Page 33 of Dirty Diana
I’m grateful for a moment alone in the car. I slip low in my seat just as the sun is beginning to set and the intense beauty of the light makes me catch my breath. The horizon is like a child’s painting, a strip of golden light under a strip of cobalt blue sky and above that a layer of moody gray-black clouds. Annie’s not wrong, the blues and gold in Justine’s piece match the Marfa sky exactly.
Jasper taps the window and I roll it down. “Hand me that black case behind the seat?” he asks. I slide it through the window. “Listen, I have to do a little bit of prep work before we lose the light, and Annie just invited me for dinner. Do you feel okay driving the truck to the hotel?” He reaches over me and fumbles through the glove compartment. “Here’s the address. I’ll call ahead and let them know you’re checking in without me.”
“Of course,” I say. My stomach sinks at the thought of going to the hotel alone. “You don’t need me to carry any more stuff in?” But he is already headed back inside.
—
At the hotel, I check into my room and collapse onto the bed. I’m swallowed up by the size of the room, with its big, brightly colored rugs, an oversize pink-striped chair, and an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. How had I gotten this so wrong? There were no mixed signals.Jasper wasn’t using this shoot as an excuse to spend time with me or whisk me out of town. He needed an assistant. Plain and simple. I was an employee and it was convenient and, more humiliatingly, he knew I would say yes. Maybe I wasn’t even the first person he asked. I flip onto my stomach and groan into one of many king-size pillows.
I cut myself a deal. I can wallow in my disappointment over Jasper bailing on me for the length of a hot shower, and then I’ll get to work.
I have my tape recorder with me and the interview I’ve just done with a college friend named Brynn. I asked her specifically about her sex life because I remembered her as having been very embarrassed to talk about such things. She surprised me by taking up the whole interview with tales of sex escapades she’d had since we’d last seen each other. I decided I was going to use the interview’s steamiest bits for a new series of paintings I would dedicate to Alicia called “Points.”
The bathroom is also designed for more than one person with a generous clawfoot tub and a separate shower with multiple shower heads. I step inside and let the warm water run over my face and name all the reasons why coming on this trip was a dumb idea. I realize I would have said yes even knowing the trip was purely work, just to spend time with Jasper. Certain images of him are impossible to forget. Like the night of his show, the two of us in the hallway, pressed against the office door. Or his hand over my heart when we couldn’t stop kissing.
I open the shower door and emerge in a dramatic billow of steam. I’m revitalized and I have an idea for how to paint Brynn. I pull on a pair of sweatpants and set myself up on the bed, sketching with charcoal pencil. I’m listening to Brynn talk about sneaking into a movie theater after it closed.
I should have known he didn’t really work there when he pulled out a credit card and jimmied the lock.
In quick strokes, I draw a rectangle and place Brynn in the center of the movie screen dressed like a 1940s starlet. Then I run her dialogue like subtitles along the bottom.
I was too excited to care. Maybemoreexcited because we might get caught.
I take a break to check my phone, pretending—but failing—not to watch it in hopes that Jasper will call. I toy with the idea of texting him. Something friendly and upbeat. Casual, even.
How’s dinner?Nope. Delete. I have never texted Jasper so why would I now breezily interrupt his night with Annie?
Unless it’s just to let him know I got in okay?Checked into hotel. Room is great.It sounds less officious and more desperate. Delete.
To make myself laugh, I type,Room 112. Fuck me senseless?But instead of smiling, I roll my eyes and chuck the phone far away, to the end of the bed, where it bounces off a pillow and clatters to the floor.
Maybe I should just act like an actual assistant and ask him what time we start tomorrow. I pick the phone up off the floor.
And there it is. An envelope flying across the screen. And then:
Message sent.
No. No, no. God no. I scroll to confirm that it did indeed send to Jasper.Room 112. Fuck me senseless?I scream loud enough to wake the entire hotel. There must be something I can do. A way to delete the text. There’s no way. Do I drive to Annie’s house and find Jasper’s phone before he checks it? My face burns a deep crimson, imagining him gently chuckling with Annie over dinner, shaking his head at my sweet crush. Or what if Annie reacts more earnestly, “Be careful. She sounds a bit unhinged.” I will leave. I will somehow find a ride back to Santa Fe and disappear.
I almost call Alicia, then reconsider. If I don’t tell a soul, maybe I can block it out. I check the phone, apprehensively, for a reply, then turn it off, afraid to touch it ever again.
—
The woman at the front desk points me toward a small liquor store across the street and I buy a half-pint of vodka. My new brilliant plan is to drink until I fall asleep and tomorrow I’ll blame it on the alcohol.
I pass a young couple holding hands, on their way to a night out, and I tuck the paper bag beneath my sweatshirt. I debate ordering room service, but it’s so expensive and I can’t decide what’s a reasonable amount to spend on someone else’s expense account. So I order a pizza with olives and turn onDateline,slowly sipping on my drink. I turn my phone back on, praying for the off chance that Jasper thought it was a hilarious joke and responded with something equally funny. But there is no response. Minutes pass like hours and I try to lose myself in Stone Phillips and an unsolved murder.
A quiet knock on my door and I thank god for the pizza I ordered. I open the door, still searching my purse for my wallet, and look up to find Jasper standing on the other side. Too surprised to say hello, I just stare.
And then he holds up his phone, his eyebrows raised, and I want to sink through the floor.
“I was drinking,” is all I can think to say.
He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.” His expression is unreadable, his hair tousled and his stubble even darker. He’s still dressed from the road, so he must have come right from Annie’s.
“How was dinner?”
