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  He crossed Fourth Avenue onto Astor Place, then walked on across Third Avenue to the brief expanse of Cooper Square and on to St. Marks Place. Once home again in the East Village, he picked up his pace as he walked past familiar brownstones, and eventually arrived at his own. He bounded up the stoop past the same three squatters he’d seen there roughly three weeks earlier. The stoop to his building had apparently become their favorite hang-out. The same sweet-smelling Goth of a girl gave him the same sweet smile; he gave her his own in return. Maybe one day, after all … just not today.

  He bounded up the stairs to the fifth floor, opened the door to his apartment, stepped in and turned on a light. If he was going to brood, Kit decided, he’d brood constructively. Straightening up—hardly one of his favorite activities—was long overdue; he’d barely touched the place in almost a month.

  He first checked to see whether there was anything rotting in the refrigerator or bathroom. There wasn’t. He then took down the only photo of Daneka still hanging from the clothesline and put it on a pile of things he wanted to take to work the next day. This subtraction was followed in short order by the clothesline itself. A few other odds and ends and—an hour later—he was ready for a shower and bed.

  Just before turning in, he opened the window to a full moon. It wasn’t the Northern Lights. And moonbeams over Manhattan were not powdered sugar. But they would do for now.

  * * *

  Daneka, in the meantime, had long since arrived home. Finally spared the distraction of a constant lover, she could be diligent in preparing for her first day back to work. There’d be lots of things to attend to, and she wanted to get them all organized as quickly as possible. In her bedroom, she first made a list of tasks—each one of which she intended to check off just as soon as she’d accomplished it. Cleaning or straightening up was not on the list; Estrella had already seen to that. She looked around to determine whether there might be some item Estrella had overlooked, noticed two and wrote them down. She read the list over to herself. When she finished, she stood up, clapped her hands once, then commenced with her first task.

  She walked to her nightstand and picked up the picture of Kit. As she started to disassemble the frame, intent upon removing and then shredding the picture, she dismissed the activity as too time-consuming. Instead, she simply dropped picture and frame into the trash, then went back and checked the item off.

  She next went into the living room, picked up the lichen and took it into the kitchen. She opened the door beneath the kitchen sink to pull out a garbage bag, reconsidered, then turned on both the water and the garbage disposal. The ten-thousand-year growth of lichen was ground up and gone within seconds. She washed and rinsed her hands, dried them on a dish towel, then returned to her bedroom to check off the second item. “Done!” she pronounced to herself with evident satisfaction.

  Within a couple of hours, Daneka had accomplished her tasks, had checked them all off, had then shredded the list. She showered, took her terrycloth robe off the hanger, thought again, walked over to her computer and booted it up as she arranged the robe like a seat cushion. A little playtime before bedtime was in order, and the robe would absorb any effluent.

  Twenty recreational minutes later—all submissions responded to, all emissions evanesced—she logged off, crawled in under the covers and went immediately and soundly to sleep.

  * * *

  Further down the island, Kit couldn’t find his way to sleep quite so easily. He glanced at his alarm clock for confirmation as he heard church bells chime out four o’clock. The necessity of self-preservation was one thing; the accomplishment of something as simple as sleep, quite another.

  Chapter 74

  Daneka rose early—and at the precise instant Kit finally managed to fall asleep. Moments after showering, she called Ron and asked him to be waiting outside in thirty minutes. Yes, she explained, she was getting an early start—her first day back to work after an absence of a little over two weeks.

  When she walked out the front door of The Fitzgerald, the car was already waiting curbside. So was Mr. Kelly’s replacement—another Michael—with a smile, a salute and an open back door. Daneka nodded a greeting to The Fitzgerald’s newest employee and glided into the back seat without breaking stride. Ron put the car into gear, crossed Madison and then turned left into Fifth Avenue. At that early hour, there was bustle, certainly, but the traffic lights on Fifth were all synchronized to keep a fleet of chauffered limos moving without interruption. The power brokers of New York needed just enough time to peruse the major stories in The Wall Street Journal. They didn’t require the inconvenience of extra stops and starts to catch up on the rest of the world in the Post or Daily News. Daneka was in the publishing business, so her paper of record was of course the paper of record. At the same hour, the readers of esoterica could be counted on to have their news-hunting noses in The Observer—and the readers of exotica, to have theirs in The Voice.

  She looked over the front page of The Times as her car sped southward the fifty-four short blocks to Forty-second Street—short indeed, she thought, but marble- and granite-hard in cash, convertibles, and other cash equivalents. She looked up ten minutes later as her car passed the Pierre on the left, then the Plaza on the right. Front doors were still shut tight on Bergdorf’s and Tiffany’s as those two monuments to commerce also passed by seconds later in a blur. One day soon, she thought to herself, she really should arrange to have breakfast at Tiffany’s—and she’d make sure it was accompanied by a brisk bottle of Veuve Cliquot.

