The bald man next to her took out a pack of cigarettes and offered her one. The drama begins, she thought. She took the cigarette.
"They're French," he warned.
She nodded, her head light. "Then you must not be."
"No?"
"French people smoke American cigarettes," she said. She looked away. Across from her, two women sat at a table paging through an album full of photos of wedding cakes.
"I guess so." He sipped his drink. "My name's Rahul, by the way."
"Melissa," said Christina.
"Waiting for somebody?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
"The unknown man."
I'm so witty, she thought, makes me sick.
He tried to laugh but was uncertain. "Is the man unknown to me or unknown to you?"
"Both, in fact."
"What is this man like?"
"His shoes are not worn down," she said.
He kicked out one foot and inspected an Italian loafer. "So far I'm okay."
Charmboat, Christina thought.
"What else?" he asked. "About the unknown man."
"Don't ask."
He grinned. "I'm asking."
"He can stand and deliver."
"Stand and deliver," he repeated.
"Yes. If he can't do that, then forget it."
"What exactly does 'stand and deliver' mean?"
"It has all meanings, and especially one."
Rahul pursed his lips. He was strange, but maybe attractively strange. Maybe she wasn't sure. Maybe she was drunk. "What do you do?" Christina asked, twirling her smoke. "Are you gainfully employed?"
"I'm a photographer."
I like his hands, she thought. "What do you take pictures of?"
"Why don't you come back to my place and see?" he answered with purposeful mystery. "I live just a few blocks away."
"That was fast."
He rubbed a hand over his skull. "That's my speed."
"Slow is better."
He shrugged, willing to be embarrassed. "How about it?"
I'm not afraid of him, she thought.
"You're curious. I can tell."
"One quick look," she agreed. "And that will be that. I'm meeting a friend in an hour."
"Right," he said.
They walked out and down the street. Maybe this is how people meet each other, she thought dreamily, or maybe I'm just lonely as hell. Rahul lit a cigarette, and she asked him how long he'd lived there.
"Three years. I found this place and knew I'd be there forever. What about you?"
"The East Village," she said, her arms clutched in front of her.
"Been there long?"
"No."
"Where were you before?"
"In prison." She hoped that this would bother him.
"Oh, that is very cool." Rahul nodded.
"Why?" she asked. "Why is that cool?"
"I'm into knowing different kinds of people." He inspected his cigarette, as if it might be a microphone. "Last week I met this woman whose job is to figure out how to put advertising in the sky. She's supposed to get some kind of satellite that floats around, and in the night, you see this logo up there with the stars. I have this other friend, she vacuums people's faces."
Christina winced. "What?"
"These rich old ladies on the East Side, they come in and have their faces all warmed up with hot towels, and they apply this stuff on the skin, some sort of softening chemical, then my friend uses this vacuum thing that looks like a pen, except it's got a little nozzle, and she sucks out all the gunk in the pores of these women's faces. Sometimes their backs and other parts. It's the new thing. Once a month, all your nose pores cleaned."
"That is totally disgusting," she cried, yet was intrigued.
"But these women love it. They love it because it's disgusting. They pay something like five hundred bucks a shot." He pulled out his keys and they stopped at the stoop of a townhouse. "Here we are."
She looked behind her as she entered. No one knows I'm here, she thought.
The door closed heavily and he locked it. Inside the front hall she examined the framed photographs. "They're all pills."
"Yes."
"You take pictures of pills?"
Rahul nodded. "I'm very good at it."
She looked into the living room. Retro-fifties decor, expensive and collectible, the tables and chairs and lamps all sophisticated experiments in chrome, dyed leather, and wood laminates. So stylish, so uncomfortable. Across the walls, dozens of framed black-and-white photos. All pills.
"You'd be surprised how many photos of pills are required these days." He touched his finger against one. "You have new pills coming out all the time, and the pharmaceutical companies need good pictures of them. You need lighting and a backdrop. Sometimes you have to make the pill look shinier, sometimes duller."
Christina blinked attentively. I'm getting out of here, she told herself.
"I've done almost all the pills there are," Rahul told her. "The anti-depressants, the herbs and natural remedies, birth-control pills, thyroid pills, the chemotherapy, the steroids…" He watched her expression. "The hormone medications, the heart pills, the new antibiotics, the anti-inflammatories, the ones for high blood pressure
… low blood pressure, the over-the-counter remedies, the blood thinners, the cholesterol pills, seizure-control pills, the hair-growing pills, the anxiety medications, pills so that you can take other pills, all the palliatives, like morphine. There's one that you take to forget pain from surgery, you know that? They have a new pill to make your fingernails grow more slowly." He passed through the living room into a large kitchen with an unused designer stove. "You have companies all over the world making new pills. They either send me there or the pills here. I'm flying to Germany tomorrow, in fact. Love their pills, the Germans." He pulled out two glasses from a cabinet. "Drink?"
"I'm okay, thanks," she said. "Maybe one, I guess."
She used the bathroom, locking the door behind her. It seemed perfectly normal. Perhaps a bit clean. Maybe he had a maid. Maybe he would put a pill in her drink and she'd fall unconscious. She peeked into the cabinet. Q-tips in a glass. That was all. What kind of guy kept Q-tips in a glass? She sat down on the toilet, imagined something sticky, worried, stood up, underwear at her knees, inspected the seat, wiped it off with tissue, sat down again. All that wine going piddle. I don't want to have a hard heart, she thought, I don't want to be too strong. That was the thing about Rick. He made her weak in a way she liked. Her anxiety disappeared; she would lie in bed against his huge back, smelling his T-shirt, or she would pull his heavy arm over her. That was the best she'd ever slept in her life. He took care of her hardness problem. But just for a while. Maybe the religion professor had been right. Rahul didn't seem to be so bad-no, that was just the wine. She knew enough not to trust herself. Sometimes it could just be anybody, and that scared her, that was what the religion professor had seen.
"Want me to show you around?" Rahul said when she came out.
"You want to show me?" Christina asked, her ankles feeling loose on the heels of her shoes. She followed Rahul into the bedroom. It appeared normal, except for the large circular lights above the bed. "What are those?"
"Operating room," he said, "exact kind used." He flicked a switch and the lights above the bed began to glow. In a minute they were excruciatingly bright.
She smiled casually. If she was smart, she'd be leaving soon.
"What's next?"
"Darkroom." He lifted his eyebrows. "By way of contrast."
"Oh, let's see that," she asked.
"Most photographers send out their film." Rahul pointed at his sinks and chemicals. "I send out most of my stuff, but there are certain shots I want to develop myself."
Like the ones of the dead women in the cellar-trussed, hanging from hooks, mouths stuffed with surgical gloves.
Don't think these things! she told herself. Just keep looking around. The darkroom's desk was littered with papers, keys, postcards, contact sheets, cassettes, money in different currencies, and a black cell phone the size of a pack of cards. She picked it up, liked its ingenious engineering. When Rahul turned to point out his collection of old Hasselblad cameras, she slipped the phone into her purse. I might need this, she told herself.