Chapter Text
Eve called her Villanelle because that was the name of the perfume she wore. She was Russian, and she looked the part—dark blonde hair, high cheekbones, gray eyes as cold as Siberia itself. She was tall and muscular, not like an Olympic shot-putter, but in more of a lean, Valkyrian sort of way, and she had a chip in one of her front teeth that she could afford to have fixed, but she chose not to, as a reminder to herself of how far she’d come in life. Everything else about her was flawless, and when she entered a room, everyone in it—men, women, children, animals—dropped whatever they were doing and stared at her instead.
Of course, this was mostly speculation on Eve’s part. She’d never met Villanelle, and doubted she ever would. She knew very little about her, other than her perfume of choice, her initials (OAA), her date of birth (3-12-93), her client ID (327), and her voice, which was low and sensual, like a cinematic femme fatale’s, and marked by a hint of a Russian accent that became more pronounced when she spoke passionately on a subject, but disappeared almost entirely if someone commented on it.
The first time Eve heard Villanelle speak, she couldn’t stop herself from crossing her legs and squeezing her thighs together as she worked. One of the less obvious perks of her job was the way it broadened her vocabulary, and repertoire, when it came to masturbatory techniques. Syntribation, for example.
Currently, Villanelle was ruminating on the topic of souls. Eve normally would’ve found this unbearable. She didn’t believe in souls, or reincarnation, or heaven and hell, or any of that bullshit, and she didn’t care to hear anyone else’s half-baked take on it, either, but she was willing to listen to just about anything as long as it was delivered in this voice. Villanelle claimed she wasn’t a religious person, or a spiritual one, either, but she did believe in souls as a philosophical concept. According to her, a soul was a combination of a person’s life force and their consciousness, and it represented their most true self, at a very basic level. She often felt as if her own soul was in the wrong body and was clamoring to escape, and she assumed this was why she craved intimacy but felt uncomfortable with most forms of physical affection, especially those involving prolonged contact. Even sharing a bed with someone else was difficult for her, but she could tolerate it as long as there was no cuddling. Like Eve, she dismissed any notion of an afterlife, but she did offer an alternative theory, which was that your soul never left your body at all when you died. It went further and further in, and became smaller and smaller, until it couldn’t control anything anymore, and then it was just stuck in there, dying forever. She claimed to have witnessed this firsthand, but she didn’t sound at all upset about it. If anything, it seemed like she found it fascinating, and even enjoyed watching.
Eve’s encounters with death had always come after the fact, but she suspected she, too, would find it fascinating to observe this transition—purely from an academic standpoint, of course. And for reasons she wasn’t ready to even try to unpack, she thought she would also enjoy being watched by Villanelle if she were the one dying. She would watch right back and stare directly into that frosty gaze as her soul withdrew and she faded away.
But Villanelle wouldn’t be watching Eve die, or watching Eve at all, or vice versa, because they weren’t in the same room, or even the same building. Eve was miles away, sitting at a desk in her bedroom, wearing headphones, pajamas, and a shapeless cardigan. Her job was to transcribe this disembodied voice, dutifully tapping out word-for-word the conversation Villanelle was having with Eve’s employer, a sex and relationship coach who went by Om, presumably because nobody in their right mind would ever take advice from a love guru called Martin, which was his real name. It seemed like everyone in Ealing, Connecticut, where Eve lived, had been to him at least once, and Villanelle was his latest client.
This was all very new to Eve. Less than a year ago, she’d been living in London and working for MI5, assessing and providing diplomatic protection for visitors to the UK, particularly those with unpopular political or religious views. Hardly any of them were ever in any real danger, and most of what she did felt like a spectacular waste of time and money. She often complained about this to her supervisor and close friend, Bill. “I’m just gonna do everyone a favor and kill him myself,” she’d tell him each time they had to waste a perfectly good safe house on some over-the-top misogynistic fucknut who thought women belonged in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, and not in an office, coordinating their security. But she never did, and nobody else ever cared enough to do it, either.
