The Cloisters(68)

When I rounded the corner, I saw them: Leo’s hands stuffed in his pockets, Rachel’s arms crossed, their bodies pushing away from each other despite their proximity. I was too far away to hear what they were saying, but I could tell from their faces, from the strain with which the words came out of their mouths, that they were arguing. About what, I couldn’t be sure.

And for a minute, I stood there, framed in the Gothic arch, my hands holding on to either side of the jamb, watching them. The wind pressed my dress against the back of my legs, and perhaps it was that flutter that caught their eye, because just then, they turned to see me standing there. Leo didn’t even offer a nod of acknowledgment, but just stalked back into the garden shed.

“What was all that about?” I asked when Rachel joined me.

“Nothing,” she said. “We were just talking about the investigation. I didn’t want to talk anywhere Moira might be able to hear us.”

I noticed that Rachel was still carrying her bag, the one she usually dropped, first thing, in the library.

“Where have you been?” she said.

I waved a hand. “Oh, I met a friend from Whitman for coffee.”

“Laure?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And Leo last night?”

“I figured it was better than coming in late and turning on all the lights.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“It gets lonely without you there.” Rachel turned and looked at me while we walked, her eyes scanning my face.

“Well, I don’t think Leo really wants me staying over that much,” I said.

“Don’t do that. Don’t belittle yourself. He’d be lucky to have you there every night.”

The way she said it made me feel both warm and uncomfortable, but I simply said, “Thanks.”

“You know,” she said, holding the door of the library open for me, “Leo is fun, but he can also be a real shit. Be aware of that fact.”

I nodded. I thought I already was.

“And if you ever want to get coffee, you don’t have to go all the way downtown to meet Laure. We could meet her on our way up here, or she could come to the apartment. I only know her a little bit—”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t think we’re going to be seeing much more of each other.”

At this Rachel smiled. “Well, the offer stands.”

Back in the library, Rachel pulled the box of cards out of her bag and set them on the table.

“I’m just going to do a quick spread,” I said, reaching for the cards. There was something about the readings that settled my nerves and gave me clarity. As if, in the moments when it was darkest, when I couldn’t see the landscape around me, the cards could guide me.

Rachel pushed them in my direction, and I fanned them out, pulling three. The first showed a woman pouring water from an urn into a catch basin. We had associated the card with temperance, one of Aristotle’s twelve virtues, because the composition focused on balance and harmony. After the temperance card, I pulled a Two of Swords and the Queen of Cups, a figure of intuition.

I had asked the cards about Rachel, and it seemed to me that every time I did, a darkness found her in the readings. Even if it was at the periphery—a single card or an inverted one. My readings were increasingly haunted by something I still wasn’t fully able to grasp. And there was something there about me as well, even though I had asked them about Rachel.

When I looked up from the spread, Rachel was watching me.

“What does it say?”

“Something different for everyone,” I said, rapping my knuckle against the heavy oak of the table to break the spell.

But I committed the spread to memory, the flaking paint and flecks of gold leaf lingering on my eyelids. The duality of the two, the patience and symmetry of temperance, the intuition I needed to trust but that only ever found me in unpredictable ways.





CHAPTER TWENTY


Leo’s apartment had none of the clear light of Rachel’s on the Upper West Side. His world was always filtered by the indirect sun that slipped past thin curtains and the haze of cigarette and weed smoke, an array of dirty jeans and work boots littering the floor, the slightly bitter smell of cheap coffee that had burned on the hot plate long before I got up. And that morning, the heat of the day had already begun to seep through the cracks in the windows and the walls. I moved my body away from his roommate’s cat, who slept at the end of the bed; even that small amount of warmth too much to handle.

It was Saturday, so I called into the kitchen as I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and tied the waistband. “Can we go to the High Line?”

The last time I slept over, Leo had told me I should leave a few things, and so I had brought a bag of items to stash at the back of his closet.

“No.” He was sitting on the couch in a puddle of sunlight. “Real New Yorkers don’t go to the High Line.”

“That can’t be true.”

“It is. I’m a New Yorker. I can confirm it.” He was reading an interview with Tracy Letts that had been published the month before.

“It can be fun to do touristy things,” I persisted.

Leo said nothing, just sipped his mug of coffee.

I decided I would take it up again once we were out for the afternoon and maybe after a few beers at lunch; in the meantime, I changed the subject.