Bettie Page Presents: The Librarian (18 page)

CHAPTER 34

Regina flexed her foot against the side of the bathtub.

The bubble-filled water brimmed almost to the top. She inhaled deeply, reveling in the warm, lavender-scented water.

Sebastian had known just what to do when they got back to his apartment. He helped her out of the Morgane Le Fay dress, wrapped her in a soft, oversize towel, and brought her immediately to the bathroom.

And he left her alone to relax.

She didn't know how long she had been in the water. Her fingers and toes were completely pruned. She felt relaxed but wired at the same time. And she was tired of being alone.

Her foot pressed the lever to drain the water. She stood up, feeling momentarily light-headed, and wrapped herself in a white towel. She dried the back of her neck, and then unclipped her hair so it fell around her shoulders. Looking in the mirror, she saw that her eyes were black with smudges of eyeliner and mascara. Using a tissue, she wiped them off the best that she could.

She padded softly into the bedroom.

“I didn't think you were ever coming out,” he said with a grin. He had changed into white boxers and a cornflower-blue button-down shirt that was left open, the sleeves rolled up. She loved the way he looked in shirts, with the back of his dark hair curling slightly against the collars. He looked so heartbreakingly beautiful, it made everything she had been thinking about in the bathtub that much more difficult.

She noticed the two glasses of white wine on the bedside table. Following her gaze, he reached for one and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said. It was cold and crisp and seemed, in that moment, like the best thing she'd ever tasted.

He sat on the edge of the bed, and she sat next to him, turned slightly so she could face him. He smiled, and she almost lost her nerve at the sight of his dimples winking at her. But she didn't allow herself to wimp out.

“Sebastian, I appreciate that you orchestrated this whole night because you were thinking about the issue of trust in our relationship. But what happened tonight—it's not the way we're going to learn to trust each other. Or know each other. At least, not in the way I want.”

“What did you have in mind?” he asked, in that teasing way of his.

“You got mad at me for not telling you about my virginity—for not disclosing the truth about my sexual experience. But you don't tell me the truth about things in your past, your history—your life.”

“Of course I do,” he said. “And I said I was sorry about Sloan. . . .”

“This isn't about Sloan. At least, not just about that. You know Margaret, at the library? She told me about your mother.”

Sebastian's smile disappeared. “Isn't she a little old for gossip?”

“She wasn't gossiping. She saw us coming out of the room on the fourth floor the other night. I guess she felt I should know something about the man I'm . . . involved with.”

“But she didn't tell you something about me, did she? She told you about my mother.”

“Come on. Don't act like you don't know what I'm trying to say. Why didn't you tell me the full story about your mother? The night of my birthday, we were talking about the stuff that bothered us about our parents, and you never said one word about it. Why is that?”

“Because—as I said about Sloan—it has nothing to do with us.”

“And I'm saying it
does
. If we don't talk about real things, how can we have trust? Dramatic sexual stuff is not what makes a relationship work.”

“How would you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, as of a few weeks ago, you were a virgin. That leads me to assume you haven't had many—if any—serious relationships. Sexual or otherwise. Have you?”

“Not really,” she admitted.

“Well, I have. And my relationships are pretty much all like this. And that's the way I want it.”

“You said it was different with me.”

He sighed. “I
feel
differently about you.”

“How?”

“I don't know, Regina!” he said, exasperated. “Sometimes I think I
like
you more than anyone I've been with. I find your lack of experience challenging. I think you're good-hearted. It's amazing that you're not jaded. You're easy to surprise and to please. But that doesn't change what I want out of this.”

“And what's that?”

“Exactly what we have. Except I want to photograph you.”

Now it was Regina's turn to be exasperated. “Not that again.”

“For me,
that's
intimacy. That's sharing.”

Regina jumped off of the bed, splashing wine on her towel. “I can't believe you. I'm telling you what I feel is missing from this relationship—or whatever you want to call it. And you're asking
me
for more? Why should I give you what you want if you refuse even to try to give me what I want?”

“I thought I was,” he said stonily.

“Well,” she said, “you're not.”

He seemed to think about this, and then slowly nodded as if answering a question. “I'll take you home,” he said quietly.

•

“What you need is a nice, normal guy,” Carly said.

It was late morning, an endless morning during which Regina felt the hours tick by in the dark, sleepless, until the sun finally told her it was okay to get out of bed.

Over bagels and coffee, Regina couldn't help breaking down in front of her roommate. She told her about the Jane Hotel, suspecting that even shock-proof Carly would be scandalized by the events of the night. But Carly had merely widened her eyes and sighed, “I
love
the Jane.”

