Free The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen by Ellen Datlow Page B

see you. Come in.”
    “I got your room number from the desk.” The young woman sidled in, visibly ill at ease. Did she notice what had happened to the walls and ceiling? “I hope you don’t mind.”
    “Not at all. I could use some company.” He moved his suitcase, pushed aside the unopened newspaper so she could sit on the bed.
    “Have you heard from your friend yet?”
    “I’ll talk to him later. You know how it is in this business—hurry up and wait.”
    “Oh.”
    “Can I get you anything? I think there’s a room service menu somewhere.”
    She tossed her curls, inexplicably amused. “No, but I’ll be glad to get you something.” She eyed the bottle of MacAllan Single Malt in his open suitcase. He had brought it to celebrate with Gillis. She reached for it. Before he could stop her she twisted off the seal with a flourish, an exaggerated bit of business she might have seen in a movie once. If she went to the movies. “Do you like it plain or with water?” she asked sweetly.
    “No, really, I don’t need anything.” Then again maybe he did. It was not such a bad idea. Yet he felt oddly guilty. “You don’t have to serve me. This was my idea, remember?”
    “Was it?” she said. “That’s all right. I enjoy it.”
    He believed she meant it. He leaned one arm back against the pillow and waited.
    She removed the paper cover from one of his sanitized glasses and poured what she estimated to be a couple of fingers. She was trying so hard to learn the moves, to get it all down. She wanted to make it true, the way it would be on a bad television show. He was touched. The clothes, for example, were not quite right; he wondered where she had got them. He thought: She still accepts everything she was taught. She probably forces herself to go to the right places, do the right things, like staying at this hotel. And why? Is it worth it? She thinks it is. It may be all she knows. But what’s the payoff for her?
    He drank the Scotch down to the vapors while she sat on the end of the bed, one leg half-concealed under her.
    “Did you hurt yourself?” He pointed to a small circle of cauterized skin on her shinbone. He had not noticed it earlier.
    She made an attempt to cover it but her skirt was not long enough. “Oh, it’s nothing. I don’t mind anymore. It’s only—only scar tissue.”
    Now he saw another mark an inch or two below her kneecap. She repositioned her legs nervously and her skirt hiked up. There were three, four, several more spots scattered along her calves, irregular patches of tissue, nearly round as if burned into her flesh by heated coins. Each scar covered a small concavity, suggesting that abscesses or tumors of some kind had developed there and been removed. They had healed well, but the indentations remained.
    He had a hunch. “You didn’t grow up on the beach, did you?” he asked.
    She tilted her head quizzically.
    Of course not, he thought. She was definitely not from around here. “My nephew had something like that. He was raised in San Diego. Surfer’s knots, they were called. Calcium deposits. He had them removed, too.”
    “Oh, no,” she said with forced casualness, “these were—were bone marrow transplants. Afterwards there’s always an empty space.” She smoothed the hollows with her hands. “They’ll fill out, though. It takes time, but something else grows in. I’m sure that’s what will happen with me. The doctor says you can’t leave nothing where something used to be. Till then it’s just deadspace.”
    “I see.” He was careful not to show any revulsion. “Does it hurt?”
    “It used to. After a while you don’t notice it anymore. Now there’s no feeling. There will be again, though. If not . . .”
    Fascinated, he bent closer. He touched one of the spots with infinite care. It was softer than anything he had ever touched before. Her leg tensed, then relaxed slowly as if from an effort of will. He felt the silkiness of tiny hairs growing in around