Lexicon

than anything she had been taught. Because she had found it herself.
    Once, sharing drinks at the corner bar, Sashona confided that she had trouble with segment 191. “I get
kavakifa
,” said Sashona, leaning forward, holding her wineglass at an angle that Emily was tempted to correct. “I can get to
fedoriant
. But then I’m lost!” She gestured expansively. “I can
never remember
.” This was part of a tale concerning a high-speed joyride down the I-48, a police officer on a motorbike, and a speeding ticket Sashona had hilariously failed to talk her way out of. But Emily was astounded. Apparently Sashona couldn’t see that the words of segment 191 were bound together. She could understand if Sashona had forgotten the entire tree. But if you knew one, you had half of the others. Sashona did not seem to get this. She had memorized them one at a time, as if they were unconnected. Like a tray of random objects in a child’s puzzle game.
    • • •
    One thing Emily never got over was the feeling of being watched. She wasn’t sure how, but it was happening. She tried varying her route to work, checking reflections, doubling back unexpectedly, but never saw anyone. At home, she double-bolted, but felt no safer. Her feeling was that Yeats was in the apartment. That was her impression. One night, she dreamed he came into her bedroom like a black wind and leaned over her, watching her without emotion, as if she were a thing beneath glass.
    • • •
    On the first Tuesday of her sixth month in Washington, she left her apartment and walked to the local train station. She rode escalators down to the platform and waited for the red line. It was warm; she was thinking about getting to her desk and taking off her shoes. A man at the end of the platform had a guitar and was banging out a song she loathed, for personal reasons: “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” The train began to pull in. In its passing windows she glimpsed Eliot.
    For a moment she wasn’t sure whether she had seen him inside the train or reflected behind her. Then the train ground to a halt and the doors opened and he said from behind her: “Let it go.”
    She watched the train pull out. She was sixteen years old again. Just like that. But then she turned and he wasn’t so frightening. He had aged around the eyes. He was just a man, after all.
    “Are you in love?” Eliot said.
    She didn’t answer.
    “Don’t lie to me.”
    “Yes.”
    He looked away.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll stop.”
    “Your next mistake will end you. This is as far as I can go to protect you. You need to appreciate this.”
    “I do. I promise.”
    His eyes searched her. “No more calls. Not one.”
    “I’m done. I’m done, Eliot.” In this moment, she really meant it.
    He walked away. She stood on the empty platform.
    • • •
    She did not call Harry that night. The following day, she did not call him. She had gone longer than this without hearing his voice but now it was different, because it was the end. She felt sick. She couldn’t taste anything. It was crazy but she could no longer taste food. At work, she clicked through tickets and wrote reports but couldn’t tell if they made any sense. When it got too much, she went to the bathroom and put her head between her knees. She made herself repeat:
Do not call him.
She felt possessed, by a cruel, heartless Emily who did not love.
    She surrendered on the third day. It was a terrible betrayal of Eliot; she realized that. He had stuck his neck out for her in ways she couldn’t quite comprehend and she had promised to stop. But the fact was she couldn’t. She had tried but she couldn’t. It had been six months and home was still on the other side of the world.
    She couldn’t call Harry again. Eliot would know, or, worse, others would. There was no stay-but-keep-calling-him option. She could only leave.
    Years before, in San Francisco, Emily and a girlfriend had been crossing a McDonald’s parking lot and found themselves boxed in by a group of barely pubescent boys with low pants and twitchy smiles. One of the boys had a gun, which he kept putting away and getting out again, swapping from hand to hand, and the others began to ask Emily and her friend if they knew what hot bitches they were and how badly they were about to get fucked up. This was a bad situation even without the gun, but Emily had been young and stupid, so she walked up to the boy with the gun and pulled it right out of his