Yours to Bare (Slip of the Tongue 3)

“I used to be very emotional. Reckless. But I don’t get like that with Rich.”

“Okay, but your writing is so passionate, it practically burns up the page.” I steel myself for her answer. “Who was it about?”

She gets quiet, picking at the lid of her coffee. Her nose and cheeks are red from the cold.

Somebody hurt her? She must have a Sadie too, and it isn’t Rich. I should’ve guessed. The question is, how deep does the damage run? Has she healed, or does she need more time?

Eventually, I put my hand over hers to stop the scratch of her nail against the plastic. “Tell me. Who was he?”

“Nobody.” She looks utterly miserable as she says it. “And I’m not being coy. It’s really about nobody. I’ve never experienced anything like what I’ve written.”

My chest tightens. It’s an answer I didn’t even think to expect. One I find hard to believe, but one I actually like. “Never? Nobody?”

“I guess that makes me weird.” She flinches. “Right?”

Halston wants to be consumed. It’s there in her words. I could be that for her—I already feel it, and we’ve barely touched. “Weird? No. Surprising? Yes. I’d have thought you’d have many broken hearts in your wake.”

She smiles a little. “Nope. It’s just never happened for me, that intensity. I guess that’s why I have to write it. I’m not sure I’ll ever get it.”

I realize I’m still touching her, and I put my hand back in my lap. I chased that passion and took risks—my marriage and Sadie’s, my dignity, and, my biggest regret of all, my daughter. Because of my affair and subsequent divorce, I’ve gone from seeing Marissa every day to twice a month. That’s twenty-four times a year and more than I deserve, according to Kendra.

“It’s supposed to help your craft, right?” She half-laughs. “Heartache . . . longing.”

Supposedly. Not always. My work has apparently suffered since my spirit was crushed. “Seems to work in your favor.”

“I want to do it again.”

She rushes the words out, but I take a beat to study her. “Do what?”

“The photo.”

“We are. I told you I’d post the next one.”

“That’s not what I mean.” She folds a knee under herself and faces me. “For so long, I’ve been going through the motions. But I’ve felt like a new person the past couple days. Reinvigorated, or maybe just invigorated for the first time.”

I lean my elbows on my knees and massage my face, frustrated. Because I know what she’s going to say, and it’ll be everything I want to hear.

I want her in front of my camera again.

I’ve been sleeping for the last year, and she’s the only thing that’s made me feel awake.

“I want you to take my picture again,” she says. “That’s why I’m here.”

I can’t say no to her, and I can’t tell her that what I need in order to say yes is her. Completely, unequivocally, with no chance of her returning to her boyfriend or anyone else. I need her to be mine before I go down this path again. Halston has to get there on her own, though. I can’t, I won’t, make her choose me like I tried to with Sadie.

“Did I say something wrong?” she asks.

I look forward. A stoplight changes from red to green. A man steps off the curb, narrowly avoids getting hit by a taxi, and darts through traffic anyway. Are any of us really awake? Are we making decisions about our lives, or just letting things happen to us? Is that why we like art, why Halston needs it, because without it, we’d never feel anything out of the ordinary?

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” she asks. “If it’s about Rich . . . he won’t care. He won’t even know.”

“That’s not why. The affair I had, the husband found out. He hit me.”

“Rich wouldn’t never—”

“It didn’t even hurt, not compared to watching her leave with him.” I can’t look at Halston or I’ll give in. “I wanted her, and I want you. I want to photograph you. That’s the problem. When I found the journal, I thought about it for days, and now all I can think about is you. I might be, I don’t know, obsessed.”

She doesn’t respond. I don’t blame her. We sit that way a while. Even as skateboards wheel across concrete and down railings, as a woman loudly laments about work into a cell phone, as car horns blare, through all of it, I can hear her breathing.

“Your lunch break is over,” I say. I have no idea if it is, but it’s been at least an hour since she left her office. “I’ll put up the other photos tonight or tomorrow.”

“Tonight,” she says. “Please? Please.”

She gets up but doesn’t move right away. I stare at the ground until she leaves. I know when she does because she takes her body warmth with her, and it’s just now I realize how cold I am. I look up, and that’s when I see it. Today’s version of the red bra and hidden tattoo.

Her sheer tights have a thin, solid line running down the middle of the back. It starts somewhere under her skirt and ends inside her sweet, schoolgirl, buckled-up Mary Janes. Maybe the stripe extends along the arches of her feet, to her toes. It wasn’t on the front of the tights; I would’ve noticed when she walked up.

I can’t help wondering if she wore them for me . . . and I almost missed them.

9

I want to photograph you.

I thought about your journal for days.

All I can think about is you.

I unlock the door to Rich’s Tribeca apartment. Finn’s definition of obsession has been on repeat in my head since lunch. I’ve clung to many things in my life for comfort, but never a person. And I’ve never had anyone cling to me, or ask about my feelings out of simple curiosity, or tell me I’m talented.

And then there’s Rich.

“Dinner in an hour,” Rich says when I walk into the kitchen. He’s fresh from a run, seated on a stool at the island. With his eyes glued to his phone and his ear buds in, I’m not sure how he knows I’m here.

I dump my things on the counter. “Great,” I mutter. “I was just wondering the best way to waste a few hours of my life.”

He looks up, removing the earphones. “What?”

I begin unbuckling my shoes. “Nothing.”

“What’s that?” he asks, nodding at my shopping bag.

“Stationery.”

His eyes glaze over—as I’d hoped. He knows I have a few ‘notebooks,’ but they don’t mean anything to him. Before meeting Finn this afternoon, I stopped at my favorite local home store for another journal. I’ve been feeling new things the last couple days, things that deserve their own fresh pages.

“How’d the presentation go yesterday?” Rich asks. “Is it going to be a good dinner?”

“It’ll be fine. Daddy sat in, so everyone’s happy.”

“He won’t always be around for those meetings,” Rich says, sensing my sarcasm, even if it doesn’t surface often. “Learn what you can from him.”

I look in the fridge and roll my eyes. “Might want to save the extreme sucking up for when my dad’s actually in the room.”

“I’m not sucking up. I’m trying to get you to see the silver lining. And remind you that he won’t be around forever. I wouldn’t want you to look back and have any regrets about your relationship.”

I grip the door handle. Rich has some goddamn nerve talking to me about regrets. I know that feeling better than anyone. I came to the fridge for water, but I bend over and grab a bottle of Chardonnay I’d shoved into the back corner of the bottom shelf.

Rich eyes me as I uncork it. “I thought I got rid of that.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

Wisely, he doesn’t respond. “Did you wear those to work?”

“What?” I ask, playing dumb as I pour a glass.

“Those tights.”

Rich rarely comments on my wardrobe, but then again, I rarely wear anything other than black, gray or navy. “They’re trendy.”

“Is trendy right for an office environment?”

“Clients like to know we’re cutting edge.”