Metropolis, p.9
Metropolis, page 9
She steps into the library, which also sounds and smells like all libraries, but there the similarity ends. Books line the shelves, but they, like the buildings she just passed, are well-worn, in some cases falling apart. A couple dozen computers sit atop a line of desks, but they, too, are outdated. Some even sport bulky cathode-ray monitors, their rear ends jutting out at least a foot. More than a few screens have a yellow sticky note in the middle of their blank faces: out of order.
Liddy settles herself in an alcove holding a battered table that looks as if it came from someone’s grandmother’s dining room. This is where the tutors work. She’s here to help seniors with their college essays. It’s a PEN/New England program, and she’s been a volunteer since its inception. She joined PEN, a national writers’ organization, decades ago, when she intended to be a writer.
Well, she actually was a writer then. Of a sort. At least six short stories and a similar number of essays published, although, as Garrett later pointed out, nowhere particularly prestigious. The first draft of a novel completed, now stuffed in the back of her closet, full of characters she thinks of as old friends, who are waiting for her to come back and set them straight. Garrett called it her “little story,” and teased that her MFA was from a “hick university,” not acknowledging that the University of Iowa has one of the best creative writing programs in the country.
“You Liddy?” a thin girl with earrings hanging to her shoulders asks.
“I am.” Liddy grins, probably too broadly, points to the chair next to her. “You must be Kennedy.”
Kennedy sits grudgingly, inspects her fingernails. “I’m a shitty writer.”
“That’s what everyone says. I bet you’re a lot better than you think.”
After working with three students, Liddy heads home, tired and depleted but feeling that at least she accomplished something. She grabs her usual lunch of yogurt and crackers and settles herself back at the kitchen table, just as indecisive as she was earlier. Garrett.
She thinks back to the afternoon her mother told her that she had lost all her assets in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Neither she nor her mom actually understood the ins and outs of what had happened, but it was clear to Liddy that her seven-figure inheritance was gone. She immediately called Garrett, and even though it was the middle of the day, he came right home. When he walked in the door, she and her mother were holding each other, confused and devastated.
Liddy jumped up and threw herself in his arms. “It can’t be what her financial advisor told her. How could this be possible when the government is overseeing—”
“Shh” he murmured. Then he gently loosened Liddy’s grasp, led her to the couch, and knelt next to his mother-in-law. “It’s going to be fine, Harriet. I’ll take care of everything.”
Over the following months, Garrett worked with the lawyers and accountants, bought her mother’s house so she could remain in it, and wrestled enough money out of Madoff’s remaining assets to provide a small income. And when her mom developed dementia, he paid, without complaint, for the pricey nursing home. How proud Liddy had been of him, how much she’d loved him for his kindness and generosity.
He was equally generous with her household account, depositing more than she needed into the checkbook every month, encouraging her to use what was left over to buy little luxuries, to indulge herself and the children. Of course, the better decked out and pampered they were, the better he looked. Whatever his motive, this and her mother’s generosity had allowed her to stash over $200,000 in an offshore account. Not a tax dodge, a safety net, set up for a circumstance just like this.
She looks out over Boston into Cambridge, imagines she can see Metropolis, and thinks about the time stretching forward. Forty, perhaps fifty more years with Garrett, her puppeteer. He sent her children away. He took her house away. He scorned her dream of becoming a novelist. He belittled and controlled her. He threatened to kill her. He tried to strangle her. And then he punched her. She finishes her tea and places the cup in the dishwasher. There is nothing to rethink.
Obviously, she never told Garrett she’d moved the twins’ belongings to Metropolis, and as she’s always paid Rose in cash, there’s no way to connect her with the building. It’s against the law for anyone to live in a storage unit, so it won’t occur to him to look for her there. She’s willing to pay Rose handsomely and is sure Rose will let her move in. The woman is always so happy to see her, always wants her to stay longer, sulks if Liddy doesn’t come by for a few days. And Liddy is well aware that Rose would love to know more about her life, for them to share confidences, to be friends.
