Aubrey
Icome to facedown on my pillow with my phone vibrating itself toward the floor and three message previews of Linden bleeding.
I got home from my night shift two hours ago. I do not remember lying down.
For five seconds, my brain tries to be merciful and offers me a normal explanation. Maybe I died during my nap and this is a very specific punishment.
Then I unlock it.
Yep.
There he is.
Again.
And again.
The clips show the elevator from the hallway, doors pried open, firefighters nearby, me stepping out with the carrier clutched to my chest and my hoodie riding up in the back, and Linden behind me, looking like a man trying very hard not to murder an orange cat on camera.
His coat is claw-frazzled. His hand is bleeding.
He's turned toward the doors and his mouth moves in a shape I'm almost positive is fuck.
A new message from Delia, my younger sister, sits at the top.
Delia: Aubs.
Then another.
Delia: Is this really you?
Then a third.
Delia: WHY WAS HIS HAND BLEEDING. WHAT DID YOU DO.
I press my face into the pillow.
No.
The internet has decided the elevator rescue is hilarious.
By the time I clocked out of my overnight shift at six in the morning and dragged myself home, it had already been reposted, captioned, set to a jaunty song, and turned into content for millions of people.
I was in the Lantern House break room when the first repost crossed a hundred thousand views.
Marnie my boss watched it over my shoulder, said "well, at least your hair looks fine," and went back to her budget spreadsheet.
The comments are doing what comments do.
Suit Guy. Cat Daddy. Elevator Hostage. Somebody says he has "rich villain posture," which is rude because I thought that first and didn't get engagement for it.
Someone else asks who I am, and six people reply with guesses that are all wrong enough to be comforting.
I don't click the thread where people try to identify him, though.
I don't want to know.
That's what I tell myself, anyway.
I throw the phone onto the blanket, then immediately grab it again because ignoring a disaster only works for people who don't have phones.
A text from my coworker Blythe at Lantern House waits under a row of laughing emojis.
Blythe: Please tell me the cat is okay before I enjoy this.
Me: Cat's fine. My dignity, however... Not so much.
Blythe: Yeah. Your dignity had a nice run.
Rude.
Accurate, but rude.
The rest of the day happens in the broken pieces a person gets when they've been awake for most of twenty hours and aren't allowed to call it a day yet.
I shower with my phone facedown on the toilet tank. Three more notifications buzz through the porcelain anyway. I eat dry cereal over the sink because the milk turned sour yesterday and I haven't decided whether ninety-one dollars of breathing room can absorb a new gallon.
The cat watches me from the radiator like I'm the one on probation.
I check his water. I check the carrier latch, which is still broken, which I will be returning to the rescue with a strongly worded note that I will not actually write because the rescue has three people and a Google Drive and I am one of them.
I do not learn the cat's name.
The Hadleys already picked one and I refuse to get attached to a placeholder.
Then I sleep. Like, real sleep, the post-night shift sleep.
And blink my eyes open at just past one in the afternoon.
I wake to my mother's name on my phone's screen. I don't pick up. She'll have seen the clip by now. Somebody from her old building always sends her things. And the call will be either are you okay or is that really you and I don't have the bandwidth for any of those.
I text Delia instead.
Me: I'm fine. The cat is fine. Don't read the comments.
Delia: Too late.
I make coffee, open the testimony folder. The salmon paw print is still there, which is funny on day one and is going to be a logistical problem on day three when I have to hand it to Marnie clean.
I retype the affected page. I get halfway through the next one before my eyes stop tracking and I close the laptop.
A reporter messages me on Instagram. Hi, are you the woman in the elevator video?
I don't respond.
I check that my account is still private. It is. It has been since I started shelter work, of course.
I lie back down at four because tonight is technically a night off and my body doesn't believe me. I drift for an hour. Don't sleep. At 6:40 p.m. I give up, sit up with a crease on my cheek and a headache behind my eyes, and check my phone.
Blythe has texted three times.
Blythe: Still on for 9? I need a human evening before this week eats me.
Blythe: I made the reservation a month ago, you can't bail.
Blythe: Also the bartender is hot. In a sad way. Just your type.
I look at the Mercer's website on my phone. The menu, I mean. The price of a vodka soda makes me laugh at the ceiling.
No way I can afford this.
But I text her back anyway: I'll be there.
I shower again, because the first one was technically a rinse, and put on the dark jeans that don't pull when I sit and the gray sweater that is the closest thing I own to evening.
