Free With or Without You by Alison Tyler Page B

having an assortment of her favourite men in her pocket: Edgar, Rowan, Riley, Melvin, Jasper, Marshall, Gus, Antoine. I suddenly wondered if there was a Byron. If there was, she’d have to throw that gloss out.
    ‘Eli,’ she said, pulling me back to Earth. ‘Tell me.’
    How Nora could stay on track like that was amazing. I suppose this ability is also why she can run three clubs at once. She’s eerie in the way she’s able to compartmentalise her different emotions. I’m organised in my work, but disorganised in my feelings. I hesitated one more moment, doing my best to gather up my thoughts. My cellphone throbbed again, and I took the time to see who it was. Nora grabbed it from me.
    ‘Byron,’ she said.
    ‘I know.’
    ‘Why don’t you go in that room and join the lovers? I’ll take a photo of you and send it to him on the phone, so he can see what you’re up to.’
    ‘No thanks.’
    ‘We know you’re not so shy,’ she pressed on.
    ‘What we did back at your house is different from barging in on a threesome of people I don’t know.’
    ‘I’ll introduce you,’ Nora teased. ‘The girl is one of my bartenders. This is her night off.’
    I shook my head.
    ‘Then why don’t you go into the ladies’ room and take a shot of your ass? You can send that to him. You know, with some text message that says: “Kiss this!” ’
    ‘And then what? He’ll email it to all his friends?’
    She sighed. The things that Nora would do and the things that I am willing to do are often polar opposites. ‘I could send him a picture of my ass,’ she suggested.
    I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself. She would do it, too. If I asked her. If I handed over my phone and told her to email a picture of her derrière to Byron, she would do it in a heartbeat. ‘That’s what friends are for,’ I told her and, when Nora grinned at me and sipped her drink, I could tell that she was pleased by my response.
    ‘Go on, Eli,’ she said, ‘tell me the rest. You’ve been dying to. And then I’ll tell you my big news.’
    It was difficult, but I gathered my thoughts, and then I explained the sensation in the very best way I could. ‘It’s like when you go outside, out in the desert or up in the hills. You can see all the sky, and you think that people have looked up at those stars for thousands of years. It makes you feel tiny, totally insignificant.’
    ‘You speak well after a few drinks, don’t you? You’re positively poetic.’ She wasn’t buying any of this.
    ‘No, it’s not that.’ I flushed. ‘Well, yes, it’s probably that, but also it’s why I work in a museum. You always tease me about becoming as obsolete and unused as the ancient objects I categorise and write about. But I love it. All day long, I’m surrounded by terribly old pieces of art, and I can daydream and think about how long they’ve survived. The fact that they were here thousands of years before us and that they’ll be here, barring other humanerrors like my fight with Byron, thousands of years from now. After we’ve been reduced to dust.’
    ‘Lovely,’ Nora said sarcastically. ‘ Every day you think that? No wonder you’re always wearing those stiff black suits and mundane dresses. You’re fashioning yourself after a mortician. What a morbid way to spend your time.’ She sniffed, disgusted.
    ‘Not morbid,’ I corrected her. ‘It’s not. It’s peaceful.’
    ‘How many papers are there?’ Nora asked, dismissing what I’d just said with an impatient shrug. ‘There must be only a couple to be able to fit into the case with your computer.’
    ‘I left the computer there. I put it on the table and put the papers into the case.’
    ‘You what ?’ She looked at me with narrowed eyes, and I could tell that she was trying to guess whether or not I was kidding.
    ‘The computer was totally thrashed. I hit the urn hard enough with the computer bag to shatter the top of the PowerBook.’ I stared at her. ‘Fuck the computer,