Working With Heat by Anne Calhoun Page A

“Uh, sure,” he said. “Let’s go.”
    He held the door open for Milla, then followed her down the steps and into the early morning sunshine. “What was that all about?” he asked when they were a few steps away from the open windows.
    “Hidden in plain sight,” Milla said matter-of-factly as she slid her sunglasses onto her nose. “It makes more sense to say what we’re doing and invite them along then try to sneak out separately and meet up, especially when you don’t text. And this way, if Elsa’s on her way to work or Kaitlin runs out for lunch and they see us, they don’t suspect anything.”
    His blood ran cold for a second, because it was as calculating as he’d ever seen Milla.
    “You don’t want anyone to know, right?”
    Another gut punch. Milla was being calculating because he’d asked her to.
    “Right,” he managed, squinting into the sunshine. Milla loved the sunny weather, but even if it had been pissing down rain, she’d put on her polka-dotted Wellingtons and find an umbrella and go. He fumbled his own sunglasses from his pocket and put them on. “What’s this about an East End tour?”
    “Talking last night reminded me I wanted to add more of a written component to my travelogues.”
    “Like what?” he said.
    “I don’t know. I take notes, obviously, and I’ve written them up for descriptive posts on the website, but a longer piece, a more thoughtful piece. An essay, maybe. I’ve never done that before.” She held up her phone. “I’ve got the visual angle. It’s time to change things up a bit. Diversify.”
    “You want me to show you around the East End.”
    “Yes, please,” she said brightly, giving it her best British inflection. He smiled in spite of himself.
    He could be working, but truth be told, the work was done. Finished. Ready. Today, he was at loose ends.
    “What do you want to see?”
    “Show me what you see,” she said simply.
    There were times in Charlie’s life when days dragged on like the winter rains. Today was as fluid as molten glass, malleable, responding to his touch. Without an itinerary or a theme, he showed her what he loved about the East End. They walked through the narrow streets and lanes, where the houses sat nearly flush with the street, and he showed her the street art created by Banksy and Stik, Invader and ROA, decorating walls and security shutters, still drawn before the businesses they protected opened their doors. He told her how East End residents were the ones to force authorities to open the Tube tunnels to protect civilians during the Blitz. He showed her the Docklands, formerly a major hub in the country’s heavily traveled river and oceangoing shipping, redeveloped into some of the tallest office buildings in London and upscale housing. They spent a quiet hour touring the Museum of London Docklands, built in renovated sugar warehouses, displaying artifacts dating from the Roman times through the Empire years, two world wars, to the docks’ closing and subsequent renovation.
    Then he took her through Whitechapel, where he told her about Jack the Ripper, and Brick Lane, where he told her about the Huguenots and the silk trade and the Jewish population who lived there long before the current wave of immigrants from India and Bangladesh gave the neighborhood an air heavy with spices and bright with color and fabric, a transition he didn’t remember but his parents did. He took her to the sites of the weekly markets, some of which had been running for hundreds of years. All the while she took pictures, videos, thumbed in notes, always waiting until he was out of the shot, handing over her phone so he could take pictures of her.
    They walked and walked, stopping for a late lunch away from Canary Wharf, at his favorite kebab house in Brick Lane. She was remarkably quiet for Milla, skimming through the pictures, then adding notes to her phone before shutting it off and turning it facedown on the table. They’d found a table near