Don't I Know You? Page 18

  The block association was new, the idea of a few longtime residents nervous about the decline of the neighborhood and the decreasing effectiveness of the police. If they didn’t solve a murder in seventy-two hours, it was likely never to be solved. Every week, more muggings. A few months ago, a string of burglaries, never solved. Muriel Yablonsky, from 326, had woken up to find a man in a knit hat standing over her. Last month a man shot and killed as he ran down the center of the street. Larry Abrams, from 345, had held the man’s head in his lap.

  Bars were going up on windows and extra locks on doors. Advertising flyers for alarm companies were appearing in mailboxes, but no one had the money to afford them.

  The more conservative of the longtime residents voted Democratic. Most of them were Socialist. They believed in the mix of classes. They were divorced mothers, interracial couples, artists, and teachers instead of lawyers and insurance agents. They understood that their values were not genetic, that they could make their own way. They admired get-up-and-go, spunk, and minding their own business. They cared about each other, at least in theory. Theirs was a community of people who were living lives different from the ones that had been expected of them. They were trailblazers or misfits, depending on your angle of vision.

  This was the first purely social gathering of the group. A picnic in Riverside Park. Potluck. There’d been sign-up sheets posted in lobbies. They’d begun making their way down the hill to the park at midday, an odd parade, bearing their plastic containers.

  Steven had not wanted to come. He was eight and didn’t like crowds. The kinds of questions grown-ups tended to ask left him confused and sullen. He looked sweet. It bothered people that he wasn’t.

  He sat on a rock on the fringes of the party and eyed his mother. He didn’t like her at parties. They didn’t go to many. She was a nurse with long hours. She didn’t have a husband. He didn’t have a father.

  Last week in the middle of the night, his mother had woken him. She was already wearing her coat, and put his on over his pajamas and carried him to the elevator, which he liked. She almost never carried him anymore. He was too heavy, she said. How did she get such a big boy?

  She carried him to Riverside Drive and turned the corner. It was cold and the air felt wet, as if somewhere nearby a sprinkler was on. The parts of his body on hers were warm. The other parts weren’t. He missed his bed. She’d forgotten his slippers.

  She put him in the backseat of a parked car with the engine still running and the windows open. A man was in it smoking a cigarette. The radio was on low. Baseball.

  She sat in the front. The man handed her a cigarette and lit it for her. He didn’t look back at Steven. Steven decided not to look at him either. His mother’s hand was posed out the open window. The smoke curled up into the light from the streetlight and disappeared. He liked it. He didn’t know why he liked things like that.

  She’d never brought him into a car before. Her friends usually came to the apartment after she thought he was asleep. They’d talk in low voices. Sometimes he recognized the voices; sometimes he didn’t. The sounds of the conversations made him nervous, and he fell asleep almost immediately. It was what he did when he was nervous.

  He didn’t know what to do in a car. He sat in the backseat with a blanket around him, his thumb in his mouth. She’d told him he had to stop sucking his thumb. He didn’t see what it had to do with her. He would suck his thumb his whole life.

  She had photographs of some of the men on the wall in their hallway. Her girlfriends thought it was weird. None of them were of this guy.

  They still weren’t talking. His mother seemed to be waiting for something. It made him more hopeful.

  The other day at school, the class had been lined up at the door, on the way to music, and he’d bent down to tie his shoelace. Trying to hurry, to not hold up the line and call attention to himself, he’d had a clear, loud thought. He’d get bigger. His looks might change a little. But everything else was already the way it was going to be.

  He didn’t want to be like his mother, but he didn’t know who else to be like.

  Lily waited until one to make the walk down to the park. She was carrying almond junket in a glass bowl. Why did she do things like this to herself? Why did she say yes to things like this, knowing what they’d be like before they even started? And then why did she always do something to make herself stand out even more?

  She entered the park and headed down the hill. She fell in step with a well-dressed guy about her age. He was blond, one of those prep-school boys. He was pushing a kid’s bike, no kid in sight.

  He smiled at her. “Whadja get for me?” he asked. He was the kind of good-looking that made her blink.

  Attention like this didn’t often come her way. “I’m meeting people,” she said.

  He seemed to have lost interest. He gave her words a wave. A silver bracelet with an infinity sign slipped down his forearm. He veered off to the right.

  There were Muriel Yablonsky and Luis, their super. She didn’t know anyone else, having lived here less than a year. She wondered how long it would take for someone to comment on her looks.

  And what are you, dear? Vietnamese?

  So why had she brought almond junket, the one dessert she could be absolutely certain no one would ever have heard of or seen?

  Oh, how interesting. Is it a family recipe?

  And, of course, then the inevitable mortification of having to say that it was. The only specialty of her parents that she’d learned how to cook. Whenever a dish was required of her, she made this. What was wrong with her?

  Muriel spied her and beckoned her over. Muriel’s husband was not there. He seemed to be around less and less these days. Meanwhile, Muriel grew more and more formidable. She strode toward Lily like the Statue of Liberty had pulled free of her moorings.

