“Something so small, but so precious. Without it, the picture isn’t whole. And that, mi reina, is the point. The majesty of life can be found only in the present moment.” She doesn’t take her eyes off the painting, but she lifts my hand to her mouth and kisses my knuckles, then takes my wrist and twists it, so both our hands are against her heart, and I can feel the thump thump. “Right here.”
Her voice is like the purr of an animal that stalks its prey from the shadows of a forgotten jungle. Somehow that purr, and all the danger it suggests, makes me feel safe. An evolutionary trait.
“It’s not how we’re meant to see things,” she says. “We spend too much time worrying about what’s next, rather than what’s happening in this moment. But I believe we should try.”
A man steps in front of us, holding his phone nearly in my face. On the screen, the dots of the painting are rendered into pixels. It snaps me out of my gauzy trance, and Mena, noticing I’m about to smack the phone out of his hand, pulls me back, toward the refuge of empty space.
We stand there for a little while and watch. The crowd moving and shifting, as some people grow bored, or satisfied with their digital facsimiles, and new people come to take their places. I imagine what it must look like from above. The colors of their hair and hats, their heads like little dots. The pictures they must be creating. I want to tell Mena this but I’m afraid it’ll make me sound maudlin.
“You’re characteristically quiet,” Mena says.
“It’s a nice painting,” I tell her.
“Eloquent as usual, too.” She leans forward and presses her lips on the corner of my mouth. “Thank you for humoring me. I know you don’t like crowds. Or traveling. Or much of anything, really.”
I kiss her back, harder, in the center of her mouth, and taste cherries. “I love it. Now tell me why this painting is the most important thing I’ll ever see.”
Mena raises an eyebrow at me, offers a little half-smile. “Did I say that?”
I know this look. It doesn’t mean I won’t ask a million more times in the next week. She knows that I can’t abide an unanswered question. She also knows she is the only person on the planet I will tolerate this from.
“I want you to think about one more thing,” Mena says. She points to the painting again. “This is even more important. All those people, on that shore. Looking out over the water. What do you think they’re looking at?”
For a moment I think she wants an answer. But then I realize it’s another one of her kōans, so I let her have it and take her hand. Feel the smoothness of her skin against mine. Take that and let it consume me. I’ll come back to the question later.
Later.
I look around the museum. The people. Mena in front of me.
This isn’t now.
Now is the bathroom. I close my eyes. Concentrate.
As much as I want to surrender to this.
As much as I want to live in this moment forever…
…There’s a knock at the door. Then a banging.
“January?”
It’s Reg.
The sink is still running. The stall door still open. The tile cold and hard under me. I reach into my breast pocket and take out a Retronim, toss it back, and dry-swallow. Close my eyes. Breathe in deep the reason I could never bear leaving this place.
I check myself in the mirror. Mostly to make sure I didn’t cry like a big baby and puff out my eyes. And for once, something today breaks in my favor, because I did not.
Outside the door I find Reg with Nik, Ruby floating between them.
“You okay?” Reg asks, looking down at my hand.
“Peachy,” I tell him. “What’s up?”
“We got the guy,” Nik says. “The guy who brought in the dinosaurs. Found video of them coming out of his room. He’s in the security room.”
“I said to put him there,” says Reg, like he wants a pat on the head.
“Good.” I point to Ruby. “And we are going to discuss this later.”
It doesn’t answer.
* * *
—
The holding room is generally empty, but for our purposes, someone dragged in two chairs and a small folding table. Seated at the table is a young Chinese man who is so handsome it looks like he could make an entire career talking old ladies out of their savings. He’s wearing a shiny blue suit, his shaved head gleaming in the overhead light. He’s also trying to put out cool-guy vibes, but it’s not really working, because every muscle in his body is clenched.
I pull out the chair across from him, letting it screech across the floor. Ruby comes to rest by my right hand. I drum my fingers against the table, which is dumb because I tap hard on the bitten finger, and a sharp pain shoots down my arm. The man stares at me and at Ruby, then focuses on the wound on my hand. He’s waiting for me to speak. He doesn’t realize I have an intermediary.
“You were booked under the name Joe Chen,” Ruby says. “A high-level forgery, and it was solid enough I didn’t catch it. But your real name is Zhang Shou. You’re thirty-two, a resident of Beijing, with three previous arrests for smuggling, but no convictions.”
Shou blanches at first, but then he smiles. Whatever uneasiness he was feeling is covered up by the knowledge that he’s good at skating.
“We’ll get into the legalities of this whole thing in a few minutes,” I tell him. “First I want to know: how the hell did you get three live dinosaurs out of the timeport and over into the hotel without anyone noticing?”
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“What does it matter?”
He shrugs. “You know my name.”
Great. I’m trying to interrogate and he wants to speed date. “January Cole,” I tell him.
He nods sagely, like this tells him something about me. Then he leans back in the chair. “I want a lawyer.”
“Ruby, are you recording?” I ask.
“No.”
“Any recording or listening devices in here?”
“No.”
“This is all off the record, Shou,” I tell him, dropping my voice, trying to lull him into playing ball. “I just want to know how you did it. I don’t give a shit about the rest. I’ve got a lot hanging over my head right now and I don’t have time to play games. If there’s a security hole I need to know about it.”
He doesn’t say anything.
But there’s a little bead of sweat forming on his brow, and that’s an opening.
“This isn’t your first rodeo,” I say. “If you’ve gotten off three times, you have deep pockets and good connections. Trust in that and tell me what I want to know.”
“Lawyer.”
I lean forward on the table. Consider putting my head down and taking a nap, because that’s about all I can handle right now. Even with the little charge the Retronim is giving me, I’m exhausted. I need more coffee. I consider offering him some, maybe to loosen him up, when Ruby pipes in. “Your visa is expired.”
His eyes go wide at that.
“Finally good for something,” I say. “Okay, Shou. I could get you in a car and on the next plane to Beijing before your lawyer makes it out of whatever bathroom he’s currently snorting coke in. So how about this. I won’t make that call, and I’ll let you have your lawyer, and you can play whatever games you want. But you’re going to tell me how you got three live dinosaurs into my hotel.”
“They weren’t live,” he says, the fight leaving him.
“What do you mean?”
“They were eggs.” He holds up his hands, palms out. “They hatched.”