Yours to Bare

by Jessica Hawkins

  “I used to be very emotional. Reckless. But I don’t get like that with Rich.”

  “Okay, but your writing is so passionate, it practically burns up the page.” I steel myself for her answer. “Who was it about?”

  She gets quiet, picking at the lid of her coffee. Her nose and cheeks are red from the cold.

  Somebody hurt her? She must have a Sadie too, and it isn’t Rich. I should’ve guessed. The question is, how deep does the damage run? Has she healed, or does she need more time?

  Eventually, I put my hand over hers to stop the scratch of her nail against the plastic. “Tell me. Who was he?”

  “Nobody.” She looks utterly miserable as she says it. “And I’m not being coy. It’s really about nobody. I’ve never experienced anything like what I’ve written.”

  My chest tightens. It’s an answer I didn’t even think to expect. One I find hard to believe, but one I actually like. “Never? Nobody?”

  “I guess that makes me weird.” She flinches. “Right?”

  Halston wants to be consumed. It’s there in her words. I could be that for her—I already feel it, and we’ve barely touched. “Weird? No. Surprising? Yes. I’d have thought you’d have many broken hearts in your wake.”

  She smiles a little. “Nope. It’s just never happened for me, that intensity. I guess that’s why I have to write it. I’m not sure I’ll ever get it.”

  I realize I’m still touching her, and I put my hand back in my lap. I chased that passion and took risks—my marriage and Sadie’s, my dignity, and, my biggest regret of all, my daughter. Because of my affair and subsequent divorce, I’ve gone from seeing Marissa every day to twice a month. That’s twenty-four times a year and more than I deserve, according to Kendra.

  “It’s supposed to help your craft, right?” She half-laughs. “Heartache . . . longing.”

  Supposedly. Not always. My work has apparently suffered since my spirit was crushed. “Seems to work in your favor.”

  “I want to do it again.”

  She rushes the words out, but I take a beat to study her. “Do what?”

  “The photo.”

  “We are. I told you I’d post the next one.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” She folds a knee under herself and faces me. “For so long, I’ve been going through the motions. But I’ve felt like a new person the past couple days. Reinvigorated, or maybe just invigorated for the first time.”

  I lean my elbows on my knees and massage my face, frustrated. Because I know what she’s going to say, and it’ll be everything I want to hear.

  I want her in front of my camera again.

  I’ve been sleeping for the last year, and she’s the only thing that’s made me feel awake.

  “I want you to take my picture again,” she says. “That’s why I’m here.”

  I can’t say no to her, and I can’t tell her that what I need in order to say yes is her. Completely, unequivocally, with no chance of her returning to her boyfriend or anyone else. I need her to be mine before I go down this path again. Halston has to get there on her own, though. I can’t, I won’t, make her choose me like I tried to with Sadie.

  “Did I say something wrong?” she asks.

  I look forward. A stoplight changes from red to green. A man steps off the curb, narrowly avoids getting hit by a taxi, and darts through traffic anyway. Are any of us really awake? Are we making decisions about our lives, or just letting things happen to us? Is that why we like art, why Halston needs it, because without it, we’d never feel anything out of the ordinary?

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?” she asks. “If it’s about Rich . . . he won’t care. He won’t even know.”

  “That’s not why. The affair I had, the husband found out. He hit me.”

  “Rich wouldn’t never—”

  “It didn’t even hurt, not compared to watching her leave with him.” I can’t look at Halston or I’ll give in. “I wanted her, and I want you. I want to photograph you. That’s the problem. When I found the journal, I thought about it for days, and now all I can think about is you. I might be, I don’t know, obsessed.”

  She doesn’t respond. I don’t blame her. We sit that way a while. Even as skateboards wheel across concrete and down railings, as a woman loudly laments about work into a cell phone, as car horns blare, through all of it, I can hear her breathing.

  “Your lunch break is over,” I say. I have no idea if it is, but it’s been at least an hour since she left her office. “I’ll put up the other photos tonight or tomorrow.”

