Orange Fell

Orange Fell
By Randee Dawn

As it rained, he thought. As the puddles filled up and his friends passed without a word from the inner cabin to the outer porch, Mark continued to think. The windows were open; Patrick always insisted on having the windows thrown wide for fresh air, and that meant Mark could hear every noise inside and out, besides the ones in his head. Water made slapping noises as it rippled the lake just beyond the porch, rain falling from the eaves in heavy teardrops. So thought Mark.
That's crap, he told himself. Who ever thinks rain looks like tears. He knew, from quite recent experience, that tears fell nothing like rain. Rain fell like light, unselfconscious, purposeful, ever down, coating where it landed. Tears clung unwanted, salty, heavy. Mark shook his head; he could have written the scene in which he sat better if he had not been in it. Instead, he saw his life as a movie, played out with lines for the players, dramatic climaxes, controlled by a director he had never met. I wonder, he thought, if that makes this part an endless epilogue.
But the lake called him; if he went to the screen door and peered out into the distance he could imagine the lake as a being, waving its arms at him, calling. Patrick had put on an Elvis album a few moments before he had whispered past Mark to the porch to sit on the old creaky swing. Mark could imagine the Jordanaires, the ultimate backup band, coaxing, standing on the edge of the lake, beckoning.
He stepped onto the porch and felt everyone's eyes on him. They were his friends, Patrick, Paul, and David, but they may as well have been his captors. They had not let him venture past the enclosed porch; if he tried he would have been physically restrained. Mark had not tested this theory, but the wary glance that passed between Patrick and Paul as he joined the silence of the porch left no question. He would stay until he was taken away.
When had they made the phone call? Patrick had picked up the receiver and handed it to Mark when? An hour ago? A half hour ago? Moments? Mark had lost track of time since they had phoned the police and told them to come. David had stuck his finger in the ancient rotary and dialed the local number, his other hand firmly on Mark's shoulder, the grip telling Mark there was no other way. And Paul had looked on, blocking the gray afternoon light from the doorway. He was surrounded. It was over.

Mark had moved to the city to write. He wanted away, from those he knew and had known, from places familiarity had staled. He wanted to taste different water, he wanted to grasp the sensation of not knowing. If he was to write, to really write, the only distractions he wanted were new experiences. He had tried writing last summer, between the semesters, upstairs in his parents' attic. The closeness of the room had made him sweat and this physical reaction actually made the words ooze out, drip by drip, but was never left alone. The phone rang, his mother called upstairs, his kid brother Roger played noisily outside, and Mark was never able to concentrate for more than an hour. Finally, one day when even the dust motes had made noise in his head, when Roger had thrown the same tennis ball against the house eighty-four mindless times Mark had stood and flung his typewriter out the window. In that one instant all the summer noises had stopped, and a cool breeze floated in the shattered window frame. This summer, he wanted that captive silence all the time. This summer, he wanted his own peace.
The single room flat above the Korean grocer was dusty and had been used as a real estate office until the summer before. Mark took it because it came cheap; the grocer downstairs, Mr. Kim, let him have it on the cheap if Mark promised to keep an eye on any vagrants after hours. Mark had sworn he would, doling out several carefully hoarded bills from his university job and took the proffered apple from Mr. Kim, who nodded and smiled, handing over the key.
He had a kitchen and a bathroom, but they were down the hall and were shared by Mr. Kim and his workers. All day as Mark dragged his boxes into the stale, dark room he could hear foreign and familiar tongues lashing up and down the stairs, mixing into one voice, demanding, questioning one another about lost ginger roots and the order for across town. Toilets flushed, pans rattled, and then the lovely silence of twilight descended and the noises stopped. Mr. Kim shouted in English that he was leaving and Mark breathed deeply. He was now wealthy in his solitude.
He had opened the window first thing on entering the room, trying to air it out, and as he cleaned, the old, musty smell faded and the room began to be his. He took out his books first, resting them on the windowsill until he could empty out the milk crates and as he did he gazed outside, staring into the rosy setting sun, almost wishing he might be able to take someone up here and show where he lived, a place entirely his.
Outside the daily traffic of the summer slowed. No more cars, the shops were closing down, restaurants were starting dinner meals, a few people walked their dogs hurriedly by. He knew this was not the finest of locations, but he had little intent of seeking night life. He was here to write, he had all of his twenty-two years bottled up inside and he had to write. He had saved up enough to support himself for a summer, to see if he could make a go of it. Now all he needed was the inspiration. Streetlamps flickered on outside and he winced from a cramp that had run up the arm he had been leaning on. Orange light dwindled down cheaply onto the cracked sidewalks, bathing those under them in a sickly fruity color that made the streets outside seem even more seedy.
And then he had seen them, all decked out in polka dots and sequins, high heels and even higher skirts, leaning insouciantly on their hips, arms back, chests thrust forward. They seemed to like walking this unnatural way, a peacock display. Mark had not seen prostitutes before; he had simply read of them, and seen movies like Taxi Driver, but from his distance none of the women seemed as young as Jodi Foster. He watched them parade back and forth, the three of them, smoking cigarettes and leaning on the lamppost, waving down passerby cars and leaning into the windows with the same vigor as they leaned on everything else. Occasionally one would stand and squash her cigarette with a brief hip motion and climb into the car, which would speed away more quickly than it had come, but more often harsh words were exclaimed and the prostitute would barely miss getting run down by the car as it drove off. No matter what the result, the cars always left in a hurry, their guilt secreted within. Mark sat on his windowsill that first twilight, breathing in his evening of solitude, and watched them for over an hour, as dark took over the sky. At full dark one of them pointed in his direction and he wondered how they could have seen him, but he had left his light on and was fully illuminated now that the sun had gone. A second waved broadly at him and he panicked. If I wave back, he wondered, will they expect something? And he darted back inside, closing the window, but not before he heard their giggles trailing inside, a final smoky glimmer of badness he could not completely shut out.

