If I live forever, I can live now

48

It had to be Kate Rosewood. He said he had known it before the beginning. He had just started working on Fleming&Florey, and he had left New York as soon as she had proved him right at the conference. She had probably threatened him, worse than she threatened me with her Pigalle Louboutins and her fake smile when I was lying on the hotel lobby.

I tried to recall everything he had told me about her, searching for hidden clues, for secret messages. But the heat and longing I had felt around Luke at that time made everything else blurry.

"Do you think it really is Kate Rosewood?" Lindsay asked me overly loudly, drawing everyone's attention at the breakfast table.

The table was full of hot croissants, fresh fruit, scrambled eggs with bacon and coffee, all set up around a red rose centerpiece. So, when a waiter approached us, I wondered what he could possibly add to that already ideal combination.

"Shh." I said to Lindsay.

The waiter offered each of us a damp towel, and I stared at it, confused. David started to moist his face with it, and I noticed Lucy and Hugh were doing the same. The rest of us looked astonished.

"It's for refreshment." David explained.

Africa burst out, and all eyes turned to her.

"Sorry." she said, still amused.

When the waiter left, loud conversations arouse about how overdone and ridiculous luxury could be, and I took advantage of the fuss to talk to Lindsay.

"You shouldn't talk as loudly, and even less if you mention someone from Fleming&Florey. The staff here receives letters from them." I explained, and, sarcastically, I added: "I guess it's not classy for a luxury hotel to have mortal workers anymore."

"How do you know they receive letters from them?"

"Because I saw the women at the reception reading a letter written on blue stationary. Who else uses blue...?"

Out of the blue.

Exactly.

It came to me like Newton's apple, or Virgin Mary's revelation. I hadn't seen it before, but it was shockingly clear now. It had been blurred out, like... David's features at the steam. It had been blurred out because of things like David's features at the steam. Because of all-consuming distractions.

I dropped my fork, and Lindsay asked me if something was wrong. But her voice was very far away. After having replayed New York so many times, it was easy to find where I had seen that blue paper before.

He had written tips for me to conquer my nerves. He looked so sweet, but he had only been deceiving me. How had I not thought of him before? He had always been oversweet, sticky, unnatural.

David was frowning from the other side of the table. He was aware something big was going on inside my head. When I didn't respond to Lindsay's questions several times, worry grew bigger in his hazel eyes. Africa stood up and shook my shoulders. Mum and dad exclaimed my name.

I tried to think of a clue that Luke might have given me about Professor Abbey. He had said something about him once, on the phone. His words reverberated in my head: I still don't get why he teaches a group like this, because he's done nothing... Did that mean something? It couldn't, because that had been before I even made my discovery. Besides, not having a brilliant academic history surely didn't immediately turn people into robbers of other's merits. He hadn't even published it as his. He hadn't been looking for recognition. He had given it away.