Her job was boring. Everything about her life was boring. Until it wasn’t. A Russian politician was assassinated in Vienna, and his girlfriend, a seventeen-year-old heroin addict from Poland who was the only witness to the murder, fled to the UK. Eve was tasked with her protection. Two armed officers were put on her at all times, which should have been sufficient, but apparently that wasn’t the case, and she ended up dead anyway, as did both officers, plus two nurses at the hospital where she’d been sent to detox. Both Eve and Bill were fired, because someone had to take the fall for the sake of diplomacy and maintaining positive relations with Poland or something. Two weeks later, they were out at the pub, drinking away their shared sorrows, when Bill stepped out into an alley to call his wife. Before he could do that, he was mugged, and he went and got himself stabbed in the chest trying to resist. By the time Eve went looking for him to see what was taking so long, it was too late. He’d already bled out.
She was already feeling depressed and aimless after losing her job, and she was poorly equipped to cope with grief in a healthy manner at the best of times, which these weren’t. She stopped sleeping and showering, and started drinking to excess and obsessing over assassins and murderers and death in general instead. This upset her husband, Niko, for obvious reasons.
“Do you think you ought to talk to someone?” he’d asked.
“I’m fine,” she’d said, even though she clearly wasn’t.
He wouldn’t let it go. She finally relented and scheduled an appointment with a psychologist just so he’d leave her alone. She tried to downplay her issues, but the shrink saw right through her bullshit and called her on it. Rather than take a long, hard look at herself and start working on fixing what was broken inside, she quit therapy, left her husband, and fled the country. She’d done almost the same thing after her father died, except that time she’d gotten married, not divorced. Niko really shouldn’t have been as surprised about it as he was.
She tried living with her mother for about a week, then remembered why she’d moved away in the first place, and found the cheapest room she could to rent instead. To get by, she worked as a waitress, a barista, and then a bartender, but she never quite got the hang of customer service, and none of her jobs lasted more than a month. It was her housemate, Carolyn, who suggested she try her hand at medical transcription. Her daughter had done it for a while, had in fact left the equipment in a box in the attic along with some other items she had no use for, and surely wouldn’t mind Eve using it. It was also Carolyn who introduced her to Om, downplayed her lack of relevant experience, and pointed out that she was basically a hermit with no interest in socializing, so he wouldn’t have to worry about her talking shit about his clients to anyone. Not that she even wanted to—she thought it, sure, but she’d never been much of a shit-talker.
She enjoyed the isolation of working from home, and also the eavesdropping aspect of the work, which made her feel like some sort of secret agent. Only working when she felt up to it was nice, too. Leaving her husband and her old life behind had cured her insomnia, and now she slept at least sixteen hours a day, but rarely for more than a few hours at a time. She usually managed to bang out an hour of two of therapy transcripts between sleep sessions. She wasn’t the fastest typist, nor the most accurate, but Om paid her according to how many minutes of audio she transcribed, so it didn’t really matter to him how long it took her to do it, as long as it got done.
So far, Villanelle was proving to be entirely unlike Om’s other clients. She projected confidence, and she wasn’t prone to the bouts of self-pity they were usually so fond of. She didn’t seem to be seeking his approval, and she didn’t seem that interested in the advice he dispensed, either, or his approach to therapy in general. She spoke slowly enough that Eve rarely had to pause the recording to catch up, and enunciated every word so she never had to rewind to listen again or type [INDISCERNIBLE], which always felt like a cop-out. There was occasional [SIGHING] and [SNEEZING] on Villanelle’s part, and sometimes [NERVOUS COUGHING] on Om’s, but he didn’t want that in the transcripts. Nor did he want her to transcribe things like [WEIGHTY SILENCE] or [PREGNANT PAUSE], though he did permit [WHISTLING], [SINGING], and [APPLAUSE], even though nobody ever did these things, as well as [LAUGHING]—but not [GIGGLING], [CACKLING], or [CHORTLING]—and [CRYING]—but not [WHIMPERING], [BLUBBERING], or [SOBBING]. [FIRE-BREATHING] was permitted, because he sometimes did this with clients who were open to kundalini, one of his passions.