He was completely settled in a week later, scribbling from dusk to sunup, sometimes pausing for a drink or something to eat, often sitting on his windowsill, thinking, watching the outside activities. He came to know the restaurant's evening hours, the time when the young couple across the street would walk their dogs together, when the prostitutes would come and go, and when their most active times would be. He often felt he was watching a film in which he could only be a voyeur, and he was torn between participation and distanced fascination. He was waiting for something down there to happen, a murder perhaps, a car accident, a love tantrum. Chewing on Mr. Kim's apples as he sat there, thinking, occasionally tossing a carefully aimed core into his wastebasket. Then Mark would wipe his mouth on his sleeve and then go back to his desk. He watched these days with his lights off, so as not to appear too obvious, but sometimes he thought he could be seen anyway.
He did not write home during this time. Letters from his parents, his friends, all went unanswered. Patrick and David, friends from the neighborhood and school, did not write but Paul had mentioned in his last missive that the three of them were going to start writing some songs together to play in the local bar. Did Mark want to come home to join them? Mark had not responded, deciding not to waste any words. He felt he had to horde them, keep them in the unused corners of his apartment, filed away for his stories. No point in wasting them on idle conversation.
Days could go by and he would not speak. He had no phone, only a temperamental pay one in Mr. Kim's shop if an urgent need arose. One never did. He did not think he was lonely, only that he was alone, and it did not bother him. Cutting off all circulation with his former outside world had induced a kind of sleeping lethargy, as if his whole being had gone into hibernation. He was alive only at night, when the words came, and he could write until his hand ached, then break for an apple, then write again.
As the summer crept on, the days grew brutal and he found he slept less during the days, when the sweat poured off his chest onto the cotton sheets. At night, vaguely tired from his inability to rest during the day, he stared out the window more and watched the women across the street. He had named them without much thought: Grace was the one with high heels that surely had to come at least seven inches off the ground. He had not realized the human foot could bend that unnaturally. The tall, raven-haired one with a large chest that her struttings made even more prominent he called Myrna. The third, who got the most customers in the least amount of time -- Mark had timed her departure and arrival back at the streetlight at seventeen minutes on average -- he called Trixie. It seemed such a prostitute's name, he could not resist the stereotype. Mark also noticed that the hotter the afternoon was, the more customers seemed to slink by, nameless in their cars, at night. At summer solstice he counted thirty-seven cars driving by with twenty-eight actually leaving with one of the women. Then he would finish his apple, toss the core, and head back to his words.
When he wrote the outside did not matter. He did not think of Mr. Kim, or his leaky faucet, or apples, or the absence of any company. The people of his stories spoke to him in vibrant, booming voices as he led them through the mazes of sentences to sometimes happy, more often tragic endings. He liked the tragic endings better; life always had a tragic ending when all was said and done. There was no happy ever after. After finishing a story, or the editing of a story, he would lean back on the legs of his chair and smoke a single cigarette, solo because a full pack cost too much for someone living on savings, and also because a single cigarette tasted far better when he knew it was the only one he would be allowed to have. He smoked because it seemed the right thing to do, a satisfying thing for a job well done. He knew some people smoked after sex, or so they did in the movies, but he wouldn't know about that personally. He had a girlfriend back at home, Gina, but the memory of her also paled in the past few weeks. Automatically he had stuck her picture on the wall near his desk, one of the only decorations he allowed, but these days if he glanced up to look into her bobbed brown hair and dimpled cheeks, he did not remember her.
The night before he had gone she had wanted to be the first for them both. He supposed she thought it meant he would have a reason for returning; if they did not sleep together she would be just another girl. She was probably right -- Gina had been right about so many things but in the end they had just lain there on her futon and held one another. In the morning she had not come to see him off, and they had not promised anything. She had not written, and he felt better about that. It took the onus from his shoulders.

Mr. Kim's shop closed late on Thursdays, so Mark was shopping at sunset, filling a brown bag with apples when he noticed the difference. He counted again, peering out the plate glass window of the shop, and was proven correct. There were now four prostitutes standing under the streetlamp. Making his purchase he hurried up the steps and tossed the apples on his bed. One rolled to the floor with a dull thump but he did not notice. Flinging open his sash, he sat hard on the sill and counted again. They were all there, Myrna, Trixie, and Grace, but now there was a fourth, whom the others had clustered around, poking and prodding in a rough friendliness, cats testing the newcomer's encroachment on their orange spotlight. Mark squinted to make her features out but in the end had to settle with only seeing her hair, which was long and full, not tied back or slashed off like the others'. And there was that boa, a bright fluorescent pink feather boa the new woman had wound round her neck like a toy snake. It was cheap and tawdry and yet the manner in which she wore it seemed a challenge. He hated the boa and he loved it; it was a touch he admired.
The group of them stood around, ignoring cars and passerby, forgetting their business for another ten minutes. Then a dark blue Buick, which Mark recognized from times before, drove up. Trixie, quicker than the others, darted forward and leaned inside. Mark's mind always raced to figure out what lines came out of her mouth next. Surely they weren't as base as "Wanna fuck, stranger?" yet he doubted they were discussing astrological signatures.
While Trixie worked the car, the others stood back and watched. The new one stood apart, leaning back, watching, twirling her boa around absentmindedly. Then she stopped twirling and leaned over to Myrna, and pointed. Myrna's head followed the point and she stepped back, laughing. In a flash, Mark realized he had been seen. In his rush to get to the window he had left the light on and now he was as obvious as his interest. He froze.
