—I just think it’s best we maintain a veneer of normality.
—Normality? Nothing’s normal about this. I believed what you told me, Seth. I believed you. That you heard a story from a guy about the record Carter bought.
—He didn’t buy it.
—That he found, then.
—It’s hard to explain.
—Some things can’t be explained, I get it. Stuff has been happening to me too. I went to see a psychic the other day, to ask about Carter? She looked at my hand and wouldn’t take my money. She told me I had to leave. I believe we’re in danger, but you need to talk to me. You need to tell me what it is you know, otherwise I don’t see what I’m doing here.
Then it is night, and we are drinking and watching TV in a pine-paneled motel room that smells of lavender disinfectant. I feel knife-sharp, hyperauditory. The room is full of tiny harmonics that connect the wide spectrum hiss of the people next door flushing their toilet to the irregular snare of the air-conditioning and the long sweep of a truck passing on the highway, making the bug screens vibrate. Filaments of order, fleeting hints of meaning. I think about how different Leonie is from Carter, how I have no money to pay for anything, not even in a cheap place like this, not gas, not lunch, nothing, how I have responded by becoming as passive as a baby, how Leonie is sitting there wearing a flesh-pink kimono and a towel wrapped round her hair, how the kimono has fallen open to show me one long bare thigh and her throat is still damp from the shower and she has only rented one twin room, giving me a world-weary look as she put down her credit card at the front desk.
—So you’re broke.
At the front desk, in the room. She asks the question simultaneously in both places, muting the TV and looking over at me as the receptionist processes her payment. I shrug noncommittally and pretend I haven’t really heard, buying a few moments to compose myself, because I’m not sure where I am, when I am, whether I’m in the room stealing furtive glances at her legs or at the front desk wishing I had money, wishing I wasn’t being swept along by events like a twig in a fast-flowing current.
—You don’t have money because my brother was paying for everything.
I try to concentrate on the TV. A couple is walking through suburban rooms, dull beige rooms that leave no retinal trace of their passing. They are accompanied by an orchestral score, a string section playing minor key stabs, as if something threatening is about to happen. But it never does and they keep on walking, from room to room to room.
—Seth.
—No. I don’t have money because your brother’s henchmen locked me out of my studio which is my only means of making a living.
—Your studio?
—It’s as much mine as his.
—He’s the creative one, not you.
—Is that what he said? He actually said that?
She unmutes the TV. Now it’s her turn to feign interest in it.
—Leonie, did he say that to you?
—Well, isn’t it fair? He told me he was the producer and you were just the engineer.
—Wow.
—So what? Let me guess, it’s the other way round? You do everything and my brother’s just a spoiled rich kid, a dilettante?
—Look, Leonie, I know what you think of me.
—That you’re like, his paid best friend? No offense, but I don’t get it. No one gets it. You don’t have anything in common.
—That’s what you people think.
—Yes, that’s what we people think. We don’t know why he keeps you around.
—Jesus, I’m not a pet.
—But you’re poor, so he always has to look after you, just like a pet. Just like I’m doing. Are you talented? You’re obviously clever in an assholish way but it’s not necessarily the same thing. So what is it? I’m just being honest. I don’t know you, Seth. You’re right at the center of my brother’s life, but I have no clue about how you got there. As far as I can see, you’re nobody.
—Nobody.
—I’m just being honest. What’s your deal, Seth? What do you actually want?
—I don’t know how I can answer that.
—Why? Why would you not be able to answer? It’s the simplest question.
—I don’t know. I’m sorry. I suppose I don’t want anything in particular.
—God, you are always apologizing. One little push and you just roll over. Put up a fight. Tell me to go to hell.
—I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m just trying to do what’s right for Carter. What’s the matter?
—What’s the matter? Seriously?
—I mean right now. What’s the matter now?
—And again with the drippy concerned expression. You’re fake, Seth, that’s what’s the matter. Why don’t you just tell me what you’ve got going on? You know something you’re not telling. It makes me nervous.
—I don’t know anything.
—Bullshit. You always try to handle me. We’re in this together—I don’t know what to call it. This situation. And what I need is for you to be real with me for one minute. A single minute.
—I genuinely don’t understand what you want. If I did, I’d try to make an appropriate response.
We watch the television for a while, black-and-white footage of some kind of protest, firemen playing hoses over people huddled against the side of a building. Leonie sighs.
—Actually, fuck it. It doesn’t matter anyway.
—Why not?
—I’m saying, it doesn’t matter. Forget about it.
—Why not?
—Because this has all already happened, so logically I must already know. You get what I’m saying?
—I’m not sure.
—I know you have that feeling, same as me. Don’t tell me you don’t. I must already know you’re OK, Seth, because otherwise I wouldn’t have come.