Strings Attached

“Don’t be a fool,” Kate said. “Who would do something like that?”

Anna paced the living room. Her sister was right. Yet why was Anna compelled to do this thing? She looked again at the number on the app. $23,456.01. Basically, her life’s savings. A good number, she thought, for a twenty-three-year-old.

“It’s just money—or it should be.” Anna’s salary was going up the first of the year, so it wouldn’t take long for it to accumulate again.

“Money makes the world go round,” Kate said. “But you never heard that in our home, did you?”

Lucas had been without a job for seven months. First, he lost his license to a DUI; then, when he got it back, they repossessed his truck. Eviction day was next week.

“He’s an ex. He’s a slug. Not worth anything,” Kate said.

“I know.”

“You said yourself. You hate him. Look what he did to you.”

The accident was eight months ago. He drank a six-pack; said he could handle it. She should have taken the keys or not gotten in the car.

“You still can’t walk right. Maybe never. What about that?” Kate crossed her arms.

“I know. But he needs a truck to work.”

Kate sighed. “Are you trying to get back with this caveman?”

“No!”

“Then what?”

Anna flopped on the futon. “I don’t know. I do hate him.”

“Then I don’t get it. This is not right. You’re not right—up here.” Kate tapped the side of her head.

“I’m fine. It’s just something I want to do. Someday I’ll understand.”

✧ ✧ ✧

Later that afternoon at the bank, she stood at the teller’s window, Yego’s window, and her fingers trembled. She knew him from high school. They went around in the same group: a Marvel movie once, the prom, ten of them without dates. He had an easy way and an easy smile, but not today.

“Are you sure about this?” Yego asked.

Anna nodded.

“I need you to say ‘yes.’”

“Then, yes! Do you need it in writing?”

“No. It’s just a large sum. It’ll empty your account.”

Half a minute later, he passed her the cashier’s check in an envelope. Anna smiled. Yego did not.

“Hey, Anna,” he said. “If you were in trouble, you’d know where to go for help.” Not a question. He slid her his business card and caught her hand for just a second.

But she pulled away and tucked the card into her jeans. “I’m fine.”

He nodded, and she turned and left. Her step was lighter before she even reached the sidewalk.

✧ ✧ ✧

Brea introduced Lucas to Anna three years ago. Anna had no interest, but Brea was persistent, and after a month of hounding, Anna relented. But Lucas was a good man. Just like Brea had said. Took care of his business. Respected his parents. All of it. But now, Brea was Anna’s only connection to Lucas, since Brea and Lucas lived in the same building.

The sidewalk café buzzed with the after-work rush, and now Anna wished she’d asked for a table inside.

“Just slip the check into his mail slot,” Anna said. “I don’t want him to know it’s from me.”

Brea laughed and rolled her eyes. “We’ve known each other almost forever. But you still shock me. You want him back?”

“I don’t,” Anna said. “That’s why he can’t know.”

“Could’a fooled me. You still got a thing for him. I would.” Brea took a sip of her bubble tea. “He told me he’s sorry about it all, but I’m not sure he even knows what sorry means, or what he’s sorry for.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I knew you were crazy, but this—this is way more. People just don’t give their money away. And you know, people with money? Rich people? They do a lot of research to make sure nothin’ goes bad.”

Anna didn’t respond.

Brea looked into her cup. “I love that man—like a brother, but sometimes guys need to just sit in their mess for a while.”

“He’s bad off?” Anna took her napkin from the table.

“Well, I told you what he’s going through. But it’s his own fault. Hot-doggin’ around a job site in a backhoe. Throwin’ mud all over his boss. I’d a canned him too.”

“I don’t feel sorry for him.”

“You shouldn’t.” She winked.

Anna clutched the napkin in her lap. “So, you’ll do it?”

Brea picked up the envelope and stared at it for a moment, then slipped it into her purse.

“Thank you.”

“Whatever. It’s your money, honey.”

