by Leigh Hays
She didn’t have time to suss that out as the introductions worked their way around to her. “My name’s Lindsey, and I’m an alcoholic.” After six years, that phrase almost rolled off her tongue. The next person spoke, and she quashed her thoughts as the discussion began in earnest.
“Today we’re going to talk about step three: Make a decision to entrust our will and our lives to the care of the collective wisdom and resources of those who have searched before us.” The facilitator leaned forward. “Would anyone like to begin?”
Lindsey smiled and spoke up. She introduced herself again, and a round of hellos came back from the men and women on her screen. “I call this the God clause.”
The group smiled back, and a few laughed. They were a self-selected group of freethinkers, agnostics, and atheists. Until this group, Lindsey’s experience with AA and the higher power had been mixed. Giving in and surrendering her actions to a higher power was always a stretch for her. The implication in both tone and interaction from members who embraced a higher power were twofold. One, that she would eventually fall off the wagon; or two, that she would come to her senses and accept the higher power. “And that was the problem with my first attempt at sobriety. I just couldn’t reconcile my values and beliefs to a being outside myself.”
More than one person nodded, so she continued. “So I started to attend other meetings, and I found another version of this step. We committed ourselves to lifelong abstinence, staying away from the first drink for a day at a time. And I got it. I cannot drink casually, socially, at all. I cannot control the consequences, and there are always consequences. That is a fact and one that I cannot shove aside or control but that I must accept if I want to live sober. And I cannot do that alone. Once I understood that, staying sober was easier; not easy but doable.” Losing Monica had been the biggest of those consequences, and understanding her role in that breakup had been the hardest thing she’d ever done sober.
She finished and sipped her water. A wave of thank-yous greeted her. A few other people shared their thoughts—one woman also admitted her struggle with her agnosticism and the third step in particular—and then the meeting wrapped up with the closing business and the final group statement in unison, “Keep coming back. It works if you work it.”
Lindsey logged out of the session, and Adam initiated a video call.
With a click, his face appeared on her screen. “Thanks for speaking.” Seven years ago, Adam had brought her to her first AA meeting, but it took a whole year before she admitted her addiction. Six months after that, he offered to become her sponsor. He worked in wealth management for the Bank of Canada. They shared the same schedules and the same issues. After Jen, there was no one she trusted more. “How’s work?”
Lindsey sighed. “We let go of one of the original partners.”
Adam made a face. “That sucks.”
“Yeah. I get his workload, and there’s some complications about what was going on.” She shook her head, pushing away her concerns over Roger’s misdeeds. “Anyway, what about you?”
He gave her the broad strokes of his life—family and work—before launching into a story of a client meeting gone terribly wrong.
Lindsey wiped her eyes, she laughed so hard. “That beats my week.” She yawned, and Adam mirrored her. They wrapped up the call, and Lindsey closed down the window. She lingered online for a bit, checking her email and skimming a few articles she’d saved. Her thoughts ran back to Rebekiah and why she would want to give her money away.
She opened their client database. Designed in-house but with other commercial add-ons, it allowed her to search several public and private sources for biographical data, assets, and corporate holdings. She typed in Rebekiah’s name and got her asset information. The money was an inheritance from an Emma Strahan—no familial relationship—and had just come out of probate in the last six months.
The money itself was reasonably well managed and diversified. She could do better, but it would do well without much work. The bio data said she was single, no kids, no siblings, parents deceased. Both several years ago. However, Emma’s death was more recent, and her birth date put her at the same age as Rebekiah. A lover? If so, that could explain her desire to get rid of the money. She could only imagine her grief. She paused for a moment, uncertain how hard she wanted to push. She’d already got her to keep the money, so why was she hesitating now? In the span of one meeting, Rebekiah had moved from a deal to a person with a past. How did that happen? Only one way to find out.
Suppressing her nerves, she opened an email and considered her words. She wanted to be firm but sensitive. After all, Rebekiah did invite her to her studio. She’d take that opening.
