More Than You Know

[Nathaniel Grim]

Nathan slept through the stale chime of an alarm set on his phone that had been repeating the insipid little melody for more than ninety minutes. A notification of a missed call was stamped on one corner of the screen, and part of a text message was partially displayed under the time:

Theresa: You're not home & you're very...

Tangled with a bed sheet, a memory of several hours earlier floated back to him as a day dream.

"My album is releasing today..." she reminded him, touching his hair.

She had left the house. He knew her absence absolutely, like a phantom limb. Showering and getting dressed were routine tasks that he accomplished expediently without the distraction of interference or interfering.

It was not quite noon when a car arrived to ferry him back into the city. He almost stepped on the slip-covered magazine that lay waiting on the doorstep, a splash of red and platinum and skin and a glare of sunlight... The car waited patiently while he retreated into the church.

He intended on simply adding the magazine to a collection of mail as-yet unsorted, but it didn't quite happen that way. Instead, he pulled it out of its protective cellophane, staring at the still-glossy cover image of Millicent in a red dress. He studied her face, the make up, the dance of light and shadows on her features, the necklace... the dress.

Nathan was a devil of great detail, and the more of them that he collected, the more his expression darkened with a placid threat of greater, unseen disturbances.

Rifling through the remainder of the pages in a rapid perusal of recent history, he pulled his lips back from his teeth and wrinkled his nose in a silent, witness-less sneer. It was easy to slip the magazine back into its protective covering. It was even easier to fling it into the foyer, a flick of his wrist that sent it whirling round through the air like a peppermint paper disc, landing on the floor with a tiny smacking flap.

The sound of the inset front door that he left through, again, slamming shut behind him had nothing whatsoever to do with making sure that it had locked securely in his wake.

Inside the car, he gave the driver the address of a downtown building, and one other direction: "Turn the radio off." The fragrance of her soap was still on the shirt half buttoned-up his chest, and the perfume of her sex was still all over his jeans. He refused to be ambushed by the sound of her voice, or radio personality critiques and summaries of her latest musical offering.

[Nathaniel Grim]

"Why are you here?" Nathan called into the loft, lobbing his keys onto the kitchen island with a splash of metal on stone. He knew that Theresa was there both because of the message that she'd left on his mobile, and the gaping fact of the heavy door standing open to the elevator lobby.

"The same reason you're here, and it's my job," she answered him smoothly from half across the apartment, seated in a leather chair, a bright and warm square of sunlight falling through the glass wall around her.

Theresa was an effigy. She showed just enough knee in a pencil skirt to let an imagination wonder what followed beneath the fine pin-striping (he was sure that on some other Tuesday or Thursday, he'd caught a glimpse of black ink), a silk blouse that was reserved about the way it accentuated her breasts, and an intentional strand of beads scalloping her collar bones. A second or possibly third generation of immigrants, it was mostly the shape of her pale, wine-green eyes and the ink-slick sheen of her hair that betrayed her ancestry. The caramel undertone of her skin was too vague to pin down on a map.

Nathan stared at her with an unfettered curiosity, as well as an abject scorn that she earned today by virtue of her gender and the inconvenient coincidence of his current temper and her presence. From the distance of where he'd slung himself into a slouch on the sofa, he focused his laser-green stare on the strand of her necklace. On no other Tuesday or Thursday that he could recall in the years of their acquaintance had he ever wanted her to be more than just a facsimile of the woman she represented, but in that moment he wished it as hard as the white-knuckled fist resting passively beside his leg. "Why is it always the shit that gets fucked up that people want to go on about?"

"Because joy and happiness don't leave scars, they're just gone... and what even reminds us of them is the bitter-sweetness of their absence..." She withstood both the weight of his gaze and the terse tone of the conversation he stirred with an accustomed detachment, offering an insightful response after a mental tabulation of current events. Theresa was not a victim, she was a crash-test doll.

"I don't think... I don't believe that she misses me when we're apart."

"Who, Nathan?" Her patience for his brooding was diminishing quickly.

"Either of them. She's never coming back... She just has you here to leave a mark. Tuesdays and Thursdays, twice a week reminders... of what? That she cares, but not enough or not in a way that she said she did? That she said she would? It's my privilege to remember while she's off fucking or busying it out of her mind? You know it doesn't seem improbable that the only time she remembers me is when an accountant shows up to go over the figures."

Theresa had no immediate response, but she did frown a little. Defense of character and supposition of intent were not in her job description. Neither was she paid any more for participating in these nebulous diatribes. And then: "Would it make any difference if she did come back, Nathan? Where have you been the last few days?"

"No. No, it wouldn't make any difference. But it would... mean something. Something besides running away from me."

"Is that what you think they're doing? Maybe they've just been trying to protect you from themselves. Have you considered that?"

"That's stupid," he spat the response like an affronted child.

"You're being stupid -- no. I apologize. What you're being is fucking self-indulgent. Allow me an educated guess, Mister Grim. You're in a bad mood because your sister has released an album today, and it doesn't sound like you want it to? As an artist, you should know better. Do I need to point out the obvious any more than that? I really don't think so."

"What --" He began, but Theresa cut him off, sharp and clean.

"No. I'm not going to be a fill-in for either of these women, and if you want to find answers or advice, your therapy appointment is in an hour and a half." Theresa jerked her chin toward a plastic bag, containing a factory-mint syringe and a few gram-sized bags of equally fresh powder which were not remotely full, on the table beside the chair from which she rose. The sound of her heels clicking away on his concrete floors was a prelude of her departure and a distinct punctuation on the end of the conversation. "...And Nathan? I do hope that you find other ways to have a good day."

[Nathaniel Grim]

[place holder for another conversation]

[Nathaniel Grim]

(Laurent as played by Millicent's writer)

Laurent: "Where are you?"
Nathan: "Laying on a grave like a loser."
"...is that figurative, or...?"
"I don't know. I guess I should get up. I'm sorry you had to be... I'm sorry that I had to call you."
"What is there to be sorry about? You had flesh problems. You called -- me. Mon spécialité. You go to a dentist, right?"
"I shouldn't have had to call you. It shouldn't have happened in the first place. Thank you... for doing things that I couldn't do. Is she okay?"

There was quiet for a little while as Laurent considered the pieces of the puzzle he had walked in on.

"Mm. I... sedated her. ...She'll be fine. Health-wise. Do I ask?"
"A lot of misunderstandings and too many feelings, and then she picked up a pen and did that... and then I did it too. And everything means something and sometimes that's too much. Can we take her to my apartment? Do you think that's a good idea or do I have to stay here?"
"That's... probably a very good idea. ...But perhaps I should also send someone to watch her? Especially while you sleep?"
"I don't know why you do this shit, but yes, and thank you. I'll get up in a few more minutes."
"...à votre plaisir. I'll have them meet us there. Where is 'there' again? And Nathan, it's nothing. You are our wards. Commitment may be something of the olden days, I am old."
"Having someone take care of you when you can't take care of yourself isn't nothing. I know that I'm comparatively like four, but it's... I just need a minute. The address..." Nathan recited the street number and name of the building downtown, obviously trying to squirm off the line with a sliver of dignity or perhaps pride.
"I am not taking care of you. How do you think you were going to get into that room? I practically needed... tools."
"Okay. Tell me about that another day. I can't... any more, here, right now."
"The car is about ten minutes away. Jusque là"