15. Olly #2
My heart soared. “Yes, that’s him. Did he get sick or something?
It’s so odd that he would just leave and not tell me.
Especially since he was my ride.” I closed my eyes to gather myself and ride out a particularly bad wave of this headache, and rummaged around my pockets for my phone.
I checked, and there wasn’t a single text from him.
In fact, he wasn’t even in my contacts anymore.
What the hell? I tried to sort out where Clark could have gone to, physically, and just who had been into my possessions to erase all of our text messages, emails, and phone call records.
I could feel myself get more manic by the moment as I saw the deletion of Clark and me right in front of me.
Not even my photo gallery had all the photos he’d insisted I take, mostly of food or selfies of us on the boardwalk or dog park.
It wasn’t like he was gone. It was like he never existed.
A chill fell over me all the way to my bones, and even my teeth started to rattle together, matching the shaking in my hands as I tried to put the phone back into my pocket.
“Olive, according to his file, we didn’t hire him, and his last known contact info is in Montréal,” Kate said, raising her eyebrows at me as tears filled my eyes.
I swallowed hard and refused to let the tears fall, but was unsuccessful.
Well, the last thing Clark would want me to do was break down at work over him, so I reached for the tissue box on the end table Jeff had and wiped my eyes, then blew my nose.
Enough of that. Kate had to be mistaken.
She just had to be. She wasn’t human resources; she was just Jeff’s assistant.
Surely, she could make a mistake like this. Couldn’t she?
Kate actually sounded sympathetic as she asked, “Do you need me to call the Employee Assistance Program and set up an appointment with a therapist for you? You’re acting kind of, well, kind of nuts, even for you.
Sorry, but it’s true. I can speak with Jeff on your behalf about getting some time off if you’d like to go on short-term disability, even for your mental health.
HR would set it up, of course, but having Jeff on your side couldn’t hurt. ”
“I can talk to HR on my own, thanks,” I said, determined to get back to my office and go digging for records on Clark Evans.
There was no way, no way this was happening.
It was like the ground was moving beneath my feet, and if I didn’t move fast enough, I would fall into a deathly deep chasm and never re-emerge.
“Whatever, it’s too late today, anyway. Come on, Cedar is waiting on us to lock up.
” She looked at her sparkly diamond watch and tapped the face three times.
She wasn’t wrong. Dammit, I’d have to wait until tomorrow to get back in my office, if it still even was my office by then.
I scooped my coat up from the couch and my bag from the coatrack, and followed Kate to the elevators.
Just wait until I get home, I thought. Clark will be there in his place, and we can talk over whatever mass hallucination had overtaken the office and was turning everyone into pod people.
Determined, I shook out the last of my sleepiness, collected myself, and decided to get a damn taxi home.
“Clark? Clark!” I banged on his door four or five times again, and still nothing.
Finally, I heard the door locks being fiddled with, and the grumpy-sounding gruff voice of a man saying, “I’m coming.
Christ! Give me time to put my teeth in.
” The door edged open, and I was immediately overcome with the sound of the six o’clock news blaring from the television and the smell of garlic.
An elderly man opened the door a crack, not undoing the door chain. “Oh, it’s you,” he said, dismissively.
“Yes, of course I’m me. Who the hell are you?
Where’s Clark?” I had the right apartment, didn’t I?
I hadn’t wandered off onto the wrong floor?
Nope, I rechecked, and I was precisely where I was supposed to be.
Where Clark was supposed to be. Panic started to rise in me, and I was going to be puking on this fancy hallway carpet soon if I didn’t get some answers.
“I asked you, where’s Clark?” My breathing was coming in pants now, and I knew I needed to knock it off and stay calm for the baby, but I felt like the whole world was sliding sideways, and I wasn’t sliding with it.
“Oh, for the love of Mother Mary, not this again! Am I to be subjected to your crazy pregnancy-brain forgetfulness twice a week from now on? You were just here three days ago!” The door slammed shut, almost hitting me in the nose, and I heard the chain lock being fiddled with.
Then the door was thrust open and the man, dressed in his pyjamas and obviously winding down for bed, held on to the doorknob with one hand, and spread the other arm wide, presenting Clark’s neat but now-garlicky-smelling open-concept apartment.
