The Photographer, Mary Carter [the best novels to read .TXT] 📗

he checked his watch. “Do you want to have a drink with me?” His breath escaped from his mouth in a misty cloud.

This was what I’d been hoping for. I took his gloved hand in mine, looked him in the eye, and nodded. Behind him was a group of rowdy teenagers. One of the heavier girls was holding a lamppost and pretending to do a striptease, with one knee hooked around the pole.

“At my apartment, I meant to say.”

“I know,” I said.

The teenagers laughed at the pretend striptease. They chanted: “Donna! Donna!”

“I haven’t been on too many dates recently,” Ian said shyly. “I forget the protocol.”

I pressed my fingers into his palm.

We crossed the street and passed a group of loud tourists, maps in hand, young women with bare shoulders and cleavages exposed in spite of the mid-March frost. Even before I moved to New York, when I’d visited for a weekend, I despised the tourists, though I myself was one. I could see how different we were from real New Yorkers. Less sophisticated, less educated, less everything. Even then, I wanted people to believe that I lived here. I understood how important it was to fit in. Emily Miller had been helpful in that respect. She’d grown up with money and understood the landscape. When I was working on her weddings, I watched her. I listened to her. She’d pretend to let her hair down, but she was performing the entire time—not unlike Amelia Straub. A consummate professional, Emily never said or did anything by accident.

Ian’s one-bedroom apartment, on the second floor of a prewar walk-up, appeared to have been renovated recently, and the masculine furniture was in good taste relative to his fashion sense. The black frames of the enormous uncovered windows contrasted with the crisp white walls, as did the polished dark wood on the back of his white bookshelves. The surfaces were bare, except for a few carefully selected items, probably purchased on his travels, like a Balinese wooden sculpture.

Ian disappeared into his kitchen and returned with two glasses of red wine, which he placed on the coffee table in front of the sofa. I took several sips, deposited my wine on the table, and turned to him. I saw no point in wasting time. I leaned in toward him and we kissed. He smelled like aftershave and garlic. My hand on his crotch. Then my legs around his waist. We crossed to his bed, and then I allowed him to take the lead.

I let him undress me and then we screwed. I enjoyed having sex with Ian and liked the fact that he was smitten with me. But if I were to measure the gravitational pull that I felt toward the Straubs versus Ian, there was no comparison.

After, I suggested another glass of wine. Sex and wine were both helpful in getting the information I needed. Ian pulled his boxers on. He left the room and returned with the half-empty bottle of red wine and our two glasses. He poured us each a glass. I pulled the sheet up over my chest, and positioned two pillows behind me so that I could sit up in bed and drink.

Ian ran his fingers through my hair. “God, you’re beautiful, Delta.”

I looked down, as though embarrassed by the compliment.

“Each time I see you, you’re more beautiful.” He laughed. “I don’t know exactly how that works.”

I looked into Ian’s eyes and saw a generosity of spirit and kindness. But I also saw mediocrity. I didn’t see someone who planned to succeed at the highest level. I saw someone who was content to lead an average life.

“Maybe because I’m trying to impress you,” I said.

Under the sheet, Ian placed a warm hand on my thigh. I kissed his neck.

When finished with my wine, I climbed on top of him and rested my head next to his on his pillow. “Is it OK with you if I spend the night?”

Ian looked more relaxed than he had several hours earlier, with far less tension in his face. “I wouldn’t let you go home now. It’s two in the morning.”

“I want to be close to you,” I whispered in his ear.

He wrapped his arms tightly around my body.

I pushed my pelvis up against his, just to keep his mind whirling and defenses down. “I can’t stop thinking about Amelia and Fritz. I’m worried about them.”

He kissed my cheek. “I think they’re doing pretty well.”

“Yes?”

“I spoke to Fritz yesterday,” he said.

“And?”

“It looks like that baby … the baby they want to adopt…” He traced his finger over the outline of my mouth.

“Yes?”

“It’s going to happen. He said it’s going to happen.”

I focused on my breath, low in my body. Shallow, high breathing leads to anxiety and vice versa. “Wow. Is he happy?”

“Maybe,” he said.

“But he’s going along with it?”

“He thinks it’s too late to turn back because Amelia’s frantic. He thinks that she’d lose her mind if he stopped her.”

I rolled off Ian and lay next to him, my head on his shoulder, until he fell asleep. I looked at his digital clock periodically throughout the night, almost every hour, and counted the minutes until I could go home. Ian slept soundly.

The next day, I had a genuine excuse to leave—an early-morning job shooting newborn twins. He insisted on making me a cappuccino with his shiny red Nespresso machine. Before I left, we confirmed our date for the following week. I couldn’t risk losing momentum.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was the week of March 21. I had a sinking sensation every morning when I woke up and looked at my phone. I was hoping for a message from Amelia, but received none. It was almost two weeks since I’d seen the Straubs. I feared that I’d lost my place in their life. I’d had a growing conviction that Amelia was attached to me. And then there was the shattering episode with Lucia, and the fear that she was going to replace me.

I gathered that I’d handled