Cassie sat quietly, suddenly nervous and hyper aware of everything in the room. Her eyes moved laboriously around the room as she fought to remain calm and not enter a full blown panic attack. Tick. The clock on the wall beat at her. She felt her breath coming more rapidly. Tock. Her heart leapt and her eyes darted back to the clock. This is madness, she thought.
What possessed Lily to leave her here. She was a bookseller, not an investigator. She tried to swallow, and felt her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth. The clock threatened another second as Cassie's mind froze. She worked her mouth, urging enough saliva to pool and let her swallow.
"Tell me about Carter, Grace," she managed at last, hating the way her voice almost croaked out the words. "What was he like when you met him?"
Grace seemed to be caught in the same time vortex revolving around Cassie. Her head slowly rose from staring at the desk, turning to hold Cassie's gaze. Cassie felt the sweat beading on her neck. Grace caught her eyes, but looked away as she started to speak.
"He was a gentle man," she began. "I think that was always true, and probably what caught my attention." Grace found her mind back in a grey, smoke-filled office, with too many voices chattering at too many desks over the constant pecking of fingers at clunky typewriters. "His laugh."
The weird effect on time abruptly ended with that one line. Suddenly, the sweat ran freely down Cassie's spine, causing her to shiver. The clock clicked out its regular rhythm, and Grace took notice that she was not alone in the room.
She cleared her throat and started again, hoping to lessen the impact of her words.. "His laugh was what first caught my attention. He was across the room talking with someone, and just opened wide and bellowed at whatever joke they were telling. Everyone in the office turned to look at him.
"I don't know how long it was before I had any reason to actually speak with him. Very likely it was in relation to the artwork needed for the series title I was editing at the time." She paused to reflect back over the decades. "No idea what that might have been now, but it was pretty common. We hit it off right away, that was definitely true.
"I wasn't really the partying type, and he was an artist through and through."
"Why do you say that?" Cassie interrupted, stirred by a notification on her phone from Lily. 'Talk about art' it said. "What do you mean 'an artist through and through?'"
Grace listened, then spoke, "Well, he lived and breathed art, didn't really step away from it, you know. A lot of people - artists, writers, musicians - try to keep a separate private life. At 5 o'clock, they shut down their creative office and concentrate on life. Carter wasn't like that. I guess he wa a bit of a perfectionist. He liked to get everything just right.
"I remember him explaining it to me one time. He said that when he got the picture in his head, that is, when he read the commission it fixed an image in his head, that he then struggled to realize in whatever medium was required. I've never heard anyone else talk about art in the same way he did."
"Really," Cassie replied. "That's pretty cool. So what about you two?" She asked with a wry smile. "Were you ever an item?"
She was sure she noticed Grace blush. She smiled a little at Cassie, shaking her head.
"No, nothing like that," she returned. "We were very close friends, that's all."
"Oh Grace, that almost makes me sad," Cassie said. "He seems like a great guy. At least you were able to become close as friends."
"Yes," Grace replied, perhaps a little abruptly, Cassie wondered.
"How long did you work with him in New York?" Cassie continued, shifting the topic away from a subject that felt a little close to the heart for Grace. Cassie wasn't sure what Lily thought she could actually find out, but to her it made sense to keep Grace comfortable with the conversation and give her the space to fill as she needed.
