Chapter 16: Open Your Window

At nine o'clock exactly, my phone lit up.

I let it ring twice, so I would sound calm.

"Hi," Miles said. "Did you eat?"

"I ate. Where are you?"

"Same as always. In the studio, with the glue."

"Open the window."

There was a small pause.

"What?"

"Open the window," I said. "I want to hear Chicago. I've never recorded it."

"It's raining, Hazel."

"Good. I love rain."

"There's a draft. The glass is old and painted shut."

"You told me the studio had a skylight," I said. "You can open a skylight."

Another pause, longer.

I had my own window cracked three inches, and the cold air smelled of salt and diesel.

I stood very still beside it with the phone against my left ear and my right ear turned to the street.

Down on the pier, a man cleared his throat.

It came through the glass a half-beat before it came through the phone.

I heard the whole lag of it, the thin electronic delay of a call.

I knew that throat-clearing in any room in the world.

"Miles," I said.

"Yeah."

"Look up."

I put my face out into the rain, but I couldn't see him, because my glasses were on the counter.

I pulled them back on and looked down at the pier.

A dark shape on the bench by the ticket booth stood up so fast that it dropped its umbrella.

I hung up and went down the stairs two at a time.

By the time I reached the pier, he had picked up the umbrella and put it over nothing.

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