“Well, what are you still doing in the hall? Do you think I have time to waste on your foolishness? I’m considerably older than you and could expire at any moment, if you haven’t noticed.
I like to make my moments mean something, so if you’ll just do the usual inspection and be gone from here, I can get back to working on my paper. ”
Usual inspection...I’d been here before?
Why couldn’t I remember that? My mind was so slippery, my memories of even today clouded.
I should have known what that meant, but instead I was too focussed on finding Clark before thinking recent events and revelations over.
I hesitated, but realized I would never stop worrying until I’d given the apartment a quick go-over.
I knew safety-wise it was wrong to go into a stranger’s apartment, but this wasn’t a stranger’s apartment, dammit, it was Clark’s.
Except Clark didn’t live here, evidently, from the piles of books everywhere as opposed to neatly arranged on built-in shelving, the very faint odour of litter box deodorizer—not to mention the little grey kitty that weaved its way around my legs—and the wide difference in furniture and decor.
I felt lightheaded, as though I might faint, and pressed a hand to my forehead.
“Another case of the vapours,” he complained, but assisted me as best as he could over to the recliner he had in the same spot Clark had had his.
I was prepared to settle into the comfy familiarness of it, but was met with the hard seat and backing of a new piece of furniture that hadn’t been broken in yet.
It really hit me then, as I stared around me at the bits and pieces of a life that cluttered a bit of this apartment.
A few black-and-white photographs on the walls, and then colour ones of groups of children.
Eclectic magnets on the fridge holding up the art of some kid.
And poised over the electric fireplace was a taxidermized deer head, which had huge antlers.
I thought of the life that deer probably had before becoming pot roast, and my lower lip trembled a little as I smelled the pine scent of the forest of its home, tasted the buttercups and blackberries, and then heard the shot which penetrated its heart and had killed him instantly.
“Ah yes,” he said, noticing the track of my eyes.
“My former self killed Herbert here. Another, less aware life. When I took his, something changed in me for the better, and I keep him with me to remind me of my shame, and because I couldn’t bear the thought of tossing such a glorious creature away just because that part is inedible.
” This really wasn’t Clark’s apartment. I closed my eyes, and as tears started to form, I wiped them away.
Why was he rambling about a stuffed head named Herbert when there was obviously an emergency taking place?
Clark was missing, for fuck’s sake. As I had started regulating my breathing, my thoughts had slowed, and I could kind of think clearly.
What had Jeff said? No, it was Kate. That Clark’s contact information was in Montréal.
He only spoke to me about living there temporarily as he job-hunted and hid from his ex, so still being there six weeks later made zero sense.
“Okay, this makes zero sense,” I repeated out loud.
“Oh, one of these days.” His voice sounded calmer, kinder.
“Yes, this is when it usually hits you—there’s no young and strapping Clark to be found here, Ms. McLeod.
Just a lonely old man hoping to leave his research in clear enough shape to be picked up by the next generation of scientists when he departs this world.
” He offered me a handkerchief, and I thanked him, using it to wipe my eyes.
“I need to make a phone call,” I said, and yanked out my cell phone.
“By all means, make yourself at home,” the old man said, with a bit of a sardonic tone.
He answered on the first ring, thank goddess. “Olly, what’s up? I’ve been a bit worried about you.”
“Worried? Shepard, I’m worried, but not about me, about Clark. Have you had any contact with him today? Or last night?” The unspoken “or ever” lingered in the air for a minute between us before he started to speak.
“Olly, you’ve mentioned a guy named Clark loads of times in the past month or more, but I’ve never met him. He’s been like, your secret bestie or something, because every time you’ve said we were going to be introduced, something dramatic happens and we can’t be.”
I took a sharp inhale of breath, and couldn’t stop muttering, “No, no, no, no, no...”
“Olly, where are you? Are you at a safe place? Do you need me to come and get you to see you home?” Shepard’s concern for my well-being was suddenly as frightening as Clark’s absence of concern. I just needed to finish this damn call sounding reasonably sane.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m just checking in with my neighbour.”