The new woman took a step off the curb and leaned forward, as though into an invisible car. Then she straightened and raised a hand in greeting. Without thinking, he raised his own hand halfway and waved back. The new woman turned on her heel, swishing her boa and sauntered back to Myrna and Grace. As he closed the window he could once again hear their voluptuous laughter follow him back into the apartment.

After that he did less writing. He slept better but he watched more. He called the new girl Tracy, as if naming a new character in his story, and watched her boa, putting music on softly behind him as he sat on the sill and consumed more apples.
And then, Mark sold his first story, receiving one small check for a tale he had sent off months before the summer began, one he had not even liked much but which his English professor had told him had potential. He sat at the windowsill smoking an extra cigarette for his luck. Every so often Tracy would gaze up at his window, or so he thought she would, and at least once a night would wave at him, swishing her pink feathers as she did. The night he sold his story he felt emboldened enough to heartily wave back and did not run away when her laughter came back to him on the breeze.
Mr. Kim helped him cash the check, and he stored the money in a coffee can, feeling pleased with himself, staring at the lone twenty and five floating loosely in the metallic container. In the back of his mind he felt a small glimmer and set the can aside, under his desk, for later. The next day, he asked Mr. Kim to let him work in the store on odd nights and weekends, when Mr. Kim's son wanted the time off. He stacked boxes of food with Korean lettering he could not read, and sold fruit from the barrels in the back of the store. He took his coins and dollars and began to fill the coffee can with what he did not spend, not sure what he was saving his money for, but hoarding it now as he once had his words.
Mail came to Mr. Kim's shop at 11:30 each morning, and a week after receiving his first check Mark got a copy of the magazine in which it had been published, a tiny literary 'zine, but he clutched the book to his chest as if to ingest it back. Mr. Kim asked to see the magazine, and nodded grandly when Mark pointed out his name on the byline. "Great writer," said Mr. Kim, and Mark was too full of himself for that moment to contradict the statement. Then he slid the stapled paper book under the counter and began sifting through the fruit for the bad apples.
A short time later, a jangle at the door made him glance up involuntarily, and in walked two tall women with bright, gaudy scarves knotted under their chins and cat's eye sunglasses. Mark blinked, thinking the store had suddenly timeshifted back to the 1960s but in another second he recognized Tracy and Trixie. The sham of incognito walked in with them; their clothes were just as form-fitting as when they walked the street and their only attempt at disguise was on their faces. Mr. Kim had gone to the back room and Mark was aware that when he came out he might not like this patronage. But Mark was transfixed by their audacity, by seeing them up close, during the day. Tracy fascinated him the most, with her sleek, watery movements around the bins as she picked through roots and vegetables, her long fingernails grazing the skin of the fruit and then closing in a click together.
A rustling shook his attention and he turned to see Trixie put what appeared to be the last in a series of cans into her enormous tote bag. Tracy raised a finger to her lips and backed away from the bins to the exit, where the door jangled once more as they made their silent escape. His attention to their exit was diverted from a wetness he suddenly felt in his palm, and he realized he had squeezed the life from an orange he had planned to stack away with its brothers. He stared at the pulp, the seeds, the skin, and could not understand why he had not stopped the women when they had begun to take things. Wiping his hand off on his jeans, Mark reached into his pocket and opened the cash register to pay for the cans he had allowed them to take, breathing deeply as he counted out the few dollars. When he closed the register he looked up to find Mr. Kim staring at him from the back room.
"No good," said Mr. Kim. "Tell to go away next time." And he turned back to the stock.
After work, Mark took a rare walk outside, holding the magazine, but as he walked he grew increasingly depressed, feeling a weight of loneliness punctuated by the brief bit of color he had allowed in the store. His steps slowed and the magazine hung limply at his side. Crossing the street, he had been hoping to get a sandwich in the restaurant when a flash of pink caught his eye. Looking up, Tracy stood a few feet from him.
Mark had never seen her in full daylight and though she had been in the store earlier her presence felt foreign, as if one of his characters had jumped from his book into reality. He did not know what to say but felt something should be done; from her look she obviously recognized him. He half-raised his hand in salute.
She did not swish her boa. "What you got there?"
He offered the magazine. She flipped through the pages, fanning her face, her lanky brown hair swaying in the breeze. "No pictures."
"Its just a lot of stories," he told her. "One of them is mine."
Her eyes widened. "You a writer?" Then she relaxed. "Shoulda figured."
He leaned over to her, flipping open to the page of his story. "This one."
She read his name aloud. "That you, then?"
He nodded and for once looked her straight on. She didn't have a bad face, slightly gaunt with a rounded little nose and large eyes, but she wasn't very pretty, at least not now. He had been so eager to show off his book he had not noticed her eye makeup was running down her face in drying black rivers and that a purple bruise above her left eye was starting to swell. Her scarf hung loosely at her throat, where bruises similar to fingerprints were announcing their presence.
"Hey," he said dumbly. "You all right?"
She raised one hand to her forehead and closed her eyes for a moment. "I'll live."
"Come on into the shop. We can get you cleaned up. I can help." He took her wrist but she wrested away from him.
"I don't think so." And she turned on her heel, vaguely tossing one end of the boa over her shoulder, and walked away.

The writing began again. Mark would wake up with an idea in his head and before the week was out would have transposed it into dialogue and plot and characters. Then he would mail it off to five separate places never to hear from anyone again. But while that was frustrating, Mark had no time to pay attention to being ignored: he was writing with a desperate speed now, trying to capture an essence that continued to elude him. When he wasn't writing, he was working, filling the coffee can with another kind of desperation.
