the same time, she couldn’t help but think of him. She got out her guitar and sang to him.
Every word.
For him.
7 Lucy signed the contract for a new cell phone, paid, and walked out of the wireless store activated. Within seconds it was buzzing. Jesse, of course. Leave it to him to christen her smartphone. Her first episode of ring rage since the storm. She hit mute and put it in her bag, determined never to speak to him again. And pulled it back out just as determined.
“What?”
“You’re my one phone call,” Jesse said desperately. “Don’t hang up.”
Lucy knew exactly what that meant. “Where are you? And why are you calling me?”
“House of D,” Jesse said as he was being hurried off the phone. “You have to get here now. I need to talk to you.”
Click.
“Jail?” she screamed out loud enough for everyone on Gold Street to hear. She growled in frustration, already angry with herself for what she was about to do. But she was within walking distance. And curious. Lucy knew that whatever Jesse did, or didn’t do, to get into the House of D, it was serious. Dead serious.
He was an asshole. But he was an asshole who meant well. Sometimes.
She made her way through DUMBO just as the subway went barreling across the Manhattan bridge, on her way from her apartment in Vinegar Hill. Her head pounded as the train shook the inside of her brain along with everything else. She walked by Sacrifice but on the other side of the street. The club was still boarded up and closed down like much of the neighborhood. Destroyed, pretty much. As she looked around at the downed trees, flooded cobblestone streets, abandoned vehicles, and dead power cables littering the neighborhood, she realized that the storm that changed her world had truly changed her as well. It wasn’t just the infrastructure that had been shredded.
Tony, the bouncer, popped out of the black double doors and noticed her, a lone figure walking across the street. He waved. She put her finger up to her lips, the international symbol for If you tell, I’ll cut your balls off. He nodded, understanding that Lucy didn’t want anyone to know she was around, or alive for that matter. Even though Lucy had a reputation as a cold, ruthless, self-centered narcissist all in one high-end package, Tony was there for her. The keys to her world were relationships—you scratch my back and I’ll talk behind yours. He smiled and held up her old cell phone, to show her that he’d kept it safe and to offer it back to her. She shook her head no. He dropped it to the ground and shattered it with his heel, her contact list, saved e-mails, and photos never to fall into the wrong hands. She blew him a kiss and kept walking. Uphill.
Lucy was so preoccupied she almost walked by her favorite pizzeria, Paisan’s, without so much as a peek in the window. Shelves of every kind of pie known to mankind. She pressed her nose up against the glass and promised herself she’d come back later.
“Hey, Lucy. Where ya been?” Sal, the pizza guy, called out from the service window in a deep gravelly voice.
“In church, Sal,” she smiled, tossing him a wink.
The beefy pie man in the flour-dusted white chef’s tunic laughed.
“Now I know you’re shittin’ me. Time for a slice? On me? You look . . . hungry.”
“To go, okay? I gotta run.”
“Where ya headed?”
“Prison,” she said.
“That’s an even better one.” Sal nodded.
He went inside and shortly came out with a piping hot slice right out of the oven.
Lucy wanted to cry.
“Thank you, Sal,” she said, kissing him on the cheek in gratitude for the first time ever.
“Get outta here,” he said, semi-blushing.
Neighborhood people. She loved them the best. No pretense. No pressure. If it weren’t for Sal, she’d forget to eat half the time. She could actually count on him. Like Tony. They were nothing like Sebastian, but he was like them in the most important way. They were for real.
Lucy knew the Brooklyn House of Detention, the House of D, as the locals called it. She, on the other hand, had hoped to call it the “jail with retail,” the first urban brig to feature ground-floor storefronts. But it was not to be. It was an eleven-story eyesore at the intersection of Atlantic and Smith, towering over the brownstoned streets and alleys of the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. About the only accolade