Vienna (32 page)

“Why aren't we making love?”

“We are.”

Vienna was surprised less by the answer than by how it made perfect sense. “This is the part of you not in the photographs.”

“You could say that.”

“Did you share this with Andries?”

Justine was silent for a full minute before answering. “No.”

“Good,” Vienna whispered.

“I heard that.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Lovers are allowed to be selfish.”

Vienna was certain she'd never read that.
Am I supposed to share my life, too?
“I always wanted to learn how to waltz,” she said. “Like the beautiful women in the Cart House.” That seemed to fit.

Justine started to say something, but suddenly stopped and started over. “We'll have to do something about that.”

“I don't want other people to see!”

“We can talk about it later. And one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“You really did need one more night, maybe two, even if you don't feel it. Your body needs to catch its breath. Any other time I would have forgotten all the cutesy crap.”

“And felt guilty?”

“Lust always trumps guilt.”

“I was beginning to wonder.”

Justine laughed and squeezed her hand. “Can I ask a question?”

“Yes?”

“What did the dolls tell you when you were young?”

Vienna remembered the comment she had made in Brussels. “That I was flat and my hair was bad and I didn't fit in.”

“That's a relief.”

“Excuse me?”

“I thought they might be telling you to kill people or set houses on fire.”

“I'm not that broken.”

“Proof that I'm a prisoner of my fears no less than you are.”

Vienna sensed unspoken meaning. It wasn't anything she could have believed a few days ago. “What did the dolls tell you?”

“That I was one of them.”

And that was sad, even though Vienna couldn't pin down exactly why. It was wrong anyway. “You don't fit that way.”

“Vienna?”

“How everything fits together. You aren't that way.”

“How do I fit?”

“Everywhere.” She let the words rush out before they were lost. “That's why it was hard to see, yeah? I thought it had to be wrong, because nothing fits like that. But I think that's the way it's supposed to be.”

Justine rolled to her, arms tight around her. “Thank you.”

Vienna was ashamed that she'd once believed this moment could be described in a book. She held her breath.
Let this last.
But her thoughts raced on.
When we fit together this way, it keeps my feet warm
. She wanted to scream because that was stupidly out of place and it was all slipping away. But then everything turned around, and time did stop. The stars frozen in the Icelandic night. Easy to imagine Justine mentioning cold feet, even at a time like this. It was exactly the sort of snarky remark she would make.

Even now she's inside me.

Vienna took a deep breath; shifted in just the right way to make Justine hold her tighter. And the universe came unstuck but it didn't really matter anymore.

Vienna slept most of the way home, the car's heater blowing at her feet. She woke once to see Justine driving, her hands softly tapping the wheel in rhythm to a silent song. The dying moon, cold and silver overhead, reflected from endless pools of water along the road. She closed her eyes again.

Breakfast at the Radisson was a buffet that looked familiar but didn't taste right. Vienna missed eggs made exactly the way she liked them. It was depressing even before everyone decided they needed to talk to her.

“Is the food okay?” “Is Justine a nice person?” “How do you like Iceland?” “Can I have Justine's phone number?” “If I ever see that Jordan guy, I am going to kick his ass so hard he'll be chewing toenails for a month.” That from a big man with an American accent. It reminded Vienna of Hunter S. Thompson.

The questions stopped when Justine came down.

“Good morning, Little Storm Cloud,” she said.

“Why do you call me that?”

“You show your feelings in your eyes. What were you thinking about?”

Vienna decided on a new tack. Instead of trying to figure out every angle of conversation, she would answer with whatever came to mind. “You always look beautiful and I don't.”

“You want to know a secret?”

“Okay.”

“I'm not a creature of my own design either. I like hearing that you think I'm beautiful though. You can say that all you want.”

As if being beautiful equated to seizures. Vienna took a deep breath. “Why did you book an extra day in Iceland? You're always in a rush, yeah?”

