Inside now, he stopped a minute to listen to the jazz quintet playing in the lobby-a Friday-night tradition-then took the elevators up to the top. No charge. He’d been up here no fewer than forty times, and every time the place worked its magic on him. The windows were huge, both wide and tall, and through them the entire city revealed itself beneath and all around him. And since, because of the tower’s twisting nature, it wasn’t really obvious that there actually was a physical building under him, it always felt like he was floating.
The sun had just disappeared into the ocean and the purple western sky was now ablaze with gorgeous orange-red clouds. The Golden Gate Bridge was right there, just off to his right. And back behind him, the high-rises of downtown had just started to twinkle with their evening lights.
But tonight he wasn’t here for the views. Because of its parallelogram shape, the floor came to a point on both the north and south ends. Mickey looked left and then made his way to the corner, where, as he’d suspected and hoped, his sister-in a cowl-necked sweatshirt and camo pants-sat on the floor, apparently mesmerized, hugging her knees.
“They just let you sit here all day?” he asked.
She looked up and shrugged. “I’m not bothering anybody.”
Mickey went down on one knee. “Were you planning to come home sometime?”
“Sure.”
“When?”
“Eventually.”
“Good. Just so I know not to rent out your space.” He paused. “Oh, and in case you were wondering, Jim’s all right.”
Now her head did turn toward him, quickly, in surprise. “Why wouldn’t he be?”
“No reason. He’s fine. Really. I mean, after I got him home.”
“He went out? Where’d he go?”
“Shamrock. Then to drink-a-bye land.”
“Why did he do that?”
“Maybe he wanted somebody to talk to. Maybe his roommate didn’t tell him she was going out, and he didn’t want to be alone.”
“I don’t have to tell him where I’m going, or what I’m doing. Or you either.”
“Absolutely correct. I couldn’t agree more. You’re an adult. We’re all adults.”
“You don’t tell us where you go most nights.”
“That’s true. I probably should do that. I may start now. Or I might start staying at home again.” He changed his tone. “Jim’s getting older, you know.”
Her mouth turned down. “And your point is?”
“My point is he’s getting too old to go out on his own and drink too much. The bartender said he might have had to call the cops if he hadn’t reached me.”
“Lucky he did, then.”
Mickey let out a long breath and stared out over his sister’s head at the last vestiges of the sunset. “I’d have thought you might relate to how he was feeling.”
“About what?”
“About Dominic Como being dead.”
She turned up and stared at him. “When did that happen?”
“Recently.”
“And I’m supposed to relate to how Jim’s feeling about that because…?”
“Because Dominic was somebody he’d spent years of his life with? Kind of like you and Craig.” This was Craig Chiurco, formerly of the Hunt Club.
At the mention of her former boyfriend, she blinked a few times in rapid succession. A tear fell from her left eye and she wiped it away. Some of the tension seemed to go out of her shoulders. After another moment, she turned her head to face him. “What do you want, Mick?”
“I don’t know, to tell you the truth. Maybe talk to you a little. Have you eaten yet today?”
Tamara’s mouth softened, almost into a smile. “Food. Always food.”
“Not always, but often. I figure it can’t hurt.”
“Probably not.” She sighed. “And, no, I haven’t eaten.”
“All day?”
“Some cereal when I got up.”
He gestured toward the city spread out below them. “Had enough of this view for today?”
“I suppose so.”
Giving her shoulder a small, friendly, brotherly push, he said, “Let’s go.”
“So how much?”
“How much what?”
“How much weight have you lost?”
“I don’t know exactly. Maybe ten pounds.”
“More than that, I think. And you weigh yourself every day, Tam, so you know exactly, or pretty damn close. Don’t scam a scammer. How much?”
“Okay.” She looked across the table at him. “Say eighteen.”
“Eighteen pounds in six months?”
“Maybe twenty.”
“That’s way too much. Especially since you started at basically perfect.”
“Not perfect enough, evidently.” She tried a smile, but it didn’t take. “I just don’t have an appetite anymore, Mick. I try, but nothing tastes like anything.”
“The pot stickers here will knock you out.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. We’ll see. It’s not like I’m trying not to eat. It’s just I don’t think of it.”
“Well, you need to.” Mickey slurped at his cup of very hot tea. “I don’t like to see you getting this thin, Tam. It reminds me of Mom.”
Tamara’s teacup stopped halfway to her mouth. “I’m not like Mom. Mom was on drugs. She overdosed.”
“Yeah, but before that she didn’t eat well either. And now, seeing you, you look a little like she did. And it brings it back clear as a bell. And that scares me.”
“Mickey, I’m not going to die.”
“Yeah, you are. But I’d prefer if it wasn’t like soon. Otherwise, what’s it all been for?”
“What’s all what been for?”
“I mean, you know, Wyatt saving us. Jim getting his life together to raise us.”
She pushed her cup around on the table. “Sometimes I think it wasn’t for anything. It was just stuff that happened. And now we’re all here and so what? Jim’s probably going to die pretty soon. Wyatt’s going out of business. Everything’s a dead end.”
Mickey put his own cup down. “Craig was that important to you? He’s gone and now you’ve got nothing to live for?”
She shook her head. “It’s not just him being gone. It doesn’t even seem like it’s so much him personally anymore. It’s more the idea that I lived with this, this illusion, for all that time, thinking I was going somewhere, that he and I were going somewhere, and that all of it mattered.” She leaned in across from him. “I mean, Mick, it all made sense. It hung together. I’m talking about the world.”
“And now it doesn’t?”
“I can’t seem to find where my real life connects back in to it.”
“You think you’re going to find it sitting up in the tower?”
“I don’t know where I’m going to find it.”
“So you’ve given up looking? That’s kind of what it seems like from here.”
“Well, that’s not it.”
“No?”
Anger flashed in her eyes. “No!” Then, in a softer tone, “I am really trying not to lose it altogether here, Mickey. I don’t think you can really understand what it’s like when the rug’s pulled out from under you like it was from me.”
“Yeah,” Mickey said. “I can. It got pulled out from both of us another time. And that was a lot worse than you losing your boyfriend. I remember it pretty well.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is you’re too young to give up. There’s people out here in the real world who care about you-me, for instance, and Jim, and even Wyatt-and maybe you owe it to all of us to try to care a little back in return.”
“I do care about all of you guys.”
“You do? How are we supposed to tell? You quit working for Wyatt, you dump your job there on me, you disappear on Jim-”
“I didn’t-”
“You did, Tam. Yes, you did. And we all felt bad for you, and still do.” He reached a hand over the table and touched hers. “But you’ve got to come back now. You’ve got to start, anyway. Remember back before Jim even took us on, we swore we’d always call each other on it if we started down a wrong road? Remember that?”
“Yeah, okay. Of course.”