The morning passes quickly, a short, blank stretch of time almost completely overridden by a hangover. I eat and shower, and do my best not to think. I stare at the table in front of me, the last crust of toasted bread on the plate and at myself in in the mirror as I shave; my reflection is very sharp. I spend a moment examining my face: tired and drawn, and unlikely to win any prizes for distinguishing characteristics, at least it's mine. Leaving the bathroom, I finish getting dressed and exit the apartment.
The temperature dropped during the night and the air is cold and biting. I wait for the bus with my fists in my pockets, shivering. When it finally arrives I take it as far as 5th Bridge and walk the short distance to the share house.
A girl I've never seen before answers the door. No older than twenty four or twenty five, she is tall, with a long fall of black hair trailing past her shoulders. Despite the cold, she's only wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top. Her wide, brown eyes take me in without a trace of interest.
"You guys just keep showing up," she says.
"Sorry."
She shrugs and opens the door. I enter the hall and remove my boots. The girl passes into the living room and flops down on a sofa, taking up a book from the floor. I watch as she stretches out, crossing one long, tanned leg over the other. It occurs to me that this is the first pair of woman's legs I've seen in months, and I try not to think about how pathetic that sounds.
"What are you reading?" I ask her.
"A book," she says, but without a trace of irony.
"What's it about?"
"Myths."
"Myths?"
She sighs, and sets the book down on her chest.
"My thesis is on myths, alright?"
"Yeah that's alright," I say, crossing the room and sitting down on the chair nearest the couch. Between us, a low table is covered with out of date magazines, loose tobacco, and a number of empty beer cans subbing as ashtrays. I root around in the debris and come up with a stack of papers and enough tobacco to roll myself a smoke.
"That's not all tobacco," the girl warns me, without looking up.
"I'll live."
I think I can see her smile. She holds the book in front of her face with one hand while pulling her hair up with the other, draping it over the arm of the couch.
"There a light?" I ask.
"No idea," she says, and I search the table until I find a book of matches. Once I get the thing lit I inhale thinly, thinking that she was right: along with the tobacco is the unmistakable flavour of weed, and something else, dry and subtly metallic.
"You come here to talk about books?" she asks.
"Not especially."
"You don't live here do you?"
"No."
"So," she says slowly. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see a friend."
"No, like, in general."
"You mean what do I do?"
"I guess," she says, and then she shrugs, amused with herself, or maybe by me, it's hard to tell. "Hand me that."
I pass her the joint.
"I'm a writer."
"That makes sense," she says, nodding. She offers the joint back to me, but I shake my head.
"Keep it," I say.
"Very kind of you," she replies, and goes back to her book. A moment later I stand up.
"Be seeing you," I say, standing up.
"Yeah."
I take the stairs to the second floor. Richard's room is at the end of the hall, next to one of the bathrooms. I knock heavily on the door, but he doesn't answer.
"Richard!" I yell, and finally the door swings open.
"I was developing," he mutters. His hair is a tangled mess and the t-shirt and jeans he's wearing look like they haven't been washed in weeks. There are dark smudges beneath his eyes, but that's nothing new, and he smiles as he ushers me inside. A line of heavy curtains is drawn across the room's only window, and there's a tangy, chemical reek in the air, most likely from the make-shift dark room in his closet. Every free inch of the walls is plastered with 8/11 prints hanging on pins, most of them black and white shots of buildings at middle-distance; one of the reasons Richard is not a commercially successful photographer is that he only takes this type of picture. Not many people are interested in buying portraits of buildings taken at a flat angle, and even less so when the majority of them are cookie-cutter townhomes built by no-name architectural firms. I once tried bringing this up to him, but all I got for my trouble was a withering look and a well-practiced speech about how visual interest was inherent in the subject and if I couldn't see that for myself then nothing he could tell me would make a difference. That much I agreed with.
"You look terrible," he says as I take a seat on the couch.
"You're not so pretty yourself."
"Tell me about it. Someone invited half his fucking school over for a party and we didn't get them all out of here until just over an hour ago."
"I saw Kelly last night."
He looks at me sharply.
"What are you seeing her for?" he asks. "What's she even doing back in town?"
"It's not like I planned it. I just ran into her. I don't even know if it was her or not."
"What does that mean?"
I lean back against the plush couch, and experience a momentary wave of disorientation; I suddenly feel very stoned, and resolve never again to roll a cigarette with what I find on a table. At least not in this house.
"It wasn't Kelly," I tell him, attempting to bring the room into focus.
"You just said it was."
"It was someone who looked like Kelly."
"OK so you saw a girl who looked like your ex, whatever."
"Exactly like her."
"You need to get over this," he says.
"I thought I did."
"Well you were obviously wrong about that."
"Just listen alright? Last night I saw Kelly standing on the street but when I said hello she acts like she's never met me before. She tells me that her name is Hazel. But it must have been her twin or something, a clone, or else it really was her and she was lying to my face."
"Kelly has a twin?"
"No she doesn't have a twin. I don't know."
"So she came back and just decided to change her name?"
