Madly (New York 2)

She’d been like this since he found her in the kitchen this morning—talking too quickly, saying too much, skating the conversation around any subject of significance, skipping her eyes over his face.

She’d spoken to her mother in the night. She’d accidentally torn a tassel off one of his towels, for which she’d apologized.

“I’ve sent Jean for your things,” he said. “So you can get cleaned up and change before you’re off to see your sister.”

“Oh,” she said brightly. “That’s really nice of you.”

“It was no trouble. With my brother arriving today…”

“Shit, it’s Tuesday. I forgot.” She smacked her hand into her forehead with a violence that startled him. “I was supposed to clear out, and you had to send your driver to eject me.”

“You’re welcome to stay here. With me. For as long as you’re…”

He couldn’t seem to finish a sentence. He was hovering over Allie, his coffee going cold.

“I’d like that. Would you sit down, maybe?” She patted the cushion beside her.

Winston sat.

Her eyes were rimmed with red, the skin beneath them the color of liver, her hair enormous, but she looked achingly lovely in his robe in the morning light of the patio.

He’d awakened in the darkness of the bedroom, naked, alone, feeling as though someone had put an enormous hook through the wall of his chest, dug it in deep, and pulled him apart.

He’d had a shower so hot, he felt he might weep, and it had taken him twenty minutes under the spray to locate the name for the sensation: vulnerability.

“So you’re not in love with your apartment.”

“It’s perfectly adequate.”

She touched his arm. “It has hardwood throughout, medieval-castle arched doorways, vaulted ceilings, built-ins, fireplaces with actual pirate chests to hold the wood, a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows with an incredible view, stone walls, and one of those stoops like they had on Sesame Street. ‘Adequate’ is the last word anyone in the entire universe would use to describe your apartment.”

Winston shrugged.

The apartment was adequate. Perfectly adequate.

“What I wondered, though, when I was wandering around like a raging insomniac in the middle of the night, was where your stuff is at.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, this cup and saucer are white, and completely plain, and possibly you bought them at Ikea.”

“I can’t remember where I bought them. Not Ikea.”

“And the big painting opposite the kitchen, with the swirling leaf things? I would bet anything you didn’t spend actual money on that painting.”

“It was here when I arrived.”

“You leased this place furnished?”

He nodded.

“So where’s all your stuff? Where are you, here?”

The hedge atop the stone wall was thin and poorly maintained. He’d spoken with the property manager about it twice.

“At home, the hedges are so dense that if you misjudge a narrow lane, you’ll scrape the finish off your car. Bea did that, in fact. Shortly after she began to drive.”

At home.