Chapter 19
Ilean on William and hop my way into his apartment with my new set of crutches. Pochi and Sora immediately sniff me to check out this new person who walks with extra wooden legs. William sets me up on the couch with a sketchpad, my foot elevated on a cushion, then Pochi stays by me while Sora follows him into the kitchen.
“Are you going to keep me company?” I pet Pochi. “Or are you guarding me?”
I cancel my waitress gigs for the week and reschedule with Miju, explaining that I twisted my ankle from a hole in the sidewalk. We reschedule for next Thursday. William sticks his head out from the kitchen doorway.
“Are you okay with Moroccan fish stew?” he asks.
“Definitely. I’m grateful for any home-cooked meal.”
He brings me an ice pack.
“So Advik and Saanvi are friends from college?” I ask. “I learned some very interesting things about you today.”
He glances at me. “Like what?”
“That you never argued with your college girlfriend?”
“What did you and Saanvi discuss?”
“That you didn’t argue with your girlfriend in college.” The ice pack on top of my swollen foot dulls the pain.
“What brought that up?” William sits in the armchair.
Hmm … maybe this wasn’t the most subtle approach.
“She thought we were dating because you carried me in, and I told her we are not dating, and somehow she mentioned that you never argued with your college girlfriend.”
William says, “Well, we both know that you argue with your boyfriends.”
“Maybe I only argued with Rex.”
“You didn’t argue with your other boyfriends?” he asks skeptically.
“I argued with Peter too, but it was different,” I say. “We mostly withdrew from each other.”
“That’s more similar to me and Itsuki,” he says.
“And you haven’t stayed friends with Itsuki?”
“No. I hear about her through friends, though. And I saw her briefly at our last college reunion. We dated for all of college. I thought we’d get married.”
There’s silence.
“Are you still in love with her?”
“No.”
I feel like I let out a deep breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. He looks down at the floor.
“I remember when I first realized Peter was in love with someone else,” I say. “We’d broken up, and he’d moved to California. I was coming out to visit, and I guess I thought there was still a chance we might get back together. But then he started talking about this other woman, and I just knew, from the inflection in his voice, that he really liked her.”
“Did you still go to California?”
“I did, but at least I knew that we were just going to hang out as friends.”
“Did he marry her?”
“No, they broke up eventually.” I reach around for my crutch and move my leg off the pillow.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“I’ll help you.”
I shoot him a mortified look.
“Not in the bathroom,” he adds quickly. “To the bathroom.”
“Oh, okay.”
I lean on William to hop to the bathroom door. He opens the door and starts to bring me inside.
“I think I can take it from here,” I say.
He steps back outside the bathroom but seems to be watching intently. I gingerly step on my foot and maneuver inside, closing the door firmly behind me and collapsing onto the toilet. I hope he’s not right outside the door.
I yell out, “Please go cook—or just go away from the door.” Footsteps retreat, but I still turn on the faucet.
I finish and step back outside.
He comes over immediately, and I lean on him to get back to the couch.
I relax against the propped-up pillows. “Maybe you should meet Miju and Lena. Miju thought you were cute. You might get more out of them than I could.”
William shakes his head. “I’m not interested in her, so that would just be leading her on. I’m not going to do that.” He looks at my foot resting gingerly on top of three pillows. “I should cook dinner.”
“Is there anything I can do from here?” I ask.
“Do you want to peel the sweet potatoes?”
“Sure. I really hoped we would find the paintings in Vinnie’s storage room. And I’d have my painting back, and Uncle Tony and Takashi could buy their cottage.”
“I’ve found it always seems like a lot of dead ends in the beginning, but once you get a clue, it comes together quickly.” He gives me sweet potatoes to peel with a huge bag underneath me to catch the peels.
As William bustles around in the kitchen, I’m tempted to tell him I’ve been warned to stay away from him. I shake my head. Because I’m interested, I’m not ready to laugh at my uncle’s concerns yet. Or to have William laugh and say, “As if we’d actually get together.”
I finish peeling the potatoes, and William takes them back into the kitchen.
“I feel bad I’m not helping more,” I say.
“Don’t worry about it. I find it soothing to cook by myself.”
Only a good cook says that. I find cooking to be a lot of work that usually turns out disappointing because my dishes do not live up to my expectations.
William has more books in the open sideboard near the couch. He’s got some Upstate New York hiking guides, some novels by Japanese authors, and more mysteries. Other than the blue paintings, the artwork on his walls has very subtle colors—grays and blacks—especially the illustration of the leaping carp, but they’re all emotionally fulfilling.
I sketch Pochi. The smell of onions sautéing with cinnamon and cumin is making me hungry. Pochi looks torn, like he can’t decide if he can stop watching this strange being on the couch, but he’d really like to go check out the food situation in the kitchen.
