“So it’s aperson, then.”
“Are you telling me you’ve never seen a show on the Food Network?” The look on her face is one of such naked disappointment that I have to press my lips together to keep from smiling.
“I didn’t growup with cable.”
She blinks. “I mean, okay. That’s too bad, but also you’ve stayed in like one million hotels in your life. You’veneverwatched theFood Network?”
“I don’t watch much television, I guess.”
“What do you do when you take a sick day?”
“A—sick day? I don’t really—I just don’t shoot on a day that I’m sick. I sleep. Or read.”
For a split second, her face lights, brows raising, eyes widening. “What do youlike to read?”
“The—the newspaper?”
Damn, wrong answer. Her face falls. “That’s not really sick day reading.” She looks out into the dining room, spots the copy of theTimesI have spread out there, and in a move that is inexplicably, ridiculously sexy, she presses up slightly onto her tiptoes so she can get a better look. I can see the line of her leg change, the slight flare of her contracted calf muscles in her cropped, skinny cut jeans. The microwave timer beeps annoyingly, a few kernels still popping. “You’re reading an article about flooding in Vietnam.”
My face heats again. I scrape a hand across my jaw, pull my mouth to one side. “That’s probably a job I would’ve been doing. If I were doing jobs right now.”
She drops her heels back to the ground, levels me with another long, clear-eyed stare. “That sounds soothing.” Her nose crinkles slightly, as though she’s not used to the sound of sarcasm from her own mouth. “For yourpanic, I mean.”
“It used to be,” I say without thinking, a moment of pure, unpressed response that had felt impossible to me back when I was in Patricia’s office.
She tilts her head, and that fractional movement shifts the light behind her, a beam of bright sun passing through the back window limning the whole of her left side. I keep my eyes up, knowing what that light must be doing to the fabric of the white button-up she’s wearing. My fingers twitch at my side.
“New coping mechanisms,” she says, moving to open the microwave, not looking at me at all. She sounds remarkably like Patricia. No nonsense, no pretense. “You need them.”
* * * *
Two hours later, I’ve watched Ina Garten make salmon tacos, lamb chops and couscous, two different kinds of pie, and a soup with so many ingredients I’d actually talked back to the television. I’ve also eaten half a bowl of Greer’s popcorn, which was not finished when she took it out of the microwave. First she’d melted a small pat of butter and poured it on top, and then she’d added salt, a few shakes of cinnamon, and a handful of chocolate chips. “This is good comfort food,” she’d said.
Now she sits beside me on the couch, the bowl between us, her legs stretched out onto the coffee table, feet crossed at the ankles. “This is the best show,” she says, not even really to me. She’s just quietly commenting for herself, delighting in her own enjoyment of this simple thing. I can’t say for sure whether I’m enjoying this—the show, I mean—or if I’m just enjoying sitting with her, feeding off the strange, silent self-containment she has about her. Itshouldbe disconcerting; it seems like it would be with anyone else. But with Greer, the silence, the self-containment—it feels natural, comforting. She’s presence and absence, all atthe same time.
“Is this one episode?”
Greer turns her head from where she’s had it resting against the back cushions of the couch. “What do you mean?”
“I mean—” I gesture a hand toward the flat-screen. “Is this—with the stew and then this fruit tart thing—has this been on thesame episode?”
“No,” she says, her brow furrowed again. She’s had to do a lot of work for this sick day, I’ll tell you what, basically explaining to me what cable television is. I’m pretty sure she put her feet up to stop me looking at the other newspaper I have there, yesterday’sPost. On the back of one heel, she’s got a dark smudge of newsprint that I’d like to set my thumb to. “Why wouldyou ask that?”
I shrug. “I thought she was wearing thesame clothes.”
Her lips part slightly, her tongue peeking out to swipe across her bottom lip. I can see that lip quiver slightly, and I know she wants to laugh again. I shift against the cushions, wanting her to. “She likes button-up shirts. Mostly blue. Collar turned up. It’s like—it’s herthing.”
“Ah.”
We’re quiet again, but she’s more restless now, noticing the smudge on her heel, and when she lifts her thumb to her mouth, another tiny swipe of her tongue before she rubs at the newsprint herself, I have to close my eyes to keep from thinking about what her tongue would feel like against mine.
“It’s probably boring for you,” she says, her head tipped down as she rubs at the stubborn spot. “Watching a food show. Lying aroundon the couch.”
“It’s not boring.” I’ve maybe said it too hastily, so it sounds like I’m making up for something, when really I’m trying to stop my mind from unruly thoughts about what it’d mean to belying aroundwith her in another context. “I’m just not used to it. This is what you do, then, when you’re sick?”
Something slight changes in her, a tightening in her body even as she curls in on herself, rubbing at that smudge. When she stops, setting her foot down on the floor, she keeps her head tipped down, looking atthe newspaper.
“I don’t take a lot of sick days.” There’s a line of tension in her voice. “Istay busy too.”
