Kate lets out a controlled breath. “To him, yes.”
“Does he intimidate you?”
She smiles despite herself, the curiosity in Helena’s voice so… fact-finding. At another time, Kate could have been a future character, an insecure woman in a yet-to-be-written novel. “Yes,” she admits. “He’s a very big name in our industry.”
“And you aren’t?” Again, such genuine innocence in her question. As if she doesn’t realize how pathetic it is for an agent to have only one successful client.
Her lips tighten, the only crack she fails to contain. “No.”
The answer doesn’t faze Helena, her focus returning to herself, as it always has. “How long will it take for him to call you back?”
“I have no idea.”
Helena checks her watch, a Beauty & The Beast timepiece with a chunky pink strap, fastened on the farthest hole. “I took a sleeping pill just before you came. If you don’t mind, I’m going to lay down for a couple of hours.”
“I have work to do,” Kate offers. “If you don’t mind, I’ll bring in my laptop and work in here.”
Helena’s eyes move to the kitchen table, and then back to her face, as if she is considering the alternative scenario—sending Kate away, out to her car or worse, back to the city. “That’s fine,” she says slowly. “I’ll be on the couch.”
When she rises from the table, it is with sluggish effort, and Kate fights the urge to offer assistance, staying in place as Helena slowly trudges through the kitchen and into the great room, all but falling onto the couch and pulling a blanket over her body. “Wake me up in two hours,” she mumbles. “Please.”
Please? Had Helena ever used that word before? It’s so strange to see this version of her, one so different than the woman she’s experienced through emails and weekly phone calls. Seven years ago, the last time they’d met—a half-hour in Kate’s office—her body had been comfortably fleshed out, her dry humor sharp, her directions given with an edge of superiority. She’s always been private, never sharing details of her life, Kate’s imagination left to its own devices, painting a life of color and wealth, family and dogs, evenings spent reading by a crackling fire, a chubby baby crawling before her on a plush rug. She’d always attributed Helena’s irritability and strict communications to Kate’s own ineptitude. Surely she wasn’t like that with everyone, surely she…
Now, Helena silent on the couch, her gaunt figure swallowed by the blanket, the house eerily quiet, she realized the bitter truth of the matter. Maybe she doesn’t have anyone else to be irritable with. Maybe, she doesn’t have anyone at all.
A hunt for a phone charger brings Kate to the second floor of Helena Ross’s home. She hits a switch, light flooding an empty bedroom and revealing stark white walls, pine floors and a slow moving ceiling fan. She flips off the light and steps farther down the hall, the sound of her steps ominous in the deserted house, the perfect prologue to any horror film.
The next room, another bedroom, also white, also empty. She moves on, the next door locked. It is eerie, all of the empty bedrooms. Why would Helena buy this huge house if she doesn’t use the space? It doesn’t make sense to waste all of these rooms, not when she has the money to fill each one with beautiful art and furniture, thick rugs and crystal chandeliers. Kate puts her ear against the locked door, wondering if it’s bedroom or closet.
Downstairs had been a vacant showroom, the living room outfitted with just a couch and TV, the kitchen with only a table and two chairs. Every other room—the dining room, formal living room, foyer, and bedroom—all empty. Upstairs, the master bedroom had been the only room so far with any furniture. The king bed had been carefully made, and she’d resisted an urge to fluff the pillows or pull back the covers, her pause at the window long, the curtains left untouched. Maybe she could pick up some flowers at a local florist, something to put on her bedside table and give the room some color.
Or not. Helena’s patience with Kate has to be wearing thin. Given different circumstances, she’d have already been asked to leave. Helena, most likely out of pure convenience, hasn’t taken that path yet.
The door at the end of the hall is closed, and she stops before it, a piece of paper taped to its surface, one of Helena Ross’s famous lists.
Only this list is different. Handwritten in colored pencil, the letters are big and loopy. This list closes a fist around her heart and squeezes.
The Rules of Bethany’s Room
1. No boys.
2. Take off shoes.
3. If Music plays, you dance.
4. No touching my art.
5. No spankings.
6. Bring cookies.
7. Don’t turn out the lights.
Sometimes, it only takes an instant to understand a person.
The feel of loss in the air… it isn’t imagined. The life her mind had painted… at some point, it had been real. At some point, it had created this list-making child, one who hated spankings and loved cookies. Kate looks at the list and knows, without reaching for the handle, there is no one in the room. She gives herself a long moment to prepare, then twists the knob and pushes open the door.
Pale green walls, the shade of Eva’s in Forced Love. A bed hangs from the ceiling by gold and pink ropes, the coverlet an organized mountain of pillows and stuffed animals. By a window sits a desk, the surface covered with drawings, pencils carefully lined up and organized by color. The right side of the room is a half-completed mural, supplies nearby, a forgotten doll on the floor.
The most heartbreaking piece is in the middle of the floor, a sleeping bag unrolled on the rug, the fabric rumpled and open, the pillow indented. So different from the stiff, unused bed in the master bedroom. This one reeks of frequent use, of sleepless nights and tears. Kate’s throat becomes thick and she blinks, turning to leave the room before she loses all composure.
She doesn’t look through any more of the home.
After that, she can’t.
My house smells of bleach, the downstairs gone over by Kate, clad in surgical gloves and armed with a spray bottle and paper towels. She probably would have been a good roommate, one who understood my need for refrigerator conformity and organizational rules. Simon had always scoffed at my concerns, just as he did over my immunization research and the alarming air quality index in Brooklyn. My research, the fat envelope wrapped with three rubber bands, bulging with terrifying statistics, was why we moved to New London, three hours up the coast, a small town with an acceptable crime rate and clean air. I had grown up here, and embraced the idea of returning, my memories of the sleepy town filled with library visits and quiet afternoons reading in the backyard hammock. My mother had also jumped on board, buying a home a couple of miles away, her offers to babysit met with delight by Simon, and trepidation by me.
I watch Kate as she cleans the front of my laptop, paying careful attention to the keyboard, a bleach wipe coating the surface of the letters. When she finishes, she carefully turns it toward me, almost reverently, moving it to the exact middle of the kitchen table. A timer on her watch chimes and she smoothly turns, reaching for the cabinet and pulling out a bottle of pills, twisting off the lid and shaking out one. She holds it out to me.
“Ever thought of being a nurse?” I say wryly, reaching gingerly forward and taking the medicine, half-irritated, half-grateful. Maybe taking my meds as prescribed, on time and with food, would help my symptoms. I already feel better, revived after my nap, my headache down to a barely-noticeable ache.
“Don’t laugh,” Kate says, “but I did.”
“Really?” I reach forward and press the laptop’s power button, turning it on.
“Yep.” Her snappy response makes me smile. Earlier, while she left Marka’s agent another voicemail, I flipped through television channels and asked what she liked to watch, a question that was met with a recitation of Rule 4, in which—one grouchy day years ago—I stated that she must never share personal details of her life with me. It had seemed a reasonable request at the time, one designed to enhance my productivity. Now, it just seems bitchy. Recently, all my rules seem bitchy. And super controlling, which sucks, since that was Simon’s most popular complaint, one I’d always dismissed without consideration.