“Forgive me. I promise I don’t mean it that way. I’m from the country.”
“Yes, you can take a shower,” she said, stepping toward him so she could open the linen closet he was leaning against. In such close quarters, her arm slipped across the hem of his shirt; he felt the warmth.
“Sorry,” he said, moving for her.
“You’re fine,” she said. She got out a folded fluffy towel and gave it to him. “Body wash, shampoo, conditioner, it’s in there. All of it smells really lovely.” She pointed toward the ruffly curtain behind him. He thanked her before closing the door and stepping into the entirely new and confusing planet that was someone else’s shower. Took him a second, but he got the right pressure, the right temperature.
(Five bottles of body wash: wild cherry, apricot, lavender, peppermint, Chanel. A thick cake of pressed-flower soap. A frilly pink pouf resembling an overripe peony. A translucent shower mat that looks like bubble wrap. Clean. Everything is very clean.)
He imagined living there, making a life with Tallie. He imagined taking a photo of himself, soapy and dripping in Tallie’s shower, sending it to Joel. Emmett smiled thinking about how much Tallie hated Joel’s ponytail as he lathered up his hair with her shampoo. He held the bottle in his sudsy hands, mouthed the words as he read it: orange blossom and neroli, a lemon tree by the ocean. The water steamed up like a jungle, rained him clean.
* * *
Once Emmett got out, he realized he hadn’t asked Tallie for any clothes to put on. He could wear what he slept in last night, but those clothes were out there on the couch. He dried off completely, wrapped the towel around his waist. He’d dripped on his white shirt. He put it over his head and stepped out into the hallway. The TV was down low; British accents and a sharp laugh track. Tallie’s argument of dark curls hung loose over the side of the couch.
“Could I put those same clothes back on? Is that okay?” he asked.
One of her cats stretched up on the arm of the couch, sniffed the air, the cloud of citrus following him. The rain had eased up, but the gutters were overflowing, rushing and dripping against her windows. He was sleepy and dizzy from the heat of the shower, from her cozy house, their dinner. From the emotions of yesterday and now tonight. He felt simultaneously light, like he could float away—and so heavy it was as if he were sinking into Tallie’s blond hardwood floor, her plush rugs. For the past three years he’d been suffering from lingering headaches, black-hole moods. His body weight felt doubled and cursed by the burden of gravity. He swallowed the little fire in his throat, petted the cat’s head with one hand, rubbed behind its ears. He kept his other hand wrapped around the towel knot at his waist.
(The laugh track on the television show erupts. A character on the show is eating popcorn, listening to his office mates argue. Another character enters the office with a look of shock. The laugh track roars. Tallie giggles lightly, shakes her head.)
“Everything was fine?” Tallie asked, putting down her refilled mug of tea and reaching for the clothes. When she saw he was wearing only a towel around his waist, she turned her head away and cleared her throat.
“Your bathroom is so nice. This whole house is super nice. I shouldn’t have glossed over it yesterday.”
“Thank you. And I promise it’s okay. You’ve got plenty on your mind. My brother made a lot of money when he was younger. Finance, stocks, investment stuff I don’t fully understand. He’s a math whiz. I couldn’t have bought this house without his help. You’ll get to meet him and the rest of my family tomorrow at the party.”
Emmett got the charger from his backpack and plugged his phone in, leaving it on the living-room floor. He took the clothes from her and went to the bathroom to change. Did looking forward to something feel like this? Living had felt so much like dying that he could hardly remember. Did it feel like concertina wire unraveling? Like his heart was a cracked, tipped cup, running over?
TALLIE
Tallie told herself she wasn’t going to watch Emmett walk down the hallway. He’d surprised her, being in a towel. Joel’s favorite red towel; Joel, pre-ex, pre-baby, sans ponytail. Had she really given him that towel? Had it been an accident or on purpose? Sure, Emmett may have walked out dripping like a romance novel, but he had mental health issues he needed to deal with—so many scarlet warnings that he might as well have been a matador in a traje de luces. Still, her stomach dipped when she saw the towel and the way his water-dark hair curled behind his ear. Bridge, Mr. Probably Handsome, Mr. Definitely Handsome, Emmett No Last Name, steamy hot and blushing like a peach.
