have been white. “Yes! True! What I do is important!” Edgardo announced, then used their newfound connection as an opportunity to check her out. He started at her black ballet flats, moved on to the legs of her loose wool trousers, and worked his way up.
When people first met Audrey Lucas, they were reminded of 1930s Hollywood glamour; lovely and unadorned, with a pointed chin, long, bumped nose, and cheekbones sharp enough to cut rocks. She was pretty but awkward. She kept her arms crossed in conversations to keep people from standing too close, and she tended to shrink in crowds, making herself invisible, because she’d learned from experience that the world was cruel. She’d been working such long hours that the skin under her eyes appeared smeared with charcoal, and her pale cheeks had lost their rosy bloom. Still, the few and brave who took the time to get to know her unearthed their reward. She was smart, and funny, and kind. When she trusted the people around her enough to smile, the sight was lovely, and just a little heartbreaking.
If her life worked out okay, and she found happiness, the pinched angles of her body would soften. By her forties, she’d blossom into a stunning beauty. If her life worked out badly, those angles would calcify into stone, and she would become small, and bitter, and angry.
Edgardo’s entire neck craned as his eyes grazed the v-neck of Audrey’s loose blouse, her small breasts, hunched shoulders, and at last, her stark, green eyes. When he was done, his gaze settled on her bare, scarred-up fingers. Then he winked, to let her know he liked what he saw.
She frowned. She was thirty-five years old, with a good job and a decent head on her shoulders. Still, when she spotted strangers looking for that ring, she felt…exposed.
The elevator passed the seventh floor. The red hallway carpet was littered with empty champagne flutes and confetti. A Monday night party? Edgardo smiled. She hid her hands in the pockets of her green, army-surplus peacoat, and imagined poking his eyes into pools of goo.
Edgardo shook his head, to let her know she’d gotten the wrong idea. “My daughter looks like you.”
She raised an eyebrow, and he continued. “Really! She does! She’s in Alaska. I visit her in the summer, but the winter”—he mimed being blown down by a gust of wind—“too cold!”
She shrugged. She’d never met a happy family, and wasn’t quite sure she believed in them. They sounded as kosher as Scientology Aliens or leprechauns.
Edgardo waited for her response. She had none. After a few silent seconds, he flinched. The entire wrinkled right side of his face seized like a stroke patient’s, then went smooth again. She realized right then, that he was lying. Maybe he didn’t have a daughter, or else, they didn’t get along. Maybe he was an ex-con, and had gone to Rikers Island for setting her on fire. Whatever the story, he was lying. She could sympathize. Sometimes you tell people what you think they want to hear, only you’re not so good at figuring people out, so you never get it quite right.
He looked sad, flinching, inflation-shoed Edgardo. She decided to rescue him by letting him know that she was kind of a Martian, too. “Don’t worry. My mom’s in a mental institution in Nebraska. Bipolar disorder. I haven’t seen her in years.”
Edgardo crossed his arms, visibly uncomfortable. She knew she’d blabbed out of turn, and tried to fix it. “Not that I’m suggesting that your daughter belongs in a mental institution, of course.”
Edgardo narrowed his eyes. They were blue, and either booze or hard work had threaded them with red spider veins. A second or two passed before he was certain she wasn’t mocking him, and he chortled. “My Stephanie belong in Bellevue! Don’t you worry.”
They passed the ninth floor, which was stripped of carpet and light fixtures though it didn’t appear to be under construction. The walls were broken in places, and the copper wiring torn out, as if this rich building had been looted for parts. Strange. Perhaps the co-op was late on its payments, and The Breviary was up for sale, but since nobody was buying real estate these days, they’d taken to pillaging their own infrastructure. From an apartment on the floor either below or above, “Dixieland” played. Its bouncing beat echoed through the shaft.
Edgardo continued. “Alaska is no good. My Stephanie won’t write…I told a story. I never visited. She won’t let