“I’ve got something to show you,” she said, handing him her portfolio.

He asked her to get him a T-shirt from his duffel bag, which was sitting on the floor between a steamer trunk and a folding chair. As she turned away he flipped through quickly, preparing himself before she asked his opinion. To his relief, most of the work was good. Good but not brilliant. Solid though. Which is all most people will ever achieve in this life.

“I’m digging it,” he said, slipping on a striped gray top. “I can see where you’ve grown.” He pointed to a silver halide print of three black men, all with white hair, sitting on the stoop of a rooming house, their eyes fearless, but their coats drawn tight around them, showing their vulnerability. “Now this here is the boom shot. It’s not just about technique. It’s about empathy. You’ve steeped the essence out of these men like they were tea leaves. This is the kind of thing that Cartier-Bresson and Roy DeCarava do so well.”

“I like it, but it’s not the kind of thing that editors are looking for, I’m afraid.” She leaned across him and skipped a few pages. “This is more like it as far as they’re concerned.” Three naked women seemed to be making love to a draft horse. One had her nipples thrust toward the horse’s mouth. One had her face beneath the horse’s tail. The third was draped over the animal’s back. Adding to the quote unquote complexity was the fact that it was a mare and not a stallion.

“Well, it’s up to you to decide who you are, y’know, Nan. I’d say if this is what you have to do for a while to get through, then do it—bearing in mind, though, that with these kinds of deals with the devil you can easily forget the original intent and end up being a part of the very organism you used to run away from. So, who are you?” He flipped between the images. “This or that?”

“I don’t know,” she replied.

He put his hand in hers. She played with his fingers, as she used to before she and Courtney started going out. They’d met through their parents, who’d known each other from jet school. Her dad was a pilot for BA; his mum had flown for Air Jamaica.

“You have to decide,” he said, pulling away from her. “I hate to sound bullshitically existential, but life really is about the choices we make given our situation. You know your situation, Nan. It’s up to you to make the choice.”

“I guess.” She looked away.

“How’ve the interviews been going?”

“Not well … It’s the book, I think. It’s not very good.”

He felt a twinge of annoyance, but he didn’t show it. He resented weakness in the people he loved; that was why he did his best to make them strong. He couldn’t count on weak people during the times when he needed to be held, and reassured—which was more often than he led others to believe. This was a part of Blanche’s appeal. It hadn’t been all about love. She was the only person in the world on whom he could depend, into whose arms he would fall backward with his eyes closed, knowing she would be there to catch him with hands as big and soft as mittens.