While he was in the bathroom changing, Tallie picked his phone up off the floor, clicked to see if it was locked. Yes. His background, a default photo of the earth. She turned to make sure the bathroom door stayed closed. She tried 1234 to unlock his screen. Nope. And no notifications. Nothing. She heard him move around in the bathroom, and she put his phone back. She went to her bedroom, got his letters from the top drawer of her dresser. His green rain jacket hung on the hook by the front door. She couldn’t remember which letter went where, but she split them up, putting one in the inside pocket and one in the outside. She prayed Emmett wouldn’t come out of the bathroom at that moment, and she huffed out a breath of release when, thankfully, he didn’t. She returned to the couch.
* * *
“Can I ask you a question? About yesterday?” she asked him gently after he came out of the bathroom and sat next to her, but not too close.
“Sure.”
“Do you feel like being on the bridge was a proportionate response to whatever it was that sent you there?” She knew her question probably sounded too much like a question a therapist would ask, so she turned the TV volume down and added, “There’s no right answer, by the way. I’m just curious.”
“I do,” he said easily.
“How else do you deal with stress in your life? How did you handle your wife’s death when it happened?”
“I haven’t properly handled her death yet, really. I can’t. I try, I guess…but none of it makes sense. She was there and now she’s just gone? Everything gets too slippery. My brain can’t…hold it. It feels both final and eternal at the same time. I can’t process it so I just let it…sit there…dark.”
“I understand,” Tallie said and paused. “Emmett, do you feel compelled to go back to the bridge?”
“Right now? No.”
“Do you have anyone you share your feelings with? Anyone you can trust?”
“I used to…Hunter…we lived together before I got married, but I don’t talk to many people anymore,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t have a short answer for that.”
“But you have a long one?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
“Okay. Do you wish you could talk to someone you could trust?”
“I’m naturally quiet,” he said.
“Do you like being naturally quiet?” she asked, digging in like they were in her office and she was getting paid to learn every little thing about him.
“No one has ever asked me that before. I think so?”
“And I get it. I understand. You’re clearly a self-soother, but everyone needs someone. We need each other. It’s not good to feel abandoned or alone.”
“I don’t feel abandoned or alone right now. I really don’t,” he said.
“Have you ever considered therapy?”
“I’ve been to groups where people sit in a circle and talk about their feelings. I don’t like them. Have you been?”
“I’ve been in therapy sessions before…in the past, yes,” Tallie said, her blood tingling.
“Was it good for you?”
“Yes. Very much so. A game changer. But it was one-on-one therapy. Have you tried that? Do you think it could help?”
Emmett shrugged.
“Have you been single ever since you lost your wife?” she asked. She was so curious about Brenna, trying to find a way to get him to mention who she was.<
br />
Emmett held up his no-wedding-ring hand.
“I know you’re not married, but not even a girlfriend?”
“Do I seem like the kind of guy who could be a decent boyfriend?”
“Well, you’re an amazing cook, charmed yourself out of a traffic ticket, and you do dishes, so yeah, maybe,” she said, thinking of him in that towel, how his hair was almost dry now. Thinking of his thighs beneath the soft gray fabric of those pants intended for Joel. Now Odette bought Joel’s clothes, knew his sizes, knew not to buy him cologne because it got everywhere.
“But what if I’m only doing that stuff to impress you, Tallie?”
“You’re not,” she said, leaning into that dreamy fog of friendly flirtation.
“My mama raised me right.”
“Clearly,” she said. The fog cooled quick at the thought of his poor mother. “That’s why I can’t bear the idea of her getting a suicide letter from you in the mail when you’re here, perfectly fine.”
