Thought I Knew You (6 page)

The woman nodded. “I work every day,” she said in stilted English. “Every day not Tuesday. We closed Tuesday.”

“Do you just work the register, or are you a waitress, too?”

She shook her head as if she didn’t quite understand. “I work tables, at register, in kitchen. This my father’s restaurant.”

I reached into my purse and pulled out five of the fifteen pictures of Greg. I shut my eyes for a moment. I needed her to say she had seen him. I fanned the pictures in front of her, as I had done with Joe at the hotel.

“Do you remember seeing this man?” I asked. “Take your time. Think about—”

“Yes. I seat him. He sat in this booth.” She walked out from behind the counter and pointed at the booth right behind the register. “It was early. Only few table with people.”

Excited, I started to thank her.

She added, “He was with woman.”

Chapter 8

“T
hat son of a bitch!”

Drew put his arms around me and moved to shield me from the people on the sidewalk who had turned to look. “Look, you don’t know anything yet. Dinner isn’t an affair. Does he work with a woman? It really could have been innocent.”

“If I believe that, then I’m a complete idiot. I’ve been so adamant that Greg didn’t leave us, but he did, Drew. I really think he did.” I put my hand over my mouth, feeling the bile rise in my throat. I sank to my knees in the middle of the sidewalk, not caring who might be looking.

Drew managed to get me back to the hotel and tuck me into bed. “Take a nap,” he instructed.

I drifted in and out of a sleep interspersed with visions of Greg and spotty dreams, like a stuck filmstrip—Greg tied to a chair, blindfolded, loud and angry men with guns pointed at his head; Greg lying half-dead on the side of Route 96 somewhere; Greg in my hotel room pushing the hair off my face, shushing me, telling me everything would be okay.
Greg.

When I woke up, the clock read six thirty. I looked toward the window. The dark gray sky with shafts of slanted light on the horizon gave no indication if it was dusk or dawn. My mind played back the day’s events with the final realization of Greg’s affair thudding in my chest. I thought of my girls, home with my mother while I chased… Who? Invisible kidnappers? I was a fool, gullible and naïve. I knew what everyone else must have seen—a woman too desperate to believe her husband had left her, clinging to the fantasy of a mysterious “disappearance.”

When I flung open the door between our adjoining rooms, Drew was lying on his bed, watching television. He jumped for the second time that day. “You’ve
got
to learn to knock.” He grinned.

“Is it morning or night?”

“Night.”

I was surprised. “Are you hungry?”

“Famished.”

“Me, too, and I want to get very, very drunk.”

“Claire…” He shrugged.

“Don’t,” I admonished. “Lecturing me about anything right now would be a very bad idea.”

We left the hotel in search of a bar. I needed greasy food and beer. I still wanted to find Greg, but I wanted him to pay for what he had done to me and his kids. He needed to understand the consequences of his actions. Did he really think he could just walk away? If he was so miserable, why not just divorce me? Was it the money? I couldn’t figure it out. Greg was never that selfish. He always put his family first. So why leave this way? What if he had cheated on me, and something horrible had happened to him? Would I care? Of course I would care; he was the father of my kids. My head was swimming with too many questions crashing into each other. I needed to stop thinking, and the fastest way I knew to do that was alcohol.

We found what we were looking for a few blocks away at McGraff’s Pub. The air inside was cool and smelled faintly of stale beer and Pine-Sol. The restaurant was fairly empty, save for a few single patrons who sat at the bar, staring blankly at one of several flat screen televisions playing various football games. We chose a booth, and Drew sat across from me, unusually quiet. When the waitress came over, I ordered a cheeseburger and fries, then without thinking, a Sam Adams, which made me think of Greg. My mood swung wildly between melancholy and anger.

“I still need to find him,” I said after Drew placed his order and the waitress left. I had finally found my words—most of them of the four-letter variety. On our drive down, I had been withdrawn and sad, lost in confusion, thinking of Greg as some kind of victim. With some solid evidence of an affair, I became the angry predator Drew had tried to draw out earlier. “But now, he better be terrified when I do.”

Drew shook his head. “Listen. I want you to stop and think. We technically don’t know any more than we did before we left to come down here. Dinner is just that—dinner. It could have been a colleague who happened to love Thai food. My point is, I’m okay with your anger because it’s so much better than that lifeless, silent person you were before. But you need to focus if we’re going to make some progress here. This is
not
a lecture.”

“Really? Because it feels like one,” I snapped, sitting back in the booth and staring past him. Greg used to call my silent treatment the Great Wall of Claire.

The overlapping sports games competed for attention, the announcers talking over each other in an enthusiastic rush. When our burgers and beers came, I gave up the brooding in favor of eating and drank four beers in succession. After the fourth, I asked for a shot of tequila.

