if wallpaper was the only conversation opener she could think of at that moment, it was truly time to make good on her intentions to start getting out more.
Maybe it was the attorney with questionable phone etiquette? Or worse! The actual face of the faceless property investment firm? Sure it was early, but maybe these people needed the whole twenty-four hours in any given day to carry out their terrible, wallpaper-hating plans? She was absolutely not prepared to have this confrontation, not without a bra and a PowerPoint presentation about the mercenary nature of real estate trends.
Bra first, she told herself, reaching a hand toward the door handle before pausing again.
What if it’s not one of those two people?
She couldn’t really explain it, the feeling she had—the feeling that she shouldn’t go inside quite yet, the feeling that the person who’d slid open that door was someone she should meet.
Of course, there remained the problem of the early hour, and her lack of supporting undergarments, and also her apparently limited ideas for what she might actually say, so she decided that, at least for the time being, she’d try to make this meeting one-sided. Carefully, she set down her coffee on the small patio table beside her chair, and—grateful for the quiet of her bare feet against the wood and her long-honed awareness of which boards were likeliest to creak—silently stepped toward the railing, tucking herself into one of the empty spaces between her many potted plants.
And then she peeked over the edge, down and across to Donny’s balcony.
She saw him first as a dark outline, limned by the lights left on in the apartment, her perspective from above him giving her only an impression of his body—hands gripping the railing that jutted out slightly farther than her own; long arms spread wide, triangles of empty space between them and the lean waist that fanned out into a broad, curving back; head bowed low between the tense set of his shoulders.
It was like looking at a sculpture, a piece of art, something that took all of your attention. Something that insisted you stay right in the moment you were in, something that told you to memorize what you were seeing. She could’ve looked and looked. Until the sun came up. Until the golden hour was over for real.
But then, it hit her.
This was not the posture of a property man who needed a PowerPoint presentation.
This curved-back, bowed-head balcony lean was the posture of a man who was . . . grieving?
She sucked in a surprised breath and, too quickly, stepped away from her railing.
And knocked over one of her plants.
The sound of the terra-cotta hitting the wood, the sound of a clump of dirt scattering in its wake, the sound of the waxy leaves swishing in the trembling aftermath of their fall—all of it, Nora thought, sounded like the actual loudest noise that had ever been released in the entire history of the known universe.
She squeezed her eyes shut tight. She tried to make herself completely still, the way he had been. If she pulled it off, maybe the man on the balcony would think a rogue, third-floor-exclusive wind had knocked over the pot. Or some kind of critter? Yes, that made sense. A raccoon, or a particularly forceful sq—
“Hello?”
His voice was deep, but he spoke the word quietly, cautiously, and Nora supposed she could ignore it, keep on with the whole sculpture-posture idea until he went back inside. Later (with bra), she could go down and introduce herself, express her genuine condolences, and keep secret her nascent, selfish sense of hope that Donny may have done right by them after all.
It felt a little mean to ignore him, though, after she’d been spying and all, and also after she’d spent the past half hour being unjustifiably angry in the general direction of his recently deceased possible relative. A quick hello, then. An apology for disturbing him. No questions about his feelings regarding classic wall coverings.
She stepped back toward the railing, at the last second remembering to cross her arms over her chest.
This time, when she peeked over the edge, he was looking up at her.
He was tall; she could tell even from high above, and that was down to how well she knew this building, how every person in it looked in relation to its various structures—its railings, its overhangs, its doorways. Standing upright, his shoulders still looked broad, but overall, he seemed leaner to her outside of that