I padded through the front room and flicked back the curtain, and I went cold in the face. I must have turned a sickening shade of ash.
The journalist wasn’t a woman or even much of a man. Maybe he wasn’t the journalist at all. He had the look of one of the unkempt young writers that sometimes found their way to my house, as if it were Mecca, as if their pilgrimage would end with anything but a door slamming in their faces.
But it wasn’t his youthful, untidy appearance that struck me.
No, he was a ghost from the past. Here, alone, in this remote place, and without any happiness, I was finally losing my mind.
Good, I immediately thought, and the dream tickled at the back of my neck. Madness, like death, is a sort of freedom—the mind breaking loose and running.
A shout startled me.
The man fell face-first on my walkway, throwing up an arm at the last second. A laptop tumbled from his grip, clattering on the flagstones, and he curled into a ball and clutched his head. I stared, stunned for a moment. Then I yanked open the door.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped. My heart pummeled against my chest and my hands shook.
He uncurled slowly, planted his hands on the path, and peered up at me. Whatever he saw made his mouth fall open.
“Who are you?” I demanded, grating out the words.
His eyes were red, watering with pain and embarrassment, and blood oozed from a cut on his cheekbone.
“I’m sorry,” he said. I pressed against the door, away from him. He crawled to his laptop and lifted it. With a wavering hand, he touched the gash on his cheek. “Shit.” He winced and rose unsteadily. He looked at his bloodstained fingers, at me. I could practically see his idea of an introductory handshake evaporating, leaving an awkward blank in its wake.
“What do you want?” I said.
“I’m—my name is Michael Beck. I’m here for The New Yorker.” His hand twitched with the effort it took not to extend it.
I recoiled into the house. “Are you? How do I know that?”
The flush in his face deepened. “Oh, I—let me get my ID, my—”
“Forget it. Come in.” I was losing control of the situation, of myself. He had fallen. He was bleeding. “Stay here.” I moved briskly to the bathroom and returned with Neosporin and bandages. I dropped them on the coffee table between us. “Use those. Sit.”
I pointed to the couch and then I went out, retrieving my cigarettes on the way. I slammed the deck door behind me. I could only hope the gesture communicated my wishes: Leave me alone out here.
The cold wrapped around me and the rough boards of the deck pricked at my soles. I smoked and stared at my phone, debating a call to Beth. The journalist was a problem. I should send him away—and I would, as soon as I reasonably could—but he had fallen and split his face open on my walk, which changed things. And then he had apologized. My God, he had apologized for smashing his face into my landscaping. Who did that? My stomach pitched.
I glanced into the house. He was seated on the couch, hunched forward.
I burned through another cigarette and went in. The tang of tobacco clung to my tongue and clothes. “You startled me,” I said, striding toward the window. I didn’t look at him. I looked out at the walkway. “Is something wrong with the path?”
“No. No, I just lost my balance.”
“I’ll look at it tomorrow.” I reopened the front door and pretended to study the path. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”
He was quiet, and so I finally had to turn and look at him. He had created the most ridiculous covering for his wound—a square of cotton folded under two Band-Aids, the bandages forming a bulky X. He had his computer open on his lap. The screen was black. His shoulders slumped.
“Well?” I said.
He cleared his throat. “Yes. Sorry. We can get started.”
“Fire away.” I sat in the armchair opposite the couch and wondered how obvious it was that I wanted to be nowhere near him. Could he see me pressing into the chair to achieve max distance, and tactically keeping the coffee table between us?
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Bright.”
“Cal.” I blurted out my preferred name before I realized I didn’t want him calling me anything too familiar.
“Okay. Cal. Let me just ...” He fiddled with his unresponsive MacBook while I white-knuckled the chair and stared at him, letting the impression sink into me. He had silky, fawn-brown hair, streaked gold by the sun or by luck, and thick like oil paint. His eyes were liquid, the color of his hair. He was pale, on the thin side, but his shoulders were broad and veins roped over his hands.
