Chapter 10: Missing

This one picks up almost immediately after Chapter 9.

Chapter 10: Missing

At 8 a.m. I thought that she might not be coming over. At 10 a.m. I was certain of it. By 3 p.m. I gave up on seeing her that day. Maybe she got hooked up with that Radiology guy again. She did tell me that they were finished, but sometimes that old flame can look pretty tempting.

It was day three of Operation Networking and so far it had turned into Operation I’m Fucked. Simone, the graphic designer who I blew off in more than one way last June, had apparently found a short-term writing and bedroom partner. I had to safely wait one month for that to fall apart and another for her to be ready for another go at it. My level of desperation was apparent enough that I was even calling her. 15 months ago we followed an excellent working relationship with an even more excellent sleeping arrangement. What I didn’t understand was that she expected exclusivity in dating and working, and I kept pursuing partnerships in both arenas.

Desmond, whose offer of work I had so artfully declined four months ago, laughed when I asked if he had anything for me. Word of my haughty attitude had traveled well, and memories hadn’t faded yet. I knew that I’d find enough to stay afloat, but the fact that it hadn’t happened in the first 72 hours was worrying.

My recently terminated relationship with a right-wing think tank hurt my prospects as well. While the work was rewarding and challenging, I didn’t keep my portfolio balanced by taking on additional projects, even if they would pay much less. My focus had been narrowed, and in the freelance world that was death.

I sometimes felt that way about my relationship with Nadine. Honestly, I wasn’t missing much by being out of the dating game. I didn’t need to attach myself to any more emotionally stunted females just for a few minutes of pleasure. If all I got out of it was material for my blogs and good stories to tell at the next poker night, that was fine, but I wasn’t any less interesting otherwise.

By 6 p.m. I had given up for the day. I didn’t mind being alone on Monday and Tuesday after a weekend of almost nonstop time with Nadine. Two days without sex was making me somewhat peckish in the shorts. I decided to stop by for a visit.

It was a rare shift that exhausted Nadine so much that she went straight home. Still, it happened from time to time. I walked to her unit and knocked at the door. No answer. I decided to be clever and call her cell phone. There was a faint sound on the other side of the door, and I recognized the generic rock tune that was her phone’s ring. That was interesting. She never traveled without the phone. I found the spare key under the conspicuous garden gnome. I pocketed the key and went home.

I hadn’t cooked since I returned home, and that evening wasn’t going to be any different. I went to Thai Bowl and picked up two orders of chicken panang, extra rice. I only go when I get the buy-one, get one free coupon that arrives monthly in the mail. The old Larry would have consumed one of the orders and made a decent stab at the second. I ate about half of one container and sopped up the rest of the sauce with the rice. After that I browsed online long enough to ensure that I was no longer peckish in any way.

Before diving into my TiVo stash and heading to bed, I checked one more thing on my computer. The last electronic payment from Rove Enterprises was there, along with another somewhat surprising transaction.

I went back to her place. It was a mess. She had it cleaned up, not spotless but close, when I picked her up last Friday. There were clothes on the floor, and she wasn’t the type to leave clothes lying around. She was the type to leave a large pile of laundry in her giant basket until she ran out of clothes. The bag she packed for NYC was open on her bed. I pulled out her green camisole and thought of happier days. If she was gone, she left in a hurry. Her toiletries were still in the bag as well, and when I walked to the bathroom it looked no different than when I stopped there prior to our trip.

While in a moment of weakness, as I was as fat, happy, and sexually satisfied as I could remember, I made an electronic transfer of two grand into Nadine’s account. Since her bank sucks, the funds came to her in check form. My check had been deposited on Tuesday. If she had left in a hurry, it didn’t make sense that she would stop at her bank and drop off my check. It was a befuddling development.

I found an open container of Chinese food in the kitchen. It looked like Orange Chicken and smelled like death. I went to drop the Chinese food in the trash and saw a receipt. It was from Grand China, and was dated Monday night, just an hour after I left her at her apartment. Whatever happened didn’t happen as soon as she got home, but it could have been close.

Walking into the living room, I found her cell and flipped it open. The only call in her “received” folder was the one that I made an hour ago. The “dialed” folder was also empty. Curious. Most of the names in her “contacts” folder were unfamiliar to me. I smiled when I saw my entry. Sore butt boy. The entry under mine was Tina. She worked at the hospital with Nadine. I pressed the call button.

“Nadine?” a high-pitched voice answered. Tina was a short, compact blonde with a great smile who would be my number-one pick in the hottest Nadine co-worker draft.