Rose’s interest has always made Liddy uncomfortable, but Rose is a good soul, and she’s clearly bored and lonely. It costs Liddy nothing to pop into her office once in a while. But it’s almost as if Rose lives in a different world, in an older and simpler time, with absolute rights and wrongs. She married just out of high school and lives in the same triple-decker where she grew up, in the scrappy town of Revere. A serious Catholic. Liddy can’t imagine how Rose interpreted her cocaine-induced antics last week, or what might be going through Rose’s mind in the wake of her kiss.
What a colossal mistake. What the hell was she thinking? She’d been flying too high, hadn’t been thinking at all. In that moment, she’d been overwhelmed by gratitude for Rose’s kindness and concern, but hugging and then kissing her? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Yet another reason to stop doing cocaine.
She has to clear the air. But what explanation can she give? She can’t tell Rose about the coke, because Rose would be horrified that she’s using drugs. In another universe, Liddy could just move her belongings to a different storage site. But that isn’t going to happen. She can’t leave Garrett without Rose’s help.
16
Rose
Rose has been waiting since last Thursday for Liddy to come by the office. It’s been five days so far, including the weekend, since she saw her, since the kiss. Both last week and today, Rose has tried to keep busy with paperwork and phone calls and interviews. But there’s still been lots of empty hours to drink too much coffee and wonder where Liddy might be. If the fact that she hasn’t been in for so long means she’s trying to avoid her.
Then three reports of possessions going missing from storage units came in and distracted her. It happens every once in a while, but it’s never happened all together like this. It almost always turns out that the renter misplaced their things or brought them somewhere else, but Mr. Peters and Angie Holladay and Linda Shields all say they would remember if that was the case. Not enough time has gone by to tell for sure, but it was all expensive stuff, which is suspicious. The only thing Rose can do is hope it was forgetfulness so there’ll be no reason to tell Zach. Or even worse, to tell the police. That would make her look bad.
And then there was the whole weekend trying to keep Vince from beating up on Michael after he didn’t come home all night without telling them. Michael has Vince’s temper and he’s got at least two inches and thirty pounds on his father. Plus his new football skills. It was all she could do to keep them from bashing each other’s heads in. More likely it would have been Michael bashing Vince’s head in. Michael usually comes home after practice but he’s been staying out late at Reggie’s more and more. If it weren’t for the football, she’d be really worried. Because he’s got to keep fit and can’t do any drugs in order not to get kicked off the squad. She tried to reach Reggie’s mom a couple of times but just got the answering machine. Then the machine stopped picking up and there’s been no call back.
Finally, late Monday afternoon Liddy steps into the office looking guilty and uncomfortable. She sits on the edge of a chair and covers her face, then peers through her fingers at Rose. “I was in here, in your office, on Wednesday afternoon, wasn’t I?”
“Yes . . . ,” Rose says, and tries to keep her voice normal. Of course Liddy was here Wednesday afternoon.
“I’m so embarrassed,” Liddy says. “I have this vague memory of being in here, but I was so drunk I didn’t know if I was or I wasn’t. I never drink during the day, but I was so upset about, about . . . well, Garrett . . .”
Heat climbs Rose’s neck. After she’s been stewing about the kiss, is Liddy saying she doesn’t remember it? That she was so drunk she had a blackout? Rose has seen lots of blackout drunks, and was even one herself once or twice in her younger days, but Liddy didn’t act like any drunk she’d seen before. Liddy was walking back and forth across the office and her balance was fine. She wasn’t slurring her words either.
“I, I remember being in my unit,” Liddy continues. “And I definitely remember playing with Robin’s dollhouse, but then it all gets blurry . . .”
Rose tries to match up Liddy’s words with what happened. She knows there are lots of kinds of drunks: the crying ones, the mean ones, the dopey ones, the quiet ones. So maybe she’s got it wrong. Maybe Liddy was drinking tequila or one of those other kinds of alcohol her Vince says makes you a different kind of drunk.
