“I have some appointments next week to photograph some guys. If you want to hold the light, we could split it. You could protect me.”
“What kind of guys?”
“Oh you know. Guys who want to be shot jerking off, or doing themselves in the butt with dildos. You won’t have to touch them or anything.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“It’s so great that Beck said you could still help me,” Lelah said as she blithely stroked my face. “I’m surprised, since you crashed her car and all.”
“I actually didn’t talk to Beck,” I said. “I just left a message.”
Now Lelah was up. Pacing, breathing hard, crying. Now was an emergency. Now I was an enemy invader. I was planning her demise; conspiring against her. The air tasted crumbly wet.
The room was a tornado. The room transformed and it became full. Full of gray spinning dust. And all the stuff seemed to have returned but it was soot-colored now and flying around everywhere—the now-charcoal inspirational messages were crumbling and falling in heaps; all the colored fabrics were coming unpinned and the pinks and reds and oranges were turning shades of gray and brown. My heart stopped pumping the kid-joy it had been pumping when the room was empty. It started stopping at random intervals. My insides felt like clay. Like clumpy clay that had been sitting out and could break off in stale chunks.
I did not understand. I had come to help her. I had come to do good things. I had jeopardized her career. She said.
Beck would never trust her again.
I called Beck.
“Hi Beck.”
“Hey, Sarah!”
“I was calling because I’m in Lelah’s neighborhood and I realized that today is the day she’s supposed to mo—"
"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” (Five yeahs. Five enthusiastic yeahs. Beck loves artists.) “Oh man! I’m so sorry I can’t come and help! I’m swamped. I feel awful. Will you guys be okay?”
Things would be okay now, I thought, but also did not think. Things were not okay.
Now Lelah was crying dramatically, with deep, panicky breaths. This was suddenly a situation to deal with. A serious situation. A huge, vital, dramatic situation. Her career was over. Beck would think her irresponsible, disrespectful, rude.
I should mention that Lelah has a similar idea about people with money as Beck does about artists: That they are magic, or something. Lelah collects moneyed friends. Because Beck has money, she could someday make Lelah’s career “happen,” Lelah thinks. I think Lelah should spend more time taking photos and less time wooing rich people, but I do not say this.
The room was full. Now. It was full. Full of thick, used air. Full of feelings. Pregnant. A stormy, pregnant room.
“Just go,” she said. I remembered an eighth grade vocabulary word: Enmity: Bitter hatred. Enmity all over her voice, Lelah said, “Just go.” So I went.
