“You weren’t scared.”
She laughs. “Are you kidding? I paid a paralegal at my firm a hundred and fifty dollars to write me a report on Chiari malformation. I called a friend from college who’s a pediatrician and made her answer about six thousand questions. I just have a good poker face.”
“Oh.” I’m probably not crying because there are no fluids left in my body, but I’m confident that I would be in any other circumstance.“That’s nice.”
“I’m nice,” she says, defensively. “Anyways, my point is, at least give him the chance to disappoint you.” She stands, sets her hands on her hips, looks down at me.
“I liked how he saw me,” I say quietly, tilting my chin up to see her better. “You’re right, I know. But—I liked how it was with us. How he never thought twice with me. I’m not someone he has to take care of, be responsible for, be careful of. He never—” I lower my head, flushing. I’m thinking about a lot of things between me and Alex, all the time we’ve spent together even before it got physical, but I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t at the forefront. Zoe’s no prude, and neither am I, but we are in the lobby of a cycling studio, and since I haven’t had any stories to share in this regard lately, I feel sheepish now. “He never asked me if I could do something, you know? He always assumed I could. That’s over now.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, looking down at me until I meet her gold-brown eyes again. Then she shrugs. “You’re probably right, Greer,” she says, never one to sugarcoat things. She reaches down to the bench, picks up the pair of shoes I’ve set there, and tosses them in the studio’s rental return bin, making a metallic clamor. “I guess the question is whether you’re interested in startingsomething new.”
* * * *
I’m home and showered by nine. It’s unusually quiet in the townhouse, Ava having left for an early rehearsal. She’s left me a fresh pot of coffee, a new box of Cheerios, and a sticky note with a cartoon heart on it, stick legs and arms and a goofy, smiling face. Underneath she’s written:I already called Mom for you.Last night, she’d come back from the party without Doug, which I’m guessing means the whole family had a conversation about my hasty exit and she’d been instructed to check on me. She’d tapped once on my bedroom door and asked if I wanted to use one of her bath bombs. That’s really saying something too, because she hoards those things like they’re madeof fairy dust.
I’m soaking up the quiet and these small acts of care from my sister, listening to Kenneth purr steadily from his sunny spot on the arm of the couch. But I’m also tapping through images on my laptop from last night, the conversation with Zoe knocking around in my head endlessly, obnoxiously. The gallery of pictures on-screen isn’t helping either. Maybe a few are interesting, especially the ones I took from the deck, but all in all it’s not a good showing, and I think I was probably too hasty, trying to get ahead without the actual lessons. There’s definitely nothing as striking as the ladybug, nothing as curious as my heap of lucky charms, nothing as personal as the picture of Alex.
There’s difference too, in these pictures. I don’t know how I know, don’t know if I understand enough about the art to even say what I see. But there are pictures before that moment on the deck with Josh, and pictures after, and they’re not the same. At first I tell myself it’s the light—waning sun at first, fading into bluish twilight, every shot illuminated at least partially with something from nature. After, the porch light by the back door so bright and fluorescent, the white twinkle lights giving off tiny, garish halos that infect every image.
But of course it’s more than the light. It’s me; it’s the way I’d stopped watching, reallywatchingfor the shot. I let the camera do all the work for me, not thinking about the settings I could control. Not moving my body to see things differently.
Alex would hatethese pictures.
It’s not as simple as Zoe made it sound, that’s the thing. Maybe she’s right that I overreacted, that I’m too sensitive about my illness and what it’s meant for me and my family. But starting something new? Something where Alex has to adjust to this new knowledge of me? It’s not really an option, not with him leaving so soon. What we’re doing—casual, fun, temporary—doesn’t really hold up under the weight of a chronic illness I hid from him. I already feel like an obligation to a lot of the people I love most, and I certainly don’t want to add Alex to the list.
Of people who are obligated to me. Of people I love most. I don’t thinkI’d survive it.
When a sharp knock comes on my door, I’m so lost in my thoughts that I startle and almost drop the laptop on the floor. Kenneth makes amrrr-ownoise and darts off the couch as though I’ve thrown the computer at his face. This early, it’s probably my neighbor from across the street, Joyce, who runs the neighborhood watch and posts complainy comments on the Listserv when the mail gets delivered after 3 p.m. She thinks cats are “nature’s prostitutes” (a memorable Listserv rant) so I make sure I pick Kenneth up before I answer.
“Oh.” It’s not Joyce, but she’s probably looking out her front window right this second, staring at Alex’s broad back, the way it tapers to a lean waist. As for me, I’m staring right at hisGQface, his green eyes bright and piercing, the way they always are when they take me in. In spite of the heat he’s wearing a black jacket over his faded gray T-shirt, the materialthick, sturdy.
The strap of his canvas pack shows olive green over his shoulder.
For a few seconds I can’t do anything but blink at that jacket, that strap. Of course that’s what this is. Of course he’s leaving. He’ll come in, tell me he’s taken a job. He’ll tell me he’s had fun, that nothing I said last night matters to him, but it’s time for him to go, that’s all. He’s doing well—barely a whiff of an attack in days, and way more than one session with Patricia. He’ll tell me he’s written a charming fob-off to Hiltunen. He’ll give me a kiss goodbye—something gentle, sweet. No tongue, I’ll bet. We could take care of it right here, one of nature’s prostitutes squirming irritatedly between us.
“Greer,” he says quietly, and my stomach seizes.Here it comes.“I was wondering if you’d want to go on atrip with me.”
“A what?” But obviously I heard him.
“A trip. Just tonight, we’ll come back tomorrow. I know you’ve got work, and I’ve got—I have a sessionwith Patricia.”
There’s a pause while I use a second, less sophisticated stalling trick—sort of a blank stare situation—and after a beat of silence Alex shifts on his feet, a slight repositioning that feels so soft and vulnerable to me that I instinctively open the door wider, though I don’t take a step back from the threshold. Kenneth leaps away from me, probably running upstairs to hide under my bed.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say finally, happy at how level and unbothered my voice sounds. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. I know it’sdifferent now.”
“Tomorrow’s Saint John the Baptist Day.” That—does not have anything to do with anything, so far as I know. I blink up at him, confused. “It’s a tradition for some cultures to—well, you spend the evening at the beach, the night before. And then at midnight, you go in the water. You splash away your bad luck. Youget good luck.”
“Oh,” Irepeat, dumbly.
“Six years ago I photographed it in San Juan. It was beautiful. You wouldn’t believe the crowds.”
“I already got a crowd shot,” I say, not bothering to tell him that most of my photos from last night are trash.
He shakes his head. “There won’t be a crowd where I’m taking you. It’s not really—it’s not a thing around here, I guess. I looked into it. But we—we don’t have to shoot it. We can just—do it.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’d thought he wasleaving. Again. “You don’t even believe in luck.”
He looks at me for a long time. “I don’t,” he says, simply, a small shrug of his shoulders. “But I believe in you.”
