The Last of August

by Brittany Cavallaro

  She smoothed out the sheet between us, avoiding my eyes. “You wouldn’t want me either way, then. You wouldn’t want me as just your friend.”

  “You’re asking me for everything—”

  “‘Everything’ doesn’t have to mean this,” she said, her voice breaking, and when I reached out to touch her, she flinched away. “‘Everything’ is a minefield, Jamie. I don’t know when I’m going to make a misstep. Maybe it’ll come two years from now, and what then? If you’ve already shackled yourself to me, will you resent me if I stop wanting to be touched? If one day, I wake up and it’s there, my own private hell is back and everywhere around me, and I won’t let you ever kiss me again? You wouldn’t be able to leave me, at that point. You’re an honorable man. But I know it. No one could sustain that. Bit by bit, you’d just—you’d go.” She laughed. “God, I just want to burn it all down now, so I can know the worst thing that could happen. So I can control it.”

  I stared at her. “You’d what? Tell me to leave?”

  “Or I could sleep with you.” The look in her eyes was cold. “That would have the same ultimate effect. Making you leave. Ruining it all.”

  She was pushing me away. She had veered too close, and now she was overcorrecting, and she was overcorrecting with knives. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t sit there another second and listen to her say these things, and horrifyingly, I was still turned on. I needed her as far from me as possible. “Get out.”

  “This is my room. You’re in my bed. Where do you want me to go?”

  “Anywhere else. I can’t—get out, Charlotte.”

  An awful moment passed, then another, and when she climbed down the ladder, she walked straight out the door.

  All the time we’d been talking, my phone had been buzzing with texts. They were from my father, apparently; it was six a.m. in the States. I seized on it now as a distraction. Anything to keep my mind occupied.

  Why are you asking me again? I’ve told you already why I won’t send them.

  Dad, I wrote. I don’t see any other way. Milo’s in Thailand. Holmes just ran out on me. I can’t make bricks without clay.

  No response.

  Unless you can come out here and look for him, I don’t know how else we’re going to get Leander back.

  I’ll send them.

  I stared at his text for a long minute. Are you sure?

  Yes. You should know that you’ll be staying at my house for every school break until you’re fifty.

  Noted, I said, channeling Holmes without thinking much about it. When I realized I had, I turned the ringer off and stuffed my phone in my pocket. I lay back down, and forced myself to try to get some sleep. Forced myself to stop listening for her. She’d come back in, or she wouldn’t, and either way, I couldn’t face the world yet. What would I do? Go console August Moriarty for threatening someone who might have kidnapped Leander?

  I finally accomplished it, sleep, though it was the middle of the day. My dreams galloped away from me. They were soft and threatening all at once, incomprehensible in their noise. When I woke, I felt around for my phone. It was dinnertime. The day had slipped away. I needed to wash my face. Get my head on straight.

  I ran into August in the corridor, sending a series of rapid-fire texts of his own. He looked exhausted. “Rough day?” he asked.

  “I could ask you the same thing. Where’s Holmes?”

  He waved the question off. “I saw her a few hours ago. She looked like she was off to draw blood. What did she learn while I was out? She wouldn’t say.”

  I made a noncommittal noise.

  “Anyway, I had some information for her,” he said. “A friend of mine came through with an address. There’s a party spot some of the art dealers go to. Turns into a semi-respectable kind of gallery during the day. It’s Monday, so it very well might be dead, but I thought it might be worth a look. It’s a place my brother Hadrian might pop up. Lots of artists. Lots of coke. That sort of thing.”

  I didn’t think I’d heard him right. “You told Holmes that.”

  “Yeah,” he said, still looking at his phone. “I thought we’d maybe check it out tonight.”

  “Where is she now?”

  August shrugged. “Getting dinner?”

  “Back up. You just effectively told a clearly upset Charlotte Holmes where to find coke in a strange city.”

  August gave me a hard look. “Coddling her is a terrible idea, you know. Charlotte always knows how to find coke. She’s a recovering drug addict. How do you think that works? I trust her to know her limits. You can’t really do much else.”

