Claire blows all the air out of her lungs. “Wow.”
I wince. “Caroline is going to kill me for telling you that.”
We sit. We sip. We savor.
“Actually,” Claire says, “I think this is good.”
“Good?”
She turns to me, her eyes magnified and determined behind her glasses. “I want to make this film with you, Faye. I think it’s nasty, and real, and extremely fucking hot. I mean. We know that womenhave rape fantasies, right?Fifty Shadeswas page after page of chicken scratch and still it was a phenomenon, even among smart women. But how do you do an elevated version of that in today’s climate? It’s a delicate line to walk and no one is even trying. The industry operates from a place of fear and anxiety and you don’t need me to tell you that it shows in the flaccid final cut.”
Claire pauses so that the bartender can top her off, waits for him to move away and attend to someone else. “The talk around town is that everyone loves this pitch but that they’re too scared to touch it because they don’t want to be sued into oblivion, but if you think about it, he only has grounds to do that if what you are claiming about him is true, and what man in his right mind is going to come out and admit to having the sex drive of a doorknob?”
I stare at her, my chest ballooning, my heart rising. “I want to make this movie with you too.”
“You need a hit.”
I look down at my hands. All the rings on my fingers and not a single wedding band. “I can’t believe I thought I needed one before.”
“My ex is a punk too. You’ll get through it. Speaking of—” She lifts her phone. “I should give him a call. He had the kids when we got the evacuation notice. They went to my in-laws’ in Newport.” She takes one last sip of her wine. Tells the bartender to put the bottle on her room. She hoists herself off the stool and reaches for her bag hanging underneath the bar, finally clearing space for mine. I remove my big tote bag from my lap and hang it up, and now that I have some breathing room, I take off my coat too, the long suede one some stylist convinced me to buy but was so expensive I’m too afraid to wear it. I fold that in my lap and smile at Claire, who, standing, is about eye level with my collarbone. “Oh,” she says, startled. “Just like from the story.”
I touch my chin to my chest to see the silver charm snagged in the button of my shirt. I shake out my collar, straighten the chain.
“So you took it when you two broke up?” Claire cocks her head, studies me with X-ray eyes.
I laugh off the concern on her face. “I promise I wasn’t held against my will for a week in the Adirondacks, Claire. It’s just a fantasy.”
Claire raises her eyebrows and presses her lips together, emitting a dubious vibration. She turns and rolls her matching hard-shell suitcases behind her. Unwatched, I slip the pendant under my shirt and lay my hand over its familiar shape. There are times I think the metal organ beats with blood, warm as my own. Times too, that I think we did change the ending.