Stupid questions were better to think about than to look into the eyes of the woman who paced the nondescript corridor back and forth, a wedding ring that linked her to me on her finger. It was also better than looking at the other woman, Esther, who was vigorously typing on her phone and looking like this was just another day, another case for her, and not one where people’s lives—mine and June’s—were hanging in the balance.
“You can only blame yourself,” I could practically hear those words in my mother’s voice in my head. It was true. I could only blame myself. “You never take anything seriously,” she had once thrown in my face. I had to remind her back then that I was a thirteen-year-old, pushing a stroller and holding the hand of a toddler while hanging out with my friends in the concrete gardens of the blocks.
Nine twenty a.m. came and went, and so did ten fifteen. I was hungry, angry, and nervous. This disinfectant-smelling corridor was the furthest from the smell of wood in my workshop. This ugly office building looked nothing like City Hall where our business had been first conducted.
I had hardly slept last night, memorizing instead the way June’s studio apartment looked, the details of her life that she had disclosed, and reaching for my phone to send her a message with a question I suddenly realized we hadn’t covered.
“Only organic cotton, hemp, linen, or soy silk,” she had replied to my text immediately, at three thirty a.m. Like me, she couldn’t sleep and was up to answer my question.
“Your clothes, not regular, what are they made of?” I had typed, blaming the hour for the awkward phrasing.
She had then followed it with, “How many tattoos do you have in total?”
“Eight,” I had texted back.
Strangely, in the middle of the night, I had felt a movement in my sweatpants at the thought of her loose clothes and the word silk, and the image I had of her too taut for my taste body that she hid underneath. She wasn’t even my type, though she was pretty in her own supple way. The thought of her lying in bed, thinking about the ink on my body, had caused the twitch to turn into a full-blown hard-on.
Earlier, I had searched for her Facebook and Instagram profiles to get acquainted with her work, logo, and products, just so I could name-drop them if asked. At four a.m., in an effort to fall asleep, I had found myself vigorously stroking my cock with the image of her lithe body under a logoed apron, her smiling face staring at me from my phone’s screen.
Great, Angelo, great. Just what you need to throw into this mess.
Now I couldn’t look at her.
In person, she looked stiffer than she had yesterday at my apartment when, for hours, I could tell she was nice and composed, trying to smile, but it came out strangled, like she wasn’t used to letting go. I had been right the first time—she was like a string that some amateur had wound too tight, and it didn’t make the sound it was supposed to, couldn’t flow music like it was born to.
Maybe that was why her genuine smile in that picture, standing by her organic and whatever products, made me hard. In a way, I needed the woman my fate depended upon to be warm, unwound, music flowing freely through her veins.
“June and Angelo Marchesi,” a clerk called, standing at the threshold of one of the offices.
June and I threw a gaze at each other, then at Esther, who got up and nodded.
“Don’t look too nervous and you’ll be okay,” Esther said, pressing her lips together and giving us both a little nod ofyou’ve got this.
I took a deep breath and a few steps toward the open door farther down the hall.
Cold, thin fingers suddenly nestled in my palm. I shifted my gaze and saw June next to me, a nervous little smile on her face.
I closed my right palm over hers, trying to warm her cold fingers by gently rubbing them and trying even harder to forget that the hand I was holding her with was rubbing something else with her in mind last night.
“Please, take a seat,” the clerk said, moving over to his side of the desk.
June and I looked at each other then sat down in front of him. The walls were gray, his suit was gray, and he almost blended in with the background.
He first typed something on his computer. Then, bringing his eyes to us and smiling, he said, “Mr. and Mrs. Marchesi, your identifications, please.”
“Ms. Raine,” June said. “Other than in the official records, I kept my name.” Esther had approved this the day before.
“It’s good, it adds credibility. It shows you’re not trying to do it all by the book. And if they question neighbors and friends who don’t know about you two yet, it’ll make sense.”
“Oh. Fair enough,” the man said, watching us as we presented our IDs—my passport and her driver’s license.
She looked much younger in the picture there. I looked at her profile now. You could mistake her external appearance for sedate, but I could tell she was so tense that she only seemed carved in stone. A vein visibly pulsing in her pale, long neck was one piece of evidence of the vibrant warmth that pumped under the starchy exterior. I had to force my eyes back on Mr. Gray.
“Please stand up and raise your right hand.”
Though I knew it was part of the procedure, I had managed to forget about this step, and as June and I pushed our chairs back and got to our feet, I felt my heart pounding, more for the pale woman next to me than for myself. Her hand was stable as she raised it, but I could feel her tension as if she were touching me.
We repeated after the officer and swore to tell only the truth. My palms sweated.
