Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self Part 7

"We're in a car going back where you just came from to find a guy who's improving your credit by using your name illegally because we think somehow he might be a guy we didn't kill, and he might be as obsessed with us as we are with him, just because he's got like the second most common name in the world. That's That's ridiculous." ridiculous."

"Hey, that was your idea too," I said.

"It was your idea first. You just wouldn't have gone through with it."

As usual, I caved. Content, Liddie fell asleep for a while. Outside of Maryland I pulled over for a second, and she woke up and took over driving, which was maybe the fourth thing in the car rental contract that I'd violated. It was a little after nine when we pulled into the zoo's parking lot. I'd been trying for an hour to stay asleep in spite of the sun prying at my eyes. I was surprised the zoo was open that early, but Liddie seemed confident it would be, which was the first thing that convinced me she wasn't bulls.h.i.tting me about hanging out here in high school.

We went straight for the elephants, but even they seemed to know that it was a holiday and they didn't need to be awake yet. There were three of them, two adults and a baby. We watched them sleep for a while, and I tried to see something magical about it, but I didn't. I looked at the other early-morning zoo weirdos and tried to imagine what we looked like to them. There was a wan-looking art student with long blond hair, sketching the sleeping elephants on a giant pad. There was a man in uniform with a little girl on his shoulders. There was a teenager who looked like he was either homeless or that was how he wanted to look; eventually his cell phone rang and I figured it was the latter. There was a middle-aged woman in a nice coat that was too thin for the November weather. She reminded me of Gabi, though she was older and less pretty. Something about the calculated vulnerability of her shivering when she didn't have to.

None of the strangers seemed interested in me. The teenager checked out Liddie briefly but then went back to walking around in circles. One of the elephants got up eventually and wandered off where we couldn't see her. The other two kept sleeping.

"You're right," I said to Liddie. "They're fascinating."

"They are, are," Liddie insisted. "What do you think the sleeping one's dreaming about?"

"Peanuts," I said.

"Don't be a dumb-a.s.s," said Liddie. "I bet he's dreaming about his mother, who was killed by ivory poachers in front of him, and he's wishing he'd been big enough to trample the men and save her."

"I bet Mom and Dad are sorry they read you Babar Babar when you were a kid," I said. when you were a kid," I said.

"That wasn't Mom and Dad, that was you," she said. "I don't know why you were reading me that colonialist bulls.h.i.t anyway."

"Is that what this is about?" I joked. "That I raised you badly?"

"No," she said. "I think as long as you get raised, it can't count as badly."

I disagreed, but didn't say so.

We spent a few more hours at the zoo, just wandering around, looking at the stray people and occasional families. Around one we ate lunch at a downtown McDonald's. It was sad how crowded it was. There were paper turkey cutouts stuck to the windows. I ate two Big Macs while Liddie picked at her french fries and neglected to say anything about any of the ways McDonald's exploited people, which is how I knew she was getting antsy. Our mother called around two. I could hear the television in the background, the too-cheery voice of morning TV anchors. It was the Macy's parade, I realized; my mother must have taped it and was watching it again. It made me a little bit sad and a little bit angry. few more hours at the zoo, just wandering around, looking at the stray people and occasional families. Around one we ate lunch at a downtown McDonald's. It was sad how crowded it was. There were paper turkey cutouts stuck to the windows. I ate two Big Macs while Liddie picked at her french fries and neglected to say anything about any of the ways McDonald's exploited people, which is how I knew she was getting antsy. Our mother called around two. I could hear the television in the background, the too-cheery voice of morning TV anchors. It was the Macy's parade, I realized; my mother must have taped it and was watching it again. It made me a little bit sad and a little bit angry.

"How are you two doing?" she asked, in her voice straining to sound happy.

"Great," I said, "just great. We're cooking things now, in the common-room kitchen. The chicken smells wonderful."

This seemed to me the biggest lie of all, since we were still in McDonald's and everything smelled like grease and plastic.

"How are Liddie's studies coming?" Mom asked.

"Fantastic," I said. "Today she taught me about elephants."

"You haven't tried to talk her out of that nonsense?"

"I have never talked her out of anything. That's why she talks to me."

Liddie rolled her eyes at this and grabbed my cell phone.

"Mo-om," she said. "It's a holiday. We're festive. Can't we just stay festive?"

I could hear through the phone my mother trying to sound conciliatory, but I could see on Liddie's face that she could hear the taped parade in the background too. Her tone got softer and sadder when she said good-bye.

