by Amanda Leduc
“Love?” he says. He is surprised. “Who said anything about love?” He wipes his mouth and misses a piece of lettuce that sticks in his stubble. For some reason, Lilah thinks of Timothy again and fights back tears. “Love is a farce, Lilah,” Joel says, suddenly serious. “All you can do is find someone to hold on to — that’s it.”
“I don’t want to hold on to you,” she says. Because she’s a bitch, because this is what she was meant for. Hearts broken around her like glass.
Joel is unfazed. Not for the first time, she realizes how much she’s underestimated this man. “You will,” he says. “I might have to wait a few years, but you will.”
“Why the fuck would you think that?”
He shrugs. “You’ve got no one else, Lilah. Don’t tell me you can’t feel your life falling away. Sooner or later you’ll want to do something with it. And I’ll be here when you do.”
“That’s pathetic,” she snaps, and she’s up from the table fast enough to make it shake. She opens her mouth to tell him about The Actor — no one else, fuck you — and then remembers that The Actor is gone, that she sent him away.
“It’s not,” Joel says. “It’s not pathetic at all.” He wipes his face again and gets the lettuce. “You think I can’t tell how much you hurt?”
“Fuck you.”
He shrugs. “Fine, then. If that’s what you want.” He shakes his head as she reaches for the bill. “Never mind that. I’ll get it.”
Lilah stays bent over the bill for a moment — frozen, seething with rage. Then she straightens, and as she stalks away the clack of her shoes on the hardwood floor gives the only kind of comfort she can find.
She walks down Hastings before she goes home, as always. It is an oddly empty day — air damp, first fall leaves on the ground. She shoves her hands into too-small pockets. Main, Gore, Columbia, Abbott. Eyes open for a tousled head, a ragged heap rocking on the ground.
At one point, she sees a figure crouched in an alleyway; a flutter stays in her abdomen even after seeing a face she doesn’t recognize. A man bent on his knees, his hands pressed against the wall and his forehead touching the brick. He mumbles into the wall. He might be praying. He might be mad.
She stops staring and turns. This time the sound of her shoes on the pavement is hollow, and the echoes follow her as she hurries away.
—
All great men are terrified — this is what Timothy told her, all those days ago. He’d been reading The Inferno in the months before he’d left their mother’s house.
“Dante was frightened,” he told her, once. “He was really frightened.”
“Of what?” The two of them, a nice coffee shop in Victoria. Time away from the office job. She watched a couple at the patio table across from them laugh.
“Of failure. It seemed to me that I had undertaken too lofty a theme for my powers, so much so that I was afraid to enter upon it, and so I remained for several days desiring to write and afraid to begin. Even he felt it.”
“But you’re not failing,” she said. Careful, suddenly terrified. “You’re not failing at anything, Tim.”
“Aren’t I?” He rocked back and forth in his chair and wouldn’t look at her. “I think I’m failing all the time.”
“At what? We’ve talked about school — you can go back when you’re ready — ”
“School,” and there it was, just for a moment, a flash of the Timothy she remembered. “I’m not talking about school.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
He stared at the table and smoothed his napkin down against the wood. “But you shouldn’t be afraid, Lilah. You shouldn’t be afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” she said, exasperated and so cold all at once. The couple looked over at their table, then away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Timmy. I don’t understand.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m not ten years old anymore.”
“Timothy.” Deep breath. “I shouldn’t be afraid. Of what?”
“Me,” he said, and this time he did look at her. “You shouldn’t be afraid, Lilah. I won’t hurt you, ever.”
“Of course you won’t,” she said. She held his hand and marvelled at how warm he was, how hot. “I know. I know that.”
Two weeks later he left, and hurt her anyway.
—
When she does find him, later that day after leaving Joel, he’s sitting at the western edge of Georgia, bedraggled and alone. She brings him water, and chocolate, and another goddamned hat. He lets her pull the flaps of the hat over his ears. She ties the hat strings beneath his chin, just as she did when he was a child.
“I don’t have a fever,” he says. He breaks the chocolate and sucks a large piece into his mouth, and speaks as though the flight from her house hasn’t happened. “I’m fine.”
“Timmy.” She crouches beside him and rests her hands against the sidewalk. “Timmy, come home.”
“That’s not my name,” he says. “You know that’s not my name, Lilah.”
“I don’t understand,” she says. “Tim — I don’t know what to do.”
She watches uncertainty flash across his face. “You’re not supposed to know. It’s not your life.”
“But what about my life?” Israel Riviera, above her, and blue-white energy in her hands. “What if it’s just . . . too big?”
He sucks his chocolate and stares at her for so long she feels the world recede. “We’re all small, Lilah,” he says. He takes another bite of chocolate and lets it melt, dribble down his chin. Her sweet maniac. “You have to know that, if you don’t know anything else.” He offers a bite of the bar and she takes it, hurt.
“I know plenty of things,” she says. “Don’t take that tone with me.”
He hiccups, laughs. “Don’t take that tone with me.” Then he stares at the ground. He wipes the chocolate against his sleeve. “I’m just trying to keep you safe. You and Mom both.”
