front of the towering glass structure, I recognize it. My father used to own two floors here, using them as overpriced business rentals. When we were teenagers, Alex and I were given master keys to the units on both floors and told to “keep an eye on things.” Of course, we just used the empty suites to hold parties, then secretly called the housekeeping company and asked them to come clean up after our untidy “renters.” Like most residential buildings in Holden, you can only enter if you’re a resident, with a resident, or on a pre-approved guest list. Because our units were repossessed, I, of course, am not.
I hesitate in front of the coffee shop next door, well-suited business people flowing past, ignoring me in my skinny jeans and puffy jacket, gray wool hat and sunglasses, grateful to be anonymous. Pathetically grateful no one is witnessing my nervous sweating and shaky hands.
The doorman is keeping a wary eye on me, so I pull out my phone and pretend I’m waiting for someone who actually knows I’m waiting for them. He’s not fooled, and because the only phone numbers I have are for the Food Bank and the prison, I send myself a text. Go home.
I peer inside the warm coffee shop. If Chris passes this way, I’ll see him. But if he comes from the other direction, I won’t. Hell, he might be sitting in his toasty apartment right this moment—I don’t know. I don’t know his last name or anything about him except he once had a German Shepard named Astro.
That’s the thing that decides it. I’m going home. I don’t even know who I’m waiting for, and he doesn’t know who’s waiting for him. This loneliness will pass. All the feelings do. I’ve already experienced the worst of them. The worst of everything. So what if it’s three o’clock and that means nine hours until tomorrow, for which I also have nothing planned? So what if this whole fucking world is going to spin forever and I’ll spin right along with it, just as aimless?
A cab stops at the curb, and I beeline for it, planning to dodge the man striding from Chris’s building and steal it for myself. But I stop, hand extended, when the man getting out of the backseat is none other than the one I’ve been waiting for.
Startled by my approach, his expression turns wary. Then surprised. Then... I don’t know. Something crosses his face, something I can’t read. Or too many things to read them all. Anger? Irritation? Alarm?
“Hi,” I say eventually.
Chris opens his mouth like he’s about to speak, then decides against it. He moves back as someone else slides into the car and the cab pulls away, the silence giving me time to take him in. If he’d gotten out of the cab and walked into his building, I might not have recognized him. Gone are the boots and plaid shirts. Now he’s wearing a suit and tie, polished loafers on his feet. It’s not a cheap suit, either. The Rolex is back, but I still don’t think it’s real.
“What are you doing?” I hear myself ask.
His eyebrows raise. “What am I doing?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re the one loitering.”
“Why are you in a suit?”
He glances down, as though just remembering. “I had a meeting.”
“Why?”
He sighs, like I’ve managed to both annoy and exhaust him in the span of twenty seconds. “What are you doing here, Denise?”
I don’t think I’ve ever apologized to a man before. To anyone, since third grade, now that I think about it. “I came to apologize,” I mumble. “For...the other day. What I said.”
“About not wanting to see me?”
The cold that snakes up my legs has little to do with the weather. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
Chris sighs and digs his hand into his pocket, retrieving a set of keys. “Don’t worry about it.”
He turns toward the building.
“That’s it?” I blurt out.
He looks over at me. “Did you have something else to say?”
“Well, yeah.”
“What?”
“Come get a drink. In here.” I point at the coffee shop, curling my hands in the sleeves of my jacket, not sure if I’m trembling because I’m frozen or I’m nervous. I really didn’t think this through. What am I going to say if he agrees to come inside with me? In third grade I said, “I’m sorry I cut up your doll, here’s another one,” and that was enough. But now I don’t have anything to give Chris. Nothing to offer, except myself.
He closes his eyes