A Good Heart is Hard to Find

      “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, Beth,” Sandra said, leaning over to pick at the scab on her heel. “It all just feels too hard sometimes.”
         I examined my friend closely over our cups of coffee. This was a typical complaint on her part – meaninglessness, lack of direction, the vast emptiness of human existence. The topic usually came up when whoever she’d been sleeping with last hadn’t called. This week’s culprit was Anthony.
          “It’s been what, three days?” I guessed.
         “Five. But this is about more than the fact that he didn’t call me back. This is about my life!”
         “Really.”
         “It’s pathetic! Waitressing full time, living with two roommates (no offense), in a tiny apartment, no plan at all – I’m twenty five. Isn’t this about the time of life when I’m supposed to be pulling my shit together?”  She pushed her blonde hair up out of her eyes and sighed dramatically. Sandra could heave a dramatic sigh better than anyone I’d ever known.
         “I don’t even know why you’d want that one to call you back. He was creepy. Didn’t he have kind of a deranged pedophile look about him?”
         Sandra cracked a smile. “You’re going to feel really bad about saying that if we wind up getting married.”
         “God, that’s a terrifying thought. Is that really what you want? To get married? What about your acting career?”
         She snorted. “What acting career? That’s exactly my point, Beth! I have no life, no prospects, no future. I might as well settle down and start popping out the babies while I’m at least still fertile.” She sighed. “I’m working the evening shift at the restaurant tonight.”
         “Are you going to be ok?” She had been getting dark circles under her eyes lately. It made her whole face look older.
         “Yeah, don’t worry. You know me. Bitch bitch bitch. I’ll be fine.” She smiled. “It’s just,” she said, as she walked me to the door, “sometimes I wish I could just meet a nice guy. You know? Just a really good guy.”
         “They’re out there,” I said, pulling on my coat. It was supposed to snow two feet tonight, though we in Manhattan would probably only get six inches of sludge.
         “Easy for you to say, girlfriend of Daryl, the perfect man,” She scoffed. “You got really lucky with him. Sometimes I think a good heart is hard to find.”
         “You’ve got a good heart, Sandra,” I said firmly. “You’ll attract another.”
         “Maybe.” She waved goodbye and we went our separate ways into the New York cold.

         When I got back to the apartment Rachel, our other roommate, had the heat up and music blasting from her room. She really wasn’t a winter person, and tended to stay inside playing computer games whenever the temperature got below forty. I shuffled the three steps from our “foyer” into our “living room,” (which doubled as our dining room and was technically in the same room as our kitchen) and hit the answering machine’s blinking red light as I began to pull off the wet layers of my clothes. On the way home it had started to snow.
         “Hey babe, this is Daryl,” the machine played. “Just calling to say hi. So, hi. Call me, I want to see you this weekend. Love,” I hit the button again, cutting him off, then silently scolded myself. There was nothing wrong with Daryl, ‘the perfect man’ saying he loved me. The fact that I hadn’t said it yet shouldn’t stop him. Wow, Beth I thought to myself. And you think Sandra has issues.
         I pulled my damp sweater over my head and listened to the only other message. At first I thought it had been a mistake, that someone’s cell phone had called us from inside their pocket, because I couldn’t hear anything except some muffled rustling, like someone’s hand over the speaker. Then I heard the voice. “A good heart is hard to find.” It was a man’s voice I didn’t recognize. There was a pause and I could hear him breathing. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. There was something distinctly creepy about that breath. “I hope I’ve found one,” the voice said, and hung up abruptly. The machine beeped, End of Messages.
         My still numb with cold fingers fumbling, I grabbed the phone and dialed Sandra’s cell number. It rang twice before she picked up, laughing. “Hello?”
         “Sandra!” I paced back and forth trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “Sandra, where are you?”
         “Oh, Beth, you’ll never believe it! Right after you left I met this really sweet guy. His name’s Bobby and he took me out for hot chocolate. Hot chocolate! Isn’t that adorable?”
         “Sandra, I don’t think you should talk to this guy.”
         “What? Beth, it’s really crowded in here, I can’t hear you. Listen I have to go, I think we’re going to see a movie!”
         “Sandra, don’t go with him! Don’t…”
         “Yeah, I’ve lost your signal. But I’ll tell you all about it later. Love ya, bye!”
         “Shit!”
         I slammed the phone down and sat down on the couch. Rachel’s techno music was making my head pound. Ok, I told myself. Ok. It’s probably nothing. She’s probably fine.

      One week later I was sitting on the same couch, wrapped in the arms of Daryl ‘the perfect man’ and watching the ten o’ clock news. They were running the story on Sandra again. I watched my own face come up on the screen, pale and hollow-looking as I gave the reporter the facts for what must have been the hundredth time. “No, I have no idea who it was,” I watched myself say. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
    Daryl kissed the top of my head. “It’s going to be ok,” he said.
    “I don’t know,” I said. She was very, completely gone.