the limo on the way back to his apartment, Max said, “Life sucks sometimes, Ridley. Some things go bad and they don’t get better. But generally the bad stuff doesn’t kill us. And the good things along the way are enough to keep us going. A lot of people have worked hard to make sure you see more good than bad. This thing with Ace…?” He paused and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s out of everyone’s hands.”

“I miss him,” I told Max. It was a relief just to say it out loud. “I want him to come home.”

“We all want that, Ridley. And it’s okay to be sad about it. What I’m saying is, don’t let it crush you. Don’t fuck up your life because Ace fucked up his. Don’t skip school and run out on your parents. Don’t hide in the dark. You’re a bright light. Don’t let the Aces of the world snuff you out.”

I nodded. It was good to talk about it with someone who wasn’t in as much pain as I was.

“Your parents are wrecked right now. Take it easy on them.”

My father was waiting for me at Max’s apartment when we got back. As we crawled home to New Jersey in thick rush-hour traffic, my father and I talked about everything I was feeling. But he asked me not to talk about those things with my mother.

“When she’s ready, we’ll all sit down together. She’s just too raw right now.”

We never mentioned Ace’s name in our house again.

I called Ace a couple of times from the cab. No answer. No voice mail. I quashed the fear that he might blow me off, that I might have to go to the Cloisters alone.

As we sped down the Hudson, I had to ask myself: Why were the men in my life so damaged? What was it about my karma that drew this kind of energy into my life? I thought of Max and wondered if it was really possible that he might be alive, if it was him I would find waiting for me at the Cloisters. Or maybe it would be Jake. I thought of the two of them out there circling my life like two dark moons. It felt to me as if they were on some kind of collision course, and if I didn’t get to one or the other of them first, they’d both be destroyed in the impact-or I would. Add Dylan Grace to the mix and who knew how bad it could get.