Frozen Butterflies Read online

  “I see. Well, Andrew’s aversion to journalists is bad news.” I wanted Nick to hear that and looked for him, but I couldn’t see him. He and Elinor had been away for longer than I expected. I told Christine I needed to use the ladies’ room but, in fact, went looking for Nick.

  When I got closer to the restrooms, I saw Elinor leaving the men’s room, and a few seconds later, Nick came out as well. I let my purse fall to the floor. A man came close to collect it for me and asked if I was OK. Nick looked at me and didn’t say a word. I didn’t either. I left, called a taxi, and returned to the hotel.

  As I was collecting my things and preparing to leave, Nick showed up.

  “Where are you going? Can we talk?”

  I looked at him, turned to my suitcase, and closed it. I really didn’t have anything to say.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I took my suitcase, slammed the door to the room, and went down the street. I called a taxi and asked the driver to take me to any hotel far from there where I could spend the night.

  “How far?” the driver asked.

  “Far.”

  He drove for a while, and then parked in front of a hotel with big flags hanging from a balcony. I paid for the ride, and without even checking the place, decided to stay. I was too exhausted and drained to even think. The desk clerk told me there was a room available. I said I would take it before he even told me how much it was. When the man told me the price, I looked around and finally saw where I was. I must have looked cheap to the driver. Perhaps I was. And perhaps I belonged there. I decided to stay. At least I’d be alone. The man gave me my key and said that I would find the room on the top floor, the twelfth. Good, I thought. The farther from the ground, the better.

  The price was cheap, but the room looked even cheaper. It was small and old, the kind of old that makes things look dirty. There was a single bed; a window at its edge; a closet on the left; and between the bed and the door, a cramped bathroom with a shower, a small sink, and a toilet. I placed my suitcase on the bed and opened it. I took a long hot shower, put on a T-shirt, and went closer to the window to look outside and wait until I’d be tired enough to crash. I felt exhausted, and I felt pressure on my chest. My heart was beating too fast for me to surrender to sleep. I looked for some alcohol, but there wasn’t any. I lay on the bed waiting for peace, but I kept seeing Elinor and Nick in the men’s room, having sex. I closed my eyes to find relief, pressed them shut harder, but I heard a couple having sex in a room below me. They were so loud they seemed to be everywhere. And a baby started crying. A woman, probably his mother, was yelling at him. That should be it, I thought. But then a drunk knocked on my door and asked me to open it. That night I could have confused hell with heaven. Or maybe I wasn’t confused at all.

  I checked my emails. There was a note from Matt.

  I went to the beach today and thought about you. I hope you’re having fun out there.

  Looking For Andrew

  I woke up early that morning and checked my phone. There were no phone messages, no emails.

  I looked at the hotel room. It was depressing. If I wanted to stay in New York, I had to find a better place. So I packed again, checked out, and left.

  I went to a café close to the hotel, connected my computer to the internet, and started looking for apartments to rent. I felt I needed time to finish what I had started, although I wasn’t completely sure what that was.

  My chair was uncomfortable, and the music was too loud, irritating, but I managed to isolate myself, and after a while I found an apartment in the East Village that looked interesting. It was a studio, but it didn’t seem too small. I called the owner and scheduled a meeting with her to see the place. A few hours later, I had agreed to sublet the studio until the end of January. Once the landlady closed the door behind her, I lay in bed and remained looking at the ceiling for a while, my coat and shoes on, my head and heart somewhere else. I hadn’t thought this through. Staying in New York until January for what? For Andrew? Myself? Nick? What was I going to do for two months? I replied to Matt’s email with a short message. I wrote that Nick and I had stopped working together, but that I would stay in New York for a while. He replied right away.

  What happened with Nick? Why are you staying?

  I had no answers to those questions, so after trying to compose a reply two or three times, I left my new apartment in search of distractions.

  I returned to Queens, to the comic book store where Nick and I had been the day before. I didn’t want to give up on Andrew.

  I arrived there shortly before closing time. The guy Nick and I had talked to was cleaning up and let me in “only for few minutes.”

  “I didn’t come here to buy anything,” I confessed right away. “I came to talk to you. My friend and I are no longer working together, but I still need to find Andrew Pratt.”

  He looked skeptical.

  “I’m not a journalist. I’m a teacher,” I insisted. “I teach psychology. Andrew came to visit my class in L.A. once, and we talked. At that time, I didn’t know who he was. He came looking for me.”

  “Ms. . . . ?”

  “Susan, call me Susan.”

  “Susan, I want to be honest with you. I saw Andrew this morning. He came to buy some books. I told him you guys were looking for him, but as soon as he heard the word ‘blogger,’ he said he wasn’t interested.”

  “Yes, I know. One of his friends told me he’s not exactly a fan of media, journalists . . . but I’m not a journalist, or a blogger. And he looked for me before, so . . .”

  He looked down and around, undecided.

  “Fine,” he then said, “give me your number and I’ll give it to him.”

  I wrote down my number and email address.

  “Please tell him to call or write anytime,” I said. I bought a copy of The Truth About Me and left.