Then, as if suddenly remembering that her friend/roommate duties required a little more empathy, she put a hand on Regina's arm and said, “Look, what did I tell you from the beginning? Have fun, but don't expect anything. So you had a good run, and now you can chalk it up to a crazy New York dating experience that you can tell your grandchildren about someday.”

Regina looked at her. “You think this is a story for my grandchildren?”

“Well, maybe not yours. I'm sure mine would love to hear about it, though.” She laughed uproariously and slapped her knee.

Regina hugged her knees to her chest, wanting the couch to swallow her up. “I'm so glad this is amusing to you.”

“I'm not laughing at you, Regina. You
know
I've been there.”

Yes, Carly had previewed this type of suffering after her breakup with Rob. The pain that was almost physical, the inability to eat or sleep. It was like the burst of energy Regina felt when she'd first met Sebastian, but in agonizing reverse.

And Carly was right. She
had
warned her.

“You know I was a mess after Rob,” Carly said, as if reading her mind. “But what did I do?”

“Um, I don't know,” Regina said.

“I got right back on the horse, as my mother would say.”

Regina didn't know about that. As far as she could tell, there hadn't been much riding going on in that apartment since the breakup. But maybe she'd just been too caught up in her own drama to notice what had been going on recently with her roommate.

“So what are you saying?” Regina asked, more for the sake of conversational politeness than out of actual interest. There was nothing Carly could say to make her feel better. She had fallen madly in love with an unattainable, arguably fucked-up guy, and the chances of her finding happiness with another man seemed about as likely as falling through the wardrobe into Narnia.

“I'll fix you up with someone,” Carly said.

“Um, no, thanks,” Regina said, still shuddering at the thought of Nick and his buddies at Nurse Bettie.

“I know it won't be easy to go out with a mere mortal after Sebastian Barnes, but you have to trust me, Regina,” she said.

“Yeah,” Regina said. “I've been hearing that a lot lately.”

She walked back into her bedroom and closed the door.

•

On Monday morning, Regina rushed to the Returns Desk, clutching her contraband Starbucks. She then noticed Sloan heading in the same direction, a yard ahead of her, moving at a fast clip. Her boss's white-blond ponytail waved behind her head like an enemy flag.

Regina tossed her coffee into the nearest garbage can and slowed down. But there was no avoiding Sloan, who was clearly waiting for Regina at the desk.

A cart full of books was already parked next to her chair, needing her attention.

“Good morning, Regina,” said Sloan. “It's your lucky day.”

Regina could barely look at her. She didn't understand the jealousy and suspicion that churned in her gut like acid. She reminded herself that, as of a few days ago, Sebastian Barnes no longer mattered to her—not his past, not his present. Still, something about Sloan just got to her.

“Oh yeah? How so?” She dropped her bag on the floor.

“You're going back to the Delivery Desk,” Sloan said.

This was good news. But Regina didn't react to it, except to ask, “Should I go there now?”

“In a minute,” Sloan said. “But I need you to be available at noon. I have some errands to do, and I'll need help.”

“Sorry,” Regina said. “I'm having lunch with Margaret.”

Sloan flinched at the rebuff but quickly recovered. “Well, by all means. Might as well do it while you can.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Didn't she tell you? Due to budget cuts, her position has been eliminated.”

“You can't cut the archives librarian.”

“I offered her a spot at the Returns Desk,” Sloan said breezily, as if she hadn't heard her. “Unfortunately, she's opted to retire. But then I guess she can tell you all about this over lunch.”

Regina brushed past her and hurried to the stairs. Rushing around to Margaret's room, she wondered why the older woman hadn't told her about this herself. And then she recalled that Margaret
had
visited her at the desk two days ago, but Regina had been too lost in the fog of her heartbreak over Sebastian to accept her coffee-break invitation.

The archives room was filled with sunlight, the beams illuminating panes of light dust in the air.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Regina blurted out. Margaret was bent over a table, reading through an oversize, cloth-bound book with a magnifying glass.

Margaret looked up slowly.

“Well, good morning to you, too,” she said, smiling.

“I don't know how you can look so cheerful. Sloan just told me what's happened.”

Margaret put down the heavy magnifying glass, laying it on top of the page.

“It was inevitable, Regina,” she said. “You don't have to look at me like that. I'm not a victim. I'm well past retirement age as it is.”

