In early April they packed up the car, strapped the baby in the car seat, and drove southeast with cups of coffee in the cup holders and a map to New York City on the dashboard.
Br i g h t o n B e a c h was on the far edge of Brooklyn, close against the sea. Blue sky and white sand, the edge of the city, a boardwalk running along the beach. The advertisements and signs on the street were in Russian. The grocery store was filled with inscrutable labels. The trains rattled and cast fleeting shadows from the elevated tracks. She was aware at all times that Gavin was somewhere in this city. She felt such guilt when she thought of him. If it's spring, she thought, he's just finished his first year of college. There were moments when she imagined getting on the subway with Chloe, taking her on the endless train from Brighton Beach to Columbia University, waiting for Gavin by the university gates. But then what? The conversation was impossible to imagine— I gave birth to your child but I never told you I was pregnant because I decided instead to run away with someone else— and she didn't need child support. Could he possibly take Chloe away from her? She wasn't sure. It seemed possible. His family had more money than hers did. Did Chloe actually need a father? Anna certainly hadn't needed hers, and anyway Chloe had Deval.
They had a small apartment a few blocks from the ocean. Liam took a job as a waiter in Manhattan and came home demoralized. He had been told that the first week would be training, which meant he wouldn't be paid.
"Isn't that illegal?" Anna asked.
"Of course," he said. He had worked for thirteen hours. He was sitting at the table with his guitar, picking out chords while she made pancakes. An exhausted sheen to his face. "Now ask me if there's anything I can do about it."
"You could quit," she said. They'd had this conversation before.
"I need the job."
"You don't. We have money."
"Anna," he said. "I don't want to use the. " The cautious voice he used when they skirted around the edges of the theft. The money was divided between several plastic bags here and there in the apartment— behind the towels, under the bed, at the back of a closet— and she was aware of it constantly.
"You could be playing music all day," she said. "You could rent studio space."
"I'm not—"
"Let me do this for you, Liam. It's not like we can return it."
He laid his hand flat over the strings of his guitar, watching her.
"Did you like working today?"
"No," he said.
"Then don't go back tomorrow," she said.
The money went so quickly after that, but in an odd way it was a relief to watch it trickling away. It was like destroying the evidence of a crime.
Li a m s p e n t his days in a rented studio near their apartment. In the evenings he took a train to Queens to work with the man who Stanislaus had said might be the world's greatest living gypsy-guitar teacher, a secret legend. Liam paid him in money and cigars and in return the man showed him everything he could, subtleties of rhythm and technique. He had only one other student, a man named Arthur Morelli who made a decent living as a session musician and played gypsy jazz whenever he could.
Liam brought Arthur Morelli back to Brighton Beach one night a few months after their arrival in the city. The baby was sleeping and Anna was cooking when they came in. She always tried to have something ready for Liam when he arrived home around eleven.
"Sausages," Morelli said. "What a nice surprise."
He was older than Liam, and Anna saw him register her age as they smiled at one another and said hello.
" Would you like some eggs?" she asked.
"I would love some eggs." Morelli sat at the kitchen table and crossed his legs. "So this is what you come home to," he said to Liam. " Lucky man."
"The luckiest," Liam said. He kissed Anna. "Is Chloe sleeping?"
Anna nodded.
"Your daughter?" Morelli asked.
" Eight months old," Liam said, and Anna understood how little he'd told Morelli about his life.
"What's this music we're listening to?" Morelli asked.
"They're called Baltica," Anna said. "I think they're from Canada." The CD played on the stereo on top of the fridge, quietly so it wouldn't wake Chloe. Baltica's sound made her think of snow. A high clear beat with electronic strings in the background sometimes and gentle static, repetitive echoing lyrics if there were any lyrics at all, I always come to you, come to you, come to you in the background while she beat eggs in a bowl with a fork.
"Anna, any chance of a hot-lemon-and-honey?" Liam asked.
"What exotic concoction is that?" Morelli's voice had a languor that
she liked, as if he had all the time in the world. She realized how rarely she spoke with anyone besides Liam.
"Hot water," she said. She was filling the kettle. "You boil water and then squeeze a lemon into it and then you add some honey."
"It's an addiction," Liam said. "We're thinking about playing together, Anna. A guitar duo."
"Morelli and Deval," Morelli said.
" Deval and Morelli."
"With a bass, maybe," Morelli said. "Drums."
"It sounds like a nice idea," Anna said. "I used to spend a lot of time with a jazz quartet in high school."
"Did you play?"
"No," she said. "My friends and my sister did." Were they her friends? She'd slept with two of them and managed to betray both, put the third in danger by showing up at his dorm room, left the state without telling her sister. The pan blurred before her eyes. She blinked hard and flipped the omelet.
"It's the best idea ever," Liam said, "but I need to study a little more."
"By next spring," Morelli said. Liam had poured him a glass of wine, and he raised it. "To music."
"To next spring," Liam said, and the glasses clinked behind her.
She set their plates on the table and sat with them. This is part of my disguise. Not just dyed-blond hair but plates of eggs too. A part of her wanted to put her fork down and tell Morelli who she really was— Listen, I ran away three times before the tenth grade. Family Services in Florida has a file on me that's probably two inches thick. I stood before a wall with a can of pink spray paint and slept for three nights in the park. I have a tattoo but I was so out of my mind that night that I barely remember the needle. I stole a hundred and twenty-one thousand dollars from a drug dealer in Utah. I am not someone who has always stood in front of stoves cooking eggs for her boyfriend— but of course she didn't.
Mo n t h s l a t e r at Puppets Jazz Bar in Brooklyn Anna closed her eyes while they were playing and abruptly found herself disoriented, lost in the sound and unsure of where she was. She opened her eyes in alarm and clutched the seat of her chair. The darkness of the club was like the darknesses of all the other clubs where she'd gone to listen to gypsy jazz since Liam and Morelli had started playing regular gigs together. Where was Gavin tonight? She thought she'd die of shame every time she thought of him. She knew he was somewhere in this sharp and endless city, she knew he could walk in at any moment— did he still love music? And then perhaps she'd tell Liam she had a headache and find a way to leave with her face turned away, perhaps Gavin wouldn't recognize her at once with the short blond hair and that would buy her a few minutes. She was afraid to look toward the door.