“Tell them again.”
“I’ll call them now.” She picks up the annexure and turns for the door.
“Elena.”
She stops. Turns back. “Yes.”
I look at her for a moment. The light in the office at this hour is low and amber, and she is standing in it with her hair up and her jacket still on despite the fact that it is five o’clock.
“The masquerade,” I say. “Did you enjoy it?”
Something moves across her face. There and gone. “It was a lot of work.”
She leaves.
I lean back in my chair, look at the closed door, and sit with her answer for a long time.
It was a good party.
I pour two fingers of scotch, stand at the window, let the city do what it always does. I think about Grigori’s lunch, four names, a second leak, and a strange woman I spent a night with.
8
ELENA
Mara is paintingher nails and sitting cross-legged on the couch with a towel under her feet when I get home. She looks up when I come in and looks back down and says nothing, which means she is waiting to see what version of me walked through the door tonight.
I drop my bag by the door, take my shoes off, go to the kitchen, and stand in front of the open fridge for a long moment, looking at nothing useful.
“There’s pasta on the stove,” she says.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I didn’t ask if you were hungry. I said there’s pasta on the stove.”
I take the pasta.
I eat it standing at the counter, and Mara finishes her left hand and starts on her right.
“You look terrible,” she says pleasantly.
“Thank you.”
Mara blows on her nails. “You have the face of someone who lies awake at two in the morning having conversations in their head.”
“Everyone does that.”
“Not everyone looks like they’re losing the conversations.” She tilts her head and looks at me. “Is it the guy?”
I put my fork down. “It’s not the guy.”
“Is it your dad?”
“It’s everything,” I say to the pasta bowl. “It’s just everything right now, and I’m managing it.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “You know you don’t have to manage everything alone.”
“I know.”
