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To my right is a brick wall, the soot of a century making the red of the bricks nearly black in places.
To my left is an ornate wall, thick with a hundred coats of paint. Soaring just above that is a bistro window. People up there are cozy with coffee and pastries and papers. If I stood up, I’d be level with their shoes.
But I’m down here. Vonda.
I try to think what to do, glad they can’t see me. Glad nobody can see me. I make myself small, wanting the world to just go away.
They know.
By now Henry knows. Brett probably followed him and told him.
I hug my knees, chin on my right kneecap. Denny’ll blab. People will find out now. I try to think of some way to stay Vicky, to stay in the city, but the danger of Mom taking Carly back is too much. God, she’d find a way to extort the entire company, using Carly as leverage. And all the publicity.
Legs block my view of the street. Slacks. “Vicky.”
My blood races.
“Leave me,” I say.
“Not likely.” He sits on the stoop next to me. “What happened?”
“You don’t know?” I don’t give him a chance to answer. “I just want to be alone.”
“Can I be alone with you?”
I want to cry, because it’s so Henry to say that.
“You know.”
“Know what?”
“They didn’t fill you in?”
“Baby, I just ran halfway down a skyscraper stairwell until I could get an elevator and then down two crowded blocks, pissing off about five dozen bumbling pedestrians trying to find you. I’ve been a little busy.”
“How’d you know I’d go this way?”
“Who cares? What’s going on?” His phone is going crazy. “That Denny guy back there. What was that?”
I shake my head. Everything feels so enormous.
More ringtones.
He pulls it out of his pocket. “Calls from the tower. Probably Brett. What happens when I answer? I’ve had him blocked all weekend. What happens when I unblock him? What am I going to see?”
I take his phone from his hands. “Uh,” I say, pressing the cool, smooth screen to my forehead.
He waits. I’m trying not to cry.
“Well, that answers that,” he says. “A forehead print. That’s what I’ll see.”
I shake my head. “No joke,” I whisper.
He puts his arm around me, pulls me into his warmth. His protection. I have this thought that everything from here on in is a stolen moment. I guess they all were.
“What’s going on?”
“I didn’t want you to know. I thought you’d never know.”