Hi Rebekiah,
I’ve looked over your assets. There are a couple options I want to discuss in person. When can I swing by your studio?
Lindsey Blackwell
She hit send.
* * *
Rebekiah and Sera left her studio shortly after six and walked home. Her encounter with Lindsey had replayed in her head for most of the day. Elena had been shocked that she agreed to keep the money.
“I’ve waited this long. What’s a few more months?”
What she hadn’t said was that Lindsey herself had been the real reason she’d held off. Lindsey. Contained, confident Lindsey. She was hard and forthright with something softer simmering underneath. Rebekiah didn’t want to walk away from that right now. If Roger had shown up, she was sure she’d be a few million dollars poorer.
Large windows dominated the open floor plan of her one-bedroom corner apartment. Ambient street light filtered through the windows, landing on the hardwood floors. She flipped a switch, and a series of spotlights flooded the kitchen counter set along the length of the wall. Her phone rang just as she put her bag down on the kitchen island amid the bowl of fruit and assorted papers. She checked the caller ID. Collette. She frowned. Collette never called her. “Hello?”
“Hi.” Collette was Thea’s longtime companion, not that Thea called her that. Given Rebekiah’s pseudo parental relationship with Thea, it meant that Collette was her stepmother of a sort. At least, Rebekiah treated her as such.
“Hey, what’s up?”
Sera plopped down and stared up at her.
“I wanted to check in and see how things are going.”
“Good.” Rebekiah’s eyes narrowed and focused on the invitation to Thea’s retrospective that sat unopened in her pile of mail. “Work’s good.” She waited a beat and added, “I finally won the case.” Emma’s older siblings had fought Rebekiah’s inheritance since the reading of the will.
Collette’s smile came through the line. “That’s good news. How are you feeling?”
Rebekiah stood and headed toward the windows along the far wall of her apartment. Sera padded after her. The evening rush hour was over, and people were ducking in and out of the restaurants below. “I’m not sure.” She fingered the curtains. “It doesn’t feel real yet. At least the money part.” Sera bumped her legs, and she reached down to pat her head before she turned away from the window. “It’s a lot of money.”
“Have you given any thought to what you are going to do with it?”
Rebekiah shook her head even though Collette couldn’t see her. “I didn’t want to think too much about it until it was final. Michelle and David were pretty rabid until the end.”
Emma’s parents made their fortune in New York City real estate and left each of their three children a sizable trust. David and Michelle ran through their money quickly; Emma did not. And after college, she became a model, where she doubled her inheritance before being diagnosed with ALS.
They’d met at Rhode Island School of Design and recognized in each other a kindred spirit. Both children of absent parents and awkward familial arrangements, they and their circle of friends created a family of their own. And when Emma traveled the world for various fashion shows and photography shoots, she always came home to Providence, not New York. So wh
en she discovered her illness, she came home to die.
“I imagine they are still grieving as well.”
Rebekiah sputtered. “Yeah, if you say so.”
They spent a few more minutes talking about Rebekiah’s work and the young artists she worked with. “There’s this one girl…well, woman, but she’s young. Her eye’s excellent, but she’s got nothing to say. I keep trying to get her to think about what she’s looking at, but she’s stuck on the technique.”
“Huh. That sounds familiar.” Collette’s tone gently teased.
Rebekiah laughed, all too aware of her own struggles with her voice and Thea’s frustration with her over it. “Yeah, I guess it does.”
The last fight between Thea and her happened two weeks before Emma’s death. Rebekiah’s boudoir business had started taking off, and she was getting steady income. At the same time, she was taking shots of Emma and their circle of friends. Thea had found one such photo and asked her why she wasn’t displaying it. “This is where you live, Rebekiah. Not in these pinup pictures.” Thea had gestured to the few display shots she had on her studio walls.
“Not everyone wants their life on display.”
“You’re not everyone.” Thea had grabbed her hands. “You could be so much more.”