I email my doctor to confirm I’m up to date on my tetanus shot and sketch out some ideas for another painting.
“Dinner’s ready.” William serves it at the coffee table. He helps me down to the floor, and I elevate my foot on a pillow.
Yummy.I take my first bite of the fish with rice and the cinnamon, coriander, and cumin spices all blended together. The fish is tender and easily shreds under my fork and knife.
“So you thought I had a fiancée?” His gaze meets mine. “Don’t you think I would have mentioned if I was engaged to someone?”
My foot is throbbing again from the effort to move from the couch to the floor. “I was surprised she was letting you spend so much time with me.” I adjust the ice pack, even though it’s no longer cold.
He stills. “Would I have to ask her permission?”
“No. Of course not. But I think she would’ve become involved as well. I would’ve met her, given how much I’ve seen you.”
“That’s true.”
I say, “And you barely hung out together at the party.”
“Were you keeping tabs?”
“I should have been investigating,” I say grumpily. “Especially now that I can’t meet Miju.”
“We still have your sister leaving with painting-size objects. And the paintings that Edmund gave her are either our paintings or paintings that Vinnie or the catering people brought in.”
“It’s not my sister.” I sigh. “And I liked both Miju and Lena.”
“This isn’t about feelings,” he says.
This investigation seems to be all about feelings for me.
“I know.” I drink my water. “If it were, I’d still think it was Edmund. And now we have knowledge in his column too.” I open up the Google doc with our suspect spreadsheet on my phone and add an X under Closet Knowledge for Edmund.
“It seems too obvious for Edmund to hire the actor and then invite you along. Couldn’t Vinnie have set that up, using Edmund? Do you have anything more concrete to tie it to Edmund? Why do you think it’s Edmund?”
I tell him about my childhood incidents with Edmund. “And he has too many illustrations done of my sister.”
“What?”
“I know a fair number of other artists in the city. Once, someone was showing me their portfolio, and there were five different illustrations of my sister from different photos. She said some guy had contacted her and sent her the pictures.”
“Maybe he was making her a present.”
“It was still creepy,” I say. “Maybe it was the way the artist described how particular Edmund was about the illustration, almost as if he were creating her or fixing her in the illustration. He’d softened her nose.”
“Hmm.” William’s head is cocked. I like the way he listens to me.
“It doesn’t sound like much, does it?”
“I would be disturbed, too, if I saw illustrations of my sister and her features had been changed.”
William’s sister is stunning. The female equivalent of him. It’s unlikely anyone would want to alter her features. She lives in Oregon.
We both finish dinner and rest against the couch. William makes no effort to get up. The silence lengthens. I glance at him and catch him looking at me with a soft gaze. A flicker of electricity, like a charged wire, runs between us. My heart pulses. I’m buzzing. My stomach is doing cartwheels. William holds my glance. My hand flattens against the smooth straw of the tatami mat.
But then he looks away and moves to take the dishes.
“Why did you and Itsuki break up?” I ask.
“She said I wasn’t the one.”
“Ouch,” I say. “How did she know?”
“I didn’t ask her to explain,” he says wryly, then stands with the dishes. “Do you want to use the bathroom first? I’ll do the dishes and then make this into a bed.” He nods at the couch.
“I’m sorry I can’t help,” I say.
I pull myself up on my crutches and hop over to the bathroom with my bag of clothes and toiletries. Uncle Tony packed my least sexy pajamas. Did he look for the biggest, most shapeless T-shirt he could find? This had to have been at the bottom of my pajama drawer. He also found really baggy, striped pajama pants that I should have thrown out but I’ve kept out of sentimentality. Way to be a wingman, Uncle Tony.
I wash my face, brush my teeth, and gingerly change clothes. William’s bathroom cabinet is pretty sparce, just the male essentials.
He yells that he’s taking the dogs for a walk.
I come out, and the couch is now a bed. I hop back over with the crutches.
I settle into the bed, resting my head and foot on pillows. Staring up at the white ceiling, I doubt I will fall asleep easily. There’s clearly some strong chemistry between us, given that both Saanvi and Uncle Tony commented on it. I think I’m good for William.
The door opens, and the dogs race back into the house. They sniff me again on the couch, and I pet them both. William follows more slowly.
“Are you comfortable enough?”
“Yes, thank you. Five stars for the dinner and accommodations.”
“I’ll turn off the light then,” he says.
I nod.
He turns off the light. The outside streetlight caresses the chairs and the couch.
Our glances meet in the dim lighting. And that electricity pulses between us. I’m not the only one who feels it. But I will behave. As I shift slightly, the pain pulses up. I grimace. I really am in no shape to be thinking about seduction.