After she hung up, I got a milk shake and Liddie ordered some pitiful-looking granola without the yogurt. When we'd wasted all the time we could, we got back in the car and headed for Maryland, to the address I'd confirmed and written down before we left Cam-bridge. We were quiet, and ashamed of ourselves on many counts.

We found where we were going quickly. It really was right over the bridge. It was a garden apartment complex, everything low to the ground and in the same shade of dull red brick. There were already Christmas lights strung across some of the balconies, and there was music coming from several different parked cars: Nas on one side, something with the same ba.s.s in a different language on the other. I parked right in front of the building and turned off the engine. Liddie and I sat in the car like criminals preparing for a heist. I couldn't tell from the outside which of the apartments in the building might be Carlos's. We watched people come and go for a while, many of them carrying aluminum-covered dishes. A harried woman in a uniform rushed in, almost tripping over two kids playing with toy cars on the steps. A few feet from the front stoop a teenage couple kissed a pa.s.sionate good-bye, the boy's hands inching slowly down the girl's waist before she caught them with manicured pink fingertips and raised his grip back to safer territory.

A woman laughed loudly at the spectacle, her stilettos clicking against the ground as she walked. She walked confidently, her hips swinging, her hair tossing backward in soft curls. There was a baby in her arms; it bounced with the rhythm of her walking. Everything about her seemed musical. Beneath the apartment building's front awning, she paused, shifting the baby and fumbling for her keys. The orange light above her made her look alien, but still pretty. She turned and called behind her, "Carlos!"

At the other end of the sidewalk, two men obscured by shadows looked up at the sound of her voice. I looked in their direction, waiting to see who responded. Neither of them looked anything like the Carlos Aguilar in the picture we'd seen in the paper. He'd been much darker than either of the men I was looking at; his features, even as a kid, had been sharper. I watched the men carefully anyway. I wondered which of them would hug the woman, and which of them would hold the baby, and what the woman and the baby would smell like up close, feel like to touch. I wondered if either of the men had what he wanted, if either of them could have been me in another life.

"Let's go home," I said to Liddie, who was watching the woman intently.

"Yeah," she said.

I knew she'd understood me when I turned south toward Virginia, instead of north toward Boston, and she didn't register any surprise. She played with the car CD player until Mingus wailed sadly in the background. I stopped at a Chinese take-out place and ordered dinner. Walking back to the parking lot, with the warm bag of food in my arms, I saw Liddie sitting in the car, the sideways light of the setting sun making her scar glow. We were what we had in life, I thought, and I was not sad about it or apologetic for its corniness. We drove the last five minutes home, where both of our parents' cars were in the driveway but the blinds were drawn. I pictured my parents as I knew we'd find them, alone in the quickly darkening house, sitting next to each other on the couch and imagining everyone else's family while the television lied to them. I pictured them being lonely without us on one of the few days a year we were promised to them. Liddie and I got out of the car and stood on the front porch, bracing ourselves for the sound of the doorbell.

Jellyfish

The roof of William's Harlem apartment building fell in on a Wednesday, three weeks before he was due to renew his lease. Everyone seemed to think it was a sign of something. Janice in 2F thought the landlord caved the roof in on purpose, to chase out the last of the rent-controlled tenants. Ed, the eighty-something widower two flights down, thought it was an accident on the part of the city, something gone wrong while they were covertly practicing riot-control tactics. The kids next door pasted fliers around the block, claiming the damage was the result of a minor earthquake caused by global warming. Phil, the landlord, said it was a pipe bursting in the empty apartment beside William's, but in any case, when the wall went, it took the chunk of roof directly above William's living room with it, leaving a large pile of rubble atop the remnants of his gla.s.s coffee table and a thin film of white dust over all of his belongings. He barely had time to get home from the office and survey the damage before the city showed up and declared the whole building structurally unsound and an asbestos hazard. He was given forty-eight hours to take what he could and be elsewhere before they sealed most of his life behind yellow tape. After turning down Phil's offer of a temporary bas.e.m.e.nt apartment ten blocks uptown, William broke out his emergency credit card, relocated himself to a midtown hotel, and reluctantly called a broker about a new apartment.

"I don't know why you didn't move a long time ago," said his ex-wife, Debra, when he called to tell her about it. "It's a wonder it's only now falling down. That rat trap was only supposed to be temporary when you moved in twenty years ago."

