Chapter Thirty-Five
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Jamie was in bed when Lee called. Next to him, an arm’s length away, was Sandy, his former coworker from Atom.
When Jamie had quit, he hadn’t included Sandy on his farewell message— she wasn’t the level of acquaintance who rated his personal contact details—so he’d been surprised when one afternoon she’d shown up at the café.
“Oh, it’s you,” Jamie said.
“It’s me!” Sandy agreed. She looked incredibly pleased to see him.
Ellison did not like Sandy. He said her eyes held the light of menace and—Ellison added—possible psychosis. “She tries too hard,” he said. “She’s one of those girls who’s always trying .”
“Sandy’s nice,” Jamie said. Though even as he spoke, he was suddenly cognizant of her resemblance to females of his earlier youth: the sort who, through sheer persistence and Are you awake I’m so drunk are you hungry I can bring something over eventually wore you down, because the men of his generation had been trained not in direct rejection but in indifference and increasingly shitty behavior, until they were dumped and released from obligation.
But Sandy’s joy at seeing Jamie again, the childlike purity of it, had moved him; at the current moment in Jamie’s life (single, lazy), he found enthusiasm extremely attractive.
When Lee called, it was after his and Sandy’s third time sleeping together.
The prior evening—from the greasy, overpriced tapas to the bottle of room-temperature cava back at his apartment—had felt a little dirty.
He felt a little dirty. Sandy, Jamie thought, was also a little dirty; her neck had a grayish cast that he realized, upon lightly rubbing his thumb against it while she was sleeping, was actually unwashed skin.
For that reason, and also because he didn’t feel like speaking to anyone, he sent the call to voicemail when he saw Lee’s name.
He did it again while he was getting dressed, and again saying goodbye to Sandy, while politely but firmly leaving no option for her to remain in the apartment.
He was certain she was the sort to snoop while he was away; he suspected she’d already done so while he was in the shower.
Lee called again in the car, which he ignored until he realized his sister was not the type to call over and over—it was Sandy, Jamie thought, who would do something like that.
Jamie called Lee only for her not to answer. He continued to drive but turned his music down. He nearly sped through a red light. When the phone rang, he answered before the ring was complete. The first seconds, all he heard was Lee’s breath.
“Lee? What is it?”
“She’s gone,” she cried. He knew there was only one person Lee could be talking about.