‘Ah,’ Marc says.
‘What?’ Kimble sucks on her frozen margarita. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘Because I see.’
‘What’s that now?’ Kimble asks, an edge to her voice.
‘You’re in love,’ Marc says.
‘What? I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Ok.’ Marc shrugs and swirls the tequila in his glass.
‘Jesus, Marc,’ Kimble’s voice rises. ‘You can’t just say stuff like that.’
‘It’s not an insult.’ Marc pats Kimble’s arm. ‘We can talk about it if you like. But we don’t have to.’
‘The times,’ Kimble says, ‘that you pick to be insightful are demented.’
‘I am annoying,’ he says, wagging his finger in her face. ‘But I am correct.’
‘Fine.’ Kimble rests her head in her hands. ‘Ok, why not? No reason you can’t know. She and I have been friends for years. We went to NYU together. She just got divorced from her husband. I had never thought of her like that. But one night we drank too much and I cried about – doesn’t matter – and she comforted me. And I saw her. I really looked at her for the first time. The weirdest thing is that I could see her getting freaked out, because she was seeing me too.’ She shrugs. ‘It’s not so comfortable, being seen. It’s excruciating actually. But I can never go back to who I was, now. See,that’sdemented. I was just living, going about my business, then everything turned on a dime. Now I’m always scared because so much of me depends on that person. On Margot.’
‘We have to put it all somewhere,’ Marc drops his cigarette into his empty glass. ‘It’s an achievement – to love.’
‘Love is a rock face.’ Kimble chews a toothpick. ‘If you put a foot wrong there’s a long way to fall.’
‘You won’t fall,’ he says.
‘We never talk like this,’ Kimble says.
‘I know. Do you like it?’
‘I think so. Do you?’
‘I think so too,’ he says but it’s hard to tell. Marc has a fear of abandonment that’s nearly as old as he is. He feels him stirring in the deeps, the lonely child he once was. ‘I’m happy for you, Kimble,’ he says. ‘You deserve to be happy.’
‘We’re going on our first vacation together,’ Kimble says. ‘Margot and me. Mauritius. It’s paid for, non-refundable. Next month.’ The toothpick in her hands snaps into two neat pieces. ‘It’s good to have something that can’t be changed. It’s freeing, weirdly. She wants us to spend real time together.’
‘Real time?’ Marc asks. ‘As opposed to fake time?’
‘I guess she just means – being with her, instead of always on the road with you.’
‘I see,’ says Marc.
Kimble takes the salt shaker and pours it into her palm. The salt makes a little white mountain in her hand. She stares at it.
‘What do you want most?’ Marc asks. ‘If you could cover anything, make any doc on any subject, what would you make?’
Kimble throws the salt over her shoulder (to keep the devil away, Marc remembers that). She crunches an ice cube in her teeth. ‘Don’t you already know what I’d do? What would you make?’
‘That’s cheating,’ Marc says. ‘You can’t throw the question back.’
‘I can do anything I like.’
‘We’ll both say what we want to make. On three.’ Marc taps his empty glass with a spoon. ‘One, two, three.’
‘The Nowhere children,’ Marc says as Kimble says, ‘Leaf Winham.’