Initial client sessions tended to be several minutes longer than usual, but Villanelle’s first session was fifteen minutes shorter, which was how Eve knew Villanelle was stunning—Om had been so distracted, he’d forgotten he was supposed to be recording. That, or he’d erased several minutes of audio, which was unlike him. Also, his voice kept cracking like a nervous teenager’s, and he wouldn’t stop clicking his pen.
OM: Are you from Eastern Europe? I’m detecting a little bit of an accent.
OAA: I was born in Russia, but I left when I was eighteen, and I’ve never gone back.
OM: Not even to visit family?
OAA: No.
OM: Why did you leave? Were you seeking a fresh start after your traumatic experience?
OAA: I left to attend university in Paris.
“Wait. What traumatic experience?” Eve said out loud.
OM: Paris, France?
OAA: Is there another Paris?
OM: Well, there’s Paris, Texas. And I think there’s a Paris in Ontario, or maybe Quebec. I’m not really—
OAA: It was France. I went to France.
OM: You know, I’ve done a lot of traveling, but I’ve never been to Paris. I took French in school, actually, but I was never any good at it.
OAA: Americans always seem to struggle with learning a second language. I think it’s because you insist on speaking English everywhere you go, and you just expect the rest of the world to accommodate you.
OM: I’m sorry, I don’t mean to change the subject, but I have to ask… What’s that perfume you’re wearing? It reminds me of what my mother wore.
OAA: It’s called La Villanelle. Is this an Oedipus thing? Because I’ll walk out of here right now if that’s where this is going.
OM: No, no. Forget I said anything. It’s not the same scent at all. I don’t know why I said that. Let’s move on. How long have you lived in Ealing?
OAA: I don’t live in Ealing. I live on the other side of the river. I moved to the area four years ago because of my job.
OM: What is it that you do?
OAA: It’s not important. That’s another thing about Americans. You fixate on what a person does for work, as if that defines who they are. It’s the first thing everyone asks when you meet them.
OM: Sorry. Let’s get into your reason for being here today. Do you think your issues with physical intimacy might stem from the trauma you experienced as a teenager?
“Which was what, exactly?” Eve said.
OAA: No. I’ve always had these issues. And can we not call it “trauma”?
OM: Why?
OAA: Because I wasn’t traumatized. It hardly affected me at all. I’m not who I am because of what happened. It’s the other way around. It happened because of who I am.
OM: A lot of victims blame themselves.
OAA: I’m not a victim. And I’m not blaming myself. I just accept responsibility for my part in it. I may have been young, but I was a willing participant, and even if I wasn’t, I’m still not a trauma person.
OM: What’s a trauma person?
OAA: Someone who can’t stop saying the word “trauma.” They latch onto their suffering and their victimhood, and they use it as an excuse so they can feel sorry for themselves and blame all their problems on something other than their own shortcomings. And they never shut up about it. It’s annoying.
OM: You think they should stay silent?
OAA: I think they should do whatever they have to do to deal with it privately and move on. But if you suggest to any trauma person that they try that, they act even more traumatized. I get it—something shitty happened. But why dwell on it? If they stopped doing that and just got over it, they might not be so miserable all the time.
“Preach,” Eve said.
OM: What if someone was held at gunpoint and gang-raped, and now they can’t seem to pull themselves together, go back to what their life was before, or connect with others like they used to? Would you still tell them to just “get over it”?
OAA: That’s different. That’s actual trauma.
OM: All trauma is actual trauma to the person who’s experienced it.
OAA: But it’s not all the same, and if you really thought it was, you wouldn’t have chosen such an extreme example. You would’ve said, “What if someone was flashed by a pervert on the bus,” or “raised by a narcissistic parent,” or “bullied in school.” But there is a difference. Trauma people don’t want to hear that. They just want everyone to pity them and tell them how brave they are just for surviving, even when their trauma is something as insignificant as being flashed on the bus.
