Chapter 28 Taylor #2
She points her toe out, about to test the sheet—is it really a sticky pad?—when Liam barks, “Don’t!”
He expertly sidesteps the pad as the door closes behind them.
“Follow me,” he instructs, not offering any explanation, and briskly resumes walking.
Taylor, thoroughly puzzled, is led through the kitchen toward the woman, who is thumbing through a magazine and chewing on a carrot.
She seems older, in her sixties, and is thin and plain.
Her lack of makeup and her choice of clothes—a tan, long-sleeved shirt tucked into a pair of light khakis—suggests a preference of economy. A gray cat rubs against her leg.
“New recruit here, Rose,” Liam calls out, sailing by.
Rose gazes at Taylor unflinchingly.
“Uh, hi, Rose,” Taylor offers, as she trails after Liam.
They move through a set of French double doors, hastening past an elegant dining room with navy-lacquered walls, a wide carpet-runnered staircase, the foyer and apparent front entrance, and into a huge, open area that stops her in her tracks.
She doesn’t know what to call this space. It’s a room, but it’s more than a room.
There are three rugs to demarcate three different gathering spots.
Two fireplaces, one on either end. Windows fit for a giant.
So many textures and furniture pieces and paintings it’s like a sensory overload.
In the middle of the room is a large glass display case with a scroll that is clearly valuable in some regard.
She wants to run her hand along all the sumptuous fabrics, breathe in the buttery leather couches, stare for hours at the art.
She’s never been in a room with such grandeur, such wealth. It makes Vivian’s apartment pale by comparison. For the second time that day, Taylor finds herself overcome.
This house has a pretty face, all right. Why is it completely empty, though?
“It’s a Wednesday morning,” Liam says, as if reading her mind. “Nothing ever happens here in the morning. You can have a seat here.”
She suppresses a smile. Where is “here” exactly? This sitting area ahead, or the one to the left, or—
“Mr. Wales will be with you shortly. Nice to meet you, Taaaylor.” He drops his voice slightly when he draws out her name.
“You too.” Taylor walks into the room, feeling clunky under his gaze. And then he is gone.
She takes off her coat and drapes it on the back of a mustard velvet bench in the far corner, an area that feels cozier—or perhaps more accessible—than the other parts of the room.
She feels like she should walk on tippy toes to avoid creating a disturbance, the way she used to maneuver around her dad when he’d fall asleep on the couch after working late at the restaurant.
Scanning the room for any cameras (none that she can see), she tugs a few times at her shirt dress to air it out; she got a little sweaty walking through that narrow hall.
Then she slips off her Rolex (they will know it’s fake, for sure; it was foolish to wear it), but right as she’s tucking the watch into her pocket, Liam strolls back into the room. He raises an eyebrow, and she flushes.
Did he see her?
He casually clears a stray wineglass, and she sinks into a chair next to an oil painting. Finally, he’s gone again—for now.
Taylor looks at the painting. It shows, simply, the back of a woman.
Her hair is pulled into a ponytail, and she appears to be riding a train.
The scene behind her is blurred—a smear of pastel paint—she alone in focus.
It is a moment in time, a still amid motion.
Taylor feels strangely pulled to the image.
Did Vivian ever pause to admire this painting? Sit in this very chair? Did her mom?
“Taylor Adams,” a man says, interrupting her thoughts. He holds out his hand as he approaches, and Taylor rises. “Peter Wales.”
He is the kind of handsome that’s hard to look at. A strong, angular face; dark, gray-tinged hair neatly swept to the side; deep forehead lines that feel earned. His eyes are small and intensely blue, and Taylor wants to both stare at him and drop her gaze.
As Taylor clasps his hand, something stirs inside her. Yes, this man in front of her is older. A lot older, like maybe twice her age. But he has that timeless Hollywood kind of charm.
“Hi,” she manages to reply. “Nice to meet you.” She keeps her lips pressed together like a panini; there’s no way she’s flashing him her gap-toothed smile.
“Sit, sit,” he says, and settles into the sofa opposite Taylor.
He wears a classic white collared shirt beneath a tailored pinstripe suit that must have come with a hefty price tag.
“I detect a Southern drawl.” When he smiles, Taylor feels herself flush.
She pushes her nail into her leg as a distraction.
“I’m from North Carolina.”
“Hope you’re planning to stay longer than Cam Newton did.”
Who? “Yeah.” She clears her throat. “I mean, yes.”
“Do you watch football?”
“No.”
He smiles again, though this time, she feels like it’s layered. Is there some sadness about him?
“You’re honest,” he says. “I like that. You remind me of someone.”
Taylor’s unsure how to respond.
Luckily, he continues: “So, Taylor—is that what you go by, Taylor?”
