I’ve lost track of what Paige is saying. I see her standing there, sprinkling freshly grated cheese on top of something in a baking dish, her lips moving. But it’s as if someone has placed a pane of glass between us. I can’t hear the words coming out of her mouth.
It’s been happening more and more, ever since Syd died. I’ll be in midconversation with someone and I’ll lose the thread. By the time I realize I’ve drifted off, I’ve already missed so much.
“And we would obviously redo the flooring,” Paige says, “so it’s all the same.”
That’s right. She was explaining how she wants to knock down the half wall between the kitchen and living room to make their home more open concept. “That sounds great.”
“She’s been talking about this since February eighth, 2010,” Joan says from her seat at the kitchen table.
“Yes,” Paige admits. “But now we can finally do it.”
I’m tearing up pieces of kale and dropping them into a wooden salad bowl. I enjoy cooking, but tonight my heart’s not in it. Just handling this food reminds me how little I’ve cooked in the past month, how poorly I’ve been eating. And that leads me back to Sydney and the surreal conversation I had with his assistant.
I’m at a loss. I can’t imagine why Sydney would lie to me about going to New York for business. On second thought, that’s not true. I can imagine why and I have imagined it. It’s just that I’d rather not consider those unpleasant possibilities. All I know is that he wasn’t home with me.
“Here,” Joan says.
I stare at the peeler in her hands.
“For the cucumber,” she explains.
“Right. Thanks.”
Again this afternoon I was unable to resist Joan’s invitation into the past. Returning to the slow beginnings of my relationship with Syd reminded me that as open and honest as he was about most things, he could also be quite careful and deliberate. Especially with his heart, which had been badly broken before we met and which I had to prove myself worthy of being allowed to rebuild. Considering how long it took to gain his trust, I find it hard to believe he would do anything to jeopardize my trust in him. That’s what makes this whole thing so hard to comprehend.
I’ve done it again, drifted off while Paige is talking.
“I feel better putting money into the house now that the neighborhood is finally coming along,” she says. “It still has a ways to go, but you should’ve seen it when we first moved here. The idea of having a farmers’ market in Riverview Park was laughable.”
From what I’ve seen of the neighborhood so far, it’s mostly three-and four-story residential buildings with minimal commerce beyond a couple of bodegas and laundromats. This particular block features a real hodgepodge of exteriors, from brick to stucco to vinyl, the last of which adorns the Sully duplex.
“You can’t beat the scenery,” I say, gesturing out the kitchen window. The Sullys’ house is perched on the far east edge of an elevated neighborhood known as the Heights, offering a nearly unobstructed view across the Hudson River to Manhattan.
“That’s why we moved here,” Paige says, only half joking. She slides the pan of eggplant Parmesan into the oven. “Obviously, at the time Ollie needed to be close to the city for his music.”
“What do you mean, he needed to be close?” Joan barks. “Why do you say it like that? He still needs to be close.”
Paige turns away from her daughter. She calmly shuts the oven door and gives me a deadpan look. “How about some wine?”
“Syd had this big yellow boat of a car,” Paige says, her face glowing under the porch light. She and I are out back in the courtyard, bellies full and wine in our glasses. The sleepless city sparkles ahead. “I mean, it was the ugliest car I’ve ever seen. And like that wasn’t bad enough, the turn signal had broken off, so he had to use a popsicle stick to work the blinker.”
“No way.”
“I’m serious,” she says, the absurdity setting off a flurry of laughter.
I’m laughing too, but it’s nothing like what Paige is experiencing. I’m jealous of the mental picture she has of teenage Syd and his ugly car. “Do you have photos of you guys from back then?”
“Somewhere. I’ll have to dig them out.”
The story Paige is in the middle of telling is one I’ve heard before. It’s not like my time with Joan, where I’m hoping to learn something new. Indeed, it’s the opposite: I’m finding unexpected comfort in an old tale told by an old friend.
“He used to give me a ride home from school every day in that car of his,” Paige says. “Then my sister broke up with him and started dating someone else. Syd said he’d keep driving me anyway, which really irked Lauren. She had to go back to taking the bus while her freshman sister was getting a ride with a senior. She was convinced Syd was just trying to stick it to her by driving me. But the truth is, he didn’t seem all that upset about the breakup. He was never that into Lauren to begin with.”
“Did you wonder about him?”
“The thought never crossed my mind,” Paige says. “I was too busy falling in love with him. We were spending so much time together after school. My friends were jealous; they thought Syd and I were dating, and I let them believe it. I wanted it to be true. But it got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Is that when you kissed him?”
“Oh yeah,” Paige says with exaggerated humility. “He saw me coming a mile away. I wasn’t suave about it either. He basically just stuck out his arm and held me at a distance. He said I was like a sister to him. He drove me home from school the next day like nothing had happened. He would’ve kept driving me, too, if Lauren didn’t tell my parents. They didn’t like the idea that I was spending so much time alone with a senior. It didn’t change anything, though. He still gave me a lift. He’d drop me off down the street from my house, and we still talked on the phone.”
She pauses, bites the inside of her mouth. With her feet scrunched up on the chair, her whole body contracted, I have no problem picturing her as the fifteen-year-old girl with the older-boy crush.
“I went to his graduation. I have a picture somewhere. That summer I’d go swimming at the rec center where he was a lifeguard. I’d pretend to be drowning but he’d never save me. Then it was time for him to leave for Michigan. He said he’d call me and he did at first, but we lost touch. When we got close again, after college, he was dating Samantha. He was thinking about marrying her. I was so negative about it. I couldn’t control myself. Of course, then he broke it off and told me why.”
The crickets take over. Maybe it’s just one city cricket. His chirp is so insistent, I barely catch Paige’s next words.
