The others spread to make a pathway for Trudy and Mitchell out of the sunroom. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that they all gathered around the computer, to get a closer look at the picture he made. Mitchell felt an unfamiliar sense of pride. They were looking at his picture — his work. Even if he hadn’t gotten the hair right, that was something.
Trudy opened the refrigerator and pulled out a tray covered in Saran wrap. She stood quickly, balancing the tray on the fingertips of one hand while she cocked her hip and planted the other hand there. “Canapes?” she said.
“Canapés,” said Mitchell. Trudy had pronounced it like Can Apes.
“You got it,” said Trudy. She set the tray down on the countertop and peeled back the plastic. Mitchell took a little roll of prosciutto and melon and bit into it. It was salty and sweet, watery and oily. A nice-enough mix that he took two others.
“So how was school?” Trudy leaned against the stove and crossed one ankle over the other. “You said it was a bad day.”
Mitchell took a breath. He didn’t think they wanted to hear about anything like that because they weren’t his parents. But maybe that was just when Stefan was in the room. Mitchell chewed and swallowed another canapé.
“It was a bad day. They made us go to an assembly. This… this guy from the school board talked to us for about an hour. Some girls were crying. Even though she’d already graduated. They were crying. Can you believe that? Right there in the assembly with everybody looking.”
“What did he talk to you about?”
“After that was History of Europe. I hate History of Europe and it sucked. And phys-ed. I don’t see why I have to take that when what I want to do is—”
Trudy cut in: “You don’t want to talk about that assembly, do you?”
Mitchell put the third canapé in his mouth and sucked on it, pulling the cool sweet melon out from the prosciutto sheaf. More laughter came from the sunroom. Trudy pushed herself off from the stove and came closer to Mitchell. She leaned over and whispered into his ear: “So what do you think of Shelly? Think she’s pretty?”
“I think you’re pretty.”
Trudy seemed to freeze for an instant. Then she pulled back a bit, turned to her side and leaned on the island beside Mitchell. “She’s pretty, all right,” said Trudy. “Stef sure thinks so.”
Mitchell took another couple of canapés but he didn’t eat them yet.
“She’s a year or two older,” said Trudy. “Than me. And Stef. That should make a difference.”
Mitchell thought about that. “O-older girls can be pretty,” he said and Trudy smirked. She put her hand on Mitchell’s shoulder, and sidled her hip closer to his. “Yeah,” she said, as her hand slid from the shoulder nearest her to the one farthest. “You would think that.”
Mitchell swallowed. Trudy leaned her head to one side so it rested on Mitchell’s shoulder. He felt stray hairs tickling his face, like little electric sparks. Trudy’s hip was touching his own. “Oh, Mitch,” she said. “You are so fucked up.”
“And that’s what she likes about you,” said Stefan.
Trudy lifted her head to look around, but she didn’t move her hand or shift away. “Mitch and I were just talking about you.”
Stefan came around the island. He was holding a glass of red wine and smiling maybe. “Me?” He set the wine glass on the counter beside Mitchell, and looked hard into Trudy’s eyes. “I’m flattered.”
“You’re an asshole,” she said.
“Why, I oughta,” he said, making a limp fist that opened like a flower when he let it drop to his side. Then he laughed. “How you doing, Mitch?”
“Good.”
“Really? Good.” He reached over and took Trudy’s hand off Mitchell’s shoulder. “You should save your energy, man.” Trudy raised her eyebrows at Stefan. “She on her way?” she said and Stefan nodded. “Just coming off the highway,” he said. “Like, two minutes ago.”
“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” said Mitchell. Trudy and Stefan stopped and looked him up and down, then Stefan laughed. “I can see that,” said Trudy, smirking. “Go on,” said Stefan. “Use the one upstairs. It’s quieter.”
Mitchell left them in the kitchen. He passed the dining room table where there were more canapés laid out and he took a cracker with some brie cheese on it. In the living room, the Media Centre was off the news. Now the screen was filled with a security camera picture from the basement garage, looking at the elevator they’d come up in. The bald man and the woman with paint on her toenails were sitting on the couch. Her feet were in his lap, and he was giving one of them a massage while she twisted the other this way and that at the ankle, like she was stretching it. They watched Mitchell pass by and climb up the spiral staircase to the second level, and didn’t take their eyes off him until he went into the main bath.
Mitchell closed the door behind him as the lights flickered on. He lifted the toilet seat and unzipped his fly. He stood there for awhile like that, then zipped up and washed his hands. He caught himself in the mirror, leaning forward, his hands held together under the thin stream of warm water. His eyes were open wide, his mouth small and slack and round, like he was always saying “oh.” His dark hair was too long and fell over his forehead, which was still pimply. There were the beginnings of a beard growing on the chin, but you could still see the big pimple underneath the left side of his lower lip. Mitchell looked at his face and thought: what would I see if I saw me on the street? At school? He thought about that, and thought again: a sad boy. He made a smile, and looked, and thought: a happy boy. He brushed the hair aside from his forehead, and stood up straight, and kept smiling and he thought about that, but finally thought:
Who knows?
Mitchell found a hand towel and dried off, then went out. He heard the sound of another door closing downstairs. He stepped to the railing and looked down, as the rectangle of hall light narrowed and vanished on the first-floor tiling. The couple on the couch sat up, and from the kitchen, Stefan said: “Lesley!” and Trudy said: “How’d it go?”
“Fucking nightmare.”
Mitch looked down and saw the top of Lesley Woolfe’s head and her shoulders, as she made her way to the couch. She twisted her head on her neck so that Mitch could see her throat, wisps of dark hair mingling with body art that was emerging from the collar of a simple white blouse. With one arm, she flung an overcoat onto the chaise lounge by the downstairs powder room. “Fuck,” she said again, drawing the syllable out this time, “me.”
She sounded sad, but what did Mitchell know?
“Nothing went wrong, did it?” said Trudy.
“Traffic,” said Lesley, “was the shits. Wouldn’t move faster than a slow walk south of Tenth Line. I was afraid it would wear off and she’d wake up at a red light.”
“But it didn’t,” said Trudy. “She didn’t.”
“Would I be here if it did?”
Stefan came out of the kitchen with a tall glass of wine. Lesley took it and sipped at it. “The cameras?” she said.
“All taken care of,” said Stefan.
“And—?”
“Upstairs,” said Stefan. “Right above you.”
Lesley started like something bit her, and looked around and then up. Her eyes were wide, then narrow. They weren’t smiling. “Hello,” she said after a few seconds. She held up her wine glass and tinkled it back and forth. “Want a sip?”
“He doesn’t drink,” said Trudy.
“I didn’t ask you,” said Lesley, not taking her eyes off Mitch. “Well, Mitch? How about it?”
Mitchell moved to the spiral staircase and climbed down. He stood face-to-face with Lesley Woolfe. She stood five inches taller than he did and she still did not smile. But she offered him the wine glass, and he took it by the stem. He swirled the red liquid, looked at it, sniffed it like he’d seen rich men do on television. It smelled a bit rotten, but Mitchell sipped at it anyway. It tasted sharper than it smelled, but it wasn’t so bad. He took another sip, bigger this time.