Seventy-Five Percent

 She just stopped. She does this.

“This is stupid. I’m not walking anymore until you decide.”

Why she stopped here is beyond me. There’s nothing here; the city is surprisingly full of nothing. Besides, stopping gets us no closer to our goal. Where do you feel like eating?

“Just pick anywhere. I’ll eat anything right about now. Anything edible would be perfect, okay?”

I hate being in this position. She is hungry, no doubt, but to the point of having no preference at all—that seems quite unlikely for her. She’s a person of taste. Seriously, what do you feel like?

“I feel like eating. I really do not care how it happens. Really. I promise.”

I hate being the decision maker as my decisions are zero sum ones. There is always someone who does not care for the decision made. Even in a group of two. I’m not cut out to be a leader of men, I guess. Cuban diner with the plastic placemats on the horseshoe pull-up counter.

“Fine. That sounds good actually. Is it far?”

Yes. And its overpriced. And it might be closed or not be a restaurant at all. I can’t be responsible for what happens after deciding. But I hate being in this position because I hate making the safe choice when you are even slightly stressed and all the responsibility falls on me, the responsibility of being the decider, and ultimately the taste maker, and fuck it, I haven’t had a medianoche and one of those shakes they make with the overripe plantains in quite a while.

It’s ten minutes downhill, but it’s against the wind. Zero-sum conditions. When did it get so cold? Every time we approach a cross street, the wind gusts push us off path a foot or more. It’s not the kind of chill you “feel in your bones”. It’s the kind that resides in the gap between your thick waffle-knit jacket, and the thin t-shirt you wore today, ignoring the cardinal rule of layering that she constantly espouses, quite vocally.

The avenue looks grey. Not because of cloud cover or foggy mist, but because someone manually stripped the color from this part of town, and let the greyscale stand on its own. Maybe the sun doesn’t shine this far north. And even though the contrast is pleasant, and the scene is calm with minimal stimuli, my eyes are more than heavy, they’re burdened and becoming uncooperative.

“My friend from work invited us to a thing on Saturday after her birthday thing downtown.”

Cool. Did she invite us to her birthday thing?

“Well, I’m not sure. Maybe it was inferred.”

Implied. She implied. You inferred. My Saturdays are turning out to be a series of events like this. Although, I haven’t been really keeping track, but it just feels like it. It feels like this is what I do on weekend nights now. Is this what I do? Maybe I should reserve Sundays for something too. Like a poker game. Do you want to play poker?

“On Saturday? No, didn’t we just agree to go to her thing?”

Yes. I just meant in general. Do you want to play poker, though?

“Not really. I’m not really interested in it. I don’t know how to play.”

What if you did know how to play? Would you be interested then?

“I don’t know. I know that I’m not really interested now.”

We run across another cross street, being blown off-course roughly 18 inches, but not enough to be outside of the crosswalk hashmarks that are comforting and oddly protective from the predatory traffic in this city. She takes a call. She ends the call before the next corner.

“My mom is trying a diet she saw on daytime TV. One of those doctors shows. It’s working too.”

Is/was your mother fat? I don’t remember this. I’ve seen her often—or often enough—and I don’t remember this. Wow, I don’t remember this at all. She could not have been obese or anything, because, surely, I would have remembered that. She wasn’t rail thin; again, I would have noted that. Her mom must be decidedly average in her appearance. It must be. What is a decidedly average looking person doing changing her appearance that late in life? I think your mother is pretty.

“She was. She is still. But she doesn’t think so. She’s not happy with herself right now.”

I stopped thinking about her mother before she responded. No one is happy with themselves, but we all take gross comfort in being better than others in some small way. Fuck, maybe I need to start improving myself too. However, that’s not the agreement I signed when I woke up in the morning and decided to try again. I wonder how often I’ll be signing that document. Probably countless times.

The girl runs by us, sobbing. I’m the one stopping this time. She walks on, and I pivot my body enough for my neck to do the rest, and I watch the girl run away from us… well, me, now. She stops and starts like a broken jalopy in an antiquated children’s cartoon, jerking her body into action sporadically, as if was convincing her appendages to get on board with the plan, no matter how washy it may be. I watch her tie her jet-black hair back loosely and poorly, while waiting for the stoplight to turn favorable.

“Why did you stop?”

Did you see that girl?

“Uh huh. So? Was she crying or something?”

