No One Knows Us Here(18)

“You’re calling in sick today,” Alejandro said. “I have something I need to show you.” I stood on the sidewalk, deliberating. I had been kidding myself, thinking Leo Glass could be the answer to my problems. I had been planning on spending the day at work, messaging every contact in Mira’s phone. One last desperate attempt to make good on my promise to Wendy. “Come on, Rosemary. It’ll be worth it. Trust me.” He held out one of the Starbucks cups to me.

Instinctively, I took it. I took a sip. It was a mocha with whipped cream, something I would never order. It tasted good, though, like a liquid candy bar. “You’re lucky my housemate wasn’t here with me. We usually walk to work together. What would I have told her if we’d walked out and seen you here?”

He shrugged. “I would have thought of something. Or you would have.”

“Anyway, she’s not here. She spent the night at her boyfriend’s.”

“So I guess it worked out.”

“I guess it did.”

“So . . . are you going to call or what?”

“Call who—Margorie?”

“Your work. Tell them you’re not coming in.”

“How long is this going to take?”

“Oh, not too long.”

I shook my head, exasperated. Then I made the call.

“We can walk there from here,” Alejandro said. “Actually, it’s really close.”

We walked down to Eighteenth Avenue, sipping our drinks. It was a beautiful fall day, cool and crisp. The sun lit up the trees—gold and crimson and tangerine. The leaves on the sidewalk made a colorful carpet under our feet. It was quieter in this part of the neighborhood, not so many restaurants and bars and shops—just parks and churches and schools and stately old mansions converted into law offices. And apartment buildings, too, old ones with columns and balconies and french doors, like my place but with fewer stoner college kids passing around bongs.

“This is it.” Alejandro stopped in front of an old redbrick building, six stories high, wedged between an unobtrusive little coffee shop and another similar-looking building. I marveled again at the silence. We were only five blocks from the busy shopping and eating district where I lived and worked, but it felt like a different world. Maybe it was the trees. Their leaves filtered the noise.

In the lobby the walls were wallpapered, trimmed with lacquered walnut woodwork. The whole place felt empty, as if no one lived here—as if no one had lived here for some time. “What are we doing here?” I whispered. Alejandro didn’t answer.

We took the stairs up to the fourth floor. The moment my foot traversed the threshold between the entryway and the living room, I knew: I had to live here. It felt like a crush, or maybe love. The living room was huge, filled with light. Gleaming hardwood floors, impossibly high ceilings. Old-fashioned divided-light windows.

The windows stretched almost from floor to ceiling, seven or eight feet high. The trees below, full and leafy, spanned the sidewalk up and down the entire block. I wanted to hear the leaves quaking, to smell that fall scent of smoke and earth and rain. “Do they open? These windows?” I was already unfastening the locks and hoisting up the wooden sash. It opened easily, or more easily than I imagined. The sash stayed up, too. The ropes and weights inside the window’s architecture were in prime working condition.

I leaned out, bending at the waist, so most of my body was outside. If I fell, I’d land on top of the trees’ soft, round domes. A breeze whipped past, blowing my hair, rustling the leaves. They looked like tiny fires, tiny fingers waving.

I swore I heard music—I did hear music. A string instrument, a violin. It wasn’t a recording; it was someone practicing. I could tell by the arrangement—it sounded like half a song, like the accompanying part to something larger, grander. All by itself it was sad but haunting.

“Do you hear that?” I said to Alejandro.

He pulled me in by the cardigan. “If you fall out the window, Leo’s going to have me fired.”

I extracted myself from the window but left it open. The violin stopped. I stood there, hoping the player—a real violinist, I was sure of it, not some kid practicing for youth orchestra but a true musician—would start another song. I didn’t know much about classical music, but I recognized talent and beauty when I heard it. The music didn’t pick up again, but I began to sway. I lifted up my arms and waved them over my head the way a drunk or half-asleep person might bat at a fly, and I shuffled back and forth in a slow, languid dance. “Hey, Alejandro,” I said. “Who am I?”

He widened his eyes in mock horror and shook his head. “You tell me.”

I spun in wide circles over the floor. “I’m Victoria!”

Another dazed head shake from Alejandro.

“Like that New Order video. The Temptation of Victoria.”

Alejandro indulged me with a little laugh. “Never seen it.”

I straightened up again. “Whose place is this?”

“It’s yours,” Alejandro said. “If you want it.”

“So Leo—he’d just give me this apartment? Like as a part of my—uh, compensation package?”

Alejandro’s lips formed a stiff, straight line. “You need a place to stay, right? For you and your sister? Will this do or not?”