Scene 9, Sylvie
"Have you ever read Moby Dick?" He asks me. He came to my place from the airport. I'm draped across him, my left arm thrown over his bare chest. He has my hand in his, playing his fingers through mine, rubbing his thumb idly across my palm, across my wrist. His touches are wildly erotic. I'm having a hard time focusing on his question.
"No," I say, shivers running down my spine. The juxtaposition of his question with the fact that we are tangled naked together in my bed is making my brain spin. "Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Salinger…" I murmur, trying to engage in a seemingly intellectual conversation, "I've read them, and Twain of course," I refer a bit to my southern roots.
"You've never read Moby Dick?" he asks again, still distracting me with his soft touches. "No," I say again, I'm drowsy now, comfortable with him, safe with him in my bed. He doesn't say anything more, and I don't ask.
When I wake up a few hours later, my bed is empty. I'm alone. I let my eyes focus on the bed stand clock, just after 4:00 in the morning. My eyes catch sight of his shoes on the floor, and I realize that perhaps I'm not alone, I'm simply alone in the bed. So, I slide out from under the blankets and slip into my robe, and wander toward the kitchen.
I study his large frame sitting in my small kitchen chair. He is holding a tiny pint sized container of ice cream, eating straight from the small container with a large serving spoon. Contradictions. He fills my mind with contradictions.
"I could get you something… something better to eat…" I offer, my voice still hushed from being asleep.
"There's something better than this?" he refers to the ice cream. He likes ice cream. I like that he likes ice cream. What's not to like?
"I don't know, something more substantial…" I suggest, still caught in his contradictions.
"I think a pint of ice cream can be pretty filling," he continues to eat, and I notice that he is not exaggerating. He's almost eaten the entire container. "Want some?" he asks, and I nod, turning to get myself a spoon. "You don't need your own spoon," he grabs my hand and pulls me into his lap, offering me a large melty bite from his spoon. I'm able to take about half of the spoonful, licking my lips to keep the softened ice cream from dripping across my chin.
"You're dressed," I observe, all except for his shoes which are in the bedroom, so again I convince myself that he would've had to come back in to the bedroom before he left.
"Yeah," he sets the ice cream aside, licks the spoon. "I need to go soon, but I got distracted by the ice cream…" he smiles, but his smile does not reach the creases of his eyes.
"It's distracting - ice cream, can be distracting," I allow, knowing that he is not distracted by the ice cream. There is something much bigger going on in his life, and he's using my four walls and this pint of ice cream to hide out.
"Eames, she's picking me up at my place – early," he shifts my position on his lap, moves my legs so they are straddling him, we are sitting, chest to chest. He runs his fingers across my shoulders, across my collar bone. He is so tactile, always touching me, as if by simply touching something, he is able to distract his mind.
"Picking you up?" I ask.
"Yeah, we have to go to Pittsfield," his thumbs are running along the tops of my breasts.
"Massachusetts," I manage to say. He's a champion at distraction. "Is that why…?" I start to ask a question but I lose track of it.
"Why what?" he moves his hands away from my breasts, back up to my shoulders.
"Is that why you asked me about Moby Dick?" I remember my American authors enough to know that's where Melville wrote Moby Dick. I brush my fingers through his hair. I would like to see his smile reach the crinkles near his eyes. He's stopped moving his hands over me. He's holding me, considering me. I know it's all tied together, the death of his brother, his trip to Phoenix, going to Pittsfield. He doesn't answer me, he simply kisses me. Butter brickle. He tastes like the butter brickle ice cream. He's not going to answer me because he's trying not to think about it. He resumes caressing me, he returns his hands to the tops of my breasts. He doesn't leave to meet Eames just yet.
Scene 10, Sylvie
I have a cup of coffee in one hand, my purse is on my shoulder, I'm standing in a coffee shop, and my phone is ringing. Luckily, I've paid so I grab 2 sugars and step toward a table, plopping down into a chair, my legs splayed awkwardly. At least I don't spill the coffee.
"Hello," I answer, clear my throat and say, "Hello," again.
"Hello?" Bobby replies. "Sylvie?" He asks, making me think I must sound weird.
"Yes, yes, it's me. Sorry," I breathe in deeply audibly, rearranging my legs into a more suitable position, squishing the sugar packets between my fingers, feeling the granules slip and slide underneath the paper casing.
"Did I catch you at a bad time?" He asks, and I almost laugh, that nervous inappropriate laugh when something strikes you as funny but it shouldn't. Did he catch me at a bad time? I'm fairly certain it is the other way around.
"No, no," I say, thinking that he sounds funny, like he's in an auditorium, I can hear his voice echo. I wonder if it is the cell phone line. "Where are you?"
"What?" he asks.
"Um, you sound funny, an echo," I provide, still mashing the sugar between my finger tips.
"Oh, I'm in a stairwell," he provides. And, I have an instant visual of him hunched on the small steps of a stairwell, cell phone in one hand, his head in the other. "I was just with the ME, getting some information on a case," he pauses, well, I think he actually shudders, at least it sounds like his breath is shuddering in his chest. "It was unexpected, the information…" he exhales as he's talking as if he's still grappling with what he just learned.
"What…" I start to ask him, but he cuts me off.
"What're you doing?" he re-directs the conversation.
"Putting sugar in my coffee," I go for the literal.
"This time of day, you're drinking coffee?" he asks.
"Coffee is good any time of day," I say, as I dump the sugar in and swirl the dark liquid in the cup. And he laughs in such a way that he seems surprised that he can laugh. I smile, wishing I could see if his laughter reaches the creases of his eyes.