✧ ✧ ✧

Two weeks later, on a rainy Saturday afternoon, Anna was cutting through the first floor of Macy’s to catch the Red Line, and she saw Brea. Brea and Lucas were in the fragrances. Anna paused by the escalator. Brea was misting scents into the air and smelling them. Lucas was at her shoulder. They were laughing. Together. Then Brea put some on her fingertip and touched behind her ear. Lucas leaned in to smell her neck and lingered.

Then, Anna was weaving through the cosmetic counters, kiosks, and out the doors onto State Street. She stopped in the rain, gasping from the suffocating scent of cologne. Anna stared up into the drenching rain, waiting for the cloying odors to leave her.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath of the dank air.

“Ma’am, can I help you?”

A woman stood in front of her, wearing a fluorescent lime raincoat. A CPD star was pinned on the front.

“No, no. I …” Anna mumbled. How long had she been standing out here?

Pedestrians hurried by in the downpour, splashing her in their rush, but Anna couldn’t move.

“Well, get out of the rain. Or if you need help, I can call someone.” She held the radio on her shoulder, causing her coat’s reflective stripes to catch some light and glow.

“I’m fine. Really. Thank you, officer.”

The woman shined a small flashlight in her face. “You high?”

“No!”

The officer’s face softened. “Then get yourself home.”

Anna dashed toward the Red Line canopy and slipped and fell on the wet sidewalk. She was crying now, and the officer was helping her up. Her backside hurt, and she probably skinned an elbow on the concrete.

“You’re not okay,” the officer said, her expression sad now. “Where do you live, ma’am?”

But Anna couldn’t speak, so she turned away and walked carefully down the steps into the subway. Once on the platform, she remembered to stand in the center, as always, equidistant from the northbound and southbound trains. Then came the deep rumble and the rush of wind as the train slid up to the platform. The surge of subway air still caught her breath.

On the train, she texted Brea.

Anna: You took care of that envelope?

Nothing. Anna put her phone into the back pocket of her jeans. Her back was beginning to hurt, and her jeans were wet where she’d hit the sidewalk.

Anna clung to one of the hanging plastic straps. An old woman sat right beneath her. She reeked of cannabis and sweat. The woman looked up, then struggled to her feet. She looked Anna over, head to toe. Her brows knit tightly together. “Can I help you, dear?”

“No,” Anna said.

But the woman continued staring into her eyes.

Anna turned sharply and made her way to the seats at the back of the car. She slid between a man reading a folded Sun-Times and a teenager lost in his beats. The woman was still watching her.

A station passed. Then another, and another.

Her phone buzzed.

Brea: Yes. All safe

Anna: He doesn’t know?

Brea: No

Anna sighed. Three more stops.

Another text.

Brea: You ok?

But Anna didn’t want to say what she was thinking, so she said nothing.

✧ ✧ ✧

Back at the apartment, her sister intercepted her on the way to her room. She was grateful for the day two months ago when Kate took her in after her roommate didn’t work out. Not today.

“What did you do?” Kate asked.

“What?”

Kate pointed toward the kitchen. A bouquet of wildflowers sat on the table.

“Go ahead,” Kate said. “Read the card.”

But Anna didn’t have to. Instead, she ran down the hall into her bedroom and locked the door. Standing at her mirror, she took a good look. Her mascara had run. Her hair was a matted nest. And a pink stain had seeped through her shirt at the elbow. Pulling the sleeve up, she cared for the scraped elbow with some gauze she had from the accident.

A text. She pulled out her phone.

Brea: You’re not okay

She tossed her phone over to the bed and finished taping the gauze pad to her elbow. Then she saw the bottle cap next to where she set the tape. She picked it up. 312. The cap was bent in half. She’d kept it from their first date.

“You don’t look like a tough guy,” she’d said to him across the high top. He’d just refreshed his lip balm and shoved the tube back in his jeans.

“Oh, yeah. Watch this.” Lucas picked up the twist-off cap from his beer bottle and, with one massive hand, bent it into one of those little swirly shells you find on the beach.

“Well, yeah! I guess you are tough.”

“I’m not what I seem.”

“I like men who aren’t … what they seem.”