  “Lily Chin,” she said loudly, as if in terms of an introduction that was all that was necessary, and then embraced her in a large Jewish wingspan. Lily felt like one of the urchins beneath the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present.

  “Hello,” she said. She held out the junket. “This is from my mother. A family recipe.”

  Muriel was thrilled. She called people over. “It’s Oriental,” she said, pulling back the foil cover.

  People stared at Muriel’s friend, kindly.

  “Isn’t she lovely,” Muriel said. “She’s a graduate student.” She paused. “At Teacher’s College.”

  There were appreciative sounds all around.

  An older woman put a hand on Lily’s head. “Look at this hair,” she said. “Och. What I wouldn’t give.”

  Lily stood there. She was the only Asian here, and she wasn’t a member of the block association, though Muriel, who was, had stopped her outside their building to give her a whistle and an air horn and to show her how to use them in case she happened to spy anything suspicious.

  Their job, Muriel had said, was to get the police there as quickly as possible. They were not to take the law into their own hands, she’d added, as if this were something she knew Lily was desperate to do.

  “I can’t stay long,” Lily had answered, glancing back up the street she had just come down.

  Now Muriel led her toward the tables and chairs, the food and drink. She leaned in. “There are eligible men here,” she said.

  Lily squinted at them. A man in his forties stood off to the side under a tree. He looked like the kind of man in whom she might inspire flashbacks. Some of the handymen and supers from the block stood in a little clump looking awkward out of their uniforms. An old man in a wheelchair wore a yarmulke.

  Farther toward the river, away from the party, a couple with their young daughter had a picnic of their own. Lily recognized the father from the school where she’d had an internship that spring. To the left, a group of Hare Krishnas chanting and ringing their bells. Farther on, a boy on a rock.

  they walked to the building where Michael worked as a night watchman. Michael let him work th
e elevator.

  Steven tried not to show his excitement. Michael showed him how to pull out the handle and then push it left for down, right for up.

  “What floor?” Steven asked.

  “Basement,” Michael said.

  Past the laundry room was a thin door with NIGHT WATCHMAN painted on it in black letters.

  It was a small room, as big as Steven’s bathroom. There was a short padded bench in one corner, different-sized hand weights under it. A punching bag. An old door on top of two filing cabinets. On the door were model airplanes, some finished, some not. Their boxes were set up carefully against the wall. He could smell the glue. Under the table, a tiny fridge made a low hum.

  It smelled nice. Like wood that had just been sawed in half.

  “Cool, right?” Michael asked.

  Steven liked the tiny fridge the best.

  “Can I use that?” he asked, pointing at the punching bag.

  “Sure, sure,” Michael said. Sometimes, when he talked, he closed his eyes.

  Steven was embarrassed at first and pushed at the bag with an open hand. It was heavier than he’d expected. He liked the feel of it. His mother had a bag made out of the same stuff.

  Michael came around and stood behind the bag, leaning into it with his shoulder. He showed Steven how to punch it. It felt good. Like how he felt when he really pretend-drummed to his mother’s favorite songs.

  It was hot. The wood smell was from packets of cedar chips that were hanging from the pipes on the ceiling.

  Michael reached around and put his hand to Steven’s armpit. Steven jumped. “Tickles,” he said.

  Michael put his fingers in his mouth.

  Steven stared. “I’m gonna go,” he said. He couldn’t remember what street they were on, which way they’d walked to get here.

  “You sure?” Michael said. He seemed disappointed. His fingers were still up by his nose.

  “I’m gonna go,” Steven said.

  “Okay,” Michael said. “Come back another day. Anytime you want.”

  “See ya,” Steven said, stopping at the door.

  Michael was bent over a model. His back was to him. He didn’t say anything.

  Steven hoped he wasn’t mad. “Okay?” he said.

  Michael turned around and smiled. “Okay,” he said.

  Louise sat in the folding chair, her face to the sun. She loved the sun. Everything was better in the sun.

  She’d seen a nature special on African Bushmen, trackers in the desert. Tiny, delicate men the color of polished wood, no taller than boys, reading the clues of the desert. The show had said they knew that the lizard was behind the rock. They didn’t have to see it. Louise had found the whole thing extremely appealing.

  She turned her head toward the tree Michael had been leaning against. She thought it a minor triumph that she’d gotten him to come at all, and tried not to let it bother her that he wouldn’t actually join the group.

  She scanned the edge of the park behind her. He was heading up Riverside Drive with Steven. They were holding hands.

  Gina was in her it’s-a-party-so-I’m-having-fun mode. She’d been drinking from the pitcher of vodka and lemonade she’d brought. She’d taken off her shoes hours ago. Steven was not on her mind. Louise decided to keep it that way. Gina had been dealt a tough hand. Let her relax. Let the boys have their fun too, she thought. It was a nice day. Let everyone have their fun.

  Lily should’ve left earlier. That woman who was demanding so much of everyone’s attention, whom Lily had found unappealing to begin with, was just getting worse and worse. And now her son was missing.

  She didn’t even know the woman’s name. She didn’t want to be part of a search party. She didn’t want to be part of anything.

