Page 32 of His Wall

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. Thea's not going to count the guests."

"She's going to count the guests."

"She is not going to count the guests."

"Jules. I cannot have her find out about any of this. I cannot. Last year I tried to surprise her with the trip to Paris and her sister called forty-eight hours before asking what flight we were on. Thea picked up the call, and I had to lie to my wife about a trip I had been planning for three months. I am not doing that again."

"I won't say anything to Thea."

"You're the worst secret keeper I know."

I lifted the espresso cup. The pencil was still between my fingers.

"Untrue. I'm excellent at secrets."

I let the line sit.

"You're terrible at secrets."

"I'm very good at secrets."

"You once told a six-year-old at a Christmas party that Santa was a tax-deductible business expense."

"Children should know the truth."

"His mother cried, Jules."

"She was overdramatic."

"He cried."

"Briefly."

He laughed. I laughed. The pencil had moved while we were talking — three more windows on the building, a small balcony on the eighth floor, a tree at the base. I turned the page.

"Send me the seating chart," I said. "I'll look at it."

"Done."

"Get some sleep."

"I am not sleeping."

"Get some sleep, Declan."

He hung up.

I set the phone down. I stood at the counter for a long second with the espresso cup in one hand and the pencil still in the other.

The vinyl had moved to the next track. Coltrane was deep in "Pursuance," the bass running under everything, the drum coming up from somewhere far back in the studio nobody had recorded in for sixty years. I had three rows of records on the shelf against the far wall. Alphabetical.

Nobody had come over and been impressed in a long time.

I closed the sketchbook and slid it into the kitchen drawer with the other twenty-two.

I went to the bathroom to rinse my face. The toothbrush holder by the sink had two slots. There was a toothbrush in the left one. There had been a toothbrush in the right one until Anna pulled it out, put it in her overnight bag, walked out of my apartment, and didn't come back. That was a long time ago. I bought a new toothbrush six months later, put it in the right slot, and threw it away.