“We’re not the ones who need to be kept safe!” She’s said this too many times. She grabs his arms and steels her heart against the sudden rush of panic in his eyes, the despair. “Tim. There are people who can help you.”
He screams. “Don’t touch me!” Then he hits her. Smack, once more in the mouth. She rocks back on her heels just as he scrambles to his feet — a slender young man made huge by the gathered shadows at his back. “No one can help me but God, Delilah. No one.” Then he runs down the street like a terrified rat, quick and small.
—
Tonight, in another dream, she stands before the ocean, on a cliff that sits several hundred feet above the sea. Her palms are filled with grass and sand. Her dream-feet are bare and the shirt she wears belongs — belonged — to her mother. Reclaim the Night! A relic from Roberta’s frog-marching days, when she was filled with rage and estrogen and Lilah was her unwilling partner in crime. The shirt disappeared years ago but tonight, as she stares out over the water, it is threadbare and soft on her shoulders. In some places the material is so thin you can almost see through it.
A man stands in front of her on the cliff. A slender man, taller than she is, who faces into the sun so that he is a silhouette, his arms stark against the sky. His shoulders remind her of Timothy. Were he to turn his head his eyes would be deepest blue.
“Timothy,” she says. The wind blows her hair into her mouth and the words come out clogged.
The man does not turn around. Instead, he raises his hands until they touch, palms inward, over the top of his head. All Lilah can hear is the ocean, and she watches as the waters rise up to her feet. The man pushes his arms out and the water begins to recede. Lilah stands behind him until the tide is far away and there are rocks at the bottom of the cliffs. Now she hears the air, the faint rustle of wings. She opens her own hands and lets the grass and the sand blow away until they are nothing. Would that she could break
and blow away this easily — but even in this dream, she remembers that she’s made of sterner stuff. She is the rock below that breaks the water.
She wakes weeping, and she can’t remember why.
—
On Monday, she wills herself invisible behind the desk, and buries her head in spreadsheets. She steadies her hands as they shake over the keyboard, and counts her times tables, slowly, as one minute moves into the next. Not sure quite what to think, what to feel. Is it fear, that twist in her stomach every time the door opens? Excitement? The flu?
“What’s with you?” Debbie asks, exasperated, as Lilah blinks into focus for the eighteenth time that morning. “Hello?”
“I’m sorry,” she says, quickly. Statistics. Figures. Absence reports. A moment on a mattress, the certainty that her life was about to explode with power. Or a daydream, and more words lost on her keyboard. That’s all. “What did you say?”
Debbie has green eyes, young but shrewd; they have looked through Lilah more than once. “I said — how was your weekend?”
“Fine,” Lilah says. “And yours?”
“Fine,” Debbie mimics. “That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“How was the date?”
“It was fine, Debbie.”
“You know you’ll have to tell me about it eventually.”
“Maybe,” Lilah says. She doesn’t look up. “Does Penny have any errands for me today?”
Debbie’s snort echoes through the front office. “Not that I know of.”
“I’m sure she’ll think of something,” Lilah mutters.
“She wouldn’t be Penny if she didn’t,” Debbie says, absentmindedly. She flicks her chin at Lilah and frowns. “Why is your neck all red?”
“It’s nothing,” Lilah pulls her scarf tight around her neck. “I’m cold. Have I told you how much I hate winter?”
“Multiple times.” Debbie pinches her lips together in a gesture that reminds her of Roberta. Lilah stifles a giggle and turns back to her computer. Spreadsheets. Numbers and lines.
At a quarter to ten, Debbie gets her notepad and goes into the inner office, ready for the morning minutes. But no sooner has the door closed than she’s out again, looking both perplexed and highly amused.
“Mr. Riviera wants you to take the minutes,” she says. “That must have been some date.”
“What?”
“He wants you to take the minutes,” Debbie says patiently. “Do you need my steno pad?”
“I can’t take minutes,” Lilah stammers. “My shorthand is crap.”
“Really?” Debbie’s voice is pointed, still amused. “I thought it was okay.”
Lilah shakes her head. “I don’t want special treatment, Debbie. Just — tell them that I’ll fuck it up. Screw it up. Whatever.”
“You want me to disobey a direct order from the boss?”
“He won’t be mad at you. If he gets angry about anything, he’ll be angry at me.”
“Right. And that’s supposed to make me feel better.”
“I don’t want to be in there. With him. In front of everyone else.”
Debbie does not move. “He can’t very well ream you out in front of the entire senior management team.”
“It’s not that,” Lilah says wearily. “Could you please just do this for me, Debbie?” She looks up into the other girl’s troubled face. “Everything’s fine — just tell him I don’t see why anything has to change.”
“All right.” Debbie does not look convinced. “And if Penny says anything?”
“Oh.” Right. Penny. “Well, I’ll survive.”
Another snort from Debbie’s corner. “I’m sure.” Then she goes back into the office. She doesn’t come out for two hours.
Mondays are usually quiet, and today is no different. No one calls, and because Penny is in the meeting, Lilah passes the time between her spreadsheets and the Internet. For two hours, she is once more administrative sludge — unremarkable, unimportant. The kind of woman who does her time and counts down the minutes to her break. The employee who doesn’t think beyond the weekend.
