Two Girls Down(113)

“Good,” said Cap. “We can go together.”

“And to a psychiatrist for this.”



She stepped back from him and held her arm and hand out straight. Her hand trembled, a miniature diving board.

“We can go together to that too,” said Cap.

They stood there for a while, with Nell leaning her head on his, Cap listening to the sound of her breathing. He let his eyes close and pictured a soft foamy tide rolling up on the sand. Sun, seagulls, the whole thing.

“Let’s go, Nell.”

He opened his eyes, and there was Jules in the doorway. He hadn’t seen her in a year or so, Nell traveling back and forth between them unaccompanied. She had let her hair grow long, Cap noticed, and was coloring it too, her natural deep brown almost black. He realized how much Nell looked more and more like her as she grew—the cheeks, the eyes, the dark, expressive eyebrows. Gorgeous elegant creatures, both of them. Brunette giraffes.

“Come on, Nell,” she said quietly. “Let’s go get some sleep.”

Nell pulled away from Cap and looked him in the eyes.

“Let’s try a week without physical injury, deal?” she said.

Cap smiled.

“Deal.”

He hugged her once more and kissed her hair. She walked toward her mother, and Jules came forward to say something to Cap.

She wore a long wool sweater, jeans and boots, and hadn’t slept, eyes heavy, arms tightly crossed in front of her as if to prop herself up.

“Are you okay?” she said.

She wasn’t looking at him, staring at his lap.

“Yeah, Jules, I’m fine.”

Now she looked at him and pursed her lips, trying not to cry. She stepped closer, up to his face.

“I’m so so pissed at you right now,” she whispered. “But I’m glad you’re okay.”

Then she kissed him on the forehead. It was so quick he wasn’t sure it had really happened afterward. He saw Nell grinning in the doorway.

“Let’s go, Professor,” she said to her mother.

Jules turned quickly and went to Nell.

“Text if you need anything, Dad,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Cap.



Then they were gone. Cap glanced at his phone, which was almost out of juice and overrun with texts and voice mails. He didn’t have nearly enough energy to navigate them, so he turned his phone off and leaned back on the pillows. He shut his eyes, and his mind sailed along in drugged exhaustion. Again with the small beach and the soft tide. He couldn’t recall ever seeing such a beach—maybe near his parents’ in Florida? Except that they had to be Gulf waves; the Atlantic would push you over if you got in past your knees. Still it would be nice to try that water—warm if not clear, lying on your back letting the salt push you up.

Then he had a feeling he wasn’t alone. He opened his eyes, and Vega was there now, at the foot of his bed, watching him.

“Are you really there?” he asked, genuinely unsure.

“I think so,” she said.

Cap sat up and forced himself to wiggle his big toes and make fists, all the old tricks he used to do on a long shift to keep himself awake.

“How’s your ear?” said Vega.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I mean, my career as an ear model is over, but my hearing’s fine.”

Vega nodded, the littlest squiggle of a smile on her lips.

“How are you?” he said.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m here to give you a ride.”

“That would be great, thanks,” he said.

Her hands were clasped in front of her, one wrapped around two fingers of the other, and it made her look very small and young to him suddenly. He felt like he could finally picture her as a kid. For the past week she had seemed to him one of those people who was born as a thirty-year-old.

“Then I have to get going,” she said. “Back to California. I have another job.”

“What? That’s it?” he said.

He felt short of breath, blood rushing out of his head.

“Traynor and the Feds are going to need us for postmortem, for paperwork,” he said quickly.

“I can do it all online,” she said.

“Have you told them that?”

“No,” she said. “They’re busy.”



“What about media?”

“I never do media.”

Cap swung his legs over the side of the bed and prepared to stand. He wiped his eyes.

“So that’s it?” he said again.

She stepped closer to him.

“I’ll be back soon,” she said. “Dena Macht’s father wants to press charges against me. So does this guy I hit in the face with a wrench the other day.”

“Then you can’t leave,” said Cap. “You’ll be a skip.”

Vega rolled her shoulders.

“I’m not worried about it. They can extradite me if they want. Or send me an invoice, whatever.”

Cap pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, the thousand and four things he wanted to say to her, foremost among them: Please don’t leave; let’s have dinner; could I just run two fingers along the line of your hip; we are bound together by what has happened here. Please don’t leave.