Natasha
She scribbles out the vertical line of the last exclamation mark, the period confers a bit more gravitas.
She knows what she wants to write Lucia, having taken a lot of teasing from her about being ensconced in Sawyer's hotel room for her sexual pleasure.
Luce,
I have stopped mid run to write this. I've rubbed the card against my leaking pores as proof, have a sniff! I'm so fucking fit and healthy. I've got to keep myself in shape for the marathon of wild, tantric lovemaking I have scheduled with my curvaceous blonde lover tonight.
Love you. Let's have a night in (just us) next week when I'm back.
Nat
The last one is the most troublesome for Natasha. She takes a deep breath and makes sure her penmanship is strong, clear and upright.
Dear Mom and Dad,
Hope you are doing well. I'm in Philadelphia, as you have probably guessed from the front of the card. I'm with my girlfriend Sawyer. We have been seeing each other for about two months now. We are in Philadelphia because she works in theatre and her play is on at the Wilma Theatre. It was previously on at Boston Contemporary but I thought you would be busy. She did Uncle Yakov last year. I'm feeling really good and it would be great to catch up soon.
She pushes them into the mail box before she can convince herself not to, and then continues with her run. She carries on for blocks and blocks, marveling at Philadelphia's orderly street grid. It's very different from Boston's old and haphazard street layout.
Natasha sees a small park with three sets of pull up bars of varying heights. It's a pretty little park, with a bed of flowers on the other side of the railings, and some interesting graffiti.
She takes a few seconds to adjust her grip on the bars, making sure it's both underhand and strong. She contracts all her muscles, feels the strain in her biceps and her laterals. Her chin raises to meet the bar. She holds it and lets herself hang there for a few seconds before letting her arms hang straight, then starting again.
There's a group of young boys on the bench. She can feel their eyes on her. One has his leg propped up nonchalantly on the bench, elbow leaning on his knee. He points at Natasha and whispers to the others. Usually she'd just skulk off feeling slightly embarrassed by herself. But today, she's feeling good. They're not threatening, just some young men enjoying the last relatively mild days of Fall before Winter properly closes in.
When she does the chin-ups Sawyer's sweater rides up, and she is proud of her muscular stomach. She does another chin up, and raises her legs straight in front of her like she's sitting in mid air. Her hamstrings are shaking, but she uses the last of her strength to launch into a pull over and some glide swings. The boys cheer, she overhears one of them say she's "sickening."
Natasha thinks about attempting a back hip circle but it's more challenging to do it on a hard metal bar. She decides to quit while she's ahead, and takes a leap off the bars, giving the boys a short bow like she did when she was a little girl at her first competitions.
She jogs out of the park and makes one more circle of the block, before checking her watch and deciding to run back to the hotel. Sawyer's hotel is a business hotel and it's deserted in the middle of the day. Natasha does her warming down stretches in the empty lift and stomps down the long corridor, pretending it's a catwalk.
It takes her a few minutes to spot the problem. First, she sorts out her hair. Then she takes a piss, and fires up the coffee maker. Natasha flops on the bed, thinks about what she might do with the rest of her day. Last night, Natasha had noticed that the coffee table had a big stack of travel guides and she heads over to have a flick through them, see what they have to say about museums in Philly.
That's when she sees it. It's a clear plastic baggie of white powder. She knows exactly at it is, where it came from.
She'd asked Lucia for it. It's her insurance policy. Stuck in a different city, in a small hotel room, with the possibility of needing to schmooze with Sawyer's associates, Natasha needed something to fall back on if she crumbled. She couldn't risk Sawyer seeing her panicking again. She knows that in college people used to see through her when she used every day, but she thinks that now just a little bit would mask her anxiety enough to get by. And she feels secure enough in her recovery that one small lapse wouldn't be the end of her streak of sobriety. She suspects she's fooling herself with the last bit, but just knowing it's there makes her feel more in control.
She had reasoned with Lucia that it was no different to an ex-smoker buying a packet of smokes for a funeral, or Lucia herself packing a lighter for her poetry readings just in case she needed to heat it up and press it against her skin. Lucia had made an arrangement with Natasha that if she didn't return it in full, Lucia would strong arm her back to NA. She doesn't intend to use it, but just having it there is reassuring.
And now it's all fucked.
Everything seems to lurch sideways. Natasha tries to get a grip on the bedside table, but fumbles. Sawyer's tablet box, their lube, and a handful of assorted jewelry tumbles