Yes. I think. Maybe. Probably. She had to be crying. A gust of wind seemingly finds a way into my t-shirt, through the sleeves. She was crying.

“I hope she’s okay.”

She’s not, that’s why she’s crying.

“Let’s ask her.”

The chill travels from my chest down, and settles on my abdomen, swirling. I fight an urge to take my coat and t-shirt off. I think I’m hungry. I stare the girl and her sloppy and stringy black hair. I keep my gaze on her. I hope she never crosses the street.

“Is that her?”

Yup, crossing the street. Yes. We start towards her.

“I hope she’s okay.”

Me too. But she’s not. At least she’s not crying from this angle. Maybe it’s over. Maybe it’s not.

“What should we say? This is awkward.”

I’m hoping that it’s her crippling emotional pain that just boiled over because of some innocuous event (like being served eggs a little too over easy) and not some recently occurring precipitating event (like dying). Wait, did some-thing terrible happen to all of us in the last few hours, and I’m just not aware of it yet? Oh God, or maybe something is about to happen, and she is hyperconnected to some breaking-news news agency bulletin board or maybe she’s beyond all of this, on a completely different level, like an oracle or something. Oracles can’t be immune to the consequent feelings of abject…

“Hey. What should we say?”

I think we should say hi or maybe hello, and that we want to help.

“Isn’t that a bit presumptuous?”

Presumptuous because we assume she is crying? I mean, presume.

“That she’s in pain, or that she even needs help?”

If she’s an oracle, she can probably identify the exact moment when everything reverts to normal. I take solace in this. That is true, maybe she doesn’t need people interfering in her life, people helping her get to a better place, wherever that may be. But I need to help her. Maybe not get somewhere better, but maybe just to cross the street. We cross the street. We start to follow her. We cross another street.

“Where is she going? Is she walking faster now?”

I don’t know and maybe. Let’s speed up and catch up to her.

“Let’s go, it’s getting colder, and we’re going the wrong way.”

The wrong way. She’s still hungry, isn’t she? I think of the other places along this route, although the speculation tires me quickly. She could have taken any number of turns, here or there, or at the next light or beyond. She could walk across the bridge or walk of the face of the earth for all I know. The permutations are endless. Tiring. Maybe she’s trying to find a restaurant.

“Where do you want go after this?”

Of course, she’s still hungry. That situation didn’t solve itself. But I’ll ask her anyway. I want to hear it from her. Where do you want to go? The girl stopped mid-block. Perhaps that was where she was headed this whole time.

“We should probably get somewhere warm soon. It’s going down to twenty tonight. Probably in a few hours.”

Her stringy hair again flashes into my view. It’s no longer sloppy… odd considering she is experiencing the same wind currents that seems to be ripping my skin from bone. What is she doing?

“I don’t know, playing with her hair? I don’t know.”

I think that’s why her hair isn’t sloppy. She’s continuously grooming, like a cat. Maybe that’s her problem. She’s the cat that can’t stop licking itself. Or maybe she’s a masochist. I don’t really know that word means, but maybe? Is any-one even trying to understand?

We get close enough to see that she’s on the phone. I have no idea what to do now. We stop and observe like bird watchers. A Canadian goose finding directions home.

“What? A what goose? Canadian? Where did you see a goose?”

Maybe we should split up and encircle her. Although that doesn’t mean much with only two people. It can be like a martial arts film, where the noble protagonist is up against the main bad guy’s two right-hand henchmen. They encircle the good guy, threatening to rip him limb from limb, and the good guy keeps a cool head, and casually keeps an eye on both as they encroach. She squats, like a street vendor in a different part of the world or Queens.

“What do you think she is talking about?”

I wonder how long she can maintain that squat. I watch as people maneuver around her, trying to get to their destination, unconcerned with the woman, possibly peeing, in the middle of a busy sidewalk. Although, in their defense, they probably don’t even notice her crying. Would we be less inclined to help her if she was squatting when we first saw her crying? Would I? What the hell do we talk about?

“Well, I don’t know. Everything. I like that we talk about everything.”

What else?

“What else besides everything?”

Yes.

“Do you mean, ‘What specifically?’”

Sure.

“I don’t know. People and things. Politics and food, and places we want to go, and we talk a lot about education and music too. Everything.”

