“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” I said coyly.
“You’re smarter than you let on to just about anybody.”
“Me?” I said.
Celia was starting to get goose bumps, so I suggested we go back into the living room, where it was warmer. The desert winds had swooped in and turned this June night into a chilly one. When I started to get cold, too, I asked her if she knew how to make a fire.
“I’ve seen people do it,” she said, shrugging.
“Me too. I’ve seen Don do it. But I’ve never done it.”
“We can do it,” she said. “We can do anything.”
“All right!” I said. “You go open another bottle of wine, and I’ll start trying to guess how to get it started.”
“Great idea!” Celia flung the blanket off her shoulders and ran into the kitchen.
I knelt down in front of the fireplace and started poking the ashes. And then I took two logs and laid them perpendicular to each other.
“We need newspaper,” she said when she came back. “And I’ve decided there’s no point in glasses anymore.”
I looked up to see her swigging the wine out of the bottle.
I laughed, grabbed the newspaper off the table, and threw it in. “Even better!” I said, and I ran upstairs and grabbed the copy of Sub Rosa that had called me a cold bitch. I raced back down to show her. “We’ll burn this!”
I threw the magazine into the fireplace and lit a match.
“Do it!” she said. “Burn those jerks.”
The flame curled the pages, held steady for a moment, and then sputtered out. I lit another match and threw it in.
I somehow managed a few embers and then a very small flame as some of the newspaper caught.
“All right,” I said. “I feel confident that this is slowly coming along.”
Celia came over and handed me the bottle of wine. I took it and sipped from it. “You have a little catching up to do,” she said as I tried to give it back to her.
I laughed and put the bottle back up to my lips.
It was expensive wine. I liked drinking it as if it was water, as if it meant nothing to me. Poor girls from Hell’s Kitchen can’t drink this kind of wine and treat it like it’s nothing.
“All right, all right, give it back,” Celia said.
I teasingly held on to it, not letting it out of my grasp.
Her hand was on mine. She pulled with the same force I did. And then I said, “OK, it’s all yours.” But I said it too late, and I let go too soon.
Wine went all over her white shirt.
“Oh, God,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
I took the bottle, put it down on the table, took her hand, and pulled her up the stairs. “You can borrow a shirt. I have just the perfect one for you.”
I led her into my bedroom and straight into my closet. I watched as Celia looked around, taking in the surroundings of the bedroom I shared with Don.
“Can I ask you something?” she said. Her voice had an airiness to it, a wistfulness. I thought she might ask me if I believed in ghosts or love at first sight.
“Sure,” I said.