Vanishing and Other Stories by Deborah Willis Page B

them. He finds them days later, damp and smelling of mildew.
    He smokes inside now, and doesn’t care if the smell gets into his clothes or the furniture or the bedsheets. He likes the cravingfor nicotine that pulses in the back of his neck—a sure sign that he is alive. He smokes when he can’t sleep. He smokes in front of the aquarium, and if the fish and corals didn’t need fresh oxygen, he wouldn’t bother to open the window.
    The aquarium. For an entire week he doesn’t clean the sides of the tank and the glass becomes sticky with algae. There are other problems: The lights have not been switching on at their regular intervals and he needs to repair the timer. And he hasn’t replaced the water, so the salinity has gone up to 1.27.
    It is late Saturday night—no, early Sunday morning—when the goby dies. Tom is on his third cigarette when it turns softly, weightlessly, on its side. It is a dark fish with a blue stripe that begins above its eye and continues the length of its body. The second before, it had been eating from the sand bed. Now it floats—the word
leisurely
comes to mind—toward the surface. Its eyes and mouth are open, and its face looks no different than it did in life. It drifts upward, and as it passes another goby, the live one tries to sink tiny, translucent teeth into its flesh.
    When it reaches the surface, it bobs there until Tom scoops it out with his bare hand. He should have put the rubber glove on; not to do so is a risky manoeuvre that could contaminate the tank. He has never before behaved so rashly. But he wants to touch the aquarium’s water and feel the fish’s cool skin against his own.
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    THAT NIGHT , he goes to the casino with flowers: two white orchids that have been dyed blue. She refuses them. She refuses even to look at him. He stands beside her, under flashing lights and surroundedby the slots’ din, with the orchids in his hands. “They’re just flowers, Miranda. Take them. They’ll be dead in a week anyway.”
    When security arrives, she says, “I don’t know this person. He keeps calling me by some other name.”
    A man who has a phone piece clipped to the side of his head grips Tom’s arm and says, “Come on, friend.”
    So this is the kind of man Tom has become: the kind who is broke, frequents casinos, falls for cold women, and gets dragged to a parking lot by a man who calls him
friend
.
    The guard speaks into Tom’s ear. “What’s your name?”
    â€œPaul.”
    â€œListen, Paul, I’m going to remember your face.”
    Tom shakes his arm loose from the guy’s grip. He drops the flowers on the pavement and walks off into the rain. Is this how she felt in her last moments? This free? This frightened? This far from herself?
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    HE WAITS IN HIS CAR for her shift to end. The night is cold, and after a couple of hours he has to cover himself with the emergency blanket he keeps in the trunk—a precaution he took when he believed in precautions. Finally, she walks out the casino’s door and to her car. Her purse looks heavy on her shoulder, and she moves slowly despite the rain. She must be tired. She has not noticed him. He can tell by her walk that she doesn’t believe she has an audience.
    She gets into her car and he turns on his own ignition. When she pulls out of the lot, he follows. He doesn’t keep his distance. He keeps his headlights on.
    She drives for less than five minutes before pulling over onto the highway’s shoulder. She cuts her engine, steps out of her car, and stands in the middle of the road. She watches him come toward her as though she doesn’t care whether he runs her down or not. He keeps his speed up. His headlights hit her face, but she doesn’t look away. Her age shows under those lights, and she looks nothing like a woman who once commanded a stage. He slows, then stops in front of