  “You can’t.” I got up in his face. “You knew her for how many months, when she was fourteen? What kind of limits do you think she has?”

  “My brother,” he growled, “is an addict, so yes, I do know something about it, and unless you just completely shattered her world in half, I can’t imagine this being a situation that . . .” He trailed off. All at once, the blood went out of his face. “Oh my God, Jamie. What have you done?”

  nine

  ALL I COULD THINK IN THE BACK OF THE TAXI WAS, THERE needs to be a German compound word for feeling both guilty and enraged. Holmes had said just hours ago that I was always willing to take on the responsibility for her mistakes. Here I was, proving her right. What rankled me the most was that August had immediately asked what I had done, as though I’d been callous enough to reach in with my two hands and break her heart. She’d done that herself. Hadn’t she? She’d said I’d leave her if she was hurting. She said I’d sleep with her and run.

  God, I was going to throw up. I fumbled for the controls to try to crack the window and let in some air. The cabbie started ranting at me in German until August intervened, leaning between the seats to reason with him. Their voices grew louder and louder, and I thought I’d puke right there on the floor.

  I focused my breathing, the way I did during rugby drills, until my stomach stopped roiling. “Distract me. Where exactly are we going? Who gave you this information?”

  August settled into his seat, glaring at the back of the driver’s head. “It’s at an art squat. Used to be an old department store, and then it was a Nazi prison. Now it’s almost like a city unto itself. There’s a café, a cinema, ateliers—it’s a shared space, and sometimes they’ll do an open studio night. You walk through with a glass of wine, look at what the artists are working on. If you’re a dealer, it’s a good chance to see what’s out there, though it’s best if you keep those intentions to yourself. They don’t love businessmen.”

  “You sound like you’ve done this before.”

  He smiled grimly. “Dead men hobbies. My name around here is Felix, by the way.”

  “Felix? Really?”

  “Shut up, Simon,” he said in such an uncanny impression of Holmes that I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.

  August had the cabbie drop us half a block away, so we approached the building from the rear. It sat on a low, grassy hill, a huge Frankensteined building against the darkening sky. I could hear music playing as we approached, though I couldn’t pinpoint from where. The doors were a panicked red, covered in glitter and nails and little paintings of eyes. I hesitated, my hand on the knob.

  “Wait—” With an expert hand, August pushed my hair back from my face. “Button your shirt up to the collar. Tuck it in. Cuff your pant legs. No, further. And ditch your socks, you wear your trainers without them. You don’t speak much, but not because you’re scared, all right? You’re bored. Get a drink in one hand and scroll on your phone with the other.”

  “Did you learn this from Holmes, or the other way around?” I asked him as I looked for a place to stash my socks.

  “We had remarkably similar childhoods,” August said, his eyes as hard and blank as stones. “Let’s go.”

  The building was strangely lit, with staircases that crawled up along the walls. I didn’t have any trouble imagining it as an old-time department store—the walls had a tall, molded look to them, and th
e staircases were wide enough to hold a steady stream of shoppers. But the paint had all chipped away. Chunks of the walls were missing, like an angry hand had scooped them out. Now everything was painted electric blues and yellows, the walls and the windows and the stretching ceilings, and while most of the murals were abstractly beautiful, here and there I caught a glimpse of a drawn-on face hidden inside the paint, its eyes watching me.

  “August.” The hair on my arms was standing up.

  “I know,” he said, and held a hand up while he listened. “The music’s coming from up above—the third floor, maybe? We’ll try up there.”

  We climbed the stairs slowly. August assured me the building was structurally sound, but there was something so precarious about a place that had been repurposed so many times, like its essence had been stripped bare in the process. On the second landing, we stepped to the side as a crowd of tattooed girls pushed past us, laughing. One of them shot the kind of smile at August that girls at Sherringford sometimes aimed at me.

