IN-BETWEENESS

Michael sat in the front room while a police officer talked to Emma in the hallway. Two officers were at his back in the kitchen nook sharing untoward details.

“A tape of her masturbating in the midget’s VCR…”

The painter felt sick. His febrile mind swelled inside his skull. He could not put a single fact to what he saw during the night, yet the image of a woman pleasuring herself was burned indelibly in his memory. The idea Emma was in such a film was bad enough, but the notion she had made it for Jacques was unbearable. On happening upon him at the Spyglass House the night before the performance artist had left the impression there was more to his estranged acquaintance with the photographer than met the eye.

A police officer was peering down at the message tally blinking on the phone machine, and, knowing Michael was eavesdropping, kept his reply to a fellow officer serviceably brief. “Leave it for the inspector.”

Emma’s weary eyes locked on him once the officer talking to her moved away. Swallowing his pride, the painter stood up and moved towards her in a tortured piece of acting. “I’m sorry,” he said.

The young woman held out her hand in a weak way. He took her fingers to feel their pained attitude tremble down into his palm. Her head found his shoulder, although the awkward embrace made her resemble a board threatening splinters. At that second, another car pulled up outside at the curb.

It was Seth Bowles.

Michael dropped his arms to release her, in relief.

The professor was soon standing in the doorway; it was more than the dejected artist could endure to see him in the apartment. A female officer took Emma aside just as another policeman walked up to the professor.

“What’s your connection, here?”

Seth puffed up. “I’m a good friend.”

The officer turned back to Michael. “You’re free to go, unless you have some reason to be here.”

It was the painter’s opportunity to skip out of the house, though the professor was barring his way.

“It must be terrible for her,” the older man ventured.

Michael nodded, not wanting to speak for fear any embellishment would involve more entangling questions.

Seth was dry. “It’s lucky you were in the neighborhood.”

“Yes.”

“Emma tells me you’re a painter. Where did you do your MFA?”

It was an odd topic at such a moment, but he answered, “Indiana University.”

“A highly ranked program, then?”

Michael, glancing over at Seth’s picture hanging from the bulletin board, responded to the man’s insincere approval of his school choice. “The only thing that matters is having something to say.”

“Do you exhibit anywhere?" the professor continued. "Do you exhibit in Chicago?”

“Did.”

“Did?” he echoed. “Did you run out of things to say?”

Michael was surprised by his boyish show of turf, but was otherwise unscathed by the retort. Even though he was generally timid around authority figures, he had yet to be impressed by any of them. With few exceptions, he found the exemplars of culture and academe to be only accidentally insightful, and just as likely to bury a truth as to trip over one. Too frequently they were middlebrows who trafficked in fashionable, off-the-shelf opinions; and it galled Michael such men were routinely patted on the back and looked up to by kingmakers and sycophants only marginally more mundane than themselves.

A policeman interrupted. “Whoever’s car that is at the bottom of the driveway needs to move it so we can get out.”

Seth walked back outside to comply with the request, and wanting to spare himself further humiliation, Michael aimed in the same direction; Emma’s pitiful voice caught him at the door.

“Are you leaving?”

His feelings were hurt in more ways than he could fathom, but he cobbled together a reply. “I feel I need to.”

There was a pause on her end—a disappointed pause. “If you must.”

“It’s for the best.” His proclamation felt more like a dispassionate assessment of the situation than a grudging sacrifice of his wishes.

Her response was haggard. “This obsession thing with Jacques. It’s more than I can deal with.”

Michael tried to find a way around her pain. “What Jacques did—it was about him. Not you.”

Emma sighed. “Why is it all the wrong men fall in love with me?”

The painter assumed he was just another wrong man, and resented the unsolicited rejection. “I have to be going.”

Seth’s reappearance at the door was enough to send him hobbling down the steps outside. He slowed on spotting Harrod Pincher on the sidewalk below; the accompanying officers parted like the sea as the man approached.

The detective stood erect in a greeting. “Ah! Mr. Louden-West! You’ve been in our tiny hamlet but three days and I’ve seen you as many times.” His gaze rose to where the professor was still visible in the doorway above. “Clinging too long to youth is a sin, wouldn’t you agree, sir?”

Michael felt the pointy end of this remark, too. “What business is it of yours?” he grunted.

“No business of mine,” Pincher replied. “Only unfinished business of yours.”

The painter was in no humor to spar with the detective, so turned huffing down the block.

A smirking fellow with a microphone came running up from across the street. “What does the death of the midget have to do with the woman in this house?”

“No comment.”

The man persisted. “The police say they found scads of sex tapes in his trailer. Are you one of the guys on the videos?”

“What?”

The reporter explained, “I’ve heard she’s had a couple of hundred men.” He crowed back to his coworkers. “Are you guys getting this on tape?”

Michael, dropping into his Saturn, bristled. “No comment!”

He was halfway down the block before he realized the news van was creeping along the curb to pace him.

Proceeding onto Broadway, an opportune crowd of protesters was bustling outside the doors of Bean and Nothingness. They were the crunchy granola-type massing with placards protesting the use of dairy products inside the establishment. One sign read, “Stop the Enslavement of Cows”; another, “Drink Soy.” They were having little effect at changing minds as the coffeehouse was in the middle of a certifiable rush. The patron, abandoning his car, took advantage of the confusion to meld into the throng. He gravitated inside to a window seat and watched the news van circle the block a couple of times before it gave up. In the interval, he glanced down at a newspaper rack to read a below-the-fold headline of the day’s paper:

Elderly man killed by a lightning strike near Nadir Meadows Road.

There was no end to the farcical nightmare.

Reflex had Michael queuing up for coffee, though he was late remembering Erica was covering Emma’s shift.

The barista spoke over the clanging of mugs. “How’s Emma doing?”

“Okay.”

“Did the police kick you out?”

“No.”

“Then you left her to the wolves?”

“Seth is with her,” he mumbled.

“Seth?”

(Michael had forgotten about the three-way nature of the relationship.)

“Seth has a class in a half hour. You should take some coffee back to her.” The barista fetched a to-go cup.

Erica clearly did not want Emma to be alone with Seth and was attempting to employ Michael as a wedge. The painter resented the way he was being used as a fourth table leg in a table he shared no part in. Before she could commence the second drink, he grunted, “I’m not going back.”

Erica noted the terseness in his tone. “Are you that busy today?”

He did not answer when any answer would have easily ended to the conversation.

She took the non-reply in the way he intended. “What kind of person bails on a friend in her hour of need?”

He threw it back without thinking. “More of a friend to her than you.”

Erica was pulled up short by the curt, cryptic remark. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Michael, of course, was still thinking about Seth. “I saw you at the party,” he said.

“And I saw you. I hope you got an eye full.”

He stiffened. “I would never betray a friend’s trust like that.”

Erica remained baffled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Squinting out from under her layers of mascara, she thought to ask, “What makes you think Emma and I are such good friends, anyway?”

He joined in the bafflement. “You came to lunch with us.”

The girl almost laughed. “I did that as a favor. She was trying to set me up with you.”

Michael could scarce hide his disapproval of the notion.

Erica circled her wagons, too. “You’re not my type, either.”

He faded away from the counter without his drink and careened in the direction of the door and busy sidewalk.