Rebekiah had yanked her hands away. “I already am.” The rest of the words faded into anger and remembered bits of conversation. “I never asked you to be my mother” might have come out at some point. As well as “I never asked your mother for this. She knew I wasn’t prepared to raise you.” And more, like “You never listen to what I say” and “You never hear me when I speak.” Finally ending with Rebekiah saying, “You’ve never seen me for who I am.”
Rebekiah pulled back from the memory, so raw and still fresh, before she took a deep breath. “You’re calling about the reception.” A gallery in NYC was honoring Thea’s work as a fine arts photographer with an exhibition and a retrospective.
Collette took a deep breath. “You haven’t RSVPed. It’s next week.”
“Does she want me there?”
“Of course she does.”
“Did she ask for me specifically?”
Collette sighed. “Honey, she’s never going to ask.”
“Then I’m not coming.”
“Rebekiah.”
Rebekiah clenched her jaw and remained silent.
Collette waited and then blew out a breath. “You are both so fucking stubborn.”
“Well, as she’s so fond of saying, she taught me everything I know.” Her bitterness made the words terse.
Collette inhaled. “I’m sorry she hurt you. I wish…”
Rebekiah closed her eyes. “Don’t. I can’t. Not today.”
Collette let it go, and they wrapped up the conversation. Rebekiah hung up and sank into her couch. Sera walked over and leaned against her thigh. She scratched her ears. Sera moved into the motion and pushed hard against her. She sighed and kept petting her. “Thanks, bud, I needed that.”
The conversation with Collette had put her in a sour mood. Her evening thwarted, she got off the couch to feed Sera. Thoughts of Emma and Thea swirled in her head. Wanting to avoid the maudlin mind trip, she turned on the TV across the way and listened to The Daily Show and Samantha Bee while she cooked.
As she sat down with her meal, Sera made to jump on the couch, and Rebekiah glared at her. Sera huffed and settled at her feet. Scrolling through the list of shows, she paused on The Walking Dead. Not her normal fare; she preferred documentaries to science fiction, but something about the show had appealed to Emma during her final months, and Rebekiah found herself bingeing it with her. She tried watching after Emma died, but it felt too hard. As the opening scene came on, she felt herself dragged into the narrative and embraced the feeling of comfort she’d shared the first time she started watching.
Chapter Five
Lindsey checked the time. Four minutes to seven. She was a little bit early. Hefting the messenger bag, she knocked on the door. A scuffle sounded, followed by a muffled curse, and the door swung open. Rebekiah caught herself on the door as a russet pit bull pushed past her and banged into Lindsey’s knees. Lindsey yelped and rocked back on her heels; Rebekiah grabbed her before she fell.
Rebekiah steadied her while she regained her equilibrium. She let go and wrapped her hand around the dog’s collar. “Sera, what the fuck?”
Recovered from her run-in, Lindsey crouched down and offered her hand. Sera leaned in and took a sniff. “What a beautiful dog. Pit bull?”
Rebekiah was still scowling. “American Staffordshire terrier. Close relative to the pit bull.”
Sera finished her inspection and licked Lindsey’s wrist before she butted her head against her knee. Lindsey laughed and landed backward on her butt. She settled back and stroked Sera’s head. Sera basked in the attention and encouraged the love for a few minutes. “Not very fierce, are you?”
Rebekiah patted Sera’s stomach. “Not particularly.”
Sera snorted and started to dig her nose between Lindsey’s legs.
Rebekiah stepped forward and tugged on her dog’s collar. “Really, Sera. You just met her. Get out of her pants.”
Lindsey laughed. “It’s true that I like a little more romance in my relationships.”
Rebekiah smiled, and Sera settled in front of her. “You should give her a chance. She’s a little out of practice.” She offered Lindsey a hand. “Come on in.”
Lindsey hesitated, a slight warmth spreading through her body as she remembered the feel of her palm at their last meeting, before she grabbed Rebekiah’s hand and followed her into the studio.
