“Why what?”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“To you?”
“Don’t you have any friends or something?”
Which was bit rich coming from him, Clemence thinks. “They’re all at work.”
“ButI’mat work.”
“Ithink your work,” Clemence says, “is a bit more flexible?”
And it is. Apparently Toby is free to take breaks when he chooses, flipping the sign in the window (or not—he says it doesn’t matter) and off they go to the coffee shop up by the fromagerie where they have gluten-free cupcakes. But then it turns out he’s also allergic to cocoa, so he’s out of luck. He doesn’t drink coffee, either. The place has a gluten-free madeleine, though, so he contents himself with that.
“Like Proust,” says Clemence.
“You’ve read Proust?” asks Toby, mildly animated at this.
And Clemence is forced to confess that no, she hasn’t. “But Idon’t imagine you have either,” she says, “seeing as he never wrote a single Restoration play.” And Toby laughs! Well, kind of.
The lighting in the coffee shop is dim, but interesting, strands of naked bulbs undulating from the ceiling, and Toby looks healthier here, the shadows underneath his eyes not as pronounced. He is also less solipsistic than Clemence had given him credit for, asking her, “Why don’t you get a job? Abetter one? More than three hours a week, if you’re bored, Imean.”
Clemence thinks about his question. She tells him, “Right now, I’m taking a break from all that, from routine and striving. I’m having a reset. Even just being bored is a novel experience—Idon’t think I’ve been bored for more than five minutes since Iwas eleven.” Clemence hasspent years with her days and her life booked up so that she’d never been able to take a moment to think about where she was going or what any of it meant. “Which is how Igot here, Iguess. And what Ineed is a recalibration.” She wants him to know, though: “But Iactually do have friends.”
“Sure,” says Toby. But he doesn’t sound sure. Though Toby doesn’t have much truck with friends anyway. He doesn’t see the point, he says, and Clemence wonders if she and Toby have more in common than she thinks, if her current recalibration is putting her on the road to becoming a weird recluse. Toby is lonely, Clemence suspects, and evidently Crampton thinks so too, because she’s paying Clemence a wage to engage him in conversation, but Toby doesn’t appear to think that his loneliness is a problem, or at least one that needs addressing with the presence of actual people.
Clemence says, “Ienvy you, actually. You seem okay on your own. The point of all this, for me, is to become accustomed to my own company, but I’m terrified the end result might end up being that Idon’t even like it. My company, Imean.” She tenses. She can’t believe she said that. She hardly even knew shefeltthat way, but she does, and the thing about Toby responding to everything Clemence says and does as though she’s strange and unfathomable is that it permits her to be as strange and unfathomable as she’d like, and maybe more, because he’d never notice the difference.
Toby says, “No.”
“No?”
“You’re good company,” Toby clarifies.
“Really?”
“You bought me a snack.” He shrugs. She’s also bought him a small carton of milk, and she’s surprised to find that his digestive system can tolerate lactose, the rest of him seeming so fragile.Toby contains multitudes, she thinks, but maybe she’s giving him too much credit. He’s just tipped the carton back to get to the dregs, milk running all over his shirt.
Clemence says, “Want to walk me home?”
“Why?”
“Ibought you a snack, remember? It’s only polite.”
And so he goes through the motions, awkwardly holding the door for her as they exit, but stumbling over his feet in the process and hitting his head on the frame.
“Well, now youreallyhave to walk me home,” says Clemence, after ducking back inside to grab a pile of napkins.
“Why?”
“Because I’ve got a first aid kit, and you’re bleeding.”
Toby panics. “Is it serious?” Clemence is pressing some of the napkins against his head. “Do you think I’m going to have to get stitches?” He touches the wound, getting blood on his hands. Clemence foists the rest of the napkins upon him.
“You don’t need stitches,” she says, hoping she sounds more certain than she is. Because there does seem to be a lot of blood for a cut that’s mainly superficial. The napkins Toby has pressed against his head right now are soaked through already. Thankfully, her house is close, eventhough Toby winces as she leads him up to the porch, and she isn’t sure he’ll be able to make it all the way to her room at the top, but somehow he manages, stopping only three times to catch his breath. When they arrive at her door, the napkins are disintegrated, and there’s blood all over his hand and face, and Toby looks like he’s been in an explosion.
Clemence leads him into the bathroom, helping him sit down on the edge of the tub. She wets a washcloth, holding it gently to the wound, and he’s submitted to her entirely. Whereas before, it’s been only resistance, Toby darting around corners and bounding up ladders to escape her, she’s touching him now, and his eyes are closed, almost as if in pleasure. His eyelashes are impossibly long, and she’s tempted to kiss those full lips, to push her luck ever so far, but no doubt that would jerk him right out of whatever state he is in. Toby would leap away and run out the door, or have an anaphylactic reaction to her lip balm, and Clemence would never see him again, which would be inconvenient for all kinds of reasons. So she doesn’t, because she doesn’t want to kiss Toby anyway, she just likes his lips, which part gently into an almost smile as she holds the warm washcloth against his brow.
