be some kind of steady relationship, but that made no sense. And Roman kept talking.
“Or, like, I had been, and then he was—like, he felt kind of suffocated, I guess. He was trying to get rid of me, or I thought he was. He wanted me to be with you, and I didn’t even really want it. Not that I’m not attracted to you, just—I don’t know. But then after that first time in Wisconsin, he knew, and all of a sudden he was so jealous. He wanted me to quit.”
Yale tried to understand who this boyfriend was who knew about Yale, who knew about Wisconsin, and then he got it, he got it.
Roman said, “If you’re mad because he fired you or whatever, I mean, I’m mad, too, but it’s not about us. I mean, really you quit, right? He likes you! He was seriously bummed when you left. Look, did he tell you to do it?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Since we’re already talking. I’ve always wondered, and it won’t hurt my feelings. Did he tell you to come on to me, that first time? It’s so weird, he wanted to push me away, and then ever since it happened, he got possessive as hell. He’s still—I don’t know. Do you think I should leave him?”
Yale had too much to work out, and the sun was too hot, and his stomach was too empty, and what he needed to do was go home and find his fucking pocket calendar, go through the whole hellish calculus again. And it should be easier this time, he should feel stronger, knowing he’d already dodged a bullet, but it wouldn’t be, because this didn’t feel like a bullet but a cannonball.
Roman was still looking at him, earnestly waiting for advice. He’d been nothing but honest, it was true. Whatever Yale had projected onto him was his own fault.
Yale said, “Yes, you should leave him. For fuck’s sake. He’s married to a woman, and he smells like mothballs. I need to know if you’ve been tested.”
“What, like the—oh. That. I don’t know, I keep reading all these things about how it’s not really accurate. And also, like, I don’t do that kind of stuff.”
“I’m sorry, what kind of stuff?”
“You know, needles and fisting and alleys.”
“Needles and fisting and alleys?”
“You know what I mean.”
Yale turned from him without saying goodbye, and he didn’t go back to Teddy either. He headed south through the park instead of north, even though he should walk straight to Dr. Cheng’s office. Well, no: It was Sunday, and it was Pride, and no one would be there.
He walked along the harbor and then the lagoon, and he wandered back up through the zoo, and he ended up in the conservatory. He hadn’t been inside in ages: a glass bubble of tropical plants, the only sound the waterfalls, the only light the filtered sun.
He walked back to the third room, the quietest, the emptiest, and he sat down right in the middle of the floor.
2015
Fiona didn’t sleep at all, but she waited till morning. When Richard was in the shower and couldn’t stop her, she stepped outside onto the eerily quiet streets. The movie production had halted; the vans remained in place, the blockades stacked against the buildings. On nearly every corner stood paratroopers with red berets and machine guns, as if some child had spilled a tub of army toys all over Paris. She was surprised to find a cab. The driver might have been Somali or Ethiopian. He didn’t talk. He took her to the address she gave for Claire’s bar, and when she saw the gate pulled over the entrance, the hand-lettered sign, she directed him straight back to where he’d found her.
* * *
—
Cecily’s plane had landed just after the attacks began, and she was at baggage claim when the news reached her. She’d managed to get through to Fiona at one in the morning, and by early afternoon she was in Richard’s flat, taking her shoes off in the doorway. Fiona hadn’t seen her in ten years, didn’t know which changes were exhaustion and which were age. Cecily did look like a grandmother. People in their seventies could be grandmothers. Fifty-one-year-olds should still be leading spin classes and staying out too late, in Fiona’s opinion.
“What happened to your hand?” Cecily asked, and Fiona said, “Stigmata.” Cecily didn’t laugh. Well, she’d never had much of a sense of humor.
Fiona got her some tea, told her about her meeting with Claire,