“Hey Tina, this is Larry.”

“Larry, why are you calling me on Nadine’s cell?”

“Was she at work last night?”

“Tell me why you’re on her phone.”

“She didn’t show up this morning.”

“Show up where?”

“At my place.”

“You had that cyst, didn’t you?”

“Um, yes.”

“Nadine speaks well of you. Are you her boyfriend?”

“Right now I’m a concerned friend. Was she at work last night?”

“I was off last night. I’m actually about to clock in, so I can ask somebody who was there.”

“That would be great.”

I heard some voices in the background. Tina returned in a minute. “Jack says that she didn’t show up last night. Nadine doesn’t blow off shifts, but he thought that she might still be in New York.”

“We got back on Monday.”

“We, eh? You sure sound like a boyfriend.”

“Thanks Tina.”

“When I met you at Jane’s party, I couldn’t tell if you two were really together. You don’t act like a couple in public.”

When I met Tina, it was at a gathering on Lake Lanier. She wore a very revealing red tankini and licked her full lips nearly every time she caught me looking in her direction. Tina had a date at the party. I guess it went poorly.

“Maybe we’re just private people.”

“If you’re really not her boyfriend, I have tomorrow off.”

“You’re rather forward.”

“What Nadine told me about you is something that I’d like to experience for myself.”

“I’m a little busy right now.”

“That’s too bad. I’m ecstatic about receiving, but I like to give as well.”

It was pretty obvious that Tina and Nadine weren’t great friends.

“That should serve you well in your chosen profession. If you hear from her, give me a call.”

“You have her cell phone. How exactly would she contact me?”

“Good question.” I left my number. Tina repeated it three times.

Tina’s offer should have intrigued me more than it did. I guess that meant that I cared about my missing friend. Considering my current freelance situation, I was not going to automatically blow off an opportunity for future work, even if it was unpaid.

I pressed the off button and pocketed the phone. It was nine o’clock and I hadn’t seen her for 52 hours. I went home.

The alarm was not welcome the following morning. Tom knocked on the door two minutes after it went off.

“Hey there, buddy. You look chipper.”

“Let’s get this done.”

As usual, we hit the treadmill to warm up, did a few stretches, and transitioned to some free weights. I was in the middle of my third set of dumbbell curls when Tom broke the silence.

“How was your trip?”

“It was fine.”

“You took Nadine, right?”

“I did.”

“How did that go?”

“I didn’t ask her to go steady.”

“I see that you’re touchy today.”

“My top client gave me the boot, but other than that it was swell.”

“Oh shit. There are other opportunities out there.”

“The pickings are slim this week.”

“Is it bad?” Tom asked, handing me the 20-pound weights as he went to work on the 30s.

I grunted.

“Are you the type to look for honest work?” Tom asked. I started on my third, and hardest, set of arm curls.

“At this point, I’d consider it.”

“Are you serious?”

It was hard to talk and flex. “If life’s taught me anything, it’s to keep my options open.”

“I hear that.”

I wiped my forehead with a towel. “So, are you going to tell me about it?”

“Give me a couple of days. You can make it that long, right?”

“Until they pry the credit card from my cold, dead hand.”

“Good,” he said, momentarily lost in his own world.

“What’s up with Sarah?” I asked, moving on.

“I think that ship has sailed.”

“Women, eh?”

“I think it’s time for another Buckhead Destruction night. I’ll need a new wingman, apparently.”

Once in a while Tom and I would partake in an event called Buckhead Destruction night. We’d have contests, like how many phone numbers we could get or how few words we could say to a girl before kissing her. The night usually ended at Waffle House. “Don’t speak too soon.”

“Seriously? Despite efforts to keep her locked up, I think you have something with Nadine.”

“Why would you say that?”

“You like to show off your conquests. Nadine has been notoriously absent from our trivia nights, or anything for that matter.”

“There’s nothing strange about that.”

“It’s OK to give a shit,” Tom said. “If she’s just keeping your bed warm, that’s fine. I know how useful that kind of woman can be.”

“We’re not too conventional.”

“Who needs convention? Women like her tend to hit the road if you don’t pay attention.”

I nodded.

We kept quiet and worked ourselves into a frenzy. Tom looked as worn out as I did.

“You didn’t go soft in New York. That’s good.”

“I can’t stop now.”

“So, did anything else happen in The Big Apple?”

I thought of Ground Zero and the waterworks. “I transferred two thousand dollars to Nadine’s bank account.”

“Interesting. You wouldn’t give me a dime to make change at Wendy’s.”

