Her forehead wrinkles, that hair-thin line between her brows again.
“The morning I left here—the night after we first met. I told you I got called for a job, and you said I was lying.”
“Oh,” she says, shrugging. “Well, you were, weren’t you?” The confidence with which she says it—it pierces me. Shames me. It’d been hard for me to leave that day—I’d fucked up with Kit, had said hurtful things to her, had ruined a weekend that meant a lot to her. Later, I’d apologized, and she’d forgiven me, but I don’t think I’ve really forgiven myself.
So Greer’s not wrong, and the look I give her is part smile, part grimace, all embarrassment. “I was. I called myself infor that job.”
She puts a hand out, palm up, a gesture that says,See?Then she looks back down at her lap, her eyes scanning blankly over the papers she doesn’t want me to look at. Why would she trust them withme, after all?
I clear my throat, lower my head again. I offer her the honesty she deserves. “I thought about doing the same thingthis morning.”
For a long minute, she says nothing. It’s only the sound of the leaves shaking above us, the boisterous Frisbee players in the distance, the occasional birdcall orbuzzing insect.
“I didn’t even do the cough,” she says, finally. “I only cleared my throat.”
“I’m not a great Moneypenny, I guess.” I wouldn’t say she’s smiling, but she’s not frowning either. After another long pause, she sets the stack of papers between us on the bench. And then she slowly, deliberately, pushes them my way.
Within seconds, she’s replaced the paperwork she’d been holding with a set of keys she’s pulled from her purse. The keychain is what I’m guessing is a fake rabbit’s foot, pink synthetic fur that’s worn in one spot, the exact spot where she sets her thumb, worrying it slightly. I raise an eyebrow at her, but she only nods down atthe paperwork.
The first few pages I skip—everything about enrollments, all the waivers—and get right into the first week material, all easy enough, stuff I can probably show Greer in a few hours. The final packet in the stack is about the showcase itself, about what Greer has to do to participate. Slowly, I start to get the feeling like I’m working out where to buy food, where to get water, where to use the internet, where to do laundry. The feeling like I’ve got something immediate to take care of. I think idly back to the weeks after my dad had his stroke, how I’d only managed the strange hum of anxiety in my blood by managing the immediacies of his care.
“Says here you’ve got to end up with four photos, all linked by theme. ‘Variations on an idea that intrigues you,’” I quote, and she makes that smallhmmnoise again. “A photo-essay.I can do thi—”
I’m interrupted because she’s snatched the papers back from me, the most forceful move she’s ever made in my presence. It’s worse than thehmmfor all it makes me aware of her.
“Ican do this,” she says.
“Right, of course.” I give her what I hope looks like an innocent, understanding smile, and she blinksowlishly at me.
“You canhelpme. Notdo it for me.”
“Of course,” I repeat, and for the first time since I met her by the library this morning, things feel lighter, more playful between us.A month. Maybe it won’t be so bad.
“Onone condition.”
I feel my smile transform slightly, change into something closed lipped and tentative. She’s got that James Bond look about her again.
“You go see a therapist while you’re here. About yourpanic attacks.”
My lips flatten.
“I know a good one,” she continues, as if she hasn’t seen me turn as still as the statue that started this afternoon. I don’t object to therapy, not in principle, but in practice the idea terrifies me—the trash of my past, available to a stranger. The chaos of my present laid bare.
“Greer—” My voice is unsure, unsteady.
“She’s got an office not far from Kit’s place. She used to see my brother.” She looks down, strokes her rabbit’s foot again. “One time,” she adds, looking up at me, and despite the unsteadiness I feel, I’m grounded somehow by the lightness in her gaze, a slight sparkle that tells me she knows something I don’t. That she doesn’t think it’ll just be one time. “That’s all I ask.”
* * * *
“I don’t getit,” says Jae.
I’m sitting at Kit’s dining room table, headphones for my phone in and eyes on my computer, where I’ve got a set of about fifteen photographs open, the best options for Peter Hiltunen’s charity auction. I’ve given to auctions like this before, and in general, there’s an art to choosing your piece: nothing too grim, nothing too newsy, nothing that requires too much context. It feels good to scan through the images, to keep my eyes and mind on what feels easy to me—pictures from all over, pictures from all kinds of situations. It’s possible—possible—that I’ve been hiding in work for the last few hours, emails and edits and whatever else I can do to keep my mind off whatI’ve agreed to.
“I don’t really get it either,” I say. It’s late, after ten, but it’s not unusual for Jae and me to catch up at strange hours, given that we’re rarely in the same time zone. Jae mostly works from home these days, the office in his apartment tucked into a corner of his guest bedroom, where I’ve often crashed on short stints in the city.
“Once I asked you to do a panel discussion on stress and photojournalism for the New School and you said—and I quote—‘I don’t need a whole room of people psychoanalyzing me.’ And now you’re going to therapy?”
“One time. That’s all I promised.” I lean forward in my chair, scan my eyes over an image I took in Goma, a woman with her back to me wearing a brightly patterned wrap skirt that falls just above her ankles, an oversized crewneck sweatshirt tucked bulkily into it. Her head is wrapped in royal-blue-and-tan fabric; she’s a bright column on the dusty road that surrounds her. This one’s a contender, even if it’sa little spare.