  The woman was drunk but determined to appear efficient. Lily was embarrassed for her. She wondered if it would be possible to slip away unnoticed. It was, after all, something she was good at, even known for.

  The woman hadn’t even noticed her son was gone until everyone started to pack up. The thing had gone on for hours. Goodwill had turned to impatience. The thought of cooking dinner was making people nauseous. There were still hours ahead of them before sleep.

  Plastic cups with leftover soda, juice, vodka were emptied onto the grass. Someone shook out a garbage bag and held it open.

  Her son seemed to be the last thing the woman thought of, but once she had, she seemed to know she had to pull herself together, and seemed even more aware that she was incapable of doing so. One of Lily’s few friends in college had been the same way. “I’m a fuckup,” she’d say over and over, doing nothing to change her ways. Lily had patience with people like that. Until she didn’t.

  The woman grabbed at Lily’s arm and wanted to know when Lily had seen her son last.

  Lily didn’t know who he was. “I’m sorry,” she said, passing her off to someone who knew her better.

  Someone went to check the woman’s apartment. Someone else ran up to the corner store.

  Lily kept tidying up. She folded the blankets into small, neat squares and piled them up. When her mother had first moved to the States, she’d used tight stacks of blankets, sheets, and towels as furniture.

  She gathered napkins that had sidled away. A plastic fork speared into the ground.

  More people got involved. The woman seemed to lose what little useful energy she’d mustered. She sat on the grass holding her ankles.

  The teacher that Lily had recognized came over carrying a pair of slip-ons, and asked the woman, “Are these yours?”

  Lily could see that the woman was the kind of woman who attracted behavior of this kind. But she took a breath and tried not to be unkind. What did she know about men and women and the behavior between them? The teacher’s patience felt like a rebuke. Maybe this woman was doing her best. Who was Lily to judge?

  Steven had thought he knew which way the park was, but he’d walked for three blocks and then turned around and walked back the way he’d come. He sat on a stoop near a busy corner. Busy was safer, his mom said. If you looked like a chump, the world would treat you like a chump. He tried not to look like a chump.

  A guy said, “Hey.”

  The guy looked up and down the block. He was pushing a kid’s bike. He was wearing jeans and a dressy shirt. The sleeves were rolled up. He was tan. His hands looked like the kind of hands that could make things.

  “Where’s your mom?” the guy asked.

  “In the park,” Steven said. He looked at the bike. “That yours?” he asked.

  The guy laughed. The sun was behind the buildings.

  “I found it,” the guy said. “I figured someone could use it. Like it?”

  Steven got hot. He shook his head. “No, thank you.” He didn’t know how to ride a bike. “Nice sneakers,” he said. They were green and white Adidas with gold lettering.

  The guy looked down and rocked back on his heels. “Days aren’t days without them,” he said.

  “Mine are Converse,” Steven said.

  The guy gave a low whistle. “Nice,” he said.

  Steven thought maybe he was making fun of him.

  “Are you okay on your own?” the guy asked.

  “Not really,” Steven said.

  The guy nodded as if agreeing with something wise. “I’m Matthew,” he said.

  “Okay,” Steven said.

  “So how about we find your mother?” he said.

  His mother had told him about strangers, but he was going to find his mom anyway. He stood up and they started walking, the bike between them.

  Everyone was still there. The sun was low over the river. It was hard for him to make out who was who in the group. Someone spotted them, pointed, and shouted. His mother broke free and came running toward them. It was like TV.

  She dropped to her knees and hugged him, saying things. He was embarrassed, but glad to be there, and he put his arms around her, his cheek knocking into her shoulder.

  He introduced her to the guy.
She was grateful and nice. Matthew looked at her. Everyone stayed out a little longer. It was a celebration. It got dark, and still they stayed. Matthew promised to teach him how to ride a bike, and Steven knew he really would.

  His mother said, “Let’s raise a glass.” She didn’t have one, but said it anyway. She raised a hand.

  He looked around. They were all there: people he knew and people he didn’t. They’d been worried, and now they weren’t. He’d been scared, and now he wasn’t. It could happen that easily. Everything wasn’t already the way it was going to be. Things could happen. Things could change. It was a good thing to know.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to Detective Larry Adams, Trudy Ames, Ellen Biben, Jason Clark, Cassandra Cleghorn, Sean Griffin, Sandra Leong, Robert McGuire, Dr. Paul Rosenthal, Marsha Recknagel, Geoff Sanborn, Eric Simonoff, Harold Takooshian, Sarah Towers, Claire Wachtel, and Gary Zebrun.

  And to my husband, Jim Shepard, and our children, Aidan, Emmett, and Lucy.

  About the Author

  KAREN SHEPARD is the author of the novels An Empire of Women and The Bad Boy’s Wife. Her work has appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Self, Bomb, and other publications. She teaches writing and literature at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where she lives with her husband, writer Jim Shepard, and their three children.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  PRAISE FOR

  Don’t I Know You?

  “[T]he most suspenseful and moving novel I’ve read in many years…. This is a book that haunts and tantalizes and possesses us long after the last page is turned.”

  —Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried

  “Riveting and deeply felt and true.”

  —Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius