The girl is a work of art, strikingly pretty, dark skin draped in silver threads, a sweater slouching off one shoulder. She looks up at the sound of the bell.
“Can I help you?”
Addie falters, knocked off-balance by a vertigo of want and fear. “I hope so,” she says. “I’m looking for Henry.”
The girl stares at her, studying her—
Then a familiar voice comes from the back.
“Bea, do you think this looks…” Henry rounds the corner, smoothing his shirt, and trails off when he sees Addie. For an instant, a fraction of a fraction of a moment, she thinks it is over. That he has forgotten, and she is alone again, the thin spell made days before snipped like a stray thread.
But then Henry smiles, and says, “You’re early.”
And Addie is dizzy with air, with hope, with light.
“Sorry,” she says, a little breathless.
“Don’t be. I see you’ve met Beatrice. Bea, this is Addie.”
She loves the way Henry says her name.
Luc used to wield it like a weapon, a knife grazing her skin, but on Henry’s tongue, it’s a bell, something light, and bright, and lovely. It rings out between them.
Addie. Addie. Addie.
“Déjà vu,” says Bea, shaking her head. “You ever meet someone for the first time, but you’re sure you’ve seen them before?”
Addie almost laughs. “Yes.”
“I’ve already fed Book,” says Henry, talking to Bea as he shrugs on his coat. “Do not sprinkle any more catnip in the horror section.” She holds up her hands, bracelets jingling. Henry turns to Addie with a sheepish grin. “You ready to go?”
They’re halfway to the door when Bea snaps her fingers. “Baroque,” she says. “Or maybe Neoclassical.”
Addie stares back, confused. “The art periods?”
The other girl nods. “I have this theory that every face belongs to one. A time. A school.”
“Bea is a post-grad,” interjects Henry. “Art history, in case you couldn’t tell.”
“Henry here is obviously pure Romanticism. Our friend Robbie is Postmodern—the avant-garde, of course, not the minimalism. But you…” She taps a finger to her lips. “There’s something timeless about you.”
“Stop flirting with my date,” says Henry.
Date. The word thrills through her. A date is something made, something planned; not a chance of opportunity, but time set aside at one point for another, a moment in the future.
“Have fun!” calls Bea cheerfully. “Don’t stay out too late.”
Henry rolls his eyes. “Bye, Bea,” he says, holding the door.
“You owe me,” she adds.
“I’m granting you free access to the books.”
“Almost like a library!”
“Not a library!” he shouts back, and Addie smiles as she follows him up onto the street. It is obviously an inside joke, some shared, familiar thing, and she aches with longing, wonders what it would feel like to know someone that well, for the knowing to go both ways. Wonders if they could have a joke like that, she and Henry. If they can know each other long enough.
It is a cold evening, and they walk side by side, not intertwined but elbows brushing, each leaning a little into the other’s warmth. Addie marvels at it, this boy beside her, his nose burrowed down into the scarf around his throat. Marvels at the slight difference in his manner, the smallest shift in ease. Days ago, she was a stranger to him, and now, she is not, and he is learning her at the same rate she is learning him, and it is still the beginning, it is still so new, but they have moved one step along the road between unknown and familiar. A step she has never been allowed to take with anyone but Luc.
And yet.
Here she is, with this boy.
Who are you? she thinks as Henry’s glasses fog with steam. He catches her looking, and winks.
“Where are we going?” she asks when they reach the subway, and Henry looks at her and smiles, a shy, lopsided grin.
“It’s a surprise,” he answers as they descend the steps.
They take the G train to Greenpoint, backtrack half a block to a nondescript storefront, a WASH AND FOLD sign in the window. Henry holds the door, and Addie steps through. She looks around at the washing machines, the white-noise hum of the rinse cycle, the shudder of the spin.
“It’s a laundromat,” she says.
But Henry’s eyes go bright with mischief. “It’s a speakeasy.”
A memory lurches through her at the word, and she is in Chicago, nearly a century ago, jazz circling like smoke in the underground bar, the air heavy with the scent of gin and cigars, the rattle of glasses, the open secret of it all. They sit beneath a stained-glass window of an angel lifting his cup, and Champagne breaks across her tongue, and the darkness smiles against her skin, and draws her onto a floor to dance, and it is the beginning and the end of everything.
Addie shudders, drawing herself back. Henry is holding open the door at the back of the laundromat, and she braces herself for a darkened room, a forced retreat into the past, but she’s met instead by the neon lights and electronic chime of an arcade game. Pinball, to be precise. The machines line the walls, crammed side by side to make room for the tables and stools, the wooden bar.
Addie stares around, bemused. It is not a speakeasy at all, not in the strictest sense. It is simply one thing hidden behind another. A palimpsest in reverse.
“Well?” he asks with a sheepish grin. “What do you think?”
Addie feels herself smiling back, dizzy with relief. “I love it.”
“All right,” he says, producing a bag of quarters from one pocket. “Ready to lose?”
It’s early, but the place is far from empty.
Henry leads her to the corner, where he claims a pair of vintage machines, and balances a tower of quarters on each. She holds her breath as she inserts the first coin, braces for the inevitable clink of it rolling back into the dish at the bottom. But it goes in, and the game springs to life, emitting a cheerful cacophony of color and sound.
Addie exhales, a mixture of delight and relief.
Perhaps she is anonymous, the act as faceless as a theft. Perhaps, but in the moment, she doesn’t care.
She pulls back the lever, and plays.
III
“How are you so good at pinball?” Henry demands as she racks up points.
Addie isn’t sure. The truth is, she’s never played before, and it’s taken her a few times to get the hang of the game, but now she’s found her stride.
“I’m a fast learner,” she says, just before the ball slips between her paddles.
“HIGH SCORE!” announces the game in a mechanical drone.
“Well done,” calls Henry over the noise. “Better own your victory.”
The screen flashes, waiting for her to enter her name. Addie hesitates.
“Like this,” he says, showing her how to toggle the red box between the letters. He steps aside, but when she tries, the cursor doesn’t move. The light just flashes over the letter A, mocking.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, backing away, but Henry steps in.
“New machines, vintage problems.” He bumps it with his hip, and the square goes solid around the A. “There we go.”
He’s about to step aside, but Addie catches his arm. “Enter my name while I grab the next round.”
It’s easier now that the place is full. She swipes a couple of beers from the edge of the counter, weaves back through the crowd before the bartender even turns around. And when she returns, drinks in hand, the first things she sees are the letters, flashing in bright red on the screen.