Eliza’s phone rang the moment she was alone in her room. It was a woman’s voice.
“Hey gorgeous.”
“Who is this? Are you chewing gum?”
“LA Times, baby girl. Did you miss me?”
“Ruth?”
Ruth had let me crash at her apartment for an entire summer when I was in school. She had been in grad school and kept her apartment like the inside of a PC: wires and fans everywhere.
“How about, ‘Thanks for calling me back.’”
“Jesus, the LA Times?”
“Relax.” She laughed easily. “I’m a UX designer, not a journalist.”
“A what? What is that?” I threw back on the couch and kicked off my shoes. One got tangled in the ceiling fan and spun lazily above me.
“User eXperience. I made the Unsubscribe button so freaking small you can’t click it. Genius, right? People love what I do. By the way, don’t try to zoom in to click it. Your computer will crash.”
“I never zoom in. Only out.”
“Where are you? Can we talk without consequences?”
“I’m in a hotel, underneath the loudest goddamn train I’ve ever heard.”
“Alone?”
“With my thoughts and everything. Ruth, you never realize how much you miss somebody. Until—You know.”
She laughed. “I’m in LA. Let’s grab lunch, see a movie. Now, about the stalker.”
I sat up at that. “Yeah, I almost forgot.” I snatched a notepad from the coffee table and laid it on across knees, pen in hand.
“Huh. Guessing you haven’t seen her again.”
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“Not a lick.”
“Well that’s good news. I took a peek at our wanted section, and there’s nothing matches your description. Zilch.”
“Well thanks for looking”
“Well hang on. I was gonna say. All these files. They’re physical you know? They’re paper, most of them. If I were you, I’d take a look myself. When I see a stack of paper, my eyes throw up.”
“Right. Well, I’d love to. When can I stop by?”
“Anytime’s fine. I’m working late. Just me an hour, and— Can’t get anything done during the day, anyway. Not with all the actual journalists here.”
I looked at my watch. The hour hand was closing in on ten o’clock. I yawned. “I don’t know. Do the trains run that late?”
“Sure. Where are you?”
“Just, I’m on this island.”
“You can always crash at my place. Tomorrow’s Saturday anyway. I’ll give you a lift tomorrow.”
“I looked at my watch again. My vision blurred. “I would, Ruth. But I think my eyes are throwing up.”
“Better sleep, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“I look forward to it. Can I stop by tomorrow?”
“It’s a Saturday—What the hell. I’ll let you in.”
“I really appreciate it.”
“Sure. You need the address?”
“Yeah.” I sat up.
“You got a scribe on hand?”
“Hang on.” I grabbed a pen and pad off the nightstand. “Ready to receive.”
“202 West First Street.”
“That’s easy. Could’ve remembered that.” I wrote it down. The ballpoint rolled like a wheel across the paper, leaving a dark line.
“Need to hear it again?”
“No. I inked it.”
“See you tomorrow. Night, baby girl.”
After we hung up, I peeled off my socks and stripped naked. Remembering the bellhop, a smile curled my lips. I took an oversized tee-shirt from my carry-on bag and pulled it over my head. Then I let my hair down and shook the knots out with my fingers. Then I sat for awhile and pictured each of the people I had met in the last few days. Gunther, with his bell-bottoms, button up, and cowboy hat. The matching butler in his own hat, asleep in a sharp suit. Tamara with her white-blond curls. And a woman with one arm who was following me. Then I got up and brushed my teeth. How common is it to have one arm, I thought. How many people are entangled with two people, who have one arm each?
When I got to bed, I tossed and turned all night. I woke up drenched in sweat once. But after that, my back sank deep into the mattress, and my body fell into a deep, restful state. As if I had sweated something out of my body. Right down to my heels, I felt the weariness slip away, like a foreign soul drifting off my body, like steam pouring off the surface of the ocean.