HELOISE SECURED HER bra clasps behind her back and stuck her feet into her blue jeans. She pulled the pants up, hopping a couple of times to pull them up to her waist, and buttoned them. It was almost as if they had already started to feel a bit tight. Or was she just imagining that? She found a gray hoodie and pulled it on over her head.
“Is it too cold in here?” Martin asked. “Do you want me to close the window again?”
He was sitting on the wide windowsill, wrapped in one of Heloise’s white down comforters, exhaling smoke through the cracked-open window in an attempt not to stink up the room.
It didn’t make much of a difference, Heloise thought. The whole apartment smelled like his cigarettes anyway.
“No, that’s okay,” she said. “But I’m just going to pop over to the newspaper office.”
Martin looked puzzled and glanced at his watch. It was almost midnight. “What, now? I thought we were going to bed.”
“Well, you are very welcome to sleep here. But I forgot my computer on the passenger’s seat of the company car I borrowed today, so I just want to run in and pick it up.”
“Couldn’t you just do that tomorrow?”
Heloise shook her head. “I don’t dare risk its being stolen. I won’t be able to fall asleep now anyway, so I’d just as soon do a little work. You know how I am—when the words want out, they want out.”
The truth was that Heloise didn’t have any words at the moment. Normally they were like air bubbles underwater inside her; they found their way to the surface, wanting out. Up and out!
She felt more like a quiet swamp now. Dead. Fallow. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and she didn’t like it.
“Okay.” Martin flicked his cigarette out the window and stood up. “Where’s the car parked? I’ll go get the computer for you.”
Heloise shook her head. “You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because the car key is on my desk in my office, so I need to go grab that first.”
“But it’s the middle of the night. Can you even get into your office at this hour?”
“Yes, of course.” Heloise smiled half-patronizingly. “There are people at the news desk around the clock. Did you think we all went home for dinner and just let the news handle itself or something?”
Martin shrugged. “I mean, you never know with you news people.”
“You and all those politicians are just annoyed that you can’t control us from inside Borgen.”
“I can easily control those idiots running around inside Borgen,” he said, leaning over to Heloise. “You’re the only one I have trouble controlling.”
“Shh! Do you hear that?” Heloise pretended to hear something and held her index finger up in front of her lips.
Martin pulled his head back. “What?”
“Listen!”
The wind wailed and tugged at the roof, and there were a few loud bangs from the balcony.
“Ugh, it sounds like the windbreak came loose out there,” Heloise said, miming to him that she was contemplating what to do. “I have an idea! There’s some zip ties in the drawer in the kitchen, and if you could be a dear and secure the windbreak while I’m gone, then we won’t have to listen to that racket all night.” She smiled sassily. “Smart, right?”
Martin raised a sarcastic eyebrow. “Huh, so I’m good for something? I’m just a handyman you have fix up your house while you’re at work? I have feelings, too, you know.”
Heloise laughed out loud, grazed his lips with a kiss, and left the apartment.