Yours to Bare

by Jessica Hawkins

  I’ll keep telling myself that until it feels true enough.

  I have seven more minutes to mourn.

  Then it’s back to happy as usual.

  4

  Monday morning, I stake out the coffee shop.

  I ignored fickle fate for an entire Friday and a weekend—three days, seventy-two hours. It helped that I had my daughter to distract me. But once Kendra picked Marissa up, I was alone with my thoughts again.

  Alone with her thoughts.

  And I just can’t let it go.

  Finding that journal under my table was an accident? An agenda with one entry wasn’t supposed to lead me right to her? I can’t ignore it. If fate is testing me, I won’t fail. I know one thing for sure about the owner—she comes to Lait Noir. So I make sure to get there when the café opens at the break of dawn.

  Another thing I know for sure? She fascinates me. She’s beautiful in a way that makes her seem untouchable. I don’t want to keep my hands to myself, though. I want to feel and make her feel. I want the journal girl I met a week ago to be the one from the gallery.

  It’s almost nine when I look up from my laptop and spot her across the street, waiting for a break in traffic. Once again, she’s in all black. Her white-blonde hair is pulled back except for a few loose strands that float around her face. Pulling her coat closed, she expertly darts through traffic in knee-high leather boots.

  I quickly slide my laptop into its case, weave through the tables, and get in line. When I hear her heels clicking behind me, I glance back.

  She unfurls a soft-as-fuck-looking gray scarf from around her neck. Her coat is open, her nipples noticeably hard through a dark, sheer blouse.

  She clears her throat.

  I look up. I’ve been caught staring.

  “Are you following me?” she asks.

  “That’d be impressive, considering I’m ahead of you in line.”

  After a tense silence during which she might be planning to deck me, she smiles. She’s messing with me, but like the other night, her sense of humor isn’t so obvious. “Finn, right?”

  “Good memory.”

  The man behind the counter calls me forward. I order a black coffee and angle sideways to ask, “Can I get your drink?”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “I insist. How’s a latte sound? You like that pumpkin spice stuff?”

  The barista laughs. “Yeah, do you like pumpkin spice, babe?”

  She smiles—at him. That fucker. “Do those even have caffeine?” she asks.

  “I got you,” he says, looking back at me. “Halston likes it black as the devil’s soul. That’s why she keeps coming back to me.” He winks. “That’ll be four-sixty.”

  I give him my credit card but keep my eyes on her. “Halston. Really made me work for that, didn’t you?”

  She reaches by me to take her coffee from the counter. All at once, she’s in my nostrils, my personal space, blocking anything in my vision that isn’t her. She smells like pepper, a hint of masculinity that has me leaning in. Since her hair is pulled back, I see the flash of a tattoo under her ear. I’m keeping tally: secret journal, red bra, fake smoking, strategically placed ink, spicy scent. She hides herself well, and my curiosity’s getting the better of me.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” she says, stepping back before I’ve had my fill.

  “Will you sit for a minute?”

  “No tables . . .”

  “I know a place.” I pick up my coffee, and since I’m headed toward the exit, she has to follow. My predestined table is taken, today of all days, but that’s not where I’m taking her. Near the front of the shop is a deep windowsill that’ll fit just two ass cheeks—one of hers, one of mine.

  She peers outside, and then at me. “Is this about work?”

  “No.”

  Her phone begins to chime. She takes it from her purse. “Don’t answer,” I say.

  She arches an eyebrow at me but silences it. “It’s not a call. I only have a minute.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  She balances on the ledge, facing me. It’s cozy, our knees brushing. She doesn’t pull hers away, and I’m certainly not about to. “Do you . . . come here a lot?”

  I’m about to tease her for what sounds like a pick-up line, but she rubs her elbow in a way that makes me think she might be nervous. I let her off easy. “Best coffee in the neighborhood,” I say. “I’d know. I’ve tried it all.”

  “It’s great,” she agrees. “Convenient too.”

  Convenient. Like me, she must live or work around here. Because it’s mid-morning, I doubt her job is a typical nine-to-five. I soak up details like a sponge. “What’d you decide about the show last week?”

  “Someone told me it was crap,” she says with a shrug. “An eloquent assessment I happen to agree with.”

  I smile, but the mention of the show takes me back to that night. To the way we left things, her walking away under someone else’s arm. Every bone in my body says to leave it alone—because, yes, heartache goes bone deep. The truth hurts. My brain might’ve been on vacation when I started an affair with Sadie, but it came back the day she left. It’s here now, and it knows better. “That man,” I say, “was he your boyfriend?”

  Watching me, she absentmindedly picks at the sleeve of her coffee cup. “You think that’s your business?”

  “Yeah I do.” I’m bluffing. It’s not my business, but I have to know. I can’t put myself in the same situation twice. If she says yes, I’ll walk away right now and won’t look back.

  “Not was,” she says. “Is.”

  “Is?”

  “He is my boyfriend.”