“He was the best.”
I stay quiet.
“I don’t get it. He was forty-two, in perfect health.”
She wants to know why. I’ve asked the same thing of the doctor, of Google, of myself. I received only theories, possible causes and effects. That’s not what Paige is looking for, but it’s all I have. “They say it was probably an arrhythmia that went undetected.”
The same image flashes: his bare feet on the rug. I’d had a late night of shooting. If it had been another day, I might’ve woken up with him. On that morning, I didn’t rise until after nine. By then it had been hours. They say it was quick. Still, I picture him lying there, all alone.
I place my open palm on the glass tabletop. She wipes her eye before taking my hand.
“I’m sorry,” Paige says, her wet cheek shimmering in the low light. She sucks in through her nose, puts a period on her sorrow.
When it first happened, I couldn’t stop crying. My food tasted like tears. Now, I couldn’t cry if I tried. It’s not a positive development, just a different kind of problem.
“Let’s talk about something else,” Paige says with perfect timing. “I’m trying to plan a family vacation.”
“That’ll be good. Where to?”
“Right now I’m thinking Costa Rica.”
Another reminder. I have the pictures on my laptop: us in the hot springs, taking surfing lessons, at a coffee farm, on a remote beach. “We loved it there,” I say.
“That’s right. I forgot you guys went. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”
“It’s fine. Believe me, there’s not much we can talk about that doesn’t lead back to him.”
“I just really want to make this vacation count,” Paige says. “It’s like, do we go somewhere with some history? Let Joan experience some culture? Or do we just plant ourselves on a beach somewhere? Personally, all I want is a piña colada and a trashy book. It’s been a stressful few years.”
“So the studio is really closing?”
She lifts her hair off the back of her neck and holds it in a clump on top of her head, giving her neck a chance to breathe. “We just thought it was time. Ollie’s dad hasn’t been the same since his wife died, and Ollie thought it was time to step in and help him. Obviously, if the studio were doing well, it would be a different story. But we can’t keep going like this. Now Ollie can get a steady paycheck and we can rent out the space. We won’t have to worry all the time.”
Ollie has been pursuing music for as long as I’ve known him. He’s outlasted so many others who showed early promise but quit when life took over or their passion ran out. Earlier tonight he wolfed down his dinner and slipped downstairs to record. Paige warned me that I might find him asleep on the studio couch. “How’s he taking it?”
“He tries not to show it, but I know it’s hard. At the same time, he’s tired of putting so much of himself into these songs in the hope that somewhere down the line someone might pay him to use them. It’s heartbreaking. You do all this work and nothing comes of it.”
I get it. Until I landed The Long Arm, I was constantly going out on auditions, putting my heart into roles I ultimately didn’t win. Still, as much as I’ve threatened to quit acting in the past, I can’t imagine trading in the creative life for something like a construction gig or whatever it is Ollie’s father has him doing. I haven’t had a chance to ask him about the specifics. I just know that whenever I meet ex-artists, they always look half alive.
“As long as he’s good with it,” I say.
“Honestly, it’s been tough, but I think he’s also excited to have a fresh start and some peace of mind. We’re all excited.”
I’m not sure I believe that. “What about Joan? She seemed pretty edgy before dinner.”
Paige sighs. “She blames me. But the truth is, I’m the only reason the studio has lasted this long. I don’t mind having to work through the summer tutoring if I can put the money toward something like a vacation or fixing the house, you know. But to keep putting it back into a business that’s just not working—I can’t do it anymore.”
Judging by how much she feels the need to explain, it seems she’s harboring a certain amount of guilt. I wonder if Ollie knows everything she just told me.
“By the way,” Paige says, “thanks for helping Joan with her song. She normally relies on her father for that stuff. We really appreciate you doing that.”
“No problem. It’s been sort of fun. I haven’t worked on music in so long.”
I stare off into the night. From here, Manhattan’s soaring towers look quaint and manageable. My mind returns, as always, to him. “Can I ask you something? I was talking to Joan and she said Sydney last came here in January.”
“That sounds right. Why?”
“He was supposedly back in New York in February and April. Did you see him then?”
She searches her mind. “No. I didn’t even know he was in town.”
“That’s what’s strange. I’m not sure he was.” Just saying this stuff out loud makes it more real. “The reason he kept coming back was that he was working on some project. That’s what he told me. He had so many things going on at once, I can’t even remember what the project was. But the weird part is, I spoke to his assistant and she said Syd didn’t take any business trips to New York this year. As far as she knows, there was no project.”
Her forehead wrinkles with more than her usual concern.
“And there’s something else,” I say. “I specifically remember him telling me that he saw you in April and he took you out for your birthday.”
Paige has always had the entire world’s worry in her eyes. But when faced with a tangible problem, she, more than anyone, can be relied on to provide a level-headed solution. “No,” she says. “That never happened. Ollie was supposed to take me out for my birthday, but we had to cancel. I got sick.”
That’s what Joan said. I was hoping these many discrepancies could be explained away as nothing more than an innocent misunderstanding, but that seems like wishful thinking at this point.
“When he was here in January, did he mention anything about work?” I say. “Do you remember what you guys talked about?”
“I’m not sure,” Paige says, still processing it all. “I know he wanted to look at some property while he was here. I don’t know if he did.”
That’s not surprising; we often spoke about moving back east. But what I can’t fathom is the blatant deceit. It just seems unthinkable that my gray-haired man lied straight to my face.
I stare off. The city glows in the distance.
“What are you thinking?” she says.
“Nothing,” I say, because I don’t want to have to explain what I’m feeling. I can’t prove it yet, but I know it in my heart: He’s out there, Sydney, some leftover impression of him. And I really have no choice anymore. I have to give chase.