Company - Max Barry [84]
“Hello?”
“It's me.”
“Ah! Jo . . . one second . . . choo! Oh, God. Sorry. It's good to hear your voice.”
“You sound like you're dead.”
“Not yet. Just . . . very . . . phlegmy.”
“Want me to come over?” He waits. He can't believe he just said this.
“Sorry, what?” There is a rustling noise. “Oh, God, that was my last tissue.”
“I'll come visit you,” Jones says. “With tissues.”
“Oh . . . Jones. That's really sweet, but . . . I'm not exactly looking my best.”
“I don't mind.”
“My eyes are puffy, my skin is greasy, my nose is red—not to mention dribbling—”
“Well, that's why you need tissues.”
A pause. “You seriously want to come over?”
“Yeah.”
“Even though I look like someone just dug me up.”
“Sure.”
She starts to laugh, which turns into a coughing fit. “Jones, you are something else.”
“Come on, give me your address.”
“Well,” she says, “so long as you know what you're in for.”
He is not hugely surprised when Eve's address turns out to be a sleek, modern building fronting the bay, nor that her apartment is at the very top and has its own elevator. He presses the intercom button while a light breeze tugs at his shirt, and takes the opportunity to think about what he's doing.
What he needs are some ground rules. Yes, he is visiting Eve. And yes, he is attracted to her. That's fine, so long as he handles it properly. There will be no flirting. No touching. He will not discuss incidents from his past, particularly of the romantic variety. He will keep the conversation on task; that is, he will get Eve to talk about Alpha so that he can learn how to break it.
“Hello?” the intercom croaks.
“It's me.”
The door in front of him goes clack. He pushes it open and rides the elevator to floor P, which Jones guesses stands for penthouse. It opens onto a six-foot corridor with a single door at the end, and as he approaches, this goes clack, too. He turns the handle and steps into Eve's apartment.
He is expecting a huge, light-filled room dotted with ultramodern furniture in coordinated colors. He is half right: it is enormous. And the sun does bounce off the bay beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. But it is also practically empty. The only furniture is a single, lonely-looking table in the middle of the carpet and a few wooden chairs. There's a giant TV, but it's on the floor. Facing it is not a sofa but a spongy-looking mat.
He takes a guess and heads up a spiral staircase, past a gigantic stylized painting of the Seattle skyline—which, if Jones has his geography right, includes this building. Then the reflection of something colorful catches his eye, and he turns around to see a walk-in closet filled with clothes and shoes.
It is easily the size of Jones's bedroom. On each side are racks jammed with pants, skirts, dresses, and jackets. At least half still have tags attached, sporting names like Balenciaga, Chloë, Prada, and Rodriguez—which mean very little to Jones, other than expensive. The far end of the closet is a solid wall of boxes, and as Jones draws closer he sees each one has stuck on it a Polaroid photo of a pair of shoes. He is dumbstruck. There are enough clothes in here for Eve to wear a completely different outfit each day for about two years.
“Jones?”
He leaves the closet and finds the bedroom next door. Inside, Eve is propped up on a king-size bed, looking pale and bleary in a thin nightdress. The curtains are closed and the lamps on—which, as this room actually has furniture, rest on bedside tables. A full-length mirror stands on the far side of the room, beside one of two large wooden chests of drawers. There are more cupboards. One corner of the carpet contains a mound