Everything is just a sum of people, things, politics, food, places and… something I forgot already… and music. Maybe the gestalt of these things put together is so much greater than people, things, politics, food, and those other things. Does everything else just lose itself in the seams between those things? Perhaps all those discussions of craft beer fall between progressive education theory and the standards born in the jazz age. Maybe, just maybe, I agree.

“We used to talk a lot more though, didn’t we.”

Is she asking a question? Probably not. Statements are overrated. Feelings are what they are, at least. The chill is boring into my chest, akin to an amateur attempt of Chinese water torture. I feel my internal organs contracting, hugging each other to corral whatever heat remained in my upper cavity. It’s cold as fuck. We did talk more before. There was more to say then. Maybe we’re just out of things to say to each other.

“Yeah, we did.”

She says it softly, without emotion, just like she remembered the answer to an exam question. An exam taken an eon ago, where she did well enough to not care if she got this particular question in question right. I look at her, trying to wear the opposite of a plaintive expression on my face. I bet I look jilted and clownish, or perhaps, just confused. She’s still sitting there, and she takes out a stapled document out of a business envelope. I wonder if she’s going to start writing. The sidewalk is not a great surface to write on, however. I remember trying when I was in grammar school, walking out of the classroom one day during an exam an eon ago, paper booklet in hand. I had lain on my stomach, on the sidewalk circumscribing the play lot. Having nothing better to do, and completely satisfied with my choice of a new workspace, I started writing in my exam booklet. I doubt I passed, however. I wonder if I’ve ever told her this.

“You did. Hey—do you want to stop in here and grab something to eat?”

She gestured at the pastry shop across the avenue. It looks like a kind of a proper shop, which does its baking in the early morning and closes when the sun starts dipping, when they’ve sold their lot or when their goods are no longer fresh and up to their standards. But this establishment is clearly open, and they probably are because they need to be. We take a seat outside and position ourselves at a vantage point on our target. Tactically. Our chairs are close together, legs touching. Chair legs not leg legs. It’s not uncomfortable, but neither is it refreshing. I think she’s chewing that cinnamon gum I love to swallow.

“Is it too cold? Let’s go inside.”

Yes. Well, no. We stay put. There doesn’t seem to be any wind flowing through this little section. Plus, if we did move inside to the table, we wouldn’t be able to watch the girl to the same degree. Sure, there’s a vacant table along-side the window, but the window is dirty. I can clearly see a couple oily handprints there. And they’re not child sized. One of them even has an unusually large middle finger. Do you want to go inside?

“No. I usually sit inside. I don’t know why, but it seems nicer inside.”

Maybe because you like the decor and ambience that you can only appreciate by being inside?

“Well, I do like the lights, but I’m not really into the tin stamp ceiling. It’s a little too red for me. I also being in-side. It’s cozy and small and I like small, cozy cafes.”

I like them too. The outside feels more expansive now. I walk inside to the counter, order a cup of chamomile tea and the smallest possible sized coffee allowed. I make a joke about a fun-sized coffee, but it doesn’t go over well. Do you want something to eat? She waves, confused. I motion, very clearly, putting food into my mouth. She shakes her head, not to deny the request, but also very clearly, in bewilderment. The handprints are interfering with our sign language here.

I walk out, as she walks in, and we meet in the doorway.

“Huh? I couldn’t hear you. Are you asking if I want something to eat?”

Yes, of course.

“Yes, of course. I’ve been saying that for a while. I’m glad you are paying attention. Also, did you plan to have a whole conversation through the double panes? I’m not sure how I would communicate that I want a roll.”

What kind of roll?

“It doesn’t matter.”

It never does to her. Bread is bread she always says. Well, she said it twice, I guess. And I think in one instance, she was reading it aloud from some script. I do pay attention. I see the girl still camping out on the sidewalk, this time sans letter and sitting on the curb. It must be filthy. I saw a man vomit in that area once. Not quite right there, but somewhere close. Diseases spread. Looking down, I spot a playing card wedged between the chair leg and table sup-port. Three of something. The suit is colored green and looks like an oblong. It doesn’t matter at all. I venture back in and get a kaiser roll, off menu. They look at me funny.

“Did you look back at them funnily?”

I laugh, and it feels nice. I remember her getting up in the middle of the night and breaking into laughing fits. Who has dreams that funny? I don’t think I’ve ever had a comical dream. Drama, all the time. Not even comedic drama. It’s like reliving a new Greek tragedy each night. Why does she still make me laugh? Maybe she’s still funny. I go back in for paper napkins. I managed to spill some of the smallest cup of coffee on my pants. I love these pants.

