J. Bertrand - Nothing to Hide

So I grab my car keys and the black gym bag I keep next to the gun safe. The weight feels good in my hand. In my new empty life, there is one way I’ve learned to forget everything. And it’s early enough in the evening for me to catch up.

On the way I stop over to see the Robbs. The couple who used to live in our garage apartment started looking for a bigger place once Gina’s pregnancy started to show. They took their time, hoping to find something large enough for a growing family but not so expensive that Carter couldn’t afford it on his ministry salary, since Gina hoped to quit teaching once the baby was born. He worked in Montrose at something called an “outreach center,” splitting his time between helping the destitute and proselytizing the heathens. In his off-hours he’d try proselytizing me, too, but it’s not so easy when the heathen has a badge.

With my wife’s help, the Robbs found a rental bungalow not far from Carter’s work, a tiny cottage of maybe nine hundred square feet, no garage, with a tear-down on one side and an incomplete glass-and-steel domicile on the other, the kind of place a Miami Vice drug lord would have been proud to call home. When the market tanked, the architect-builder went broke and left the site mothballed in temporary fencing and plastic wrap.

I’d gone over to see them a few times, bearing gifts, but without Charlotte things were never as smooth. Any day now, that baby would arrive, throwing their lives into rhapsodic turmoil. The thought makes me a little sad. I guess I’m starting to miss them.

Carter comes to the door in a T-shirt and shorts. He doesn’t look happy to see me.

“Is this a bad time? I was just passing through-”

He shakes his head. “No, come in. I could use the distraction.”

“I was heading over to Shooter’s Paradise. You should come some time.” Catching his expression, I pause. “What’s up, Carter?”

From the sidewalk I’d noticed a bluish glow from the front window. Carter nods his tousled head toward the living room, the source of the strange light. Stepping through the arched entryway, I find the furniture pushed into the corners, stacks of books and paper teetering on every available surface, making room for a bubble of empty space at the far side of the room, ringed by light boxes and a lithe and shadowy brunette hoisting a huge-lensed camera. Gina Robb, swathed in some kind of bedsheet, sits perched on a stool, arms and legs bare, frowning intently into the light.

She’s let her hair grow out a little, and tonight it hangs in self-conscious ringlets. I’m more accustomed to seeing it tucked behind a vintage barrette. Her ironic cat-eye glasses are gone, too. She looks beautiful, honestly, almost radiant, her hands on her belly in an earth goddess pose. I feel like I shouldn’t be here.

I give Carter a look and he shakes his head. I expect him to say something, but he lopes down the hall to the kitchen. Before I can follow, Gina squints my way and gives a nervous giggle.

“Oh boy,” she says. “This will take some explaining.”

The photographer introduces herself, shifting the camera so she can shake my hand. Long, cool fingers. Black-rimmed eyes. Gina tells me she’s some kind of artist, that the photos are for a “study,” whatever that is, and they met in one of her night classes at the University of Houston, where Gina’s been working on her master’s degree in English Lit off and on while teaching at a private school out in the suburbs. To prove her point, she indicates a stack of textbooks on the arm of the couch, then adjusts the draped fabric at her shoulder.

I glance at the books. “That’s a lot of reading.”

“It’s, like, crazy,” the photographer says.

“And you. . paint pictures?” I ask.

“Something like that. I’m working on a series called ‘Madonna and Child.’”

“You’re starting early.”

She bites her lip, confused.

“I mean, the baby’s not here yet. You have a madonna, but no child. Never mind. Just an attempt at humor. I should stick with my strengths.”

Gina starts to get up, but the photographer waves her back into place. “No, no, I need a couple more. Don’t move.”

“Go ahead,” I say. “I’ll find Carter.”

While they snap photos, I find myself lingering near the couch. The first time I met Gina Robb, it took me two seconds to pigeonhole her, and she’s been surprising me ever since. Modeling for an artist during the countdown to having her first kid? I didn’t see that coming. Down the hall I can hear Carter moving around in the kitchen, closing the fridge, scooting things along the counter. I don’t know if it’s the bedsheet that makes him uncomfortable or the whole idea or just the thought of me walking in on the scene.

I find him in the crook of the counter, between the stove and the sink, downing a glass of some kind of sugary orange stuff, his eyebrows cocked upward in shock.

“You seem a little put out by all this,” I whisper. The camera clicks and the cold blue light barrels down the hallway, strobing over the kitchen appliances. “You shouldn’t be. It’s not so bad, having a wife who can still surprise you.”

“It’s not that,” he says. “It’s the artist. Gina’s doing this to try and help her, to be supportive. But she’s got some baggage. I think she’s bad news.”

“That’s funny, coming from you. You go out of your way to support people, right? It’s your job. So what’s the harm in her doing the same thing?”

“Yeah, I know.” He shakes his head. “It’s just. . Ever since, you know, the baby. . I just want to keep her safe. To look out for her.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Well, that makes two of us. But I think this will be all right. She’s having a good time with it. If it were Charlotte in there and I was sulking like this, I wouldn’t hear the end of it. Now come on, let’s go back in.”

He puts his glass in the sink and follows me.

“All done,” Gina calls to us, sashaying up the stairs holding the sheet at the back. In the living room the photographer is packing up her things. Carter puts on a smile and goes to her assistance. While they chat, I check my watch and survey the mess. I should get going, but I want to say hello to Gina first.

I’m going through her stack of schoolbooks when she returns wearing a knit dress that clings tight to her belly, both her hands on her hips for support. Her hair is clipped back and she makes a show of wiping sweat from her dry brow. “You’re still here,” she says. “I was afraid you were going to disappear on us.”

“I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to stop in and say hi. Make sure you guys aren’t missing the old garage apartment and want to move back.”

“Tempting,” she says. “In my condition, stairs aren’t a girl’s best friend.”

Carter and the photographer start carrying gear out to her car. Gina eases herself into an empty space on the couch, then starts moving books over so I can sit, too. The one on top is Dante’s Inferno , the Robert Pinsky translation. It’s dog-eared and sticky-noted and creased down the spine. Gina is nothing if not a good student.

“Let me do that.” I move the stack for her. “You like the Dante?”

“I’m only halfway through.”

“If that’s halfway, I don’t think the book is going to survive the experience.”

“You’ve read it?”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” I say. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t. But I knew someone once. .” My voice trails off. “Let’s just say, I have a special relationship with that thing.”

As I speak, the stack I’ve just moved topples of its own accord.

I lean over to straighten the books. One of them is an old paperback with a Norman knight on the cover. The nasal piece on his helmet juts out and he presses a curved horn to his lips. “Well, well. This looks like my kind of reading.”