and the attendant curse of never really being free at all. He was always working on the book in some corner of his mind. On that score he envied Charlotte, who kept her pager on but could at least physically walk away from her patients.
At eight twenty he pulled out his cell phone to call her, but at nearly the same moment she put her arms around his shoulders and said, “We have a table,” and his book and his looming deadline were temporarily forgotten when he pulled her arms tighter, letting himself remember her face before he turned to look at her.
The place was crowded now. By the time they sat down, the heat of so many bodies had penetrated his light wool jacket, her raincoat. Charlotte pulled off the gloves she wore until Seattle’s summer fully arrived in July; her hands were small, perhaps her only delicate physical trait, and perpetually cold. She laid the gloves in the middle of the table and Eric idly picked one up—black leather, lined with fine white rabbit fur. She had been wearing them, or some like them, on their second chance meeting at a friend of a friend’s birthday party. She had dropped one and he’d picked it up, mindlessly brushing the downy fur inside the cuff across his lip, and been almost startled by the intimate smell of her perfume. He still remembered feeling a rush of embarrassment as if some private part of Charlotte had been ex posed to him. The next day he had detoured through the cosmetics area at Nordstrom pretending he was buying perfume for a girlfriend, disturbed that the confusion of samples left him unable to remember Charlotte’s exact scent, which had stayed so pure in his mind all night.
The restaurant was lit with sconces and a few chandeliers that gave off a soft yellow light. Charlotte studied the menu. “I want a beer,” she said declaratively.
“You never drink beer.”
“I know. Advise me.”
“Hefeweizen. Try the Blue Moon.”
She scanned the menu for no more than a minute. “Let’s split. Whatever you want. Lily Allen is coming to the Paramount next month. Should I get tickets?”
“Sure,” he answered. He ordered crab cakes and slaw, caught Charlotte’s brow furrowing, and asked if she wanted something else.
“What?”
“You’re frowning. No crab?”
“I wasn’t listening. Crab is fine. But honestly I’d rather have a bacon cheeseburger. How’s the book coming?”
He shrugged, reluctant to detail how stymied he felt in this final draft, especially when she seemed so distracted. “Stalled.”
“Still worried about controversy? What’s the worst that could happen?” she asked.
“The Chinese mafia could gun me down on the streets of Seattle. That sort of thing.”
Charlotte looked up, fully focused on the conversation now. “Seriously?”
Eric was tempted to say yes, just to hold her attention. More and more lately it seemed like her mind was elsewhere. Her patients absorbed her, he knew, particularly when she had one in limbo, not clearly going to survive but not clearly hopeless—and Charlotte was always the last to abandon hope. Plus, her parents had announced they were moving out of the house where Charlotte was raised, which had stirred up a bit of turbulence in her whole family. Sometimes, though, he suspected it was the two of them, their own relationship, that had begun to turn, but every time he thought of some way to flat-out ask her, he wondered if the question alone could derail them. Were they that fragile? “No. They’ll probably just throw me into a cell in Mongolia for a few decades. You seem tired. Your new patient doing better?”
“She has a lot of worse to go before we hit better. If we ever hit better. The Times was there today.”
“So that was her? Hard to believe anyone will recognize her photo, though.”
“It’s already in the paper?”
Eric pulled the creased newspaper out of his laptop bag and put it on top of Charlotte’s empty salad plate. The photograph of Jane staring up at her was worse
At eight twenty he pulled out his cell phone to call her, but at nearly the same moment she put her arms around his shoulders and said, “We have a table,” and his book and his looming deadline were temporarily forgotten when he pulled her arms tighter, letting himself remember her face before he turned to look at her.
The place was crowded now. By the time they sat down, the heat of so many bodies had penetrated his light wool jacket, her raincoat. Charlotte pulled off the gloves she wore until Seattle’s summer fully arrived in July; her hands were small, perhaps her only delicate physical trait, and perpetually cold. She laid the gloves in the middle of the table and Eric idly picked one up—black leather, lined with fine white rabbit fur. She had been wearing them, or some like them, on their second chance meeting at a friend of a friend’s birthday party. She had dropped one and he’d picked it up, mindlessly brushing the downy fur inside the cuff across his lip, and been almost startled by the intimate smell of her perfume. He still remembered feeling a rush of embarrassment as if some private part of Charlotte had been ex posed to him. The next day he had detoured through the cosmetics area at Nordstrom pretending he was buying perfume for a girlfriend, disturbed that the confusion of samples left him unable to remember Charlotte’s exact scent, which had stayed so pure in his mind all night.
The restaurant was lit with sconces and a few chandeliers that gave off a soft yellow light. Charlotte studied the menu. “I want a beer,” she said declaratively.
“You never drink beer.”
“I know. Advise me.”
“Hefeweizen. Try the Blue Moon.”
She scanned the menu for no more than a minute. “Let’s split. Whatever you want. Lily Allen is coming to the Paramount next month. Should I get tickets?”
“Sure,” he answered. He ordered crab cakes and slaw, caught Charlotte’s brow furrowing, and asked if she wanted something else.
“What?”
“You’re frowning. No crab?”
“I wasn’t listening. Crab is fine. But honestly I’d rather have a bacon cheeseburger. How’s the book coming?”
He shrugged, reluctant to detail how stymied he felt in this final draft, especially when she seemed so distracted. “Stalled.”
“Still worried about controversy? What’s the worst that could happen?” she asked.
“The Chinese mafia could gun me down on the streets of Seattle. That sort of thing.”
Charlotte looked up, fully focused on the conversation now. “Seriously?”
Eric was tempted to say yes, just to hold her attention. More and more lately it seemed like her mind was elsewhere. Her patients absorbed her, he knew, particularly when she had one in limbo, not clearly going to survive but not clearly hopeless—and Charlotte was always the last to abandon hope. Plus, her parents had announced they were moving out of the house where Charlotte was raised, which had stirred up a bit of turbulence in her whole family. Sometimes, though, he suspected it was the two of them, their own relationship, that had begun to turn, but every time he thought of some way to flat-out ask her, he wondered if the question alone could derail them. Were they that fragile? “No. They’ll probably just throw me into a cell in Mongolia for a few decades. You seem tired. Your new patient doing better?”
“She has a lot of worse to go before we hit better. If we ever hit better. The Times was there today.”
“So that was her? Hard to believe anyone will recognize her photo, though.”
“It’s already in the paper?”
Eric pulled the creased newspaper out of his laptop bag and put it on top of Charlotte’s empty salad plate. The photograph of Jane staring up at her was worse
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