OM: Well, trauma is personal. You can’t really compare two people’s experiences. Something that seems insignificant to you could be life-shattering from someone else’s perspective. I’m willing to concede that some people do have it worse than others, objectively speaking, but response to trauma isn’t always proportional to the trauma itself, and that’s not something anyone can control. What you can control is how you choose to deal with it, but first you have to address it, which, unfortunately, involves talking about it, identifying fears and triggers—
OAA: That’s the problem, though. They want to spend the rest of their lives forcing everyone else to walk on eggshells around them so they won’t be triggered by every little thing that tangentially relates to their traumatic experience.
OM: —and learning to react to them in healthier ways.
OAA: And I’ve just realized I’m triggered by the word “trigger.”
OM: Do you have any other triggers?
OAA: No.
OM: What about night terrors? Trouble sleeping?
OAA: I see what you’re trying to do here.
OM: Any flashbacks or intrusive memories?
OAA: None.
OM: Do you consider yourself an addict?
OAA: No, and I’m not in denial, either. I don’t use drugs, and I only drink socially.
OM: Have you ever—
OAA: No.
OM: You didn’t even let me finish the question.
OAA: Stop digging for evidence of unresolved trauma. It’s a waste of time. I wasn’t traumatized. I had an ill-advised love affair with my married French teacher. That’s it.
“Ooh la la,” Eve said.
OM: Was it a love affair, though? Or were you repeatedly taken advantage of by someone you viewed as a trusted authority figure?
OAA: It was entirely consensual. I knew what I was doing.
OM: You were only fifteen when it started. You weren’t old enough to consent.
OAA: I was fifteen when we met, but I was sixteen when we started sleeping together. Besides, I was mature for my age.
OM: Uh-huh. And how has the… affair, if that’s what we’re calling it, impacted your subsequent relationships?
OAA: It hasn’t. I’m here because I don’t have orgasms.
“Oh?” Eve said.
OM: Did that start after the affair, or before?
OAA: Before. I’ve never had an orgasm in my life.
“Aww. Poor thing,” Eve said.
OAA: I’m twenty-eight.
OM: Most women don’t reach their sexual peak until their thirties.
OAA: I’m married. I’ve been married for four years.
OM: Marriage doesn’t necessarily mean satisfying—
OAA: I’m a gynecologist.
“And you don’t know your way around?” Eve said.
OM: Are you married to a man?
OAA: A woman.
“And she doesn’t know her way around?” Eve said.
OM: What’s her name?
OAA: Maria.
OM: Does she know you’re here?
OAA: Yes.
OM: How would you describe your sex life with her?
OAA: I would say it’s mostly one-sided. It feels like a chore to me, but there’s a sense of accomplishment when it’s over. It’s sort of like walking the dog and flossing at the same time.
OM: You have a dog?
“You have a dog?” Eve repeated. “Are you fucking kidding me, Om?”
She glanced over at Carolyn’s dog, a tan chihuahua called Hugo. He had an unfortunate habit of shitting on the floor whenever he was left alone, so he spent most of his time in Eve’s room if Carolyn wasn’t home. Carolyn knocked twenty-five dollars per month off of Eve’s rent, and in exchange, Eve let him out a few times per day and cleaned up any messes he made if she ignored him for too long. She wasn’t a dog person, and Hugo wasn’t terribly fond of her, either, so their relationship had yet to evolve beyond this.
At the moment, Hugo was walking in a tight circle as he sniffed the rug next to her bed. Eve paused the audio and yanked off her headphones.
“Don’t you fucking dare, you little dick-swab.”
He ignored her and continued looking for the perfect spot to relieve his bowels. She threw a slipper at him, but missed and hit the wall behind him instead, knocking loose a few chips of ancient lead paint.
