Chapter 24: September Second

On the first of September I carried my old toolbox and my duffel bag out to the sidewalk at ten to nine.

It was Perry's idea, and it was a terrible one, and I did it anyway.

"You don't have to," he said from the front steps. "It's only a date."

"It's a date you've been scared of for nine weeks. Humor me."

At ten past nine I walked up the front steps of the Linden Arms the way I had a year ago.

I had the folder of lease forms under my arm.

The lobby smelled of floor wax and radiator dust.

A woman of eighty-three stood by the mailboxes with a watering can and a plastic fern.

"You must be Dara," said Ida. "Welcome home."

"Thank you," I said, and my voice cracked on it.

"Don't cry, dear. You'll get the fern wet."

I crossed the lobby, and every tenant who passed me said my name.

"Hi, Dara!" called the twins, who were taller by an inch.

"Morning, Dara," said the man in the bathrobe. "Radiators are on the fifth floor, good luck."

On the second-floor landing a stepladder stood under the flickering light.

Perry was on it with a screwdriver in his teeth.

He took it out of his mouth and looked down at me.

He held out a paper cup with a lid on it.

"I don't know how you take it," he said. "I'd like to find out."

"Oat milk," I said. "One sugar. Extra hot."

"From the Brady Street place?"

"From the Brady Street place."

"That's what the Book said."

"I know it is," I said. "It's still what I want. I picked it, and it's mine."

He gave me the cup, and our fingers touched, and neither of us let go for a moment.

"Thank you for coming," Perry said.

"I live here."

"Thank you for staying."

That night he did not want to sleep.

We lay in the dark in 1B at eleven.

He had both arms around me, and his heart went hard against my back.

"I can feel you being afraid," I said.

"I'm trying to hide it."

"You're terrible at it. Turn over."

He turned, and we lay on our sides, facing each other, with the streetlight across the pillow.

I could see his eyes.

"I've never seen tomorrow," he said. "I'm scared to close mine."

"Then keep them open. We've got until it comes."

I touched the scar on his chin with my thumb, and he turned his mouth into my palm.

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