  “Tonight,” she says. “Please? Please.”

  She gets up but doesn’t move right away. I stare at the ground until she leaves. I know when she does because she takes her body warmth with her, and it’s just now I realize how cold I am. I look up, and that’s when I see it. Today’s version of the red bra and hidden tattoo.

  Her sheer tights have a thin, solid line running down the middle of the back. It starts somewhere under her skirt and ends inside her sweet, schoolgirl, buckled-up Mary Janes. Maybe the stripe extends along the arches of her feet, to her toes. It wasn’t on the front of the tights; I would’ve noticed when she walked up.

  I can’t help wondering if she wore them for me . . . and I almost missed them.

  9

  I want to photograph you.

  I thought about your journal for days.

  All I can think about is you.

  I unlock the door to Rich’s Tribeca apartment. Finn’s definition of obsession has been on repeat in my head since lunch. I’ve clung to many things in my life for comfort, but never a person. And I’ve never had anyone cling to me, or ask about my feelings out of simple curiosity, or tell me I’m talented.

  And then there’s Rich.

  “Dinner in an hour,” Rich says when I walk into the kitchen. He’s fresh from a run, seated on a stool at the island. With his eyes glued to his phone and his ear buds in, I’m not sure how he knows I’m here.

  I dump my things on the counter. “Great,” I mutter. “I was just wondering the best way to waste a few hours of my life.”

  He looks up, removing the earphones. “What?”

  I begin unbuckling my shoes. “Nothing.”

  “What’s that?” he asks, nodding at my shopping bag.

  “Stationery.”

  His eyes glaze over—as I’d hoped. He knows I have a few ‘notebooks,’ but they don’t mean anything to him. Before meeting Finn this afternoon, I stopped at my favorite local home store for another journal. I’ve been feeling new things the last couple days, things that deserve their own fresh pages.

  “How’d the presentation go yesterday?” Rich asks. “Is it going to be a good dinner?”

  “It’ll be fine. Daddy sat in, so everyone’s happy.”

  “He won’t always be around for those meetings,” Rich says, sensing my sarcasm, even if it doesn’t surface often. “Learn what you can from him.”

  I look in the fridge and roll my eyes. “Might want to save the extreme sucking up for when my dad’s actually in the room.”

  “I’m not sucking up. I’m trying to get you to see the silver lining. And remind you that he won’t be around forever. I wouldn’t want you to look back and have any regrets about your relationship.”

  I grip the door handle. Rich has some goddamn nerve talking to me about regrets. I know that feeling better than anyone. I came to the fridge for water, but I bend over and grab a bottle of Chardonnay I’d shoved into the back corner of the bottom shelf.

  Rich eyes me as I uncork it. “I thought I got rid of that.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t.”

  Wisely, he doesn’t respond. “Did you wear those to work?”

  “What?” I ask, playing dumb as I pour a glass.

  “Those tights.”

  Rich rarely comments on my wardrobe, but then again, I rarely wear anything other than black, gray or navy. “They’re trendy.”

  “Is
trendy right for an office environment?”

  “Clients like to know we’re cutting edge.”

  “Our clients are mostly white men over fifty. I guess they’d notice, though . . .”

  Just like with my dad, I try not to get into arguments with Rich. Tonight, though, I’m feeling feisty. Blame it on Finn. Or on the fact that I’ve been halving my pills the last week. Either way, Rich is trying to make me feel bad about the tights, and I’m not going to let him. I sip the wine. “Are you jealous?”

  He looks taken aback by my out-of-character question. “I’m just not sure it’s appropriate,” he says slowly. “Is it Benny? Are you trying to fit in with her?”

  “My assistant?”

  “She’s always wearing stuff that’s borderline sexy. She gets away with it, but it’s not really appropriate. Maybe she’s not the best influence on you.”

  If he says appropriate one more time, I might blow. This is generally the time I start to back down. Admittedly, though, I’m a bit curious what’ll happen if I test his limit. “I hadn’t really noticed Benny’s sexy wardrobe,” I say, which is not exactly true. “But I guess you have.”

