with me, press them into my pockets and bury them in my hair, hold them in my fist as I fly.
M
SERIES 1, Correspondence
BOX 1, Personal correspondence
FOLDER: Brand, Jake (Downtown Studios notes)
* * *
Miranda Planchart
Mailbox 19
September 2 1981
Miranda:
Will you marry me?
Check one.
__ Yes
__ No
Jake Brand
Mailbox 4
September 3 1981
Jake—
Depends. Are you OK with being a dad in about six months?
Check one.
__ Yes
__ No
5.
KATE
“So romantic,” Natasha said. “You can actually see them falling in love, on paper. That never happens anymore.”
It was Sunday morning and they were FaceTiming. Natasha was stretched out on the sofa in Liam’s apartment, and Kate was lying on her bed in Frank and Louise’s spare room, Olive dozing beside her. Kate had propped the phone up against the dog’s ribs, which meant the screen swayed gently forward and back with Olive’s every exhalation. Kate was updating Natasha on work, but Natasha had passed right over the Theo and Kid drama and latched on to some of the early letters Kate had found between Jake and Miranda.
“I’m sure you could go back and find your and Liam’s first Tinder conversation,” Kate said.
Natasha made a face. “It would probably make me fall out of love with him. ‘U up?’”
Olive let out a snuffling snore, and the phone toppled over. Kate righted it and said, “What about the Kid guy?”
“Didn’t you say he was old? He probably doesn’t even know what Tinder is.”
“No, I mean what do you think about how he acted?”
“Um,” Natasha said, “I think he sounds like a grouchy old man. And Wormshaw sounds like a fake last name.”
“Louise says he’s been here since the seventies, and his property is probably worth three million now. But instead of selling it, he’s working as a clerk in a magic store.”
Natasha rolled over and hung off the sofa, taking the phone with her so that she looked upright in the frame, but the beads on her braids clicked against the floor. “So he has an emotional attachment to his house. Very suspicious.”
“I just think his reaction plus the Theo thing is bizarre.” Kate propped her chin on her hand. “I want to go up to the Brands’ attic. See what’s up there.”
“What? No.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because your boss told you not to.”
“I want to know what he’s hiding.”
“He’s probably not hiding anything. He’s probably just really private.”
“He’s definitely really private. But there’s more than that. His tone was … way too much. Scary.”
A pause, as if the connection had frozen. Then the screen became a blur of movement as Natasha sat up.
“What do you mean, scary?”
Lawyer voice. Kate immediately realized her mistake. If they had been talking in person, she would have turned away for a second to regroup. What was the digital equivalent? Faking a dropped connection? Too obvious, and too late. Natasha had shifted into concerned mode, ready to test Kate’s every word for signs of untruthfulness.
“Not scary scary.” Kate felt herself slowing down, checking her answers before she said them aloud. “I was exaggerating.”
“Are you saying you feel like you’re in danger?”
“No. I’m talking about what happened a long time ago. To Miranda.”
“You really think your boss shot his mom?”
“No. I don’t know.” She needed to downplay it. “Anyway, he was eleven.”
“Eleven is old enough.”
“Old enough for what? Killing her, or hiding it?”
“Both, I guess,” Natasha said.
Kate had wanted to talk about the Brands, but not like this, with every question underlaid with concern about her well-being. Hoping to distract Natasha, she slid Miranda’s catalog out from under Olive’s prone body and began flipping through the pages. “Well, maybe. It’s one possible explanation.”
“What else is going on?” Natasha pressed. “The town, what’s it like?”
“Quiet. Pretty. No subway delays. I already told you the interesting stuff.”
“A whole town and there’s nothing else interesting?”
“They host a fly fishing tournament in the spring.”
Before Natasha could ask anything else, there was the sound of a door closing in the background, and a voice calling out. Natasha raised her hand to wave at someone off-screen. “That’s Liam. I should probably go—we’re supposed to meet up with Andrew and Susanna for lunch.”
“Wait! How are you? How’s work?”
“Work?” Natasha squinted at the phone. Only one of her eyes was visible now. “Work sucks, as usual.”
“You said they were going to announce the senior partners this week.”
“Yeah, and nothing for me. Of course.” Natasha exhaled. “I have to find a new job. But I don’t know when I’m supposed to look. It’s the weekend and I’ve been working since six a.m. on a stupid deliverable that