"Twenty years ago, I was still under the impression that our marriage our marriage was was not not supposed to be temporary," he snapped back. "Besides, welcome to the new Harlem. I've lived here so long that everyone supposed to be temporary," he snapped back. "Besides, welcome to the new Harlem. I've lived here so long that everyone wants wants to live in my neighborhood again." to live in my neighborhood again."

"Not without roofs, they don't," said Debra, and after a week of stubborn resistance to everything the broker showed him, William was forced to concede the point.

Two weeks after her father's roof fell in, Eva woke up to the blaring alarm of her cell phone, reminding her of the lunch date she'd programmed into her phone a few days earlier. She blinked at a crack in the ceiling, momentarily worried that her own roof was caving in out of solidarity, before rubbing the sleep from her eyes. It was not her ceiling she was looking at, she realized. It was not her bed that she was in, and it hadn't been her apartment in over a year. Cheese was still asleep, and though it occurred to her to wake him so he wouldn't be late for his shift at the coffee shop, she tiptoed to the shower instead, hoping to be ready to leave by the time he woke up so they wouldn't have to talk about what she was doing there for the third time this week. After a few minutes of futilely turning the shower dials in search of heat or water pressure, Eva stumbled out smelling like another woman's grapefruit and lily soap. Her damp curls made her grateful, at least, that she hadn't bothered straightening her hair for her father's benefit. her father's roof fell in, Eva woke up to the blaring alarm of her cell phone, reminding her of the lunch date she'd programmed into her phone a few days earlier. She blinked at a crack in the ceiling, momentarily worried that her own roof was caving in out of solidarity, before rubbing the sleep from her eyes. It was not her ceiling she was looking at, she realized. It was not her bed that she was in, and it hadn't been her apartment in over a year. Cheese was still asleep, and though it occurred to her to wake him so he wouldn't be late for his shift at the coffee shop, she tiptoed to the shower instead, hoping to be ready to leave by the time he woke up so they wouldn't have to talk about what she was doing there for the third time this week. After a few minutes of futilely turning the shower dials in search of heat or water pressure, Eva stumbled out smelling like another woman's grapefruit and lily soap. Her damp curls made her grateful, at least, that she hadn't bothered straightening her hair for her father's benefit.

After fumbling through her backpack for something that wasn't dirty, flecked with clay from her studio, or otherwise likely to offend her father, she gave up. Eva started on Cheese's wardrobe, looking for something that didn't scream that she'd spent the night at her ex-boyfriend's apartment. When that didn't work, she reminded herself that Cheese's current girlfriend was in another state, ostensibly working up the energy to break up with him, and went through what was left on the girlfriend's side of the closet, finally finding a b.u.t.ton-down dress that was clean and high-collared and respectable. She noted, with equal parts contempt and admiration, that Cheese's latest girlfriend was the sort of girl who ironed and kept things creased where they were supposed to be. She noted also, while b.u.t.toning, how easily the dress slipped over her hips. There had been a note of genuine concern in Cheese's voice when he pointed out how thin she'd gotten and asked her if she was still eating OK. She told him that she was, a mostly honest answer: she was eating less lately only because living alone made the awkwardness of keeping to regular mealtimes almost unbearable. The soft worry of his voice when he'd asked was at odds with the present. Cheese, now awake, was demanding to know why Eva was wearing Kate's dress.

"Oh, come on," she said, turning around to stare pointedly at his bare chest above the white bedsheet, the faint red tooth marks she'd left beneath his collarbone last night.

"You can't take her dress," he said.

"I'm not taking it, I'm borrowing. And I'm running late. You can yell at me later."

"Is there going to be a later?" he asked. He climbed out of bed, stopping to pick up the armful of bangle bracelets she'd left on the nightstand and hand them to her. "And what are you in such a hurry for, anyway? I thought you said your dad was always late."

It was true, she had said that. Her father was never where he said he'd be when he said he'd be there. When she was small, she would wait on her mother's kitchen windowsill for hours on visiting days, nose pressed against the gla.s.s. Her mother would linger in the kitchen looking disapproving, reminding her that it could be hours. It was before everyone carried a cell phone and was always and every minute reachable, and even now Eva hesitated to call her father when she couldn't find him. She preferred when he materialized without preface. Back then she'd leave the windowsill before he arrived, partly out of embarra.s.sment and partly because she knew it would make him sad to see her there, waiting. Once she'd curled up in the window and slept there, intent upon looking pitiful when he arrived, a day later than he had said. When the yellow cab pulled up the next morning, she watched her father exiting the car, saw the genuine smile on his face as he approached the house, and abandoned the operation. She told Cheese this story while she pulled her hair back into some semblance of order and dabbed herself with the perfume vial in her purse, noting that it clashed with the lingering lily scent of soap.

