Andrew Klavan - Empire of Lies

Startled, I recognized her at once. The sight of her knocked every other crazy thought right out of me. I was so surprised to find her there-so mystified by the coincidence-and so glad, too-so glad and excited to see her again.

It was Anne Smith. Remember her? The beautiful bartender from The Den.

I wanted to ask her something. It was important. That's why I waited for her after class. Really-that's why. All the same, I admit it: I felt like a schoolboy with a crush, standing at the bottom of the hall's stone steps, my hands in my pockets, my casual posture as studied as the schoolboy's, my heart just as secret and eager.

"Anne!" I called when I saw her step out through the glass doors. She didn't hear. She started down the stairs amid the crowd, her head down, her black hair pouring forward. "Anne!"

I didn't think she'd remember me. How could she? So many people must come and go in that nightclub every night. But, in fact, she lifted her broad, oval face, spotted me with those big doe-eyes, and broke into a radiant smile. She freed one hand from the books she was holding against herself, waved it at me with that quick metronomic wave girls have when they're shy and happy to see you.

"Hi!" she said with outsized delight. She joined me in the dappled shadows under the plane trees. She shone on me like the warmth of morning. "What are you doing here?"

She was wearing jeans and a maroon jacket over an openthroated shirt, nothing half so revealing as the shoulderless outfit she'd had on in the club. Dressed like that and in the light of day, she looked more composed and womanly somehow and even more appealing. Faced with all the freshness and the warmth and the ripeness of her and the youth, I found myself feeling ridiculously self-conscious in front of her, ridiculously aware of my appearance and how I spoke and the impression I might be making on her.

"I didn't think you'd remember me," I said.

"Jason Harrow," she answered as if she were showing off her powers of recall. "The guy who's not as ugly as his driver's license."

"My claim to fame."

She was as I remembered her: as friendly, as straightforward as she'd been at The Den, and with that touch of insecurity so appealing in such a pretty girl. Her raspy voice was full of humor. "Which brings me back to my original question," she said. "What are you doing here?"

"I've heard about this guy Rashid. I wanted to hear his lecture."

She did that thing teenaged girls do when they're talking about some movie actor or rock star they love: Her hips went slack, her mouth went open, her eyes rolled heavenward. "Is that guy a super-genius or what? He must need, like, two heads to keep his brains in or something."

I felt a pang at that. Maybe I was still in the grips of that weird horror I'd experienced in the lecture hall. Or maybe I was just jealous and didn't want her to admire another man.

"I thought you told me you've never read Shakespeare," I said.

"No. I know. I really want to now. Rashid makes it sound so interesting."

"Mm. Yeah."

"Listen, I gotta get to my next class. You want to walk me?"

"Sure."

"There's only, like, twelve people, so I can't sneak in, and if you're late, Mr. Roth gives you, like, seven kinds of shit."

I managed only a faint smile. I've never gotten used to women cursing. The young ones almost all do it now, even the sweet country things like Anne. It's all fair and equal and so on, but I don't like it. Still, a man will tolerate just about anything in a pretty girl, especially one he is trying to sleep with.

Which was the odd thing about Anne, by the way-the odd thing for me about walking beside her like that. It was a strangely doubled experience, as if I had two selves, one overlapping the other like images superimposed in a photograph. In one of those selves, I had no intention of trying to sleep with her-none. She was young enough to be my daughter. I felt toward her as a responsible middle-aged man feels toward any young adult: interested, solicitous, ready to be charmed. In this first self, I was there to ask her a question, and that was all. But in my other self, everything was seduction. Every move I made, every word I spoke, every smile and gesture was designed to win her over. It was as if there were some sort of filter system in my brain. Before I did or said anything, it asked automatically: Will this make her like you enough to have sex with you? Will this?

And because I was two selves at once, I saw two images of her as well. On the one hand, she simply seemed amiable to me. Open, sweet, maybe a little flirtatious but only in an innocent, teasing kind of way. A college girl talking to an older man. And at the same time-I wasn't sure. Maybe she wasn't innocent. Maybe her flirtation was dead serious.

And to make matters even more confusing, I was also aware of an intense and sentimental autumn yearning. I had been so unhappy when I was young, so insane that I had missed the whole college thing irretrievably, wandered through it in a depressive daze. And now here I was-with young people in their packs and pairs moving along the campus paths, over the grass and under the trees together-here I was with her, with Anne, as other boys were with their girls. Chatting with her, turning to smile at her, turning to catch the vital, smiling spark in her eyes. It made me ache, I must confess, and the ache seemed everywhere, not just in me. It seemed to breathe out of the beams of sunlight falling through the dying leaves. It seemed the secret substance of the chill New York weather.

I glanced at the books she held propped against her middle: two large textbooks and a binder.

"Those look heavy," I said. "You want some help?"

She laughed at me. "You're offering to carry my books to school? Are we twelve?"

My face went hot. She was right, of course. Not only was I acting like a twelve-year-old, I was acting like someone who was twelve more than thirty years ago.

"I guess I'm old-fashioned," I said, my cheeks burning.

"I guess so! I kind of like it, though. Sure-you wanna carry them?"

She gave the books to me. My God, they were as heavy as anvils! I pretended to fall over from the weight. "Holy smokes! Now you'll have to carry me."

She laughed that big laugh that seemed to belong out in an open field somewhere. She tossed her hair behind her.

"What do you, lift weights or something?" I asked.

She growled and flexed her arm, as if to show me her muscle. We walked along in smiling silence a few paces, me with her books under my arm and my heart aching.

"Listen," I said then, "I have to ask you something."

"Okay."

"Did you ever know a guy named Casey Diggs?"

Anne seemed surprised. "The guy from the posters?"

"What posters?"

She started to gesture at the path around us, the trees, the lampposts-but she let the gesture die. "Oh, I guess they took them down."

My gaze followed the incomplete motion of her hand. It was the first time it occurred to me to wonder: Why were there no posters? There should've been. Have you seen this man? Missing. If you have information, call… But there were none.

"They were all over for a couple of weeks," Anne said. "Here, this is me." We stopped in front of one of several stately brick buildings, three stories tall with stone pilasters running up from the base to beneath the eaves of a bronze roof, patina-green. Scruffy students were filing in at the glass doors. Soon Anne would be joining them. I wished I would be joining Anne, going to class with her and young.

Anne went on: "Anyway, yeah, sure, I knew him. Why? I mean, I didn't know him well or anything. I just talked to him a couple of times. He talked to everyone. All the people who took classes from Rashid. He used to wait outside and ask us questions: What did he say? What was he talking about? I heard he was crazy, you know? Making all these accusations against Rashid, like he was a terrorist or something. I guess they finally expelled him and he just disappeared somewhere. I heard they even did a TV show about him. I didn't see it, though." Her eyes, which had shifted away as she remembered Casey, shifted back to me. "Is that really why you waited for me? To ask me that?"