Meghan shook her head. “I wouldn’t even want to. It’s hard to explain, but now that I’ve met Thomas, I feel I have a purpose. I promised I’d help him cure his daughter. I used to dread going to sleep, now all of a sudden I can’t wait. I can’t stand the suspense.”
“What do you mean, you promised him?”
“I did promise. I told him I’d help him, through Derek. Don’t look at me as if I’m nuts, please—you’d understand totally if you could see how desperately, pitiably ill Daphne looks, lying on her bed. Her skin is grey in colour, and translucent, I swear. My biggest worry is that I’ve reached her too late, that I’ll sleep tonight and discover she’s passed away.” The thought of it made her eyes moisten. “I couldn’t bear it,” she said, fighting back tears.
“Girl, get a grip,” Jan said. “Whatever happens in that world, this is the one you live in. Concentrate on making this one work.”
“You do think I’m nuts.”
“Let’s just say I’m worried about you. How was your session with Anne? Was it any help? Did she have any insight?”
“No, not really. I’m seeing her again in a few days. She wants me to be her guinea pig.” She forced herself to smile. “I’ll be fine. I know what needs doing. I’ll go home and do it.”
21
In her upstairs studio Meghan arranged a scattering of new drawings, all of them variations on the same image: a woman in black lingerie pumps gas into a Mercedes, while her lover sits watching her from the driver’s seat, one black glove visible on the steering wheel. It was a scene straight out of the book, which she had forced herself to read, but had ended up skimming, mostly. Young urban women taking risks with strangers, that was pretty much the theme of it, and this scene, Meghan felt, captured both ends of the spectrum of possibilities—a girl could make herself vulnerable like that and be incredibly turned on, or just as easily the anticipated erotic jolt could fizzle into self-consciousness and public humiliation. Meghan looked at her sketch and knew she would need to fix it—the model would have to be leggier, more gamine-like, to bring out the vulnerability. She knew Debra would be expecting a minimum of three ideas, and this was only the first, but instead of setting herself to the task, she put the sketches aside, sat down at the computer, and Googled medieval medicine. While she scrolled down the choices, Betsy stuck her head in the door and said, “Are you finished?”
Meghan shook her head. “Uh-uh.”
“Then why are you on the computer?”
“I need to check something.”
“When can I use it?”
“When I’m finished.”
“Can I come in now?”
“Not yet.”
Meghan had banned Betsy from the studio for the afternoon—she didn’t think it appropriate for a ten-year-old to watch her sketch images of kinky women in erotically-charged situations. “I’m just taking a break for a minute, and then I’ll be back to work.”
“Why’s that woman putting gas in her car in her underwear?”
“This is exactly why I don’t want you in here—too much explaining.” Meghan got up to shut the door.
“What am I supposed to do?” Betsy whined.
“Watch TV. Read a book. Draw something.”
“I need my own computer.”
“I gave you an iPad , you lost it, remember?”
“I didn’t lose it, it was stolen.”
“You took it to school, you came home without it, that is all I know.”
“I left it in the cafeteria for like, not even five minutes.”
“Betsy. I’m closing this door.”
“I need another one. I’ll help pay for it, out of my allowance.”
Meghan shut the door.
BETSY WANDERED DOWNSTAIRS TO the kitchen, swung open the fridge door, and randomly scanned its contents, in hopes of finding something good, like chocolate pudding or cake. But there was nothing like that. In fact it scared her a little how empty the fridge was, another sign that her mother was losing it. From next door she heard a sound that she guessed must be Derek whacking a golf ball again, and went out to investigate.
The elaborate frame of plumbing pipes and netting he had so recently constructed was gone. From the deck she could see that he’d come up with a simpler strategy: his ball was now tethered to a six-foot-long elastic band attached to a spike in the ground. He set the ball between his feet and reared back for a swing, when Betsy called out in a singsong voice, “I can