Mark tried writing about meeting Tracy but just as the words would begin he would drop the pen and stare at his wall, unable to capture her movements, the way her eyes had shifted to avoid his stare, the way she brushed fruit with her fingernails in a kind of repressed violence. She seemed too near to do that, and he felt he would be somehow betraying everyone on his street to write about them, to sell a part of their existence. He could spit out a few sentences, then would ball his paper into his fist and sail it into the trash can across the room. Paper never sunk like the apple cores, though, and at the end of a session the white balls would have opened like flowers, surrounding the can.
Mid-July he switched from apples to peaches. They were softer, sweeter, and the pits made a satisfying clinking sound into the trash can when he sunk one. But they were sticky, and juice ran down his shirts in rivulets, so his time spent at the window was often interrupted by getting up and wiping himself down, then coming back to see what he had missed. Not that very much happened: parallel to his corner window a middle-aged woman with a bun regularly tossed a basin of water from her window into the alley below. He never knew why she couldn't simply dump it down the sink. The couple with their respective dogs had parted ways at the end of June, and now the man and his German Shepherd walked alone, their heads sunk low, but from the heat or despondency of losing their mates Mark also did not know. Tracy still waved at him, and he would signal back with his half-wave, still hesitant. Once she held up a book and waved that at him, giving him to understand she was reading it, but he wasn't sure what to make of that.
Grace wasn't around for much of July; one early morning he had been awoken by the sound of squealing wheels out by the street lamp and by the time Mark had arrived at his window Grace was seen in a heap on the sidewalk, the cloudy exhaust from the car still lingering in the air. Tracy was the only one still standing around when Grace was dumped off, and after giving her a cursory look glanced up at Mark's window. He ran down to the pay phone, which for once was working, and called an ambulance. But by the time he got upstairs, back to his window, both women were gone. The streets were full of mysteries he did not comprehend.

August the fifteenth was his birthday and without any sign or warning he was awoken by cold water being thrown in his face. Sputtering and instantly furious he sat up to face Patrick and Paul grinning idiotically, and Mr. Kim standing in the background, speaking rapidly. "Is okay...they say they know you but I say you sleep in the day so you probably not up yet....is all right?"
Mark nodded and Mr. Kim left them, Patrick and Paul still smiling as if they had just done something very clever. Though angry at being woken up this way Mark was on some level pleased to see them, and he had to smile back. But beneath all that he found himself irritated at the intrusion. This room, this environment -- it was not theirs to visit. He had not asked them to come, yet they were here, sizing up the Spartan quarters, and Paul was already picking through the papers on his desk.
"You lazy bastard," said Patrick, cuffing Mark in the head. "Get up! You've got a show to go to!"
Mark smoothed back his dripping hair. "What show?"
So they explained. They had done it, gotten together their band and had managed to wrangle a show in another section of town for that night. "People are going to pay....to see you?" Mark had to smile.
Paul winked. "Absolutely. You've been out of the loop, you know....we've been playing around all summer. You're missing a great thing, you know, Mark, women buy us the drinks now."
"Speaking of which," said Patrick, standing with a flourish, "we brought you a birthday present." He slapped his hands over Mark's eyes. "All the way from Darnestown....a big hand for Gina!"
And as he brought his hands away she shyly walked into the room. Mark could have gladly slaughtered Patrick and Paul at that moment. Here he was, slick with water, in a T-shirt, still in bed, and they had brought Gina....here? He felt his face burn.
She gave him a half-wave and he tried to smile. "They dragged me," she told him, lying genially, "kicking and screaming. I told them I was happy not being written to all summer but..." she let her shoulders fall. Then a smile lit up her face and she rushed to the bed, throwing her arms around him. "I did miss you," she said. "Would be all your fault if I'd gone off and found somebody else."
"Aw, we won't say anything about him," said Patrick, edging away, but just as quickly as she had accosted Mark Gina slapped his arm, laughing.
Paul tapped his watch. "You've got an hour," he told Mark. "We'll roam around a bit and torment your neighbor downstairs but we've got to soundcheck in an hour so....you've got a limited amount of time, shall we say."
They left. Mark felt exhausted. Over the past few weeks he had grown to like his solitude, his habit, his self-imposed exile. Now here they were, laughing and watching and taking him to see some godawful rock show. He did not see this as a birthday present. He would get no work done this night, and he would miss his outside women. He would miss the full moon.
As they walked through Mr. Kim's closing grocery an hour later Mark could see the prostitutes lined up under the orange streetlamp and lowered his head like the German Shepherd owner. They all waved as Patrick, Paul, Gina, and Mark exited the store, and he felt Gina slip her arm into the crook of his, half in fear, half protectively.
Without thinking, Mark told her, "They're harmless. Don't worry about them."
Gina stiffened against him but said nothing.
To his surprise, the show was not bad. The group consisted of three of his closest friends: Paul, Patrick, and David, plus a guy Mark had not met before who was taking the summer off from college. Mark had been surprised at the turnout, and found he even liked some of the songs. But all evening his mind was elsewhere. Thrown off track he felt jet lagged, his energies being devoted to rewriting his current story, not in concentrating on the band, or Gina, who seemed to have recovered from her sudden bout of coolness on the ride to the venue. He had not seen her drink so many beers before, and next to her he felt somewhat straitlaced having only two, but she seemed to take them well. He wondered how many of these shows she had been to this summer.
