Eden by Andrea Kleine

Author:Andrea Kleine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Marshall unlocked a storage shed. “This is where I keep my past,” he said. He pulled a string and a lightbulb popped on. The shed was filled with boxes and file cabinets. He patted his breast pockets. “Lord, give me sight,” he said. He found his reading glasses and put them on, balancing the bridge halfway down his nose. They made him look like a grandmother. “Let me think”—he put a finger up to his lips—“because I had a system at one point.” He turned in place, reached for a file drawer, and yanked it open. He took one look and said, “No.” He pushed the drawer shut. “Unfortunately, I think what we’re searching for is in the era of boxes, or things I wouldn’t mind being vanquished in a nuclear holocaust.” He dragged a stack of boxes out to the center of the dirt floor. From one of them he pulled out an old spiral-bound address book. “I should put all of this on a computer somewhere. One of the many projects I’ll never get to.” He flipped through the pages. “People who might have known one Eric Piper.” He licked a finger and turned a page of the book.

“Do you remember a girl named Eden?” I asked.

“Eden,” he said closing his little black book on his lap and folding his hands on top of it like a napkin. “Yes, she was very smart. Very attractive, though I made no forays there. Eric had a coterie of young women flitting about. Usually they didn’t stay long. The serious ones did, though. Eden. You know, I think she and Eric were lovers. Have you tracked her down?”

I said I hadn’t, that he was the first one I found. He smiled. “It was that article,” he said. “Sometimes I wish that magazine editor had never stopped into that café. Anonymity is precious these days. I’m afraid what you’ve chosen to research is rather difficult. It was the last era when people could vanish. The last era in which anyone considered vanishing. People are terrified to be alone now. Even if you decide to live isolated and off the grid, you’ve got to have some blog about it.”

Marshall gave me some names and what he thought were probably outdated phone numbers. “Do be careful,” he said. “There were some people who were involved in”—he twirled his hand in the air above his head—“drugs, and I imagine other things that might walk the blurry line of legality. Best wishes for tracking down the story,” he said and shook my hand, and I left him there under the bare bulb of the shed.

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