“Am I that much of a cheap bastard?”

“Most of the time. I don’t blame you. After all, I don’t have a vagina.”

Tom was such a dick. That must have been why we got along.

“Are you saying that you’re tapped out?”

“In a matter of speaking, yes.”

“I’m your accountant. You are not broke.”

“My entire discretionary fund is gone.”

I heard Tom’s weights clank against the bench. “You are bone-sucking broke, aren’t you?”

“I’m about to turn the couch over and hunt for change.”

He looked at me. As if he made a personal decision that I need not be privy to, he nodded once.

“In ten days we’ll talk again.” Tom’s good about dropping sketchy subjects.

“Gotcha.”

Tom used the shower and went to work. I went upstairs, cleaned up, and spent another fruitless morning on the phones. I did this while wandering around Nadine’s building. People walk with their cell phones all the time, so I thought this wouldn’t be seen as suspicious. I eventually found a cheap plastic chair under the stairwell and positioned myself in the woodsy area behind the entry to Nadine’s place. She had a second-floor unit so my view wasn’t great. It would be pretty obvious if someone walked in, and no one did.

Eventually I had to pee. I went back home, grabbed my laptop and spent the afternoon writing mostly unpaid stuff from my post. I put the chair back around 4:30 when people started coming home from work. It was almost 72 hours from when I dropped her off.

I thought about Cindy for the first time as I ate leftover panang for dinner. Our last dinner went spectacularly bad, so I didn’t call. I guess when you take someone out for dinner, and after paying the check you tell her that you don’t want to have sex with her anymore, which pretty much means that you’ll never see each other again, the reaction isn’t going to be positive. She wanted one for the road, so to speak, and only now did I consider my rejection callous. It wasn’t as callous as when I dropped by her place three days later, played out a scene I read in the Penthouse Forum, then left. That was the last time I saw her. It was unlikely that she would offer me the same kindness.

I only thought that because my primary, and currently only, lover was missing. Where was that guy from Without a Trace when you needed him?

Ten minutes later I was back inside her place. Everything was where I had left it. The phone in my pocket beeped. Nadine’s cell phone was about to run out of juice. I flipped through her contacts and stopped at the name Jack. I smiled and pressed the talk button.

The phone rang three times before a male voice answered. “I didn’t think that you’d call me again,” he said.

“Why not?” I said.

“Who is this?” he replied.

“A friend of Nadine’s. How’s the girlfriend?”

“Susan is none of your business.” Nadine told me that Jack, the Radiology guy, got engaged to his long-term girlfriend who lived in D.C. after they broke off their short-term affair.

“Fair enough, Jack. Nadine let me borrow her phone while she was out of town, and I got bored.”

“She’s out of town? She called me on Tuesday night.”

“She did? I thought you two broke things off.” This would be the last time anyone had heard from Nadine, as far as I knew.

“It was quick, OK?”

“Where was she? Did she sound nervous?”

“I don’t know, buddy. What’s your name?”

“Just consider me a friend. Do you have the number that she called from?”

“I deleted it.”

“But there’s a record somewhere, right? Susan would be devastated if she knew that you were cheating on her.”

“It’s over.”

“What’s over?”

“This conversation,” he said.

“I hoped that it wouldn’t come to this,” I said quickly, raising my voice.

“Spill it.”

“Susan would be devastated if she knew that you were cheating on her.” Susan was the fiancé. As far as I knew, they had an open relationship prior to the ring purchase. It was worth a shot.

“What do you want?”

“Tell me what Nadine said to you.”

“We talked for a minute.”

“What did she say?”

“Not much. She seemed a little distracted. I asked her about New York and she said it was fine.”

“You knew that she went to New York? I thought you cut things off.”

“We still talk. We’re adults, unlike the way you’re acting.”

“How did the conversation end?”

“I heard voices in the background. She said that she had to go. She said she was sorry.”

“Sorry about what?”

“I don’t know; she hung up the phone before I could ask.”

“You didn’t try to call her back?”

I heard a sigh. “I did. The phone rang 12 times and someone else. The person didn’t know who Nadine was.”

“So it probably was a pay phone.”

“I don’t know and I don’t care.”

“If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have called her back.”

“Fine. Are you going to talk to Susan?”

“Not yet. If you come up with anything else, call me.”

“What’s your number?”

“Call this number.”

I think he had one more rebuttal, but the phone died.

It took me nearly an hour to find her cell phone charger. During my thorough search of the place I found nothing of note. There was a slight tinge of disappointment that she didn’t have a secret diary, or old love letters from an ex-boyfriend. The battery-operated “novelty” device, in her bedside drawer, was not a surprise. A woman who lacked such a device would be more of a question in my mind.

