The Cold Nowhere

28

Brooke Hahne sat in the basement cafe known as Amazing Grace. It was a college hang-out, but Brooke came here several times a week. Sometimes she kept an eye open for kids who needed help. Sometimes she hid in a corner and nursed a chai latte as she wrote grant proposals for The Praying Hands. Sometimes, like tonight, she came for the band.

Steve Garske’s band was called Doc of the Bay. That was cute.

Steve was no Brad Paisley on the guitar, but he could lay down a good riff on songs like ‘One More Last Chance’. He had a mellow voice that made for a good cover of Vince Gill, who was one of Brooke’s favorites. She liked the old-style, twangy country music. Prison songs. Raspy, bourbon-soaked voices. Lots of steel. She was probably the only George Jones fan who had just turned thirty.

On stage, Steve’s fingers flew like a pro. She saw a sheen of sweat on his brow under the hot lights. As he wrapped up his solo, the crammed cafe erupted in applause, and he bowed with a shy grin, pushing back his blond hair. Brooke toasted him with her latte. Steve winked at her.

She examined the crowd squeezed around the handful of weathered wooden tables. Most of them were under twenty-five, except for a handful of aging ex-hippies in hemp sweaters. She had a tiny circular table to herself, but a dozen people stood over her. When the music stopped, a college kid squatted next to her. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen. He was cute and gangly, with a shaggy haircut that went out with the Monkees, and he didn’t even look old enough to shave. College boys had no sense of a woman’s age.

‘Hey, you alone?’ he asked.

‘I’m waiting for someone,’ Brooke said.

‘Well, how about I wait with you?’

Brooke rolled her eyes. Tall, skinny, fit blonds drew boys like mosquitoes. Usually, they wilted away with a simple brush-off that dented their egos. Others, the cocky ones, needed a firmer rejection.

‘I’m involved,’ she said.

‘Yeah? With who?’

She gestured at Steve Garske, who gulped bottled water on stage as they geared up for the second set. ‘Him. The singer.’

The boy’s hair almost dangled in Brooke’s drink. ‘He’s like a million years old.’

‘What can I say? I’m a groupie.’

‘What’s he got that I ain’t got?’

Brooke cupped her hands by his ear. The kid’s face scrunched up with disbelief. ‘No way,’ he said.

Brooke took her index fingers and slowly spread them apart.

‘Holy shit,’ the kid said. He left her alone and she saw him talking frantically to three of his buddies.

Brooke smiled to herself. The truth was that she was dating no one, but an imaginary boyfriend spared her an evening of come-ons. Poor Steve. She couldn’t remember him dating a soul in the years she’d known him. He always claimed to be too busy for sex, between his medical practice and his band. After tonight, he’d probably wonder why women were clamoring for his attention.

She liked Steve. The fact that he was as asexual as she was made her feel comfortable around him. He’d never made a salacious comment of any kind about her, and that was rare. Most men, married or unmarried, didn’t wait five minutes to comment on her looks. Donors to the shelter were the worst. With other men, she simply shot them down, but with donors, she had to play the game, as dirty as it made her feel.

Brooke hadn’t slept with a man in five years. Her last relationship, with an intellectual property attorney from Minneapolis, had ended after their first night together. She didn’t blame him. She was frozen in bed, not even mustering a pretense of excitement. To her, sex was a chore. Since then, she’d routinely turned down dates, because she was tired of faking interest. She wasn’t gay, but she loathed men. Rich or poor, young or old, handsome or ugly, they were all the same. Abusers. Manipulators. Predators.

Her cell phone vibrated on the table. She picked it up and read the incoming text.

I’m outside.

Brooke drained the last drops of her coffee drink and stood up. Her table was immediately swarmed. She climbed onto the stage and marched in her black heels up to Steve, who was draped over a wooden chair that was too small for him. His face was flushed, and he laughed as he chatted with his bandmates. She bent down and practically had to shout.

‘I have to go. I’m meeting someone.’

Steve wiped his forehead with his sleeve. ‘You’re going to miss “House of Gold” if you bug out.’

‘My favorite.’

‘I know.’

‘Rain check for the next gig,’ Brooke said. She didn’t think she could hear the song tonight anyway. It always made her cry.

When she turned away, Steve tugged on the sleeve of her blouse. He eyed the front row of women in the crowd, who were giggling to each other and sneaking glances at him. ‘Hey, is it just me, or are the gals looking at me funny?’

Brooke smiled. ‘It’s just you.’

She left the stage and pushed through the mass of bodies in the cafe. When she reached the door, she broke out into the cool air and climbed the steps to the street. She had a jacket over her arm, and she slipped into it. The lake wind cut through her tapered black slacks. She reached behind her head and bundled her long hair and expertly tied it into a ponytail.

On the other side of the park, near the ship canal, she saw the foggy blur of the lighthouse towers. She crossed Buchanan Street into the crowded parking lot, where the neon sign for Grandma’s Restaurant glowed behind the cars. Her Kia was parked in the first row.

She saw someone sitting on her bumper.

‘Dory,’ Brooke said. ‘What are you doing here?’

Dory Mateo scrambled to her feet. She was smoking a cigarette. Under the streetlight, her skin looked white enough to see veins. ‘Brooke. Hey, how are you?’

‘I’m okay. How about you?’

‘How do I look?’ Dory asked.

‘Not too good, sweetheart.’

Dory’s mouth carved out a faint smile. ‘Yeah.’

‘Can I do anything?’

‘No, I just need to talk.’

Brooke opened the car doors, and Dory crushed her cigarette on the wet ground. They got inside. Dory carried a smell of smoke with her, and Brooke cracked both windows to let in the lake air. Before the dome light went off, she saw the sunken half-moons under Dory’s eyes. Dory’s fingers shook.

‘I’m going to drive you to the hospital,’ Brooke said.

‘No! No doctors.’

‘Dory, you need help.’

‘I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.’

Brooke had seen Dory at the bottom of some black holes in her life, but she’d never seen her like this. The two of them went back for years. She’d met Dory in her freshman year at UMD, where they quickly became inseparable. They moved into a crappy studio apartment together, and they shared sob stories about money, men, sex and families. They vowed to help each other make it in the big bad world, but it didn’t work out that way. Dory lasted only one year at UMD before dropping out. She burnt through thousands of dollars on drugs. Watching Dory spiral out of control, Brooke became cynical about what it took to survive in the world.

‘How’s Cat?’ Brooke asked. ‘Is she okay?’

‘She’s with the cops. She’s safe for now.’

Dory fidgeted as they heard a burble of voices from the restaurant behind them. A gang of teenagers rode skateboards back and forth in front of Amazing Grace, and she squinted at them as the rolling wheels shunted and banged.

‘Across the street,’ Dory said. ‘Is that a man in the alley?’

Brooke studied the shadows. ‘I don’t see anyone. Dory, what’s wrong?’

‘Margot Huizenfelt disappeared,’ Dory said. ‘I think I’m next.’

‘Next? What are you talking about? What does Margot have to do with you?’

‘Margot was trying to find Cat when someone grabbed her. The police think there’s a connection.’

‘What kind of connection? What is this about?’

‘I don’t know, but two people are dead, and Cat barely got away alive. He’s going to come after me, too. I know he is. I’m being punished.’

‘Punished? Come on, that’s crazy. Why do you think that?’

Dory turned, and in the strange shadows of the car Brooke felt as if she could see through Dory’s skin to her skull. ‘I did a terrible thing back then,’ her friend said. ‘We both know that. It’s like a curse. I can’t escape it.’

Brooke felt a chill. Dory looked like the devil, staring at her. Her eyes were almost red. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You know what I did. Remember?’

Brooke closed her eyes in frustration. ‘Dory, that was ten years ago. We were kids. We all made mistakes. If I could go back and start over, don’t you think I’d change my life, too?’

‘It’s not the same.’

‘Yes, it is. You can’t keep torturing yourself. Whatever’s going on now, it has nothing to do with you. Let it go. Please. Just get yourself some help, sweetheart, before it’s too late.’

‘I can’t keep the secret anymore. It’s like this weight on my chest.’ Dory leaned forward, clutching the dashboard. ‘There’s a man in that alley. I see him.’

‘It’s your imagination,’ Brooke told her. ‘There’s no one there.’

‘No, he’s watching us. I know it. He’s coming for me.’

‘Dory, listen to me. You’re in bad shape. We both know it. If you want to make up for what you did, turn your life around and get healthy. It won’t change anything to start living in the past. You and I are the only people who know what happened back then. Leave it at that.’

Dory shook her head. ‘Someone else knows.’

‘You said you never told anyone.’

‘I needed to get it off my chest. I thought it wouldn’t matter anymore.’

‘Dory, you didn’t tell Cat, did you?’ Brooke asked.

‘Cat? No, it would kill her to know. I never wanted her to find out.’

‘Then who?’

Dory pushed open the car door. Her eyes were fixated on the alley. She was ready to run.

‘Margot,’ Dory said. ‘I told Margot what I did. Don’t you see? It can’t be a coincidence. This is my fault. Right after I told her, she disappeared.’