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“We’re okay. There’re safety cables all up and down this.” A light flashes on—Henry’s phone. He’s talking to somebody, trying to work out what floor we’re near.
I slide to the cold, corrugated floor, arms around my legs, back against the chain-link cage. I’m in that well again, that well where I spent three lonely, terrified days.
Breathe. Breathe.
You’re not there.
“Vicky?”
Breathe. Breathe.
He squats next to me. Gently, he settles his hardhat onto my head.
“Okay, that just makes me think we’re going to crash headfirst,” I say. “Or something is going to crash on top of us.”
“None of the above,” he says, adjusting it to fit my head. “I’m only putting it on you because I know I’d lose points off the manliness portion of the New York’s Most Eligible Bastard competition if people knew I was hogging the only hardhat in a situation like this.”
I nod.
“Here’s my thinking.” He settles in next to me. “We know I can win the swimsuit part of the Most Eligible Bastard competition. And I have the name memorization bit nailed. But as you can imagine, the manliness portion is extremely important to me.”
Hammers and voices ring up from below.
“You can smell me if you want.”
“I’m so not smelling you.”
He checks his phone, then puts it down in a way that lights the area in front of us. That helps, too. “My guys are down there working on the machinery. It’s a simple winch starter issue…”
“A winch starter issue,” I say. “Like what? Tell me.”
“You want to hear about the winch issue?”
“Did I burn it out like you said I would? Wait, don’t answer that. Just tell me about winches.” I hate how tiny and scared my voice is. I really just need him to be talking. “Start at the beginning. The history of winches.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
I press my fingers to my forehead, feeling so messed up and hating the silence. “I’m being sarcastic, but also I want you to.”
He seems thoughtful in the silence. He takes my hand, warm and cozy in his. “I have something better to tell. My secret.”
“You have a secret?”
“How I do the names.”
I look up at the outline of his head in the dark. “How?”
“I took a class in memorization techniques. You can’t say anything. I don’t ever want our employees to feel like a number.”
“You took a class? That’s commitment.”
“It means a lot to people, and as the company grew, it got harder and harder. So I took the class. I know it sounds a little intense, but people…they see me in a certain way, and I don’t like to let them down.”
“Wow,” I say. “You make it look so easy. You make it look so easy to be you.”
He huffs out a quiet little laugh. Shifts my hand in his. “Anyway, everybody gets a special visualization location. If somebody is named Mike, I imagine him on a stage singing with a microphone. Clarence is in an orchestra playing a clarinet. Dirk is in dirt.”
“What about Fernando?”