“You wear them three times a week.”

I love these pants like my own family. Not only do they serve the purpose, but they do it repeatedly without fail. They have never once decided not to fit. Or fallen off. Or exploded. I have nothing else. She does not laugh. I don’t find her funny anymore, I decide.

“Did you go downtown last week for that new thing? Was that near the clothing swap we saw online last week?”

Yeah, and yes, but there was no time for new clothes. I did have time, but I don’t want to spend any money on that right now. It just doesn’t make any sense, you know?

“Maybe we can go before my friend’s thing.”

I don’t want any new fucking pants.

“I need to buy new pants.”

I’m not saying anything because she’s not hearing me. I don’t want any fucking new fucking pants. Shirts, I could use though.

“For work?”

That’s why I love my pants. You don’t have to qualify them as work pants or whatever is the opposite of work (play?) pants. Just wear them anywhere. Shirts are much more attached to time and space, in that manner. The after-work social gathering mandarin collar shirt.

“Ok. What else do you want to do? Plans for the morning?”

I want to spend the day planning future days like that. I would be the politician that never got off the campaign trail. I would combine stump speeches with state addresses. Always trying to cement my legacy as the person who was always there. Who fought to stay, and stayed he did. I want to get breakfast at that new place on the other side of the bridge. You know, that new one.

“With who?”

Whom. With you, right?

“Ok. That should work.”

Work and play. Play and work. A bimodal life, with now stages in between. I appreciate that, as so much time is wasted in between. Continually I have thought, this isn’t fun or productive… what is the purpose of this. Do you have a better idea? Something more purposeful?

“I don’t know about that, but maybe we can cook early and have a picnic in the park.”

Picnic like Yogi Berra and his pick-a-nick baskets? Also, I hate ants.

“I won’t invite them.”

I also hate the heat, especially when it has the temerity to break through the cloud cover here. Picnics are an idyllic retreat, in movies; however, in practice, they tend to be like outtakes, where the goddamn ants end up everywhere. I just know I’m swallowing ants every time I attend a picnic. Maybe 10 each time. One per swallow perhaps. That would be an order of magnitude higher than my original estimate. She busses the table without my asking or acknowledgement. I watch the girl on the phone. She’s shivering and rocking back and forth, slowly. She comes back with a cup of that flower tea again.

“Have some.”

Thank you. It tastes like flowers. I find it hard to get the taste out of my mouth. The time passes and it is definitely later, but no darker. I have a feeling that time has stopped, and the earth’s rotation has ground to a halt, producing that sound heavy machinery makes after a hard day’s work. Whirrrrrrrrrruhh. I’m not sure about anything right now, and nothing feels pleasant, even in this little haven from the wind whipping through the urban canyons built here built by men who played cards and drank the opposite of flower tea. I should do something with my hands in another life. I get hungry just thinking of manual labor.

“I e-mailed the itinerary earlier. Did you look at it yet?”

No.

“It has all the places and numbers. I also looked up the national and local emergency numbers and wrote them up top. But they are squiggly because I was using my left hand.”

That’s strange. Why were you doing that?

“My other hand was occupied.”

The girl stands up slowly and brushes off her pant legs. She’s not on the phone anymore, and this is the first time I wish I could have heard, particularly the end.

She starts walking away. I’m not sure why, but I rise. Let’s go.

“I think it’s over. The moment has passed, no?”

I love when she ends her statements with an inflected “no?” Nothing about her past acculturation or education would indicate that she picked this up naturally. It’s an affected charm, but a charm, nevertheless. It’s not over yet, I’m sure of that. It doesn’t feel over. I wonder what her name is.

“Maybe Jane. She looks like a Jane, doesn’t she?”

I really do like her. She is humorous, if not funny. She’s capable of it. And pretty. And beautiful. And she is going places, and she likes tuna salad the way that I do, with red grapes as a surprising zest. I’m reminding myself of that constantly, and that I’m a wholly terrible person. What is that Latin phrase about why we like the things that we do? I hate that one. She looks like she has a Latin name. Maybe Magdalene. I’m not sure where that originates, but it sounds right.

“Only 80-year-old women are named Magdalene. Also, I think you are pronouncing it wrong. It’s mahg-da-LEEN.”

