At night the city seemed immense. The sidewalks looked as wide as streets, the streets like highways; in the absence of traffic the avenue resembled a dim, empty arena, its spectators all gone home. Cars passed only at intervals now, in groups of two or three, and could be heard from blocks away. Carol's voice sounded loud amid the silence.
'Jeremy, I can't keep up with you!'
'Sorry,' he said. 'I guess I'm still upset about that bag.'
The two of them were walking north toward Chelsea, their footsteps slapping heavily against the pavement. Freirs no longer had his book bag. Earlier that evening they had stopped to eat in a crowded little Italian restaurant on Sullivan Street, Freirs slipping the bag beneath his chair, and later when he'd reached for it, it had been gone – stolen, most likely, though Freirs still clung to the hope that it had been taken by accident and might eventually be returned; it had contained nothing but books and student papers.
The loss of the bag had spoiled what had been, until then, a happy evening, though for Carol the incident was already receding into the haze of the past. The two of them had shared a bottle of chianti over dinner; she'd had nothing to eat since her afternoon break, and that first glass had immediately gone to her head. Later, after coffee, he'd convinced her to join him in a brandy. It had never taken much to get her drunk, and tonight she'd been especially susceptible. Despite the coffee, she was beginning to feel drowsy and, in her imagination, was already staggering into bed and pressing her body in sleep against the cool sheets. She could think about the day's events tomorrow morning.
It was now well past midnight. A mile to the north the red, white, and blue lights that illuminated the Empire State Building throughout the July Fourth season had gone dark, with only the wink of a red warning beacon left to mark the top, while up and down the avenue the lights of the deserted shops glowed pallidly behind steel security gates. In the shadows of a butcher's window, hanging carcasses and the goose-pimpled body of a turkey pressed against the metal bars like creatures in a cage.
She walked slowly, aware that she'd eaten too much. Still, hadn't it been nice of him to take her out like that! It was something she missed, here in New York, where most restaurants were beyond her means, places to pass without entering. Today, though, her luck seemed to have changed. All evening she'd been thinking of Rosie's check, carefully folded in her handbag, and of how she was going to spend it. Two benefactors on the same day – it was almost too much to believe.
'I feel like I've eaten enough to last the whole weekend,' she said, hoping she sounded sufficiently grateful.
'I wish I could say the same.' As he walked he stared gloomily down at his paunch, as if surprised it was still there. 'I've really got to get in shape this summer. If I don't lose around twenty pounds
… ' He shook his head.
They were passing the open doorway of a barroom, its patrons concealed by darkness; the sounds of salsa music and argument spilled out into the night. Carol hurried after him.
'I don't think you look so bad. Honestly.'
'Well, thanks.' He stood a little straighter. 'But you should have seen me a year ago, during my diet. I was positively lean then. Like you.'
She shrugged, though she knew she'd been complimented. 'My two older sisters have really full figures. I was always the skinny one.'
'Not me,' he said mournfully. 'When I was growing up I was a regular little tub. My parents had to send me to a weight-watchers' camp in Connecticut.' He slowed, briefly, for her to catch up. 'You know, come to think of it, that was just about the only time I ever really got out into the country. That, and a temple youth-group trip, and a few weeks at a tennis camp on Long Island. Pretty provincial, huh?'
'Oh, I wouldn't say that.' She wondered if he'd been kidding. 'I'll bet you think it's the rest of us who are provincial.'
He grinned. 'I don't deny it! But then, that's what comes of being a New Yorker all my life.' With an easy sweep of his hand he took in the nearly deserted street, the lights of distant traffic, and, it seemed to her, the whole titanic nightscape of the city, the dark alleys, silent buildings, and the millions around them now dreaming in their beds.
She envied him his growing up here. It was a world he knew well enough to thrive within, and one he might help her know better -something, anyway, worth hoping for. For a moment, as she walked up the avenue with him, Freirs already ahead once more, it seemed to her that she was on a different street entirely, one that, if only she didn't stumble, would lead her to a future in which all things were possible.
'I can't help wondering,' she said at last, 'what you'd make of my town.'
Tm sure I'd like it.'
She laughed. 'Don't be. It isn't very interesting.'
'Well, you know – Pennsylvania and all.' He waved his hand vaguely to the left. 'I expect it's pretty scenic out there.'
She glanced at him skeptically. 'You sound as if you've never been west of the Hudson.'
'Oh, don't get me wrong,' he said. 'I've done my share of traveling. L.A., Chicago, Miami…" He waited till she'd drawn beside him. 'My parents moved down to Florida a few years ago. Horrible place! And after college I spent some time in Europe. But as for good old country living in the good old U.S.A. -you know, going to sleep with the chickens, getting up with the hogs, or whatever it is they do out there… ' He shrugged.
They were approaching another bar now. Carol moved closer to his side. She couldn't explain why, but she felt quite safe with him, despite the fact that he himself was plainly somewhat tense. Both of them had been sobered by the loss of the book bag, and the night had sharpened her senses when she'd first stepped from the restaurant, but now her giddiness was returning. Perhaps it was Jeremy, or perhaps only the drink. Love stories always made her weep when she read them late at night, whether or not they were really sad; she trembled at mysteries after too much black coffee, even when their plots held no terrors. It was hard to tell for sure.
Normally she might have been a great deal more apprehensive. Although they were nearing her own neighborhood in Chelsea now, she was unaccustomed to being outdoors at this hour, when every stranger was potentially a threat: the sleepy-eyed schoolboy who shuffled past them, hands plunged deep into his pockets, might be secretly caressing a rosary down there, or his own nakedness, or a knife. Faces which would have been ignored by day now took on a peculiar cast, and she was acutely aware of figures in the distance, coming toward her through the empty streets. Even their footfalls were audible; she could hear them, and anticipate the encounter, from several blocks away.
At this moment the view ahead held only a bored-looking householder walking his dog. From the sidewalk behind came the voices of a couple speaking rapidly in Spanish and, across the avenue, the echoes of a small, lumpish figure staggering after them upon a black cane, a tattered parcel clutched beneath its arm. Newspapers swept like ghosts through the foyer of an abandoned movie theater near the corner, its marquee blank, display case bare of posters; wind stirred the heaped-up trash against the doors as the two of them hurried past, reminding Carol of the rustle of dead leaves.
'You know something?' she said. 'I think the country will be good for you.'
'Really?' He sounded as if he cared. 'I sure hope so, because I keep suspecting I've been missing something.'