the counselor had said. “Things?” Orla had repeated.)
The nurse held the wheel up to her glasses and said, “Eleven weeks. Almost three months along already. You’re due Christmas Day!”
Orla raised her hand, as if she was in class, and said, “Is eleven weeks too late to...?”
The nurse looked at her. She took off her glasses and rubbed them on the hem of her scrubs. “No,” she said. “No, you have time. I can—” She rummaged in a drawer and found another handout. She pushed it across the desk: a single sheet, sober black and white. “There you go. Some resources.”
Orla nodded and stood to go. She gathered all the papers. “You don’t need to take the rest of those, if,” the nurse said. Orla put them back down.
Across the subway car on the way home, Mrs. Salgado looked like she was curious about where they had just been. They walked in tandem back to the building. Orla, so dazed she forgot to be afraid of the woman following her, let her eyes meet Anna’s mother’s as she reached to open the door. “See you later,” she murmured.
Mrs. Salgado nodded and spoke to her for the first time, her Staten Island accent filing down the r in Orla’s name. “Goodbye, Orla,” she said.
* * *
The sun had just set on the night before Orla’s abortion when Floss burst into her room, rattling the partition, and said, “Look at this shit.” She held up her phone.
Together, on Orla’s bed, they watched Aston crying live to an audience of millions. He was sitting on a small rug somewhere, staring straight into a mounted camera. “Spent every penny I had on this place,” he was saying. “In memory of Anna. I mean, it’s true I need somewhere to live for a while. It’s true that me and the Bowery Hotel...parted ways. But I’m not gonna live here for long. I’m gonna give this place to Anna’s family. They could live here. They could sell it. They could come for vacation and shit, I dunno.” Aston chewed on his lip. “I haven’t heard back from them. I guess they hate my guts right now.” Aston got up and disappeared for a moment. The camera wobbled, then panned around the apartment. Orla held the screen closer to her face. The apartment was empty except for dozens—no, hundreds—of burning candles, sitting right on the floor, wax pooling and rolling down them. Beyond the flames, Orla could see the jagged outlines of a breathtaking Midtown view.
“He bought a place at One Fifty-Seven,” Floss said dryly, reading Orla’s mind. “He has lost it.” Orla knew the building. It was a bratty new fixture on the skyline, crystal clear and built to dizzy heights over Central Park.
Aston sat back down in front of the camera. He glared into it. “You see that?” he said. “A candle for every one of you assholes who liked the comment about Anna killing herself.” His voice began to wobble. “Two hundred and eight. Monsters.” He tore his shirt off and flung it out of frame, pulled his knees up to his chest, and sobbed.
Abruptly, Floss forced the phone down to Orla’s comforter. “I can’t be here right now,” she said. And Orla, who had been torturing herself by wondering if the quakes in her stomach were the work of a desperate fetus, sending up flares, felt the same. When Floss headed for the door without mentioning where she was going, Orla got up and went with her.
* * *
They ended up at the rooftop bar where they used to eat brunch before they knew better. They sat at their old table in their new Yankees caps—Floss had one, too, it turned out, though she wouldn’t pull it down as Melissa had instructed. They ordered drinks from the same waiter who had seethed on the day that they sat there forever, then skipped out on the check.
“He doesn’t remember us,” Orla said, after the man took their orders with a smile.
“He doesn’t recognize us, either,” Floss said. “But they do. These hats don’t do shit.” She nodded at a group of good-looking Middle Eastern guys. The tallest one was pointing out Floss and Orla to a bachelorette party of Southern blondes. Orla heard one of the girls’ voices trailing toward them across the banquettes. “You wouldn’t think they’d be out,” she said. “They’re, like, villains now, right?”
The waiter returned with their drinks, and Floss held hers up. “To being a villain, I guess,” she said