He said, “Why not dinner tomorrow instead of Sunday?”
“You’re up early tomorrow and away all day, and you’re stressed out about it, whatever it is.”
He frowned. “I said that?”
“Only that you’re up early and away all day. I inferred the stress. It’s very sweet how easy you are to read. If you were an assassin, dear, you’d never be able to get close to your target.”
“I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
“And all knotted up by whatever secret business it is that you have to deal with. I don’t know, of course, because you’re being as mysterious with me as you say I’m being with you, even though I do not know your favorite color or favorite flower or position on the issue of driving very fast. Lunch on Sunday, noon, Laguna Beach?” She named a restaurant.
“We’ll walk on the beach afterward,” he said.
She finished her coffee. “Tour some galleries, cute little shops.”
“May I pick you up? Where are you staying?”
“You can pick me up when I’m certain of your position on very fast driving and selected other matters. Sunday, I’ll drive myself and meet you there. Don’t look bereft. Smile for me. There, that’s nice. I love your smile. Especially when it’s aimed at me.”
Outside, as they waited for the valets to bring their cars, she put one hand against the back of David’s head and drew his face down to hers and kissed him warmly, more than chastely, but just once.
He did not follow her to the Island Hotel this time.
| 14 |
At home, David emailed Isaac Eisenstein two items for further investigation. Marcus Sutton, executive at Microsoft. Claire Sutton, prosecutor in the Seattle district attorney’s office.
Later, lying on his back in bed, David left one lamp on low, staring at the white-painted beam-and-shiplap ceiling, which always before he’d found pleasing to the eye and mind. Now the regularity of those lines and the expertly tight joinery of the boards seemed to mock his confusion and the disorganization that characterized his emotional life.
He could feel her lips on his as if the imprint of them would last a lifetime. The delicacy of her quick tongue. Her warm breath as the kiss ended.
The claim to be an assassin, whatever its purpose, whether to intrigue or merely tease him, did not occupy his thoughts, for he knew she would in time explain why she struck such a pose.
Instead, he focused on the fact that she had known he would be up early tomorrow and away all day. She said he’d told her so. He combed through his memory of the evening but couldn’t recall making that revelation. He might have. He just couldn’t remember. And it seemed that he should remember.
What he did remember, and what he kept returning to more than anything else, was what she’d said in response to his complaint that in spite of hours of nonstop conversation, there was still a long list of essential things he didn’t know about her. She had charmed him by imitating a schoolgirl and launching into a long list of likes and dislikes.
The first three items he remembered word for word: My favorite color is blue, favorite flower the calla lily, favorite time of the day sunrise.
Emily Carlino’s favorite color had been blue. Her favorite flower was the calla lily. And she loved to be up before sunrise because, as she’d said: Life is so fragile and uncertain that every daybreak is a miracle, almost a triumph. That first blush in the sky is all the hope of the world distilled into light. I watch the dark fade, and say to myself, “Okay, I’m still here,” and the more sunrises I see, the more I feel as if I’ll live to see another twenty thousand.
The seams in the beam-and-shiplap ceiling ran as straight as lasered lines, and each piece fit as tight as in a completed puzzle.
The orderliness of the ceiling annoyed him. He switched off the nightstand lamp.
In the dream of the cellar maze, she came to him out of an unraveling shroud to say, I am Maddison, who was Emily. Can you love me? When he replied, I already do, he was happier than he had been in a long time—and afraid.
| 15 |
In his Porsche Cayenne, David departed Newport Beach at 6:40 Saturday morning and followed Interstate 405 north to Los Angeles. As he had felt in the crush of Manhattan and in Orange County’s multitudes, so he also felt when he arrived in the City of Angels and its teeming suburbs at 7:50—alone among the millions. The city was buzzing, and fast-moving traffic swarmed the freeways. Yet he imagined himself invisible to everyone, not a man at all, but a spirit in denial of his death, racing north in the mere idea of an automobile, a modern ghost motoring from one haunt to another.