“Better Palo Alto than Chicago. Maybe try Caltech?”
“Maybe after I finish my dissertation I’ll see if Caltech needs me.”
“Of course they need you, Rinaldo.”
“Right, sure, of course.”
His phone beeped in his ear, indicating another caller. He ignored it.
“So, where are we today?”
“The Baltic,” Aldo said. “No, industrial London. Dickensian London.”
The beeping went away, and his father laughed. “You’re just cold.”
“We’re slaving away in the—what’s it called? Where they process sausages, the refrigerator room.”
“It’s all refrigerated, Rinaldo. It’s meat.”
“Right, well, we’re there.”
“I’d prefer somewhere else.”
“Believe me, so would I.”
The beeping started up again, and Aldo sighed.
“What is it?” asked Masso.
“Someone on the other line, hold on—”
He glanced down at his screen, teeth chattering now as he pulled his jacket tighter, and he blinked.
“Dad,” he said, “I’ll call you back.”
“It’s okay, we can talk tomorrow.”
“Okay, thank you—”
His thumb shook as he hung up with his father.
“Hello?”
“Hi,” said Regan.
She sounded breathless, almost frantic.
“Is everything alright?” he asked her, and she gave an apprehensive laugh.
“I need something,” she said. “It’s … an odd favor. But technically you asked me first.”
“Okay,” he said, uncertain. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m just—” She was vibrating again. He could feel it through the phone. “I found it.”
“Found what?”
“The key.”
He blinked.
“Aldo?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“I need a favor.”
“Yes, sure. What is it?”
“I need to see you,” she said, and then, clearing her throat, “I want to, um. Draw you,” she clarified, and the impulse to be startled faded, replaced instead by a steady thrum of curiosity.
“Me?” he echoed.
“Yes. Are you free today?”
He considered it, watching his breath unfurl in the biting chill.
“Yes,” he said, after a moment.
“Oh, good.”
He paused, and then, “Should I come to you?”
“No no, I’ll go to you. Your apartment is north facing, isn’t it? Light will be good in there.”
What a detail to remember, he thought. The single time she’d been there he’d been studying her, and all the while she’d been tucking away the direction his windows faced. “Yes. Okay.” His breath was starting to hurt in his lungs, straining them inside the containment of his ribs. “Maybe around 12, 12:30?”
“12:30, I think. I should finish what I’m doing here.”
“Do you need me to … to do anything, or—？”
“No.” She laughed. “No, Aldo, you don’t need to do anything.”
“Oh. Okay.” He exhaled.
“Maybe smoke something,” she suggested wryly. “You know, if you need to.”
He shook his head. “I don’t,” he said.
“Alright, fine. See you at 12:30, then.”
“You sure you’re fine?”
“Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”
“You sound,” he began, and then stopped. “Good,” he decided.
The word he’d meant was bright, perhaps even blinding, but it didn’t make sense, and she laughed again.
“You sound good, too. I’ll see you soon?”
“Yes. Bye, Regan.”
“Bye, Aldo,” she said, and was gone.
He glanced down at his phone awash in numbness, watching her name disappear from his screen.
Maybe he’d done it, he thought. Maybe some version of him had gone back in time, changed it, fixed it somehow, unlocked the door that she’d never ended up opening and that had somehow brought her back. Maybe he’d solved it, somewhere, and his current self would never even know.
Or maybe it wasn’t done yet. Not yet.
He shivered in the cold, pulling his jacket tighter around him, and picked up his helmet.
That was enough thinking for one day.
* * *
REGAN STARED DOWN AT the storage space she’d rented, which was currently occupied by fifteen canvases of various sizes. One, the painting from her father’s office, sat in the corner solemnly, staring out over the others it had spawned, all replicas of other peoples’ originals. This, she reminded herself with a sigh, was the problem. It had been the problem, anyway, until yesterday afternoon when she’d been toying with the storage room key, thinking about nothing but the shape of it.