It’d be a hassle in the sense that breathing is a hassle.
But the relative anonymity is working.
Because who’d think to look for him here? And apparently people are looking for him. He’s had voice messages on his cell and on his phone in Mahopac, all from journalists and TV booking agents wanting to get him to open up and talk. He’s also spoken to Deb more than once today, and each time the subject was raised-Victoria Hannahoe wants to do a follow-up interview and thinks maybe this time Frank should come on.
Frank tries really hard to make his “no” not sound like a primal scream. Also, he doesn’t have any idea where to begin trying to understand what Deb is thinking.
So he doesn’t.
The only reason he’s keeping the channel open is because he needs the information-what’s going on, what is the FBI saying, when will the body be released.
Lloyd has been the point man in all of this, and Frank is grateful to him. He’s always hated Lloyd, resented him, been unable to bear the sight of him, and now he just thinks, thank fuck for Lloyd.
When he got up this morning, Frank quickly found himself entangled in the illusion of being “busy.” He took a shower and shaved. He went out to get something to eat. He bought that stuff at the Duane Reade. Every few minutes he stopped and checked his phone. At a newsstand he picked up a New York Times and a Post. He walked around looking for somewhere to go through them. He found a place, a bench in Bryant Park, and sat down. He scanned the papers and read anything in them that was relevant. And just beneath the surface of all this-in his mind, in the pit of his stomach-there was a faint, constant thrum of expectation.
But expectation of what?
It didn’t take him long to realize that nothing was going to happen, at least nothing that he might want to happen. And he was going to have to keep reminding himself of this. Because otherwise, he’d go insane.
By the middle of the afternoon, however, he feels that he already has. The shapelessness, the lack of purpose, is inescapable. On the way back to his room, going through the lobby of the Bromley, he passes a group of German tourists. They look like intrepid explorers, with their maps, windbreakers, mustaches, and accents-confident, curious, ready for whatever lies in the undiscovered country ahead.
And yet he feels like the visiting alien.
In the elevator, alone, he presses the button for ten. On the way up, he doesn’t know what it is, maybe it’s the motion, maybe it’s a combination of that and the disorientating effect of the infinity mirrors, but something seems to dislodge deep inside him and he lurches sideways, simultaneously whimpering and gulping, unsure if he’s going to fall over, cry, or puke. He does none of these, but when he gets out of the car, escaping the mirrors, and is hobbling down the corridor toward his room, doors flickering left and right, he feels sure there’ll be some toll to pay for this, and a physical one.
When he gets to his room he hesitates, standing just inside the door, but then rushes into the bathroom and throws up. He spends the next twenty minutes sitting on the toilet, eyes closed, head in his hands, squirming, grunting in pain, as his insides twist and coil.
He imagines, when he’s finished, that this was some kind of psychosomatic delaying mechanism.
Because it was either his tear ducts or his gut.
And, at some level, an executive decision was taken.
Avoidance, repression.
Misdirection.
Except that he knows what’s going on. He understands how it works. It’s just that he can’t control it.
He could stage an intervention. Raid the minibar, infuse some alcohol into the equation. That would loosen things up.
But is it what he wants?
Because he knows that if he goes from thinking to feeling, if he hits that switch, there’ll be no turning back, and no telling where he’ll end up.
Talk about an undiscovered country.
He comes out of the bathroom and lies on the bed. He stares up at the ceiling. What he thinks he wants, before he surrenders, is to properly understand. And right now he doesn’t. Right now, despite the blanket nature of the media coverage, everything he sees or reads seems hopelessly superficial, each fact and opinion recycled, mediated, meme’d, so that he never feels any of it is actually about his daughter…
He can’t relate to the person they’re describing.
And he needs to.
Because where’s Lizzie in all of this?
Probably what Frank needs to do is talk to the people who were close to her, the friends she hung out with, the ones who knew what she was like and what she was into-the ones who can tell him if she really was, if she’d really turned into, some kind of extreme… militant activist.
The only problem is, that will mean going back up to Atherton, and he isn’t ready to do that yet.
After a while, a thought strikes him.
Who did Ellen Dorsey meet when she was up there? What, if anything, did she find out? She told him some stuff in that bar, but he can’t remember any of the details. And in the car on the way down here, he did most of the talking.
He slides over and sits on the side of the bed.
What does she know? What can she tell him?
It’s early evening, neither of them particularly wants a drink, so they meet in a diner. It’s on Ninth Avenue between Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth, a real dive, but Ellen knows the owner, the food is actually good, and they won’t be disturbed.
“What can I get you?”
Frank looks up at the waitress with something like mild panic in his eyes. It’s as if he’s never been in this situation before and he doesn’t know what to do.
“Er…”
He drums his fingers on the table.
Ellen studies him. He looks awful. Tired, pale, shaky. It occurs to her that he probably hasn’t slept or eaten much in the last couple of days.
“The grilled chicken sandwich is good,” she says, to move things along, and on the basis that a grilled chicken sandwich will more than likely fit the bill.
He nods.
“Two, please,” Ellen says to the waitress. “And an iced tea.” She looks at Frank again, and he nods again. “Two.”
They surrender their menus.
The place is nearly empty. They have a booth by the window, looking out onto Ninth.
“Thanks for agreeing to see me.”
“No problem.”
He explained to her on the phone that obviously things had changed since the previous time they’d spoken, that the help he’d needed then was not the help he needed now. That what he needed now was just to ask her a few questions.
Fine by her.
On the way down here she tried to anticipate what those questions might be, but she couldn’t really settle on anything. What did he expect from her? As soon as he starts, though, it all begins to make sense. He talks for five minutes straight, articulately, and through his obvious exhaustion, and pain, mapping out in detail what he refers to, with sphincter-grinding restraint, as his “dilemma.”
His need to understand before he can grieve.
Their food and iced teas arrive. The waitress distributes plates and glasses. They murmur their thanks.
Ellen welcomes the brief interval.
She’s curious. Frank hasn’t actually asked his questions yet, even though it’s clear to her now what they will be. But the thing she’s wondering is, doesn’t he have anyone else to talk to? She gets it about the ex-wife. But doesn’t he have any friends he can confide in, the way he’s just confided in her? She’s good at talking to people, at getting them to open up to her, she knows that, but this is hardcore.