Meanwhile, I have a buyer interested in purchasing a complete set of Bottle Girls, but have no more prints of #4 available after the last one sold. We’ve only sold 7 out of a print run of 10 so I think you must have more at your place. Can you check?
Hal
January 18 1991
Hal,
I have couriered down the 3 remaining prints of BG#4. I can do another print run next month.
Let me guess what Romi wants me to write about.
Motherhood.
Marriage.
Too much fame.
Not enough fame.
My vagina. Who’s gone in it, who came out of it, whether I got that extra stitch postpartum.
Whether my moment has faded.
Whether I’m overpriced.
Whether I’ll be forgotten.
What happened in Nangussett.
Whether the scars in my photos are real.
Or whether I made it all up.
No? None of these?
Really?
Next time Romi is jacking you off in a bathroom stall, instead of telling him I’ll do shit I’m not going to do, maybe you can remind him that I want the show to include the version of Capillaries #6 that is at MoMA, not the one at Chicago. The saturation is different. I don’t care which one is cheaper to insure.
M
2.
KATE
The house where Miranda Brand had lived and died was, on the outside, unremarkable. It was perched on the crown of the hill like a dollop of mayonnaise on the bald curve of a hard-boiled egg. The color might have been beautiful once, but the wind coming off the ocean had beaten the paint to a drab gray, the same shade as the sky, so that in some places it was hard to see where the fog stopped and the building began. Two overgrown lemon trees fanned across the front, their tallest branches just brushing the windows of a third floor. It could have been any house on any hill in a coastal town, East Coast or West, and yet as soon as Kate saw it, her heart gave a strange, swift beat.
Maybe it was just exertion. In a terse, unpunctuated email a few days earlier, Theo Brand had given her directions to the house via a “walking path” from town, as well as the combination for a lock on the gate to the property. Kate had imagined an easy stroll, but instead she had found herself climbing a steep, tangled furrow through redwoods until sweat bloomed between her shoulder blades. As for the gate, the lock was so rusty that she had spent five minutes scraping it with a bobby pin just to get it open.
Despite the delay, she was fifteen minutes early. Too early to knock. She stood at the edge of the clearing, eyeing the house and huddling into herself to stay warm. It was colder here than she had expected, the morning air as wet and icy as a dead fish, and all the little hairs on her arms were standing up. Dinner last night had been weird—her aunt and uncle tossing out information on everything from area hikes, to the guest room toilet’s quirks, to the local beach’s rules, while Kate chewed an overcooked steak and tried not to worry about her new job.
Kate had dismissed her aunt’s concerns in the car, but the truth was, she had spoken to her new boss only once before, a brisk thirty-minute phone interview during which he had shared almost nothing about himself. Afterward, through Google, she learned he had gone to Harvard, bounced between a few successful internet start-ups, and now ran some computer-related consulting business, which had gotten him featured on an important 35-under-35 list for the tech industry. His name came up in a few magazine articles—and, of course, in his father’s obituary from six months ago. But the press coverage was bland and uninformative. In interviews, he declined to comment on anything unrelated to work. The only personal information Kate had found was a line item in a Bay Area gossip blog about his divorce last year from a woman named Rachel Tatum.
Not a single article where he spoke about his mother.
Kate had been on the wrong side of enough news reports over the past year to understand the desire for privacy. On the other hand, she had taken this job assuming she would learn more about him at some point. She had figured that they would talk again before she moved all the way across the country, or that he would send detailed instructions about what exactly the work would entail. She had meant to do a deeper dive into the tech blogs. Now, as she stared at the house, she realized that she had gotten so distracted by the logistics of moving that she had done the unimaginable: she had stopped researching. The critical moment was here and she had run out of time. This was it. This was all she knew.
She checked her watch. Thirteen minutes now. Across the brittle brown loop of the lawn, there was a notch in the tree line. She could at least walk over there, try to get a glimpse of the ocean. With another glance at the silent house, she hitched her tote bag up on her shoulder and started across the lawn.
In the backyard, the slope spilled down into the edge of the woods, and below that a cliff. No luck on the view, even through the break in the trees: the fog blanked out whatever lay beyond, leaving the clearing swaddled in a gray cocoon of mist.
Far down the incline was a glint of metal. Her stomach twisted. The fence she had come through must encircle the entire house. When she had closed the gate and rejammed the lock, she had trapped herself inside.
“What are you doing?” a voice said from right behind her.
Kate started, almost losing her footing. When she turned, she saw a man standing about ten feet away, between her and the house. Tall, dark-haired, olive-skinned, a lean frame. His feet were spread wide—defensive—and his hands were in his pockets.
Theo Brand.
There was an intensity to him that the images online hadn’t captured. He was more vital, less coiffed. Her elbow clamped her tote bag to her side. Fear, excitement, something sharp and glowing, slicked through her veins. She shouldn’t have had that second coffee.
“I’m Kate,” she blurted out. “Your archivist.” She didn’t know why she said your.
“I figured. I guess you missed the front door.”
She swallowed. “I wanted to see the view.”
He looked at the opaque sky and raised an eyebrow. When Kate flushed, he said, “You know, I prosecute trespassers.”
He couldn’t be serious. And yet his voice was cool, and his eyes were steady. The laughter died in her throat. She cast her mind back to their emails. Had she gotten the start date wrong? No, she would never have messed that up. She was good with details.
“I know I’m a little early,” she said haltingly. “But I think…” She waited for him to jump in and correct himself. He didn’t. She could barely conceal her disbelief as she asked, “Are you saying I should go back around front?”
“Of course not,” he said. Then, as she was beginning to relax: “You should enjoy it a little longer.”
“Enjoy what?”
“The thrill.” He nodded in her direction. “That’s where she died. Shot herself right where you’re standing.”
Kate looked down at the sparse, matted grass.
“Go ahead, get down on the ground,” he said pleasantly. “See what it feels like. Get the full experience.”
Her heart had finally started to slow after the surprise of his arrival, but now it picked up again, indignant. But what could she say? There was no possible appropriate response.
“I’m…” She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry for your loss.”