“You came down here after that, told me about the dollhouse,” Rose says. “I, uh, I kind of thought you might be drunk. You were acting weird.”
“Was I? How awful. Did I do anything terrible?” Liddy looks at Rose for a second, then her eyes slide away.
There’s something in Liddy’s voice that makes Rose think she’s lying. That this is a made-up story so they can pretend the kiss never happened. That Liddy had never said what a good person Rose was. It would be an easy way out. An easy way to make it all go away. “It was just me and you,” Rose says quickly to hide her disappointment and shame. “You were a bit silly actually, but nothing terrible at all.”
“Well, that’s a huge relief,” Liddy says. “So you forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Rose says, but she kind of thinks there is. Like that Liddy was sort of leading her on about how close friends they were and might be lying about it to her now. “Except that you should never have gotten behind the wheel in that condition.”
“I know. It was dumb. I promise I won’t do it again.”
“I’m not your mother.” Rose is suddenly afraid Liddy might be lying about this too. “You don’t need to promise me anything. You need to promise yourself.” But then she remembers that it’s probably all fake and Liddy wasn’t drunk at all. Or was she?
“Okay, Mom,” Liddy says, and flashes her a grin.
Rose struggles to return it. “You, uh, you never came in after that. And then it was the weekend. Is everything all right? You said you were upset about Garrett. Did he, uh, do something bad?”
“Actually I’m more than all right. And I have a proposition for you.”
Rose’s heart jumps. “What kind of proposition?”
“I have a favor to ask you, and it’s a big one.” Liddy hesitates. “I have to leave Garrett, and I have to go somewhere, at least for a while, where he can’t find me . . .”
“Is this about the double unit you were asking about the other day? There’s no problem with that. It’s not a favor.”
“The favor part is that I don’t just want the unit—I want to move in there.” Then she explains how and why she wants to do this.
Liddy told Rose enough bad things about Garrett for her to be glad Liddy is going to leave him. What a horrible, horrible man. But she worries that hiding at Metropolis is a bad idea. If Garrett is as smart as Liddy says, it seems like he’d be able to find her. Then again, it also seems weird that he’d spend tons of money and time to try to find someone he doesn’t love. But when she asked about it, Liddy explained that it isn’t so much that he doesn’t love her. She said it’s that in his own screwed-up way he loves her too much. Which Rose gets because her sister-in-law Maggie had a boyfriend like that.
Although the whole kiss thing still kind of bothers her, she’s happy Liddy is around more. She’s paying twice as much as Marta and Serge combined, and over the last couple of weeks Rose has been helping with the move. This means she gets to hang out with Liddy way more than when Liddy only had one unit.
The new one is very nice, as storage units go, with two round windows and way more light than any of the others. All the furniture Liddy buys makes it even nicer. Every day, FedEx and UPS and lots of other trucks show up with packages addressed to #421, and there are as many different names on the address labels as there are packages. That Liddy is a clever one.
Rose brings in things that Liddy forgets to buy or doesn’t think she needs. Rose’s parents’ apartment is so crowded with stuff her mother saved over the years that you can barely walk through the rooms. And the basement is crammed full. Mama would happily give Rose’s friend enough to furnish an entire house. But Liddy doesn’t need a full set of silverware or glasses or dishes, so Rose takes a handful of each to #421. She even found a new toaster oven in the basement that was still in its box.
And then there are the little presents Rose picks up just because. Some pretty throw pillows to brighten up the couch and bed, and two hand-painted teacups from a fancy gift shop she passes on her way to work. The cups were pricey and she feels terribly guilty, but every time Liddy drinks from one Rose knows that she’ll think about her. Liddy is excited and nervous and always moving fast, but Rose sees how much she appreciates her help. Together they unpack boxes and move furniture around and hang posters and lay down rugs. It’s almost like two girlfriends setting up their first apartment.
