Chapter 11 Chapter nine

I know what happened, I know very well.I've heard some people do that kind of absurdity, and even some friends do it.It's sad.As soon as I got back to the house, I called Terry, who sounded like he had gone to bed.I asked him if he had my letter that morning, and he muttered a few things. Maybe they will send me my new credit card, they say they will send it as soon as possible. I'll forward it if you think it's better. It's urgent, and I'm nearby, so can I go there? uh ok but I can be there in half an hour. I thought you were nearby. I tried to find an ingenious excuse but was at a loss for words.

Listen, the longer we talk, the later I will arrive. He had opened a bottle of wine when I arrived.He handed me a glass and I took it too.I have to be tactful, I have to be tactful.He looked at me with that critical look that I knew very well, as if I was a bit of a hard-earned antique and he had invested a lot of money in me. You found your clothes.He said. Yes. where? I don't want to tell him that it's not purely a matter of willingness.I thought it would be nice to try to confuse people during these few days.If the people who know me don't know where I am, and the people who know where I am don't know me, I may be safer for the time being.At least I can be an erratic moving target.

I hand it over to someone else for safekeeping.I said. who? you do not know.Did you get my email? I put it on the table. I walked over and looked at the two envelopes.One was a questionnaire about my shopping habits, which I immediately threw in the trash, and the other was a limited-time delivery.I picked up the letter and felt that it contained something hard and solid.I take it apart.A shiny new credit card.Abigail.Deborah.I've got shelter, clothes, a few CDs, and now a credit card, and I'm really going back to normal life.I look around. Of course, some of my stuff is still here, miscellaneous.I said.

I took a sip of the wine while Terry swigged it.I was about to make a point about his drinking, then I remembered with relief that I never had to.That was Sally's business now, though maybe he didn't drink with her. When do you want to come take a seat at your own discretion.He said. I have no place to put it, I said.In a hurry?Is Sally moving in? I've only known her for a week or two.she just You know, Terry, the last thing I want to talk about is talking about how she doesn't really mean anything to you. That was not what I meant.I'm talking about you.I just wanted to say that I wasn't happy when you left.He wanted to take another sip but the glass was empty.He looked down at the floor, then up at me.Sorry, Abby.I'm sorry I was rough on you, really.I can't find any excuse at all.It was all my fault, and I hate myself for it.

I know this kind of Terry very well, Terry who regrets and apologizes.The Terry who admitted all his mistakes and said he would never do it again and that things would be different from now on.Time and time again I trusted that Terry, but then again, he always believed in himself too. It's all right, I finally said.You don't have to hate yourself. I'm such a terrible roommate. Oh, and I'm probably difficult myself anyway, I have my own way of life. He shook his head regretfully.Here's the thing, you're not difficult at all, you're cheerful and big-hearted and fun, except for those early morning minutes after your alarm goes off.My friends think I'm the luckiest man in the world and you didn't give up on me.

Oh, uh I said uncomfortably. It's just that you're going to dump me now, aren't you?break up with me. It's hard to get over it, Terry. Abby Come on, I say.please.Listen, Terry, I want to ask you something. Just ask.He was now on his second glass. For some reason, mostly to preserve my own sanity, I'm trying to reconstruct a period I can't remember.I investigate myself as I investigate others.Well, as far as I know, we had a big fight on Saturday and I turned around and left. Like I said, it wasn't really a fight.It's all my fault, and I don't know what's wrong with me.

Terry, I'm not interested at all, I just want to know where I am and all that stuff.So, I left and went to live with Sadie.But if I turned around and walked away in a huff, I probably didn't have my stereo and TV with me. Terry shook his head. No, he said.You went out with only your bag and I thought you'd be back later that evening.The next day you called and I tried to persuade you to change your mind but to no avail, you wouldn't tell me where you were.Then a day or two later, you call again.You said you'd come over and get something.You came here on Wednesday, and you took a lot of things.