“Back when the project got underway, I wanted to be here on a Friday night for the runtur. Adelina—she handles my travel—knew this, so she kept the extra day in our itinerary. I was too distracted to notice.”

“Runtur?”

“The Reykjavík pub crawl. Legendary craziness. We'll do something more quiet though.”

“Let's go out.” Justine raised a single eyebrow, which Vienna thought of as a question. She answered. “When other people see me with you, they can be jealous instead of me.”

Justine smiled. “You are red in tooth and claw. I like it. I'll look my best.”

After breakfast Justine worked out for two hours. “I should have been born twenty years ago, when anemic was in,” she said when she got back. “Though I'll pass on cigarettes and the Technicolor yawn.” Not even worth guessing what that was about.

Then Justine was on the phone for over an hour. “I can't get James, which means he's working.” Another two calls and then: “An offer from Madrid. What about a week in Spain?”

It amazed Vienna how Justine casually mentioned such a huge undertaking. “I would like to see the Plaza de Cibeles, there's a statue of Cybele.” And because this seemed incomplete, she added a touch of history that had always eerily fascinated her. “Males castrated themselves before her to appear more female.”

“Bravo! I'll forward the request to James. A small show on December sixteenth, some up-and-coming accessories designer I've never heard of. Hardly Hong Kong or New York, but I'm not out of work yet.”

Then she was off to get the right clothes, even though she already had enough for a Shakespearian company.

Vienna had two hours alone to play with Justine's Kindle. She read Mark Twain, having heard he was as American as Americans could get. He liked cats, which surprised Vienna as she thought Americans preferred dogs or snakes or whatever. He was supposed to be funny, but Vienna saw his writing as a plea for compassion in a world where it was already in short supply. She decided Twain had been broken in a sad but beautiful way and that maybe she could be, too.

Little Storm Cloud.

Justine returned with a handful of bags. “It stopped raining, if you can believe it. Off to the shower. Tonight's mode will be semiformal party.”

Over the next hour, Vienna was again transformed into the girl that was not quite her. “You look great,” Justine said. “My turn. New Jimmy Choos tonight.” Which must have been exciting news.

Justine ended up in a modest dress that somehow showed off everything she had. The fabric was heavier against the cold night, black fading to dark gray at the collar. Her makeup was different—slightly shaded around her eyes, though nothing near as dark as what Vienna had seen her coworkers wear. She was as beautiful as a fallen angel.

Vienna wanted to ask how Justine could forget all the terrible things that had happened long enough to enjoy the evening. But she knew she wouldn't understand the answer anyway.

Into the cold Icelandic night, where the taciturn populace had gone insane. People singing and shouting. Some of the women wore next to nothing despite the cold. One was pressing her bare chest against the window of a pub. And maybe Vienna would be expected to do that and she didn't really want to. She was about to suggest turning back when Justine took a proprietary grip on her hand. There was no mistaking it for a friendly clasp.

I will take what I can.
It bothered Vienna because she wanted it so much—to be with Justine. To belong to her? Was that okay? It wasn't a question you could ever really ask anyone.

Justine sailed through pubs, crowds materializing around her. A man had the poster of her with the diamond shoes. Justine signed it with a laugh.

There seemed little dancing and a lot of drinking. Justine let Vienna have two cocktails, called cosmos, which made everything swirly bright. “No more for Vienna,” she said when the second one was gone. Something in the way she spoke made everyone ask if Vienna was okay, or if she needed water or something to eat. She accepted water and noted that even Justine drank less than she seemed to, despite the fact that everyone was buying her alcohol. Another one of her tricks.

All this in a whirling cyclone of perfume and cologne. Mock squeals of distress and staccato peals of laughter. Rugby on the telly; mud and muscles and crowds cheering. Vienna skated on the thin film of sexual tension, feeling it tear under her.

Midnight came and went. Olifur appeared at a discreet distance just after one thirty. If Justine noticed, she didn't say anything. The decibels rose another notch. Justine rode the wave of noise and light, poised at its highest curl.