All the walls, and the ceiling, too, were covered in layers upon layers of the stuff, and every time a door was shut too forcefully or a truck drove past and shook the house, flecks of it rained down onto the floor, the furniture, and her head. Sometimes she worried about lead poisoning, but according to the Internet, she’d actually have to ingest it, which she wasn’t doing. Hugo sometimes did, however, and he only weighed seven pounds.
“C’mon,” she said, opening the door. “Go do that in the yard.”
He paused, nose to the ground, and looked at her to gauge how serious she was. Then he heaved a great sigh, as if he was about to make some great sacrifice by going outside to take a dump instead of doing it on her rug, and followed her into the hallway.
She let him out and left him to it, then went downstairs to the kitchen in the basement to pour herself a drink, where she ran into Carolyn doing the same.
“Hey,” Eve said. “I didn’t realize you were home.”
“Eve. I just stopped in to pick up my mail, then I’m off to meet a client. I’ll be out of your hair in a moment.”
Eve still wasn’t clear on what it was Carolyn did for work, but they’d been living together long enough by this point that she really ought to know, so it would be too awkward to come right out and ask and reveal that she didn’t. Carolyn always carried herself with an air of authority, so it was probably safe to assume it was something important. She was recently divorced from her third (or was it fourth?) husband, and had purchased the ancient Dutch farmhouse in which she and Eve now lived with the intention of fixing it up, but had yet to do anything to it, in large part because she was rarely around.
Nobody had ever looked as out of place in their own home as Carolyn did. The house was nearly two hundred years old, and it had been mostly unoccupied in the latter half of that time span, but now Carolyn lived on the top floor, and Eve lived below her in what used to be the living room. Its only amenities were electricity and running water, and it had no insulation, so it was stiflingly hot in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter. It looked sturdy enough from the outside, as long as you kept your distance, but once you got closer, and especially once you went inside, it was clear everything was falling apart. The plaster was crumbling, held together only by layers of peeling wallpaper. Most of the windows still had their original glass, but several of the panes were cracked, and more than a few had broken completely and been replaced with squares of plywood. At least once a week, Eve had to dig a splinter from the pine plank flooring out of her foot, because a lifelong habit of removing her shoes immediately upon entering a house meant she kept forgetting what a terrible idea it was to do that here.
Carolyn was even less prone to sharing gossip than Eve, but she was an information hoarder. She seemed to know everything there was to know about everyone in and around Ealing, and Eve hoped to exploit this to find out anything she could about Villanelle.
“Do you happen to know of any Russians who live around here?” she asked. “Or across the river?”
“I know five. Two are musicians, two are assholes, and the other is a plumber.”
“Is one of the assholes a gynecologist?”
“No, why?”
“New patient.”
“Sex addict?”
“This one’s never had an orgasm.” Despite the confidentiality agreement Eve had signed, she felt like she owed Carolyn for helping her get the job, so she sometimes shared more than she should about Om’s clients, trusting that Carolyn would keep the information to herself anyway.
“That sounds dreadful,” Carolyn said, in the same tone she might use while discussing the weather. She seemed incapable of expressing any emotion stronger than mild surprise.
Eve was about to say more, but then she changed her mind. She wanted Villanelle all to herself. If she revealed anything else, it might jog Carolyn’s memory, and she was enjoying the fantasy version she’d conjured too much. She didn’t want to end up disappointed by reality.
Carolyn left again, and Eve followed her out so she could retrieve Hugo and grab a few logs from the woodpile. Her room’s only source of heat was a wood stove with a busted damper, which meant the flue was always wide open, and the fire was an angry, barely-contained inferno that demanded constant sustenance. She was convinced the whole house was going to go up in flames one of these days, and she sometimes suspected the real reason Carolyn hadn’t put any effort into fixing anything was that she was hoping for that very outcome just so she could collect on the insurance. Luckily for Eve, their closest neighbor was a fire station, so she didn’t have to start worrying about finding another place to go just yet.