“Thanks, but it’s not for you to worry about, so don’t. Can we talk about something else? Please?”
“Yes,” she said, turning the TV up for a moment before muting it. “Should I be scared of anything you have in your backpack?”
“Absolutely not,” he said.
“But you won’t tell me what’s in there?”
“It’s unremarkable, really. Nothing that would mean anything to anyone but me.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding and eyeing him a bit longer. He didn’t seem uncomfortable with it, and she liked that; it made her feel safe.
“I like this. I’ve always liked this,” Emmett said, allowing some quiet before the subject change. He was pointing to the framed postcard sitting under the creamy glow of the lamp next to them.
“Gustav Klimt.”
“The Kiss,” he said, looking away, refocusing on the TV.
“I love art history, even though I know that particular Klimt is everywhere. Loving that piece doesn’t make me all that original. I also love Danaë,” Tallie said, pointing to another shimmery Klimt she had framed on a shelf. “One of my favorite things to do is go to the art museum alone and share space with the work. In the quiet. Sometimes I cry there,” she said. She knew talking about her own feelings helped others to be able to talk about theirs, and sharing her pure love for the art museum was an easy thing to gush about. “I don’t know why I do it—I just get…overwhelmed by my own feelings and everyone else’s and all the history of the world.”
Years ago she’d made an important connection with one of Lionel’s fancy friends who had helped Joel—unhappy with his marketing job—get the curator of contemporary art position at the museum. Joel and Odette had met working there, but that museum was Tallie’s, not Joel’s. It meant too much to her. It was the one she’d grown up going to, the one where she fell in love with sculptures and light installations and Dutch Golden Age paintings, especially the flowers. All of it! And now that Joel and Odette were gone, Tallie had reclaimed the space completely by re-upping her membership and going every Sunday after church.
“It’s popular for a reason. It’s beautiful. And you’re plenty original, trust me,” he said.
Her face warmed at the compliment. “You are, too.”
“I like Frida, Basquiat, Andy Warhol, too,” Emmett said, motioning to a stack of books by the table that included Frida’s journals, a Basquiat hardback, a thick book of Warhol Polaroids, and a biography of Augusta Savage. “Awesome. Augusta Savage. I really love sculptures. It blows my mind how someone can take a block of marble and make it look soft or like someone standing in the wind. An exact replica of the human form,” he said, lying back on her couch like he was her boyfriend.
“Right, like Michelangelo’s David or Winged Victory of Samothrace. They’re two of the most popular sculptures on earth, but it knocks me out if I imagine seeing them for the first time. I don’t ever want to get over it! I never want to get tired or bored of beauty and goodness. That would worry me,” she said. “I don’t like to use the word obsession lightly because obsessiveness is a real problem for some people, but I’m so in love with David’s right hand, down on his thigh. I love looking at it! You’re going to think I’m a weirdo, but I have an entire section of my secret art history Pinterest board dedicated just to close-ups of his oversized right hand.”
Photos of David’s right hand soothed Tallie—the tip of his middle finger touching his thigh, the snaking veins—imagining how the cool marble would feel. She liked thinking about holding David’s hand. She also loved his nose, his entire face, those haunting eyes holding hearts. That taut torso, perfect ass, and glorious contrapposto. Some nights when she couldn’t sleep, she listened to music and scrolled through her Pinterest. It was one way she took care of herself.
“We’ve already established you’re the best possible kind of weirdo,” Emmett said.
“Oh, have we, now?”
“Definitely,” he said before continuing. “Yeah, I’ve been overseas once. Paris for a short time when I was in high school, so I got to go to the Louvre and see the Nike, the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo.”
“That sounds lovely. I want to go to the Louvre someday and the Accademia Gallery in Florence to see David, although I’m afraid seeing it in real life would make me get Stendhal syndrome or…what’s it called?…hyperkulturemia? Seeing something like that in person can cause some people to have an art panic attack. Art attacks…art palpitations. I’d be the one to faint. It’s seventeen feet tall. Thinking about seeing it in real life wears me out.” Tallie put the back of her hand to her forehead, mimed a fainting spell.
