Total Exposure Read online

Because he needed you, that nasty voice in my head says.

  I rationalize that internal suspicion. Cameras and shit… I’m just kinda good at it. I don’t have to think about it. I know where to put them, how to set up a control room, how to keep busy as you watch so you don’t get bored. I have regular cameras too. With those long zoom lenses. Sometimes I just sit in a car, or a van, or a fucking U-Haul and take pictures.

  And I like compiling data. My clients don’t ask for it, but I give them all a little report at the end. Assign motive to certain actions, put pictures in chronological order so they make sense, and bind it all up with brass brads and a plastic cover sheet with their case number on it. (Plus a coupon for ten percent off their next order. It’s got little dotted lines and a miniature pair of scissors around the words, letting them know they should cut it out and present it to me. They never do that. But I try.)

  My phone buzzes on the console table next to me. I glance down at the screen, which says Number Unavailable, and answer out of sheer curiosity alone.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Ix,” the woman says on the other end of the line.

  “Who’s this?” I ask back.

  “Chella.” She laughs. “Remember? Saw you the other day and—”

  “How’d you get my number?”

  “Jordan. But that’s not why I’m calling. I’m having this thing next month.”

  “Thing?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I told you I own that tea room next to the place that used to be the Club?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, I’m having a thing and you’re coming. We should catch up.”

  “Nah,” I say, my eyes darting back to Evangeline on the screen. She still hasn’t moved.

  “Good,” she says. Like I just said yes instead of no. “It’s Saturday, February fourteenth at three o’clock.”

  “Isn’t that Valentine’s Day?”

  “Right! Bring your lady friend, OK? She’s so interesting and I’d really like to meet her.”

  “Chella, I’m fucking working. I can’t go to your thing. And she’s not my lady friend, she’s my fucking… client.” Which isn’t really true. Jordan is my client. But I don’t have another word for her.

  “I’d love to hear her play. Can she bring her violin?”

  “She doesn’t like people watching her. She won’t even go outside, OK? There’s no way in hell she’s gonna show up at your tea party.”

  “Perfect,” Chella says. “See you then.”

  I just stare at the phone once the call ends. That chick is fucking weird.

  I’m not going to her thing. Even if I wasn’t working, I wouldn’t go. Chella, and Jordan, and this city, and… fucking childhood bullshit. I mean, I haven’t seen Chella Walcott—Baldwin, whatever—since she was like nine years old. And now she’s suddenly calling me up like we’re old friends?

  We weren’t old friends. She disappeared to… wherever the fuck her crazy parents took her, and I got left with Jordan. And…

  Fuck!

  Why the hell did I take this job?

  Because Jordan bailed me out of jail, I rationalize.

  But that’s not even true. I didn’t need bail money. I didn’t call him for help. And if I’m being totally honest here, I would’ve stayed in that cell until my court appearance, then pled guilty, and happily served my time.

  It would’ve been like a vacation to me.

  Because you’ve got nothing better to do, Ixion. That’s why.

  Yes. That right there is the truth.

  I have absolutely nothing better to do than sit in this stupid basement and watch some psycho fall apart because people might look at her.

  Of all the stupid things I’ve heard in this life, this is right up there with I deeply apologize for my inappropriate actions and I’m seeking treatment for my sex addiction.

  I stare at the screen. Willing her to get up and do something so I can stop thinking about my life and go back to feeling sorry for someone else.

  The minutes tick off. She stays there, all crumpled up on the rug, playing with a string, or a piece of lint, or whatever the fuck she’s rolling between her fingers. And she’s chanting something. Like a poem, or a song, or something like that. I can’t really hear it, the microphones in that room aren’t the best. And I try to find a good angle to see her lips to try to read them as she mumbles. But it’s no use. Her long hair is mostly covering her face.

  I’m a bird… in a song… and the wind…

  Fuck, I don’t know what she’s saying. It’s a nursery rhyme, maybe?

  Eventually she stops playing with the lint ball, and her lips stop moving, so the chant is over, and then one side of her stupid sunglasses falls away from her face and I see that she’s sleeping.

  Guess I won that bet, right?

  Too bad there wasn’t money riding on it.

  Like I need the money.

  Like the bet was with someone other than myself.

  Like… I really need to get out more.

  Sometime over the next several hours, she rolls over and grabs for a blanket draped over the arm of a couch, and tries to cover herself.

  It’s one of those blankets that aren’t good for anything. They’re usually too thin, and too short, and too decorative to have any useful purpose whatsoever.

  My mother used to have those things on all our couches when I was a kid. It annoyed me, even back when I was short, that they never covered enough to get me warm.

  And then I start wondering if she’s cold.

  Of course she’s cold. She’s sleeping in a giant mansion that can’t ever be warm enough because that’s the way of mansions. And she’s on the floor. And that blanket doesn’t even qualify as a blanket, so I press the button for the microphone in that room and I lean in, ready to tell her to get the fuck up and go sleep in a real bed because, you know, there’s like twenty-seven different things to sleep on in this place and none of them involve the floor and… I stop just in time.

