LXXVIII | Someone’s Guilty

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'Tammie!' I hiss.

She blinks at me,

sweat
dripping

up her face

as she pauses,
upside down

on the pole.

The dissonant music stops.

She executes
a difficult move

that reveals

too much.

I wince.

She lands on her toes,
smiling.

Lucky you. I'm done.
What's up?

I would tell her to close the door
but the studio

has no door.

I pull her into the storage room.

We squat
behind a screen of easels.

I keep one eye

on the corridor

for anyone
passing by.

I tell her
that my painting stuff
is gone.

She smiles,

apologetic.

Says they must have
cleaned up after me.

I don't think so.

Her grey eyes
harden.

Let it go, Fifi.

There's no conspiracy.

'There is,' I insist.

Maybe there wasn't before.
But something's definitely

wrong now.

What's wrong
is your need to be dramatic.

Her ignorance
grates my nerves.

How dense

is she going to be?

She's been here
longer than me.

She's the one

who told me
the rules.

'Patients are disappearing
'more quickly now.'

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