My manuscript, my story—and now I knew that it was indeed my story—was my truth broadcast to the world. It was my voice.
But now that, too, was gone.
THE NEXT MORNING CAME upon me in a panic. I dressed in the same clothes I had worn the day before, hurried to my computer, and slammed my fist down on the keyboard when my calendar yielded, as I knew it would, nothing.
Outside on the street I turned away from Massachusetts Avenue and walked toward Saint Mary’s. But I wasn’t going to Saint Mary’s. I stopped half a block shy of the cathedral, in front of the diminutive Gospel Room, a converted house that could not hold more than fifty people, if that. I stood there for a long moment before opening the tiny chain-link front gate and trying the door.
Locked.
Why were houses of God always locked?
As I turned away, I caught sight of someone standing on the corner of Inman, watching me. It frightened me at first, and then I became indignant.
“
The figure, a man in a short jacket, just stood there.
“Is that you?” I asked it with a spark of I knew not what—hope, anger, desperation, recklessness. I started across the street, but the figure turned and sauntered away. Something about that posture—the man leaning against the post of the house! Could it be him? Willing the glowing spots from my vision, I started after him again, but when I gained the corner, he was gone.
I SCROLLED THROUGH THE directory on my phone and dialed a number I had not called in months—had only saved, in fact, in order to identify the caller and avoid answering if I didn’t feel up to talking to her.
After five rings of waiting, for once, to actually get her on the phone, I resigned myself to leaving a message. But then someone picked up, and I thought I must have had the wrong number; the voice sounded nothing like the woman I knew.
“Is Katrina there?” Perhaps she had changed her number.
“This is she.”
“Katrina,” I said, caught off guard. And I knew why I had not recognized her at first: She sounded
“Clay?”
“Yes, sorry. This is Clay.” I said, fumbling.
“I heard you left Brooks and Hanover.”
“I guess you could say that. Did I wake you up?”
“No, no. I’m just worn out.”
Katrina Dunn Lampe? Worn out? I was speechless. “You sound so different.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going through treatment for a small tumor.”
I hesitated, having never considered that Katrina might be subject to the same whims of nature as other mortals. “I had no idea. I’m so sorry.” And I meant it.
“I’m glad you called. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. I’ve cut back to just a few days here and there.” A dog barked in the background. After someone shushed it, she added, “I’m considering leaving the business, actually.”
I stared, unsure what to say, what to ask. This was the most I’d ever known about her beyond the artifice of name-brand purses and manicured nails. And there was something remarkably attractive about the moment, and about her in it, despite the circumstances. Something remarkably human.
We talked for the better part of a half hour. I listened as she said she had gone to Connecticut for a few months to stay with her sister during treatment, that she had taken some time off to heal, to reevaluate.
“You’ll think it’s wild, Clay, but this experience has really made me think about things like spirituality.”
She was the last person from whom I ever expected to hear anything of this sort.
Of course, anyone might have said the same of me.
I almost said something. I almost told her. But instead I said, lamely, “That’s really great, Katrina.”
“My friends call me Kat.”
“Kat. That’s really great.”
I left the conversation without mentioning my manuscript, but saying I would call her again next week.
THAT NIGHT, AS I drafted letters of application to a few local publishers, I glanced toward the window. Was he there? Was anyone? For all I knew, with Mrs. Russo gone, Lucian himself might show up at my door at any time.
But my calendar remained staunchly empty, as bright and impersonal as the face of the moon.
31
I went out for coffee every morning. And every morning I looked for the figure on the corner. For people loitering in pairs. For humans with fine watches and
