Awake Page 19

  He was only a few feet away from the door when the hallway narrowed so much that he got stuck, wedged between the walls. He could hear the creature coming at him still, but there was so little clearance that he couldn’t even turn his head to look back at it.

  He wiggled about furiously, trying to get work himself through to the door, so close he could almost reach out and touch it. Meanwhile, the creature continued to get closer and closer.

  Lee could feel the creature’s hot breath on the back of his neck when somehow, he managed to free himself and almost fell in front of the door, where the hallway widened again to a normal size. Managing to catch himself on the door handle, he opened it and jumped through, slamming it shut behind him in one fluid motion.

  He’d run through the door so fast that his momentum carried him for several feet and he almost fell down a long flight of stone stairs in front of him, barely seeing them at the last moment. He skidded to a halt and half-fell, half-sat down at the top of the stairs. He was outside. Though it was cloudy, the light was so bright compared to where he’d been that for a moment he was blinded.

  He realized that he was back in front of the library. He could see the stone lions facing away from him at the bottom of the steps. To his relief, everything was back to normal, with people bustling in and out of the library´s front doors, walking around him without so much as a second glance.

  After he felt confident enough to stand again, he got up and moved to the side of the stairs so that he wasn’t blocking the foot traffic. He couldn’t see Ivy anywhere.

  He was scared. Though he kept telling himself over and over again that he’d been having a hallucination, he couldn’t make himself believe it. It had all felt so real.

  He felt something wet and sticky in his shirt and pulled it out to look down his collar. His chest was scraped and both of his nipples were bleeding around the edges. You just scraped yourself on something while you were hallucinating, he told himself. He started to feel dizzy. His back burned too. He was sure it was likewise scraped and bloody.

  “There you are, I’ve been looking everywhere for you! We were walking and I turned to say something to you, and you weren’t there all of a sudden,” Ivy exclaimed, approaching him from behind.

  “Sorry, I was seeing things again. Terrible things. I don’t have any idea how I got back out here,” Lee said.

  “Let’s get you back to the hotel. You look even paler now, there’s dust all over you, and you’re sweating too,” she said, taking his hand.

  “Thanks,” Lee said, leaning on her slightly for support as he got up and they started walking down the stairs to the street to catch a cab.

  “It’s no problem. So you have no idea where you went? I must have searched half the library for you, but it’s just too big to look everywhere.”

  “I really don’t know.”

  As they rode back to the hotel Ivy asked a few more questions. He answered them as best he could, but couldn’t offer many answers. He didn’t know them himself.

  Sensing how much the ordeal had disturbed him, she stopped asking about it and leaned her head onto his shoulder. They rode the rest of the trip that way in a comfortable silence.

  By the time they got back to the hotel, Lee was starting to feel better. Already he couldn’t remember much about the incident. He was finding more and more that when faced with incomprehensible events, the mind, or at least his, simply started blocking things out. It was like trying to remember a dream an hour after waking up.

  “We should bail on our plans with Ben and Stella. I really think you should get some rest,” Ivy said on the elevator ride up to their floor.

  “I’m feeling a bit better. I’ll have plenty of time to rest up before dinner.” Truth be told he was not really feeling up to it, but if these really were his last days he was going to make the most of them, not hide and wither away.

  “Fine, but I’m worried that you’re pushing yourself too hard,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I love you.”

  “I love you too. Don’t worry so much. I’m already starting to feel better. After I lay down for a little while I’m sure I’ll be feeling fine.”

  They went into the room and Lee did just that, with Ivy lying next to him and watching the TV with the volume down as far as it would go while still being able to hear it. He tried for half an hour but to no avail, so asked Ivy to grab one of his prescription pills. “Whichever one you want, surprise me.”

  He downed the pill with some water and then lay back down. Thus assisted, he was able to fall into a light sleep for almost an hour. Though he didn’t have a full dream about it, his mind kept slipping back to what he’d seen in the library in the lazy way people do when half asleep.

  “Oh sweetie, you should try and get more sleep than that,” Ivy said when he sat up from his nap.

  “I would if I could, believe me,” he said.

  “I suppose,” she said, frowning. “Well, what do you want to do for dinner then? And what about the movie?”

  “Not sure, is there any way you could find us a place? I have a bit of a headache still, but otherwise I’m feeling a lot better,” he said.

  “Sure,” she said, and grabbed the laptop. “I texted Stella when you were out, by the way. Apparently she and Ben decided to get some drinks after their lunch, but supposedly they’re going to be back pretty soon.”

  Lee chuckled. “Those two are quite the partiers. I think Stella has brought out Ben’s inner frat boy.”

  “She does have that effect on the guys who go for her,” Ivy said while clicking away at the computer.

  “I think it’s good for him, though maybe not for his liver. He’s always been decent at talking to people and having a good time, but he’s like a super version of himself now.”

  “Stella’s pretty much the same,” Ivy said. She squinted at the computer. “All of the places that I’m finding say they need reservations at least a month in advance.”

  “We could go to that tavern downstairs,” they had noticed it tucked away the day before when waiting for the elevator. “I’m pretty sure they’re the ones who made our room service, so we know they’re good,” Lee said.

  “Yes, let’s just do that. This is giving me a headache,” Ivy said, and closed the laptop. “What about the movie? You still want to do that too?”

  “Yeah, but let’s just show up to a theater and figure out what looks best instead of looking it up. You know, take a walk on the wild side.”

  “Ooh, sounds dangerous. I’m in.”

  “Wait a minute. On second thought…I’m just realizing that going to a theater at night was how Batman’s parents got killed.”

  Ivy laughed. “Well I hardly think that that the deaths of two fictional characters in a city that doesn’t even exist should scare us too much.”

  “I’m like, 90% sure that when the Batman comics first came out he was supposed to be in New York.”

  “How do you know that?” Ivy said.

  “I used to be a huge Batman fan,” Lee said. “Oh, who am I kidding? I still am.”

  “Should we skip out on the movie in case the Joker shows up then?”

  “I guess we’ll just risk it. If we run into any trouble I’m sure I’ve read enough comics to be able to take care of it.”

  They watched TV for an hour, until Ben and Stella got back and knocked on their door. “You guys ready to go? I’m starving,” Ben said as soon as Lee opened the door. He and Stella looked half-drunk and happy.

  “Yeah, we were waiting on you guys. We wanted to try the tavern downstairs,” Lee said.

  “Awesome, I’ll be able to keep this party buzz going while we eat,” Ben said.

  They took the elevator down to the bottom floor. “See, its back down that hallway,” Lee said, pointing out where the tavern was when they got to the lobby area. “That’s how we missed it for so long.”

  “Oh wow, it’s kind of hidden back there, huh?” Ben said.

  “Yeah, I never would have found
it if I hadn’t had to take a piss that couldn’t wait for the elevator ride. You have to walk right by it to get to the bathrooms.”

  “I’m starving, the food better be as good as you guys say it is,” Stella said, looking at the tavern dubiously.

  The place wasn’t very busy, and they were quickly seated in a booth in the back by a smiling blonde waitress, who Stella kept shooting nasty looks. Lee and Ivy asked for pop to drink, while Stella and Ben ordered wine and beer, respectively.

  “Well I already know what I want,” Ben said, setting down his menu. “You see the ‘Skyscraper Burger’ Lee? They have to give you a knife and fork to eat it, the menu says. It’s too big to eat like a normal burger.”

  “That sounds good, but too heavy for me right now. I’m just going to get the roasted salmon, plus maybe some crab cakes for an appetizer if you guys want some too.” Lee said.

  “That sounds good, I was thinking of having a seafood day anyway and getting the tuna salad,” Ivy said. “It says they use sushi-grade tuna. It’s been way too long since I’ve had tuna that didn’t come out of a can.”

  “Sizzling vegetable Caesar salad for me,” Stella said to Ben, and put her menu on top of his. “Order it for me, will you Ben? I don’t want to talk to the waitress. She looks bitchy.”

  Yeah, that’s it, she’s the bitchy one, Lee thought, but held his tongue.

  The waitress came by soon after, took the order and hustled off to put it in with a promise that she’d come back in a minute to freshen up their drinks. True to her word, she was back with fresh drinks a minute later.

  “So we’re going to go to a movie after this?” Ben said, and took a long pull off of his beer.

  “That’s the plan,” Lee said.

  “What movie?” Stella said.

  “We hadn’t really looked, we thought we’d just find a theater and figure out what looked good,” Ivy said before Lee could.

  “Oh, come on Ivy, you know we both want to see the new Jason Babon movie,” Stella said.

  “No Stella, I think you’re the only fan of that prepubescent douchebag,” Ivy said, and she and Stella laughed.

  “Wait, you’re into Babon? How is it that we’ve been together for all this time, but you never told me you were a lesbian?” Ben asked, which made Lee almost spit the sip of Coke he was taking out his nose.

  “Jason Babon is not a girl. He’s going to be my husband someday,” Stella said, pretending to be offended.

  “I think the biggest presumption you’re making there is that he’s straight,” Lee said.

  “Oh, stop it. He’s just a kid,” Stella said.

  “A kid you want to marry, pedophile,” Ben said without missing a beat.

  They kept making jokes about Babon, with Stella jokingly defending him, until the crab cakes came. Hungry, they tore into them and finished them off in minutes, everyone agreeing that they were some of the best crab cakes they’d ever had.

  When the food came, it was just as good as the crab cakes had been. The waitress kept up with them, giving them great service throughout the meal despite the rude looks and occasional snide comments from Stella.

  When Lee paid his and Ivy’s bill, he left the woman a great tip with a note on the bottom of the receipt that said “Sorry the blonde with us was being such a bitch.” The waitress laughed when she saw it, but didn’t say anything.

  “What was that?” Ivy whispered to him, perhaps worried that he was flirting with her.

  “I wrote a note apologizing for Stella being a bitch,” Lee whispered back, after glancing over to make sure that Stella wasn’t paying attention to him first. Ivy giggled and didn’t say anything else.

  The bills paid, Stella and Ben finished off their drinks and they all headed out of the hotel.

  “Oh man, I just looked it up. There’s an AMC theater on the other side of the building, how did we miss that?” Ivy laughed as they walked through the lobby, looking at her phone.

  “Sweet, that works out,” Lee said.

  When they got to the movie theater they found it to be a little dirty and dingy, especially compared to the AMCs that Lee had been to before. It was extremely busy as well; the overworked employees all seemed to be in a daze from dealing with the rush, and had almost no pretense of politeness. Not wanting to walk to a different theater, and knowing that the next theater could be exactly the same, the foursome decided to deal with it.

  There was some disagreement between the men and the women as to which movie to go to. They ended up settling on a romantic comedy, the leading man being a comedian from Seattle that Lee and Ben had seen at a show before. The ticket prices were ridiculous, as were the concession prices, even by conventional movie theater standards. For the price of tickets and concessions for just him and Ivy, he could have paid for the entire group back in Seattle.

  The movie was a shining example of a B-grade movie. Ivy seemed to like it, spending the entire movie with her head on Lee’s shoulder and routinely cracking up. Ben and Stella made out for nearly the entire movie. They didn’t stop there either – from what Lee unwittingly saw in his peripheral vision going they got to second base routinely, rounding for third from time to time.

  “So, how did you guys like the movie?” Lee asked them when the film was over and they were walking out of the theater, sharing a knowing grin with Ivy.

  “It was good, but the Babon movie would have been better,” Stella answered, walking hand in hand with Ben.

  “I liked the part where the dude…” Ben started, but couldn’t come up with anything. “It was good,” he said.

  “You guys should have brought a condom to the theater from what I saw, what if Stella’s pregnant now?” Ivy said, bursting into laughter.

  “Oh, shut up Ivy,” Stella said, but she couldn’t suppress a giggle.

  “There was no penetration. What’s the plan for tomorrow?” Ben said, a mixture of embarrassment and pride on his face.

  “No clue, I can try and find some more tourist shit on the internet tomorrow,” Lee said.

  “We should try the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Ivy said. “I’ve wanted to go there since I read about it as a kid. From what I’ve read it’s even better than Chicago’s art museum.”

  The mention of the Art Institute made Lee’s testicles crawl up almost inside his stomach. He didn’t say anything, and Ivy looked at him, wondering why he hadn’t gotten excited about the idea.

  “Ugh, another art museum?” Stella said.

  “It sounds cool, you liked the last one once we got there, remember?” Ben said.

  “I guess, but we better do some other stuff too,” Stella said.

  “Like I said, I’ll look online for some spots and we’ll all figure it out tomorrow,” Lee said. He planned on steering them away from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Before Chicago he wouldn’t have thought twice about going, but now he knew couldn’t set foot in another art museum if he could help it.

  They arrived back at the hotel and the couples split to go into their rooms. Almost before Ivy and Lee could settle down, Ben and Stella loudly picked up from where they left off at the theater, and Ivy had to turn the TV on ,the volume almost at max, to cover the sound.

  “I think I’m going to take a shower. Do you want to join me?” Ivy said, yelling over the blare of the TV.

  “Do you even have to ask?” Lee said.

  Their shower was small, like everything else in their hotel room, but they managed. After they finished, Lee and Ivy moved to the bed and made love. Ben and Stella’s room had become thankfully silent.

  “How did you scrape up your back and chest?” Ivy asked after they were done and were watching the TV, running her hands over the scrapes on Lee’s back.

  “I’m not sure exactly, I noticed it after my little incident in the Library,” he answered.

  “What…what did you see back at the library?” she said. “You can tell me.”

  “It’s hard to explain. It’s like all of a sudden I was in a different wor
ld or something,” he said, starting to shake involuntarily.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she said, hugging him. “They’re just hallucinations from not getting enough sleep.”

  “Sometimes I’m not sure they are anymore.”

  19

  Though Lee took his pills, Ivy was out long before him again. He tossed and turned the whole night, drifting into a light sleep from time to time, only to imagine loud noises like car horns blaring and crashing pans that would jerk him awake, just as he started to drift into a deep sleep.

  By the time he gave up at around seven in the morning, he estimated that he’d slept for about two or three hours over the course of the night. Ivy still asleep beside him, he pulled out his laptop and started looking up attractions, determined to find something that would make her forget about the art museum.

  There was a Yankees game going on that night that wasn’t sold out, so he snatched up four tickets, writing down the confirmation number for will call on the notepad from the nightstand. Knowing that he’d need something to cover the day, he looked through as many tourist websites as he could find, trying to find something that the others would like.

  He finally found the perfect location: The Bronx Zoo. He’d heard about it before, but was surprised to find on the Zoo’s site that it was the largest urban zoo in the entire country. Perfect, he thought, they’ll definitely go for this.

  He wrote down the zoo’s information on the notepad beneath the Yankee tickets confirmation number. Then he started looking up the restaurants near the zoo where they could go for lunch, wanting to have every base covered.

  “Hey sweetie. How long have you been up for?” Ivy asked suddenly, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

  “Not long,” Lee said.

  “Well I hope you got some sleep,” she said. “What are you doing on the computer?”

  “Finding places to check out today. I was thinking we could go to the Bronx Zoo, apparently it’s the largest urban zoo in America,” he said. He clicked back to the zoo’s site and passed the computer over to Ivy.