Page 59 of Full Contact

“Good.” He took his keys out of his pocket. Mine was on the ring between his office key and the one for his building. “Do you want to follow me, or should I give you the address?”

“Give me the address. Then we don’t have to worry if you lose me at a light.”

He wrote the address on a sticky note from his desk, then the floor number underneath, then the parking instructions. He handed it to me.

I put it in my wallet instead of my pocket.

***

Mark’s door opened onto afternoon sunlight reaching almost to the entryway. Beyond the living room windows, a strip of lake showed blue between the buildings. I stepped inside and stopped while he shut the door behind me.

There was a shallow dish on the entry table with loose change and a single cuff link in it. His climbing shoes sat underneath, their straps pulled open, white chalk caught in the creases. Above them hung a photograph of Mark with two people I didn’t recognize, all three squinting into sunlight at the base of a rock face. Mark had his mouth open, caught halfway through saying something.

“Felix and Dana,” he said.

“What were you telling them?”

“Probably that I could do it.”

“Could you?”

“Eventually. Can I take your coat?”

I handed it over. He hung it beside a dark wool overcoat in the closet, and I followed him into the living room.

I’d seen him across desks and conference tables for a decade. I wanted to look at everything in his home, which made me slow to notice that he’d stopped beside the chair.

It was leather, a warm brown, with a reading lamp curving over it and an ottoman pulled close. A folded throw hung over one arm. Mark moved it to the sofa.

“Go ahead.”

I sat. The leather was smooth beneath my palms, and when I leaned back, I understood why he’d mentioned it more than once.

“Okay,” I said. “It’s a good chair.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I’ll make a pot of coffee.”

Mark crossed over to his kitchen and the machine started grinding. I looked at the room.

The furniture sat low, a cream sofa and two side tables, so that nothing stood between the windows and anyone sitting down. The dining table was walnut. A book lay on the ottoman near my feet, beside a symphony program with a coffee ring. The leather on the ottoman’s near corner had worn lighter where someone habitually put his heels.

Above the sideboard hung a painting, mostly blue, with a strip of rusty orange running through the middle. Afternoon light reached across it. The paint stood up in ridges, with narrow shadows beneath them.

“Tell me about the painting,” I said.

Mark looked over from the kitchen. “That’s a long story.”

“I’m in a very good chair. Shoot.”

“I bought it at a gallery in Door County three summers ago. I saw it in the window and asked the price. It was more than I’d ever spent on anything that wasn’t furniture.”

“Did you negotiate?”

“I asked whether the price was firm. She said it was. I said thank you and bought it.”