“No, I won’t make you skydive, but riding the Underground, and taking elevators, and flying I will make you do. That’s all part of a life you want, isn’t it, Kate?”
She’d been right, of course. Life was full of tight places and sealed exits. She’d learn to deal with them.
Kate left the apartment, locking the door behind her. She slowed as she passed the missing girl’s door, listening for any sounds, but there weren’t any. She took the stairs down to the lobby, passed the doorman, and walked straight out into the courtyard. The sky was gray and scalloped, the light so much like dusk that Kate had an alarmed moment when she wondered if she’d slept through the entire day. A waft of cigarette smoke reached her nostrils. Kate had quit smoking after university, but she still loved the smell. She looked for the source and saw a man perched on the edge of the courtyard’s central fountain. He was rubbing the cigarette out on a flagstone. Kate was walking past him as he began to stand.
“Sorry,” he said, indicating the snuffed-out cigarette in his fingers.
“I don’t mind,” Kate said, stopping and looking at him. He was thin, verging on gaunt, but with wide shoulders. His narrow face was dominated by a large, crooked nose. His eyes were grayish-green and deeply sunken, and his skin was lightly pocked with ancient acne. He should have been ugly, but he wasn’t. All his outsized features combined into a sad and handsome face.
“I actually don’t smoke. I’ve quit. But then I found this one cigarette in my drawer and figured I’d smoke it, just to remind myself how awful it is.”
His voice was deep and friendly, and Kate, jet-lagged and still confused about the time of day, felt a ruffle of weakness in her legs. “Was it awful?” she asked.
“No, of course not. It was great.”
“Smoking’s great,” Kate said. Why were they speaking like old friends? Was this how people spoke with strangers in America?
“You smoke?”
“I did. I quit. It wasn’t easy.”
“How’d you do it?”
“By not smoking.”
The man laughed. His teeth were alarmingly white, the top ones straight and the bottom ones slightly overlapping. “I’m Alan Cherney.”
“I’m Kate. I’m living here, temporarily.” She was shy suddenly, and didn’t provide her last name.
“You’re English?” he asked.
“I am. I’m staying at my cousin’s apartment, here, and he’s staying at my flat in London.”
“Which apartment is it?” Alan Cherney’s eyes scanned the building.
Kate bobbed her head in the direction of her wing. “Uh, Corbin Dell’s place. Up there.”
“Ah, north wing. I’m on the other side, third floor. I know Corbin. A little.”
“You know him better than I know him. We’ve never met.”
“That’s funny,” Alan said. “How’d that come about?”
Kate told him the story, omitting the fact that the trip for Kate was at least partly inspired by her need to overcome the past traumas of her life.
“Well, you got a good deal,” Alan said. “These are pretty nice apartments.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Just over a year. I moved in with a girlfriend—a rich girlfriend—and she moved out, and I can’t really afford it anymore, so I need to start thinking about finding a new place.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Sorry about what?” he said. “Sorry I lost my girlfriend, or sorry I’m going to have to move out?”
Kate laughed. “I don’t know. Sorry about both.”
He smirked and said: “Sorry you used to have a rich girlfriend and a beautiful apartment, and next month you’ll be alone in some hovel.”
“Something like that.”
A gust of wind peeled a sodden yellow leaf off the brick courtyard and plastered it on Kate’s boot. She bent over to pick it off. When she stood, there was a moment of silence, and Kate realized she’d been talking with this stranger for close to fifteen minutes.
“Well,” she said, but didn’t continue. Her eyes skidded off his, and she felt the prickle of a blush suffusing her cheeks. For one brief, terrifying moment she knew that if he’d asked, she’d have followed him straight up to his apartment and into his bed. He was handsome, yes, even with the large, crooked nose, but she’d have followed him because it felt as though they had known each other for years.
“You need to go,” he said, speaking her thought out loud.
“Yes.” And then they both laughed.
“I’m in apartment 3L,” he said. “I’m not leaving anytime soon. We’ll see each other.”
“Okay,” Kate said.
She started to move away, then stopped. “Do you know a woman named