A Study in Honor

by Claire O'Dell

“Is that what you believe?” she asked.

  I found a rag and mopped up the water. “I don’t know what to believe.”

  She nodded. “Fair enough. Come with me to dinner—”

  “No. That’s not good enough.”

  “Ah, but what if I promise to answer three questions?”

  Oh. The breath fled my body at the offer. How had she guessed?

  I recalled myself. “You won’t tell me the truth.”

  “Perhaps not. But you won’t find out unless you say yes.”

  * * *

  I said yes. Five minutes later I regretted it.

  Sara came into my bedroom while I stared at the very few, very inadequate dresses and suits in my closet. Without a word, she unfurled a mass of shimmering dark blue fabric and let it settle softly over my bedspread.

  “I thought I might lend you a dress,” she said.

  My hand reached toward it without volition, and I needed all my willpower to pluck it back. Such a lovely thing, custom sewn from a dark blue silk that reminded me of a storm-ridden sky, with sleeves constructed from a loose fall of matching blue lace, gathered at the wrists. Sara and I were of a height, but where she was blade thin, I had the heft and muscle of my father.

  “That is not one of your dresses,” I said flatly.

  “I never claimed it was,” she replied.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Is that one of your questions?”

  “No.”

  “Then I see no reason to answer you.” In a softer, rougher voice, she added, “I have bracelets and rings to match. Would you like to see them?”

  I closed my eyes. You can always say no.

  But there was the matter of those three questions.

  “I need to shower,” I told her. “Please leave the room.”

  Holmes laughed. “As you wish. Our car arrives at seven fifteen p.m. You have half an hour.”

  The door clicked shut. I eased out a breath. Glanced down at the shimmering dress and ran my fingers over the impossibly soft fabric. It’s not a gift, I told myself. Or if Sara believed that, she would find out how temporary gifts could be.

  I retreated to the bathroom to shower. Sara had vanished into her own bedroom, but not for long, as I discovered once I returned to mine. In spite of my refusal, Holmes had left a set of silver bracelets on my bed, along with stockings to match the dress, and a pair of low-heeled shoes.

  I slid the dress over my head. Just as I suspected, the fit was perfect—too perfect—and I had another moment when I reconsidered accepting these gifts, even temporarily. But beauty was my weakness, and Sara had gauged my tastes with unsettling precision.

  It’s a challenge, I told myself. I’ve faced harder ones.

  Besides, she had promised to answer three questions.

  I drew a deep breath to steady my nerves and slid the bracelets onto my right wrist. The bracelets chimed softly. The metal felt cool against my skin. Ready, then.

  Holmes waited for me in our parlor. She too had dressed for the occasion, in a suit cut from a gleaming black silk that flowed over her lean frame. Her ordinary earbuds had vanished, replaced by a new set of polished silver. An enormous pearl hung from one earlobe. She had tied back her locs with a silver ribbon, but loosely, as if they could not be adequately contained.

  She reached out a lace-covered hand. “Shall we begin our adventure?”

  The car waited by the curb, a discreet black limousine, with an equally discreet driver, who ushered us into the luxurious back compartment. I thought I glimpsed one of our neighbors watching from behind the curtains of their upper-story window, and felt a flutter of laughter at their likely astonishment.

  We rode in grand state to the restaurant. There was time for a glass of champagne, and a conversation mainly supported by Sara Holmes, who seemed strangely exhilarated. Once we arrived at the restaurant, she waved the driver away and handed me out of the car herself.

  “Look happy,” she said softly, in her low voice. “For my sake.”

  The steward greeted Holmes by name and escorted us to a seat underneath a window overlooking Dupont Circle. Sara ordered a bottle of wine to be served immediately while we considered the menu. That accomplished, the waiter and his attendants withdrew. Sara lifted the glass in my direction. “I promised you answers,” she said. “You will have them. Or do you need more time?”

  “Do you need more time?” I asked.

