More info. After dinner at Pairings on Wednesday you walked south. Checked into the Element Hotel at about 9. You walked from there to Greenbacks the next A.M.
I stand motionless for a minute on the middle of the bedroom, staring at the screen. I’m thinking, trying to make sense of it. Using my phone I google the Element, find out it’s a boutique hotel smack in the middle of Nolita, an area south of the East Village and north of Little Italy. I have no memory of staying there that night, needless to say. But that area once mattered to me.
It’s been a while since I updated my timeline so I grab my purse and fish it out, adding the details I’ve become aware of since Monday.
MONDAY
evening: dinner, TV, argument
TUESDAY
7:00: still in bed
9:00-ish: took call from Dr. Erling
9:00–9:17: sent emails
9:30: hung out at café
11:00-ish: left for 42nd Street
11:30-ish: took train to Erling’s; found body; lost phone; took train back to city
3:00–3:30-ish: called WorkSpace
9:00–6:00 A.M.: spent night at WorkSpace
WEDNESDAY
Noon-ish: bought food at Eastside Eats, East 7th St.
Afternoon: walked near Tompkins Square Park
Maybe evening: ate at Pairings
Night: stayed at the Element Hotel
THURSDAY
8:05: arrived at Greenbacks
There are now many fewer blanks, but I still have questions. I return my attention to the phone and quickly text Damien.
Can you meet me at the bar of the Element Hotel tonight?
34
Damien is already at the bar when I arrive at around 9:30. He’s wearing jeans and a checked shirt, and his blond hair looks damp on the sides, as if he’s smoothed it back with wet hands. There’s a beer bottle in front of him and a glass he doesn’t seem to be bothering with.
“It’s really good to see you, Ally,” he says. This time I do get a kiss on the cheek, one that lingers a little. And then an embrace, which I return.
“I appreciate you coming on such short notice,” I say. The bartender approaches and I order a beer, too.
“I’ve been so worried about you.”
“I’m actually doing okay, all things considered.”
He smiles. “It must feel good to know you handled the situation brilliantly. Ms. Linden in the kitchen with a candlestick.”
I laugh out loud. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Are you getting the support you need right now?”
“Pretty much. Though as of this week, I’m separated from my husband, and that’s going to be really tough. Still, it’s the right decision for both of us.”
His expression is inscrutable, so I have no idea what he’s thinking. The waiter sets my beer down, and I take a sip from the bottle.
“That is tough,” he says. “Sorry to hear it.”
“Thank you . . . I feel like all we’ve done lately is talk about me. What about you, Damien? What’s happening in your life?”
“I guess life is good overall. I’m single at the moment and still living down here. Playing the guitar, though I don’t know if I’ve improved since you last heard me. Trying to squeeze in as much travel as possible. And still loving every day at Greenbacks.”
“Has Sasha surfaced again?”
“The beauty guru? I haven’t heard anything else. Maybe she went back to covering split ends and dry cuticles.”
“It’s none of my business, of course, but could she make trouble for you—for the company?”
He narrows his eyes again, studying me.
“I’m not perfect, Ally,” he says finally. “You know that. But I’d never fuck up something that mattered so much to me. . . . Is that why you asked me to join you tonight? To find out if I was cooking the books?”
“No, though it’s good to know you’re the same person from five years ago. But there is something I wanted to ask you. The private investigator I’m working with found out I stayed in this hotel the night before I went to Greenbacks.”
“And you have no recollection of it whatsoever?”
“None.”
For half a minute neither of us speaks.
“You’re looking at me as if I might have something to contribute,” Damien says, raising an eyebrow.
“Do you? This is two blocks from your apartment. I mean, the one you lived in when I knew you.”
“Are you asking if we spent the night together, Ally? No. When I saw you in the conference room, it was the first time I’d laid eyes on you in five years.”
“Okay. I . . . I just wondered. Because it seemed more than coincidental. Me being in your neighborhood—and the fact that I showed up at Greenbacks the next day. I thought maybe I did something crazy and invited you to my hotel room.”
He smiles. “If you had, I would have been happy to oblige. Sorry, I don’t mean to make light of it. Not knowing about a chunk of your life must be frustrating.”
“Most of the blanks have actually been filled in by this point, thanks to the two investigators I’ve worked with. But what’s frustrating is not knowing why I did some of the things I did. It’s pretty clear why I fell apart, but why dump my purse in my office and set off on this crazy journey through the East Village? And end up here? And then Greenbacks? What was I hoping to accomplish?”
Damien reaches for his beer bottle and runs a thumb up and down its side.
“Maybe it’s not all that complicated. You could try looking at it literally and see how that sits with you.”
“What do you mean?
“When we spent time together, you told me you used to wander around the East Village. And daydream in a little restaurant there. So maybe you were trying to be in a place that felt good to you and recapture someone you used to be. Or experimented with being.”
I reflect on his words. Is that really what those two days were about? If so, it also would mean that I’d felt a yearning to connect with Damien again.
“It’s funny,” I say. “My father always called me Button because I was so buttoned-up—but there’s a part of me that wants to be different than that. Not a wild child, but freer. I’ve only let that side of me out once in a while.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Not sure. Perhaps I sensed my parents loved the girl who worked extra hard and didn’t cross the line. But more importantly, I think finding Jaycee Long’s body put the fear of God into me. It felt as if I was being punished for breaking the rules.”
“You mean because you’d taken the shortcut that day?”
“Right. I’d never done—”
A thought flits around the edges of my mind, vaguely familiar.
“What?” Damien asks.
“I just remembered something. Another lie I told back then—though, thank god, this isn’t as consequential as the other.”
“Tell me.”
“I told my family and the police that I took the shortcut home because I dillydallied around school that day, but that’s only party true. Believe it or not, I was also looking for arrowheads.”
“Arrowheads?”
“I was fascinated by the whole idea of them, and I’d heard someone say they were all over New Jersey, in fields and woods. That’s probably why I was off the path, kicking at piles of leaves.”