I’m pronouncing it properly, but it’s skewed by midwestern affectations. (She refers to it as the North American in-land accent, as if that proper designation gives any gravitas to an otherwise terribly grating vocalization of English.) I think it’s Hebrew, actually. And even 80-year-olds start somewhere.

“What does that even mean?”

I’m not sure myself. I didn’t even realize until now that we are following the girl.

“I have no idea what you mean 25 percent of the time. Let’s go back. We’ll stop at the corner and pick up a few things for a salad. I’ll make something quick tonight. Do you still have bread from the farmers’ market?”

Twenty-five percent? What?

“Never mind. I’m just teasing you.”

Like 25 percent of the actual time, you are confused? Wait, 25 percent of the concepts or topics I chose are bewildering? Maybe 25 percent of words I use are unintelligible? What in the fuck? Am I… missing a language update?

“I really didn’t mean anything by it. I don’t know.”

Try to explain. I’m quite self-conscious about my word count, suddenly. Especially that fourth word. Just try.

“Sometimes you say things that are confusing. And at first, I thought it was me, and maybe I just understand your secret code, and I felt it was a challenge. But then, I didn’t get anywhere with that, and I almost felt that you were just talking to yourself with jokes and this running commentary that only you would understand. I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m making any sense. But the thing is, I don’t care if I’m making sense anymore… to you. Because you don’t make sense to me much of the time. That 25 percent thing is just stupid. But I really don’t get you sometimes. I want to, but I don’t.”

What do you mean?

“Like I said, I just don’t. I don’t know if you are not letting me into your head purposefully, but whatever little connection we had when we…”

We had a huge connection. Don’t discount that, in your shitty revisionist history.

“Did we really? I liked you, and I still do. Sometimes I think I love you, but it’s funny, because I can’t even talk to you. It’s not that you aren’t listening; I know that you are. I see that you are. But I don’t think you understand.”

I don’t. I don’t know what she is saying now, nor what she is saying about the things she is trying to talk about. Her unhappiness in this moment makes me uneasy. I also resent the reduced pace that we are walking at because of this discussion, and I can barely see up ahead. She turns the corner. Is that 97th or 96th? Where is she going? I only go down that road to hit the post office.

“I think you care for me too, in some way. And I think you know what I’m talking about.”

Yeah. I do know what you are talking about. And I don’t know that this will last. Definitely left on 97th, and I don’t think crossed to the other side. We approach the intersection, and I look left anxiously. Nothing. Let’s go into the drug-store.

“What do you need? Do we have condoms?”

Remember, this isn’t the place for those ones. Even if they did have them here, it would be at a total markup.

“I’m sure you would think about price gouging during sex.”

I don’t know. I think of a lot of things.

“Of course, you do. Like what?”

I loathe her tone. I don’t know why are just biting into me today.

“I’ve never heard that phrase in my life. Biting into me? What does that even me. I mean, I can imagine, and I get the metaphor, but who has said that before? Where did you even learn that?”

I just liked it, and maybe I invented it, and maybe this is a revelation in our language, and maybe you just can’t handle it. She smiles warmly.

“I don’t know. I must be a funny little character in your funny little world.”

That’s the truest thing you’ve said tonight. We exit shortly after, forgetting why we entered, and I realize I am car-rying out a ten-piece roll of breath mints. Did I just shoplift?

She laughs more than warmly. I return inside after a hasty about-face and proceed to the cash register. I can hear her shouting something at me, still laughing in between phrases. I tell the clerk what I’ve done, even though she doesn’t ask, and, of course, she doesn’t seem to mind after I’ve told her. She seems mildly amused, as if an old favorite of hers came on the radio station playing throughout the aisles, but not amused enough to break the code of silence that she seems to have taken. I spot the girl. She is arresting. Not in the way of our beauty completely overwhelming me, but stunning in the actual sense of the word. I am arrested. Her hair is knotted in above her right ear. I immediate-ly feel ashamed and return outside. Why did I buy this?

“Thanks. I like the blue ones. It’s peppermint-y to me.”

That’s the green one.

“Most of the plants in the mint family are green. The only reason we associate colors with the different mint-flavored gums is because of marketing.”

I guess that’s true. Well, I mean it makes sense. I wonder if the clerk in the drugstore is a ronin. Did samurais ever laugh? I have an urge to go inside and flirt with her, with the prize being to get her to laugh. I want to make someone laugh right now. I remember the girl is inside still.