  She glanced up from her hooded eyes. Once again, I caught the hint of tension before she granted me a flashing smile. “I never need more time, my love. But since you offer, I shall ask a few questions myself. Point for point, of course.”

  Cold washed over me at the thought of what kind of questions Sara would ask. “I am not your love. And that was not our agreement.”

  “Not originally, but you implied a change with your words. No? But I insist. I have so many questions for you, doctor. It would not be fair to tease and taunt me with possibilities. However, if you like, you may start.”

  Her voice was light and mocking, very much a replay of our first encounter. My first impulse was to walk out the door and back to Q Street. I suppressed the urge. Q Street was a very long mile and a half away. Sara had dismissed the driver when we arrived, and I had no money for a taxi or the Metro. So and so. Very neatly planned. Very well. If I was trapped here, I might as well use the opportunity to extract some information about the enigmatic Sara Holmes.

  A dozen questions presented themselves at once. I suspected she would refuse to answer them. I would have to conduct this conversation as I would a diagnosis. Choose questions that might define the overall shape of the disease, or in this case, the mystery.

  “First one,” I said. “How much do you— No, tell me this. What is the true rent for our apartment? Not what we pay, but what Hudson Realty would charge anyone else?”

  Holmes’s eyes narrowed with amusement. “Excellent choice, doctor. Very well. The apartment normally rents for sixty-two hundred dollars a month. I negotiated a lower price. I then requested several additional options, none of which concern you. All in all, the total cost is fairly close to the original.”

  I let the breath trickle from my lips. So, I had been correct with my suspicions.

  Holmes was grinning, as if in anticipation. I braced myself for her question.

  Instead, she fluttered her hand at me. “Next one?”

  I had not expected that, and I needed a few moments to decide. She had answered honestly at first—a tactic calculated to disarm me. Yes? No? I could not tell.

  “You are thinking,” Sara said. “How unlike you. Except I know from your diaries that you do think. About redemption, and Dalí, and—”

  I slammed a fist against the table. “You spied on me.”

  “Hardly. You left your journal in the kitchen this morning.”

  “If you had any honor—”

  “I never claimed I did. Ask your next question.”

  “Fine. Question number two. What work do you do?”

  Her laugh was a soft chuckle. “As little as possible.” She glanced around, and I was suddenly aware of the many eyes pointed in our direction.

  “That was no answer,” I whispered.

  “It is all I can say. My turn. When did you first know you didn’t love Angela Gray? And why did you tell everyone you did?”

  The breath fled my body. Angela. How did she—? Except I knew how. Not from my journals—I had not written about Angela in weeks, and all my older journals were safely locked away—but Holmes had connections to any number of databases and online records, none of them very secure, apparently.

  I took refuge in argument. “Those are two questions, not one.”

  Sara nodded. “True. Pick one or two and answer them. We’ll total up our accounts later.”

  “What if I refuse?”

  “Then we leave at once, starved of information and dinner both. And I believe you are very hungry these days, Dr. Watson.”

  She met my g
aze directly, without any hint of amusement. This was no bluff.

  Eleven more months until the end of my lease, I thought. Eleven more months of the madness that was Sara Holmes. Briefly, very briefly, I considered abandoning Washington, DC, and my quest for a new device. Forget the goddamned lease. I could vanish into New York City. I could take up a new career, under a new identity. Bookseller would be nice.

  Before I could succumb to my impulse, the waiter appeared with an array of appetizers I didn’t remember ordering. He refilled our water and wineglasses, then politely faded away. I selected several of the chili shrimp and nibbled on them between sips of wine, conscious of Sara’s gaze all the while. She did not press me, however, and with food a small portion of my fury leaked away. “Very well. I loved Angela until she stopped loving me. There was no reason to tell anyone anything.”

  Holmes regarded me with a long, considering look, and I had the feeling I had admitted more than I intended to. I stared back at her, which only brought her closer to the edge of laughter.

  Have you loved anyone in your life? Or are we all game pieces to move around as you like?

