Chapter 23: The Stairs

On the sixth day the Newton dentists signed with us, and we took them to dinner.

Adeline came, because rule three said she sat where I sat her.

I sat her across from the chairwoman, who had left Beatrice's front table to join mine.

The chairwoman had since decided she liked her.

Adeline said very little, and she smiled when she was spoken to.

Under the tablecloth, my knee had not stopped bumping hers for an hour.

She never moved away, and I never apologized.

We climbed the stairs of the Somerville building at eleven, one flight behind the other.

Ingrid had left us at the corner with a look I chose not to read.

The light on the second landing had burned out.

I stopped on the dark step, and she stopped one below me, so that our faces were level.

"You didn't ask for anything all night," I said.

"Rule two."

"Not the salt, not a ride, nothing."

"You told me not to."

"Ask me for something now."

Her breath went in and stayed.

"That's an instruction," she said. "Is it a trap?"

"It's me lifting the rule."

"After you told me to go to bed in the hall."

"After I stayed in the hall all night," I said. "Ask."

She stood very still with one hand on the banister.

The only light came from the street, through the window at the bottom of the stairwell.

It lay across her cheek and her mouth.

"I want you to kiss me," she said.

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