He'd thought about this moment, knowing the wrong approach might stop him from even getting through the door. Now, God only knew where he stood. A little incongruously, he tried keeping his voice upbeat. "My name's Joe Gunther. From Brattleboro. You and I met more than thirty years ago. I was driving through town, and I heard through the grapevine you were living here. Thought I'd just take a chance and see if you were in. I'm sorry about the confusion with the doorbell. I didn't mean to upset you."
"What was your name?" The voice had become no more energetic or friendly.
"Joe. Joe Gunther."
There was a long pause, followed by "Did you say Brattleboro?"
"Yes. That's right. A long time ago."
"What was a long time ago?"
Joe looked at the intercom quizzically. "That we met," he said, his voice trailing off.
The white noise of the speaker stretched out, eventually followed by a weak "Oh, what the hell" and the buzzing of the entryway lock to let him in.
He stepped into a hallway and turned left, toward where he knew the apartment to be. He knocked on the only door with a number on it.
"Come in," said the same weak voice.
Gingerly he tested the knob and pushed the door open. "Katie?" he asked hesitantly.
There was no answer. He peered around the edge of the door and saw a small, thin woman sitting on an upright chair in the short hallway before him, her back against the wall as if she'd collapsed there following some shocking news.
"Are you all right?" he asked, stepping inside.
She gave him a deadpan stare with hollow eyes and sighed. "Peachy. What do you want?"
"Nothing, really," he lied. "Like I said, I'd heard you were here. Actually, that was a while ago, but then, all of a sudden, I'm driving through town, and I remembered it, so I thought I'd drop by. Maybe not such a good idea, though, huh?"
"What?" she asked.
He approached slowly, looking at her, again caught off guard by her apparent confusion. "Maybe I shouldn't have bothered you today. You seem a little tired."
She looked at the floor and laughed weakly, doubling over with the effort. He feared she might fall off her chair.
"That's good," she almost whispered. "A little tired. Jesus Christ."
While she caught her breath, he asked, "Can I do anything to help?"
"You'd be the first if you could," she answered, and then went through an agonizingly slow process of standing up, using the wall and chair back for assistance, during which he fought the impulse to reach out and help, sensing that it would be poorly received.
The odd thing was that she looked fine. Nothing bloated or bent or altogether missing. She was just a slim woman in her late forties who moved like an ailing octogenarian. He remembered the lithe, attractive, quick-moving girl she'd been, and could still see the ghosts of all that, but in extreme slow motion.
He followed her into the apartment's main room, filled with soft music but also cluttered with magazines, newspapers, clothing, cast-aside mail, odds and ends, all looking as if it had been dropped in the midst of some military retreat. Dominating it was a chair by the window, overstuffed, crammed with pillows, and circled by small tables stacked with more junk. It made him think of the nest of some large flightless bird, reduced to being fed and cared for by others.
Laboriously Katie Clark worked her way toward this resting place, her hands slightly out to her sides like a tightrope walker's, her gait uncertain, as if negotiating a rain-slicked icy pond.
By the time she finally reached her goal and sank in among her pillows, Joe was as grateful as she appeared to be.
"Who are you, again?" she asked, squinting at him in concentration. "I know you told me, but I forgot."
He decided to keep it simple this time. "Joe, from Brattleboro."
She nodded thoughtfully. "Right. Brattleboro. Long time."
She didn't add anything to that, leaving him groping for a follow-up.
"Yeah. We actually met, you and I. Decades ago. You weren't even twenty yet." He was about to add that he was a cop and that their connection was Peter Shea, but then held back, deciding to let things evolve a little first.
She glanced out the window at a brief spurt of traffic, unleashed by the intersection's changing light. "Not even twenty," she murmured. "Christ, to be there again."
He sensed a small opening. "What happened, Katie?"
She turned to look at him, the exhaustion on her face ever more pronounced. "You ever hear of Yuppie disease?"
He nodded. "Chronic fatigue, right?"
She smiled bitterly. "Well, I'm one of the Yuppies who's got it. Yuppie, my ass. You know that's bullshit."
He grimaced his embarrassment. "Actually, I don't know much of anything. Just the name, really. I read about a woman with it who took several years to write a history book. That put it in the headlines."
Katie nodded. "Damned if I know how she did that. I change my sheets and it's lights out for the rest of the day. The name's crap anyway."
"What name?" he asked. "'Yuppie disease'?"
She frowned dismissively. "Sure, and the other one. 'Chronic fatigue.' Makes it sound like we're a bunch of sleepwalkers. It's more than that. Sleep's a bitch, in fact."
"You don't sleep?" He was surprised.
"Not well. In fits and starts. We never feel rested. That's one of the… whatchamacallits they use to tell this from something else."
"Symptoms?"
"Yeah. Fatigue's only one. There's swollen glands, headaches, lousy sleep, achy joints and muscles, sore throat. You can't remember shit and you can't do anything right… fucking checklist. I've got it all and then some," she said regretfully. "You want to sound cool," she then added, looking at him sharply, "you call it CFIDS. Stands for something." She passed her hand across her forehead. "Whatever. I can't remember."
They both listened to the street sounds leaking through the windows for a while before he asked, "Are you in a lot of pain right now?"
"You bet your ass I am."
Gunther had expected none of this, and was at a loss how to proceed. Katie Clark was locked in a whirlpool of her own misery, which seemed to have consumed all her attention.
He decided to work backward.
"How long have you had this?" he asked.
She'd been gazing at him for a couple of minutes, and now continued doing so without any sign of having heard him.
He waited a couple of moments before softly saying, "Katie?"
She blinked. "What?"
"How long have you had this?"
She set her head back against a pillow and closed her eyes. "Twelve years."
"Do you know what brought it on?"
"Nobody knows. Some people think it's depression gone crazy; some say it's a virus or Lyme disease. One woman told me it was polio vaccinations we were given as kids. But everyone's clueless-don't know where it comes from, don't know how to get rid of it."
"How do you support yourself?"
"I don't. I'm on disability. I tried doing stuff a few years ago, but it didn't last. You can't keep a schedule. I feel it coming on, know I've only got an hour or two to reach home before I can't move anymore. People don't understand. Think you're faking it. I'd be better off if I had cancer."
Joe was caught off guard by the comment and had to bite back disabusing her of cancer's attractions. Instead, he kept her going, sensing he was making progress. "What did you used to do?"
Katie gave another of her short laughs. "Worked at a nursing home. Good, huh? Took care of old people sitting in chairs, drooling. Boy, I used to pity them."
It was like tugging a narcissist away from her own mirror. "You ever go back to Brattleboro?" he continued trying.
She tilted her head forward and looked at him. "Brattleboro? How did you know I came from there?"
He didn't miss a beat. "That's where we met, a long time ago."