Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [103]
“Did you miss me today?” she asked, half jokingly.
“Yes,” he said. He started to say more but didn’t know how to begin. “It was hard to breathe,” he said at last.
“I know,” she said. “It’s the air.”
“No, it isn’t. Not the air.”
“Well, what then?”
He looked at her.
“Oh, come on, Anders. We’re just two blind people who staggered into each other and we’re about to stagger off in different directions. That’s all.”
Sentences struggled in his mind, then vanished before he could say them. He watched the pavement pass underneath the car.
In the restaurant, a crowded and lively place smelling of beer and roasted meat and cigars, they sat in a booth and ordered an antipasto plate. He leaned over and took her hands. “Tell me, please, who and what you are.”
She seemed surprised that he had asked. “I’ve explained,” she said. She waited, then started up again. “When I was younger I had an idea that I wanted to be a dancer. I had to give that up. My timing was off.” She smiled. “Onstage, I looked like a memory of what had already happened. The other girls would do something and then I’d do it. I come in late on a lot of things. That’s good for me. I’ve told you where I work. I live with my grandmother. I go with her into the parks in the fall and we watch for birds. And you know what else I believe.” He gazed at the gold hoops of her earrings. “What else do you want to know?”
“I feel happy and terrible,” he said. “Is it you? Did you do this?”
“I guess I did,” she said, smiling faintly. “Tell me some words in Swedish.”
“Which ones?”
“House.”
“Hus.”
“Pain.”
“Smärta.”
She leaned back. “Face.”
“Ansikte.”
“Light.”
“Ljus.”
“Never.”
“Aldrig.”
“I don’t like it,” she said. “I don’t like the sound of those words at all. They’re too cold. They’re cold-weather words.”
“Cold? Try another one.”
“Soul.”
“Själ.”
“No, I don’t like it.” She raised her hand to the top of his head, grabbed a bit of his hair, and laughed. “Too bad.”
“Do you do this to everyone?” he asked. “I feel such confusion.”
He saw her stiffen. “You want to know too much. You’re too messed up. Too messed up with plans. You and your rust. All that isn’t important. Not here. We don’t do all that explaining. I’ve told you everything about me. We’re just supposed to be enjoying ourselves. Nobody has to explain. That’s freedom, Anders. Never telling why.” She leaned over toward him so that her shoulders touched his, and with a sense of shock and desperation, he felt himself becoming aroused. She kissed him, and her lips tasted slightly of garlic. “Just say hi to the New World,” she said.
“You feel like a drug to me,” he said. “You feel experimental.”
“We don’t use that word that way,” she said. Then she said, “Oh,” as if she had understood something, or remembered another engagement. “Okay. I’ll explain all this in a minute. Excuse me.” She rose and disappeared behind a corner of the restaurant, and Anders looked out the window at a Catholic church the color of sandstone, on whose front steps a group of boys sat, eating Popsicles. One of the boys got up and began to ask passersby for money; this went on until a policeman came and sent the boys away. Anders looked at his watch. Ten minutes had gone by since she had left. He looked up. He knew without thinking about it that she wasn’t coming back.
He put a ten-dollar bill on the table and left the restaurant, jogging into the parking structure where she had left the car. Although he wasn’t particularly surprised to see that it wasn’t there, he sat down on the concrete and felt the floor of the structure shaking. He ran his hands through his hair, where she had grabbed at it. He waited as long as he could stand to do so, then returned to the hotel.
Luis was back on duty. Anders told him what had happened.
“Ah,” Luis said. “She is disappeared.”
“Yes. Do you think I should