Isabelle looked around herself once more. The studio was utterly at odds with her work space on the island—not simply for what it was itself, but for what surrounded it: the view from the window of the river and the city spread out on either side of it; the sound of traffic rising up from the street; the sense of sharing a building with so many other people. There was a buzz in the air that Isabelle always associated with the city. Part electric hum, part the press and proximity of so many other souls.
“Actually, I think I’ll thrive,” she said. “I might have had some trouble getting into the proper frame of mind back on the island. But here ... ever since I arrived, I’ve felt as though I’m falling into one of Kathy’s stories.”
Especially when she thought of John Sweetgrass having been seen in this very No, she told herself. Don’t even start thinking about that.
“Is something the matter?” Jilly asked.
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, you just had the oddest expression on your face. I couldn’t tell if you were happy or upset.”
“Happy,” Isabelle assured her. “But a little intimidated with everything I’ve got ahead of me.”
“It’s going to be a lot of work, isn’t it?”
Isabelle nodded.
“Not to mention call up a lot of old memories,” Jilly added.
“Well, I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to do it,” Isabelle said. She gave Jilly what she hoped was a bright smile. “Ready to try out one of those cafes downstairs?”
“What about all of this?” Jilly asked, indicating the jumble of unpacked boxes and bags.
Isabelle shook her head. “That I’m going to deal with tomorrow. Tonight I just want to relax.”
“What about Rubens?”
“He can explore his new domain. We’ll come collect him when we’re ready to go back to your place.”
VIII
It took Cosette the longest time to find out where he lived. Isabelle was easy. She always knew where Isabelle was. All she had to do was close her eyes and she’d know, but that was because Isabelle was the one to bring her over from the before. It would have been more surprising for Cosette not to know where Isabelle was. But it took her longer to track down Alan and then, when she finally did climb up the fire escape attached to the side of his house and peer in his kitchen window, it was only to find that some other woman she didn’t know at all had gotten there before her.
Wasn’t it just the way, she thought grumpily, sitting down on the fire-escape steps. Somebody else always got there first. And it wasn’t as though that woman with Alan didn’t already have so much. She could sleep and dream on the wings of the red crow, just as everybody else in the world could—everybody except for her and those brought over from the before.
Rising to her feet, she pushed her face close to the glass and offered the pair of them a glower, but neither Alan nor the woman bothered to look her way. She started to lift a hand to tap on the pane, but then let her arm fall back down to her side again. Sighing, she returned to her seat on the fire escape.
And she’d so been looking forward to seeing him blush again. She’d never known that grown men could blush so easily. There was so much she didn’t know; so much she might never know. What did it feel like to dream? What was it like when the red crow beat its wings inside your chest and you didn’t have to wonder about being real, you just were? What a luxury to take such a miracle for granted.
She looked down at her new shoes, but all the pleasure from getting them and her sweater was draining away.
It wasn’t fair. It had never been fair and it never would be.
Her gaze traveled up into the sky where the moon hung drowsing among the stars, high above the neon lights and streetlamps and all the other sparkling, stuttering lights that made the city glow.
“Red crow, red crow,” she whispered. “Fly inside me.”
She cocked her head to one side and listened, but the only wings out tonight were those of bats catching the last few bugs of the season. She doubted that they had any more interest in her than stupid old Alan did. And she knew why. It was because she wasn’t
“Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it,” she chanted, her voice a husky whisper, hands clasped around her knees as she rocked back and forth on the fire-escape steps.
“Don’t say what?” a voice asked from below.
Cosette stopped rocking to frown at the dark-haired young man she could see standing below her.
The shadow of the fire escape made a strange pattern across his features.
“What are you doing here?” she wanted to know.
He shrugged. “I could say I was just passing by and happened to see you sitting there.”
“Did you?”
“Or I could say I followed you here.”
“Why would you want to follow me?”
“I didn’t say I was.”
Cosette laughed. She rose to her feet and ghosted her way down the fire escape, her new shoes silent on the metal steps. She paused when she could sit with her head at the same level as his.
“But you’re here all the same,” she said.
“What were you doing?”
Cosette shrugged. She glanced back up to where light spilled from the kitchen window out onto the landing of the fire escape. Inside, Alan’s girlfriend was probably laughing while Alan told her about the strange visitor he’d had on the island this morning. Maybe they were taking their clothes off and touching each other. Maybe Alan was lying with his head upon his girlfriend’s breast, listening to the red crow beat its wings inside her.
“Somebody gave me new shoes and a sweater today,” she said. “For no reason at all. Just for being me. I think the woman liked me.”
“Maybe. But she probably wanted something from you.”
“Do you think so?”
He nodded. “They always want something from us. If not today, then tomorrow. It’s just the way they are. Everything they do relates to commerce.”
“What do you want from me?” Cosette asked.
“To see you again. To remind myself that I’m not alone.”
“What makes you think you’re not?”
He looked away from her, down the street. A cab went down its long empty length, but the light of its headbeams never reached far enough across the darkened lawn to touch them.
“That was unkind,” he said when he finally turned back to her.
Cosette gave him another shrug. “You make me nervous when you start answering questions. The things you say make me feel bad. You always make Paddyjack cry.”
“I only tell the truth.”
Cosette cupped her chin with the palm of her hand, propped her elbow on her knee and studied him for a long moment.
“Rosalind says truth is like a ghost,” she said. “Nobody sees it quite the same.”
He met her gaze, but said nothing.
“And the reason you’re alone,” Cosette added, “is because you want it that way.”
“Is that what you think?”
“It’s what you told Paddyjack and he told me.”
“Paddyjack’s like a big puppy. He was always following me around until I had to tell him I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want him to get hurt and that could easily happen to him in the places I go.”
“But you hardly ever come by to say hello.”
“I’m here now.”
Cosette smiled. “But not because of me. You want to know about Isabelle. You want to know why she’s come back to the city. You know it’s not to visit, but you don’t know why, do you?”
“I’ll admit that I’m curious.”
“You see?” Cosette said, the disappointment plain in her voice. “You’re the one who wants something. You’re the one who makes everything into an object of commerce.”