Page 6 of Mr. Match

They are all so much nearer than me.

My body slumps, just slightly. Shoulders rounded in defeat. Head down, hands clasped together in my lap. “I want to see you again,” I whisper.

And then I straighten up and look at the camera.

“Well, I guess I need to get to work. Maybe today will be the day?”

I click the button on the remote and the flashing red light disappears.

The phone in the kitchen rings. I smile, knowing who that is, and then unfold my legs and stand up, grabbing the robe draped over the chair and putting it on. I tie the sash as I walk to the kitchen and pick up the phone on the third ring, just before it hits voicemail.

“Hey,” I say into the receiver.

“Oh, my God. I’m so tired. I was up all night working on this stupid mid-term project. I have this huge presentation this afternoon and my partner was late for every single meeting we had. She’s so lazy. Why do I have to always get stuck with the unmotivated ones, Katya? Why do people even come to college if they don’t want to give a hundred percent? Coffee? I really need some.”

My sister makes me smile. She’s dramatic and serious. Brilliant and tenacious. And her life has been nothing like mine. “Sure,” I say. “Starbucks in the student center?”

A knock at my door makes me jump.

“I’m here.” She laughs. “We can go across the street to the theater coffee shop. We never get to go there.”

I think about that for a minute.

“Are you gonna let me in? Or will I have to stand out here until one of your uptight neighbors calls security?”

“Yes,” I say, snapping out of the panic. “One sec.”

I rush over to the door and pull it open. My sister is there, dark blonde hair spilling out from under a thick wool hat, her hands tucked inside her coat pockets, backpack over one shoulder.

I step aside to let her in and she rushes past me. “Come on, let’s go. They have that new cinnamon-flavor drink. Have you tried it yet?” She’s still talking into her phone for a few words before she remembers to end the call.

“I just got up,” I say, looking both ways in the hallway real fast before closing the door. “Can you give me twenty minutes?”

“Sis,” she whines. “I have class in thirty. We won’t have time.”

“Well, I wasn’t expecting you to show up here so early.”

“I know but I neeeeeed coffee. Just throw on jeans and a hoodie. You can come right back home in twenty minutes.” She tugs on my hand. “Come on. Come on, come on, come on.”

I want to gulp down the fear inside me at the thought of going into the theater coffee shop, but Lily is very in my face right now. “OK, just give me a sec.”

I rush off down the hallway and throw on some light-wash jeans, a gray blouse with a ruffled hem, and a belted pink jacket to pull me together.

My feet slip into a comfortable pair of gray felt clogs and I grab my purse off the nightstand as I make my way back into the living room.

Lily is standing over my camera tripod, looking very much like she’s trying to find the right button to play back the footage I just took.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, my God,” she says, jumping back. “Sorry. It’s just you never show me any of your work. Did you just…” She looks at the camera. “You know…”

“Take pictures?” I say, walking over and removing the camera from the tripod and taking it into the kitchen so I can lock it inside the safe. “Yes. But if you think I’m showing you, you’re out of your mind.”

“I can see them all online, you know. I have seen them all online.”

“I know,” I say, shutting the safe. “But those are all finished. You know I don’t like to share the raw images.”

Lily stares at me for a long second. Like she’s seriously thinking things through. I can practically see her mind whirling. “If you got it, flaunt it,” she says. “Just embrace it, sis. I mean, how many women can say they make money with their bodies and it doesn’t involve sex?”