And then came Audi, a ball of fire in the empty house. He put the paper away and headed home.
She was there when he got back. She was on the couch in another outfit of his wife's, an old sweatsuit. She had cooked popcorn and was cuddled up under the blankets, watching TV.
"Enjoying yourself?" Gerald said.
"You know it."
He sat down beside her. She scooted closer. She took a pillow from the end of the couch and set it in his lap, laid her head on top of it, and turned on her side to keep her eyes on the TV. She was watching a music video.
"What did you do today?" Gerald asked her.
"This," she said. "All day. Bummed around. It was great." She laughed. It was the first time he'd heard her laugh, a tinkling wind-chime sort of sound that started in her chest and bounced its way across her tongue. It put tingles in Gerald's spine. "How about you?" she said.
"I did some writing."
"What about?"
"About you."
She turned over on her back and looked up at him. "You're writing about me?"
"Yup." He watched the TV. The band was playing in a warehouse. He could feel her eyes on him, cold and intense.
"You better write me exciting. I don't want to be a boring character."
"You're not."
"And I better be pretty," she said. Then she turned back to the TV.
She stayed with him. He went to his office and wrote, and came home and talked to her about his day. He spent all day looking forward to his time on the couch with her, to the feeling of the weight of her head on his lap, the feeling of her breath so near his face.
He stayed home on Christmas Day. He was cooking biscuits when she came downstairs, slow and sleepy-eyed.
"Merry Christmas," Gerald said.
She sat down at the table and yawned. "Don't say Merry Christmas," she said. "It sounds so commercial."
"What do you want me to say?"
"How about Happy Christmas, like you say for every other holiday?"
"Fine, Happy Christmas. Honey or jelly? On your biscuits."
"Honey."
"Good choice." He put the biscuits in the oven and took the honey from the cabinet and set it on the table in front of her. "They'll take a few minutes to cook."
"I got you a Christmas present," she said. She looked at the table and wrung her hands. "I'm not sure if you'll like it."
"What is it?"
"You promise you'll like it? Or at least say you'll like it?"
"I promise I'll at least say I like it."
"Smart-ass," she said. She ran upstairs and came back down with a brown paper bag and handed it to Gerald. She sat back at the table and waited.
Gerald opened the bag. There was a picture frame inside. He pulled it out. Inside the frame was the piece of paper that he'd left for her in his wallet, the side with the audacious bit on it. She'd taken colored pencils and traced over all the creases from where she'd crumpled the paper up; then she'd colored the sections all different colors. It looked like the dry, cracked ground in the desert would look if someone attacked it with a paintbrush. The word audacious was traced in brilliant red. The colors were amplified behind the glass of the frame. Gerald turned it between his fingers.
"You like it?" Audi said.
"I love it," Gerald said. He propped it up on the table in front of him.
"You promise?"
"I love it." He looked at her. She was blushing, her face turned away from him. "I didn't get you anything," he said. "I can get you something."
"You don't have to," she said. "You've done plenty."
They spent the entire day on the couch, watching the Christmas shows-Rudolph, Frosty, Island of Misfit Toys-until it got dark outside and the snow started to fall. Gerald went upstairs and got into bed. He closed his eyes.
He didn't know how long he had been asleep when Audi came in. He felt her as soon as she came into the room. Gerald watched her. She was wearing a T-shirt and panties. She tiptoed across the carpet to the side of the bed, then she pulled the covers back a bit and slid under them. She cuddled up close beside him, put one of her bare legs across his. Her legs felt smooth and soft. She pulled Gerald's arm up above his head and put her head on his chest, wrapped her arm across his stomach. Gerald felt her hair on his chin. He felt her eyelashes on his chest. His muscles tensed.
"You've been really sweet to me, Gerald," she said.
He let his arm drop slowly. He brought it around her and pulled her close to him. She wrapped her leg around him and squeezed back.
"I could fall in love with you," she said.
"No, you can't," he whispered. He breathed in her hair; she smelled of honey and apples and skin. Then he kissed her on the top of her head. She looked up at him, her eyes dark points in the dark room. She inched forward and kissed him on the mouth, twice, feather soft. Then she laid her head back on his chest and fell asleep. Gerald stared at the ceiling and listened to her breathing.
He woke up and the sun was bright on her face. He shook her. She stirred and batted her eyes and looked at him.
"Hey," she said.
"Get up," he said. "I want to take you somewhere. Late Christmas present."
She rolled off him onto her back, bunched the covers up over her face. "I'm still sleepy," she said, her eyes peeking out above the bedspread.
"You want me to make you some breakfast?"
"Make me some more biscuits," she said. "Just do it quietly." She grinned at him, then she flopped over in the bed and covered her head with the pillow.
Gerald walked downstairs and looked in the refrigerator. He was out of milk. He put on his boots and his coat and his hat and walked outside. The air was crisp and stung his nostrils. The sun glinted off the icicles that hung from the eaves of his house.
He put his hands in his pockets and walked up the street to the market. The electric doors slid open and bathed him in warmth and fluorescence. He smiled at the cashier and walked to the back and took a carton of milk from the shelf. He turned it over in his hand, checked the expiration date. He looked at the back of the carton, where they put the announcements about missing children. Audi's picture was printed in smudged ink beneath the nutrition information.
Gerald stared at it. Her eyes looked back at him from the cold cardboard. Nikki Tyler, age sixteen, runaway, missing for a year. Height. Weight. Parents' number and address. Her parents live just forty-five minutes outside the city, less than an hour from Gerald's house.
He put the carton on the shelf and chose a different one, one with a picture of a little black boy on the back, and bought it and took it home.
Audi was on the couch watching The Price Is Right."Took you long enough," she said. She had the blankets tented around her, just her head sticking out, her eyes intent on the TV. Her nose was small in profile, her lips thin and pink. She turned to him, smiled. "You miss me?"
Gerald shifted the milk from one hand to the other. "Terribly," he said.
He cooked the biscuits, and they ate some in front of the TV; then they packed a lunch and got in the car and headed north on the interstate. The roads were empty. The new snow was flat all around them, mostly smooth, but whipped by the wind in some places until it looked like peaked meringue. The sky was deep blue and far away. Audi pressed her nose against the window as they drove.
"Where are we going?" she said.
"Ultima Thule," Gerald said.
"What?"
"End of the earth."
They pulled into a parking lot beside a huge frozen lake. Gerald got out of the car and opened the trunk and took out a blanket and their food. They set off toward the lake. Gerald stepped gently off the sand and onto the ice; it held firm.