  “Are you jealous?” he asks. “She has a boyfriend.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I take an interest in the people I work with,” he says, tilting his head forward. “Don’t you two ever talk about that stuff? You’re together all day.”

  “Not really.” Benny may be my assistant, and a very good one, but she’s only a year younger than me. She holds me together, rolls her eyes along with me, keeps me on schedule. We get each other, but we’re different. Several piercings rim the edge of one of her ears, and her tattoos constantly peek out from her skirts, low-cut blouses, and sleeves. We’ve hardly spent a minute together past six o’clock. Our personal lives just don’t come up. “We gossip sometimes, but just about work.”

  “That’s fine by me. She’s not a friend I’d choose for you. Anyway, I really don’t think you should wear them to dinner.”

  “What?

  “The tights.”

  I wasn’t going to wear them to dinner, but now I want to, just to piss Rich off. “Why don’t you let me choose my own friends and worry about how I come off to clients? Newsflash—I’m not one of those girls looking to date my dad, you should definitely know that by now.”

  “I see. So you’re going to turn this argument into another of your dad’s faults. All I said was those tights are a bit sexy for work.”

  After a long, in-your-face gulp of wine, I set down the empty glass and leave.

  “Where are you going?” he asks.

  I suddenly feel gross and sticky. “Shower.”

  “I was going to shower,” he calls.

  “I won’t be long.”

  “We don’t have time. We’ll have to take one together.”

  I start stripping in the bathroom. “Fine.”

  Rich and I didn’t sleep together for months after we started dating. I’m not sure it would’ve happened at all if it weren’t for a fifth of tequila. I couldn’t even say why we got together. We went to a series of business dinners with my dad, and when clients left, my dad would insist on an after-dinner drink. Then, a few sips in, Dad would make an excuse to go home. Rich and I were each too polite to leave before the other had finished their drink.

  One of those nights, when the conversation was good, we ordered a second drink, and then a third. Tequila happened, and we were a couple. Just like my dad wanted.

  After Rich and I shower separately under the same stream of water, I blow dry my hair, glancing at him as he dresses in a suit and tie. Rich is a catch—I know that. He was positioned in front of me for a reason. Smart, thoughtful when he has to be, even-keeled—and all that in a nice package. He takes care of himself, and a solid body and handsome face helps me get in the mood when I need to.

  I could cheat on him.

  Not with just anyone, but with Finn. Finn does things to me with just a look, and I’m even more tempted by him when he opens his mouth. He read my journal and it didn’t scare him off. If it’d been Rich who’d come across it, he’d have put it back where he found it and never mentioned it again.

  “Ten minutes,” Rich says with a spritz of cologne.

  I’m patting on liquid foundation. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “You’ve made your point,” he says. “I just thought you’d like to know the time since you aren’t dressed yet.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “Look,” he says.

  Great. I know that “look.” He’s going to say something I don’t want to hear. “At what?”

  He ignores my stunning wit. “You’re in a bad mood, I get it. But since that’s rare, I have to ask.”

  My heart leaps into my throat. I should’ve known this was coming, because Rich is right. I am in a bad mood, but I was in a great mood earlier, and any kind of extreme is unusual for me. I’m not temperamental anymore.

  I skip ahead to applying eyeliner, the best way I know how to avoid his gaze during this conversation. “Don’t start this,” I say. “Not right before we walk out the door.”

  “So I’m right then. Something’s changed. Please tell me you haven’t stopped taking them completely.”

  It irritates me that it’s been less than a week and Rich has already noticed. Has being on antidepressants changed me so much that the moment I lower my dosage, I become an entirely different person? A person I don’t even know, because it’s been so long since I’ve been her? “I’m a grown woman,” I say. “I’ll decide for myself.”

  “That’s not how it works. We’re a team, you and me—”

  “And my dad, and Doctor Dummy.”

