Page 27 of Darling
“They’re saying you need an eight-to-ten-week recovery period.”
“Really? I must have missed that… who on earth will talk to the think tanks?” She doesn’t appreciate the sarcasm, I don’t think. Just then, Gael’s phone begins to ring, and after giving me a shake of his head, he steps outside to answer it.
“There are protocols in place for this kind of thing, and we are moving them into position now. The main thing is for you to get well, sir.”
“Yes, of course, the protocol,” I say. “What are they exactly?”
“You don’t have to worry about that, sir. Myself, Micah, and Sara will handle it.”
I close my eyes briefly and sigh loudly. “I am sorry about this, Seema. It’s… well, inconvenient.”
She gives me a blank look. “Inconvenient?”
“Well, yes. I came to this post for an easier life, one less likely to affect my physical and mental health.”
“Oh, I thought you came to this post because you were ordered to.” It’s not said cruelly, but with an ironic upturn of her mouth. Her eyes suggest she knows every acute detail of why and how I’ve come to be here, in fact. It makes me wonder what else she knows. She moves a little closer to the bed and takes a seat, legs spread as she leans forward on her thighs, a distinctly masculine arrangement of limbs. “Okay, look, this is probably not the best time to do this, so I apologise, but given what’s just happened tonight, I don’t think we can dance around this any longer.” She fixes me with a serious look. “We need to talk about Thomas Lisowski.”
It’s not a name I’ve ever heard before, in any capacity. I assume it’s someone at the embassy whose name I haven’t learned yet. Had he done something serious? Was I going to have to fire someone from my hospital bed?
“I don’t know who that is.”
She gives me a look, as though she’s trying to decide if I’m lying or something else, and then something occurs to her. “Oh. He hasn’t told you his real name?”
I blink in confusion.
“Asher Fox,” she says. “Is that the name he gave you?”
My entire body turns ice cold and then stove-top hot, a prickling at the back of my head that continues down my spine. He didn’t give me hisrealname?
After a moment, in as calm a voice as I can, I say, “I… know an Asher Fox, yes.”
She nods, looking relieved. Perhaps since it’s clear I’m not going to lie to her.
“Asher Fox is a… stage name if you will. His birth name is Thomas Asher Lisowski.”
He’s an artist. It makes sense that he’d have a stage name; lots of artists have stage names. It makes sense. It doesn’t mean anything that he didn’t tell me his real name; he can keep that sort of thing to himself if he wishes. I have no right to it. “A stage name, alright.”Thomas. His name is Thomas. Thomas Lisowski. The name conjures someone else altogether. It isn’t Asher. Beautiful, shiny, perfect Asher. It altered him in my head, made him more… real. Less… fantastical. “He… had a difficult upbringing. The group I asked you to look into… he was there. I’m certain this is also part of the reason for changing his name. His art is… well… explicit.” Seema gives me a look. “Ah. You knew that already. It’s why you had the information at hand when I asked about HHM.”
“Actually, no. I knew about that because I’m low-key obsessed with cults. But yes, when I was informed of your new… association with an American citizen, protocol dictates that I do my due diligence. So I know that Thomas Lisowski leftHis Humble Messengersfive years ago before moving to New York, where he worked for a time, before moving here to DC.”
I hold Seema’s stare before letting out a long exhale. “I’m certain I know what you think of this, but my personal life is of absolutely no concern to the US government, or the CIA, Seema. You have no right to follow me or dig into the personal lives of the people I’m associating with.”
She sits up straight in her chair.
“Ambassador, with all due respect, you’ve just had a heartattack in the bed of a maleporn starhalf your age who also happens to have ties to a religious cult. Things are a little more complicated than that.”
I blink. “A… what?”
The look Seema gives me then is the sort of look you’d give a child who’s just asked why they can’t go to the moon on holiday.
“Shit. He never told you that either, did he.”
Beside me, the heart monitor begins to beep frantically.
Ten
Asher
Ishould go to the hospital. Fuck what he said. “It’s not sensible,” he’d murmured as the EMTs wheeled him out of my apartment over an hour ago. Fuck him. ‘Not sensible’. He could be dead for all I fucking know. Dead. And no one would call me. Because why would they bother letting the booty call know he’d fucking died. I’d have to read it onCNNor something. If they thought I was family, they’d let me in. Could I pretend to be his son? I could go down to St. Joseph’s and pretend to be his son. I could call and pretend to be his son. That was a better plan, less risky—for him.