Read Online Where She Has Gone by Nino Ricci - Free Book Online Page B

it up and carried it into a far room.
    Sid’s bedroom was directly above my own. When he had women home, the floorboards would send messages like code – not even quite so much noise as small, telltale reverberations, what fell between sound and simple tremor, like thegroan that went through the building when a streetcar went by. Eventually my body had begun to register these cues almost instinctively, with a strange combination of repulsion and arousal; and sometimes I would awake to them in the middle of the night and fall back into troubled, sexual dreams, dreams of watching, dreams of being exposed.
    I waited outside ten minutes, fifteen, then longer, sitting smoking in the car with the window down and the radio on the way I’d sometimes snuck cigarettes at home as a teen. Then finally I made my way up the fire escape to my apartment, and to bed.

X
    I awoke, to a commotion, in darkness: there was a pounding somewhere, frenzied or soft, imagined or real, I wasn’t sure which. For a moment I felt the panic I’d felt sometimes as a child, waking up in the dark and not remembering where I was.
    The sound again: a knock at the fire-escape door.
    It was Rita.
    “I’m sorry about this.”
    She had been crying. Her eyes were puffy; her make-up was smudged like runny watercolour.
    “What happened?”
    “I don’t know. I’m sort of messed up.”
    She broke into sobs.
    “Are you coming from Sid’s?”
    “Yeah.”
    “He didn’t hurt you?”
    “No. It’s nothing like that. It’s just – I don’t know.”
    “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be all right.”
    I got her onto the living-room couch. She was wearing the same skirt and blouse she’d had on when she’d come by earlier in the week. The blouse was untucked a bit at the back like a sloppy child’s.
    “I’ll make you some coffee,” I said.
    “Thanks.”
    I took a seat across from her while the coffee brewed, self-conscious suddenly at being only in my bathrobe.
    “So I guess you had a bit of a rough night.”
    “Yeah. I’m really sorry about this.”
    “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
    She took a Kleenex from her purse and wiped at her tears.
    “I should probably just go,” she said.
    “You don’t have to do that.”
    I brought the coffee in. She had pulled herself together a bit, had tucked in her blouse, had dabbed some of the mascara from her eyes.
    She was sitting at the very edge of the couch as if ready for flight.
    “We could talk about this, if you want,” I said. “We don’t have to.”
    “There’s nothing to say, really. It’s just stupid.”
    “Yeah. Maybe not so stupid.”
    I watched her hands as she picked up her cup. There was the barest tremor in them, an infinitesimal lack of control.
    “This is my fault,” I said. “Not just you and Sid. The whole situation.”
    “It’s no one’s fault. It’s my fault. I guess I was trying to prove something to you.”
    “What?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
    Outside, it had started to rain. A streetcar passed by, a low, rumbling churn of metal against metal. In the corner window I saw it float like a phantom through the misted night-time desertion of College Street.
    “It’s raining,” I said. “Maybe you should just stay here for the night.”
    “I’ve already bothered you enough as it is.”
    “You haven’t bothered me. I’m glad you came here.”
    “Are you?”
    “Yes.”
    She was still perched on the edge of the couch.
    “I suppose Elena would be worried,” I said.
    “I called her from Sid’s before. She’s not really expecting me.”
    “Oh.” We both seemed to feel the same shame and relief at this. “Then I’ll fix the bed for you. I can take the couch.”
    “You don’t have to do that.”
    “It’s nothing.”
    I changed the bedsheets with an old linen set I had from home and put out a bathrobe. The robe, in a fusty blue check, was one my father had worn when he was in hospital years before. I’d been surprised when I took