it wasn’t, had bragged that it was a divorce gift to herself.
How could I have forgotten to look for it? I rush back into her room and search, then when I don’t find it, I do another more frantic search of the whole apartment, turning over cushions and opening up cupboards. It’s not here. She must have it with her. That’s a good thing I suppose. It means she has her wallet and her ID with her.
I jump in the shower – keeping the door to the bathroom and bedroom ajar, so I can hear if Kate returns. As I dry off and throw on some clothes, I decide on a plan of action. I grab my bag and slip on my sandals to run downstairs to the landlord’s apartment. I should have thought of it sooner. Maybe he’s seen her or heard something.
But there’s no answer when I knock and, thwarted, I head back upstairs. OK, I think to myself, trying to be methodical and practical rather than giving in to the mounting panic I’m feeling, I’ll call the hospital and see if anyone matching Kate’s description has been admitted.
It takes me a few minutes of searching online to find the number but when I ring I get put through to an automated system that’s in Portuguese. I wait until the very end and, as I’d hoped, the recorded voice tells me to press two for English. It takes me another five minutes to navigate the system and reach an actual human being.
‘Hello, do you speak English?’ I say, feeling embarrassed that every English speaker in the world expects the rest of the world to speak their language while making no effort to speak theirs.
‘Yes,’ the woman on the end of the phone says.
‘Great,’ I say, relieved. ‘I’m looking for my friend. I don’t know what’s happened to her.’
There’s a pause on the end of the line. ‘She has an accident?’
‘No,’ I explain, wishing I’d rehearsed this. ‘I don’t know. I wondered if I could check if anyone had been brought in last night or early this morning. Her name is Kate.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the woman says, clearly confused. ‘You think your friend is here in the hospital?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. Am I being ridiculous? Kate will probably burst in the door any second, her arms full of shopping bags, laughing at how much of Toby’s money she’s just spent.
‘What is her name?’ the operator asks.
‘Kate – I mean Katherine – Hayes.’
I spell it out and can hear some tapping going on in the background. ‘I cannot find in the system,’ the woman tells me.
‘OK, thank you. And no one came in without identification?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘Is there anything else I can help with?’
‘No,’ I say, and the woman hangs up.
I check my phone again, wondering if maybe Kate’s sent an email – though God knows how she could if her phone is dead – but she hasn’t. I send her one, just in case somehow she has access to a computer. I tell her to call me or email and give her my phone number in case she doesn’t have it memorised. Finally, I scribble a note to her and leave it on the hallway table.
When I step out onto the street I have to pull on my sunglasses. The sunshine burns my eyes and exacerbates the dull throb at my temples. It’s a gorgeous day and the city looks ripe for exploring. With a pang I think about our now-shelved plans. I should be sitting at a little restaurant on a cobbled side street with Kate right now, eating tapas and drinking chilled white wine, gossiping and laughing, faces turned to the sun, hoping to catch a smattering of rays. Resentment knocks shoulders with anxiety. The ongoing refrain marching through my head gets louder; where the hell is she?
On a mission now, I start to walk in a grid pattern around the apartment, stopping in any shop, café or bar that looks like somewhere Kate might visit, but the streets are winding and labyrinthine and very soon I’m lost. Still, I keep pounding up narrow lanes and down stairs, the cobbles glossed with age and slick as ice beneath my feet, the sun blistering the sky above my head.
I know her well enough to know what Kate’s drawn to – anywhere selling handbags and shoes for one, any bar that looks sophisticated for two – definitely no tourist traps, and no restaurants with photographs of food on