  Fuck fuck fuck. I don’t even blink. This is a hard limit for me. I’ll never get involved with someone like that, someone unavailable, again. I’d thought this was it, though. I really fucking did. I haven’t felt anything in a year, not until I opened that journal. It awoke things in me I feared were dead, and I think this girl—Halston—might understand me.

  Her forehead wrinkles. “Are you okay?”

  “I, uh, yeah.” My legs don’t move. I’m not walking out the door. I need to, and I will, but first there’s the matter of her journal. “It wasn’t the answer I expected.”

  She blushes. Her milky-white skin blooms like a rose. She understands why I bought her coffee and brought her to this tiny windowsill that’s currently digging into my ass cheek. There wasn’t supposed to be someone else.

  “Who is he?” I don’t know why I’m asking.

  She glances at the nude lipstick stain she’s left on her lid. “Are you going to take my coffee back because I have a boyfriend?”

  “After you’ve put your mouth on it?”

  She half-gapes. “I . . . I’m going to be late to work.”

  “I have a confession to make,” I say.

  “I don’t think I should hear it.” She puts her purse over her shoulder and goes to stand.

  “I found your journal.”

  She freezes, then slowly lowers back onto the windowsill. “M-my . . .”

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “It wasn’t . . . what I expected.”

  “It’s yours, isn’t it?” I ask. “I found it here, on the floor. Well, not here,” I point toward the window, “there, under that table.”

  She shakes her head. “No.”

  “I’ve been reading it. Shitty of me, I know, but I opened it to see if I could find someone to return it to, and your words just fucking gripped me. You write like—”

  “It’s not mine,” she says. “I think you’re confused.”

  I hear her, but the words don’t compute. Since the night of the opening, I’ve grown more and more certain the journal belongs to her. There are some things that don’t add up or coincide with how I pictured her, but that’s not a bad thing. I’m just as captivated by this complex version of my journal girl.

  I memorized some things, so I recite a line for her, one of the many that spoke to me during
my past few nights of reading. “‘Hot like ice, you melt me down into clean, razor-sharp need.’”

  “What?”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t write that?”

  She’s white as a sheet.

  “Because I’ve been wanting to tell you—I know that feeling. Holding an ice cube against your skin until it burns, but it also kind of numbs . . . which can be nice.” I sound like a dumbass. “Sorry. Unlike you, I’m not so great with the words—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says under her breath. “People can hear you, you know.”

  “So?” I continue to push. “If you can be melted, does that mean you’re the ice?”

  She stands quickly, nearly upending her coffee. “This isn’t me. That. That isn’t me. It’s not my journal or whatever it is you found. I need to go.”

  And I need to let her. She’s spoken for. She’s not the girl I thought I’d find, but she wrote those words, I feel it in my gut. She’s hurting somewhere, somehow, damaged. Any sane person would walk away. I’ve done damaged. It didn’t work out well. But for fuck’s sake, I’ve never been so baffled by someone I feel might understand me.

  She rummages through her bag and pulls out a fiver. “This is for the coffee.”

  “I told you, it’s on me.”

  Her hand trembles. “Take it.”

  I shake my head. “Halston—”

  She sets the bill on the windowsill and hurries for the exit. She’s gone with even less fanfare than she appeared, my hand grazing the weighty leather binding of her concealed thoughts and desires.

  I fight the urge to go after her the only way I can, by remembering the look on Sadie’s face when she told me she’d chosen him, not me. But the sting isn’t as fresh as it was a week ago.

  I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.

  5

  I’ve tracked Halston down twice now.

  I can’t do it a third time.

  Fate may have brought her to me, but at some point, I have to admit it might’ve actually been fate’s asshole cousin coincidence. My instincts have been off before—more severely than I’d like to admit. If it weren’t for the boyfriend, I’d do it. I’d go after her like the persistent fuck I am when I want something badly enough.

  Why does there have to be a boyfriend? How is that I’m torn up thinking about another man’s girl, again?

  I’m on the sunny, open second level of an Upper East Side apartment shooting senior class photos for a group of girls when I get the call that changes everything. It’s been over twenty-four hours since I saw Halston in person, but I was with her all night long. As I read more, I felt her with me. I pictured her writing in her journal, fantasizing as her pen moved across the page, then acting out those desires with me.

  Pry me apart

  Make it slow

  Forget my heart

  Make it fast

  Pry me apart

  My thoughts, my thighs

  Whatever it takes

  Your truths, your lies

  Lows and highs

  There is no feeling

  Like having you inside

  When the sky falls through the ceiling—

  “Mr. Cohen?”

  I start. Fuck. I forgot where I was. One of the moms is holding out a coffee. It’s not from Lait Noir, but I accept it. That’s when I look around and realize I’m sporting a hard-on in a roomful of teenage girls and their moms. I’ll be lucky if they don’t arrest me. “How do you think it’s going?” I ask.

  “Oh, I’m sure the photos are wonderful,” she says. “You seem to know just how to get the girls to liven up . . .”

  I stop listening. I could give two shits what they think, it’s not exactly my best work, but conversation will distract from my disheveled state. The students chew on ice in a corner. When one of them asked for snacks, they were denied. Anything other than vegetables might make them bloated, and carrots or celery would leave food in their teeth. This is the sort of thing my ex, Kendra, would do—hire a private photographer when the school provides a perfectly good one.