  False walls had been built throughout the third floor, breaking up the giant space into smaller rooms. Studios, I thought. August had called them ateliers. None of the walls reached the ceiling, so you could see the cluster of lights each artist had set up to illuminate their space. A table was set up near the stairs, and August filled two plastic cups with vodka and soda and handed one to me, his eyebrow lifted slightly. Don’t talk, the look said. And don’t drink this either.

  He shambled along slowly, sticking his head into studios, greeting people in German. “Ja,” he’d say, yes, and jerk his head at me with an apologetic-sounding murmur. Then we’d stand for a minute while he chattered at some shaved-head boy about his giant metal sculpture of a pickle. I kept scrolling down my phone. I had a text from Lena: where are u guys what happened to London so bored. I ignored it, and instead, pulled up the collection of Leander’s emails, but I couldn’t pay any attention to those either.

  I was listening for the edges of Holmes’s voice. I noticed that August always kept himself turned toward the atelier’s open door so he could see if she walked by. Slowly, we made our pilgrimage. A set of televisions, all playing black-and-white newsreels from the 1940s while disco music blared. A set of toes made from ceramic and gold, arranged on a pink platter to look like snack food. Tiny paintings of naked girls presented by a smug-faced man I wanted to punch in the throat. Instead, I scrolled through Leander’s emails, not really reading them. All this to get them, and now I was too sick to focus. Dear James, each one began, Dear James, Dear James.

  Then I came across one that began Dear Jamie, dated early this December, and for a minute I let myself stop listening for Charlotte.

  Dear Jamie, I don’t know why I had the urge to write to you by that name. No one’s called you that since I have! I’ve been spending all my time hanging around these art school teachers and their little student flocks. They all have so much overwhelming affection for each other, these students, like they’re all drowning and simultaneously holding each other’s lifelines. Honestly, I don’t see how they don’t all end up at the bottom of the lake that way, but here they are, welding and sculpting and drawing under their teacher’s benevolent eye. Nathaniel even goes to their parties. I think he fancies himself a little in love with me, which is good for my purposes, but of course, terrible for his. It’s always a bad idea to fall in love with your dealer. . . .

  I hoped he was referring to dealing art and not to drugs. Though, watching the eyes of the artists around me, the lines between those worlds seemed blurred. Some were sharp as tacks, tour-guiding their work, teasing August in German about something that made him blush. And some sat in the corner, smiling, smiling, smiling, their hands clasped in their laps like it was the only thing that could keep them from flying apart.

  Another studio. It felt like an hour had passed, but since I was staring at my phone, I knew it’d only been ten minutes. It was taking everything in me not to chuck it at this painter’s head and start scaling the walls, calling Holmes’s name. There’s a really good chance that she’s fine, I told myself. She’s almost always fine. But the painter was monologuing at August, using his hands to explain something, and so I settled into a plastic chair to read the rest of Leander’s email.

  I hear Hadrian’s name everywhere. I can’t stress to you how much of a fortune he’s made, and while I don’t think he’s involved in this particular Langenberg fiasco, I do know he has connections I could use to push the case along at a more reasonable clip. Milo’s been keeping me informed, but only so I can keep myself out of Hadrian’s way. Honestly, I wish my niece could time her meltdowns more appropriately. We’ve had a détente with the Moriartys for almost a century. Of course you manage to talk me into an art crime case just after we’ve burned the white flag. I always thought the whole thing would be worth it if Charlotte and August had really gone whole hog on the Montague-Capulet romance. Imagine that story! Still, he wound up dead and my poor girl wound up banished, so I suppose it has shades of Romeo & Juliet after all.

  If I sound flip, it’s because I feel flip. I don’t know how much longer I can live as David Langenberg; he has horrible taste in ties, and his studio flat is freezing. Not to mention that my sister-in-law is once again ill (fibromyalgia, wretched disease) and without her income—honestly, I’m a bit concerned that Alistair won’t be able to hold on to the family home, not with the way he’s been spending. I’m due for a visit anyway, so I’ll see what I can do. He’s always been a good help in my cases. And I’d like to finally meet your son!

