Chapter 11: Eleven O'Clock

Dear Marguerite,

I am in the back of a cab on Pine Street writing this with my thumbs.

I have never done anything like this in my life.

I'm not sorry, and I'm not going to be sorry in the morning.

Hallie

We climbed the four flights without speaking.

On the third landing she took my hand, and her palm was damp, and I realized she was as nervous as I was.

She unlocked the door and pushed it open, and left the overhead light off.

The apartment was lit only by the streetlamp through the window and one small lamp by the couch.

She locked the door behind us, and the bolt shot home with a heavy click.

"Here is the door," she said, turning to face me. "And here are the hours."

"I see them."

"I said I'd earn you. I'm not sure I have."

"You made me the best chili of my life and then you told Gordon off in front of thirty people."

"That's a low bar."

"It's the bar I have."

She laughed, and then she stopped laughing, because I had stepped up against her and put both hands flat on her chest.

Her heartbeat was fast under the sweater with the hole in the elbow.

"Hallie," she said, "I want to go slowly."

"I want that too."

"Good."

"But not very slowly."

Her eyes darkened, and she kissed me.

It wasn't the stairwell kiss or the darkroom kiss.

It was slower, and every part of me wanted to be read.

She took off my glasses and set them on the shelf by the door, and then she took off my cardigan and laid it over a chair.

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