He reached across the table and touched her hand, but she pulled back. “Okay,” he said. “I’m tough, but I’m not going to hurt you.”

He took her hand and held it, and his hand enveloped hers completely, and she smiled.

And eighteen months later, six weeks in the hospital later, five months of a roommate from hell later, two months with her sister later, and the fragrance department in Macy’s later, she hated him for being tough, for being not tough enough.

Anna turned the cap between her fingers, touching the rough crimps along the edge, feeling the cool smoothness of the yellow image on top. Why didn’t she just throw this thing away? But instead, she slipped it into her jeans and fell onto the bed.

✧ ✧ ✧

Tap-tap on her bedroom door. She’d fallen asleep. “Go away, Kate.”

“It’s Brea. We need to talk.”

Anna sat up.

“I know. You’re upset,” Brea said. “But just hear me out.”

“I’m not.”

“He doesn’t know. I didn’t tell him.”

Anna jumped up and opened the door. “Then why’d he send me flowers!”

Brea’s face reddened. “Sent you flowers? He sent you flowers?”

Anna stepped into the hall and crossed her arms. “In the kitchen. Go look.”

After a moment, Brea said, “I did not tell him. I swear.”

“Okay. Whatever. But for once, I wanted to do something all in, no strings. If he knows, it ruins it.”

“I’m … I’m not following this. You gotta slow down, honey.”

“What did he do with the money?”

Brea narrowed her eyes and said, “Wait. You said no strings, so it doesn’t work like that. You gave anonymously. You gave up the right to know.”

Anna dropped her arms and squared her shoulders. “I saw you at Macy’s. Together.”

“Wait. When?”

“His lips were on your neck,” Anna said in a breathy voice.

Brea’s eyes filled, and then Anna turned and stormed down the hall and out the door. And she walked the streets of Edgewater until twilight fell.

✧ ✧ ✧

At a coffee shop a few blocks from her sister’s apartment, Anna found a table in the back and drowned her sorrows in a double caramel latte when her phone started buzzing.

Brea: Talk to me

Anna stared at her phone for a few seconds. Why couldn’t she just leave me be?

Anna: I don’t care about you and him

Brea: What then

Anna: I hope you’re happy together

Brea: We’re not trying to hurt you

Anna looked around the coffee shop. There were maybe ten others, all doing the same thing. All on their phones. Always connected. She took a breath and typed.

Anna: What did you spend the money on

Brea: I gave it to him

Her life savings. And the strings pulled her more now than ever.

She slipped her fingers into her pocket. A card. Yego’s. She’d forgotten about it. He’s a retail services specialist. Good for him. She paused a moment, but then tore the card in two and tossed it on the table.

And the bottle cap was still there, but she didn’t take it out.

She looked again at Brea’s words on her phone. I gave it to him. And she closed her eyes against the single thought accusing her.

✧ ✧ ✧

That night, Anna lay in her bed, swiping through her pics when Brea texted.

Brea: I’m not perfect like you

“I’m not a liar like you!” Anna shouted to the empty room.

She started typing twice, but then swiped back to her pics and saw her dad. He was sitting on the front stoop of their house in Kenilworth. She, a precocious three-year-old, sat on his lap and beamed at the camera. Dad wasn’t looking at the camera. He was looking at her, but he wasn’t smiling.

A real estate speculator, he made a fortune and then lost it in the Great Recession. By October ‘08, he was underwater in every way. And ten days before her fourth birthday, he stepped in front of the Metra express at the Indian Hill station. Her mother could never accept it, so she framed it as an accident. But the slide started there, the slide into dysfunction, or so Anna’s counselor coined it.

“Anna!” Kate called.

Anna dropped the phone to her side.

A minute later, Kate called again, but Anna closed her eyes and didn’t move.

Then, a tap on the door. “You have a visitor.”

“I don’t want to see her,” Anna said.

Kate opened the door. “Not her. Him.”

Anna sat up and looked at her phone. After 10 p.m.

“He’s in the kitchen.”

