John Brandon - Further Joy

It had only been three days, but Pauline had a bad feeling in her stomach. Mal had never been gone three days. She didn’t like sleeping over at other people’s places — she always said that. She was fine, probably, off somewhere having fun, but the bad feeling wasn’t something Pauline could get rid of by will. It annoyed her that the girl couldn’t find the consideration to make a simple phone call. Mal was under no obligation to report to her or anything, but was a quick phone call too much to ask? She’d taken off somewhere with that guy Tug, and while she was having fun Pauline had to sit here and worry. What else was new?

Pauline went and got her phone off the arm of the couch and tried Mal’s cell. It went straight to voicemail. About ten minutes later she tried again, with the same result.

The next day, Pauline chewed up several hours going in and out of antique shops and thrift stores looking for pieces for her apartment, end tables and lamps. After all this time, she still didn’t have near enough furniture. A framed picture. Maybe a hat rack. She chatted with all the owners, but wound up buying nothing but candles and teacups and the like. She stopped at a liquor store on the way home for a bottle of wine, and as soon as she got into her apartment she opened it and drank down a big glass. She poured another glass right away but only stared at it, feeling very alone. She had felt alone when she’d first moved here, but that loneliness had felt natural and she’d waited it out proudly. She’d known it was part of coming to this place. What she felt now was close to defeat. She went out to the back balcony and went over to Mal’s side and peered in the window. There was a light on back where she couldn’t see, back in the bathroom or something. The place wasn’t a mess, nor was it particularly neat. Pauline scanned the interior of Mal’s apartment and couldn’t find anything noteworthy, not that she knew what she was looking for. There was a big plastic pitcher sticking up out of the sink. There were a couple remote controls on the waist-high wall that divided the kitchen and the living room. A hairdryer on the kitchen table. An empty vase. The ceiling fan was spinning.

Pauline slept restlessly that night, using her blanket as a pillow, and as soon as it was morning she went down and looked into Mal’s car. She saw nothing in there but a pair of purple sunglasses and a thing of hard candy sticking up from the console. Probably the candies had melted into a single block at the bottom of the box.

Pauline went up and knocked hard on Mal’s door, knowing it was a silly thing to do. She pressed her ear against the wood and heard nothing. She dialed Mal’s cell phone number again, listened as it went right to voicemail. She had the number to Mal’s landline on a scrap of paper in a kitchen cabinet, and once she’d found it in there she dialed that number, too, knowing it was useless but not knowing what else to do. She listened to the ringing through the wall. Mal didn’t have an answering machine for the landline. She’d gotten the line and the cordless phone free with her cable and Internet, she’d told Pauline. The ringing from next door was measured, aloof. It was hard for Pauline to bring herself to hang up and stop it. She had been reasonable for several days now, and had ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach, but maybe the feeling was right. The girl was so young and so tiny. It was hard to imagine her safe. She had made it this far, tempting fate all the while, only due to dumb luck. She’d enjoyed more than her share of benevolent fortune and now it had run out.

The next afternoon, Pauline sat outside a taco joint staring at a plate of stuffed peppers. She would feel better, she knew, only if she decided on a course of action. She’d give it one more night. She’d watch TV like a normal person, would try to distract herself with political news or cooking programs. And in the morning, if she still hadn’t heard from Mal, she’d call someone. Maybe not the police, but someone. That was a semblance of a plan.

The landlord, a man who wore a thin leather jacket in the Florida heat, owned a bunch of minor rental buildings and seemed to live in constant acute fear that his tenants would abscond in the night. When Pauline met him on the stairs, he had a vindicated air about him. He wanted to know what kind of mess Mal had left in the place, what kind of drugs he’d find in there. He pushed the door open and Pauline rushed ahead of him to check the bedroom and bathroom, her eyes working clumsily, finding nothing out of the ordinary. The bedroom seemed very still, like places did when you weren’t supposed to be in them. Sitting on the dresser was a tall cup of tea Mal had abandoned, the ice long ago melted. Pauline left it where it was. The bed was made sloppily, the way Mal would make a bed. The bathroom offered nothing. The hall light was on, and Pauline turned it off.

“Never heard of dusting, I guess,” the landlord called. “If you don’t own it, why take care of it, right?”

“She could be in trouble,” Pauline said, coming out into the main area. She saw Mal’s biscuit pans on the kitchen counter. There were a couple empty shoeboxes on the floor. The cordless phone was in its cradle.

The landlord nodded absently, his attention now on a bowl that held a nutcracker and a corkscrew. Pauline’s urgency was not rubbing off on him.

“Anything could have happened to her,” she forced herself to say. “ Anything .”

“She won’t be back,” said the landlord. “That much I can tell you.”

The landlord’s casualness was making Pauline crazy, and she heard herself tell him that Mal could be dead for all they knew. It was true, but it was strange to hear herself say it.

The landlord looked almost amused for a moment, then he let out a long, beleaguered breath. “They’re never dead, okay? If it helps you any, they’re never dead.” He did something to the buttons on the cuff of his jacket. “Dead beats maybe,” he said under his breath. “Anyway, she’s not dead in this apartment. We agree on that, right? I came over and we looked and she’s not here and the place looks about how one would expect.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that,” Pauline said. “‘How one would expect.’”

She went over and looked in the refrigerator. Nothing in it was opened. A jar of pickles, a package of butter, some ready-to-bake cookies — all with the seals unbroken.

When she closed the refrigerator door, she saw it. Up on top of the fridge was Mal’s purse, the yellow one, the one she always carried, sitting up there sadly like a child’s forgotten baseball mitt. Pauline pulled it down and unsnapped it, turning toward the light coming in from the back window. The purse didn’t have much weight to it and there wasn’t much inside. About a dozen cheap lipsticks and, beneath them, Mal’s fake ID. No wallet, no cash. There were a bunch of inside pockets that held nothing but nickels and old concert stubs.

The landlord had walked up next to her. “Let me guess,” he said. “She took all the important shit with her.”

Pauline stepped away, closing the purse defensively. “Why would she not just take the purse? Why would she take her wallet out and carry it?”

“Now I’m supposed to read her mind? I don’t know, maybe she has more than one purse. I can’t read my own mind sometimes. I know I can’t read hers.”

There were two chairs at Mal’s kitchen table, and Pauline pulled one of them out and sat on it. She dropped the spare change and ticket stubs and whatnot back into the purse. She rested it on the table but didn’t take her hand off it. Mal wouldn’t have purposely left her purse. That just didn’t make sense. And why would she set it on top of the refrigerator?