At this point I was faced with an unspeakable problem.Is there anything else going on? What's the meaning? Uh, when we're talking when we're fighting, you know, aren't we, too, that? We didn't actually talk, we were arguing.You left and I asked you if you wanted to come back and you said no.You didn't tell me where you were, I tried calling you but couldn't get through. What about when I come to get something?What about then? We didn't meet.You came when I was out. I felt my stomach churning. I'm sorry, I said.I know it's stupid to ask such a thing, but you mean we haven't been in touch since I left?

We're on the phone. I don't mean that.We didn't meet? No.You refuse to meet me. So which damn it is? I uttered an unfinished sentence. listen abby i really want to That's when the doorbell rang, so I'll never know what Terry really wanted to do, though I can guess.I saw Terry grit his teeth, and I could tell he knew who was at the door, so I knew it too. It's a little embarrassing.He said, walking towards the door. I was not mentally prepared for any situation and I could barely speak. No embarrassment at all, go let her in.I'll go downstairs with you, I'm leaving now.

We came downstairs one after the other.I was just passing by, I told Sally on the doorstep.I've come to pick up my mail.I waved that envelope. It doesn't matter.Sally said. I'm not going to make this a habit.I said. It doesn't matter.she says. That was wonderful, I said as I walked past her.I can honestly say, with all my heart, that you and Terry are more compatible than Terry and I have ever been. Her face darkened.What are you talking about?You don't know me at all. I stopped by a small supermarket on my way home, and they sold their poorly crumpled fruits and vegetables on the sidewalk 24/7 for cheap.I bought some fresh milk, a bottle of white wine and ingredients for salad.I went back to Zou's place, locked and chained the door, and started mixing salad.I'm too tired to sleep.My eyes were sore, my limbs ached, and my head was buzzing.I took two painkillers and downed it with a gulp of cold liquor, and then I ate my salad in silence, trying to clear my head.I looked at Zou's mountain of mail.That's not necessarily inauspicious, she's probably just asking me to come over and take care of the house when she's out of the country for vacation or business or whatever.I took a quick look at her mail, and there were a few in red envelopes, which I didn't know had any special meaning.Zou might be the type to wait until the last minute to pay her bills, or she just forgot, or she could be back from vacation any minute now.I decided to wait a day or two before starting to trace Zou's whereabouts.First of all, I have to find out my own whereabouts.