Anna stood and hurried to the door, but Kate blocked her way. “You sure you want to do this?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Anna said.

“Nobody’s ever fine.”

Kate still hadn’t moved, so Anna pushed past her into the hall.

The kitchen was dark, except for the under-cabinet lights that threw a dim but warm glow. He sat at the table, slouched in one of the mismatched chairs. Lucas. His muscular frame seemed oversized for the kitchen. He was scrolling on his phone but glanced up and smiled when she came in. In the soft light, his mahogany eyes were clear, even bright, and he looked the best Anna had ever seen him.

“Hey.” He put his phone in his pocket and sat up, giving a warm smile.

Anna sat across from him, her hands in her lap. Two glasses of ice water were set on opposite sides of the table, with the bouquet to the left. Kate’s work.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“No—are you okay? Or how’s life after a DUI?”

There wasn’t any malice in his tone. In fact, he was still smiling. An attempt at humor.

“I heard you lost your job—and your truck,” she said.

“Yeah. Life sucks sometimes.”

“What are you going to do?”

He slid down again. “I don’t know. I need my truck for work.”

“But you can’t …”

“… I can drive. I just gotta blow in the tube to make it start.”

“Oh, sorry.” She wasn’t, but the word came out anyway.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to be sorry.”

Anna sat forward. “Why are you here?”

“I know you sent the money,” he said quietly.

Her finger began twitching, so she folded her hands. “How?”

“Your name was on the check. There’s this tiny print in the corner: remitter.”

A sudden tickle made her cough, so she grabbed the water and took a sip. She hadn’t looked at the check.

“But how could I not know?” he asked. “I’ve seen your savings account. We were together more than a year.”

Always the strings.

He picked up his glass of water. “But I don’t want it.”

His hand. Large enough to encircle the glass. Then he gulped half of it down.

“I’m not taking it back,” she said.

He set the glass on the table, but kept his hand wrapped around it. “Then I’ll—we’ll give it to someone else.”

But Anna couldn’t take her eyes off the glass. His hand.

“Anna?”

She lifted her eyes and asked, “Where is it?”

Lucas just stared at the glass of water.

“Don’t tell me,” she said.

He looked up. “She said it was too much for me, that she should hold some of it.”

“Really?”

His eyes were wide, and he leaned forward. “It was for my own good!”

Anna laughed.

His right hand rested unmoving beside the glass of water, but the other hand clenched into a fist before he fell back in his chair. “That’s what she said. For my own good.”

Neither of them spoke, but she could hear his breath, deep and controlled, his eyes fixed on the half-empty glass of water. After a minute, his breathing settled, and they spoke about their lives and troubles. He asked about her leg, and she was honest. It hurt. All the time. But still he didn’t apologize.

He stood to leave, and she stood as well.

“I hope you two are happy,” she said. “But I don’t want her around me anymore. Ever.”

“You don’t have to be happy for us.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Right.”

Anna reached into her pocket. The bottle cap. She set it on the table between them. “Take it.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“You don’t remember?”

He shook his head.

“Then throw it away.”

He swiped it off the table and landed a three-pointer into the trash in the corner. “If she bothers you, let me know.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I know.”

After he downed the rest of the water, she walked with him into the living room and saw him out.

When she returned to the kitchen, Kate appeared in the doorway. “What did he want?”

“He’s never gonna change.”

Kate scoffed. “Good. It’s done then.”

She left, and Anna was alone. After flipping on the overhead light, she cleared the glasses and put them in the dishwasher, but she paused and picked up his glass again. On the rim was a smear of his lip balm. She grabbed a paper towel and wiped it. Stubborn, but it came clean. The dishwasher never gets that stuff off.

Without thinking, she sat down in front of the flowers and reached for the unopened card. She didn’t recognize the handwriting on the front. Probably written by the florist. As she pulled it out, she paused. It wasn’t a thank-you. On the face, it said, “Thinking of you.”

“Hmm.”

When she opened it, she smiled for the first time since the accident.

Hope everything worked out okay.

Yego

✧ ✧ ✧