She crammed the logs into the stove and brushed the dirt and flakes of bark off her pajamas, then sat down at her computer and put on her headphones again. Even with the fire raging, it was cold and drafty by the windows, which reminded her that she needed to find something to cover them, even if it meant plunging her room into round-the-clock darkness. But that was a later problem. She had more pressing matters than winterization to attend to right now. She tapped the foot pedal under her desk to continue playing back the recording of Villanelle’s first session.
OM: You have a dog?
OAA: Yes. His name is Sebastian, and he’s terrifying.
OM: You’re scared of your own dog?
OAA: I’m not. He would never hurt me. But he intimidates other dogs. And their owners.
OM: What else can you tell me about him?
OAA: He likes holding hands, but he doesn’t like to be touched otherwise.
OM: Would you describe yourself the same way?
OAA: I suppose so. It depends on whose hand I’m holding.
OM: Let’s get back to why you’re here.
OAA: My wife suspects the reason I can’t have an orgasm when we have sex is that I don’t actually love her. She hasn’t come right out and said it, but I can tell that’s what she’s thinking. So I feel it would be good for our marriage for me to have one.
OM: It would be good for you, too.
OAA: If you say so. I wouldn’t know.
OM: Do you think her concerns about your feelings for her are justified?
OAA: No.
She’d hesitated before answering, and that moment of silence felt more honest to Eve than the denial that followed. She would have to remember to ask Om to reconsider his stance on the inclusion of pauses in the transcripts at their next meeting, which was in an hour.
OM: How attuned would you say you are to your own physical needs?
OAA: A normal amount. I know when I’m hungry, thirsty, or tired. Why?
OM: What about when you’re aroused?
OAA: I know that, too.
OM: What does arousal feel like for you?
OAA: My body exhibits the usual physiological signs. Increased vaginal lubrication, heightened sensitivity in the erogenous zones, elevated heart rate, and so on.
OM: You seem to understand your body intellectually, and medically, of course, but I’m getting the impression that you don’t necessarily relate to it on a personal level.
OAA: What do you mean?
OM: You just described arousal like you were quoting a textbook. You didn’t actually tell me how it feels to you.
OAA: It feels like torture. Imagine you’re starving, but most foods taste terrible or make you ill, and the few that you can tolerate never satisfy your hunger. You eat and eat, but you just end up even hungrier than you were before. Eventually you start to dread every meal because you know it’s just going to make you feel worse, one way or another. That’s what it’s like for me. I’m constantly aroused, and there’s nothing I can do to get any sort of relief. It happens even without any stimulation. I have no control over it. My underwear is damp right now, and all I’ve been doing is sitting here.
Eve’s ears felt uncomfortably warm under her headphones. She paused the audio and pulled them off. Her own body had been exhibiting typical physiological signs of arousal from the moment she’d first heard Villanelle speak. She slipped a hand inside her pajama bottoms. Increased vaginal lubrication? Check. Heightened sensitivity? Check. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to deal with that right now. She had to finish transcribing the rest of the session and get ready to go meet Om.
OM: Personally, I have the opposite problem. I often desire sex, but sometimes have trouble becoming aroused.
OAA: There are pills for that, but I’m sure you know that.
OM: When you touch yourself—not just sexually, but in general—do you feel like you’re touching, well, yourself?
OAA: Yes.
OM: And does that sensation make you uncomfortable in the same way someone else touching you does?
OAA: It doesn’t bother me at all.
OM: Do you masturbate regularly?
OAA: No. There’s no point. It never leads anywhere.
OM: Masturbation is a skill. It’s something you can get better at with practice, like cooking, or playing an instrument. Would you allow me to share my own journey with you?
OAA: No.
OM: Why not?
OAA: I don’t want to hear about you masturbating.
OM: That’s not— I wasn’t going to— We’re just building rapport. I often use my personal journey to guide clients along their own. I’ve gathered many tools, which I’m willing to—
OAA: Don’t say “journey” again. “Tools,” either. Just get to the point. What are you proposing, exactly?
OM: Some exercises involving breath, touch, and mindfulness to help you strengthen your connection to your own body so you can relate to it on a more intimate level.
OAA: Touch?