  I walked for a while, sometimes stopping at a store or little market, unsure of what to do, where to go. And then I found myself in front of the Thalia Theatre. At night, the theater looked more interesting than it did during the day, more intimate, a story box that enticed me. The movie that night was The Big Sleep, with Humphrey Bogart. I hadn’t seen it and didn’t have anything better to do, so I decided to give it a try.

  The movie was dark and slow, I was confused and tired, and after twenty minutes or so I fell asleep. I still can’t say what the movie was about. I woke up during the closing credits, and thought it was probably best for me to call a taxi and go home. As I was looking for a taxi, I thought I saw Christine and Andrew walking, hand in hand, across the street. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, but they were still there. Andrew and Christine were, in fact, holding hands. I tried to follow them, first with my eyes, and then I walked, ran, toward them, but they disappeared inside an alley, and I was too tired to run anymore. So I lost them, or I lost whatever I thought I had seen. But if what I had seen was real, if Christine and Andrew were together, why had she lied to us? Why tell us about the Thalia Theatre and then lie about her relationship with Andrew?

  I went back to my apartment and checked my emails. I had none from Nick. I felt lost and sad. The radio was playing Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald’s “Summertime.” I poured some wine and let my thoughts wander.

  Summertime, and the livin’ is easy . . . Don’t you cry . . .

  The words of that song didn’t make any sense to me. The sound didn’t evoke summer. it was not summer, and living wasn’t easy. Everything now seemed nonsense, and I thought I should probably give up the nonsensical search for Andrew. My instinct was wrong, and my tears were louder than my screaming on that rooftop. Maybe that night Nick had just been trying to prepare me for this. Well, he had failed.

  One of these mornings you’re gonna rise up singing

  And you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to the sky

  More tears. I felt cold.

  When I woke up the next day, I realized I still had my clothes and shoes on. I f
reed myself from them, took a shower, got dressed, and returned to the bookstore. No, I probably shouldn’t give up on that nonsense. I wasn’t ready to.

  “Any news from Andrew?” I asked the man I’d talked to the day before.

  “No news.”

  “Do you know if he’s dating anyone?”

  “Andrew?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’s that have to do with a profile on him? Why do you care?”

  I didn’t answer that question as I couldn’t.

  “I’ve seen him with a girl pretty often.” I lied, I tried. “But I’m not sure if they are actually dating.”

  “Is it a girl with black, long, straight hair, thin . . . tall . . . ?”

  “Yes, precisely.”

  “Yes, I think they’re a couple.”

  So they were a couple. I had not dreamed that.

  “Thanks . . . ?”

  “Dave.”

  “Thanks, Dave.”

  “Look, I like you. I didn’t like your friend. Trust me, leave the man alone. If he feels like it, he’ll reach out to you. Otherwise, let him go.”

  I nodded, thanked him, and left. I took a long walk in the neighborhood with no specific plan or idea. After a while, exhausted from my wanderings, I stopped at a café and surrendered to my memories, which were now almost intoxicating. They tasted like Nick. I must have ordered something, but when the waiter came with my order I was surprised. He asked me if anything was wrong with the food. I cried.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “This is perfect. It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”

  Someone called him, and he left.

  Why did everything always have to be so complicated for me? A cockroach ran under my table. I moved my foot, and it froze and remained still for a while. Didn’t run or move. Impressive, I thought. That little thing was playing dead to survive. Why do we act the way we do? Is it our instinct or is it our reason that moves us? Should we follow the first or the second? I had followed my instinct with Nick, and there I was, alone with a cockroach that now seemed so beautiful to me. I didn’t touch it. Its instinct had been right to suggest it should remain still. Had my instinct been right too?

  While I was lost in my thoughts, Andrew appeared.

  I thought I was dreaming again, and so I kept thinking, or dreaming. He stopped in front of the café’s window, just in front of my table, and stared at me. He was alone. We looked at each other, neither of us moving. Then my phone rang, and the sound woke me up from my trance. Andrew was actually there, I had not dreamed it. I called to him. He turned and walked away.

  “Andrew!” I called again. “Andrew, please!” I called louder, and I left the café. “Please, stop!”

  He accelerated, I started running toward him, but I fell. I should have gotten up and followed him, but I didn’t feel like moving. I wasn’t playing dead. I felt dead. He turned, stopped, and walked back.

  “Are you OK?”

  I looked up. Andrew seemed so tall. It was early afternoon, and the sun was so bright I could barely see his face.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I remained silent, unsure of what to say, but then I tried to explain.

  “It’s complicated. I . . . was looking for you.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “The blog? My novels?”

  “Can we talk?”

  “I’m not interested in the blog, I’m sorry. You can keep the journal, publish all of it, I don’t care. Really, do whatever you want with it.”

  “Why do you say that? There’s something you should know. We have posted some of your drawings and parts of your writing. People don’t know who you are but are dying to know. They’re crazy about your work.”

  Trying to make sense, to convince him to stay, with no energy left in my body was hard, but I added, “I loved Lies We Tell. I read a copy of it. It’s beautiful. How could Folberg miss it?”