After the show they sat around, catching up on the summer's events, though for Mark it seemed a one way street. He had kept himself holed up in his room; they certainly could not care about how many peach pits made it into the trash can, or what his latest story was about, or about the names of the prostitutes across the street. Instead he heard how their summer had been, Paul's romance with a much older woman from a nice part of town that had gone very sour when she could not find her diamond ring one morning, blamed Paul and then located it moments later in the kitchen. Paul had not been to see her after that. Patrick had been fired from his summer job for falling asleep at the wheel of a tractor, running the thing across an acre of corn before he woke up. He was currently dating somebody special but deigned not to go into detail about that, something which felt odd to Mark; Patrick usually gave measurements if he knew them. Gina had spent her summer taking extra courses for college, but otherwise it had been uneventful. She mentioned again she had missed his letters, and Mark began to feel a twinge of guilt over that, though at the time he knew he had had specific reasons for not writing back. They closed the bar down and Mark, the most sober of the group, drove everyone back into town.
Patrick grew increasingly more quiet as they approached Mr. Kim's corner, and told Mark not to park, that he and Paul and David would be driving onto the next venue, so would not be staying over. Instead, only Gina hopped out with Mark at the storefront. Mark thanked them with an enthusiasm he did not really feel, not really comprehending that Gina was standing on the curb, waiting for him to come away from the van. "Take care of her, man," said Patrick as he slid into the driver's seat.
Bemused, Mark let him drive slowly away, and as he turned only then realized they had left Gina behind. The moon was still high and it struck her with a blue white eeriness. "I'm staying tonight," she told him simply.
They went upstairs without speaking. On arriving in his room his first instinct was to go to the window, sit in the windowsill, and watch the orange light. He stuck his head out briefly, but did not acknowledge Tracy's wave. Instead he shut the window and lowered the shade. Gina had sat on the edge of his bed, crossing her legs, and slid a bracelet off her wrist, rubbing it thoughtfully. He sat next to her and brushed some brown hair from her shoulder. "Why didn't you go with them?"
She laughed shortly. "I don't need to be forty miles further from home tomorrow morning, silly. I have class still, you know."
He looked at her sharply. "You don't lie well, Gina."
She stood, found out, and exasperated. "Oh, Mark, don't be so melodramatic. I'm here, aren't I?"
"But why?"
She ran a hand down his arm. "Do you have to ask?"
He wanted to say it, he really wanted to articulate what he had known since earlier that day but bit the inside of his mouth, trying not to say Even though you'd rather be with Patrick, it is written all over your face, you're Patrick's special one now aren't you.
Suddenly Gina softened and sat next to him, crossing her arms around his neck and stared into his face. "We promised to be each other's first," she told him quietly. "I'm here for you. I want us to be together tonight."
Mark would have said And what about tomorrow night but she did not wait for his response and took it from his mouth as they kissed. And as he kissed her the frustrations from being woken up with a glass of water to slowly coming to realize what he now held would not be his anymore awakened his rage and he was furious suddenly, as angry as he had been before at the intrusion and he fell upon her, laying back on the bed, not thinking, his hand between her legs.
And then he stopped, with a strange sudden vision of a woman with black tears and a bruised purple face filling his mind and he whispered, "Tracy." Standing as if Gina had become a snake he said, "I can't."
"It's somebody else. That's why you didn't write," she said. "You've gotten someone else. You didn't wait."
"I don't...no. I just can't."
Her mouth knotted and she took out a cigarette with shaky fingers from her purse. "Is it a physical thing or do you prefer men, now?"
He slapped her. Mark had no idea where it came from, this sudden violence, but he could not restrain himself, a red curtain falling over his vision for a moment. She did not flinch, as if expecting it, and touched her cheek tenderly, staring up at him with wide, teary brown eyes. Immediately he fell to his knees, apologetic, trying to explain. She slid down to the floor with him and pulled him close to her, inhaling her cigarette from the side of her mouth like a slug of whisky. They sat quietly as she finished her cigarette, then she stood and kicked off her shoes, sliding into his bed.
"Don't worry," she told him quietly. "I just need to stay over."
Mark killed the light and slid in next to her, feeling how much this scene was like their last parting, albeit without so much pain. "It's you and Patrick, isn't it," he asked.
She sighed and slid down into his arm. "I thought I could tell you better than this, I thought we could still keep our promise."
Mark shut his mind from her voice. There was no anger, now. Just before he fell asleep, though, he thought, I know Patrick, Gina. He won't stick around. I know him too well. And he never knew if he spoke it or just thought it, because Gina had gone when he woke up the following afternoon.

There was no reason to go home now. Gina was gone, he could not face Patrick, and he felt he had grown into his apartment. With Gina's picture gone from his wall Mark began to stick up pages from magazines, faces from National Geographic that intrigued him, surrounding himself with interesting strangers. He began to write longer stories, and started a novel. The summer began to fade, and with it the warm evenings disappeared. He took to wrapping himself in a thick sweater to sit in the windowsill in the early September weeks and more often than not held a thick cup of tea or cocoa in his hands. Fewer people roamed the darkened streets, and the woman with her pan of water no longer splashed the alley. The prostitutes wore short, thick coats until a customer drove up, then disrobed for as short a time as was allowed. Body heat had its own cost, and they held it dear. He felt he was cheating by sitting up in his room, cozy and watching them work the street, weighed down by the harsh glowing orange burn, and turned away when a car approached. Mark did not like to think what they would do come December.
So he did not think about it at all. He closed the window one chilly morning and drew the shade, and did not open it for a week. In the meantime he finished the first rough draft of his tight little novel and worked in Mr. Kim's shop, letting routine take over his mind and his pen.