She worries that even with all these nice things Liddy will be lonely and maybe scared when she’s alone at night and on the weekends. It occurs to Rose that when Liddy moves in she should introduce her to Marta. It’s not like they’d be close friends or anything. They’re as different as different can be, way more than she and Liddy are. Skin color, nationality, and Marta is a lot younger than Liddy. But wouldn’t it make both of them feel better to know there’s another girl in the building? If she were Liddy or Marta, she’d sleep a lot easier.
17
Liddy
Liddy googles “how to disappear.” No credit cards. No phone calls. No internet. No car. Delete social media accounts. Destroy photos, amass cash. Dye hair, buy new clothes, get a hat. Quit job, concoct an excuse for friends. Go far away, plant false leads, construct a new history, etc., etc., etc. Some of the advice isn’t relevant, as she’s not trying to disappear forever. But much of it is, because Garrett is sure to hire a detective to find her.
She continues to give Garrett the cold shoulder, and he’s growing tired of playing the repentant apologizer. He presents Boston Partners in Education with the gift she promised, in an attempt to prove his good intentions, but the other day she caught him reading her texts. He claimed he was looking for the time of a dinner date, but then why didn’t he check her calendar? He insists they share all their passwords and gets angry and carries on if she doesn’t inform him when she changes one.
She tells her friends and the Burke that she’s going to a writers’ retreat for a few months to work on her novel. She tells the twins the same and explains that there’s no cell service but she’ll have access to a landline and will call them. She returns her leased car to the dealer so the addresses in the GPS will be wiped clean, drops her cell into a storm drain, clears her computer’s history, and donates it to the Burke. Then she cleans out her secret bank account. Two hundred thousand dollars in cash should be more than enough to hold her until she figures out her final exit strategy.
She buys a bed, bureau, couch, desk, chairs, tables, lamps, television, refrigerator, kitchen supplies, dozens of books she’s always wanted to read, even a few inexpensive paintings and rugs. She ships them all to Metropolis under a variety of false names, a different name for each purchase, procured from a diverse group of stores, always with cash. When she shops, sometimes she wears a long dark wig, sometimes a short blond one. Sometimes glasses, sometimes not. Sometimes in heavy makeup, sometimes clean-faced. Hats.
She gets the same kick out of this probably unnecessary subterfuge that she gets out of copping cocaine from Sandy in a hotel bathroom, and she takes a quick trip up to Rockport to do just that. She orders a case of cabernet and a few bottles of vodka. She buys a computer and a printer and a box of paper. She retrieves her old manuscript from the back of the closet.
Every time she leaves the condo, she brings a few items of clothing with her—nothing obvious, nothing bulky, just enough to fill a couple of shopping bags. She doesn’t want to take so much that Garrett will notice her closet appears emptier than usual. Nor is it necessary to have everything in place when she moves in. At first, Garrett’s detective will be searching for her at writers’ retreats, not looking for her at Metropolis, or in Cambridge, for that matter, so she’ll be free to pick up whatever else she might need. Just to be safe, she’ll stay in the unit most of the time. Hence, the books and the manuscript she’s planning to rewrite. When she ventures out, she’ll wear one of her disguises.
Rose has been helpful with the logistics, particularly in directing the many delivery people to #421 no matter what name is on the order, and helping her set up the unit. She’s paid her for her time, of course, but Liddy feels uneasy with Rose’s willingness to drop everything if she thinks Liddy needs her, and even more uncomfortable with what seems to be Rose’s desire to be close friends. Part of this is because in order to make her plan work, Liddy was forced to confide in Rose more than she would have in ordinary circumstances. A few days ago, Rose showed up with a box of her mother’s dishes, silverware, and glasses—even a toaster oven. Yesterday, she shyly presented Liddy with a pair of hand-painted teacups as a “housewarming present.”
On a late September morning, Liddy leaves a note informing Garrett she’s going to a writers’ retreat, that he won’t be able to reach her, and she doesn’t know when she’ll return. She casually exits The Tower, walks to Tremont Street, and hails a cab to Cambridge. She’s jittery and scared. She’s also thrumming with adrenaline.