She let her hand slide to her heart, racing a little faster from the conversation, which often happened when she talked about art. Her face got hot, and she wanted to burst out of her skin. Rubens syndrome. She had erotic postcards tacked to the wall next to her bed; they’d been hanging there for years, held above the lamp with flat metal pushpins, the gloss glowing every time the wide triangle of light shone up and out. In the past, they’d reminded her not only of romance and dreams but also of fantasies of a steamy anniversary vacation with Joel. The two of them going overseas to spend mornings in bed and entire days visiting art museums, dining al fresco, completely immersed in another culture and language. Perhaps a second honeymoon. Tallie had accepted that fantasy as bust but had recently surprised herself by considering going alone.
“Whenever I’m in an art museum, I feel like that scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the one when Cameron is staring at Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and it keeps zooming in and in and all meaning disappears. I like how nothing else matters when you’re looking at a painting…you can just forget the world completely,” he said. He’d curled his hands into loose fists and held them up together to one eye, closed the other, and looked through to Tallie.
“Absolutely. I love that scene…let’s watch it.”
She pulled up the movie from her digital library, clicking to the art museum scene: the instrumental cover of the Smiths’ “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want.” Flashes of Hopper, Picasso. Cassatt. Gauguin. Pollock, Matisse. Cameron melting into the Seurat while Ferris and Sloane kiss in front of the night-blue stained glass of Marc Chagall’s America Windows.
When it was over, Emmett had tears in his eyes. Tallie said oh, no and apologized for unintentionally upsetting him. She turned the TV off.
“No. Please don’t. I wanted to see it. I’m okay. And maybe next time I’m in town we can go to your art museum together and try not to have art attacks,” he said, sniffing. Blinking and blinking. He reassured her he was okay once more.
“If you’re around Louisville on Sunday afternoon, I’ll take you. Our own A Sunday Afternoon in Louisville at the Speed Art Museum,” she said.
“We could roast a Sunday chicken and pretend like this is our real life?”
“Exactly. Then poof! Back to reality for me on Monday because I have to go to work.”
&nb
sp; “Back to school?”
Tallie knew he was picturing her as a teacher in a high school classroom full of rowdy, colorfully shirted kids—a sugary, bubbling gumball machine of hormones and long limbs, acne and braces. She thought instead of the morning therapy appointments she had scheduled for Monday. One of her favorite clients, whom she’d watched courageously tackle and conquer her agoraphobia over the past two years; another with self-diagnosed attention-seeking issues and selfitis—an addiction to taking and posting selfies on social media. Then there was one new potential client—a black woman struggling with the stress of living in America and the long-lasting damaging effects of racism—who was coming in for an initial consult to see if they clicked. Tallie was looking forward to it and already feeling like they were a perfect match if their emails were any indication. She had black clients who specifically sought out a black therapist, needing that understanding and connection. The beating heart of her therapy practice was helping people feel less alone.
On Monday, she and her receptionist would be in the office at eight, like usual. And soon after, Tallie would be taking her endless therapy notes and listening. Letting her clients tell her their secrets and asking them the questions that would lead them to more questions. More answers. And, she hoped, more healing.
Where would Emmett be on Monday?
“Yes. Exactly. Back to school,” she said, then nodded, cleared her throat. “I’ve never been to Clementine. I’ve heard of it, though. How’d you end up in Louisville? I guess I could’ve asked this yesterday, but I was already overwhelming you so much.”
“I like Louisville.”
“When did you get here?”
“Wednesday night,” he said.
“Where’d you stay?”
“Nowhere. I just walked around.”
“In the rain?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Is that what you wanted to do?”
“Pretty much,” he said.
“You were happy doing that?”
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