Sitting cross-legged on Zou's pine floor, I lined up a few things beside me, including the Avalanche project file, the bag of mail I got from Terry's place, the phone message Carol had provided, my glove compartment in the car. Receipts found in .I went to the cabinet in the corner of the room and opened the door. I took out a pen from a mug with a map of the London Underground, and a stack of A4 papers from a drawer. What do I know of those days I can no longer remember?I took a blank sheet of paper and wrote the lost days at the top of the page.I wrote Tuesday, January 22nd on the far right.At the end of the day, just before midnight, I collapsed on top of Tony.Russell's door.How many days have I been imprisoned?three days?No, it must be more than that; four, five, six days, maybe more.The last piece of information I can ascertain is that I ordered takeaway meals to be delivered to my current residence on Tuesday night, January 15th.I have to fill up the days in between.What did I do?I know I didn't meet up with friends. A thought flashed through my mind.I went to the kitchen and opened a few cupboards to find the trash can.When I leaned over, there was an unpleasant smell, sweet and rotten.But I forced myself to look inside and there was something horribly moldy, smelly, sticky, just a tinfoil container with no takeaway food in it, which means the trash can had been emptied at least once and there was still enough time to throw in more trash.Which means Zou or I, or Zou and I, or someone else has been here at least a while since Tuesday unless the takeout was thrown directly into the trash outside.How likely is that? I have a headache.Didn't Luo Bing say that I called her to cancel our evening drink?I scribbled Wednesday in the margin with a question mark next to it. I started with Carol's phone message list.These scribbled memos remind me most of my previous life, the imminent contacts, the curt responses.I deleted the ones I could recognize one by one, and in the end there were only three messages that I couldn't remember.One had no name on it, just a phone number; the other said Pat was calling.Pat?I knew about a dozen Pats, both male and female, and one of them went to daycare with me, and she screamed the loudest I'd ever heard.Another message was a call from a man.Thanks, Carol. I sat down again and took out another blank sheet of paper.I write to-dos at the top of the page.My motto in life is, when in doubt, make a list.First I wrote down to call the following number, and under that I wrote: Avalanche.Lawrence said that after I left Jay & Jonah angrily, I spent my own time talking to people involved in the project and urging them to file a lawsuit.That was one of the sure clues to what I had been doing during those lost days. I opened the file of the avalanche project and took out the contact list at the top.Familiar names, the ones I've been dealing with since the beginning of January when I was on the brink.I flipped through that file and wrote down some names, some in brackets, some underlined.Just thinking about all the work I've done wears me out. I found the amount at the end of the file, and I stared at the numbers until my eyes blurred.I recalled some of my quarrels with Lawrence, as if gradually emerging from a dense fog.Or, at least, I remembered why I had to argue with him: our company's sleazy treatment of downstream contractors, blatantly false accounting in front of me.Then I remembered Todd. In fact, Todd was a part of me that I never forgot, that I just put away.In hindsight I wondered if I should have seen the symptoms sooner.The avalanche project was originally handled by him. This project is extremely complicated and requires the cooperation of many people.I learned early on that when working on a job, everyone is going to be unhappy with someone on the team, and everyone is going to make excuses for their underperformance.If you push too far in one direction, there will be a backlash; if you stay too far in the other direction, you will get nowhere.Since Todd and I were using some overlap, I started hearing that the job was going slowly.Slow progress is inevitable, but when people involved say it is slow, they mean they are behind schedule.I mentioned this to Todd several times, but he said everything was going well.I began to feel that something was wrong and brought it up to Lawrence. The next thing I heard, Todd was fired and I was put in charge of the Avalanche case.Lawrence told me that Todd had apparently had a nervous breakdown and hadn't told anyone about it, and that meant he had done nothing, and Jay and Jonah would be in danger of a breach of contract lawsuit.I was shocked and said I had no intention of betraying Todd.Lawrence said Todd was mentally ill and needed medical help, but the priority was to save the company.So I went into Todd's office and worked forty hours.I slept no more than four hours a day for a week after that.So if I am partly responsible for Todd's situation, Todd is also partly responsible for what happened to me. I wrote his name on a piece of paper.I thought about it, then added a question mark, I had to think again.I drew a box around the question mark, then added some more lines to make the question mark look like it was inside a cube.I shaded the sides of the cube and drew some lines that radiated from the cube, making it look like the cube was emitting light or about to explode. Another thought came to me.Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.I write the pregnancy test and underline it below Todd.I've had sex with people and obviously didn't take precautions.With whom?I started thinking about making a list of possible candidates, but couldn't find anyone to fill out.What are some men I did meet during my lost star?Guy, no way.The takeaway meal was probably a man.And, of course, there was him. Next I started to write something and then stopped.I thought: what are you doing?Then I involuntarily wrote this sentence down.But what am I doing?I am horrified by those dark days that I have forgotten, somewhere in my head, tormenting me day and night, and sometimes I imagine that is what is causing my headaches.If I could just fill in those blanks and find out everything I've ever done, the pain would go away.Is it worth putting yourself at risk for this?And am I putting myself at risk?Is that man looking for me somewhere in London?He may have found me a long time ago, and he may be outside Zou's residence at this moment, waiting for me to go out.Or maybe I'm all wrong and the guy might have disappeared.He knew I couldn't remember how he met me in the first place.I don't know what he looks like.He's safe as long as he doesn't act rashly, he can get away with killing another woman and forget about me.But can he sit back and relax? I put a big question mark next to what.I drew it as a three-dimensional question mark and added shadows.If I can prove that I was actually kidnapped that's the best I can hope for.If I can find some evidence, the police will believe me, they will protect me and find the man, and I can have my life again. But what kind of evidence would that be?Where should I look?I used many fancy little question marks to decorate my big question mark. There were small question marks behind, at the end, around and at the top of the big question mark. In the end, the big question mark was surrounded by a large group of small question marks floating around.