“Yes.” Not entirely true, but she dropped T.J. when she moved to Boston.
“How did you hear about us, coming all the way from North Carolina?”
“My landlord told me. My dad owns a restaurant, so I grew up around the restaurant industry. She knew I was looking for a job, so—”
“Anna Varga’s your landlord?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you been here?”
Seven months. “A couple of months.”
“Did you do anything else, or have you always worked in the restaurant industry?”
An image of Vivian flashes before her, and for a moment it’s like Taylor’s back in the ER, at her very bedside. Chestnut-brown glossy hair. Wine-colored lips. Angled cheekbones. A chipped nail. A tiny single mascara clump. Vivian seizing like a series of small earthquakes.
“Nothing really relevant,” Taylor manages to reply, after a few beats.
“Are you all right? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine.” But she’s not. She’s sweaty, hot.
Peter nods somewhere behind him, to someone she can’t see, and then Rose promptly appears, handing Taylor a glass of ice water in a fancy gold-rimmed glass.
“Thanks,” Taylor says. Has Rose been hiding in the shadows, listening this whole time?
She gives a curt nod and leaves—or at least disappears out of Taylor’s eyesight. Who knows with this room. It’s so big it feels like it could contain different dimensions.
Peter waits for Taylor to take a couple of sips. “Better?”
“Yeah—yes. Thanks.”
“The New England weather is unpredictable this time of year. We are officially in spring, but spring here can feel more like winter or summer depending on the day. And this room, with these windows—well, the ventilation is not always ideal.” He pauses, waits for Taylor to nod before continuing: “Now, I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions.
They might seem strange but just answer with the first thing that comes to mind.
And give an honest answer, which I don’t think you’ll have a problem with.
The Knox is a special kind of place, and we are looking for a certain type of individual.
There are no wrong answers, so don’t be nervous. You ready?”
Um…okay? “Okay.”
“What’s your lucky number?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Did you see the numbers on the side of the hall you walked through?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember what any of them were?”
“Yes, 1817 or 7181.”
He raises his eyebrows, seeming impressed. “What do you think they mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you had to guess.”
“The year the Knox was founded.” Or the number of billions of dollars you all have.
“Or what?”
“Or nothing. It’s 1817. And if it’s not, it’s none of my business.”
Peter nods. “Why did you knock on the door at nine fifteen a.m.?”
“Because that was my interview time.”
He pauses for a moment, seeming to reconsider the question he wishes to ask. “Did you show up earlier than that time but wait to knock?”
Did he (or they if there is a “they”) watch her through the door camera? “Yes, I waited for two minutes.”
“Why?”
Because Boston people are annoyingly early, and she refuses to perpetuate that habit.
Taylor recalls how her fellow ER nurses would arrive by half past six in the morning for their seven o’clock shift.
The first day of work she showed up at six forty-five, thinking she was early, but was met with dirty looks.
“Because that was my interview time,” she repeats, but this time he nods in affirmation.
“Why did you sit here, out of all the possible seats in this room?”
“I don’t know. It felt right.”
“Do you often do ‘what feels right’?”
With a guilty pang, she recalls the afternoon she spent in Vivian’s apartment. Was that right or wrong? If she hadn’t gone, would she be sitting here right now? She shrugs. “I don’t know. That’s a tough one.”
He leans forward, and a whiff of his cologne hits her: smoky, a hint of sage.
“I saw you looking at the painting of the woman on the train, when I came in. Where do you think that woman in the painting is going?” Jutting his chin toward the left, he keeps his eyes trained on Taylor.
They are like tiny blue oceans, and she feels they could swallow her whole.
She wouldn’t completely mind, she thinks, her heart quickening.
“I don’t think that woman is going anywhere.”
“Go on.”
“I think she’s defined by what is her temporary location. She’s in transit.”
“Go on.”
“She is the transit. She’s just existing.”
“Taylor Adams, why do you want to work here?”
His stare makes her feel raw and heady. She breaks her gaze.
Why does she want to work here?
Vivian. Her mom. Truth. Money. Opportunity. This man in front of her, maybe.
She can feel Peter studying her. Waiting.
How was Vivian involved with the Knox? How was Taylor’s mom? What really happened to Vivian, and where is she now? Did she mysteriously disappear from the hospital, or did it just seem that way from Taylor’s perspective? What if the answers to these questions are somehow here, in the Knox?
And what if, by working here, Taylor can find what she’s searching for, even if she doesn’t know exactly what that is?
Taking a deep breath, she once again meets his ocean-eyes. She settles on: “I need a job.”
As he nods vigorously—who doesn’t love a hustler, right?—she knows she was right to withhold the true answer, the one now thundering over and over in her head:
I want to feel like I exist.