happening? How had she gotten here? Hadn’t she planned to leave The Breviary, and move back with Saraub? Weren’t there papers left to sign back in Lincoln? Betty. The coma. Had she really left her there without pulling the plug?
“Crap,” she moaned.
Zzzzt! Zzzzt!
And the room, oh God. At first she didn’t know why the floor was covered in sparse carpet that rippled near the heating ducts like a field of butterflies. But a split second later, she understood. All the clothes from her suitcase. All her other clothes, too. She’d hoarded them for years. Her army peacoat from Saraub, her never-worn but much-loved, skimpy polka-dot bikini, her thrift-store slacks and blouses, grad-school overalls, I NY T-shirt. Every one of them signified an event she’d survived; another move, another episode with Betty, finals week at UN, the blue paisley blouse she’d worn to the Film Forum that first night she’d met Saraub. All gone now. Everything she owned but the clothes on her back, gone.
The fabric of her former clothing lay in pieces on the floor. They hadn’t just been torn, but shredded small as flower petals. Red, pink, green, gray, black, blue: a motley rainbow. As she walked toward the turret, the breeze her body made carried them with her.
Zzzzt! Zzzzt!
She realized now, that the sound was coming from her pants. A bug? A bone finger, scratching? Was she still sleeping? She reached fast into her back pocket. Her phone, set to vibrate. “Oh Goddamn it!” she whispered, then flipped it open.
“Hello?” the woman on the other line asked.
“Yeah,” she said. Her voice was raw, like she’d been screaming all night.
There was a pause for a second or two. Then, “Audrey?”
“Yeah.” She looked around the room. A mess in here. She felt her crotch, to make sure she hadn’t pissed her pants. Wished she hadn’t felt it, because her hand came back wet. Seriously? Again?
What was the last thing she remembered? The taxi driver, who’d smelled like patchouli and Jheri Curl. And then, the brass letters that read 14B. She’d stood in front of them, not wanting to open the door, but having no place left to go. The door had been unlocked. Open, even. And inside…a shiver ran down her spine. The man in the suit had been waiting for her. He’d played piano. “Heart and Soul.” Had she been awake, or sleeping?
“Audrey?” the woman on the other line asked. It sounded like Jill. “Are you okay?”
“No,” she said. “I’m all fucked up. But you figured that, right? It’s pretty obvious.” Out the turret, the storm had arrived. The wind gusted the rain sideways. She realized she didn’t know whether it was morning, or afternoon. The blackbirds trapped in stained glass watched her. She punched one of them with her fist, but the glass didn’t break.
On the other end of the line, Jill didn’t speak. She started to close the phone, then heard, “Yeah. Well, kiddo, who isn’t fucked up?”
She sighed. “I’ve been sleepwalking. Hasn’t happened since I lived with my crazy mom. I woke up just now, and the place is a mess. I trashed my own apartment.”
Another pause. Because nobody ever knew what the hell to say to her when she came out with this shit.
“Are you hurt?” Jill asked. Audrey could hear the frustration in her voice. Imagined her sitting at her desk with a pile of work, looking for somebody to dump it on.
“No,” she said. “I’m in one piece.”
Another pause. And then: “Do you need a therapist? I can give you a few names. My second son has emotional problems. Lack of emotions, really. He sees someone good.”
Audrey shook her head into the phone. Rich Manhattanites, they loved their shrinks. “I think I’ll start with sweeping up the mess.”
“Are you alone?”
“What do you care?” She’d clearly forgotten she was talking to her boss.
“Nice, Lucas. That attitude’s gonna get you far. I’m asking because I need your input, but if you want, I can come over and help you clean while we talk about it. Also, as a fellow human, I’m concerned about you.”
Audrey frowned, then pulled the phone away and inspected it, like maybe it was defective. Jill Sidenschwandt, showing heart? She put the phone back to her ear. “…No. But thank you. I’ll clean it myself. But that’s. Well, it’s thoughtful.”
“A rain check, then,” Jill said.
This time, Audrey looked around the walls of The Breviary and wondered if they were playing a mean prank and speaking to her through the phone. “That sounds