"You sound like me the week after you left me the first time," said Cheese. "I thought every woman walking beneath the window was you."

"Well," said Eva. "Here I am."

"You are," said Cheese. "And I'm sure your father will be there on time today. You said he really wanted to see you, right?"

The worried tone of his question made her want to kiss him, and then to laugh at him, but mostly it made her want to call Maya, the woman for whom she'd left him. It had been two weeks since she'd gotten the last of her belongings from the apartment she and Maya had shared, and they hadn't spoken since. Cheese's tolerance exhausted Eva sometimes. She knew Maya would tell her when she was full of s.h.i.t. Avoiding confrontation because you'd rather take s.h.i.t than deal with it doesn't make you a martyr, Avoiding confrontation because you'd rather take s.h.i.t than deal with it doesn't make you a martyr, Maya had said to her once, and probably would have said to her again if Eva had tried that windowsill story on her. But Eva didn't bother trying to explain her childhood to Maya; it hadn't been happy exactly, but it hadn't been sad in any way Maya would have understood. On Maya's scale of childhood tragedy, Eva didn't register. Maya had said to her once, and probably would have said to her again if Eva had tried that windowsill story on her. But Eva didn't bother trying to explain her childhood to Maya; it hadn't been happy exactly, but it hadn't been sad in any way Maya would have understood. On Maya's scale of childhood tragedy, Eva didn't register.

Usually, Eva thought of herself as a good person. She stayed up at night worrying about the human condition in vague and specific incarnations. She made herself available to the people whom she loved, and some whom she didn't. She gave money to every other homeless person and stopped to let stray kids remind her how much Jesus and the Hare Krishnas loved her, more for the benefit of their souls than hers. Still, she wondered sometimes if it wasn't all pretense-if, when she shut her eyes and wished rest.i.tution upon the whole wounded parade of humanity, she wasn't really wishing away the world that created war and illness so that she might have a world in which there was room to feel sorry for herself. Every day she felt herself losing things it was unacceptable to mourn.

William was uptown, arguing with Phil about a blender. William had known Phil since moving back to the city in the eighties. Back then, his had been the only building Phil owned, and Phil had lived downstairs and done most of the maintenance himself, but the rapidly rising rents over the past decade, the slick face-lift of 125th Street, and the influx of people no longer scared to live north of it, had made it possible for Phil to expand his operations. He now owned a few older buildings on Convent Avenue, and one on St. Nick; he had moved himself to a brownstone and grown a belly, now that he no longer climbed the stairs to respond to tenants' complaints. William liked Phil, always had. After all those times going to see an available apartment, only to be told the second the owner saw his face that it was suddenly rented, it had been a relief to have a black landlord. Over the years, he and Phil had developed a friendly rapport, met for a drink from time to time even after Phil moved. But now, as Phil stubbornly refused to let him back into the old building to get the blender he'd left unopened in a box in a closet, William was reminded of what Phil had said about the black contractor who'd ripped him off once: arguing with Phil about a blender. William had known Phil since moving back to the city in the eighties. Back then, his had been the only building Phil owned, and Phil had lived downstairs and done most of the maintenance himself, but the rapidly rising rents over the past decade, the slick face-lift of 125th Street, and the influx of people no longer scared to live north of it, had made it possible for Phil to expand his operations. He now owned a few older buildings on Convent Avenue, and one on St. Nick; he had moved himself to a brownstone and grown a belly, now that he no longer climbed the stairs to respond to tenants' complaints. William liked Phil, always had. After all those times going to see an available apartment, only to be told the second the owner saw his face that it was suddenly rented, it had been a relief to have a black landlord. Over the years, he and Phil had developed a friendly rapport, met for a drink from time to time even after Phil moved. But now, as Phil stubbornly refused to let him back into the old building to get the blender he'd left unopened in a box in a closet, William was reminded of what Phil had said about the black contractor who'd ripped him off once: Used to be you could at least count on your own people. Used to be you could at least count on your own people.

