The two of them fled to San Francisco, slept on the streets or in motels when Freja’s parents sent money, and stole everything else they needed. They were both too thin, afflicted by head lice, thrush, dry skin, and intermittent withdrawals, but they were still salt and pepper, Avery believed, still made for each other. Then, Freja overdosed. She survived, but her parents, tall and blond, arrived at the San Francisco General Hospital looking like Norse gods, picked her up, and took her back to Sweden without saying a word to Avery. It was Nicky she called from the hospital pay phone, Nicky who used up all her air miles to book her a flight home, though Avery wouldn’t show up to thank her in person for another month. Her pride would not allow her to be seen in that state by any of her sisters, so she went to the free detox straight from the airport, back when it was still possible to show up unannounced and stay for twenty-eight days. She never heard from Freja again but, with time, she stopped trying to reach her and was relieved. That love had been a type of madness and, just like the second step in AA says, she needed to be restored to sanity.
But now, standing in front of Charlie’s home, that old insanity was back. What was it in her that loved a wildfire? It was pointless to pretend to herself that she wasn’t going in after coming all this way. The torturing herself before, that was part of the process. She couldn’t even self-sabotage in a spontaneous way. Hedonism, she was discovering, didn’t really work when you were sober, grieving, and thirty-three. The address he had given her was for a modest redbrick terraced house in the heart of Willesden Green. He probably had roommates, she thought grimly, the kind of bathroom with too many people’s shampoos cluttering the edge of the bath. Avery walked up the short narrow path to the front door, which was painted a jaunty green, and raised the knocker. Her hand was shaking. She stared at it; she was, she realized, trembling all over. She could stop this right now, she reminded herself, she could turn around and go home. But she knew she wouldn’t; she felt too alive.
Charlie opened the door in a pair of black track pants and no shirt. The muscles in his shoulders and arms rippled as he opened the door. Avery almost laughed. He was dressed the part, at least. She walked through the doorway and kissed him. His chest under her hands felt like something pulled taut and ready, not soft with the give of flesh she was used to. She kissed his chest and ran her tongue over his stomach, dropping to her knees right there in the hallway. It was like licking marble. Sensational.
“Not here,” he said, laughing as he pulled her up.
Now she had decided to do this, she was feeling high on her own recklessness. It would almost be a relief to get caught. Only something outside of herself could stop her now. But the house was quiet. Avery followed him up the narrow staircase, glancing into the small living room as she went. She saw a faded floral sofa, a mantelpiece filled with pictures of smiling faces. Charlie as a little boy in glasses and a tie. A teenage girl in a graduation robe. A black-and-white photo of a beautiful woman, probably his mother, in a long white wedding dress next to a stiff-backed man in a three-piece suit. In his bedroom, books were everywhere, piled on the small dresser and stacked against the walls. The gray sheets on his low twin bed were meticulously folded and pulled stiff like in a hotel.
“You have a single bed,” she said.
He smiled.
“It’s my parents’ place.”
Avery dropped her bag to the floor, slipped off her shoes.
“Of course it is.”
“Hey, London rents ain’t cheap, man.”
“I’m not going to have to meet your mother, am I?”
“She’s out with her church group and Dad’s at work,” he said. “So you’ll just have to make do with me.”
“You never mentioned your dad before,” said Avery.
“Not much to say. He’s just a solid, nice man.”
“Like you?”
It could have been a statement, but it was a question.
Charlie gave a slow, sly smile.
“I don’t think you came here to talk about my family,” he said.
He deftly unwound Avery from her wrap dress until she was standing in just her black cotton thong. His eyes widened as he took her in. She had a slim snake coiled around one arm, its daggered tongue licking her elbow. A small starling nestled under each collarbone.
“Nice ink,” he said.
Avery shrugged.
“Past life.”
“How many do you have?”
She gave him a mischievous look.
“You’ll have to find them.”
He pressed her onto the twin mattress and crept his fingers over her body in a tender excavation, checking the soles of her feet, her inner thighs, under each breast. He found the little boat riding the waves of her rib cage, the face drawn in one line like a Matisse sketch on her inner arm, the anarchy symbol on her shoulder blade she’d let Freja give her with a stick-and-poke needle while high. Across her heart she had three small letters: BNL. He traced them with his finger.
“My sisters,” she said.
He nodded wordlessly.
“There’s just one more,” she said.
He sat back on his heels.
“I give up,” he said.
She pulled down her bottom lip to reveal a four-leaf clover inked into the pink flesh of her inner mouth.
“You’re full of surprises,” he said.
“Like an Easter egg?”
He climbed onto the bed, laying the length of his body on top of her.
“Not any Easter egg I ever had.”
Avery closed her eyes as Charlie slipped his hand into her underwear. Eight years with Chiti and they still had sex, but she had to choose to get turned on. It wasn’t instinctive anymore, the way it had been at the beginning, a carnal impulse impossible to ignore or deny. These days, an internal alarm would go off in one of them that it had been too long, and they would decide to have sex. It was still enjoyable, but it felt like maintenance as opposed to lust. This was different. Her body acted without thought, without instruction.
“Wow,” he said.
He pulled his hand from between her legs and his fingers were slick with her wetness.
