Dead Letters(60)

“I’m going to run home and, uh, change.” He gestures at his rumpled clothes, his stubbly cheeks. I have to admit, he looks very masculine at the moment. I notice that he is in his socks and realize that he must have left his shoes at the door last night, like the good houseguest he always was, indulging my mother’s injunction that everyone take off their shoes before treading her hallowed floors. I nod. I have no idea what to say to him. I just want him gone. “Listen, Ava, about last night,” he starts, predictably.

“No big deal. We don’t have to talk it to death.” I wave him off. I’m in no condition to have that discussion right now. Or ever. I know that Zelda is laughing hysterically somewhere.

“Okay, I just—”

“Really,” I cut him off. “Seriously.”

He looks cowed and shamefaced. I suspect he doesn’t do a lot of slinking off the morning after. I suddenly wonder if he’s ever slept with anyone who isn’t an Antipova. There’s a chilling thought. I wonder if Zelda and I are different in bed, if we smell the same. I’m pretty sure that I’m better groomed than my gypsy sister; I religiously go to a very precise Thai woman in Paris who prunes my nether regions, a practice Zelda abhors for the infantilizing gesture that it is, as well as for its concession to order, tidiness, control. I wonder which Wyatt prefers. Maybe I will ask him later, tomorrow, once I’ve had a drink. Wyatt bobs his head politely and clumsily tries to administer his shoes; when he nearly topples over, I instinctively reach out my arm, and he grabs it with a muffled “Thanks.” As he straightens up, his face is red.

“I’ll, uh, call you later?”

We both wince at the cliché.

“Suuuure you will,” I say with a smile. Just go. Please.

“Okay. Well. You gonna be okay, Ava?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” I snap unthinkingly. “I daresay I’ve had more experience with both hangovers and mornings after than you, darling.”

He recoils. Shut up, Zelda. That’s enough.

“Right. Bye, then.” He fumbles with the doorknob and stumbles outside, his usual grace impeded by dehydration and humiliation. I want to call after him, to apologize. Stay, Wyatt. I’ll make us something to eat; we’ll spend the day drinking ginger ale and cuddling. But I can’t. He’s in his truck and up the drive, while I stand there in my Lycra tank top and kimono in the doorway. What a fucking mess.

I flop back down on the couch and check Zelda’s phone again. No new emails, no new posts. I flick through the apps she has downloaded. She doesn’t have many; Zelda was always suspicious of technology, uncertain. She shied away from it aesthetically, saying it interrupted her vibe. She was the sort of person who would use a typewriter or buy some vintage leather case for her phone to make everything appear decades older than it was. I’m surprised that she has an iPhone at all.

I frown when I notice an app for the Paris Metro on the screen, and I tap it open. The familiar cobweb of Metro lines appears. What were you doing in Paris, Zelda? Did you really even come, or did you just book all that on the credit card to throw the cops off? And either way, why? She knew enough to choose a hotel just around the corner from my flat; she must have extracted my address from Marlon or Opal. What could have motivated her to plan the transcontinental jaunt? I sigh. My head is pounding, and my nausea has returned. I don’t want to throw up again. With nothing in my stomach, I know it will be the sour, viscous yellow sauce that lives deep in the belly, and it will come up thick and scorching.

I set Zelda’s phone aside and pick my own up. I stare at the missed-call alert from Nico. He has left a voicemail.

“Ava? Good morning. I’m at lunch, I was thinking to you—I wonder what you are doing. I imagined you in your bed and thought to call. Maybe you still sleep, maybe you go out. Call me when you are able, I miss your voice. Okay. Ciao ciao.”

I wish I could cry. I stab the delete icon and immediately regret it. Ah, fuck. He’s French; maybe my infidelity won’t get under his skin too much. He’s probably fucking some long-legged Brazilian as we speak. But I know he’s not. I know he will care, of course. I can never tell him. And now we begin with the secrets.

I shut my eyes, which makes the world spin. My mind skitters away from last night, from what I might have said and done with Wyatt. It’s all a little patchy, and I have only glimmers of images, shreds of conversation. “Does that feel good? I want you. I’ve always wanted you. Oh, God.” And me: “Yes, like that. Yes. Yes.” And then: “Fuck me like you fuck Zelda.”

I roll over, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to repress the memory. But my brain compulsively returns to it, dredging up more details from the darkness of my bedroom. “Make me come. I’ve never come with him. Harder.” “I love you, Ava.” “Call me Zelda. Say my name.” “Zelda.” “Again.” “Zelda!”

Afterward, we lay quiet, drunk, tangled up in my white sheets. I was still coasting on too many chemicals for the guilt to have begun, for the panic to have kicked in. Drunk and happy.

“Was that true, what you said?” he mumbled into my hair.

“Hmm?”

“About never coming with…?”

“With Nico?”

“Is that your boyfriend?”

“Yep.”