Where's Margot? Part 2

Part 2/4, New York City, 1997, if it's not obvious. Ben's a bit older.

Ben popped into the bodega for coffee, the cat’s tail swiping left and right across the president’s face. Clinton was in his second term already. It felt like just yesterday he got elected.

“How are we today, professor?” Raul asked. He prepared a small cup of coffee and slid it across the counter.

“Lecturer – not a professor yet – but thanks,” Ben gushed.

“You got another one of them fancy envelopes that didn’t fit into the mailbox. Jerry left it here,” Raul said. He reached under the counter and handed a big brown envelope to Ben. He could see the vibrant patchwork of postage from some foreign destination.

He always hoped it’d be covered in boring U.S. postage instead, harkening her arrival.

Alas.

“Thanks again,” Ben said. He dropped a dollar on the counter and took the coffee and package, heading out and to his apartment building. He struggled anew with the mailbox, putting its contents under his arms as he walked up the stairs, creaks sounding out now on every other stair creating a quicker rhythm to the song from just a few years ago. Life moved forward, faster, and with it, so did the score that played in the background.

The new plastic lids Raul used managed to prevent most of the coffee from leaving the cup, and he angled it precariously on the envelope as he unlocked his door. Not a drop spilled. Fortune was on Ben’s side today.

He wriggled out of his shoes, still getting used to untying them since the leather was far less forgiving than his usual canvas sneakers. His smooth navy blue socks allowed him to glide across the floor as he placed everything on the table. Bills. Tax document. Chinese restaurant menu. Japanese restaurant menu. Juice bar menu. Another bill. A letter from HR at the college. No postcards.

Then he remembered the brown envelope the size of a toaster sitting right in front of him. The familiar writing stared back at him as he opened it and found a VHS cassette with the words Amsterdam 1997 written on the label. He slipped it out of its cardboard case and popped it into his player. Images flickered on the screen with no real editing.

It was her latest trick, now that she had a fancy camcorder. Margot would send little montages of herself wherever she was traveling, since she so rarely came back to New York. He hadn’t seen her in two years now. The last time, he took the train out to Newark Airport to see her during an all-too-short layover.

Now he saw her as she rode a bicycle on his television screen, windmills in the background cutting to a tulip market cutting to cobbled streets lining lazy canals filled with inky water reflecting lights from windows of buildings that seemed to lean over to see their reflections, frozen like Narcissus.

At the end, she always included a little personal message, seated on the bed of her hotel room or from a café somewhere, and always wearing the little dragonfly brooch.

This one was short.

“Hey Ben. It’s me. Again. I know, I know. I do look great. So Amsterdam is as trippy as you’d imagine, and, before you go tattle on me, yes, I did try the weed, but only once. The food sucks, but that’s no surprise. I think you’d appreciate it. The canals, the whimsy, the history – I’m sort of hooked. Hope you’re well and I’ll try to get you another video from Shanghai, but I don’t know if I trust the mail there. Miss you lots,” she said.

She blew a kiss and then the video turned to a cold wintry mix of static. Ben was alone again. She looked happy.

Happy, but also tired.

He took out the tape and returned it to its sleeve, adding it to the shelf next to others marked Paris 1996, Cairo 1995, Istanbul 1994, Santiago 1995, Berlin 1994, Cape Town 1996. Margot had been busy. Nowhere in between those episodes had there been a replay of New York. He thought back to their last real meal at Veselka – the airport coffee and muffins they shared in Newark didn’t count – and how much she glowed. The Margot in the video he saw now seemed drawn. Somber. 

All of that travel, that loneliness, it must be catching up to her, he thought.

Also, they were both pushing thirty, so he couldn’t judge too harshly. 

He wished she’d come back and settle a bit, but Ben wasn’t so naive. Instead, perhaps it was time to book a trip, but realistically, again, Ben knew better. His unused passport had expired a year ago, and besides, he had his burgeoning career to focus on, with syllabi to write and students to counsel. 

Weeks later, however, juggling a coffee and mail, Ben found a new postcard from Margot.

No dogz allowed. Only these. 6PM April 3, 1997.

“Finally!” he shouted to no one in his apartment. Heart racing, he marked the date on his calendar, checking it twice. It was painfully obvious where they’d meet.

The following week, after class, he pulled on a sports jacket and ran a comb through his hair, as if somehow the meager gesture would tame anything. It was the semblance of effort that mattered to him. Margot would just tousle it into oblivion anyway.

He waited outside Katz’s Deli, a place they had been before when they joked that they had wanted to get drunk on pastrami. Margot said she loved being around the tourists, harboring a secret love for the people that read the pieces she wrote for the magazines that lined newsstands nationwide.

It was still cool out, even though spring had whispered itself into existence with the daffodils in Washington Square Park peeking through the dirt. Soon it would be warm out and Hades would sleep alone while Persephone returned where she needed to be.

Ben looked at his watch. It was 6:10PM.

Then it was 6:25.

Soon it was nearly 7:00 and the sun slipped low in the sky, the cool air never fully losing a battle against its rays.

Craning his neck around the corner, poking his head inside, and mildly alarmed, Ben allowed every terrible scenario to run through his head. Plane crash. Subway abduction. Train derailment. Never once had he imagined being wrong about the location. He walked home, even jogging at points, and ran upstairs, skipping stairs and causing total dissonance with the symphony of creaks. Another look at the postcard, stamped from the U.S., confirmed she was in town for sure. Or had been. 

Should he try to call her magazine?

The police?

The United States embassy in the Netherlands?

Just then, Ben realized there was a light beeping on the answering machine, and equal parts of panic and relief surged him forward towards it as he slammed the button to play the message.

Beep.

“Sorry sorry sorry. I got caught up with something,” there was heavy breathing after that. He had never heard her exasperated like that. “I figured you’d leave Katz’s eventually, and I tried to call the deli but they never picked up.” More heavy breathing. “I’m sorry, but I’ll make it up to you soon.”

Beep

At least she was OK. Ben gave her a pass and pressed it no further.

A few days later, another postcard arrived, stamped from a Pennsylvania post office, but purchased in Brussels. It featured a photo of the famed fountain, Manneken Pis, a cherubic little boy who peed into perpetuity. She apologized for not being at Katz’s again, but offered no further explanation.

She’d be leaving soon for Paris. Then deeper into France. Or something.

Ben lost track.

Winter never thawed that spring.

A few more postcards arrived.

Another VHS of scenes of castles and vineyards somewhere in rural France played on Ben’s screen that summer, but that was it.

Hades – or rather Continental Airlines and Delta – won again.