Rebekiah let go, and Lindsey felt a loss. “Take a look around. Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Sure.” Lindsey put her messenger bag on the coffee table and stepped into the larger part of the studio. The reception area bisected a huge, well-lit room. To her left against a white backdrop stood a huge bed draped in white sheets with blue and black accent pillows. Umbrellas in stands surrounded it at various heights. A camera and tripod pointed toward the bed. Photography equipment lined the opposite wall in wire racks. Brickwork mixed with white walls filled in the rest of the space, and windows lined the exterior wall across from the recessed reception area. Another couch sat under the last of the windows with a small bookshelf beside it.
Along the walls were several framed pictures. Most of the pictures were women engaged in various erotic poses—alone, in pairs, or multiples—and they showcased a singular style that Lindsey assumed was Rebekiah’s. The sex didn’t bother her. She consumed her fair share of pornography. But this was not porn: It was different. It was intimate and welcoming.
She paused in front of a picture of a dark-skinned woman whose open legs occupied the full bottom third of the picture. It was shot in such a way that her ample breasts, large curves, and half-lidded eyes pulled the viewer in and down toward the V of her legs. It was a pose straight out of Playboy but lacking the blatant objectification. Was it the angle or the photographer? Lindsey leaned back and glanced at the other photos. All similar pinup styles but devoid of that dehumanizing gaze. It was brilliant.
The level of trust these women had in Rebekiah blew her mind. How did she get them to open up so intimately? Lindsey shook her head and smiled, in awe of her talent and a little envious of the connection she had with these women to be able to earn that kind of trust and receive that careful attention.
“I hope orange pekoe is okay.” Rebekiah handed her a mug.
Shaking off her thoughts, Lindsey wrapped her hands around it and took a deep breath. “Perfect.” She took a tentative sip. Too hot. She turned to Rebekiah and said, “These are really good. Do you have shows?”
Rebekiah wiggled her hand. “Occasionally. When I’ve got something to say.” She pointed at the picture. “You know she told me she was fat.”
“She’s gorgeous.”
Rebekiah moved closer. “I know. Actually, I have an idea that I’m working on that
might be a show. I’m still taking shots. If you’re interested?”
Lindsey’s eyes widened as the implication struck home. She touched her hand to her chest. “Me?”
Rebekiah smiled. “Why not?”
“Why do you want to take pictures of me?” For just a moment, she imagined what it would be like to have that intensity focused on her. Would she want her to be naked? Her cheeks flushed, and to her surprise, she found the idea appealing.
Rebekiah waved her hand as if to encompass Lindsey’s head and shoulders. “There’s something…restless and yet still about you. It’s a contrast that I can use.”
And just as quickly, reality crashed around her. Rebekiah wasn’t looking at her but rather her perception of her. It made her wonder who the women in the other pictures were outside of Rebekiah’s gaze. Lindsey cocked an eyebrow. “Use?”
Rebekiah shrugged with a half grin. “Poor word choice?”
“Just a little. But honest, so there’s that.” Lindsey frowned. She got the feeling that Rebekiah was toying with her. That if she really wanted to take shots, she would pursue a different tack. Or maybe not. She felt completely out of her depth.
Rebekiah shifted. All pretense left her voice. “Since we’re being honest, what would it take for you to say yes?”
Lindsey frowned. There was no way she was having this conversation with a client and yet she asked, “Clothes on or off?”
Rebekiah opened her hands. “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
She swallowed. “Does this really work?”
“What?” Rebekiah cocked her head.
Lindsey gestured at Rebekiah’s body language and approach. “The whole earnest appeal.”
“Sometimes.” Rebekiah grinned. “Is it working now?”
Lindsey laughed, relieved that Rebekiah had switched tactics and moved from hard sell to self-deprecating. She wasn’t sure if she could resist the hard sell, but there was no way she was going to tell her. “Not really. I’m flattered, but I don’t think I could do that.” She hooked her thumb behind her to indicate one of the more sexual poses.
