6: The Search
After Mia left, Syria pulled herself together and dressed in some sweats, planning to eat ice cream and Photoshop belly bulges all day, a combination that never failed to fill her with irony.
But when she sat at her computer with her pint of Blue Bell, instead of opening images, she clicked on Google search and for the hundredth time since her mother had given her the sheaf of letters from her father at Thanksgiving, typed in his name.
The same set of links came up as always. This time she clicked on the image search, studying the faces for any resemblance to herself. Most were young men, many babies. Tons of images of a handsome Indian actor came up, although she wasn’t sure why, since his name was completely different.
Her breath stopped short at the sight of a gray-haired man shown in profile. Arnav Sharma would be over fifty years old by now, and probably not on many social networks, if any. She clicked on the image, but it linked to the page of a young man again, apparently sharing an image of his grandfather, who had a different name.
Syria closed the link. She had no idea how wired India was, if the older generations there were any more or less active on the internet than here. Her own mother did not own so much as a laptop, and if you mentioned Facebook or Twitter, she stared at you blank-eyed. As an emergency dispatcher, she sat on the phone all day. Syria could guess that the old paper manuals they flipped through to read procedures to panicked people had been replaced with an electronic version, but undoubtedly, she had zero access to any sort of internet connection. 911 dispatchers couldn’t exactly play Angry Birds between calls. Her father might be no different.
Most of the twenty-year-old letters had no return addresses. Arnav had not wanted any responses, except for the one — an exuberant note that his wife was leaving him, a last hurrah before the final door slammed shut. Shortly after her threat to leave, the wife had changed her mind, telling him that if he claimed his bastard daughter, he would never see his other children again.
So Syria’s father cut off all contact with her and her mother, unwilling to trade the unknown daughter for his sons.
But the happy letter was the one that had the most information. A phone number and an address. Syria had checked both. The phone number was now assigned to a pizzeria. And the address had been bulldozed in 2003. But still. It was a way to narrow down her Arnav Sharma from all the others. When he’d written that letter, Syria was eight, some seventeen years ago, and electronic databases had existed. Surely someone somewhere had a record and could get her another piece of the puzzle, a forwarding address, a government connection to some identifier. She couldn’t afford a private investigator, but she had time. In January, she’d have even more.
*
Syria was even more bleary-eyed when her studio line rang a few hours later. She should have slept some. She answered with false pep, bracing herself for an anxious client who wanted her Christmas gift ready now. “This is Syria.”
“Syria McMillan. The photographer.” The low voice wasn’t asking a question, but rumbled through the receiver as a statement of fact.
“Yes, this is she.” Syria’s heart sped up a little. She knew this voice.
“We met recently. At an exhibition.”
Syria swallowed. “Is this Erik?” Her voice wavered a bit.
“You have an excellent memory. I hope this means I made an impression.” His voice flowed like silk, and the way he talked made her picture the syllables against her skin.#p#分页标题#e#
As if knowing the direction her thoughts had gone, her cell phone lit up on her desk, but only the first few notes of “Santa Baby” played before she silenced it. Tyson picked the darnedest times to call.
“Can I help you?”
“I would like to book a session with you.”
“I’m actually done with sessions until after the holidays. It gets a little crazy this time of year.”
“It’s not for a gift, so I would not rush your work.”
Syria hesitated. This man had seen her having sex with another woman on stage. He might have the wrong idea about her. “Can it wait for January then?” Maybe he would hire someone else.
“I have an associate about to leave my company. I would like a photograph before the contract is over.”
“So, a business head shot then?” She relaxed. She could probably work in something as simple as that.
“Not quite. I sensed that you might be willing to do some nontraditional work.”
He probably wanted to have sex with his “associate” on camera. She got calls like this all the time, as if boudoir somehow mean porn.
“You know, I don’t think I’m your girl,” Syria said. “I’m sure I appeared to be pretty open to things on stage, but actually I keep my business and my pleasure pretty separate.” Except for Mia, she thought, remembering her contortionist shoot. And Tyson, of course, the shoot that started it all. Erik didn’t need to know about that. “I could maybe give you a referral.”