Now she joined him on the couch. Same couch, at the other end. A distance he would have to breach. He always found that bit difficult. Reading the signs. Judging it just right. Too early and it caused offense; too late, the same. She smiled. Maybe he wouldn’t find it too difficult tonight, he thought.
“You’re still managing to resist the call of Melbourne, then,” she said. She took a sip. The wine was the same color as her lips.
“Some days it’s easier than others,” Falk said. He smiled back. He could feel a warmth bloom in his chest, his belly. Lower.
“Any sign of wrapping things up?”
“Honestly, it’s hard to say,” he said, vague. He didn’t want to talk about the case. She nodded, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence. The blue notes of the jazz were swallowed up by the heat.
“Hey,” she said. “I’ve got something to show you.”
She twisted around, reaching up to the bookshelves behind the couch. The movement brought her close, exposing a flash of smooth torso. Gretchen flopped back, holding two photo albums. Big books with thick covers. She opened the first page of one, then discarded it, putting it off to the side. She opened the other. Scooted closer to Falk.
The distance breached. Already. He hadn’t even finished his glass.
“I found this the other day,” she said.
He glanced at it. He could feel her bare arm on his. It reminded him of the day he’d seen her again for the first time. Outside the funeral. No. He didn’t want to think about that now. Not about the Hadlers. Not about Luke.
Falk looked down as she opened the album. It had three or four photos to a sticky page, covered with a plastic sheet. The first few pictures showed Gretchen as a small child, the images bright with the hallmark red and yellow tones of a chemist’s developing room. She flipped through.
“Where is—ah. Here. See,” she said, tilting the page toward him and pointing. Falk leaned in. It was him. And her. A picture he’d never seen before. Thirty years ago, him bare-legged in gray shorts, her wearing a too-large school dress. They were side by side amid a small group of uniformed kids. The others were all smiling, but both he and Gretchen were squinting suspiciously at the camera. Childhood blonds—hers golden, his white. Posed under duress at the instruction of the person behind the camera, Falk guessed, judging by his mutinous expression.
“First day of school, I think.” Gretchen looked sideways and raised an eyebrow. “So. It would appear that, in fact, you and I were friends before anyone else.”
He laughed and leaned in a little as she ran a finger over the image from the past. She looked up at him, in the present, red lips parting in a smile over white teeth, and then they were kissing. His arm around her back pulled her in closer, and her mouth was hot on his, his nose against her cheek, his other hand in her hair. Her chest was soft on his, and he was keenly conscious of her denim skirt pressed against his thighs.
They broke away, an awkward laugh, a deep breath. Her eyes were almost navy in the low light. He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, then she was moving in again, closer, kissing him, the scent of her shampoo and the taste of red wine in every breath.
He didn’t hear the cell phone ring. Only when she stopped moving did he register anything outside of the two of them. He tried to ignore it, but she held a finger to his lips. He kissed it.
“Shh.” She giggled. “Is that yours or—? No, it’s mine. Sorry.”
“Leave it,” he said, but she was already moving, pushing herself up out of the couch, away from him.
“I can’t, I’m sorry. It might be the babysitter.” She smiled, a little witchy smile that made his skin tingle where she’d been. He could still feel her. She looked at the screen. “It is. I’ll be back. Make yourself comfortable.”
She actually winked. A playful, ironic nod to what was to come. He grinned as she left the room. “Hi, Andrea. Everything OK?” he heard her say.
He blew out his cheeks, rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. Shook his head, took a slug of wine, sat up straighter on the couch. Waking up a little, but not too much, trying not to break the spell, anticipating her return.
Gretchen’s voice was a low murmur in the other room. He leaned his head back on the couch, listening to the indistinct sounds. He could hear the cadence, up and down, soothing. Yes, the thought popped into his head unbidden. Maybe he could almost get used to this. Not in Kiewarra, but somewhere else. Somewhere grassy and open, where it rained. He knew how to handle the wide open spaces. Melbourne and his real life seemed five hours and a million miles away. The city might have got under his skin, but for the first time he wondered what was hidden in his core.
He shifted on the couch, and his hand brushed against the cool covers of the photo albums. In the other room, Gretchen’s voice was a dull murmur. No urgency in her tone, she was patient, explaining something. Falk pulled the album into his lap, opening it halfheartedly, blinking away the heaviness from the wine.
He was looking for the photo of the two of them but realized immediately he’d picked up the wrong album. Instead of the early childhood snaps on the first page, Gretchen was older in this one, nineteen or twenty maybe. Falk started to close the cover, then stopped. He looked at the pictures with interest. He’d never really seen her at that age. He’d seen younger and now older. Nothing in between. Gretchen was still looking a little suspiciously at the camera, but the reluctance to pose was gone. The skirt was shorter and the expression less coy.
He turned the page and felt a jolt as he came face-to-face with Gretchen and Luke, frozen in time in a glossy color print. Both in their early twenties, intimate and laughing, heads close, smiles matching. What had she said?
We dated for a year or two. Nothing serious. It fell apart, of course.
A string of similar pictures spanned two double pages. Days out, holidays by the beach, a Christmas party. Then all of a sudden, they stopped. As Luke’s face was changing from a twentysomething bloke to a man nearing thirty. About the age Luke had met Karen, he disappeared from Gretchen’s album. That was OK, Falk told himself. That was fine. That made sense.
He flicked through the remaining pages as Gretchen’s muffled voice floated through from the other room. He was about to close the book when his hand stilled.
On the very last page, under the yellowing plastic protector, was a photo of Luke Hadler. He was looking down, away from the camera, with a serene smile on his face. The picture was cropped close, but he appeared to be in a hospital room, perched on the edge of a bed. In his arms, he held a newborn baby.