possible. I’m not promising February, but I am promising that I’ll work as hard as I’ve ever worked on anything to try and make good.” He looked around the table again. “I’m asking you to trust me.”
PART TWO
THE KISS
CHAPTER EIGHT
Paul Underwood ran his literary magazine, Paper Fibres, from a small warren of offices up a worn flight of stairs in a slightly sagging building that stood in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge. He’d bought the four-story brick front before the Dumbo section of Brooklyn became DUMBO, when the masses of migrating Manhattanites had been priced out of Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill but still had their hearts set on the aesthetically pristine, historically important, and relatively affordable brownstones of Park Slope or Fort Greene. He’d stumbled into the small wedge of a neighborhood one bright summer Saturday after walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. Leisurely heading north, he’d found himself wandering through the industrial blocks and admiring the streets of blue-gray Belgian bricks laid out in appealing patterns, threaded through with defunct trolley tracks. He’d noted with approval the absence of expensive clothing boutiques, high-priced coffee shops, restaurants with exposed brick and wood-burning ovens. Every fourth building seemed to be an auto body shop or some kind of appliance repair. He liked the vibe of the place; it reminded him of Soho back when Soho had energy and grit, a little theatrical menace. Down by the waterfront a sign indicated that the scrubby park populated with crack dealers and their customers was slated for expansion and renovation, and he noticed that the same developer had signs all over the neighborhood heralding the arrival of warehouse-to-condo conversions.
Standing on a corner of Plymouth Street that afternoon, in the waning days of the twentieth century, listening to the clank and rattle of truck beds as they rumbled over the approach to the Manhattan Bridge to his north, watching the sun illuminate the massive arches of the Brooklyn Bridge to the south, Paul Underwood saw his future: a For Sale placard on a seemingly abandoned corner building. At the top of the building’s reddish-brown façade he could make out the faded, white letters of a sign from the long-defunct business the dwelling once housed: PLYMOUTH PAPER FIBRES, INC. He took the sign as an omen. He bought the building the following week and started his literary journal, Paper Fibres, the following year.
Paul lived on the top floor of the building (two bedrooms, nicely renovated, meticulously furnished, spectacular views) directly above the Paper Fibres offices, which were crammed into the front half of the third floor. The back half of the third floor and the entire second floor housed two modest but increasingly lucrative rental apartments. At street level there was a lingerie store. La Rosa didn’t sell fancy lingerie, nothing lacy or push-up or see-through, but what Paul thought of as old-lady lingerie, matron underwear. Even the plastic torso mannequins in the windows looked uncomfortable, bound tightly with brassieres and girdles that resembled straitjackets with their rows of steel hooks, dangling elastic belts, and reinforced shoulder straps. Paul had no idea how they stayed in business, had never seen more than one customer in there at a time. He had his suspicions, but the rent check was on time every month so as far as he was concerned La Rosa could launder hosiery or money, or sell whatever they liked to the odd selection of male customers who usually left empty-handed.
Paul went to great pains to keep his home and work life separate. He never brought work “upstairs,” he never appeared in the Paper Fibres offices in what he thought of as civilian clothes, always dressing for the commute one quick flight down. Every morning he put on one of his exquisitely tailored suits and chose a bow tie from his vast collection. He believed the butterfly shape beneath his chin provided a necessary counterweight to his overly long face and inelegant hair, which was baby fine, mousy brown, and tended to stick out around his ears or at the crown.
“You can get away with colorful ties,” his ex-wife had told him, diplomatically referring to his rather unremarkable features—gray eyes that were more watery than striking, thin lips, a soft, almost puttylike nose. Paul never minded his ordinary looks. They lent a valuable invisibility in certain situations; he overheard things he wasn’t supposed to hear, people confided in him, errantly judging him harmless. (His looks didn’t always work in his favor. There was the