months, figure out her next step. This breakup with Saraub might be temporary, so why sign a yearlong lease? Yes, this place was amazing. She could spend her life studying it. But that didn’t mean she ought to live in it. A terrible thing had happened here. Something so bad it was bound to have left a stain. She was about to tell Edgardo she’d decided to take his advice when he added: “Better you find a nice man. Girl like you should be married. Have someone to take care of you.”
Her reaction was immediate, like flinching when someone jabs. “I’m taking it,” she said.
He frowned and shook his head a few times, mumbling something under his breath: Gringo? Then he closed his eyes. “Okay. First floor, Apartment C. They’ll interview you, and they have paperwork.”
He didn’t wait for her to follow when he clopped out of apartment 14B. As they rode down the elevator in their separate corners, she wanted to let Edgardo know that she appreciated his concern. Instead, the doors opened, and they parted, in silence.
2
Her Black Holes (She Glimpsed Something Better Before It Drifted Out to Sea)
On the morning of the move, Audrey packed fast. There wasn’t much to take: a rolling suitcase full of clothes and a prickly cactus named Wolverine. She was leaving in an hour, and she didn’t plan on coming back.
Life at the Golden Nugget was a downer. Prematurely aged hookers with bad hygiene (obviously) trolled the street corners, and the vendors who sold chick-pea samosas also sold crack. Their empty, blue-stoppered vials clogged the gutters like Harlem’s answer to fall leaves. You get what you pay for, and this hotel was the cheapest place in Manhattan that didn’t charge by the hour. She might have found her tenure here more disquieting if she hadn’t spent most of it in bed, catching up on her sleep. Four weeks later, she was still exhausted.
She traced the letter “S” along the nightstand with her finger and wondered: was she depressed? She shook her head. No, her life had just moved too fast since she’d moved to this city, and her body needed time to catch up. She’d had a single weekend between graduation and the new job. Looking back, she probably should have taken some time to travel, or at least get a haircut. But she’d been too excited. Vesuvius was one of the best firms in the city. Besides, this was a recession; architects weren’t getting hired, they were getting fired. She’d been lucky to get the offer at all. The Daily News’ front page last week had proclaimed the death of new construction, and the illustration below it had been a hairline-fracture-cracked tombstone that read:
N.Y.C.
1524–2012
REST IN PEACE
In this economic environment, only a fool would take vacation.
She noticed then that the red light on the hotel phone was blinking: a message. Her stomach turned. Saraub. Most of her stuff was still in boxes at his apartment, and this morning he was supposed to oversee the movers on his end while she waited at The Breviary. It was sporting of him to help. But that was Saraub: a pathologically good sport.
She lifted the receiver to her ear. It beeped like it was alive. At first, he’d given her the space she’d asked for, but as the month came to a close, he’d called more often, and the pretexts had gotten increasingly lame: “Do you want all your clothes, or just your fall stuff, so when you come back to me, the move won’t be so big?” and, “Are you eating right? You know how you get when you miss breakfast,” or her favorite, “Do you know where my Frank Miller comics are at?…You better not have tossed them, because they’re collector’s items!”
He’d shown the patience of a saint until last night. She’d called to make sure he was set for the move, and after a little small talk he’d erupted. “You’re really leaving me after everything we’ve been through? Can we talk about this? CAN WE PLEASE FUCKING TALK ABOUT THIS?” he’d yelled.
With the men in his family working abroad, Saraub had been raised by the shrew quartet—his mother and three aunts. They’d taught him early never to raise a voice or a hand against a woman. When he got mad as a teenager, his mother had cried and pretended to be frightened. Not surprisingly, until Audrey came along, Sheila Ramesh had won every argument. To this day, when he was pissed off, he