Girl Before a Mirror by Liza Palmer

Author:Liza Palmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-11-11T05:00:00+00:00

11

I don’t want to talk about it as I follow Lincoln to his room. And I don’t want to talk about it as I free him from his tuxedo. I don’t want to talk about it as he strips me of my sensible business casual attire. And I don’t want to talk about it as we fall into each other again with an intimacy and a tenderness that now seem frightfully commonplace between us. I don’t want to talk about it as I take a shower later that night and I don’t want to talk about it when he joins me. I don’t want to talk about it as I sneak back to my room for my pajamas and toiletries wearing just his bathrobe and with a wet head from the shower. I don’t want to talk about it as we order enough room service for a small army and I don’t want to talk about it as he takes me again while we wait for the food to arrive. As I sit on his unmade bed in pajamas I thought no one would see, Lincoln lets me not talk about it. For a while.

“Tomorrow’s the last day of the conference,” I say, dipping my chicken fingers into a swampy barbecue sauce.

“And you leave . . .” he says, wiping his face after taking a giant bite out of a hamburger.

“Sunday morning,” I say.

“I leave Sunday morning, as well,” he says.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

We are quiet as we eat from a selection of food that would please any seven- or eight-year-old, with the dark cloud of real life hovering over both of us.

“What do you have on for tomorrow?” he asks.

“Nothing until the big pageant,” I say.

“So we can just stay here until then,” Lincoln says.

“Here as in . . .”

“This room,” he says, taking a sip of his water.

“And then what?” I say, even though I hate it. I can’t not say it. It’s the elephant in the room and I can’t stand it anymore.

“Hm,” Lincoln says, his mouth full with hamburger.

“You can’t keep shoving that hamburger in your mouth all night,” I say. He swallows.

“And why are you so keen to have that conversation and yet perfectly comfortable not talking about what was so disturbing to you earlier?” He shifts in his chair.

“What?”

“You heard me,” he says. He takes another giant bite of his hamburger.

“Nice. Very nice,” I say, just as the sound of his chewing fills the room. I’m just about to start talking again when he takes another giant bite. “Fine. My brother called and . . . and he was annoying. Little brothers, right?” My voice clunks and hitches over what isn’t said as if my answer has been redacted by some government agency. Lincoln takes the napkin from his lap and politely wipes his mouth. He sets his hamburger down on the plate.

“You’re going to have to do better than that, love,” he says.

“Whyyy?!” I ask, flopping down on the bed. “Can’t we just . . .”

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