  I just wish we were smoking those ridiculous French cigarettes in our Edinburgh garret again, setting off the smoke alarm. And your cooking was awful, but God knows I can’t do it for myself. I miss you, James. Take care of yourself.

  I’d been expecting something much more clinical. The kind of step-by-step analytical exercise that Sherlock Holmes was always telling Dr. Watson he should write instead of his “stories.” But these—they weren’t case updates so much as letters, the kind you wrote to someone you knew so well you could imagine them beside you, even when they were across an ocean, living out another life.

  My father had cut out his own replies. I tried to imagine them. Of course he’d been worried when Leander had stopped writing to him—it sounded like he was Leander’s only lifeline in a difficult, months-long case. He’d been living as David Langenberg. As someone related to the artist? Someone with a financial stake in what happened to Langenberg’s new work? That email had been near the bottom of the set. There were only two more after that.

  Dear James, I had an interesting encounter this evening. On the way out of my flat, when I had hardly put on my Langenberg persona, I was almost run down by our Professor Ziegler. We’d plans to meet for dinner, so it wasn’t a surprise to see him there.

  I know I haven’t really spoken to you about the particulars of my relationship with Nathaniel. “My” relationship. David’s, more like, and you’ll forgive me my modesty. His modesty? Suffice it to say that a certain amount of romantic promise had to be made to ensure his continued interest in our little project. But we’ve never been in a position where I ran my hands through his hair.

  Nathaniel is a handsome fellow. He kissed me on my front step. He’d surprised me with flowers, and I decided to play it up. I put my arms around his neck. I—

  I can’t write to you about this. You know my feelings on this, and every, subject, Jamie.

  I still dream about you sometimes, you know. But I suppose I can’t write to you about that, either.

  (I pulled a hand over my eyes, and then I kept reading.)

  He was wearing a wig. I hid my surprise, but while I’m too good at this game to show it on my face, I think he could feel the shift in mood. But we went out for currywurst down the road, as we’ve done a few times before, and discussed the fortune we were making, from his students, from his own work. Do you know I’ve come to love Langenberg’s paintings, even when they’re done by Nathaniel’s hands? Ther
e’s an ache in them, a loneliness. An isolation. Is it pathetic to say that I have art in the blood? I do. I am an artist. My medium is unseen, but I am one all the same.

  I want to see him paint a “Langenberg.” Not just because I don’t think he’s the one who’s been painting them, this blue-eyed Nathaniel, with his twice-broken nose. I don’t think Nathaniel is Nathaniel at all. He looks like a blurred version of his photo on the school website. Him, and not him.

  I’ve spent the night watching these odious interviews online. Did you know that Hadrian Moriarty has that same nose? And yet they look nothing alike. I’ve felt that face. I’ve had my hands in his hair.

  I think I might just be going mad.

  Maybe it’s all this isolation, making me paranoid. I’m not sure. But I can’t face the indignity of asking my nephew for his assistance. I’m going to the family home tomorrow. I need to see my brother.

  August was trying to get my attention, but I shook my head tightly. There was one more email to read. It was dated two days later.

  Dear James. I’m sorry I didn’t write you yesterday. I’m at the family home, remembering how to be myself, trying to shed the last of this monkish grifter.

  It’s good to see your son. He takes after you in almost every way, and like you, he’s in over his head. Charlotte is . . . different. Wary. Untrusting. She’d never been very forthright, but this sort of animal fear is new, I think. It doesn’t have anything to do with your Jamie, and still it does, somehow.

  I caught Charlotte alone this afternoon. We had a long talk about her father. Certain changes are going to be made in that house, and she needed to be aware. That girl. Strong chin. Strong voice. She understood immediately.

  Would it mark me as weak if I told you that sometimes, in my cups, I pretend that she’s my daughter, and not Alistair’s?

  There’s more to sort out here—finances, Charlotte’s schooling. Emma’s in . . . a situation, and they’ve called in a doctor. There’s more to it than that, but that’s all I should say. Privacy, you know. I’ll be back to Berlin as soon as I’m able.