Vienna snuck another drink, something she could have sworn the bartender called “black death.” It tasted terrible, so she drank it all at once. And suddenly she was outside her head and floating inside a pub with a shoulder-tight crowd of Icelanders. Looking from disembodied distance, she saw again that no one was comfortable around Justine. They wanted to talk to her and be seen with her and sleep with her and that didn't leave any time to just be with her. Those who kept their distance hissed poisonous envy. Vienna wanted to slap them.

I will not ruin her night.

And she didn't, though she worried when Justine's new clothes ended up in a wrinkled heap on the hotel room floor. So much for waiting another night. And because Justine would feel guilty, Vienna encouraged her to just do what she wanted. Which only made Justine talk in tedious length. Finally it was too much.

“We are like the two stars. A horse and a rider.” Which was the most vulgar thing Vienna had ever said, and she wasn't even certain the context was right given they were both female.

At first it seemed like a mistake because Justine slid off the bed and walked to the pile of clothes and pulled out Vienna's blouse. She put it on Vienna, which seemed the opposite of sex until she started taking it off again. The second Vienna's hands were overhead, Justine grabbed the fabric and twisted it in some way so that Vienna's wrists were tied together.

“A trick I saw at a show in Berlin. Crazy town,” she said. “Last chance to run.”

Vienna decided that under the current circumstance, she could hardly be expected to make any choices. Which was perfect, as long as Justine would just shut up.

“Vienna, I…” blah blah blah until the stars went cold.

Vienna defaulted to returning one of Justine's gestures. She stuck out her tongue.

It must have been the right reply. Justine straddled her hips and leaned over until her nose just touched Vienna's.

“Your turn,” she said.

“My turn?”

“To tell me you love me.”

And there was the alcohol back again because she couldn't think and it was so unfair. So unfair to be alone in a tiny apartment in Brussels. Unfair to stare at the same crack in the ceiling every night. Unfair that she wanted to be with Justine every second and Justine just went out shopping and left her alone like it was nothing.

If I don't say anything, she might get upset.

“I do.” Which the absolute wrong thing because it sounded like she was speaking at a wedding. Maybe Justine didn't catch it? Maybe they did it differently in America?

Justine laughed. “To have and hold.” The way she said it was not the way you would say it in church. Worse, this looked like a prelude to more talking. Vienna raised her head high enough to kiss Justine because maybe that would stop another lecture. It was like hitting a switch when a room went from mysterious dark to blinding light with nothing between. Suddenly Justine's hands were tight on Vienna's hair pulling her closer.

The rest followed from that and Vienna only had to play along. First on her back, then on her stomach, which Vienna didn't think she would like but did. Squeezing the pillow under her head as tightly as she could because all of her muscles seemed connected. Her hands came free, which she thought might be cheating, but she kept them tangled in the shirt anyway because asking Justine to reset the knot would only lead to more talking.

She returned Justine's love as well as she could, and she must have been getting better because Justine whispered to her. “Such a good girl.” Her breathing loud and shallow. The machinery of heaven. A star hidden among planets. “Such a good girl.” Her fingers tangled in Vienna's hair. That felt exactly like Vienna thought it should. Like Justine wanted her more than headlines or houses. Avarice for nothing but Vienna, and it was more astonishing than anything Vienna had ever imagined.

Until it ended. Because she was wide awake, even as Justine crawled under the covers. “I did most of the work and had more to drink,” Justine explained. She sounded oddly defensive.

“May I look at your BlackBerry?”

“Sure.” Justine recited a nonsensical ten-character password. Vienna wrote the sequence down, then tore it up.

All of twelve minutes to find what David Andries had hidden. Fourteen numbers that could have saved his life. So obvious.

Vienna's thoughts fractured into a thousand directions. Everything moving too fast and she was trapped inside the Hunter S. Thompson book.