OM: I’ll never ask you to do anything you’re not completely comfortable with. Most of what I’ll recommend is meant to be done on your own, in private.
OAA: Fine.
OM: I also think it would be helpful to talk about what you went through. The affair, as you call it.
OAA: Why? It’s irrelevant.
OM: If that’s the case, why was it the very first thing you mentioned?
OAA: As background information. Proof that my problem has always existed.
OM: Are you sure that’s all?
OAA: To be honest, I almost never think about it anymore. It was only on my mind because I received an email from her this morning. Apparently she left her husband, and now she wants to reconnect with me.
OM: How did you respond?
OAA: I didn’t.
OM: How long has it been since you last spoke to her?
OAA: Ten years.
OM: You know, I think this deserves more time than we have for today, so it’s probably a good place to stop—
“What? No, it’s not!” Eve said.
[END OF RECORDING]
“Dammit.”
Eve’s first meeting with Om had taken place at a brewery in what used to be a church. Om had shown up in a striped tank top over too-tight pants that left nothing to the imagination and a sequined fanny pack that made it difficult for her to take him seriously. The effect was tempered somewhat by the fact that he had the most soulful brown eyes she’d ever seen. She’d immediately felt at ease with him, even though he kept staring at her face.
“You could be a model, you know that?”
Eve had laughed, then taken a bite of the sixteen-dollar locally-sourced hot dog he’d urged her to order and washed it down with a sip of twelve-dollar craft soda.
“Why is all the food in this town so expensive?” she deflected. “I could get this same meal at Costco for a buck fifty.”
“You have amazing bone structure.”
“I think the lighting in here is just extra flattering.” It wasn’t, actually.
“You’re uncomfortable with compliments about your appearance,” he observed.
“Isn’t everyone?”
“No. Most people around here love to be told how beautiful they are.”
“Most people around here are just desperate for attention in any form they can get it. They especially love it when you call them eccentric. That’s why they all have gauged ears, terrible haircuts, ironic Care Bear tattoos, and unicycles. I’ve always found it interesting that all the supposed non-conformists seem to be bucking the establishment in exactly the same way.”
She suddenly remembered this was a job interview, so it would probably behoove her to stop trashing the people who made up his clientele and start sucking up a little.
“That’s a cute bow tie,” she said, because it was the only part of his outfit that didn’t personally offend her.
“Thank you,” he said, beaming as he straightened it. “So, have you ever done this sort of thing before?”
“Done what?” He didn’t think this was a hookup, did he?
“Transcription.”
Phew.
“Oh, uh, not medical transcription, per se, but I type seventy words per minute, and I have a really good ear.”
“Me too,” Om said. “I have perfect pitch. I play angklung in a gamelan ensemble. What about you?”
“Glockenspiel,” Eve said.
Forty words per minute, couldn’t hear the television without subtitles, wasn’t entirely sure a glockenspiel was even a musical instrument, but she desperately needed this job if she didn’t want Carolyn to evict her.
“Cool,” Om said. “Are you comfortable signing a confidentiality agreement?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good, because everyone around here knows everything about everyone else already. The things people tell me behind closed doors are the only secrets some of them have left, and you’ll be transcribing them. You may be tempted to share, but it’s imperative that you don’t.”
“I won’t. I swear.”
Om leaned back in his chair and chewed on his straw as he studied her, trying to decide if she could be trusted.
“So, what brought you to Ealing?” he asked at last.
“I grew up about ten miles from here. I was living abroad for a few years, but it felt like it was time to come home.”
“And now you live with Carolyn?”
“Yeah, but we’re not sleeping together, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s not, but it’s interesting that you’re so quick to deny it.”
“Don’t read too much into it. I was just making a joke because Carolyn is so very obviously not gay.”
“How did you two meet?” he asked.
“On Craigslist. I needed a place to live. She needed a tenant who wasn’t a complete degenerate. I was the closest she could get.”
“Well, I trust Carolyn’s judgment as far as character goes, so you’re hired. I’ll send over the first files this afternoon.”