“What was she buying?”

I didn’t notice.

“Do you realize how ridiculous this is? We are stalking this girl, and we’re not even doing a good job of it. Was she crying?”

No. I don’t think so. It looked like she had gum in her hair.

“What?”

Yeah, I saw something pink and hair doing a funny twirl on the side of her head, just above the ear. I just realized that it was probably a hair clip, or something that girls wear to, well, clip their hair.

“It was probably a barrette.”

What if she had gum in her hair, and that’s why she was crying?

“That would be tragic. Let’s go, it’s getting cold.”

I hesitate. I feel like I’m abandoning this girl. She might need our help. My help. Although, it’s probably not of the medical variety… and if it is, she’s probably figured out how to alleviate the issue with WebMD and the local drugstore.

“We don’t even know what her issue is.”

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter. We start walking in the other direction. I look for, and possibly identify the footprints that I created earlier while walking this road, and I avoid them deliberately. I want people to know that I was here, and here again, under different circumstances. I guess the venue never changes. Why did you mention it then?

“Because I thought you wanted to go.”

You thought I wanted to go to your work friends’ thing? Why?

“I don’t know. I’m trying here.”

We don’t speak for five minutes. It feels like exactly five minutes. I check my watch after three, and I just calculate exactly two have passed since then. Delicate snowflakes start falling and instantly vaporizing upon contact. Possibly because they are a month premature. I turn my head to brush flakes from my messenger bag, and I see the girl walking toward us. She’s rubbing her eyes in a comical and rather cute way, as she is wearing mittens. I didn’t even think to bring gloves. Or a hat for that matter. Why am I wearing a t-shirt?

“You rarely plan. That’s why.”

I want to backpack in Europe.

“That’s not a plan. That’s a dream.”

I’m going to start a two-year program in Hawaiʻi the new year. I’ll leave a month prior to meet an old roommate of mine and be yet another lost soul on Big Island. We don’t talk for another five minutes. I check my watch at minute four this time. She looks vaguely annoyed.

“What are you waiting for?”

Nothing. I was just checking the time, mainly to see how late it was.

“Why don’t you leave now and start traveling?”

I’m not sure. Probably because of you. She smiles, but it’s more of a smirk. I realize that she was done with me months ago. Someone once told me that it takes at least the same amount of time to break up as it took to get together. I’m not sure we ever hit cruising altitude. When does the lease end?

“It’s in my name. Don’t worry about it.”

When does the lease end?

“February.”

Did we really move in in February? I immediate remember that we didn’t. It was May.

“We moved in August, um, three years ago, this August. It was sweltering, and that bee stung you—wasn’t it your first bee sting or something like that? Oh wait, it was your first allergic reaction to a bee sting. Oh, no, it was your first non-allergic bee sting, and you got that big red bump on the underside of your forearm. Didn’t it stay there for a month or something, and leave that weird, red, circular mark afterwards? And remember you thought it was ringworm.”

I still haven’t ruled it out. I faintly hear three gunshots.

“Fireworks.”

I hate this season. People seem caught between habits of summer and the realities of winter. Plus, it always marked the beginning of school. Did you enjoy school?

“I did. But I don’t think I want to go back.”

Everyone goes back. Everyone must go back. That’s the way it is now.

“Why does it have to be that way? I’m happy just working.”

She wants a family. I want something else, the opposite perhaps—anti-family, maybe. I say nothing for a while.

“Oh well.”

I think she can hear my thoughts by now. She was always on the cusp of it, but I think she’s figured out the frequency now. I’m not going to adjust the channel. I have nothing to hide anymore. I turn around, and the girl is still behind us. There she is.



“Is she following us?”

I smirk. I doubt it. I feel the playing card in my pocket, and I fold it in half. She comes closer, crosses the street, and picks up her pace. She’s only 50 yards from us. I fold the card in half again, in anticipation. It’s not a very good fold, and it unravels almost immediately, brushing against the fabric, brushing against my skin. I bluntly dig into the palm of my hand with the card. It feels warm when I break the skin. Just a bit, and just enough. She wraps her arm into mine, and her hand ends up in my coat pocket. I can feel her cold hands through the layers. I should have done this earlier, but I offer her gloves.

“Did you even bring your gloves? Why aren’t you wearing them?”

