I want to defend Bradley, but stop myself just in time. “Can you turn on the torch? There’s one next to you on the table.”
She doesn’t move, but I still can’t make my body step towards her. If anything, I want to sprint out the door and never look back.
“You don’t know me,” I say, trying to assert a confidence I don’t feel.
“No. That’s right. You know, that’s one of the truths of my profession. I don’t know anyone, least of all myself. There are always more layers to the onion.” She uncrosses her legs,and even in the dark, that movement seems more elegant than anything I could ever manage. When I was with Bradley, it felt so right. But now that Grace is here, I can’t understand why he’d ever pick me over her. “Is that the right metaphor, do you think? Are our different selves just deeper layers of the onion? Or do we change into someone else entirely?”
I try to parse the words, but my heart is pounding uncomfortably against my chest. I can’t think straight. I feel like I’m teetering on the edge of a cliff.
“Anyway, I’ll never know you, Brie-like-the-cheese,” she continues. “And do you know why? Because you’re capable of terrible things. You can hurt people. You can kill people. I know that sounds implausible, but we all can. It’s a head trip, because the Brie I think I know isn’t capable of that at all. She’s quiet and sweet and loves animals. She dedicated her youth to helping her mother. That person wouldn’t seem to be capable of hurting a fly.”
“Can you turn on the torch, please, Grace?” My voice is small and girlish. I feel like a kindergartener trying to get the attention of the school principal.
“But you can kill, because you’re human, and that’s all our species has ever done. Hurt and kill each other. So that means I don’t know you at all. But it also means, I think, that you don’t know yourself.”
I feel a crackle of electricity in the room. It’s a magic trick, this ability to transform the world around her. An hour ago, I thought my life was a romantic comedy, but when Grace is around, it seems more like a tragedy. Or horror.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re a child. Bradley tells me you’re nearly thirty, but all I see is a little girl trying desperately to pretend that life is something other than what it so obviously is.”
“Turn the light on,” I say, raising my voice.
She laughs, mocking my false bravado, before finally picking up the torch. She pulls up the handle so it forms a lamp, then stands and slowly swings it around the room like a detective at a crime scene.
“You’re keeping this place very clean. I can’t say I approve. You’re too tightly bound. People like that always explode, sooner or later. We’re not machines, you know. We’re organisms, flesh and blood. We’re driven by desires and fears, not logic and reason.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask, interrupting her flow. There are probably a million people who would pay money to hear Grace wax lyrical about human nature, but I’m not one of them. Now that there’s light, the spell is broken, and my fear subsides—but it’s quickly replaced by a surge of panic. While Grace was waiting for me in the dark, I was having a quasi-romantic dinner with her husband. What did she see? How much does she know?
“I just got in,” she says, as if reading my thoughts. “My taxi got lost, so I’m a little late. I thought I’d stop by and say hello to you before surprising Bradley.”
“That’s great,” I say, trying to force a smile. “But Bradley said the roads were closed.”
“What? Because of a day of rain? We need more than that to close the roads around here.” She’s right. Neil got here without mentioning any trouble on the roads. Bradley lied to me—or rather, Don lied to Bradley. She swings the lamp to illuminate my bed, then turns back to me. “I wonder why he said that.”
“Maybe they were closed earlier.”
She lets out a small laugh, then steps closer. “You look nice. Lipstick and all. What have you been doing?”
“Nothing,” I say quickly. “I was planning to go to town, but Bradley…”
“Wanted you all to himself, did he? I thought maybe you’d had company.”
“What? No.”
“There are an awful lot of dishes. Multiple wine glasses.”
“Just my ex,” I say, causing her eyebrows to raise.
“Getting back together, are we?”
“No. Never. He was just checking in on me.”
“Why would he do that?”
“No reason.”
It’s a ridiculous answer, but I can’t tell her the truth.My ex wants to drag me back to the city, but your husband rescued me. I wait for her to challenge this blatant lie, but instead, she takes one last look at the bed, then hands me the torch.
