Queen of Hearts
By Dan Leicht
He began looking for her in the usual places. First up was the library, where she’d spend every Saturday morning with a cup of tea and a new book, consuming the fictional world until she’d place a playing card into the middle as a bookmark.
“Sorry, I haven’t seen her,” said the librarian. “She’s never here on Tuesdays.”
He nodded and took his leave.
The car was silent, save for the whoosh of the passing cars, the purr of the engine. He was atop a wild cat chasing its prey, caught clinging to the back of a cheetah during its burst of speed.
The bartender, the one she dated in college, looked up from pouring a lager down the inside of a glass. “You really think she’d tell me where she went?” he asked. “You must be really desperate, pal. I know I wish she was. She was in here a few days ago with some friends, but I haven’t seen her since. Hell, she didn’t even talk to me while she was here. I wonder if she’s still mad about…”
He was out the door before the barkeep could finish his story.
He glanced up at the road from his phone, back and forth, trading his attention between life and death. She hadn’t answered any of his calls, texts, or even any of the “Happy Birthday” messages left by her friends on social media.
He messaged one of her friends, one she would’ve hung out with the night before, clinked glasses with at midnight. She needed a night with her friends, told him he would be bored anyway, that all they’d be doing was drinking and talking. He heeded her advice and stayed in for the night, sucking down bottle after bottle of gluten-free beer from a six pack. His phone beeped, a message popped up, he looked down from the road and typed in his password to unlock it.
A horn blared.
He looked up from his phone into headlights.
He swerved out of the way.
Sparks, tiny accidental stars, flew up past his passenger side window as the black paint of his car ripped away on the guard rail of the bridge.
He swerved back into traffic, left, right, left, right, snaking his way back into position.
His heart beat profusely. He tried to catch his breath as he held his chest with one hand, the other on the wheel. In his panic he’d lost his phone to the tricky void between the seats, a haven for peanuts and popcorn kernels, among other spoils he never remembers eating while in the car.
After pulling over he tore through his car, trying to locate the small device. He found it with a fractured screen; thin lines of black caressed the cracks like bleeding ink.
Careful finger tips averted the cracks while typing in the password.
The message popped up. “We put her in a cab. She was W-A-S-T-E-D. Luckily she took off work today LOL. She said she wanted to stop somewhere before going home, but she told the cab driver and not me. Sorry I can’t help more than that!”
Sorry. Everyone was so sorry. He was sorry, he should’ve been there. He scolded himself as he continued to drive the familiar streets, wondering where she could’ve gone. If only, if only, he repeated. A different decision, a different smile, if only one little thing was done differently.
How long had it been? Would the police take it seriously? He pulled over and called, answered questions, told them her age, approximate height and weight, hazel, dirty blonde with purple streaks growing further and further away from her roots. He was assured the information would be passed along, like placing an order in the drive thru, except he couldn’t pull forward to find her waiting to enter the car. No. She’d still be missing when he hung up.
“Anything else I can help you with?” asked the woman’s voice over speaker phone.
He looked at the phone, hoping that she’d claim to have found her before the call ended.
“Hello? Sir? Are you still there?”
The call ended.
He tossed the phone to the seat beside him, where it bounced and returned to the void between the chair and the door.
Tears began to escape his guilt soaked scowl. He looked up from the wheel and rolled his head around, as if attached to a long, thin spring, dangling and being battered side to side by even the slightest movement. He sucked down phlegm from his nose into his throat and thought of something. He swallowed.
His heart beat with excitement, faster than before. He turned the key and pressed the gas, faster, faster, the tires latched onto the asphalt and kept propelling the scarred cheetah foreword.
Adrenaline coursed through the cheetah’s veins, turning its paws to fire, its legs like rockets.
The car skidded along the road as he took a left, through traffic, through the cries of elephant’s blaring their concerned trumpets.
Almost there.
Only a few more miles.
Keep going.
Don’t tire yet.
Keep running.
He slowed down as he turned right and drove between large metal gates, a steel lock dangling from a chain on the right side. Gold plated lions perched proudly atop the stone walls, watching over their pride, allowing him into their domain.
He drove until it all began to look familiar. Unlike the streets they frequented together this was an excursion she often made alone. He mulled over memories from the few times he’d accompanied her. There, a little past the stone angel, her soiled wings a pacifying sight. He stopped the car and got out.
There she was. Lying on the grass beside a modest headstone, in the fetal position with her dress over her knees for warmth.
He laid down beside her and rested his head.
She opened her eyes and looked at him.
“I needed to see her,” she said. “A girl needs her best friend on her birthday. We were supposed to turn thirty together.”
“I remember,” he replied.