But it is pretending, only that. As she types she listens for the rise and fall of his voice — there’s an entire wall between them and yet she can see him, clear as clear, sitting calm at the head of the table. Talking figures, talking power. The cadence of his accent holding everyone in rapt attention. If she closes her eyes she can smell him, feel his hand around her throat. He’s so close that when the door opens, two hours later, and she turns to it like a flower following the sun, she isn’t the least bit surprised to see his face. He marches over to her desk and stares down at her.
“Are you avoiding me?” he says.
“No.” She hates the sound of her small voice. “Good morning, Mr. Riviera.”
Israel laughs. “Delilah, I should think we are past that by now.”
Behind him, in the doorway, Penny stands murderous. “We’re at work,” Lilah says, her voice low. “I don’t want to lose my job.”
“No?” His own voice dips. “Because it is such a wonderful job?” Then he leans against the top corner of her desk and takes her hand. His palm is rough and warm. “Your mother. How is she?”
Lilah blinks, surprised. What is there to say about Roberta? “She’s fine. As fine as she could be, I guess.” Her hair grown back now, her thin hands poking holes in Victoria dirt.
“Ah.” His eyes are also shrewd; dark eyes, eyes that have no bottom. “Fine, but not well.”
“She’s fine,” Lilah says again. She’s confused. Where has this come from? “We’re all fine.”
“‘We,’” he says. “You, and your mother. And Timothy.”
“Yes.” She sneaks a glance at Penny, still waiting. “And — Timothy.”
“You are loyal, even though you’re angry. Even though they frighten you.”
Lilah scoffs. Debbie, who has come back to her desk, is typing furiously into her computer, her eyes cast low. “They don’t frighten me.”
“You would do anything for them,” he says softly. “Even now, you are trying to protect them, to keep them happy. That is a very rare thing.”
“It’s not. Anyone with a family would do the same.” She wants to yank her hand away. This is so much worse than taking minutes.
Israel shakes his head. “If you did not have them,” he says, “you would be nothing.”
She stands abruptly and pulls him with her, out through the front door. They walk a few paces away from the office windows, and she turns to face him. “What is it with you and these stupid statements?”
He laughs, clearly delighted. “It’s been so long since someone has spoken to me the way you do, Delilah. I am — I am utterly enchanted.”
“Well, that’s just fantastic,” she snaps. “And I’m mortified. What the fuck are you talking about? My family isn’t gone.”
“Not yet. But if they were? You would need something else. You would fight for it the same way, protect it just like you try to protect your brother.” He touches her cheek. “Even if it threatened to break your heart. Even then.”
She’s suddenly dizzy — she stumbles on the sidewalk and braces herself against his arm. “I’m going back inside now,” she says. Does Penny sit inside, waiting? “Let’s not make a habit of this.”
“A habit of little displays in the office?” he says. Has she ever heard a more beautiful voice, ever? “Or a habit of strange conversation?”
“How about both?”
He chuckles. “Are you going to avoid me?”
“Is that what this is about? One date and I’m supposed to be your office lap dog? One date and it’s okay to ask me personal questions in front of the entire office?” She stares into his face and does not blink. “Well, I won’t. I won’t be that girl.”
“I wouldn’t expect y
ou to.” Now he is smooth, and just the tiniest bit smug. “It was merely a test.”
She opens her mouth, and nothing comes out. She wants his face beneath her hand, the skin of his ear between her teeth. Blue-white energy pulsing swift between her fingers.
“I thought so.” He nods once. “So if I say we’re going to have dinner, again, this Friday night, you won’t say no.”
“Ah . . . no.” Could she avoid this man, even if she wanted to? Even if she tried?
“Friday night,” he says, again. “I will cook for you this time.”
He cooks. “Friday night,” she repeats slowly. “At yours.”
“Yes.”
She has bruises like a necklace along her collarbone. Of course she should say no. But the air around them is sharp, heightened. Everything around her is sharpened when he’s around. She pauses for a moment and summons her will. “Should I bring anything?”
“No.” Again, the uneven smile. How does a man this sure have a smile this crooked? “Just yourself.”
“All right.”
Israel nods. “Good. I will see you then.” He walks back into the office. She does not see him for the rest of the day, or the day after that, or the next one. By the end of the week, if it weren’t for the bruises still fading from her skin, she’d be tempted to say it was all just a dream.
Seven
When they got home, everything was different. And nothing was different. There were fifteen messages on the machine. Seven of them were from Julie.
“Sam. Sam — Doug just told me.” Doug? “I’m so sorry. Just —call me.”
“Sam? I don’t know if you got my last message, but — call me. Please. I — if there’s anything I can do.”
“Sam. I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk — ” this one was structured, slightly, her therapist voice “ — but I just spoke to Bryan and he hasn’t heard from you, either. He didn’t even know. Are you all right? Please let us know that you’re okay.”
Julie had spoken to Bryan. That was interesting. He flipped through the next four messages — Julie, starting to get angry, and Bryan’s hesitant, awkward voice — and then laughed as Stacey’s voice came into the air.