  Because I’m under strict orders not to talk to her. And if I do talk to her, she’ll know I’m a man, and she’ll freak the fuck out, and then she’ll walk out of here and call her therapist or whatever, and then… fucking jig is up, right?

  Ixion and Jordan do what they do best. Fuck people up.

  I don’t know where that just came from, so…

  I glance over at the notebook, then notice I’m still fucking holding the pen in my right hand, and…

  I’ll just write her a note. And quietly make my way up to the library, and place it next to her, and then kick her or something, so she wakes up and finds it.

  Good plan, Ix.

  So I turn the page in the notebook and think about how to put this.

  You’re being dumb. Go to bed.

  Probably not the best way to handle it. So I flip the page and try again.

  Turn up the heat.

  But there’s like six or seven thermostats in this house. That might just confuse her.

  You haven’t seen the master bedroom yet. It’s very nice. Go sleep there.

  That conjures up a lot of innuendo…

  You’re cold. Go upstairs. Find the master bedroom. Get in the bed, cover up, and go to sleep.

  There we go. That’s the winner.

  I fold it in half, write her name on the front, get up, leave the control room, make my way upstairs, and walk down the hallway to the library.

  It’s weird to see her in person after watching her all day. Her body is contorted into some semblance of a fetal position and the blanket is diagonal across her upper body—because that’s the only way it’s big enough to cover anything, and whoever the fuck came up with decorative blankets needs to spend the night in this cold-ass mansion on the floor trying to use one—and she’s… shivering.

  I enter the room as quietly as I can, wishing I wasn’t wearing boots, acutely aware that the hardwood floors are ancient and most of the boards are creaking.

  But I manage, because that’s how I roll,
place the folded piece of paper right next to her softly breathing mouth, and back out the way I came.

  Chapter Ten - Evangeline

  I dream of birds and summer days.

  I string together words in books that earn me praise.

  But the words are notes and the books are songs,

  and the birds and summer days are gone.

  The winter wind is strong and sounds

  like the missing music I lost and found.

  I wake up, confused. Still hearing birds. Still thinking it’s summer. But I am chilled to the bone, and shaking in my core, and the winter wind is blowing outside with force. And then I remember where I am. What I’m doing. And why the fuck are there birds in this house?

  My sunglasses are all askew on my face, so when I open my eyes in the darkness, I can see a little more than I’d be able to had they been affixed properly.

  The library, I remind myself.

  I glance at the corner where the violin is propped up on the stand. The sun has set and there’s just a faint glow of light coming through the window. Outlining it, as if I needed it outlined.

  The song of birds is coming from a speaker somewhere. I look up and find all the cameras, then quickly straighten out my sunglasses to hide my eyes. But that just sucks all the remaining light out of the room, blinding me.

  Pushing up from the floor, I get dizzy. So I stay on all fours and hang my head for a few moments, staring down at the pattern on the rug. It’s an ancient rug. Like a real, ancient Persian fucking rug. I can feel the bare threads under my fingertips. The softness of the wool it’s woven of.

  And that’s when I see the note.

  Evangeline, it says, written in neat print and all caps. And there’s a little squiggly line underneath the letters that looks like a fancy, elongated cursive lowercase e, but it isn’t an e. It’s… just a fancy little squiggly line.

  I look up at the nearest camera again and say, “What’s this?”

  I’m not expecting an answer, and it never comes, so I just sit up better so my legs are underneath me. I straighten out my sweater. The second the thin blanket falls down from my shoulders, I shiver with cold.

  But the cold can wait.

  My watcher has sent me a message.

  Is this part of the treatment?

  I don’t think so. And I don’t care. When was the last time someone sent me a letter?

  I can’t even recall. I was a child, probably. It was a fan. Or one of the many perverts who used to stalk me online and after performances.

  Read it! my mind screams. Open it and read it!

  My fingers are so nearly numb, they fumble with the folded sheet of thick paper. It’s nice paper, I realize, as I manage to open it up.

  You’re cold. Go upstairs. Find the master bedroom. Get in the bed, cover up, and go to sleep.

  One fact and five commands.

  Just as that thought leaves my head the birds stop singing.

  I think about that for a little while, unexpectedly reflective about the loss of music. My heart is racing, but not too bad. Which surprises me.

  You’re cold.

  I’m chilled so bad, all I really want is to be at home taking a hot bath in my giant, private tub. But that’s not gonna happen. Not while I’m here, at least. There are cameras up there. In all the rooms, even the bathrooms. That much I know.

  Go upstairs. Find the master bedroom. Get in the bed, cover up, and go to sleep.

  It’s the answer I’m looking for.

  Simple. Direct. Obtainable.

  I push up from the floor, still clutching the note in my hand, and exhale.

  It’s dark now. I could leave. Find a phone somewhere. Call the concierge and go home.

  But it all sounds like so much effort.

  I look at the note again and sigh.

  That all sounds so easy.

  So I do what I’m told.

  I leave the library, closing the double doors behind me so I don’t have to see that stupid violin again should I wander down this way tomorrow, and walk down the dark hallway until I come back to the grand foyer.