  But I did not have the courage to ask her those questions. Not yet. We worked our way through the appetizers, then a delicious first course that I could barely recall afterward. But once the waiter cleared away the dishes, I could not resist.

  “I have a question that is not one of my questions.”

  “That is not part of our agreement.”

  “It isn’t,” I agreed. “But what if I decide to walk out now? What if I decide your games are not mine? Because whatever you think of my intellect, I know you want me here, in this dress, and if I do not cooperate, your plans will suffer.”

  Her amusement became a barely contained laughter. “I see. Ask then. I shall not count it against you.”

  “Very well. Why did you call me restful?”

  For a moment she did not answer. She raised her wineglass, almost in the attitude of a toast, and studied the pale golden liquid. “Because you are. Restful, that is. No, that is not a genuine answer. Because you keep regular hours. Because you take pains with your work. Because you have not yet attempted to murder me.”

  At that I could not help myself. I laughed. “Three answers for nothing. Thank you.”

  Holmes’s eyes glinted with shared humor. “You have one more.”

  The glee faded. So do you, I thought. Two more, if I wanted to be honest.

  I finished off my glass of wine and felt the warmth, the pleasant and seductive warmth, spread through my body. I sensed Holmes’s attention, like that of a wildcat that had sighted its prey and was waiting for the moment to strike.

  Perhaps that was not fair.

  Perhaps it was not true.

  And yet I had learned to trust my instincts.

  “No,” I said softly. “Thank you, but no. I’ll save my last for another day.”

  I expected her to insist, but Sara almost immediately turned to a different subject and asked me how I liked the restaurant. From there our conversation wandered into more commonplace topics. The late summer weather. The overloaded Metro system, the quirks and difficulties with the new driverless buses, and how the outlying routes only added to the burden of the inner-city lines. Sara spoke as someone quite familiar with the city, which I had not expected, and with the grace and skill of a person used to making social conversation.

  It was as though she had deliberately muted herself. Become almost . . . ordinary.

  A part of me doubted her motives, even now. Did she want me lulled into complacency? Or had she already accomplished her mysterious purpose simply by coaxing me to this restaurant?

  In the end, I was too weary to keep up my suspicions. And when we returned to our apartment at midnight, I was happy to retreat into my bedroom and close the door.

  The silence continued as I undressed. Then, then came the first notes of Appassionata, a wondrous crashing set of chords. One single thunder of music that stopped abruptly. I waited, my own heart echoing that thunder. Silence came after that, or so I thought. Then I heard the soft, soft opening of Pachelbel’s Canon. A melody calculated to unwind the tangled cares of the day and let me drift slowly into sleep.

  6

  Early the next morning, I returned every borrowed item to Sara Holmes. I did that face-to-face, confronting her in the parlor before she could escape into whatever mysterious errands she had planned. First the dress, carefully folded. The shoes, with any small scuff marks polished away. The stockings, hand-washed and hung to dry overnight. I laid each item on the parlor table, as though I were checking off my inventory sheet at work. Last came the jewelry, piece by piece.

  The jewelry cost me a small pang. As I said, beauty is my weakness.

  Sara accepted them without comment, unless you counted that tiny twist of her mouth, as though she could detect how my fingers hovered over the rings and bracelets, wanting to touch them one last time.

  I hurried off to work before I could regret the act.

  * * *

  I should have suspected that smile.

  Every single gift came back to me, returned secretly and with obvious mischief. That same evening, when I kicked off my shoes into my closet, I discovered the dress among my suits. The rings and bracelets turned up the next morning in my underwear drawer. Apparently a closed door meant nothing to Sara. I shouldn’t have been surprised. If she could gleefully trespass my thoughts by reading my journal, why would she balk at invading my bedroom?

  I sank onto the bed and fingered one of the bracelets. The scarcely visible pattern etched onto its surface, like the pattern of raindrops on the surface of a lake. I remembered that time Angela bought me an expensive gift, for no reason other than it pleased her and she hoped to please me. Such an innocent act. I terrified her, I think, with my anger.

