guessed from the awkward pause it was not the answer Bonnie had expected. “What might those be?”
Haven’t got to the “Workers Who Give Surprising Answers” chapter yet, have we? Jean thought. She swiveled in her chair.
“Sailing.” She’d been preparing to let people know all week, and it pleased her to hear the word come out sounding so smoothly indifferent.
“Sailing?”
“Yes.”
“Down to the river? At the place with lessons?” Bonnie sat, face brightening, and Jean remembered that Bonnie had given her a flyer the year before from an outfit along the esplanade that offered lessons. “RANK (BUT NOT RANK!) BEGINNERS TO ABLE-BODIED SEA PEOPLE!” Who wrote these things? she wondered. Bonnie had wanted the whole office to go, as a way to bond with her, the new boss; Jean alone had demurred.
“God no,” Jean said. She wanted to look out a window, but she stared instead at the blank wall opposite her open door and picked out strands of color glinting in the textured paper that covered it. Forest green, sky blue, perhaps a bit of indigo. “Nothing like that. On a friend’s boat.”
Bonnie leaned toward Jean’s desk, smiling, red lipstick slanting across one canine. The files were in her lap now, forgotten. “An old friend?” Her voice was lowered, her head cocked, as if Jean might whisper her response.
“New.”
Bonnie raised her eyebrows, expectant, but Jean smiled back resolutely, unwilling to say more. A phone began to ring in one of the outer offices, four rings, five rings, six, and after it stopped Bonnie sat back and tapped the files on her thighs with the fingernails of both hands. “Well,” she said. “Sounds exciting. I won’t weigh you down with these.” She winked and gathered up the files and stood. “You’ll have plenty to do, I guess.”
“Thank you,” Jean said. “And if you don’t mind, I’d like to leave a little early today.”
Bonnie paused before answering, and Jean leaned forward and whispered, “Supplies.”
Bonnie’s face flushed, probably with pleasure, all the way up to the fine lines around her eyes, the added color causing her foundation makeup to look caked.
“Fine, Jean, go right ahead. I’ve often said you should make more time for yourself. Take the whole afternoon if you need it.”
At the door she turned, and Jean’s stomach sank. She knew what was coming next: Bonnie would wish her luck, or giggle conspiratorially, or ask her to provide her with all the juicy details on Monday—something unsophisticated and girlish.
“You’ll have time to polish up the Pettigrew drawings?” she said.
Surprised, Jean could only nod.
“Monday’s meeting is at one,” Bonnie said. “But don’t you worry too much about it. I can see from your desk you’ve made a good start on them.”
Jean understood: Bonnie meant to remind her that her visit had been supervisory, not social; she’d been foolish to think otherwise.
“And besides,” Bonnie said, “other things sometimes come first, in time if not in importance. Enjoy being with Steven.” She rapped on the door frame and left.
Jean covered up Steven’s name to keep others from noticing it, and listened to Bonnie’s footsteps grow fainter as she moved down the carpeted hall. They stopped shortly, and then Jean heard Bonnie whispering to one of the other art directors. About her, no doubt. She leaned forward and turned her ear to listen, but it was no use: she couldn’t distinguish Bonnie’s words, only the sound of her voice, rustling like a squirrel in leaves as she spoke.
Saturday, Jean went into the office and devoted herself to the Pettigrew drawings. They were not perfect when she was done, which annoyed her, but she had nearly succeeded in stripping the lettering to something elemental—the suggestion of letters rather than the letters themselves—which would be enough for Bonnie to play up and make a selling point. A hint, nothing obvious, that was Pettigrew’s signature look; Jean knew because she had created it.
Home, she cooked herself dinner, cleaned the apartment, and leafed through her copy of Plummerman’s Collecting Guide, and then at midnight called Claudia, but the phone rang unanswered for a full three minutes and after that she gave up and unplugged it. She slept with her windows open, as she always had, though she knew Mrs. Olsen, her elderly neighbor, disapproved. Two or three times a month she slipped notes and news clippings into Jean’s mailbox, the folded notes illegible and the news clippings detailing burglaries and robberies in the area—once a murder—and across the accompanying photographs she had crayoned COULD BE YOU! in big green block letters. But no one was going to climb five stories to get Jean; they’d have to go up the brick, since the apartment, alone of the ones in the building, didn’t have a fire escape.
An oversight, the landlord had told Jean when she first looked at the place, mistaking her surprise for fear. He had knocked his cigarette ash into his cupped palm as they walked from room to room and assured her that it would soon be fixed, but the code violation didn’t scare Jean, it was the reason she chose the apartment. She was not afraid of fire, and as the main entrance to the building was off an alley, not the street, she believed that here, at least, her privacy would be guaranteed. She would not awake to find that Pavel Hammond had climbed all that way to watch her sleep.
Sunday, Jean awoke in the dark to humid air and clinging sheets. She kicked them off and lay sweating on the bed, staring at the plaster ceiling until its cracks became visible and a Creamsicle orange rim of dawn began to show in the eastern sky. The phone was beside her and she was glad she’d unplugged it; if Steven hadn’t called by now, he wasn’t going to. A shower, some coffee and a roll, and then she was off, to Marblehead, her usual Sunday-morning routine.
In Marblehead, the air was salty, the wind onshore, and she slipped her sweater on, surprised by the chill. The water was different, she reminded herself, it changed things; that was a lesson she had to learn again and again. She had a few hundred dollars cash, her wallet, a checkbook in case anything at the flea market caught her fancy; she never lost hope that it might.
The steep harborside streets were still blue with morning shade, and as she traversed them she surveyed the flea market, its tables of junk and treasure, its vendors, its crowd. She’d arrived early, but others had come even earlier, and many were already leaving, some holding pictureless frames and others looking like refugees from a waterfront disaster as they passed her, clutching chairs or lamps or carrying the drawers from desks and bureaus under their arms or across their shoulders, and she had to reassure herself that she’d missed nothing. They were decorators, mostly, with their measuring tapes and their bottled water, and big items always went quickly, she knew; getting there after they’d gone made her task easier—less jostling, fewer fights over who saw something first. She was interested chiefly in pens.
Her first time through was just an inspection, as it was best not to show even a flicker of attraction. She was young or at least youngish, her hair was thick and glossy, she was nearly six feet tall, and she knew most of the vendors would remember her having passed—especially this early, when the crowds had not yet arrived. She noted a stall displaying some kind of handmade dogs and marked its location and half an hour later, walking uphill this time, came back. It was a little warmer; she could feel herself beginning to sweat, the sun was on her neck. A flowering crab in a corner yard had spread its bloom,