  “It’s Doctor Lumby.” He gets his phone from his pocket. “The car’s here. I’ll be downstairs, but we can finish this after dinner. And don’t forget . . .”

  “What?” I prompt just to get him out of here.

  “Don’t forget your coat. I’m saying that as your boyfriend who doesn’t want you to be cold, not as the overbearing father figure you make me out to be.”

  In the reflection, I watch him disappear. Guilt gnaws at my gut. Despite his faults, Rich does care about me. And he takes care of me. Mentally, emotionally, he makes sure I’m okay from day to day. He keeps his distance for the most part, accepting that my decrease in sex drive comes with the territory.

  It’s a big job, handling me. I should be grateful Rich is up for it. Instead, I’ve been unnecessarily bitchy to him for no reason.

  No, that’s not true—there is a reason. He knows it, I know it, my dad knows it.

  I knew there would be mood swings, and that they’d eventually give me away to Rich, my dad, or my doctor. It’s not as if I was going to keep this from them forever, but they would’ve talked me out of it. They’ve done it before.

  But it’s time. Thanks to a handsy pigeon, I only have a quarter of my prescription left, even though Doctor Lumby thinks I just refilled it. This last week, the air has been colder on my skin. People’s features have been sharper. Finn’s acceptance of my embarrassing desire for passion makes my heart swell whenever I think of it.

  Next month would make ten years of being on antidepressants. I’m determined not to see that anniversary, though. I’ll be better this time.

  I’ll be an improved version of the girl I was before.

  10

  I can’t think of much worse than client dinners. At least in meetings, I have work to discuss. At these after-hours engagements, I’m expected to talk about anything but work. My dad’s method for signing clients is to impress the shit out of them with ideas at the office, then close over expensive food and liquor.

  Which is what we’re heading into now. The host leads us to our usual table. My dad gets my chair for me. “You look nice tonight,” he says.

  Not that it’s so rare to get compliments from my dad, but I’m immediately suspicious. Did Rich already mention the argument over the tights to my dad? Is this their way of
thanking me for not wearing them? I look at Rich, whose nose is buried in the wine menu, pretending he didn’t hear.

  “Flying solo tonight, George?” Grayson Dietrich asks once we’re all seated.

  “Unfortunately.” Dad unfolds his napkin to put it in his lap. “After my wife passed, I was never quite able to move on.”

  My throat closes for a few seconds, long enough to suppress my intake of air without killing me. What my dad says is true. He’s never even attempted to date since the accident. But I still don’t like when he uses my mom’s death as an icebreaker, and tonight the sting is especially painful. I’ve been thinking of her more this past week, ever since the pigeons. I wouldn’t call myself a spiritual person, but it’s as if she’s around.

  Mrs. Dietrich touches her collarbone with both hands. “Oh, George. I’m so sorry. When was that?”

  He clears his throat. “Almost ten years ago.”

  “Ten?” She shakes her head at her husband. “Would you go that long without dating if you lost me?”

  “Of course, dear.”

  “And this was your mother, Halston?” she asks.

  I try not to fidget. I don’t want attention on me. “Yes.”

  Rich passes me the wine list. “Why don’t you pick one out?” He turns to Grayson. “George tells me you’re a Knicks fan.”

  Gratefully, I take the menu. Rich doesn’t like me to drink ever since last year’s incident, so saving me from this conversation is an olive branch. Suddenly, I’m glad I opted for plain black tights and a more conservative outfit. On some level, I guess I know Rich is usually looking out for me.

  I go to squeeze his hand as thanks, but my dad reaches across and snatches the list from me. “Why don’t you get yourself a coffee instead?” he asks, halting the table conversation. He turns his glare on Rich. “Don’t you think that’s best?”

  My face warms as I’m reduced to a twelve-year-old in front of a man who’s here to decide whether to trust us with his million-dollar-plus advertising budget.

  “Yes, sir,” Rich says. He smiles uneasily at Grayson, nodding in my direction. “This one drinks coffee like water.”