He might not have opened the window until the following spring but at the end of that week Mr. Kim cashed his paycheck and when Mark went to stash the money in the familiar coffee can, he found he could not. The can was tightly packed with wadded bills, nearly overflowing the top, and there was no more space for a further twenty and a five. Standing up, the can held in the crook of his arm, Mark wandered to the window, his hand on the shade to roll it up. He barely knew what he was doing but as his hand touched the shade a familiar squeal of tires broke him from his stupor.
At once he raced down the staircase, still holding the coffee can, and paused for a moment at Mr. Kim's closed shop door, seeing Tracy remove her fake-fur coat and stride up to the pale Buick, leaning halfway into the window. Mark yanked the door open, the dangling bell clanging harshly against the frame. Without looking for further traffic Mark strode over to the orange streetlamp, coming face to face with the women he had watched for so long, and was stunned silent. He nodded shortly but faced Tracy's still turned back.
"Hey," he said, and pulled gently on her boa. She looked over her shoulder, irritated, then straightened as she realized who it was.
"Hey yourself," she said.
Inside the car the would-be customer made grumbling noises. With a flick of her wrist Tracy waved him away and Trixie took over, sliding neatly into place.
Suddenly Mark wondered if every voyeur in the neighborhood was watching him now, as he had watched them all summer. Awkwardly he shoved the can into her hands. "Is that enough?"
She peeled off the lid and whistled at the pillow of bills bursting from the metal walls. Then, catching herself, she replaced the lid and threw her boa across her shoulder. Stepping back, she paused on the curb and looked long at Mark. Thus scrutinized, Mark looked away, starting to shiver from the chill air. Finally, Tracy bowed out her arms and slid into her fake fur, held out by Grace, then crooked her arm into Mark's. "Come on, then," she said.

When he woke the next morning she was gone but the packed coffee can remained, sitting alone on the dresser where Tracy had left it. Out in the hallway he could hear shuffling around, water running, and then Tracy appeared in his doorway, barelegged in his baggy sweater, shaggy hair flung over one shoulder. She stared at him for a long moment, making him feel he was once again being ingested, and instinctively he pulled the blanket higher. Then, with a kamikaze yell she flung herself onto the bed, a tangle of hair and wool and white sheets. Mark gasped at the impact, then enveloped her in his blanketed arms. "I didn't expect to see you here," he told her.
She held one arm aloft and waved her hand limply, unfazed. "Sure, sure, it was all a dream, I know, I've heard that one. Got another?"
He felt himself hurt and yet amused by her harshness, but when he paused and her eyes met his he thought he sensed she did not mean to be so offhand. "You could take the coffee can, you know."
Tracy turned her face to the headboard and traced the wood grain with her finger, saying softly, "What the fuck would I do with a coffee can?"
He ran his hand down her hair, carefully, to where it came to rest on her collarbone, and when she turned back to him he ran his fingers up her neck, under her chin, and their lips met. And as they kissed Mark felt an electric thread run from straight up his body into his mouth, as if his spine had moved inward, and he felt more nervous than he had ever been before.
She disengaged herself and for a moment he was afraid she would leave but instead she just looked up at him and said, "Oranges."
"Oranges?"
"You have some, don't you? Well, I'd really kill for some oranges right about now."
And after he had fetched some from Mr. Kim's empty shop, she showed him why.

The morning had to be the coldest since summer and all of their activity kept them warm. Finished, she dozed off and on, sprawled across his chest, which was sticky and shiny from all of the oranges. He could not help wondering when she would insist on leaving but was afraid to ask. With her around he felt afraid to do much of anything, as if he might trip up and she would leave him alone. Unlike when Patrick and Paul had visited, Tracy was no intrusion. She had been invited, and with her next to him he knew if she left he might not be able to stand being alone. Certainly he could not stare out the window again.
As if reading his mind she sleepily turned her head to face him. "I could stay a while," she said. "No rush."
Mark raised his hand and rested it on her hair, smoothing it down. "No rush at all."
He did not ask, and she stayed. As the days grew colder and windier, he never asked her to stay and she never volunteered her presence; it just worked out that way. One day after that first week, Mark came home and she was gone. So had a sweater and an old leather jacket of his, and he had panicked. Sat on the edge of his bed for an hour with his hands clasped together, knowing there was nothing for it if she just left. When the downstairs door creaked open and a heavy thudding could be heard coming up the stairwell, he rushed to meet it halfway and from there helped her drag her suitcase into the room, slinging it up on the mattress.
Tracy popped the clasps and the dingy yellow top flipped open to reveal her worldly possessions: some varied clothing, toilet articles, some newspaper clippings, and the book. Mark had squinted at the odd title and reached for it. She let him take it.
Popping open the top of the fake book, he laughed heartily at the contents -- the inside concealing her money and a pearl-handled switchblade. "You fraud," he said between laughs. "Here I was thinking you read in your spare time!"
"I like frauds," she told him. "Like I have time for reading? Right." She left him to the contents of her suitcase and flung her boa over his dresser post, letting it hang there like a deflated balloon.
He was closing her suitcase when a photo flew out, and he barely had time to glimpse the adolescent in it before she took the snapshot from him. She hugged it to her chest but gave it up when he did not insist. "See?" she said, handing it over. "Eve before the fall." And went on to shift the suitcase into a corner. The photo was of her, Mark could tell, from perhaps eight or nine years ago. Her face was rounder, her hair was pulled back with a black headband, and she wore a school uniform. She was not smiling. Absently he turned the photo over and the scribble on the back said "Age 12."
"Eve?" he asked, and she turned, then stamped her foot.
"Not Eve," she said. "You called me Tracy. I'll be Tracy."
He looked quizzically at her, unable to recall that he had ever called her anything. "You're not much for idle conversation," he said absently.
"My best conversations are in bed," she told him curtly, and snapped the photo from his fingers.
