The Secretary: The View

My mother would love this room.

That is the first thing I think when I get back from dinner, and the thing I wish I hadn’t thought at all.

There are flowers on the table that no one has to remember to water. The bed has been turned down. Someone has arranged my shoes in a neat little row, including the pair I left under a chair because I couldn’t stand another minute in them.

Apparently, in London, even my bad habits have staff.

I walk to the window and look down at the lights. I want Mom to see this. I want her to know that something good is happening to me, even if it’s happening too far away to be of any use to her.

I lift my phone, then lower it before opening the camera.

No posting photographs. No locations. No explaining to anyone outside the group where we are.

I can remember the rules perfectly when I want to.

Behind me, Ellis loosens his tie.

“Something wrong?”

“No.”

He looks at the phone in my hand, then at the window. “You’ve been quiet.”

“I’m taking it all in.”

“Still?”

It makes me feel provincial, that one word. Like I’ve been staring at the indoor plumbing.

“I’ll try to be less impressed.”

“That wasn’t a complaint.”

He removes his watch and lays it beside his laptop. I watch him do it. There’s something embarrassing about how closely I’ve started paying attention to him. His hands. The way he rolls his shoulders when he’s tired. Which version of his voice means he’s about to leave the room.

I used to pay this much attention to whether the gas light was on.

“I should call my mother.”

“Of course.”

He says it so easily that I feel foolish for having made an announcement. I scroll to her name. There’s a message I haven’t answered asking whether I’m getting enough rest.

She would ask that if I were calling from the moon. She would worry about the bedding.

Ellis sits on the edge of the bed and opens his laptop.

For some reason, this bothers me.

I’ve just said I want to call someone else. It is completely reasonable for him to do something while I do that. It would be weird if he sat there waiting.

Still.

I type: You should see this place.

Then I stop.

Because she will want to know which place. And she will ask who I’m with, and why I sound different, and whether Kevin has called. She’ll hear something in my voice that I won’t be able to explain away with a bad connection.

“Can I ask you something?”

Ellis looks up. “You usually do.”

“Would it really matter if I told her where we are?”

“We’ve been over this.”

“I know. But it’s my mother.”

He closes the laptop partway. “Do you think I’m worried about your mother?”

“No.”

“Then why are we having this conversation?”

Because I would like, just once, to know which part of my life I’m allowed to talk about.

I don’t say this. It sounds ungrateful, standing in a room that costs more than my rent, wearing a dress someone else picked out because they understood the evening better than I did.

“It feels strange,” I say. “Keeping things from her.”

“You’re working, Gillian. You’re safe. You’re being looked after. All of those things are true.”

They are. That’s what makes it difficult.

I erase the sentence and type: Everything’s good. Just tired.

I could send that. I’ve said it to her a thousand times.

Instead, I set the phone on the windowsill.

Ellis watches me.

“What?”

“Come here.”

I stay where I am for a moment. A small, pointless delay. I want to know if he’ll ask again.

He doesn’t.

He opens the laptop.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I mutter.

His eyes lift. “Something you’d like to say?”

“Yes, actually.”

I cross the room. He moves the computer off his lap, and I stand between his knees, suddenly unsure what to do with my hands.

“I’d like your attention.”

The words sound worse out loud. Needy. Like something Devon would tell me never to admit.

Ellis looks up at me. “You have it.”

There’s a loose thread at his cuff. It’s so small that I almost laugh. Finally. Something wrong with an article of his clothing.

I reach for it, and he catches my hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Improving you.”

“That sounds ambitious.”

“I have a lot of goals.”

His thumb moves across my knuckles. It’s such a small thing. I hate that it works, and I like that it works, and I wish I could be normal about any of this.

For a few seconds, he doesn’t look away. There’s no phone against his ear, no one at the door, no screen lighting his face.

This is the version of him I keep waiting for.

I lean down and kiss him. He answers without hurrying, one hand at my waist, the other still holding mine. When I draw back, I’m smiling, which feels like something I ought to keep to myself.

“Better?” he asks.

“A little.”

“A little?”

“Don’t get carried away.”

He laughs. I feel absurdly pleased with myself for causing it.

Then my phone vibrates against the windowsill.

We both look toward the sound.

“You should get that,” he says.

It’s the right thing to say. I know it is. But I hear the end of something I’ve only just managed to have.

“In a minute.”

His hand loosens. He hasn’t asked me to stay. He hasn’t reached for the phone or told me whose name I’m allowed to see on the screen.

I am the one who turns back toward him.

Later, when I finally pick it up, my unfinished message is still there.

Everything’s good. Just tired.

I read it twice. Then I press send before Mom can ask anything I might answer honestly.