"What're you wearing?" he asks, trying to fill his head with details other than the details of whatever he is working on.
"Black skirt, grey shirt," I look down at myself, and realize that is probably not the level of detail his brain is after, if he's trying to distract himself, he's going to need a little bit more. "My skirt is soft, straight, and to the knee. The slit is on the front over my left knee, my thigh." I briefly touch my thigh with my hand, then move my hand to my shirt. "It's silk, my shirt, not shiny, but smooth, slips through my fingers," I look down my legs. "My legs are bare, my heels are black, peep toe so you can see my deep red polish."
"A peep toe," he repeats, he has a slight smile in his voice, wonder over the fact that designers have a name for everything. "Let's go back to the skirt, you're left thigh…" he says, "bare…"
"Bare," I say. The tone of the conversation is not what you think. It is not entirely sexual. It's more like he's tracing me with his fingers, like he does when he's with me, like he does when he's trying to regain touch with the world, with something normal within the world.
"Sylvie," he says my name as if he has more to say and doesn't quite know where to begin. I wait on the line for him to continue, but he does not say anything further. I can hear voices in the background, echoing in the stairwell. "I'll call you later.," he whispers, and he hangs up the phone.
Scene 11, Bobby
Prime numbers. Bobby feels like his life is passing in prime numbers.
His 47th year – quite possibly the hardest year of his life.
It took 337 minutes in the air to get to Phoenix, about 2,143 miles.
He spent about 7 seconds reading the note from Nicole Wallace, and about another 17 seconds figuring out the meaning of the return address.
Pittsfield by car is about 3 hours, with traffic. He looked at the heart for about 2 seconds before he felt sick.
It felt like Rodgers repeated 31 times that the heart belonged to Nicole Wallace, and even then Bobby couldn't seem to believe it.
He had sat in interview with Declan for 71 minutes before he allowed his brain to come to the truth of what was happening. And after they took Declan away, he remained sitting in interview for another 41 minutes.
It took Eames about 29 minutes to convince him to let her bring him home, and they'd sat in silence in her car for 23 minutes with her insisting she should come up. Finally, Bobby had simply gotten out and walked away.
So, now he sits outside of his apartment, on the floor of the hallway, back against the wall. He cannot bring himself to go inside. Prime numbers. 11 days since he met Sylvie, 7 times he's seen her in those 11. 53 hours since he left her to go to Pittsfield. 37 hours since he'd called her. Her phone number is comprised of prime numbers, 2s, 3s, 5s, and 7s. Except for the exchange. His brain slips to her grandmother, a music teacher, to Chopin. Prime, the first note on a musical scale or the interval between two notes on the same staff degree. He reaches for his phone and calls her. It rings twice, 2 short bursts of sound.
"Hello?" She answers, but he cannot say anything, his sound is caught in his chest. "Bobby?" She says his name.
"Can you, um…" he starts to speak and stalls, "can you, um…" again, he starts to speak, "can you come pick me up?" Third time, prime.
"Yeah," she says, without even knowing where he is. "Yes, yes, I can come get you."
"I'm um, I'm…" his voice is raw, his words disconnected. He tells her where he is.
"5 minutes." She says, prime number. She must be close by. But you can't get any place in New York in 5 minutes. It takes her 11.
"Eames, she brought home. I was Ok, you know, on the ride, thinking I should come home. Then, um…" He gestures to the door, "I just, uh, I just can't go in." He shrugs, shifting his eyes to look at her. "So I've been here a while" He doesn't elaborate on how long. She kneels down in front of him and he pulls her across his lap. He's tired of prime numbers.
"2," he says, softly tracing the outline of her ears with his fingers. "4." He moves his hands to her heart, thinking about the chambers. "6 dimples," he observes the 4 dimples on her face and then he moves his hands from her face and down her lower back, he can feel something shift inside of him as his fingers find her sacral dimples. "8." He continues to distract himself with her body as he kisses her fingers, excluding her thumbs, "10." He kisses her thumbs, cheating a little. "12." He ripples his fingertips down her 12 pairs of ribs. That's when she leans in and kisses him.
They don't kiss for long, because he pulls her into his arms, close against him, and holds her there, burying his face in her neck until his breathing matches hers. She doesn't know about his week, about his year. She doesn't know a lot about him. He figures she knows he's hurting, she knows he's sad, and he is fairly certain that she knows sometimes he uses her to forget. But he is smart enough to know that she's doing the same with him. He can feel the sadness in her, in the way she listens to her grandmother's records, in the way she turns the platinum band on her finger, in the way she shivers when he touches the scar on the inside of her wrist. She has a past, she has things she keeps to herself, same as him.
"I have to go to Savannah this weekend," she says. She does not say why. He does not care. What she says sounds perfect to him. He likes the way she says the word – Savannah.
He needs to get away. He needs to find some mental space. A hiatus. He's got a week. Ross made it clear he didn't want to see him for a week. But he does not want to be alone. He cannot imagine shambling through his place alone. Hell, when he got home, he couldn't even imagine going inside.
"I could show you Savannah," she murmurs against his neck. Her warmth, her shape, the sound of her, she is becoming familiar.
"I would like to see Savannah," Bobby has not relaxed his hold on her. She's still buried against him, their breathing still the same. He would like to see Savannah, he would like to see a bit of her, and maybe, show her a bit more of him. Savannah – about 719 miles as the crow flies… prime number, he thinks.