The Elizas: A Novel(44)

He shades his eyes and squints all ten feet to where I am behind the register. “Eliza. It is you.”

He sidesteps a few open boxes and approaches me. There’s a big smile on his face, though it fades to disappointment when he sees my expression. “How did you know I work here?” I demand.

“I looked you up online. There was a picture of a cat skeleton on your Twitter, and your location finder was on, so it was easy for me to pinpoint where you were.” He grinned triumphantly.

My heart is thrumming in my ears. Location finder? What if Leonidas is stalking my Twitter, too? “You should have just called me. I’ve been sending you texts all week.”

“Ah, but calling you lacked the mystery. I wanted to find you.” Then Desmond glances around the room. There’s a strong odor of charred hair. Wind-up teeth chatter on a shelf.

“This place is magnificent,” he decides. He spins on his heel and surveys the other side of the room. “There’s a convention for people who like Ouija boards?” He points to a flyer next to some antique wigs.

“In Baltimore,” I say sulkily. “It’s Ouija’s birthplace.”

He looks at me excitedly. “I’ll go if you go!”

I give him a sour frown. “No, thank you.”

He points at a metal tool that looks like an oversized corkscrew. It’s nestled in a rosewood box and is on sale for $930. “A trephine,” he says, with adulation.

I chuckle despite myself. I can’t help but be impressed. “You are one of the few people who actually know what it’s called.”

“These are fascinating. Physicians thought that if they drilled holes in the skulls of patients who had brain disorders, they’d let out the bad spirits.”

“I know that.”

“One of my favorite paintings is by Hieronymus Bosch of a guy laying on a chair and a doctor drilling into his head.”

“I have a print of that, if you’re interested,” I grab a binder underneath the counter of laminated images we can order as posters. When I find the Bosch, Desmond taps the page with his pinkie finger. He’s wearing a signet ring. “He looks like the Tin Man,” he says, pointing to the doctor with the drill. There’s a metal funnel on his head.

“Art experts say that’s his hint that he’s a quack,” I say, enjoying showing off the only thing I can remember from the one art history class I took my first semester of college.

“Well of course he’s a quack. He’s drilling into the guy’s head. Who wants to do that?”

I shut the binder. “Why are you here? Did the police get in touch with you finally?”

Desmond pauses. “Well, no. I haven’t heard a thing. I just wanted to see how you were doing, my fairest.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

All at once, I flash back on my humiliating lunge toward him the day he came to my house. What had possessed me to do such a thing? It’s kind of a relief that he’s shown up today. I’d conjured that absinthe-with-Paul, holy-shit-you-won’t-believe-what-this-weird-girl-did-to-me scene in my mind too many times over the past several days.

I fold my hands and try to look proper and sober, though it’s difficult when surrounded by stuffed parrots in antique birdcages and a huge sign over my head that reads Just in! Whale Penises!

“I’m hanging in there,” I admit, though I sound so miserable it can hardly be accepted as the truth.

Desmond’s brow furrows. Then his voice drops an octave, as though he doesn’t want the taxidermy animals to overhear. “So I might as well get to my point and let you go on with your work. Would you like to partake in a beverage with me sometime?”

I stare at him. “Do you mean go out for a drink?”

“In layman’s terms, exactly.”

A date. I’m unequipped for one of those; I feel I’ve never really gone on one. Then again, I must have: there was Leonidas. If only I remembered what sorts of dates we went on.

Desmond leans his elbows on the counter. “I’ll take you anywhere you want. I’ll do whatever.” He smiles kinkily, which is not unattractive, exactly.

“I’m kind of busy,” I say automatically.

“Are you sure? You can’t even spare time for an aperitif?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“What about coffee? Even for ten minutes. Whenever you’re done with work today.” He tilts his head, and his woolly eyebrows hood over his lashes. “We parted so inelegantly last time. And far too abruptly for my liking.”

Maybe he had wanted to have sex with me; maybe he’d spent the last four days ruing how he’d chickened out. I fiddle with a rabbit’s foot Steadman keeps next to one of the brass register keys. The thing is, I am awfully lonely. I crave sex, but I can get sex. It’s closeness that’s more elusive. Sometimes, I get the urge to walk through a parking lot next to someone. To hold someone’s hand. To have someone make me a sandwich or place a washcloth on my head when I’m sick. I don’t know if that person is Desmond—I still can’t quite imagine kissing him without bursting out laughing—but a little companionship would be nice.

Then I think of Leonidas again. I have that to figure out, and I’ve decided on what I’m going to do. “Uh, there’s something I need to take care of after work.”