  At Forty-second Street, Ron turned right—leaving Grand Central behind and passing under the peripheral gaze of stone lions in front of the New York Public Library, followed by Bryant Park on the left. Up past the granite sweep of the W. R. Grace building, followed by the now Disney-kitschified stretch of Forty-second Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, she could already begin to smell the approach of Times Square and her home away from home.

  Ron pulled the car up in front of her building. As Daneka opened the door and was about to step out, she noticed an outstretched hand, then looked up into a familiar face. Robert, her always ready and reliable Art Director, assisted her out and up in one smooth motion.

  “Welcome back! We’ve missed you,” he said, all chivalry and smiles.

  “Oh, but it’s nice to be back!” She ducked once again into the car. “Usual time, Ron?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. She was gone—leaving Robert to close her car door and then catch up to her in time to open the building’s front door. She glided through as unimpeded by glass as her car had glided unimpeded by traffic or traffic lights, then paused only long enough at the elevator to let Robert catch up once again.

  “Going my way?” she asked, bending her neck at just such an angle. It was—Robert now thought to himself—one of the many things he adored about her.

  “Yes, ma’am, I do believe I am,” he said, extending a gallant arm, which she took before the two of them crossed the threshold. As the elevator ascended—stopping now and again to allow other passengers to get off—she questioned him about work. He knew better than to ask her anything about personal matters—especially in such a public place—and waited until they’d stepped off at the top floor.

  “So, how was the trip?”

  “The first week was mostly business-related. Then I spent a week with my mother, and of course that was delightful. We’re such a pair, she and I. More like sisters, really.”

  “Don’t we wish we could all say that about our parents!” Robert replied with a groan.

  “Believe me. I know how fortunate I am.”

  “Well, it’s certainly nice to have you back!”

  “Thank you, Robert. Let’s try to have lunch again this week or next. I never did find that photographer I was looking for, so maybe you can help me after all.”

  “I’ll be happy to,” Robert said before walking off in the direction of his office.

  * * *

  Kit awakened
several hours later—unrested, disoriented and despondent. He wondered about the shoot with Margarette: would it still be on, or was that little project—like everything else—now old news? He thought he’d wait an hour to see if she called.

  He needn’t have wondered a second—much less waited an hour.

  He eventually collected his things and went off to his studio. Upon entering, he greeted Rachel with a brief nod and then walked stone-faced back to his cubicle.

  * * *

  Rachel was young and hip, but not insensitive. She wondered whether her remark of the previous day had wounded him in any way. She liked Kit too much to tolerate the thought. It was almost lunchtime. Maybe she, for a change, would buy the pizza. She scrounged down in her purse to see what she had left between now and payday. It wasn’t much, but she’d gladly give up dinner in exchange for some peace of mind.

  She left the studio; went to the corner pizzeria; bought two slices with pepperoni and one iced tea with a pair of straws; returned; dropped her purse at her station and went back to Kit’s cubical. He was sitting hunched over, his hands under his chin, staring out the window. She tried, as noiselessly as possible, to extract his slice from the bag. But Kit heard the rustle of paper and turned around.

  “What’s this, Rachel?”

  “Oh, nothing much. Just a little snack is all.” She looked at Kit and saw something in his eyes she’d never seen before. My God, she thought. He’s not going to cry, is he?

  “Oh, Kit. Please, please tell me it’s not because of what I said yesterday!” Kit looked at her in confusion, then thought back to their brief dialogue of the day before. That she might think her flippant remark about his being an ‘old guy’ would be the cause of his despondency both amused and impressed him. How different two women can be, he thought. He realized he should lighten up a bit, that he wasn’t alone in the world, that he had a responsibility to not infect others with his sense of loss.

  He stood up and did something he would otherwise never have considered doing—as either possible or appropriate: he embraced Rachel. For the first time in his life, he had a paternal interest in another human being—and it made him realize he might not be wrong for the role one day.

  Rachel, for her part, came to a similar realization. She’d always liked Kit—but as an older colleague and sometimes, even, as a kind of mentor. She’d had other men’s arms around her from time to time, but those arms had had a different interest, a different objective. They’d embraced her differently, and what she’d felt in response to that kind of embrace was also quite different.

  She allowed herself to wallow in the warmth and security of Kit’s embrace—and then the tears came, which she couldn’t have anticipated, didn’t know she had, but now didn’t want to stop. These were not cold, lonely tears, but the contrary—and they felt wonderful on her cheeks.

  She didn’t want to let go of this man. He, and it, felt too good. Eventually, however, she did. When she looked up at Kit now with happy eyes, she was also desperately in need of a tissue. Kit put his hand inside his shirt, scrunched up the material, then put it to her nose. “Blow,” he said.

  And blow she did.

  Chapter 75

  At the end of the workday, and feeling much better than when he’d arrived that morning, Kit decided he’d accomplished enough. There was only one thing he still needed to do before leaving, and that was to unpack and put away the items he’d brought from home in a plastic bag. Everything else could wait for another day.