Drew put his hand over mine. “Not a lecture, but legitimately a
terrible idea.
”

“I know. But I’m so damn tired of always having good ones.” I grinned.

He motioned to the waitress, who was at the bar picking up my shot, and held up two fingers. Suddenly, it was a party. And not the pitying kind.

Drew wrapped his arm around my waist, holding me upright, our hips softly knocking as we walked.
Bump. Bump
. I swayed unsteadily with every step. The tequila tasted acidic, sharp, and stabbing in my chest.

“Do you think he’s here?” I slurred. The street took on an unreal cast, and I squinted, blurring the glow of the street lamps together above my head.

“Here, as in Rochester?”

“Yeah, do you think we’re gonna find him?” It seemed important suddenly that Drew not only be there, supporting me, but that he genuinely believe in our mission.
Our mission?
I laughed, a single guttural “HA!”
As if we’re superheroes.

Drew led me through the lobby and into the elevator. He pushed the button for the sixth floor. I watched the numbers above the door climb and winced at the
ding
when we reached our floor. The lights seemed too bright, the ding too loud, and the hallway swayed like a suspension bridge.

I fumbled with my card key, cursing at the unrelenting red light on the handle until Drew gently took the card. In a single movement, he slid it in, then out, and the green light blinked. I smirked.
Show off.

In the room, I took off my shoes and tossed them on the floor. I dug out my pajamas—a T-shirt and mesh Princeton shorts—and with only a quick glance at Drew, pulled my shirt over my head, the hotel room air cold against my bare back. He had flopped on the bed and was studying the remote as I dressed.
Whatever. Where the hell is my hair tie?
I dug through my bag until I found a rubber band suitable for holding my long black hair away from my face.

“You’re always taking care of me when I drink,” I said, speaking slowly.
HA! I didn’t even slur that one
.

“Well, then, stop drinking so much.” He smiled and winked, patting the empty spot on the bed next to him.

I sat against the headboard, folding my legs underneath me, and cast a sideways glance at him. “Remember the prom?”

Drew shifted, pulling one leg up, ever so slightly angling away from me. He turned on the television and studied the guide. “Of course I remember the prom.”

We’d attended prom together for lack of other options. Drew had just broken up with his girlfriend—they were nearing his dreaded six-month mark—and I had stayed single most of my high school years.

I brought a flask and kept spiking my punch. Drew said he didn’t need to drink, that he had just as much fun sober. By the end of the night, I was sufficiently drunk and led him to the rear of the school. My hair, once piled in ringlet curls on my head, had come unpinned during the dancing and was hanging haphazardly down my back. I wore a strapless light pink gown, a satin mistake that had become blotched with punch and rum. Drew’s bowtie was draped around my neck, a badge of entitlement. His shirt was untucked and unbuttoned at the neck, the typical end-of-the-night mayhem of formal attire.

My face burned from the alcohol, and the air outside smelled ripe of summer and pheromones. I pushed him against the back wall of the school, aware then of the power I’d had over him, but the alcohol made me reckless, selfish, willing to risk our friendship. I leaned against him, feeling the entire length of his body against mine, and kissed his neck at the soft dip of flesh near his collarbone. I heard his intake of breath, and his hands ran down my back, pulling me into him.

“Claire.” He kissed me. He tasted of sunshine and childhood, and conversely, seduction and sex.

He pushed me away. “Claire, you’re drunk. I don’t want this, not like this.”

My anger came quick and hot.
Rejection, seriously?
I laughed. “Are you kidding? It’s all you’ve ever wanted.”

“I still do. But I want it… forever, not just for tonight, when you’re drunk and can pretend this never happened.”

“You get me now. It’s your chance.
Now
. We get a hotel room like everyone else and make love on prom night like seniors are
supposed
to do. Or we don’t. You choose.” I stepped back, arms outstretched, like a game show host showing off a prize.

He turned his head to the side. “Claire, don’t…”

I let my arms fall and shook my head. When he didn’t move, I stormed away and left him against the wall.

“It would have been fun, you know.” I laughed, then flipped back the covers. The action seemed dramatic, larger than life, because of the tequila. I felt humiliated all over again and didn’t know why I’d brought up the memory. I rarely thought about it over the years, and we never spoke about it.
It’s all you’ve ever wanted.
It was a cruel thing to say, and his stricken expression had stayed with me. Drew stretched out, crossing his feet at the ankles, and I burrowed beneath the blankets.

He looked over at me and, smiling, patted my head, Cindy Lou Who style. “Nah, we wouldn’t have stayed friends, then.”

When my head hit the pillow, I felt my eyes drift, sleep coming in waves, despite the spinning sensation in my head. I longed for sleep that was deep and dreamless, absent of images of Greg in danger. I reached out blindly and patted his arm. “Then I’m glad you said no.” Before I had time to figure out if that was true, I passed out.