It was one of the few times he recalled her speaking of a life before his apartment. Normally she would not speak of her life "outside," as she called it, which reminded him of a prisoner's vocabulary. If this was "inside" then was she captive? The word irritated him, almost as much as his fear of asking her about it did. Her large, sleepy eyes offered nothing, and he always wilted at the thought of challenging her. After all, she could leave.
Mr. Kim did not approve. Though he turned a blind eye to their presence on his street corner, he knew the women from outside by their faces and did not like one living upstairs. But he liked Mark and only expressed his doubt in mutters and whispers. He did, however, insist that Tracy use the back door when coming or going. Mark fumed when he was handed a separate key for Tracy's use. She was done with all that, thought Mark, she was with him now, and back doors be damned.
But he took the key to her, apologetically. "You don't need to use it. I thought I should tell you what he asked, though."
She gave her head a small tilt and shrugged. "It's one of the reasons they made back doors, you know. To keep people like me from being seen." Then she smiled at him, but he did not feel much was behind it. "I really don't mind."
When she spoke like this he wanted to tell her so much, he wanted to explain how much she meant to him, how he had not known he was lonely until she had come to him, that the part of him he had closed off, the part which insisted selfishly to be needed, was now open and he never wanted it dammed up again. He wanted to express all of this and could not. Instead he would run his hands up her arms and hold her to him, hoping the words might be understood by osmosis.
He did not question her. When he seemed inquisitive, or when he tried to find out the smallest details -- what part of the country she came from -- a grayness would hood her eyes and she would turn away. Most of the time, though, he blocked out what she had been doing before he brought her to his room; though he was cognizant of it he pretended as if it had not ever happened.
It was not always easy; she had nightmares occasionally, and talked in her sleep, mumbling jumbly sentences he never understood. Sleep was not a peaceful break for her; Tracy seemed troubled even in her unconsciousness. One night she sat up straight and opened her eyes and shook him awake. Through his grogginess he could see she was not truly awake. "Give me my money," she ordered him.
"There is no money," he said, deciding not to offer the coffee can so crassly again. "You're free." And as the words came out he again realized he had made reference to her as a commodity and cringed.
She looked at him, and he wondered for a moment just how asleep she really was, then she settled back into her pillow. Mark relaxed; she had not taken what he had said the wrong way. In the morning she did not remember any of it.
Some nights, when the wind howled against the apartment like a spurned lover, desiring to come in but forced to live outside, the nightmares would scare her awake. She would curl deeply against him and, if he awoke, would ask him to maker her a cup of hot chocolate.
It was the absolute minimum he felt he could do. "Marshmallows?" he always asked.
"Little babies," she would say, pinching her fingers together, and would smile sweetly.
She was less sweet during sex. What might start out as playful, or loving caresses would heat up almost faster than Mark thought it should, and occasionally he wondered if she were on some kind of inner clock, as if after seventeen minutes she had to be back on the street again. She seemed able, and willing, but Mark could not help noticing a lack of warmth, of charm, of love, when they joined. After a time she had a tendency to grow rough with him, and would grab anything she could get a hold of in a manacling grip. Her fingers and mouth scarred him no matter how slow or gentle Mark tried to be, and on the few times he tried to rise to her level he almost hated being so brutish. Almost. Those times, he would realize she would allow anything in the bed, and he tried to pretend he was the first person to experience what Tracy would allow.
One morning, after a particularly rough night, he woke to find her side of the bed empty. Down the hall Mark could hear clattering and moving of metal, but no accompanying foreign tongues. Mr. Kim's workers usually talked up a storm so at first Mark felt confused, then realized it was a Sunday, when Mr. Kim kept the shop closed. Gingerly he stood, flinching at the cold apartment air and reached to the floor for his sweater, pulling it over his head, which ached as if he had drunk all night. He felt groggy and oddly pleased with himself and walked softly to the bedroom door, peering into the common hallway. The clattering stopped abruptly and Tracy leaned out of the kitchen, clad in another of his sweaters. "Don't you ever keep food in this place? I'm so fucking hungry I can't stand it."
He located two eggs in the refrigerator and some bread stashed in a back shelf, sitting on his own kitchen chair and watched her, marveling. Her bruises had long since healed and she had already washed her makeup off, and as she stood there barelegged in his baggy sweater, brown hair pulled high on her head he wanted badly to touch her again, but felt afraid she would remember she had to leave suddenly.
About to crack an egg into the skillet, she turned to him and said "You look about as hungry as I feel," and straddled him on the chair, wrapping her woolly arms around his neck, still holding the egg. He fixed his mouth on hers and they began to wriggle against one another, she practiced and deft, he awkward, roughly slipping his hands under her sweater to touch her again. Then she began to giggle and pulled back just an inch.
"Your hands are freezing," she laughed and brought the egg around again. Teasing, she grinned at his half-fearful, half-desirous look. "Do you love me?"
"What?"
"Do you love me?"
"Yes."
He said it so fervently she paused a second and stood. "Prove it."
Mark thought a moment. "How?"
She stood over him, still frozen in his chair and said "Eat the egg raw."
He gulped the nauseating slickness down and immediately ran to the sink, vomiting it back up again. Tracy had wrapped her hands around her mouth and was stifling hysterical laughter. Mark stared at her, dazedly, from the sink, and washed his mouth off.
"I didn't think you'd really do it," she told him, with a teasing smile. "You must really love me."
"I must," he gasped.

