if all I had to do was hang around with people I already know, except that’s not the kind of job I have, remember? It’s not like I’m a librarian, Mafeenie. I don’t just do counseling, I’m starting to represent the organization at conferences and hearings. This kind of crap just makes it hard for anybody to take me seriously.”
This wasn’t something we had to settle before dinner, but the idea of her pushing those boxes of bullshit back under her bed didn’t sit well with me. Sleeping people are so vulnerable because all our defenses are down. Curling up nightly on top of two years’ worth of lies and garbage couldn’t possibly be good.
Zora sighed deeply. “I practically had to beg my boss for a chance to do the big presentation downtown tomorrow, even though it’s my idea, and now this comes out.” She shook her head. “I’ll be surprised if he still lets me do it.”
She looked miserable and resigned, a dangerous, enervating combination.
“It’s bad luck to keep that much negative energy around,” I said.
Zora looked like she was trying to decide whether or not to remind me that I had agreed to butt out of her business, so I jumped in with a preemptive strike and a smile. “It’s my job to spot the snakes, remember?”
She drained her glass and set it down on the nightstand beside the picture of her dad. “I can put them downstairs in Amelia’s office with the others if they bother you up here.”
The others?
“I’ll help,” I said, picking up the smaller box. It was heavier than I thought it would be as I followed her back downstairs, puffing just a little in spite of myself. “Ever consider burning?”
“Burning?”
“I’m a big fan of burning,” I said, remembering how much I always enjoyed doing the climactic scene in
Hedda Gabbler
when the distraught heroine feeds her faithless lover’s manuscript into the fireplace, crying out “I am burning our child, I am burning our child,” as the only copy goes up in flames.
“Even when I kept a journal, I’d write in it every night when I got home from the theater and burn the pages first thing in the morning.”
“What was the point?”
“I didn’t want to drop dead and leave that much incriminating evidence behind.”
I was only half teasing. Things that start private should stay private.
“Then why bother to write it down at all?”
“The process was what mattered,” I said. “It wasn’t like I needed to go back and read any of that stuff again.”
“What if you forgot something?” she said, flipping on the light in the neat little office we’d only poked our heads into during my initial tour of the premises. She put her box down carefully beside two others next to a beige three-drawer file cabinet. I slid mine in beside it, wishing I had the nerve to feed them all into the jumbo-size shredder I could see near the landlord’s desk.
“Then I’d just have to make it up as I went along,” I said, stretching my arms above my head to get the crick out of my back. I should have bent my knees before I picked up that much weight.
“That doesn’t seem to be working so well for me,” Zora said, turning out the light again and heading for the kitchen where dinner was waiting for me and another drink was calling to her.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll work on it.”
THIRTEEN
E verything turned out great, if I do say so myself, but Zora drank her dinner anyway. Meanwhile, I tried to distract her from
Dig It!
by telling her about my day.
“I ran into an old friend at the West End News this morning,” I said. “She knows you.”
“Everybody around here knows everybody else. Who’s your friend?”
“Abbie Browning.”
“Miss Abbie? Where do you know her from?”
“We were friends in Paris a long time ago. I haven’t seen her in thirty years and we picked right up like we’d seen each other last week.”
“I like her,” Zora said. “She’s really spiritual. Sort of like a moon
This wasn’t something we had to settle before dinner, but the idea of her pushing those boxes of bullshit back under her bed didn’t sit well with me. Sleeping people are so vulnerable because all our defenses are down. Curling up nightly on top of two years’ worth of lies and garbage couldn’t possibly be good.
Zora sighed deeply. “I practically had to beg my boss for a chance to do the big presentation downtown tomorrow, even though it’s my idea, and now this comes out.” She shook her head. “I’ll be surprised if he still lets me do it.”
She looked miserable and resigned, a dangerous, enervating combination.
“It’s bad luck to keep that much negative energy around,” I said.
Zora looked like she was trying to decide whether or not to remind me that I had agreed to butt out of her business, so I jumped in with a preemptive strike and a smile. “It’s my job to spot the snakes, remember?”
She drained her glass and set it down on the nightstand beside the picture of her dad. “I can put them downstairs in Amelia’s office with the others if they bother you up here.”
The others?
“I’ll help,” I said, picking up the smaller box. It was heavier than I thought it would be as I followed her back downstairs, puffing just a little in spite of myself. “Ever consider burning?”
“Burning?”
“I’m a big fan of burning,” I said, remembering how much I always enjoyed doing the climactic scene in
Hedda Gabbler
when the distraught heroine feeds her faithless lover’s manuscript into the fireplace, crying out “I am burning our child, I am burning our child,” as the only copy goes up in flames.
“Even when I kept a journal, I’d write in it every night when I got home from the theater and burn the pages first thing in the morning.”
“What was the point?”
“I didn’t want to drop dead and leave that much incriminating evidence behind.”
I was only half teasing. Things that start private should stay private.
“Then why bother to write it down at all?”
“The process was what mattered,” I said. “It wasn’t like I needed to go back and read any of that stuff again.”
“What if you forgot something?” she said, flipping on the light in the neat little office we’d only poked our heads into during my initial tour of the premises. She put her box down carefully beside two others next to a beige three-drawer file cabinet. I slid mine in beside it, wishing I had the nerve to feed them all into the jumbo-size shredder I could see near the landlord’s desk.
“Then I’d just have to make it up as I went along,” I said, stretching my arms above my head to get the crick out of my back. I should have bent my knees before I picked up that much weight.
“That doesn’t seem to be working so well for me,” Zora said, turning out the light again and heading for the kitchen where dinner was waiting for me and another drink was calling to her.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll work on it.”
THIRTEEN
E verything turned out great, if I do say so myself, but Zora drank her dinner anyway. Meanwhile, I tried to distract her from
Dig It!
by telling her about my day.
“I ran into an old friend at the West End News this morning,” I said. “She knows you.”
“Everybody around here knows everybody else. Who’s your friend?”
“Abbie Browning.”
“Miss Abbie? Where do you know her from?”
“We were friends in Paris a long time ago. I haven’t seen her in thirty years and we picked right up like we’d seen each other last week.”
“I like her,” Zora said. “She’s really spiritual. Sort of like a moon
Similar Books
