Free Sample
Preview from chapter one
I set the honeytrap with an e-mail and two bottle-rocket lies. I needed a jury to see me as a thief of moments, not of bodies, and Mom’s endless belief in my genius made her the easiest mark. She replied instantly, said she’d “dress up” and asked if she should bring takeout. “Nothing that drips,” I told her. “It’s all about the clean lines.” She sent back a smiley with lipstick, which would have been tragic if it wasn’t also hilarious.
By four, I turned off the heat and let the studio go cold on purpose. It’s hard to act superior when you’re shivering, and Mom’s image of my life was always built on the soft focus of memory: radiant, charming, always with an inside joke to share. Gallery-darling stuff, if you believe the propaganda. She showed up in a powder-blue overcoat and black patent boots that cost more than my rent, clutching a pastry bag and grimacing as she surveyed the building. She hesitated in the entryway, bracing herself against the chill and the chemical reek, heels clicking with the tentative grace of someone unused to trespass.
“Billy!” she called, and then, lowering her voice into what I guessed was meant as sophistication, “William.”
“In here,” I called from the far room, not bothering to feign busyness. The centerpiece was ready: a twelve-foot scaffold, the cheap kind used for drywallers, and ringed around it, mirrors. All sizes of mirrors were arranged, some full-length, others the kind you find in makeup palettes, dozens of them, so when you stepped into the beam you saw yourself replicated and distorted, a microcosm of narcissism and horror. The centerpiece, though, was just empty. I’d scraped out its “belly” and left nothing but a folding chair.
Mom crossed the room with an expression that toggled between delight and confusion. “What is this?” she asked, lowering her voice as if talking in a museum, eyes dancing around the set.
“It’s the new show,” I said. “The installation is called I See My Guilt.”
She didn’t roll her eyes, which was an indication of how far gone she already was. “I love it,” she lied, looking around for some sign of color or maybe a human touch. “But what’s it for?”
“You’re the first to see it,” I told her. I let my smile show teeth. “And I want you to help me break it in.”