  I return my attention to the mother as she speaks. She’s not my type with pearls coiled around her neck, and styled, crispy hair. She’s also several years my senior, but I catch myself noticing the line of her collarbone, the delicate bracelet on her wrist, the resemblance of her hair color to coffee. I don’t want to take measured photos of snotty girls in uniforms. I want to make people feel the way Halston just made me feel without us even being in the same room.

  Caught.

  Flustered.

  Hot.

  Guilty.

  I haven’t been able to do that since Sadie. I’ve photographed other women for my portfolio, but they might as well be inanimate objects. Sadie continues to fuck me over a year later, stealing not only my future and my family from me, but my art too, the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do with my life. Now that Halston’s reminded me how it feels to be feverish and consumed by someone, I want to turn my lens on her.

  My back pocket vibrates, and I get out my phone. It’s an unknown number, which could be new business. “Excuse me,” I interrupt the mom, handing her back the coffee. “I have to take this.”

  Crossing the room for some privacy, I answer the call. “Finn Cohen.”

  There’s silence on the other end. Fucking telemarketers. It always takes them a few seconds to pick up.

  “Hi.”

  I freeze. One word, and I know it’s Halston. All the things I want to say come bubbling to the surface. I’m not sure please don’t hang up is the right choice, so I go with the obvious response. “Hi.”

  “I’m sorry, I still had your card. I shouldn’t have run out on you yesterday. It was a nice thing you did, but I freaked out.” She releases a long breath. “This is Halston, by the way. From Lait Noir? Or from the art gallery, I guess.”

  Even though I believed the journal was hers all along, I’m relieved. I don’t know if I can take getting fucked over by fate again. I don’t want to convince myself she’s the one. I want to feel it in my gut, and my gut is telling me not to blow this. “I know who you are.”

  “Right. I’m sorry I ran out, except . . . I’m not sure I’m the one who should apologize. You kind of stalked me, showing up at the gallery that way.”

  “Yeah . . . about that.” I glance around to make sure none of the moms are nearby. Between untimely boners and tracking women, I could rack up some serious charges if I’m not careful. I step into the hallway. “The journal seemed valuable. I wanted you to have it back, that’s all.”

  “It is. Valuable. I’ve tried to stop, but I can’t. I’ve even tried to get rid of them. When I lost it last week, it was . . . I couldn’t believe it. I felt so helpless, naked.”

  I don’t know which of the questions running through my head I should start with.

  What is she trying to stop? Why get rid of it? Them? There are others?

  If the journal is so important to her, why deny ownership?

  Did she say naked?

  “Anyway,” she says. “Thank you for going through the trouble, and I can pay you for that, but I’d like it back.”

  “I don’t want your money.” I scratch the scruff on my jaw. Maybe I should’ve taken care to shave this morning. “Where are you?”

  “Work. Off Fourteenth. I can meet you after.”

  “I’ll send you my address. I live by the coffee shop.”

  “Should we meet there instead?”

  “Nah. I have better coffee at my place.” I doubt that’s what she’s worried about, but I don’t want to be in yet another crowded place with her. In public, we’re strangers meeting briefly for a benign purpose. I need more of the intimacy I got from her words, even if it can’t come close to what I really want. “I have to get back to work,” I say, afraid she’ll protest, “but I’ll text when I’m done.” I hang up.

  When I get back to my job, the moms don’t seem so bad. I have something to look
forward to for the first time in a while—since Sadie. And even then, looking forward to Sadie came with a certain sickness in my gut. I never knew when I’d see her. If her husband would appear at my door instead. If the next words out of her mouth would intoxicate or crush. The affair had been exhilarating. Exciting. Stimulating. Everything my marriage wasn’t. At the time, I would never have described it as exhausting, but looking back, it almost seems to be the most appropriate of words.

  Maybe, just maybe, it was all meant to lead me to Halston. If my instinct is right this time, if she’s the one I’ve been looking for, then the heartbreak, the struggle, the loss—it would be worth it.

  6

  Not much sends my heart racing like a knock at my door. It’s a conditioned response to last November, when the person at the door could’ve been my mistress, her husband, or my wife.

  Kendra packed up our house in Connecticut while I got our new apartment here in Gramercy Park ready for her and Marissa. Twice, she came into the city to surprise me, but it only took one fuck-up from me for her to jump to conclusions. She’d accused me of infidelity enough times over our marriage, but the difference was, when she found Sadie’s coat in the apartment, that time she was right.

  When Halston knocks, I’m instantly tense, even knowing who’s on the other side of the door . . . or maybe that knowledge makes it worse. She’s early, but I’m ready for her.

  She stands on my doorstep, holding her purse in front of her, white-knuckling it with both hands. “I’ve always loved this neighborhood,” she says.

  “Don’t you live here?”

  “No.” She gives me a look. “How would you know where I live?”

  “Something you said.” She’d mentioned Lait Noir was convenient, but really, I’m just looking for more information. I step aside. “Come in.”