And then there was the set of his jaw, so familiar, stubbornness barely cloaking uncertainty. The fall had rattled him badly. I could see that now.
“Are you okay?” I made my voice indifferent.
“Yes, thank you. I had everything on here.” He ran his fingers over the laptop. “I think it’s damaged.”
“I’m sorry.” I grimaced. “What a pain. Are you sure?”
“Well, hopefully the hard drive is okay. It’s just not booting up.” He depressed the power button again. The apple on the case remained unlit.
“Do you need to go to a walk-in? How hard did you ...” I gestured toward the door. I had seen how hard he had hit his face, and I supposed it was possible that he had fractured a facial bone. Maybe he would bring a lawsuit after I cancelled the profile. That would be just my luck.
“Uh, I don’t think so. It’s throbbing, but it’s sort of numb, too.” He prodded the bandaging and flinched.
“Don’t touch it,” I hissed.
His hand flew to his lap.
Throbbing, but sort of numb. He had a way with words. I wanted to roll my eyes. Wasn’t the magazine supposed to be deploying its best writer? I should have known that was only a line. The man before me had arrived with nothing but a laptop, now broken, and he was dressed like a college student. I couldn’t decipher his T-shirt, unless it was intended as overstated irony. He very clearly did not work out and the shade of his skin suggested he lived by the light of a computer screen.
He caught me studying the shirt. “Do you game?” He smiled hopefully.
“No. Never.” My lips curled. “When did you fly in? The altitude might be affecting you. Are you feeling lightheaded?”
“Oh, I live in Boulder. I drove up. I’m fine.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Are you a freelancer?”
“Yeah.”
“How exactly did you come by this assignment?”
“Um, an editor called me.” I could tell he was leaving out part of the story. “The other writer had—”
“I know.”
“I’ve written for them. The New Yorker. They like my stuff.”
“Do you write for them regularly?”
“Not ... regularly. A little. Once, so far.” He looked at his feet. “This will be my second piece for them. And I live in the area, so.”
“How convenient.” I stood and put more distance between us. I went to the front windows, spread open the curtains, and examined the walk again. All the flagstones appeared even, as far as I could see. Anyway, this pitiful creature would never bring a lawsuit. He wasn’t the type. He had no teeth, no spine. He wasn’t a New Yorker or even a New Englander. Meanwhile, I had been raised in an upscale corner of Massachusetts where people didn’t smile at one another and the high school students all but turned into Tonya Harding in the battle for valedictorian.
I had taken that title, by the way.
“I’m excited for—”
“I think we had better aim to start another day,” I interrupted. “Next weekend, if that works. You should get your face looked at, and your computer.”
“Oh, I—”
“I’m sure you want to get that handled as soon as possible.”
“I guess I could drop it off at the Apple Store on my way home.” He kept trying to slide into an informal tone, as if we would suddenly be heading to a sports bar together. I felt sorry for him, momentarily. “Have you eaten?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“Okay. Maybe we could talk about scheduling before I go.” He patted his pockets for a pen and paper he did not possess.
“Let’s play it by ear.”
“Sure, we can do that.” He stood and laughed feebly. “Ah, I’m sorry. This really didn’t go as planned.”
“No need to apologize. I’ll have to look at this tomorrow.” I opened the door and went out, walking down the path and watching my feet as I did. He had no choice but to follow me. I was kicking him out in the kindest way possible.
“Next weekend, then? I can come earlier. Whatever works for you.” He tried to walk beside me. I veered onto the grass.
“Next weekend is fine.”
“Should we exchange numbers?”
“Oh, my agent handles all that.” I smiled tersely. “Have your editor friend talk to her. We’ll get it sorted out.”
At last, I saw the awareness dawning on him—I was giving him the boot, permanently—but instead of appearing angry, he looked crestfallen and confused, like a kicked dog. “Sure, okay. Look, I’m sorry again—”
“Please.” I raised my hands for silence and went back inside, alone.