"I understand," Phil was saying, which of course he did not. "I'd let you in if I could, but it's not up to me. Right now, the city says, Jump, Jump, I say, I say, How high? How high? And the city says, And the city says, n.o.body goes into that building, and n.o.body takes anything out, n.o.body goes into that building, and n.o.body takes anything out, and I don't take that padlock off the door. Structurally unsound. Breathing hazard. You name it. I start handing out keys because people want to get in and get stuff, next thing you know, the rest of the roof's collapsing or people are squatting in their old apartments, and then the city's shutting down everything else I own." and I don't take that padlock off the door. Structurally unsound. Breathing hazard. You name it. I start handing out keys because people want to get in and get stuff, next thing you know, the rest of the roof's collapsing or people are squatting in their old apartments, and then the city's shutting down everything else I own."

"Phil," William said, "that's nonsense. You know I'm not moving in. What I just paid for the deposit on my new place, they'll have to bury me there. I just want my stuff. Just the little stuff. I'm late for lunch with my daughter.

"I forgot you had a daughter," said Phil. "I remember her now. Pretty girl."

Eva had not been running late for lunch, so much as running away from Cheese. She knew her father would be at least twenty minutes late, but her arrival at the restaurant fifteen minutes early gave her time to order a gin and tonic. The waiter was young and aggressively charming. Eva asked for extra lemon for her water; he brought her a dish of lemons, and a fresh mint leaf, along with her drink. He hovered. Eva envied his eyelashes. It was not quite lunchtime, and the restaurant was quiet and near empty. It had been a favorite of her father's when he worked nearby, before he'd left his job at the downtown EEOC office for work with a private firm. It would have been easier to meet in midtown, but even after winning several big cases her father didn't seem quite comfortable in his new office, with its smooth burgundy leather and gold-plated doors. He'd liked it better downtown. He used to bring her to this restaurant on visiting days. Eva remembered tapping her Mary Janes against the hardwood floor, getting free Shirley Temples from the old owner. The name of the place was the same now, but the menu had changed from solidly Greek to vaguely Mediterranean, and when Eva asked the waiter how the old owner was doing, he seemed apologetically confused by the fact that the restaurant had ever been anything different. been running late for lunch, so much as running away from Cheese. She knew her father would be at least twenty minutes late, but her arrival at the restaurant fifteen minutes early gave her time to order a gin and tonic. The waiter was young and aggressively charming. Eva asked for extra lemon for her water; he brought her a dish of lemons, and a fresh mint leaf, along with her drink. He hovered. Eva envied his eyelashes. It was not quite lunchtime, and the restaurant was quiet and near empty. It had been a favorite of her father's when he worked nearby, before he'd left his job at the downtown EEOC office for work with a private firm. It would have been easier to meet in midtown, but even after winning several big cases her father didn't seem quite comfortable in his new office, with its smooth burgundy leather and gold-plated doors. He'd liked it better downtown. He used to bring her to this restaurant on visiting days. Eva remembered tapping her Mary Janes against the hardwood floor, getting free Shirley Temples from the old owner. The name of the place was the same now, but the menu had changed from solidly Greek to vaguely Mediterranean, and when Eva asked the waiter how the old owner was doing, he seemed apologetically confused by the fact that the restaurant had ever been anything different.

As he walked away, Eva emptied the contents of a sugar packet onto her teaspoon and swallowed. She a.s.sumed this was only rude when someone was watching. Her father was not watching, because he was, according to her intuition and the metallic clock on the wall, still a good fifteen minutes away. She sipped her drink and studied the salad page. A woman in heels walked into the restaurant. Click, click, click Click, click, click. The sound of her reminded Eva of Maya, who thought herself short and wore heels even in her own apartment. Maya, whose steps had a perfectly measured rhythm to them. That was what Eva had first noticed when they'd met in the bookstore: the sound of her walking. Maya was brilliant, had a dot-shaped birthmark in the center of her forehead, and was one of the few people Eva knew who still believed in anything, but Eva would have loved her on the basis of sound alone. She instinctively looked up from her table when the woman entered, but only the sound of her was familiar. This woman was skinny and mousy, where Maya was all curve and bravado. The woman sat at the bar and whispered something to the bartender, who seemed to know her. There was a television at the bar, tuned to CNN. A man in a lab coat stood over a kitten, who chased the string he dangled. The kitten was calico and unnaturally small. Eva squinted at the caption.

"Pretty soon they'll be cloning us," the waiter said, while refilling Eva's water gla.s.s.

"Well, that's a shame," said Eva. "It's dying."