  Gifts are temporary, I had said. I was shouting.

  Am I temporary too? Angela had shouted back. She was crying.

  In the end, I proved us both right.

  Interstitial

  September.

  September . . . What? Same year, same month as the last entry. All the days are smeared together in an ugly murky cloud. I can only keep track by the paychecks. Two so far. I feel disconnected from DC, from life outside my hours at the VA Medical Center. Whenever I listen to the news reports on the break room TV—news about Sanches, the war, the elections—it’s as though they are talking about the other side of the world.

  The VA. God. Six official hours, plus time off the clock to double-check every form and lab result. Six hours with my supervisor reaming me out for every minor infraction of the rules, even if those rules leave a patient undiagnosed. God forbid the doctors actually help someone. Except . . . I believe they do want to help. So do Thompson and all the med techs. We are just fucked by the regulations.

  (NB: Fuck. A word as old as Chaucer, once innocent and now forbidden. Swearing, Thompson tells me, gets you a reprimand, but only if the doctors hear you. There’s a power play of privilege at work. It must have been the same when I was a resident, but either I don’t remember or I never noticed. And I’m ashamed of that. I do know that men hate it when women swear. They get scared, and scared makes them angry. #notallmen #yesallwomen to use the old hashtags. But whatever.)

  And what about those regulations? Christ, I have no idea what to say, or if what I say matters. It’s all so personal. Then again, that’s what a journal is all about, isn’t it?

  So. List fashion, here is what’s going on with me:

  I sit all day long, but my feet never stop hurting.

  I never did buy that Metro card. Maybe next month.

  Six emails from the VA about “readjustment” counseling.

  Three official reprimands from Thompson. One each from Drs. Patel and Wright.

  Two emails from Saúl to my new email address, asking me how things do go. I didn’t respond. Maybe I will next month, when I’ve grabbed a victory from the government bureaucracy.

&n
bsp; No word about a new device. No word from the VA job portal about “openings suited to your skill set.” (And yes, I check daily.) I didn’t expect either one. But I let myself hope.

  Two more evenings at trendy restaurants. Every time I returned Sara’s gifts, they found their way back into my bedroom. I finally gave up. Victory for Sara. I wore them for those next two evenings, but when she tried to give me a second dress, I refused and she didn’t insist. Does that count as a victory? Not sure there is such a thing as victory with Sara Holmes.

  One more thing, not a list:

  I saw a black man today in Georgetown—a rich black man, with his black wife and two black daughters, walking along Q Street. A young Barack Obama, translated to the civilian class. I was so surprised, I didn’t say anything. We looked at each other, me all tired and sweaty, them in their beautiful clothes. I saw no hate in their faces, not for me or my color, but I saw a whole lot of pity. Intersectionality wins again.

  I am so angry.

  But why? Why am I angry with this black man with his money and his wife and their two perfect children? Okay, I do know why. For all I wish them joy, and I really do, I can’t stop thinking about the mud and shit and absolute terror from those four days in April, when I was certain (1) I would die, and (2) no one would care.

  Fuck this. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck—

  *holding tight to my new sheets, soaked in sweat*

  *holding so hard it hurts*

  I am so angry. I thought I was past that. I guess not.

  7

  “You believe you deserve more,” my therapist said. “Let’s talk about that.”

  Her name was Faith Bellaume, as she told me when I arrived at seven thirty for my appointment. Like me, she was black. Like me, she was born in the South. Her parents had abandoned New Orleans for Houston after Hurricane Katrina, then migrated state by state to Virginia. Bellaume herself was born in Mississippi, and she had studied psychology at Mary Washington before taking a job with the VA Medical Center. She had given me this résumé during the walk to the counseling room, adding that she was not a doctor herself, though she had a degree in psychotherapy. I could guess why she had shared these particular bits of information with me. An offer of trust, from her to me. Reassurance that she understood what brought me here. A way to break down the natural reticence that any patient felt.