  I stand there, looking up, the wide staircase beckoning me like an old friend. I go to it, heeding the call, and place my hand on the smoothly polished wood of the banister. Still looking up as I climb, wondering if my watcher is waiting for me up there.

  And unexpected heat rises from my lower stomach. A stirring between my legs as I picture him. Maybe it’s a her? No, the printing was very masculine.

  What if he is old? And Lucinda was lying?

  What if he’s not?

  It doesn’t matter because when I get to the top of the stairs, he’s not there.

  I look left and right. Nothing but closed doors in both directions. There’s another staircase at the end of the hall to my left. Is he in the attic? Did he mean for me to go up to the third floor?

  Find the master bedroom was his next command.

  So I do that. I open the first door and find a bathroom, then notice a little red blinking light in a plug and wonder how hidden his cameras are. If it wasn’t dark I probably wouldn’t notice that red light. I’d think that was just a useful adapter for my phone.

  I close the door and go to the next. A bedroom, but small and decorated for a small princess, so not the master. And then another, a nursery. And another, a teen room. And another bathroom. Then more bedrooms, but none are what I’ve been assigned to find.

  So I turn back, pass the grand staircase again, and head towards the second set of stairs. I pass several doors, but they are closets, and one is a bathroom. And another bedroom, still too small to be a master in this size house.

  I stand at the bottom of the second staircase and look up into darkness.

  Is he up there?

  Is he waiting for me?

  What’s that noise?

  I crane my neck forward, head tilted, desperate to hear more.

  Birds…

  I climb without thinking. This is where I’m supposed to go. And even though I have this tiny, niggling thought that this whole fucking setup is dangerous and stupid, I don’t care.

  I just want to hear the song again.

  At the top there’s a small landing. The darkness is complete. So much so, I have to inch forward and feel for the doors I know must be there.

  I find a knob, then a second, and realize they are double doors, just like the ones downstairs.

  I turn both knobs and push them inward and find a softly lit bedroom.

  The master.

  There’s only one small light, and it barely counts as a light and it’s shaped like a quarter moon. More like one of those decorative things you place in a baby’s nursery to give off the glow of comfort.

  But it’s just enough for me to see everything.

  The bed has been turned down. The comforter is either white, or pale yellow or cream. Can’t really tell. But it looks soft and inviting

  Did he do this for me? Turn the bed down?

  Or was that Lucinda? Was she in here? Did the watcher know she came and got the room ready, so he told me to come upstairs?

  Did Lucinda tell him to write that note?

  I deflate at that thought. It’s an unexpected sigh of sadness to even think about it.

  I don’t want her to be responsible for this turn of events. I want it to be him. His easy commands. His firm expectations. And not her just playing mother with me.

  I don’t need another mother. One was more than enough, thank you.

  There’s a camera in the corner, facing the bed. In fact, I count six total. Each of the four corners, one on the fireplace mantel at the foot of the bed, and one directly above the bed in the form of a reflective black bulb among white ones nestled in the intricate chandelier.

  Get in bed, cover up, and go to sleep.

  I walk towards it, curious about the room and the dark doorway that must lead to the en suite bathroom, but wanting to follow directions, I push that curiosity aside and kick off my shoes.
/>   The rug underneath my feet is soft sheepskin. My toes wriggle, eager to feel it on my bare skin, so I pull off my socks and give them that luxury.

  I feel like I suddenly have a lot to say. A million questions. What song is this? What kind of bird? It sounds familiar. Like something in a dream.

  Which is probably why you were dreaming poetry, Evangeline.

  Right. Because that’s all I do these days—dream.

  I kneel on the bed, feeling it give with my weight, and then crawl in, fully clothed minus socks.

  The sheets are cold, but they warm quickly. I pull the heavy comforter over me and bury my face in the pillow.

  Something leaves me in this moment.

  Something not worth keeping, I think. It’s dread, maybe. Or anxiety. Or fear. Maybe it’s fear?

  Or, I think, maybe it’s something returning and not leaving. Maybe it’s curiosity.

  When was the last time I was curious about a person? Or anything?

  And the recordings of child prodigies don’t count. Because I know why I was doing that now. That was the very first thing Lucinda and I worked out.

  I wanted to feel safe in their failures so I didn’t judge myself too harshly.

  Almost all of them had trouble as adults. Most of them stopped playing just like me. They made me feel like a statistic. I wanted to feel like a statistic.

  When I finally said all that out loud Lucinda smiled at me and said, “How does it feel to be reduced to a number?”

  That was the first time I really thought about why I had this fear of being watched.

  “Not good,” I said back.

  I felt very used, honestly. Like I was nothing but a fulfilled expectation.

  I’d worked that out as a teenager too. I remember feeling used, voicing that feeling to my parents. And I remember their reaction. And what my father said next. How I agreed, and did what he asked. Let him use me again. And then…and then, when it came right down to it, I didn’t. I refused. I took a step away. A step forward. I fixed things. Made them better.

  But then why did everything get worse?

  Fuck. Let it go!

  Anyway, when I called up my old agent and told her to schedule the performance, Lucinda said, “How does it feel to want something?”