And that was enough to wake her up. No, she was out of that, wasn’t even in touch with any of the people she’d known in that world. Not all of them were still around, in any case. Some had moved away, some had quit just like her, and at least one was dead. Her friend Griff, dead, heart just stopped. No warning, just didn’t wake up. Just lay there for a day and a half until someone stumbled across him. She’d known him since junior high, back when they’d both been just normal kids. He’d always looked out for her. How he’d started using, how she had, it was a little hard to say now, and didn’t make much sense. She’d had okay parents, good friends, had grown up going to church. Sure, she’d rebelled a little, but didn’t everybody? And she didn’t understand the steps that had led her from that to using. Griff’s death should have been a wake-up call for her, but even with that, it had taken Whitey checking her in to get her to stop.
She thought about using every day, couldn’t help it most of the time—the ex-addicts who had helped her break the habit had told her that those thoughts were natural, that they would go on for a while, maybe forever. But thinking about it wasn’t the same as doing it. She could feel a craving for it but still not do it, and as long as she stayed clean, the craving would diminish little by little. Or at least that’s what they said. She still felt it quite often and quite strongly. And when she did, she tried to remember Griff. She didn’t want to end up like that. And now, thinking back, she remembered feeling it most strongly just after her first drink. Which is maybe why she’d had her second drink, as a way of not thinking about it. And her third. And her fourth. Maybe this is why that same group said that alcohol was also a drug and would lead her right back to where she was before. They claimed she must abstain from all drugs in order to recover. And yet most nights she found herself back at the bar.
She flushed the toilet and then stood in front of the sink, scrubbing the makeup off her face until she was satisfied, beginning to move out of her thoughts and out into her day. Put on a happy face, she told herself. Act okay and maybe you’ll be okay; maybe you’ll get back to what you know you are. Shuffling into the bedroom, she saw that Steve had jumped up onto the bed, was curled up in the blankets where she’d been sleeping. She quickly slipped on shorts and a T-shirt. She whistled once and he lifted his head.
“Come on, buddy,” she said. “Let’s eat.”
At the word eat, Steve bounded up and off the bed and rushed toward the kitchen. With a laugh, she followed him.
Chapter Eight
She refilled Steve’s water and poured him a bowl of kibble. He immediately began wolfing it down. She dumped the used coffee filter out and put in a new one, filled it with fresh grounds.
After starting the machine dripping, she stayed leaning against the counter a moment, listening to the sound of Steve crunching up his food. Her head felt like it had been filled with wet sand. No more drinking, she promised herself again, but knew that as the day went on she’d take it back. Powerless.
She sighed and went to get the paper. When she opened the door it wasn’t on the mat and for a moment she thought it hadn’t been delivered. She stepped out and peered down the long drab hall and there it was, halfway between her door and the next one. Would it kill him to put it on my mat? she wondered. Sighing, she made her barefoot way out into the hall to grab it.
She’d just bent down and picked it up when she felt the air out in the hall shift and change. She had the sudden feeling that she was being observed. She looked up and saw that the door to the apartment at the far end of the hall was ajar now, though she hadn’t heard it open. The apartment had been unoccupied as long as she’d been in the house, and it was a surprise to think that the landlady had finally managed to rent it. Maybe they’d left it open because they were in the process of moving in. Or maybe the apartment wasn’t rented after all and the door had simply come unlocked for some reason, had been left open when someone had walked through it looking at it or when a repairman had come.
For a moment she considered walking down and closing the door but as she straightened up she realized that there was something strange about the doorway. The darkness wasn’t consistent within it.
As she peered closer, she realized with a start that there was a man standing there, motionless. He wore dark clothing, was mostly hidden in shadow, but he was there. And he was watching her.
“God,” she said. “You startled me.”
The man didn’t say anything. Didn’t even move. Just remained standing there with his arms crossed, just within the apartment. Weird, thought Heidi. Fuck him.
But maybe there was an explanation. Maybe he hadn’t heard her. Or maybe he was just shy. She decided to make an effort to be neighborly and try again.
“Hello,” she said, moving a step closer. “Are you the new tenant?”
Still he did not answer, did not even move. Was there really someone there? Was it some sort of optical illusion and she was seeing things? No, she could see him, could even, if she paid very close attention, tell that he was breathing.
“I live here in number two,” she said, her voice losing its friendliness now. “My name is—”
Before she could finish, the door slammed shut. The man had moved so quickly she had hardly seen him. It was as if one moment he was there and the next not; one moment the door was open and the next closed. She stared at it in astonishment. So much for the new neighbor.
Shaking her head she returned to the apartment and poured herself a cup of coffee. What an asshole. If Lacy was going to rent it to someone like that, it would have been better if number five had remained empty.
She took a sip of the coffee and groaned. God, it was good. Maybe she could survive her hangover after all.
She’d have to call her mother, she thought, taking another sip. It had been a while since they talked, and she’d be worried, and ever since her dad had died, she didn’t have anyone to talk to.
She sat down at the table and opened the Salem News. She’d always found the little icon of a witch riding a broom past the moon on the paper’s masthead ridiculous. Why would a town cling so tightly to an awful history of witches and murder? If she had to bet, she’d say the majority of women executed in the Salem witch trials hadn’t done anything at all, had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But being on-air at a radio station in Salem meant that she had to play along with the witch business in the same way that so many of the businesses around here did.
Even less going on around town than usual, if the paper was to be believed. She sighed and took another sip of her coffee and her thoughts turned back to toying with the idea of a fix. She shook her head and steered them away. She thought about the man in apartment five. His face had been difficult to read, expressionless as it was, and she had a hard time knowing why he’d reacted as he had. Maybe she just hadn’t gotten a good look at his face. But now it was difficult for her even to imagine what he had looked like. Was he some sort of recluse? Or a mute, maybe? She’d have to ask her landlady about him.