"I have no idea."
"You're sure this is not just you being insane?"
"Maybe."
"You know who you should talk to?"
"Who's that?"
"Taylor."
"Why?"
"They went to school together didn't they?"
"I guess. He around?"
"I haven't seen him for a couple of days. I think he's seeing someone."
"Really? How do they get past the modulator?"
"It takes all kinds."
"Do you have his number?"
"No. But someone around here must."
"I'll ask around."
"Good. Now if you'll excuse me I need to get back to work. My show is coming up."
"There's always a show coming up."
"Always like, every six months."
"Good luck with that," I tell him, getting up.
"Later," he says and returns to his closet, shutting the door heavily behind him.
I return to the living room, hoping to ask that girl if she knows how I can get in touch with Taylor, but the couch is empty. I find her in the kitchen, watering a collection of plants on the window ledge. She moves slowly, the water pouring from her cup gleaming in the oblique rays of the afternoon sun.
"That was a fast visit," she remarks.
"He's busy."
"So he says."
She sets the cup down on the counter and leans back, offering me a nice view of her legs.
"How do you keep a tan like that in the winter?" I ask her.
"Never heard of a tanning salon?"
She smiles and a moment later I find that I'm standing in front of her; I must have crossed the room, but I don't rememb
er doing it. Light from the window catches a few loose, black strands of hair at her ears. She closes her eyes and a brief laugh escapes her lips. Her head falls back, exposing her throat, a soft network of blue veins showing just beneath the skin. I'm close enough to touch her, and she laughs again, lower, and places her hand on the back of my neck. She smells of soap, and washed skin, and nothing else. I think of the smoke I rolled earlier, the scraps of weed and tobacco and something else that went into it.
"What did I put in that joint?" I ask, and I can feel her head shaking. She allows me to kiss her neck and the side of her face, but pulls away when I try for her lips. Her eyes are still closed, and the sound of her laughter is caught up in the fall of sunlight from the window.
"What's your name?" I hear myself saying.
"Call me Daphne."
"I'm Isaac."
"Daphne is a famous name," she says. I feel the words sinking into my neck. "Do you know the story?"
"Never heard of it."
"She was a very ugly girl. So ugly that anyone who saw her was blinded, struck dumb, and cursed. She lived apart from everyone else, and cried and cried, all alone."
"Sad story."
"Most of the good ones are."
"What happened to her?"
"The god of love took pity on her. He came to her on the night of her 16th birthday, binding his eyes with a length of silk so that he wouldn't go blind at the sight of her. He approached her as she lay sleeping in her bed, and took out his magic needle."
"Magic needle?"
"Mhmm," she murmurs. "One side of it was dipped in gold, the colour of beauty, and the other was dipped in blood, the colour of passion. A single prick from the golden end would transform the girl into the most beautiful woman in the world, which is what the god of love wanted, but because he was wearing the blindfold he made a mistake, and poked her with the blood-tipped end."
"What happened?"
Her hand moves to my back, over the blades of my shoulders. She places her words in the space next to my ear.
"The blood-tipped end didn't make her beautiful, but it did cause anyone who looked at her to go mad with desire. From that day on, any man who saw her, even the gods, became obsessed, and for a while she was happy. Who wouldn't be? But inside her she knew that nothing had changed. She was still ugly: she could see that whenever she looked in a pool or a mirror or in her lovers' eyes. She was hideous. She knew it, and she cried, even as she was held by one man after another, even as they offered her gold, and jewels, and kingdoms to be with her."
"Poor girl."
"Yes. No matter what her men said or did, she knew that their love was a lie, and that she was still ugly. So she begged the goddess of the night to set her apart, so far away that no one would ever be able to reach her."
"And did she?"
"Of course. The goddess of the night put her in the sky, which is why the myth of Daphne is also the story of the moon – a pale disc hanging in the sky, scarred and pock-marked, beautiful and luminous, forever out of reach."
She moves her head away. Her eyes are still closed and I understand for the first time that a part of her is afraid. I pull away and watch as the girl lets out a low, thin breath.
"Is that how you see yourself?" I ask her.
"Of course not," she says. "It's just a name. They don't mean anything."
The light's angle has changed, falling directly into the empty sink. The girl moves to the cupboard and fills a mug with water. She drinks heavily, staring out the window and into a short strip of snow-covered lawn at the side of the house.
"Listen," I say, but I'm not sure how to continue. She sets the glass down on the counter.
"I need to study," she announces.
"I just wanted to ask you something."
"What?"
"Do you know a guy named Taylor?"
She nods.
"He's strange," she says.
"Yes he is."
"That voice box of his creeps me out."
"I think it's supposed to."
"What about him?"
"You know how I can get in touch with him?"
"Well I don't have his number, but it's Friday right?"
"Yeah I think it's Friday."
"Fridays he spins at a bar in Northside. Lower Cavern I think."
"He's still doing that?"
"You know about the back room?"
"Yeah I've been there before," I say. Glancing at my face, the girl frowns, as if she can see something written there. All at once she slips around me and leaves the room.