“Really? What did you think?”
“Just that I would like to talk to you. Of course,” I continued, rather bitterly, “that’s probably because I don’t have any friends. When you came to interview me, it was the longest talk I’d had with anyone for years. So naturally I fixated.” I drank my tea.
“I don’t have any friends either.” She spoke sorrowfully.
“Really?” It was hard for me to believe. I thought all pretty people had friends.
“Well, I know a few people. I go out sometimes. But I don’t have real friends.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard for me to be close to people.” She sat up again and allowed her hair to shield her profile.
We sat silently for some time. As my body systems slowly regained their usual stately plod, the adrenaline drained from my flesh, and I imagined going home to sleep.
Then I realized she was crying. Tears dropped from her chin onto her folded hands, and she trembled small and hard. She sat erect and contained, dabbing at her face with the sleeve of her robe and gulping discreetly. I didn’t comfort her because her body did not invite it. But I sat with my heart opened to her, feeling her heart mournfully opening to me, sending me the messages that can be received only by another heart, that which the intellect can never apprehend.
Still crying, she said, “I’m sorry about the article. I really am.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “Frankly I haven’t had so much excitement in years.”
I felt her smile inwardly; her trembling stopped.
“I thought of you too sometimes,” she said, tears still in her throat.
“What? What did you think?”
She sniffed and wiped at her nose. “They weren’t really thoughts. Just images, feelings. I could tell you were very strong, and I wondered how you got to be that way.”
“I already told you how.” I spoke rather stiffly.
She smiled. “Anna Granite?”
“Yes. Anna Granite.” My irritation with her flickered and died.
“I don’t think that’s it,” she said.
I didn’t answer. A cloud swallowed what little sun had come in through her barred window. She settled more deeply into the pillow and stretched her naked legs out from beneath the robe, tautly splaying then relaxing her toes. I felt the last of her tears leave her. She closed her eyes. I sat there watching her hand rise and fall on her stomach, the sound of her breath stroking my face. The hum of her refrigerator crawled up my backbone. I closed my eyes. A cocoon of dreams spun about me.
“Dorothy.” Justine’s voice woke me. Dimly I regarded her. “I’m going to lie down and try to sleep. I know the bed is small but if you want, you can sleep here.”
We lay down side by side, politely observing the conventions of strangers sharing a bed. I could feel her small body bristling with contained fidgets as she lay stiffly on her side, not invading my side of the bed. I too clung rigorously to etiquette, lying with my back to her, curled to take up as little room as possible.
The politeness of course kept us awake; although I had barely been able to keep my eyes open a moment ago, now I found myself trying to soothe my tense body to sleep by parading before it the gray images of ordinariness. Legal documents. Breakfast. Justine scratched herself and sighed. A long moment rolled by. She shifted her legs. I thought: If only I could lie on my back. Exhaustion eased down upon us, dimming mental clarity but not extinguishing it. Asia Maconda’s face swam across my mental field.
“I can’t sleep,” said Justine.
Her voice was so worn that I turned to her with an impulse to comfort. At the same time she turned towards me. Her thin arms went around my body, her face pressed against my shoulder. I held her side and cupped her head, careful not to touch her injured back. Her body against me was like a phrase of music. My muscles were calmed, white flowers bloomed on my heart. Asia Maconda’s face still stared at me from inside my head. I stared back, wondering that this completely imaginary face had meant so much to me for so long. I watched it dissolve into pieces as I went to sleep with my arms around Justine Shade.
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