few days taking her out for more ice cream, for bike rides, for long walks. He takes her to a series of concerts put on by NYU’S Department of Music—the examination pieces and free recitals. Seizing her hand at key moments, he fumbles for words to describe his elation at certain passages. The satisfaction that comes in a sonata; hearing the recapitulation of the theme in the original key. He tries to relate it to rock music, for Ed’s sake.
“It’s like that moment when a drumbeat finally kicks in at the second chorus. Like in that Dove Suite song you love.”
Ed nods, noticing how when Jericho’s face is animated it bestows an unexpected unity on his strange features. And that his eyes are huge, brown reflecting pools of intelligence and sympathy.
“Maybe you should make up a word for it in Esperanto,” she says.
He frowns. “I can’t just do that, Feina. There are rules about those sorts of things.”
The music starts up again then, and when Ed is about to press her point, Jericho leans over in the creaking auditorium seat and whispers, “Okay, maybe. I’ll look into it.”
* * *
Fabbrini has been on edge all week because of a visit from the health inspector. Eight patrons have fallen ill with a mysterious illness following dinner at cipolla the Friday before. There is to be no end, it seems, to Fabbrini’s outrage over the matter.
“It’s a travesty, targeting us! Why didn’t everybody get sick, if it was the food? Why not the whole restaurant? Almost everyone ordered the zuppa, and one-third the osso buco.” He knocks a pile of folded napkins to the floor. “Dio mio!” Ed has noticed that Fabbrini has begun mixing more Italian phrases into his regular speech over the past month. His clientele seem to appreciate this extra touch of authenticity. “They can’t hold us responsible for the common cold and the promiscuity of our customers.”
It’s just like Fabbrini to impute the outbreak to some sort of post-prandial orgy among the afflicted. Behind him, Alondra picks up the jettisoned napkins and rolls her eyes at Ed, who struggles to suppress a smile.
“I think it’s a little worse than a cold, Mr. Fabbrini,” says Ed. From what she’s read in the newspaper, the eight individuals are being closely monitored by local health authorities after one of them was admitted to hospital for respiratory problems. She was disappointed the article didn’t mention anything about the restaurant. She gets a second-hand thrill from all the cipolla media coverage—just another instance of fame and fortune lurking around every corner of the city. Though she supposes in this case it wouldn’t be good for business.
“Whatever it is,” Fabbrini grumbles, “it wasn’t the osso buco.”
* * *
Ed is browsing at the campus bookstore after class when she overhears two women talking about Owen Grant. The remaining signed copies from the reading two months ago are facing out in a thick stack on the shelf across from where she’s standing.
“I’m telling you, he’s hot,” says a blonde in a pale, summery dress as she pulls out a copy of How to Avoid the Plague. She is carrying an enviable shoulder bag of soft, brown leather. “Have you ever seen him?”
“Oh yeah,” says the other, who looks Korean and sports a cat-print sweatshirt and dark-rimmed glasses. A funky nerd aesthetic. “In the flesh. He used to live in West Mass, like my sister.”
They flip to the author photo. “This guy. Brutally hot.”
“Well, I heard his wife left him three or four years ago,” says the funky nerd, with insider authority. “He didn’t want kids, so she had one on her own. Sperm donor.”
“Yikes. You think it was about the kid?” asks the blonde.
“Nah. I think she found out he’d slept with half the town. Even a bunch of people in her department.”
“God, that’s cold.”
“Yeah, my sister works at Lansdowne as an administrative assistant. She fooled around with him, too, actually.”
“What a dog.”
“And now he’s off the leash. I feel sorry for whoever dates him.”
* * *
—
Ed only has fifteen days left in the city, a realization that prompts her to create a spreadsheet of top New York activities compiled from over a dozen bookmarked websites. Then she spends the weekend working her way down the list, determined to visit at least some of the attractions alone. Ed fears that she has been seeing too much of Jericho in the past couple of weeks. She worries he has done something to her by giving