These Dreams of You

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At James’ townhouse, Viv barely sleeps on the sofa he’s made into a bed for her. “No bag?” he says while fluffing cushions, and when she explains about the insane cab in Paris, he gives her one of his clean undershirts to wear; now in the dark she stumbles from the sofa to the window and stares out at the city, wondering where her husband and children are. Before the window, she closes her eyes as if trying to pick up a signal. She’s up early the next morning, and when James emerges from the back room fully dressed, he sees the look on her face. “School office opens in thirty minutes,” he assures her gently. “I’ll ring them in twenty.”

He says, “Looks like you had a restless night.”

“Yes,” she says.

“Tea?”

“Please.”

“How have you been? Aside from everything.”

“Great,” Viv answers somewhere in the upper register of hope, “aside from everything.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“That did sound,” he says, “rather like the usual upbeat Viv answer.” She watches him shuffle around the kitchen. “One of your more endearing qualities, I should add,” bending over with apparent difficulty to light the stove.

“Nothing,” she replies, “that winning the lottery wouldn’t solve.”

“Let’s try to arrange that then, shall we?”

“Zan suspects I coerced you into this lecture thing, or whatever it was.” She adds, “Not that you can be coerced.”

“By you?” says James. “Of course I can. You know that. You’re quite notorious in the art world these days, I hear.”

She folds her arms. “I guess. Not something I like talking about.”

“But you should feel vindicated,” he insists. “It’s accepted by virtually everyone that the bastard ripped you off.”

“I don’t want to be a chapter in someone else’s story.”

“We’re all chapters in someone else’s story. You should feel vindicated.”