“Well, I think the timing is really shitty. And the circumstances.”

“I've had a good run,” said Margaret. “And I've told you countless times, nothing here is what it used to be. Do you know that the previous president of this library drew up a plan to move millions of books off-site to storage in New Jersey? It will take at least a day from the time of a request for a reader to have the book delivered to the Main Reading Room here.”

“They can't do that,” Regina said.

“Oh, they can, and they will. Believe me, we've protested. A few months ago—just before you got here—we sent a letter signed by hundreds of writers and academics. And that's just one problem. The acquisitions budget here has shrunk twenty-six percent over the past four years. The train has left the station, Regina.”

To her shock, Regina started to cry.

“Oh, Regina. You're taking this harder than I am.”

Margaret rounded the small table and put her arms around her. Regina gave in to the embrace, sobbing in Margaret's arms like a child. Somehow, Margaret produced a cloth handkerchief and pressed it into her hand. Regina wiped her eyes.

“Thanks. I'm sorry. I don't know what's the matter with me.”

Margaret stepped back and smiled at her. “Everything will be fine, Regina. The library will survive. I'll find work in a bookstore. Or maybe I'll start one of those blog things. . . .”

Regina laughed.

“But most important,
you
will be fine.”

Regina nodded, unconvinced. “Thanks for telling me about Sebastian. I tried talking to him about his mother, but he refused.”

“I have to tell you, Regina, I don't claim to know all that much about men. I've never been married, and that's not an accident. But one of the few things I learned in my day is that you can't change a man. And you can't fix one, either.”

“I'm sure you're right about that,” Regina sniffed.

“Figure out what you want, what makes you happy. And then you can decide which man to let into your life.”

“So you never found a man you wanted to marry?” Regina asked.

“Oh, there were many men I wanted,” Margaret said with a sly smile. “And when I stopped wanting them, I was on to the next.”

“Margaret!” Regina said.

“What?” the old woman said. “I can put up with musty old books. But not musty love affairs.”

CHAPTER 35

Regina felt no urgency to finish working. She glanced up at the clock, saw that it was ten past six, and could barely summon the energy to move.

“Well, it's great having you back, Finch. But I'm outta here,” Alex said, tossing one final book onto her desk.

“Have a good night,” Regina said.

“I definitely will,” he said with a broad grin.

“Oh? Hot date?”

“You could say that. What are you sticking around for? You helping with the run-through?”

“What run-through?”

“Sloan is staging the place for the gala. A sort of practice run. I thought maybe she'd roped you into helping.”

“Oh God—not yet. But thanks for the warning.” Regina threw her things into her bag. “I'll walk out with you,” she said.

They walked down the stairs to the entrance foyer and felt a hint of the heat and humidity awaiting them outside.

People were still sitting on the steps, though fewer than at lunchtime peak. The sidewalk was crowded with people rushing toward Grand Central Station, and Regina dreaded the hot subway ride awaiting her.

“Later, Finch,” Alex said, walking south.

She was about to say good-bye, but the words caught in her throat when she spotted the black Mercedes parked across the street.

You can just turn left and head to the train station,
she told herself. And that's what she did. Unfortunately, Sebastian knew her well enough to know where she was headed. And with his long legs, he got there faster than she did, intercepting her at the northeast corner of Forty-second and Fifth.

“You're not answering your phone,” he said, standing right in front of her, blocking her path.

She didn't allow herself to look him in the eyes. If she did, she'd be lost.

“You mean this?” she asked, pulling the iPhone from her bag and handing it to him. It hadn't been turned on in three days. He refused to take it.

“Can we please talk for a minute?” he asked.

She knew she should just keep walking, but instead she looked up at him; the sight of his dark velvet eyes and strong mouth did such things to her . . . she was rooted in place.

Clearly, he took her silence as a yes. “In the car?” he asked.

“I'm not getting in the car.”

He glanced around, clearly uncomfortable.

“It's going to be tough to talk here.” As if to emphasize Sebastian's point, a man in a suit banged into her with his briefcase.

“I'll risk getting trampled by commuters,” she said.

“Speak for yourself,” he said with a small smile. Something pulled deep inside of her. She loved him, God help her.

She kept her face stony.

He looked around again and ran his hand through his hair. She followed his glance across the street, seeing that his driver had gone around the block and was now idling on Forty-second Street between Madison and Fifth. “Fine,” he said. “You win. We'll do this here.”

He took her by the elbow and steered her close to the building. She leaned against a store window and looked up at him expectantly.