The hoodie goes over the sweater because it's cold and because I would rather walk into the Mercer looking underdressed than walk in looking like I tried.
I clip my hair up.
I refill the cat's water one more time. He blinks at me slowly, which Delia once told me is cat for I love you and which I am pretty sure actually means the radiator is mine now, please leave.
So at 8:55 p.m. I'm walking into the Mercer because backing out would mean explaining why I can't, and I have spent twenty-nine years getting good at not explaining why I can't.
The bar sits off the lobby, with dark wood and small lamps.
As soon as I sit, a bartender appears.
"Coffee?" he asks.
"How'd you know?" I say.
He shrugs. "Lucky guess."
I force a smile. "Coffee. Black. No, actually, do you have drip coffee or is it going to arrive in a tiny ceremony?"
His mouth twitches. "We have coffee."
I keep that force smiled plastered on my lips. "Great. Perfect. Coffee."
Thank god the bartender makes an exit before this gets any more excruciating.
My phone buzzes.
Blythe: Babe I'm so sorry. ten strays just came in off the Bronx pickup, Marnie wants them all processed and placed tonight before the weekend backlog eats us. I can't leave.
Blythe: I know. I KNOW. I'm the worst.
I stare at the screen.
That's the lamest excuse I've heard.
Except it's also exactly the kind of thing that happens to us, and I have personally been the one texting I can't leave to her on the other side of it.
So I can't even be mad. Well I am mad, but I can't be correctly mad.
Just great.
Well, I can still leave. Because technically, I don't have to pay for the coffee until it arrives. And if I'm not here...
I look around to make sure no one is watching—
Then I see him.
For a full second my brain just refuses. There are eight million people in this city. Four hundred bars within walking distance of the building where my cat assaulted a stranger. The odds that the man I assaulted last night would show up at the one Blythe booked at random a month ago...
Linden sits alone at the far end of the bar, turned slightly away from the room, a glass of water in front of him. No torn coat tonight. Dark suit, open collar, no tie. His hair is neat. The rest of him looks like he hasn't slept.
The scratches are still there.
Clean now. Pink across the backs of his hands.
My stomach goes tight.
Linden hasn't seen me yet, or he's pretending not to.
I should still leave. Blythe isn't coming.
My hoodie hasn't gotten more flattering in the last ninety seconds.
My hair is in the clip I keep in my tote for emergencies, which means it's holding by force of will.
There is exactly one version of this evening where I walk over there, and that version isn't tonight.
Nope. Nope. Not going to do this.
The bartender returns. He's holding a glass...
"Vodka soda," he says. "On the house."
"Oh. Thank you."
It must be a sign.
I take the drink because walking over empty-handed feels too much like auditioning for a role I want too badly, and I cross the room.
Linden looks up when I'm three feet away.
No camera angle prepared me for that. He's too tall even sitting down. He looks straight at me, and for one stupid second I forget what I came over to say.
His eyes widen. "You're got to be shitting me."
"I shit you not," I reply.
He looks at me like he's running the math on something. I get there first.
"For the record," I say, "I didn't track you down."
He arches an eyebrow. "I didn't think you had."
"You absolutely did," I insist. "For a second."
"Maybe two," he agrees.
"Two seconds is a long time when a man is deciding whether you're a stalker," I reply.
He shrugs. "You weren't carrying the cat."
I grin. "That's your test?"
He nods. "It's a strong one."
I take a sip. It's mostly soda, which is good, because I need my brain to continue pretending I can do this.
He glances at the glass. "It's good?"
I shrug. "Medical vodka."
He studies me. "Serious condition?"
"Uh huh. Viral exposure on Instagram."
His mouth changes. Almost a smile. "Charming."
"You say that now. Wait until you see the remix with the saxophone."
He doesn't break my gaze. "I've seen three actually."
"Only three? Humble."
He smiles. "I stopped after someone put a crown on the cat carrier."
I bark a laugh. "He'd want a crown."
"Yes indeed. He seemed pretty happy with my blood, though."
"Yeah maybe, but actually what he really wanted was vertical territory," I explain. "You were the tallest object available."
He purses his lips. "I guess I should be honored."
"Yep. Orange cats don't pick just anyone to ruin."
I know who I'd like to ruin me though...
Linden looks down at his hand. The scratch scabs pull when his fingers flex. "Where is this cat now?"
"My apartment. Temporarily. He's going to a family. Probably before the week is out."
He seems surprised. "That fast?"