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“You’re married?”
Karl looked up from his computer again to see the director of investigations staring at him from the doorway. Malcolm’s dark black skin and intense golden eyes made people feel as though he was a panther eyeing their suitability for dinner. Malcolm enjoyed the effect, multiplying it by wearing only dark colors.
“Did Greta tell you?”
“No.” Malcolm smiled. “You should learn to keep your door closed. Your assistant has a voice like a bassoon. Everyone on this floor probably knows by now.”
“Yes, Malcolm. I’m married. I’d not planned to tell anyone.”
“Did you really think you could keep information like that a secret?”
Yes, he had thought he could keep this a secret, but apparently he’d been delusional. If Vivian had stayed in Las Vegas, they could have gotten the divorce and no one would have been the wiser. However, with her pregnant and in Chicago, he was going to have to tell people. Putting it off would only make the inevitable more painful—yet he was still thinking about postponing the inevitable.
“How did you meet the lovely new Mrs. Milek? You’re always working. Even when everyone thinks you’re relaxing, you’re working.” Malcolm stroked his chin, a parody of the thoughtful investigator. “What kind of woman was able to slip through those defenses?”
“I’m not going to answer any of your questions, so you might as well stop wasting the city of Chicago’s time.”
Malcolm’s grin widened. “It’s funny how you think you can keep information a secret from me.”
“Listen, Malcolm, if you’re so curious about my wife, then why don’t you just investigate her yourself—just as long as you don’t do it on work time.”
“Hah! And how much of the information I learn about the new Mrs. Milek do you want me to share when I’m done?”
“None.” It wasn’t a lie. Karl intended to find out everything he needed to know about Vivian before Malcolm could ferret it out.
“Apparently you don’t think it counts as lying if you’re also lying to yourself.” With a salute, Malcolm left.
Karl could still hear Malcolm chuckling as he walked down the hall. Karl turned back to his computer, clicked on a browser. The cursor hovered over the search box. In a moment of uncharacteristic indecision, he closed the browser window and opened up work files, determined to put Vivian out of his mind for now.
* * *
VIVIAN PICKED UP the note Karl had left her on Friday morning, balled it up and threw it to Xìnyùn, who lobbed it into a small glass she’d appropriated for the game. Since Karl had disappeared last Saturday after they returned from the library, Vivian and Xìnyùn had gotten very good at basketball. Her husband seemed to think communicating through notes was an appropriate way to manage a marriage.
Even if theirs had been a hasty, drunk marriage better left in Vegas, they couldn’t hope to raise a child together communicating only through notes.
Dear Karl,
Jelly Bean flipped me off this morning. Apparently you said it was a “salute.” Be careful what you say to a four-year-old.
Thank you for your concern,
Vivian
Of course that was ridiculous. Karl would be at work too much to teach Jelly Bean—the name Vivian had taken to calling the baby growing inside her—how to flip someone the bird.
Dear Karl,
Jelly Bean returns from visitation having forgotten how to talk, but has become a surprisingly good correspondent. His teachers are worried.
Talk, dammit!
Vivian
She needed things from him. Humiliating though it was, she needed a place to live and health insurance. And she had also needed to get out of Las Vegas. Karl had given her those things with a poof of his magic fix-it sense. But an apartment and health insurance—and food, and a laptop so she could search for jobs, and a transit card and gas to get her around Chicago and to interviews—only solved her physical problems, not to mention that they made her feel increasingly dependent and trapped.
Maybe she didn’t need someone to talk to, but she wanted someone to talk to. Jelly Bean was still abstract; she couldn’t feel the baby yet, but she could feel her body changing and she wanted to talk with someone about it. When she told Xìnyùn everything she ate tasted like metal, he only whistled. And she couldn’t face her Las Vegas friends—not yet anyway. Not until she found new bearings.