There was one small photo album with family shots. She had a large family. Two brothers, one sister, lots of aunts and uncles, salt of the earth types. The move from Detroit alienated her a bit from the family and her life-long friends. The lack of personal effects testified to that.

The cell phone charger was in drawer in the kitchen. It was more fun to look through her bedroom drawers. My back was turned when the door opened behind me.

The first punch came from outside the perimeter but I wasn’t prepared to defend myself. His knuckles grazed my forehead. The second punch was a strong left to the gut. I didn’t like that one.

“What the fuck?” I yelled. I grabbed his fist when he went for punch number three.

Jack sat on the couch, fist wrapped in a zip-loc bag full of ice.

“I really thought that you were going to tell her.”

“I only know her first name. I’d have to be a much better detective to track her down.”

“You’re a detective?”

“Considering my performance over the past two days, I’d have to say no.”

“She’s been gone for two days?”

“It’s been more than 48 hours since she called you.”

“She really did have something on her mind.”

“I’m sure she did.”

Jack wasn’t a bad guy. He was trying for the one-day stubble look and it didn’t quite work. He wore unrimmed glasses and teal scrubs.

“Do you have to buy those things?”

“Hospital provides them.”

“Nadine always wears different colored ones.”

“They look better on women.”

“Are you going to move to D.C., or is Susan moving here?”

“We haven’t talked about it.”

“You’re engaged and haven’t talked about where you’re moving?”

“She’s in law school at Georgetown. We’ll see what happens when she gets a job.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Relationships aren’t easy. I’ve known Susan for six years, and we’ve only been in the same city for six months.”

“Does that make it easier or harder?”

“A little of both. I do wonder how we’ll be when we live in the same place.”

“You won’t be able to hack it. Is it too late to get a refund on the ring?”

“You’re really harsh.”

“I’m a realist.”

“Is that because you’ve never tried to be in a relationship?”

“Don’t project.”

“Why not? You think that you know me.”

“I just know people and how they act. Don’t think that it’s a personal dig.”

“So it’s an impersonal dig.”

“There you go.”

“You don’t care about her,” he said, staring me down.

“Be a man. Say ‘give a shit’ instead.”

“It’s OK if you do.”

“I don’t know where she is. I think that tells you a lot about her feelings.”

“Then I guess she doesn’t want to be found.” Jack stood up. He found the sink and left the ice there. Jack left the place cleaner than he found it.

“Tuesday night, come to the Modern Drunkard.”

He turned around, flexing his fist like it was part of a brand-new robot arm. “Why?”

“I have something that might help with your relationship.”

“I won’t tell Nadine.”

“Tell her what?”

“That you give a shit.”

That Jack wasn’t so bad after all. “I appreciate that.”

“The number she called from, it wasn’t local.”

“Thanks,” I said, and he was gone.

I checked Jack’s phone records the following day. The call was from a pay phone in Detroit. She went home. As I started to look up her family’s home phone number, I paused. It had been four days since she left. She hadn’t called me. She had called another guy who should have meant less to her than me.

I left her cell phone on the counter where she left it. I found the novelty device in her bedside drawer, placed it next to the phone, and wrote a three-word message on the device with a permanent marker I found in a kitchen drawer. The exclamation point was overkill, but I was emotional.

Monday, October 1

Nadine walked through the door at 7:13 a.m., wearing peach scrubs, red crocs, and white ankle socks. She immediately walked to the couch and found the remote. I was pretending that my bowl of Kashi cereal was Count Chocula.

I didn’t move as she turned on the TV and started watching something on MTV. Donovan McNabb needed to stay under 12 points for me to win in the EHFL. The overtime touchdown for Santana Moss put my dynasty team over the top. The Titans were crushed by the Cowboys on Sunday and would play the 4-0 Colts the following week. I tried to not remember the bet I made with Mo on the Redskins game in two weeks.

45 minutes later Nadine turned off the television. She walked to the sink, poured water into a plastic Titans cup, took a sip, and put the cup on the marble counter. That was when she saw the red thong spread out on the kitchen table.

Nadine turned and stared at me. She shrugged her shoulders. I shrugged back.

Nadine turned, finished her water, put the glass in the sink, walked to the door, and left. I waited a minute, got up, dumped my milk in the sink, and picked up her discarded cup. I looked at it for ten seconds. Opening the dishwasher, I put the bowl inside. I put the cup in the trash.