The Safekeep(49)

Isabel came, overwhelmed and surprised by it, clutching at Eva’s shoulders. The whole thing had not lasted more than a few minutes. They were both breathing hard, and Eva’s face—so close—crumpled a moment. Just a moment and then Eva was gone, pulling away, wiping her hand on her own skin, looking about herself: lost, like she forgot where she had put her things.

Isabel pulled her back in. Eva tried to push her off, and Isabel would not let her, collected her, her elbows, her waist, her face. She cupped her close and said, “You must know. You must know how much I—” Swallowed, said: “Don’t resent me.”

Eva let herself be held, but did so carefully—a promise of pulling away still. She said, “Resent you for what?”

“That I didn’t understand before.”

“Understand—”

“What to do with you. What to do with you, Eva.”

Eva moved in an odd shudder, as if someone had pushed her from behind, inside. A sound, a laugh or a sob. “And now? What will you do with me now?”

Isabel’s answer came from a hidden place, and the words had folded and folded in on themselves over the course of days and so now they came out warped and rough, barely legible: “What will you let me?”

She leaned against Isabel’s mouth. She did not say.





11


IT WAS FRIDAY EVENING AND the restaurant was loud. It had been a week since Louis’s letter and the days were too short and they were holding on too tightly. Eva had dressed up: a skirt that had a shine in the candlelight, one that Isabel had not seen on her before; something old but well-made. She had curled her hair so it sat at the line of her jaw; she had put on lipstick, but it had smeared. A drag of paint under her bottom lip.

Isabel had kissed her in the car, right before they left. Her mouth, her neck. Eva had put a hand to Isabel’s shoulder and said, Isa, we need to go, and Isabel had buried her face to the skin behind Eva’s ear, breathed her in. Squeezed her thigh, under the skirt, the fold of her leg.

Eva had rolled into it, held Isabel by the back of her head, and still said: Isabel. Reservations. And for a moment Isabel didn’t know what the word meant—reservations about what? And then the fog of the press of Eva’s body lifted a little, and she repeated to herself: Reservations. At the restaurant.

Eva had not liked the idea much. It will be weird, she’d said earlier in the week, and Isabel had said, Weird how? and Eva said, Two women? Alone? At dinner? and Isabel said: Have you never had a dinner with a friend who is a woman? And Eva said: Oh, you know what I mean.

Eva said this often: You know what I mean, and Isabel mostly never knew what she meant, not exactly. Only that Eva was frightened, and that she saw people as danger. Isabel understood fear. Isabel rarely considered other people at all. But a dinner could be innocent enough, could be quiet and reserved and polite enough, and Eva had only half agreed when Isabel called ahead and then announced: reservations had been made. Eva got flustered at this, upset in her prickly way, had said, I didn’t even say yes yet, you—you just—you decide these things and then I have no choice to just—

To which Isabel came close. Came closer still. Loomed with all of her height. Eva had trailed off; had gone quiet, had lifted her face. A distracted film over her eyes. Isabel’s hand was on Eva’s hip. She asked, Do you not want to go?

Eva took a long time to answer. I didn’t say that, she said, and the words were whispered into the first beat of an open-mouth kiss.

And now their drinks were served, and their food was ordered, and Eva kept looking around like a noise was startling her—like she was looking for a way out.

“What’s the matter?” Isabel asked, and Eva looked at her wide-eyed, caught. She said, “The matter?” and Isabel said, “You’re skittish.” She added: “You’re acting as if we’re criminals on the run.”

Eva gave a strangled laugh at that. She covered it up with a hand to her mouth. She took her napkin and held it to her bare collar; it was a hot night, and the place was busy.

The food arrived. Eva had ordered fish. She ate in a way Isabel had not seen her eat before: overly careful, elbows pulled in, each bone picked up between knife and fork and daintily left on the plate’s edge. She ate the fish one flake at a time. Her lipstick left an oily stain on the fork.

“Is it good?” Isabel asked, and Eva nodded and said, “Mm-hmm,” and Isabel stared at her own plate for a few seconds and let the feeling build, then said: “You would’ve enjoyed this better if I’d been—some man, wouldn’t you. If I’d been a man and taken you here. You would’ve had a good time, then.”

“Isabel.” Eva said it like a hiss, or a command: Quiet down. “Please. Don’t—”

“I will do as I please,” Isabel cut her off, a sharp tone, and then continued to do nothing of what she pleased: throat too tight to swallow, guilt-rotten heat in her belly, down her spine. She did not look at Eva, she did not say anything else. She went to the bathroom with a curt Excuse me. With a quick movement: put the napkin on the table, pushed the chair back.

The bathroom was a single stall and the lights were too bright. In the mirror Isabel saw herself: a sheen of sweat, bags under her eyes. She had not been sleeping much lately. And when she did sleep, curled tight around Eva, Eva would wake up often, gasp, kick; night terrors.