I don’t even think I would’ve felt likecleaning after.
But it had been Greer to pull away this time, and I’ve been waiting to hear fromher ever since.
“No,” I answer finally. “It doesn’t always.”
I hear, rather than see, Patricia make a note on her tablet. “Well,” she says, after a few seconds. “Then it sounds like this is an area where we can makesome progress.”
* * * *
I’m writing in my journal when thetext comes in.
I’ve not had much success writing about the panic attacks, and that’s either because it’s been a few days since I’ve had one or because I haven’t found a way to put into words what it’s really like. I’ve always been better at pictures, especially for the important things, so mostly I write about those—notes I’m making to myself about the images I’ll use for Hiltunen’s showcase, ideas about what might work and what definitely won’t. It’s unexpectedly soothing, looking over pictures I’ve taken long ago, pictures that have either already been published or consigned to my archive folder. With distance, I see the shots differently; I’m not thinking so much about my audience or about how any given shot will look on a bifold, or online, or in black and white.
Still, the vibration of my phone is a welcome relief even before I pull it toward me from where I’ve set it on Kit’s porch railing to see who’s calling. It’s after dinner, a restless time for me, and that’s even after I’ve stopped getting anxiety about the contentsof the pantry.
It buzzes again before I’ve set a hand on it.
Moneypenny, the first text says, and yeah. Thatdoes it for me.
The second text is an address not far from here, and maybe it ought to freak me out that I know that already, but I’m too busy watching those three little dots that tell me she’s still typing.
There’ll be a key waiting for you at the front desk, under your name.
Holy. Fuck.
I almost forget to lock the house; basically, I start walking down the porch steps before I get enough sense to think about putting my boots on. Even then I’m doing everything haphazardly, dropping the keys, searching the coffee table for the wallet that’s in my pocket, lifting my T-shirt to my nose to make sure it doesn’t smell like the pasta I just ate. In my haste I hear the scolding tone of my own voice in my head, the one I used to use on Kit when she was running late for school.You make more mistakeswhen you rush.
God. I was fuckingannoyingwhen we were kids.
For only the second time since I’ve been here I take Kit’s car, which is basically a dented tin can that she has some bizarre nostalgic attachment to. It makes a series of worrisome noises while I drive to the address Greer sent me, most of which get louder when I slow down in front of the valet stand. Probably the teenager behind the podium smirks, but I’m too busy shoving a tip in his hand and walking past him into the lobby to care. It’s weird in here, boutique-hotel weird; the light fixtures look like hanging egg sacs and all the furniture is magenta velvet, but I don’t care about this either.
I care about getting into that hotel room.
“Alex Averin,” I say to the receptionist, whose lipstick matches the furniture. “There’s a key for me here.”
She taps on her computer and looks up at me. “We don’t have a key under that name.”
“Wh—” I pause, blink across the desk at her, and sigh, a smile tugging at my mouth. “Try—uh. Moneypenny.” For fuck’s sake. WhenI get up there…
I’m smiling like an idiot when she hands me the keycard, when I’m waiting in the elevator bay, when I’m riding eight floors up to the room I’ve been sent to. I’m probably still smiling like an idiot when Greer first opens the door to me, her cheeks flushed and her feet bare. She’s wearing a pale yellow dress that shows all of her arms and her legs from the very top of her kneecaps down. It’s the fabric she seems to favor, light and delicately layered, a little old fashioned but somehow still dead damned sexy. I stay where I am, right outside the door. “Cute trickwith the name.”
She smiles up at me, says nothing as steps back and to the side,letting me in.
The room, thankfully, is free of magenta accents. It’s spare, ultramodern, and I like the contrast of it—soft Greer inside of all these hard lines. There’s only one point of disturbance in the room, but it’s a big one, as these things go.
The bed.
It looks like it’s been slept in, the bright white duvet half pulled back, along with the heavy top sheet, also white. There are four down pillows askew near the headboard, seemingly punched into various states of disarray. I stare at that bed like it’shypnotized me.
Greer clears her throat from her spot by the small desk in the room. “If you could sit there, please,” she says, gesturing to the bed. For the first time I notice her camera’s on the desk, and she speaks again. “I won’t have your face in it. I know you don’t like that.”
I cross to the bed and sit, my hands curled around the edge of the mattress, and try hard not to think about the bulge in my jeans, which I would also like to avoid having in a photograph. My heart feels like it’s going to pound right out of my chest, but not in the way I’ve beenworried about.
More like in the way I’ve been waiting for. With Greer, specifically.
“Like this?” I ask her, willing to go along with this, whatever it is.Intimacy. She and I, we do it well this way. We don’t have to say much at all.
She takes a step away from the desk, cocks her head to the side, her eyes passing over me slowly, thoughtfully. I recognize that look—or maybe I recognize thefeelingof that look, the feeling of taking in your subject, thinking of how you can adjust it, make it work for you.