She did not know this to be true. She remembered reading something about sheep dying. Cloned cells were as old as the parent cells they'd come from. But she had read this in college, some years ago, and it was possible that things had changed since then. Progressed. She watched the kitten swatting at its toy, and bit into a piece of warm bread. Run, d.a.m.n you, Run, d.a.m.n you, Eva thought. The kitten kept swatting at the string. The newsmen pretended to be awed. Eva winked at the waiter and asked for another drink. He nodded, taking the opportunity to glance down her dress. Eva thought. The kitten kept swatting at the string. The newsmen pretended to be awed. Eva winked at the waiter and asked for another drink. He nodded, taking the opportunity to glance down her dress.

The blender is not just a blender. It cuts and dices and purees. Eva liked to cook, William had thought when he bought it. When she visited him, which she hadn't recently, she opened his refrigerator and looked disappointed to find it full of take-out cartons. She'd walk him to the downtown grocery, though left to his own devices, if he shopped at all, it would be right down the block at C-Town, the fluorescent light and big red discount signs less disorienting than the cramped aisles, dark lighting, and six-dollar heads of lettuce at the store Eva preferred. She'd make him buy food for himself, remind him that it had been a long time since he couldn't afford to eat better. By the time she'd finished filling baskets with dried pasta and fresh vegetables and jars of floating artichokes, they had so much food they had to take a cab back, food it took him months to entirely dispense with. not just a blender. It cuts and dices and purees. Eva liked to cook, William had thought when he bought it. When she visited him, which she hadn't recently, she opened his refrigerator and looked disappointed to find it full of take-out cartons. She'd walk him to the downtown grocery, though left to his own devices, if he shopped at all, it would be right down the block at C-Town, the fluorescent light and big red discount signs less disorienting than the cramped aisles, dark lighting, and six-dollar heads of lettuce at the store Eva preferred. She'd make him buy food for himself, remind him that it had been a long time since he couldn't afford to eat better. By the time she'd finished filling baskets with dried pasta and fresh vegetables and jars of floating artichokes, they had so much food they had to take a cab back, food it took him months to entirely dispense with.

Back at his apartment, she'd make elaborate salads and stir-fried vegetables and pasta that always seemed to him a touch undercooked. She 'd cut vegetables into thin slivers and squirt them with fresh lemon and tahini. It was watching her cut that made him think of the blender a few months ago. He'd searched for the right one online, evaluating the photos and a.s.sorted specifics of blender after blender the way you might compare real estate or personal ads. It would make her life easier. Maybe she would cook at her apartment and think of him while pureeing soup. She would pick up the phone and invite him for dinner. He'd imagined arriving just in time for dinner, finding the table set with her mismatched and brightly colored dishes. He'd imagined eating salads with perfectly julienned carrots.

Thinking it through, though, even if Phil let him in, he should probably leave the blender. Contamination, and all that. Besides, Eva was the type to dwell on things: she'd look at the blender and start talking about the old apartment, or gentrification, or the way they were all slowly dying of chemical poisoning. She'd never cook with it. She'd put it in a closet, or she'd take it to her studio and mount it on one of her sculptures, fence it in with chicken wire. Better that he just buy her another and hope she didn't remember it was a replacement for the first one he'd promised her. Besides, he'd be buying himself a whole new set of kitchen supplies anyway; if Eva would come to stay with him for a bit, she wouldn't need her own. He'd make sure she had everything she wanted; the kitchen in the new place was small, but sunny, and he'd let her pick what it was she needed. Better that he wait to see what she said this afternoon before he gave her one more thing to cart to Brooklyn.

The waiter returned with Eva's second drink. Her father had told her this was a celebratory lunch, she reasoned, though he hadn't said what it was a celebration for. Eva was still watching the television, but between the volume on low and the woman at the bar tipsy and giggling, she couldn't hear a word. The president was mouthing something from behind a podium, and she supposed she didn't care. with Eva's second drink. Her father had told her this was a celebratory lunch, she reasoned, though he hadn't said what it was a celebration for. Eva was still watching the television, but between the volume on low and the woman at the bar tipsy and giggling, she couldn't hear a word. The president was mouthing something from behind a podium, and she supposed she didn't care.

"What happened to our kitten?" the waiter asked.

"d.i.c.k Cheney ate him," said Eva.

The waiter laughed.

"Are you still waiting to order?" He nodded toward the empty chair.

