No One Knows Us Here(6)

I promised her that.





CHAPTER 2


When I got a text from Mira while I was at work, I was surprised. I’d never gotten a text from her before. I didn’t even know she had my number. She said she was having a going-away party that night, downtown. She asked me if I could come. I said I could. Good, she said. She gave me an address and a time. Then she said to dress up for the occasion. Wear something of mine, she wrote. Anything you want.

I thought it was strange, of course. I was also very curious. I had never seen Mira outside of our apartment. I’d never met any of her friends. Also, I’d always secretly wanted to try on her dresses.

The restaurant was way up on top of the old Meier & Frank Building downtown. I didn’t typically frequent places like that. They were for other kinds of people. Rich people. Tourists. So this is what Mira was doing in all those satin gowns? Hanging out with her dental school friends at rooftop restaurants?

I took the elevator up and passed through a narrow hallway to the outdoor seating area. I walked with my shoulders back, swinging my hips like a model on the catwalk. It was how I felt wearing Mira’s clothes. I’d taken one of her handbags, too. If only I could have fit into her shoes! My own black high heels, the ones I’d bought to wear to my mother’s funeral, struck the only false note.

Outside the sky was getting dimmer, but the air was still warm. I’d expected to see revelers up there. Lights and dancing. Maybe some wild-and-crazy dentists hoisting Mira up on their shoulders. But the place was quiet. Couples stood along the glass railing, looking out at the city twinkling beyond. Some people sat on couches arranged under heat lamps. They were eating sushi.

I wondered if I had somehow arrived at the wrong rooftop restaurant. Maybe I’d mixed up the time or shown up on the wrong date. But then I saw Mira, sitting along the edge of the balcony, alone. I walked over and sat down across from her.

She smiled at me. “There you are.”

I gestured to the other patrons. “Are these your friends?”

“No.”

“So where is everybody?”

“I didn’t invite anyone else,” she said. “Only you.” She took a sip of her drink as she looked me over. “That dress looks really good on you.”

I looked down at myself. The dress was bright red and strapless. Short. Like something the bad girl wears to the prom in a teen comedy. “Thanks.” I tried to smile, but I felt uneasy. If there wasn’t a party, I couldn’t think of any reason she would tell me to get dressed up and meet her on a rooftop. Was she trying to seduce me? After living together for so long, this seemed very unlikely.

Mira tapped a fingernail against the glass balcony railing. “Look at that,” she said.

I looked. I saw the Fox Tower, the clock over Pioneer Square, the West Hills in the distance. The sky was twilight blue, about to fade to black. All the buildings sparkled as distant window squares flicked on, one by one.

Mira reached under the table. She seemed to be looking for something, riffling through her purse. The server came and Mira ordered for both of us, pointing at various items on the menu.

When the waitress walked away, Mira placed something in the middle of the table. It was a present, a wrapped box the size of a paperback book. “Open it,” she said.

“For me?” The night was growing stranger and stranger.

Mira didn’t say anything. She nodded at the gift sitting between us.

I took the package in my hands and turned it over. I untied the bow. It was a nice bow, a turquoise grosgrain ribbon. The paper was thick and brown like a paper sack, but it was speckled with white dots the size of fish eggs. Underneath the paper was a plain white box. Inside the box was a cell phone.

I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react. It didn’t seem like an extravagant phone, or even a new one. It was basic and black. I didn’t recognize the brand. “Thank you,” I said, because I couldn’t think of what else to say.

Mira was smiling at me, some secret, knowing smile. I smiled back, tentatively, unsure how to respond.

We were interrupted again by the server, who set down two martinis. Martinis. Of course Mira had ordered us martinis. I would have preferred something sweeter, less sophisticated. Something with a pineapple wedge and a sugar rim.

She picked up the phone out of the box like it was precious jewelry. She held it up for me to see. “This is your new life.”

I must have flashed her a comically baffled look because she burst out laughing.

I laughed, too. So this was all just a joke. A very strange, not at all funny kind of joke. I wanted to tell her to spit it out. Obviously she had something important to say to me, some reason she had told me to put on her clothes and meet her on top of this building and open presents and drink these horrible, bitter martinis. The waitress walked by, and I raised my hand to get her attention. I ordered a lemon drop, with a sugared rim.

I pushed my martini across the table. “I can’t drink this.”

“An acquired taste, I suppose.”

“I guess so.”

“Listen, Rosemary. I’m trying to help you.”

“Help me with what?”

“With Wendy.”

I stiffened at the mention of my sister’s name. “She’ll be fine,” I said.

“I hear you on the phone with her. She doesn’t sound fine.”