I lie. I thought I had them. I want to do something nice right now, at any cost. I watch the girl approach us, walking in the street, her gum/barrette thing illuminated brightly as she passes each streetlamp.

“Now’s your chance.”

Our chance. What do you want to say?

“It’s all you. Just tell her we saw her crying and want to help.”

I want to help her. I want to help her realize that whatever she’s crying about… it’s just not worth it. I want to help her realize that there are a million things to cry about in time, and tears are not an infinite resource. She is stupid for crying. No one cries anymore. We are a generation of internalization and not dehydration.

“Is she still crying? I think she’s still crying. Let’s just say anything. I’m sure it will mean something to her.”

She stops short and walks halfway into the road, and peers back. I realize what’s she doing, and I turn around and watch as the bus she just missed grinds past us. We head home. Or back to our shared apartment.

“The bus doesn’t run this late, does it?”

It runs all night; she’s just going to have to wait half an hour.

“Oh. That’s her bus, isn’t it?”

She keeps her point on the bus for a long time. I nod. I also acknowledge that she’s not a good planner either. She smiles. I love this girl, but it must not be that much, because it doesn’t do anything for me. We walk home. I look at my watch at minute two, four, seven, ten and eleven. Did you finish your tea?

“I did.”

I nod, and I unlock the heavy main door, and I’m surprised to see our super. He hands her a package, poorly packed, and opened at one seam. It’s held together by a single piece of translucent tape with the words “I LOVE YOU” scribbled in a child’s handwriting. She takes the stairs out of habit, even though we moved out of the walk-up more than four years ago. I can’t see inside the box, but I know there is poorly designed card printed on a inkjet, a few tins of salt water taffy, an article of clothing with some kind of orange on it, some other snacks I’m forgetting right now, newspaper clips of her brother making it big, and samples of wedding stationery—maybe invitations this time—that her mother is insistent on designing for us. I don’t follow her upstairs.

“I’ll see you later. Or sooner, no?”

I’ll see you soon.

“If you go by the market, bring… um, you know, never mind.”

I look back, and all I catch a glimpse of is her salt-burned boots. Ok. Call me if you need anything. I realize my phone is in her bag.

“Yeah.”

I don’t feel the gust of wind as I venture back outside. I don’t feel much, and I seem to be on autopilot. I watch my-self plant one foot in front of another as I venture back to the main thoroughfare. Turn left, slight turn right. Cross the street, briefly look at a lost cat flyer I taped up weeks ago. She’s okay now, I can feel it. I bank the last turn and immediately see the girl. My watch shows minute 16. I’m going to give this girl anything she wants. I’ll get on the bus with her. We will go uptown. And get on a ferry and drift upriver. Find jobs upstate and share whatever little we have with each other. Or even if she doesn’t share with me, I will give her everything I have anyway. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. She’s staring at the frostbitten cement between her feet. I’m staring at her. Hi. Hello. I noticed that you were… I don’t mean to intrude… Excuse me, I just wanted to…

Um, are you okay?

“No. I’m fine.”

The pause between her words defeats me. No, I’m fine. No… I’m fine. No. I’m fine. I don’t know what to do. I never know what to do.  

I stare at her briefly, then at her feet. Tiny feet on a tiny girl. I’m never going to see her again, I realize.

I turn around and head back. Minute 20. 19. 18. A bus chugs past me, gassing its exhaust onto the cold concrete that this city seems to be comprised of tonight. I feel colder than I have in a long time. I drop by the bodega and pick up salad mix in a bag, from the very back of the cooler’s shelf. I make a halfhearted attempt to find floss and anything else she might want. She likes that lightly roasted coffee, right? Fuck it. I skip the pet food aisle, and I pay for my good without fail. The walk home is inexplicably treacherous, and I drop my grocery bag twice. Is this a sign of a stroke? I switch hands, just to test my theory.

“Hey!”

I look up. She’s on the fire escape, taking a drag, four stories up, right above me. I must step back to see anything other than metal grating and her feet.

“What did she say?”

Nothing.

“Did she catch the bus already?”

I don’t know. I should have stayed with her.

“You did what you could.”

No, I didn’t. I walk underneath, through the courtyard, into the main door, up the stairs, through the apartment door, into the kitchen and through the window onto the balcony. She’s no longer there, and I stare off into the distance. I take off my jacket and throw it back inside. It’s so cold.