  “Do you know my agent?”

  “I was looking for you, I told you. I talked to Emily’s mother, Ed, Joe, Matt . . .”

  “What? How did you find them?

  “Hard work. Luck. Both.”

  He studied me where I sat on the curb. Then something crossed his mind, his look changed. He seemed more understanding—or curious.

  “Were you having lunch at that café? Maybe I could join you.”

  “That would be great,” I said.

  He finally offered me his hand, I got up, and we walked back to the café. I felt a sense of relief and closed my eyes for a second. Did I make it? Was I with him?

  When we were seated, the waiter came to take his order. My backpack was still on the chair where I had left it.

  “Why did you come to visit my class that day?” I asked.

  “I wanted to meet you,” he said, studying me. I must have looked different from the time we’d met in my office. I felt different.

  “I go back to L.A. a lot,” he continued. “Memories, you know. And my sister still lives there. I moved back to New York last year, but I’ve gone back to Los Angeles at least four times since then. I came to your class on one of those visits. I had read the blog. I looked for you, found that you were teaching psychology, and wanted to see who you were and whether I could trust you.”

  “And you let me keep your journal. So you did trust me?”

  He didn’t respond. There was some silence, and then I said, “I saw you walking with Christine, holding hands.”

  He suddenly looked suspicious or scared, and he moved his chair as if he were thinking of leaving.

  “I know it seems like I’m stalking you, but I’m not. I was just looking for people who knew you. I needed to find you, but I’m not even sure why.” I felt sick, vulnerable. I was probably just exhausted. I hoped he would have mercy for me and give me a chance.

  “What about your friend?”

  He did.

  “Nick?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re not doing this together anymore,” I said. I wasn’t going to say more, but then I felt he deserved to know more, to see me, to make up his mind as to whether I was worth his time. I needed him to think that I was. I needed to believe that I was. “We were together. But then he cheated on me with his ex-wife. I guess life rarely goes according to plans.”

  “Seems so.” He raised his eyebrows and took a sip of his drink. “You said you wanted to interview me?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Are you going to write about me? My work?”

  Right. What would I do with my interview? I actually had not thought about it.

  “I’m not a writer or a reporter,” I confessed. “I mean, I’ve written in the past, but I don’t know if I can actually . . .”

  “Do you want to try?”

  Yes, I should try, I thought. I should write my interview, finish what I had started, and then try to publish it somewhere. Why not? After all, writing about Andrew had been my idea.

  “Can we do the interview tomorrow?” I asked. “I need to think about what I want to ask you, read your novels again. In fact, now that I think about it, I don’t have Lies with me. I read it, but I need to read it again before we talk. Nick had a copy Joe lent him.”

  “I have one at my place. I could lend it to you. I live close by,” he said, and asked for the check.

  When we left the café I followed him through the alleys, and soon we arrived at his place.

  “Let’s use the stairs,” he said. “I don’t like elevators.”

  His place was a loft packed with drawings, some even hanging from the ceiling, some piled up on top of others on the floor. The drawings were throbbing with life and pain. They were so loud that they almost hurt. The portraits and sketches seemed to be screaming. And among them, I saw one that looked like me. It was a sketch I thought he might be using for one of his novels. The woman’s eyes were crying with no tears, and she seemed trapped, compressed in what seemed to be a box. I stared at that drawing for a while. Her eyes, lips, fa
ce were mine.

  “She seems to be crying, but she’s not.”

  “She is crying,” he said.

  “But there are no tears.”

  “You know her, she speaks to you, so you know she’s crying.”

  I remained silent and he added, “The tears you don’t see are the ones that hurt the most, aren’t they?”

  He came closer, and we both stared at the drawing.

  “What do you see in there?”

  I thought about what I wanted to say, but then he spoke again.

  “I’ll tell you what I saw when I drew her. I made that sketch after meeting with you that day in your office. This is what I saw. But perhaps there’s more of myself than yourself in her.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He smiled, “I wish I knew. I’m still trying to figure it out.”

  I looked at that drawing again. It was disturbingly real. I couldn’t take my eyes away from it.

  “I’ll give it to you after you finish your piece on me. Maybe we’ll understand by then what was crossing my mind when I made it. You might help me figure this out.”

  I liked the idea.

  “When did you do all these drawings?” I asked, looking around. So much art.

  “I started drawing as soon as I arrived in New York, and now there’s someone interested in buying my work for big money. Well, big money for me.”

  “You’re no longer writing novels?”

  “Not at the moment. After Lies, I wrote another novel, How Did I Get Here?, and found someone interested in publishing it.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Me after Emily.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “I’ll give you a copy, but please don’t share it with anyone, and it can’t be part of your piece on me either. I need to publish it first.”

  “Of course.”

  He went to one of his shelves and pulled out Lies and his other novel.

  “Here you are. We’ll meet whenever you’re ready.”

  “Sounds perfect,” I said, looked at the apartment once more, and left. It seemed unreal, but I had just met Andrew.

  About Andrew