The Changeling. Victor LaValle

      Emma finally took a fork to her dessert. “You liked Bye Bye Brasil.”

      “Betty Faria,” Nichelle said, puckering her lips and shutting her eyes.

      The new glass of port arrived. Emma bit into her flan. Despite his exhaustion and his terror of the upcoming bill, Apollo felt a blush of happiness. He liked to think of these two women as girls in Boones Mill, Virginia, lucky enough to find each other, to love each other.

      He’d made a friend, a fellow book dealer, not too long ago. Patrice Green, an army vet who’d gone into the trade when he came back to the States. Usually they were the only two black book men at local estate sales. They might as well be two unicorns that happened into the same field. Of course they’d become close. Thank God for friendships, that’s what he sat there thinking. Nichelle and Emma, Apollo and Patrice. Before he could talk himself out of the gesture, he raised his hand for the waiter and ordered a glass of bourbon.

      By the time the drink arrived, Emma huffed quietly beside him. Apollo worried for a moment, but she was touching her throat, not her belly.

      “That flan wants to come back up,” Emma said quietly. Nichelle suggested water, but that would only make it worse. “I’ll find the bathroom,” she said.

      Apollo helped her up and watched her shuffle toward their waiter. The waiter nodded quickly and led her out of the dining room. When she’d disappeared, Apollo looked back to Nichelle and found her watching him with an unnerving seriousness. It was as if her drunkenness had all been playacting, and now she had dropped the play.

      “There’s a nude photo of your wife in an art gallery in Amsterdam,” Nichelle said.

      Is there a proper response to such a revelation? “Color or black and white?” Apollo asked. It was the best he could do.

      “You know she went to Brazil. She told me how you waited for her at the airport when she came back. Very sweet. Big points for you. While she was down there, she had a few adventures. I’m sure she told you about some of them.”

      “The red string. She told me about that one.”

      “Three wishes!” Nichelle shouted, as if someone had just brought out a birthday cake. “Yes. That was a bold move you made, Apollo, let me tell you. I liked that.”

      “I kept the string,” Apollo said. “So I wouldn’t forget my promise.” Right then it was tucked flat inside his wallet, right behind his driver’s license.

      Nichelle nodded, but he couldn’t be sure she was listening. Too drunk, but still she smiled playfully. “By the way, you should be proud. You’ve given her two of those wishes already. She never told you what they were. Bad luck. But I guess it’s okay now.”

      Nichelle lifted her right hand in a fist and raised the pointer finger. “A good husband,” she said.

      She raised the middle finger. “A healthy child. That reminds me. Do you know the sex? Emma said you all didn’t want to find out, but come on, you can tell me.”

      “We really don’t know,” Apollo said. “We want to find out together, right when it happens.”

      Nichelle shook her head. “I never met black hippies. I didn’t even know there were black hippies, but I guess there’s at least two.”

      Nichelle still hadn’t lowered her hand. Apollo stared at the third finger, Nichelle’s ring finger. It trembled as if about to rise and reveal the third wish, but then Nichelle opened her hand wide, all five fingers out in display.

      “About a month before she came back to the United States, Emma met this Dutch photographer down there in Brazil. It’s while she was in Salvador.”

      Apollo’s bourbon matched the color of his sudden mood. He instantly forgot about the third wish.

       Dutch photographer?

       Dutch fucking photographer?

      “Emma and this photographer get on real well, and the two of them start going around Salvador together taking pictures of everything. The photographer keeps trying to get Emma into the photos, but she doesn’t want to do that. She wants to learn how to shoot the photos, not how to be in them.

      “One trip they take is to some abandoned factory that looks kind of romantic and decayed. They spend most of the day there. But at some point the photographer has to go and pee, so Emma’s alone with the equipment, and this is when she decides to finally be in a photo. But it’s one she’s going to take herself. By herself. This is high-grade camera work, so it’s not just digital shit with your phone. Emma’s smart, though, and she’s learned enough by now to set up the shot on a timer.

      “She makes the shot in front of a wall that’s been half torn down so you can see she’s standing inside a man-made building that’s gone to the dogs, but over her right shoulder you can see the forest that surrounds this factory. Two worlds at once. Crumbling civilization and an explosion of the natural world.

      “Emma walks into the shot, and just before the shutter clicks, she pulls off her dress and takes that photo nude!”

      Apollo found himself nodding, though he couldn’t say why. Nichelle hadn’t said anything that required agreement. Instead it was as if he was testing to be sure his head remained on his neck. Apparently it was there, but Apollo still didn’t quite believe it. Better down all this bourbon to be sure.

      “She didn’t even tell the photographer she’d done it. It would get developed later, in a darkroom, and the fate of the picture had nothing to do with her. The point was just that Emma Valentine had done it. You see? She has always been like that, ever since she was a girl. If she sets her will on something it is going to happen, believe me. You like to think you chose to wait for her at the airport when her plane arrived late, but I’m telling you different. She was on that plane, like, willing you not to leave. You couldn’t have gone home if you tried. I know how that sounds, but I believe it.”

      Nichelle nodded for a few moments longer than necessary, enjoying the movement more than anything else. Then she jumped back into the story of Emma and the photo.

      “Well, that Dutch photographer didn’t even develop the film until returning to Amsterdam. But it was clear that shot was worth keeping. Had it framed and included in a show, and the gallery owner bought it and never took it down. I’ve never been to Amsterdam, but Emma showed me the JPEG. I think the owner even included the shot in the gallery’s catalogs.”

      “And?” Apollo asked, his throat too dry to say more.

      He scanned the corner where his wife had gone to use the bathroom. How different would she seem when she reappeared because of this story Nichelle decided to share? And why had she shared it? Just because she was drunk?

      “Emma has never been a big girl, you know? But down in Brazil she looked lean, not weak. Muscle and bone and those big eyes of hers, that’s all she was. Wiry and fierce, naked and unashamed. She’s looking into that camera lens like she can see you, whoever you are, wherever you are. She looks like a fucking sorceress, Apollo. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.”

      Nichelle stopped there and looked at the port glass in her hand with surprise. She gulped it all and chonked the glass onto the table, upside down.

      “And the Dutch guy?” Apollo asked. “What was his name?”

      Nichelle watched him quietly for seconds. She narrowed her eyes when she spoke. “I’m trying to tell you something important, and you are focused on bullshit.”

      “If it’s bullshit, then you can just tell me about him,” Apollo said.

      Now Nichelle reached across the table and dug her nails into the backs of both his hands. “I’m trying to tell you about Emma’s third wish,” Nichelle said. “In a way that won’t break her trust. Because it’s the only wish that hasn’t come true yet.”

      At this