Eva blushed, realizing she looked for all the world like a woman being stood up for a lunch date. It had been so many years since Eva had been without at least one lover on call that she was surprised by how quickly awkwardness could come back to her. Now she had the sense again that anyone could just by looking at her see that she did not belong to anyone, anywhere. Until the last few years of her life, when she'd gone flinging herself from lover to lover like a pinball, she'd considered her not-belonging a badge of honor rather than a source of shame. It had been the rallying cry of her motley crew of high school friends-Kim, the purple-haired girl in tortoisesh.e.l.l gla.s.ses and leopard-print leggings; Lenny, who'd known he was gay before most of them knew the word as anything but an all-purpose pejorative; Irene, the only other black girl in her suburban private school cla.s.s-they'd sit together at lunch and watch the petty dramas of their cla.s.smates and say out loud, Who wants that? Who wants those people, anyway? Who wants that? Who wants those people, anyway? But high school had turned into college and then the handful of years afterward-Kim was living in Cameroon with the Peace Corps; Lenny was a lawyer in San Francisco; and Irene was busy playing Gallant to Eva's Goofus in their parents' black professional circles-working for an investment bank, appearing regularly at AKA charity events in designer suits, her doctor fiance at her side. But high school had turned into college and then the handful of years afterward-Kim was living in Cameroon with the Peace Corps; Lenny was a lawyer in San Francisco; and Irene was busy playing Gallant to Eva's Goofus in their parents' black professional circles-working for an investment bank, appearing regularly at AKA charity events in designer suits, her doctor fiance at her side.

While all the others had turned into more self-possessed versions of themselves, Eva felt further than ever from her old self. Where once she'd taken her self-sufficiency for granted, somewhere in a dizzying string of morning afters she had started to feel her aloneness was a mark of incompletion, faintly spreading.

"I'm waiting for my father," Eva said to the waiter, who seemed ready to s.n.a.t.c.h away the second menu. "He'll be here. He'll be late, but he turns up eventually."

She pulled out her cell phone and feigned a search for a text message; the waiter wandered off and left her to her pretense of human interaction.

"Phil," said William, "I lived in that apartment for twenty years. I grew up in the Bronx. If breathing debris hasn't killed me yet, it won't, ever. Explain to me why the city that still hasn't gotten all the asbestos out of its own d.a.m.n public housing and rents the Bronx out for landfill s.p.a.ce is suddenly so concerned about my lungs." "I lived in that apartment for twenty years. I grew up in the Bronx. If breathing debris hasn't killed me yet, it won't, ever. Explain to me why the city that still hasn't gotten all the asbestos out of its own d.a.m.n public housing and rents the Bronx out for landfill s.p.a.ce is suddenly so concerned about my lungs."

"I'm not the city," said Phil. "Explaining is not my job. You really just want a few photographs?"

"That's all," said William.

Phil motioned him down the block, and they began the short walk from Phil's place to the old building. They cut through the City College campus, and when they got to the other side, Phil stopped for a coffee at the corner store and, while stirring three sugars into it, said with his back to William, "Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"This irreplaceable stuff you need me to open the building so badly so you can get-why didn't you take it with you when they told everybody to get what they were going to get and get out?"

William didn't answer until they were halfway down the block. He considered pretending he hadn't heard the question. Finally he let out a breath and said, "The truth is, I forgot it was there."

William told himself that forgetting something didn't mean you'd forgotten the person a.s.sociated with it. His own mother, he reminded himself, never could keep up with photographs, wouldn't have expected a drawing to last a week in a two-bedroom apartment with four kids in it, let alone tried to keep it for twenty years. But then, there were four of them, and she had two thirty-hour-a-week jobs, and still she checked in with them every night, still he remembered the cocoa-b.u.t.ter smell of her kissing him good night, and still he sensed that if something had been the only reminder of how things used to be, she never would have forgotten it-not even during all those trash-bag moves from place to place before they got settled. Yet, he couldn't remember to take one box in a closet.

Phil cleared his throat; they were standing in front of the old apartment. Phil looked over his shoulder, as if any one of the kids on the steps across the street might be an undercover city housing operative, then released the chain and padlock from the door and stepped aside.

"I'm waiting for you for fifteen minutes," he said. "Something falls on your head and knocks you out, I'm telling the cops you're a fool and I don't know you."

William walked up the creaky staircase to the third floor, fast for the first two levels, then wondered if one shouldn't walk gingerly in a building people kept threatening was going to fall. He went straight for the closet, left the blender in spite of himself, and pulled out the box in the back of the closet. Most of the things in the box used to be in his office, but when he'd moved up in the world-literally up-he'd brought the box home, instead of to the new place. In his new office, he had only two pictures of Eva, including the most recent picture she had given him: her in a park somewhere, smiling at he probably didn't even want to know who, the streaks in her hair a shade of fluorescent red like the color of the lighted trim on an old jukebox.

