Fact or Fiction?
“So you have a key?” I asked him and he promised he’d show me someday. I wasn’t sure if I could trust him. An hour earlier, when he called and said he’d do anything to make it up to me, I hadn’t trusted him to travel uptown, kneel below my window and beg for my forgiveness. But here he was, sitting with me under my umbrella on the edge of a sidewalk garden across the street from my apartment.
Maybe it was the rain. The combination of his dedication and romance. Maybe I was cold. But soon I trusted him enough to sit across from him on my bed. A few weeks later, sitting across from him on his bed, I was embarrassed I’d invited him inside my Upper East Side apartment with paint flaking off the walls. As I shut the door to my bedroom I hoped he hadn’t noticed. If he did, he didn’t seem to mind.
He kissed me. I tasted scotch and cigars.
My cell phone lit up with a name. A boy, exactly 50 blocks away. Two nights before, he had set his gun precisely where his name appeared now. The scotch and cigars turned the blocks into miles. As I flipped over the phone I hoped he hadn’t noticed. If he did, he didn’t seem to mind.
An hour later, he left. I watched him catch a cab out my window.
The cab turned left, then right, taking him home to his Gramercy Park loft. I thought about the last hour, our conversation interrupted with soft touches and kisses, the way I’d leaned my forehead on his shoulder. I’d told him stories I rarely told anyone, and never someone I’d met just the day before. Stories that made me look broken.
As his cab turned the corner and disappeared I hoped he hadn’t noticed. If he did, he didn’t seem to mind.
