No One Knows Us Here(60)

I strode out confidently and ran straight into Sam. A pair of old ladies were walking toward us. Two of Sam’s orchestra pals, a man and a woman, were whispering together on the other side of the hall, next to the men’s restroom.

Sam gripped me by the arms, and for a second I thought he might start shaking me, but he let go with a heavy sigh, as if he didn’t know what had come over him. “Jesus, Rosemary.” He didn’t sound angry. Just—exasperated.

“I didn’t know we were coming here tonight. If I had, I’d—” I wasn’t sure why I was explaining this to him.

“Leo Glass?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Leo Glass?”

“I should have told you,” I said in a hushed voice.

The couple near the men’s restroom were looking at us now. Anyone could walk by and see us arguing out here. Leo could see us. He was probably watching us right now.

“He’s your boyfriend? That’s the guy—”

“Keep your voice down.” My eyes darted around again. The couple across the hall weren’t looking at us anymore, but they weren’t engrossed in each other, either. The woman who had entered the restroom came back out. I waited until she was out of earshot before continuing. “We can’t talk here,” I said, my voice low and urgent. “He could be watching.”

Sam looked up and down the hallway. “Let him watch.”

I looked around, too, casting my eyes along the walls, up to the high, tiled ceiling. “With Glasseyes,” I whispered.

“So what?” Sam said. “We’re just talking.”

It didn’t make any sense. I couldn’t pin anything down. If I told him Leo asked me to wear a fancy dress and buy kitchen equipment with him at La Cuisine, if I said he carried Wendy up the stairs and stayed the night when he promised to never set foot in my apartment, if I told him I had locked myself inside for four days just because Leo said so—I would sound pathetic.

“He fired someone,” I blurted out. “All of a sudden, for no reason, replaced him with someone else.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think something might have happened to him,” I said, “to Alejandro.” I hadn’t thought that until the moment I said it, but now I wondered if it might be true. He just disappeared, with no warning, and someone who looked just like him popped up in his place. It was a message, I realized. Leo was trying to tell me something: I was replaceable. And he was probably watching me at that moment, while I stood in the hallway engaged in an intense conversation with Sam.

Sam placed his hands on my arms again, gently this time. He stared into my eyes, as if trying to divine the truth, a coded message. He probably thought I was a battered woman. I was acting like that, a little off-kilter. The reality was, Leo hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t even touched me—not since that one time—let alone abused me. He was harmless.

“Rosemary—”

“I’m fine, Sam. Truly. And Leo is a really nice guy. I—I should have told you it was him.”

He wasn’t buying this. I glanced over his shoulder across the hall. The other two musicians were straining to listen. Their conversation had stopped. They were leaning against the wall, their heads cocked toward us.

He lowered his voice so deep I had to strain to hear him. I leaned in toward his lips. “If you’re in trouble. If he’s hurting you—”

“I can take care of myself.”

Sam stepped back and folded his arms in front of him. He inspected me with narrowed eyes. “All right.” He frowned and nodded his head. “All right.”

I straightened up and stared back. The standoff lasted so long I began to worry that we would be here all night, frozen in our spots, neither of us backing down.

“I talked to your sister, by the way,” Sam said at last. “Like you asked.”

This surprised me. “When? She hasn’t been home since before the storm.”

“I messaged her. She says you have nothing to worry about. She has lost a little weight, but it’s because she’s gone vegan. She didn’t want to tell you.”

It took me a few moments to process this. Then I laughed. I laughed so loudly I could hear it bounce off the polished stone walls. “Vegan?” Sam looked confused. “No, I mean, this is great. I thought she was on drugs.” Leave it to a teenager to make a major dietary change without telling anyone. She probably had a protein deficiency. She was low on her B vitamins. I needed to get some vegan cookbooks. We could make nutritious meals together, coconut curries and black bean tacos. I’d fatten her up with guacamole and cashew cream. It would be easy.

“You still need to talk to her. She has a lot going on.”

“Thanks, Sam.” I grinned and clapped him on the shoulder, like he was an old pal, and I pretended to ignore the expression on his face. Once again I became aware of how this must look, the two of us standing in the hallway together. “Well, it was nice seeing you again, Sam,” I said in a normal—or possibly much louder than normal—voice. I straightened up and threw my shoulders back, and his hands fell down to his sides. I pivoted and walked away at a brisk pace, my heels click-clacking on the floors. The walk seemed interminable, my footsteps louder than gunshots.



Back in the main hall, I spotted Leo conversing with a short, round man in a tuxedo. I strode up to him purposefully. “Let’s go,” I said to Leo. Leo had given me a warning. A series of warnings: he was watching, and I was replaceable. At that moment, I didn’t know what I thought he was capable of, but I definitely thought he was capable of something. That if I didn’t do exactly what he wanted, exactly how he wanted, that harm would come to me somehow. That I’d disappear.