“My father left my mother for a twenty-year-old model—a girl who was three years older than me. I hated her at first, but eventually we had a truce, and then we became friends. She took me to shoots, and that's when I became interested in photography. She was a good sport about letting me practice on her. But ultimately, she left my father—for a photographer, ironically. By then, the damage was done, and my mother, who never recovered from his affair and the divorce, killed herself.”

“Who was the model?” Regina asked, images from Sebastian's photography exhibit at the gallery flooding her mind like an unwelcome tide. And she already knew the answer.

“Astrid Lindall.”

The words, confirming her worst insecurities about her relationship, felt like a bullet. His was a world beyond her, and his interest in her could not be anything more than a passing amusement.

“I appreciate the . . . uh . . . information. I do. I wish you'd brought up these things at a time when we could have sat around in bed for hours talking about stuff. Getting to know each other. But I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it now.”

Cabs honked, people were still brushing past them, and the heat and humidity weighed on her like a cloak. But she didn't want to move; she didn't want him to leave; and she certainly didn't want to get on the subway back to her apartment for another night of aching for him. Who was she kidding that staying out of the car was going to prevent her resolve and detachment from falling like dominoes?

“Keep the conversation going. Have dinner with me.”

She didn't want dinner. She wanted to feel the sweet burn of rope around her wrists, the cold air of the room she'd never seen, the sharp pain across her thighs, the explosive relief of his cock between her legs.

Regina turned and walked toward the entrance of the station.

“Wait.” He grabbed her arm, and she let him stop her. “You don't want to do this anymore, fine. I have to accept that. But don't shut me out like I did something wrong. I never lied to you. I didn't leave you. You're just upset because you think I can't give you what you want.”

“Can you?”

“I don't know,” he said, looking even more sad admitting it than she had felt the past few days coming to the realization. “But I came here to talk to you because I want to try.”

“Try how?”

“I don't know,” he repeated. “I thought you said talking was what you wanted.”

“It's not that simple,” she said. “I'm also thinking that maybe I can't give
you
what you want.”

“You do.”

“For now,” she said.

“Is this about the photography?”

She bit her lip, hating to admit it even to herself. “Can you tell me it doesn't matter to you? That you can be with a woman who has no interest in being your muse?”

“But that's where you're wrong, Regina. You
are
my muse. I think of you every time I take a shot. I see you in every face—in every body—I photograph. The October issue of
W
should have your name on the cover. All I'm asking is that you let me see what happens when I put the woman who inspires me in front of the actual camera.”

She thought of the black-and-white images on the wall in his apartment—women in ropes, under the tail end of a whip, naked and immortalized in one moment of Sebastian's objectification.

“I can't,” she said.

“You've trusted me in every way. You've barely flinched. And you're going to run away because you're scared to let me photograph you?”

“It sounds bad when you put it that way.”
Hard limit,
she thought.

She turned and ran into the subway station.

•

Regina's face was a puffy, tear-streaked mess by the time she pushed her key into her apartment door. Crying on the train had to be a new low. Or maybe a woman wasn't a real New Yorker until she'd had a complete meltdown on the subway during rush hour.

She walked into the apartment, consoling herself with the thought that the haven of her bedroom was just seconds away.

“Where've you been?” Carly asked, appearing in front of her like an exceptionally well-dressed apparition. She wore a yellow sundress that perfectly set off her faint golden tan, her honey-blond hair in a careless knot at the nape of her neck. Her lips were glossed, her cheeks were brushed with just enough NARS blush to give her a rosy glow. But none of these things was the reason Carly looked more beautiful than she'd ever seen her before. Regina realized that it wasn't the tan, or the perfect makeup, or the dress: it was that for the first time since Regina had known her, Carly Ronak looked genuinely happy.

“Um, where I always am until six o'clock—work,” she said.

That's when she realized they were not alone in the apartment.

A young man jumped up from the couch. He had sandy-brown hair and dimples. He wore a Dartmouth T-shirt and khaki pants, and he greeted Regina with a warm smile. He wasn't handsome so much as he was cute.

“Hey, Regina—nice to finally meet you. I'm Rob Miller.”

“You're . . . Rob?” Regina asked. This was the heartbreaker, the man who had reduced Carly to a sobbing wreck in her bedroom for days on end?

“We've been waiting for you,” Carly said, taking Rob's hand.