But the old boxes, they were full of pictures of his daughter the way he remembered her. Debra had sent him one for every school year, plus one for every recital, plus an annual Christmas picture taken on the steps of the church Eva had refused to attend once she turned sixteen. Debra had mailed them meticulously to everyone at the holidays, letting Eva cut the wallet-sized photos along their white lines by herself (he could see the jagged edges on the early photos). He wanted to display these things again, he thought, to display them where Eva could see them.

From just after the divorce until Eva was a teenager, Debra had dropped her off one Friday afternoon each month, spent the weekend with friends in the city, and come to collect her Sunday morning. William still had seven years' worth of those Friday-afternoon visits stored up in the box. Fridays must have been art days at school; he had all sorts of odd ceramic and papier-mache animals, though he suspected he had only the ugly ones, the ones that Debra didn't want. Dogs without legs and the like. He was more fond of the paper: years' worth of elaborate abstract drawings Eva made by coloring over interoffice memos in red, black, and blue pen, the scribbled-on pages she had ripped out of coloring books and left with him.

He pulled out one crinkled page from the corner of the box where it had been jammed. It was from the year of the self-esteem books, the year after he'd showed up for Eva's eighth-birthday party and found that the guests were all eleven-year-olds. Debra swore she'd get to the bottom of it, and indeed she had. Eva, it seemed, had begun spending lunch and recess with the fifth-graders, after the third-grade bully called her a n.i.g.g.e.r and told her she couldn't sit at the lunch table. William, we have to do something about this William, we have to do something about this, Debra had said. Her first solution was to take an early lunch hour and accompany Eva to the cafeteria every day, a plan that Eva had promptly vetoed. Next she swore they were moving. Where, Where, William had asked, William had asked, to another planet? to another planet?

In the end, Debra had purchased a year's worth of coloring books with names like I am Beautiful I am Beautiful and and Why I Love Myself Why I Love Myself, the idea being that Eva could learn to be her own champion. He had tried to talk to Eva about all of it once, but all she would say was that she wished her mother hadn't told the lunch monitors what was going on, because she liked the fifth-graders better. She had given him that page, the page she was coloring at the time. It began: I am special because . . . I am special because . . . and had lines, presumably for listing the conditions of one's specialness and had lines, presumably for listing the conditions of one's specialness . . Eva had ignored the lines and finished the sentence: Eva had ignored the lines and finished the sentence: I am just special. I am special because I am just special. I am just special. I am special because I am just special. There was Eva, he thought, not unkindly. There was Eva, and what did you do with a girl like that? William collected himself, sealed the box as best he could, then went downstairs to a.s.sure Phil he was uninjured, and hail the first cab going downtown. There was Eva, he thought, not unkindly. There was Eva, and what did you do with a girl like that? William collected himself, sealed the box as best he could, then went downstairs to a.s.sure Phil he was uninjured, and hail the first cab going downtown.

Eva heard the door jingle as her father walked into the restaurant. She took a sip of water so that he wouldn't smell her breath and know that she'd been drinking. She wasn't sure why she got that way around him, guilty about things she had no reason to be ashamed of, but that was how it was. door jingle as her father walked into the restaurant. She took a sip of water so that he wouldn't smell her breath and know that she'd been drinking. She wasn't sure why she got that way around him, guilty about things she had no reason to be ashamed of, but that was how it was.

"h.e.l.lo, beautiful," he said, kissing the top of her head and sitting across from her.

She smiled across the table, then looked curiously at the box he had set down beside them. She had long ceased to be amazed by her father's lateness, but admired that his reasons were always surprising, involving some unsuspected feat he had undertaken while most of the late people in the world were missing trains or sleeping through alarms.

"What's in the box, Daddy?"

"In this box," he said grinning, "are the fruits of a morning's labor." He told the story of his morning uptown.

"Poor Phil," said Eva. "Bad enough his building got condemned, now he'll have nightmares about ceramic animals living in it."

"It was me the building almost fell down on," her father said. "Don't go feeling too sorry for Phil."

"I'm sorry, Daddy. Is everything OK? Mom said they weren't going to let you get all of your things back."

"Your mother knows better than to think I'd give up that easy. Like I was going to leave all this for the city to burn?" He reached into the box and pulled out the first solid object, a framed picture of Eva after a tap recital. Her hair was teased into glossy curls, and she was wearing the kind of stage makeup that makes children look garish up close.

"I'm going to put these up in the new-"

"G.o.d," said Eva, staring at the photo, "I look like JonBenet Ramsey."