Impuls

In the daylight, her skin seems glassy – smooth, smooth, with occasional glints of light; only the corners of her eyes hide wrinkles, not from age – from fatigue; and her eyelashes tremble barely noticeably.

She doesn't even try to pull away, only blinks slowly and slowly, still unaware of what is happening.

– Don't, please. – She looks pleadingly at the neurosurgeon. – I say stupid things, all the time, yes, but don't, please. Don't go. Don't. Please…

They are so close, so damn close, that the fabrics of their coats touch – coarse gray wool and delicate black cashmere; Emily feels Clark's measured breath caught in her palm.

– Please," Emily whispers, "listen, I just… I do a lot of stupid things, I talk a lot of nonsense, but I care, I care so much that you noticed me. Of all of them, you noticed me, and that's priceless, you know? I've been invisible all my life, even if I feel sorry for myself, even if I seem pathetic and dramatic again, but I'm sincere, you know? You noticed me in the crowd, you've done more for me these days than anyone in my whole life. I… I just don't know how to say thank you in a way that you can understand. You gave me a chance, you know, not your brother, but you, you, you. It was you. You found me in front of the house, you left work on purpose, I know that, James told me you'd been gone for hours. I know I'm nothing but trouble, I know I a

Clark probably thinks she's crazy. A sick girl who's obsessed with a neurosurgeon – not even the best one on the planet.

Not even the best in the hospital.

Bones on hinges, plastic body, total lack of intelligence – that's exactly what Emily thinks Clark thinks she is.

Useless. Unimaginative. Clueless.

– Please…

Her breath beats like a bird in the palm of her hand, leaving barely visible purple feathers on her skin. She just can't say anything else-she can't, she's only capable of the stitches that hide behind the elastic bandage on her arm.

They're so damn straight and even, it makes her sick to her stomach.

It's as if the only thing she can do is mend someone else's wounds.

When Emily finally removes her hand, Clark doesn't move.

Then she throws away her long-extinct cigarette and, smiling, says:

– I'm cold. How about some punch?

* * *

Please go away, Emily prays, cradling her pillow.

Get out of my damn head.

Dissolve.

Let go.

I can't stand you in it.

But Lorraine is already inside – sitting with her leg up, smoking menthol cigarettes, watching with her heavenly gray eyes, squinting, tilting her head sideways, parting her dry lips.

Johnson has in her backpack a stolen check from the bar and two punch glasses, one with a print of purple lipstick on it; her own little secrets that she will hide in a big box in the morning and pull out to remember the day.

Emily gets chills, and the floor merges with the ceiling when she finally falls asleep.

Chapter 15

I remember the constellations of your moles.

They showed me the way:

Do-re-mi-la-si-do-mi;

You'll know someday.

Lorraine Clark has many little foibles in her life: she loves blueberries with whipped cream, hot baths with aromatic oils, the smell of mint and perfume.

Quinine, coriander, wormwood – bitter to the gnashing of teeth, to the sensation of poison on the tongue, to the shivers in the shoulder blades, not leaving a trail, covering with the head, hitting under the breath, knocking out the rest of the oxygen.

That's why she has a bottle of Serge Noire, a rough, balsamic scent that almost corrodes her skin, on her perfectly black lacquered dressing table every morning before work.

Charlie hates them so desperately – every time he comes to visit, he opens the wide windows of her house on Queen A

The wind scatters the flat stacks of papers, lifts the edge of the light blue blanket, just barely clings the black mugs hanging on the thin hooks, and makes the plaid scarf hug the carved hanger.

Clark is not angry – on the contrary, she sits in a chair in the windiest place, as if defying nature itself, throws her leg over her and smokes menthol Lucky Strike, which is completely out of her style.

Lorraine is always well-groomed: styling, makeup, clean clothes-as is her apartment. One hundred squares of light parquet flooring and dark walls in the most blatant minimalist style-there is hardly any furniture except for the bare essentials.

And one more detail that does not fit into the dark gray interior of the apartment.

Behind a small snow-white partition lurked dry mahogany with carved gold "Clark & Co." letters; the piano's polished, once glossy surface had worn away in places, revealing the dark wood.

Charlie has never touched the instrument, though he no longer remembers how he knows its entire structure by heart, from the whirling board to the platter frame; and he often strikes himself on the knuckle with a tuning fork, trying to hear echoes of his past in the sound of the "A" note.

He doesn't know what he hates more: the bitter perfume or this damn instrument that reminds him of who he really is.

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