  He hauled up the bag and began to lay things out: papers, letters, receipts, knick-knacks—and the picture of Daneka. Perhaps, just for the sake of sentimentality, he’d buy another frame with his next paycheck and set the picture up on his desk—at least until there was someone else’s picture to put in place of hers. He wasn’t, after all, already too old to have a girlfriend. As he was giving the black and white print one more glance before putting it away, a model walked by his cubical, paused, then leaned in over his shoulder.

  “Hey, I’ve seen that woman before,” she said unprompted.

  Kit turned to her. She was—like all of them—quite stunning, even if a little dicey-looking for a model. “You have? You’re sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure. I saw her just yesterday. I didn’t have a shoot and I wasn’t in the mood for Molière—so I went out to scrimmage.”

  “What? You saw her in the park? You saw her playing football?” Kit laughed. “Nah, not this one. There’s only one contact sport this one plays—and she doesn’t scrimmage.”

  “Uh, duh! I don’t play either. I was speaking metaphorically.” Kit looked at her more closely. He’d known some sharper tacks in his day, but never one who could pull a metaphor out of her hip pocket as if it were a spare licorice stick.

  “Where you from? Boise?”

  “Barnard, darling. The college, that is—not the town. I’m a campus flower. Have to be until next year—my senior year.”

  “And before that? Home, I mean—where your parents live.”

  She stepped back, fluffed up her hair, then pushed her jeans down to a point just south of ‘decent,’ north of ‘anatomical.’

  “Staten Island, doll—born and bred.” Kit stared at her for a long moment. His first acquaintance with a model from Staten Island. That might explain the slightly saucy look. But Barnard? C’mon! Time for a litmus test.

  “How many squares would a square root wreck if a square root wrecked for a reason?”

  She didn’t even blink. “Nope. ‘Don’t wanna chuck. You’re an old guy. I don’t do old guys—unless, well, they also happen to be loaded—and I don’t mean with fourfold roots. I mean with enough payola to give me sufficient reason to chuck. Now,” she said coyly, “we might not chuck, but we can always epistomologize.”

  She’d demonstrated both her Staten Island and Barnard credentials in fifty-plus words. “Where did you say you saw her?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Oh, so now you didn’t see her?”

  “I didn’t say that, either. I said I saw her. I didn’t say where.”

  “Okay. So I have to pay you to get the info?”

  “No. Just be nice. Make believe I’m from Boise. Can you handle it?”

  “I can and I will. Promise. I’m sorry. It’s been a rough couple of weeks.”

  The model looked again at Daneka’s picture. “No doubt. That—as I recall—is the way she likes it.” Kit suddenly wasn’t so sure he really wanted to learn what this woman might be able to tell him. However, his curiosity had to be satisfied—cost him what it might.

  “Would you please tell me where you think you saw her?”

  “’Sure you can deal with it? You look young to me.” Kit’s age—they both knew—had hers easily beaten by a decade.

  “You just called me an old guy.”

  “You’re an old guy to me. But you may be a tad young for Nate’s.”

  “Nate’s? What’s Nate’s?”

  “A club. A private club. Very private.”

  “What kind of club.”

  “Not a country club, darling. Ohhh, no.”

  “Do you have a name? Mine’s Kit. So please don’t call me ‘darling.’”

  “Just call me Nove. That’s what I’m called at Nate’s. You got a problem with ‘darling?’”

  “Nove? What kind of name is ‘Nove?’ Yes, I do.”

  “To the rest of the world, my name is Evon. But at Nate’s, everything is backwards. What’s your problem with ‘darling?’”

  “What’s up with ‘backwards?’ Don’t worry about my problem. It’s my problem.”

  “I have no idea. I asked once. They told me Nate had a thing for palindromes. I didn’t figure it was my business to set them straight on definitions. I don’t go to Nate’s to educate. I go there to get educated.”

  “And what kind of education is that?”

  “You’ll have to find out for yourself. It’s not like they put out a syllabus or anything. They expect their customers to pa
y before they play.”

  “And the price to play?”

  She rotated slowly and pushed her rear provocatively out at him. Her jeans were still riding at half-mast and covered only what fell below the dimples. The contours of her buttocks were set off like a nice pair of parentheses by a bit of something that only resembled a thong. “For me?” She left the answer to be inferred from a little slap she gave herself on one of the contours.

  “Where’s it located?”

  “In the Village.”

  “The Village is a big place.”

  “Be nice. Remember?”

  “Sorry. Where, more precisely, in the Village?”

  “The meat district. On Thirteenth Street. Don’t look for neon or a billboard. Just look for a doorman. Big, ugly guy. I think he also bounces. There’s a brass plate next to the door. It sorta says ‘Nate’s’—‘cept the “s” and the apostrophe are at the head-end rather than at the ass-end. Either they’re totally illiterate, or it’s Nate’s idea of a palindrome.”

  Kit smiled. “Thanks. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “No prob. And the next time you need a lady on a leopard skin, let me know. I generally get fifteen hundred an hour, but I’m worth it. The camera doesn’t give a fuck about either Staten Island or Barnard. And I know how to work the spots off a leopard.”

  “I’m sure you do, Evon. I’m sure you do.”