Regina didn't know how, in the course of one afternoon, Rob had somehow reappeared in Carly's life and now stood in her living room looking at her as if he had been there all along, and she were the visitor. Had she been so wrapped up in her own Sebastian drama that she failed to notice Carly had—how had she put it?—closed the deal with Rob? “We're meeting Rob's friend Andy for drinks and want you to come with us.”

Oh Lord, a setup? Carly must have been blinded by her love haze, because she clearly did not notice that Regina was barely in any condition to brush her teeth and go to bed, let alone go out on a double date.

“Another time,” Regina said. “Nice to meet you,” she mumbled to Rob.

But Carly wasn't letting her off the hook that easily. She followed her to her bedroom.

“Hey,” she said, closing the door behind her. “Why don't you come out with us?”

Regina tossed her Chanel bag on the bed. She wished she had her Old Navy one back. She couldn't stand seeing the gleaming black leather with the gold interlaced Cs. It was like carrying Sebastian around on her shoulder. Talk about baggage. “Why didn't you tell me you were back together with Rob? Do we only discuss bad news, is that how this works?”

“I wanted to tell you, but you haven't been the most receptive audience the past few days.”

Regina thought about her meals of cereal in her room behind a closed door, her nine o'clock bedtime so she could escape from her misery, only to wake up as late as possible the next morning and dash out the door to work. “I guess you're right. I'm sorry. So what happened?”

Carly gestured toward the living room, where he was waiting. “This isn't the best time to talk about it, so to make a long story short, we didn't solve all of our issues. But we found a way to meet in the middle.”

Regina nodded. “Well, I'm happy for you. He seems like a nice guy.”

“Come out with us. Andy is nice, too. You can't sit in this room crying about Sebastian Barnes for the rest of your life. You have to move on.”

Regina nodded. In her mind, she saw him looking at her on Forty-second Street, expectant and disappointed at the same time. It had been easier to think about moving on when she blamed him, when she saw herself as giving everything and him as the relationship villain who kept it one-dimensional. But she knew he had been trying, in a rare moment of clumsiness, to show her that he would try to give more. She was the one who realized she had given all that she could. And she was terrified it wasn't enough. But this wasn't the time to explain all of that to Carly. So she just said, “I'm not ready yet.”

Carly's expression softened. “Okay, I understand. I've been there. But this is the last time I'm letting you off the hook. I'm telling Andy you want a rain check.”

“Have fun,” Regina said, exhaling with relief when Carly left her alone, closing the door behind her.

She moved her handbag to the floor and lay down on the bed, curling onto her side. Across the room, she saw the Bettie Page book on her dresser. She didn't want it in her room anymore, but she didn't know what to do with it. She didn't have the heart to put it out with the trash. Maybe she could sell it to the Strand tomorrow?

Regina sat up. She'd move it to the living room, would mix it in with Carly's pile of fashion magazines, where she wouldn't have to look at it.

She listened at her bedroom door. It was quiet in the apartment. She waited an extra few minutes, and when she was sure Carly and Rob had gone, she grabbed the book and walked into the living room.

On second thought, maybe she would take it to the Strand tonight. It was only seven. What else did she have to do?

She sat down on the couch, deciding she would flip through the book one last time. It was beautiful—and she was nothing if not a sucker for beautiful books.

Regina flipped to the middle, to the chapter of fetish and bondage photos taken by Irving Klaw. She remembered what Sebastian had said that first night at his apartment: that Bettie had something none of the girls in his own photographs had—“mirth.” Regina looked closely at the page she had turned to. There was Bettie wearing a leopard-print bikini, her legs and arms in shackles, a rope tied in her mouth. But sure enough, her eyes were laughing.
She looks like she's having fun,
he'd said. And Regina had to admit, that was true. But Regina couldn't help but think of how it felt actually to
be
in that position—the vulnerability, the very real sexuality to which it was a prelude. She didn't know how Bettie Page had done it. Maybe in her real sex life she had not been submissive, and this enabled her to play the part in front of the camera. Her “mirth,” her playfulness, came across because that's all it was for her: play. She was not showing the camera something so real that she gave away a piece of herself.

She turned the pages to the next chapter: Bettie in white boots, brandishing a riding crop. Bettie dressed in a black corset and elbow-length black gloves, crouching menacingly over a lingerie-clad woman who was on her back, bound and gagged. Bettie in garters, stockings, and black knee-high platform boots laced up the front, glaring at the camera as if she would eat the photographer for lunch. Bettie cracking a whip.

Regina looked up from the book. She felt a surge of adrenaline.

We didn't solve all our issues,
Carly had said.
But we found a way to meet in the middle.