He often felt he could do anything for Tracy. She gave no evidence of ever having anything, except a strange charm she could turn on and off at a whim. She had a soft, rich laugh and he would tickle her often just to hear her make that unique sound. All that winter he worked on a story for her and made her laugh when he could. He bought her small gifts with the money from the can, presents she wore once or used once and then he never saw again. There were many things Mark knew he could not speak of to Tracy, and this was one of them. He had tried once to ask where the boa came from and she had peered at it vaguely, hanging as it did on the dresser mirror, as if it were some foreign object. "Oh," she had told him, seeing the pink flow of feathers as if for the first time. "I forgot about that." Later, if the subject came up again, she retreated into senility.
He continued to write, and she was his most avaricious reader. She had a summer's worth of stories to catch up on, and she read very slowly, sometimes staring off into space for several minutes, absorbing the words, occasionally flipping through his dictionary to understand his text, often taking several hours to weave through a ten page story. Mark watched her read sometimes, and could tell she was not slow, simply savoring every word, wringing from it what she could. For most of the winter she spent her days sprawled out on her stomach on the bed, clothed most often in a sweater, her long legs bent up in the air, crossed at the ankles, one sock dangling half off. She was never pretty. But Mark always thought of her as so.
One afternoon in late December he dragged a pine tree up the flight of stairs, leaving needles in its wake, and insisted the tree occupy the room through Christmas. That the top of the pine hunched over as it met the ceiling did not bother him, and Tracy took an unusual interest in the tree's welfare, watering the pan, removing some excess dead branches. All that afternoon she sat on the bed, cutting out stars and moons and Santa faces from some of Mark's magazines, making the tree resemble a collage once she had finished. Mark ventured into the December cold, returning with a strand of colored lights and threaded them through the stiff, sweet pine needles. On Christmas Eve they sat up watching the tree in the dark, drinking cheap wine from paper cups, watching the colored lights winking on and off. Mark watched the colors in Tracy's eyes and traced the curve of her face with his hand.
"I wish it 'twas the night before Christmas all year," he told her.
She turned and scanned him, her color-bright gaze skeptical and harsh, and her mouth turned down. "That would be boring," she said, and stood, walking to the window and throwing the curtains wide. Old ice coated the ground but the sky was deep and clear. It would not snow that night.
Mark stood to join her at the window, and they stared at the street lamps glowing their thick orange glow. Not a soul trod the streets; they might have been the only two residents in the town. "Let's stay up and watch for Santa," she said quietly, biting the edge of her paper cup.
"You believe in Santa?"
She turned sharply. "Why not?"
He threw a cassette in his tape recorder and soon Jordanaires harmonies wafted soothingly through the room. They curled up in the bed and stared at the sky, both expecting to see a myth fly by, and both knowing it would never happen. Mark reached over her waist and held her hand. The night sky felt infinite, dense, impenetrable, and soon he wearied of the effort it took to understand.
Feeling his hand relax in hers, she gently removed his touch from her body and slid out from the covers, standing by the window, tucking her brown hair behind her ears and folding her arms against the draft. She had not peered out Mark's window often, seeming to prefer to hibernate, actually just resting and putting off the inevitable. Tracy turned from the open window and watched Mark sleeping, in the back of her mind hearing sleigh bells and the thumping of tiny feet on the roof and murmured something to herself. "Tra-cy," she said softly, imitating Mark's tones. "Traaa-cy." A small smile flew by her mouth and she bit her cup again, finally draining it.
Throwing the curtains wide, she knelt by the side of the bed for a moment, her chin on the mattress, arms outstretched, watching Mark's basset-hound face doze. Suddenly, as if awakened by her intense gaze his round eyes drifted open and he smiled, lifting the thick downy comforter for her with one hand and reaching forward with his other. "Merry Christmas," he murmured to her and she began to kiss him.

He woke to the sound of an empty apartment and his stomach clenched. No matter what the day she seemed to wake up earlier than he did, usually cooking for herself in the kitchen down the hall, then leaving him with a piece of toast and some orange juice if he was lucky. He squinted into the bright morning sunlight, for she had left the curtains standing wide open, as she had every night since Christmas eve. Since that night he had never felt as close to her essence. She was pulling away from him and he did not know why. And now, two months later, he did not hear her morning noises.
Standing and resting his feet on the cold parquet floor he was reassured by the presence of her pink boa, though he did not stop to wonder about it. Mark glanced into the bedside clock and grimaced; her absence had made him sleep in and he would be late running downstairs for Mr. Kim. Forgoing a shower he quickly dressed and ran a comb through his short, knotty brown hair and nearly tumbled down to the shop.
Mr. Kim approached him with a tight smile on his normally open, cheerful face. "Your friend," he said. "She leave early, so early. The back door was unlocked. Very bad."
Mark nodded and apologized. "How early?"
Mr. Kim turned and shouted to his son in Korean. "Six o'clock, seven o'clock. She nearly knock my son down, hurry hurry hurry." Mr. Kim took Mark's arm and shook his head slowly. "Not good. Not good at all." And Mark knew he was no longer talking about the back door. "Before, she take apple. My son saw. She took can of beans. I saw. I don't say, because she a friend of Mark. But I say now. Very bad."
Mark stiffened indignantly, though he wilted inside because he had always tried to cover her indiscretions before, feeling unable to talk to her about them, thinking it just easier to smooth over any thefts. But in front of Mr. Kim he felt he had to act Galahad, standing tall and defensive. "I paid for those things. I asked her to get them for me. It isn't her fault."
Mr. Kim smiled sadly. "A great burden for you, Mark. Too much a burden. Too young for so heavy a load." He released Mark's arm. "We work now, okay?"
"Okay." But Mark's mind was no longer on his work. He listened all day at the back staircase for Tracy's return, stocking the shelves slowly, cocking an ear in case the floorboards squeaked. When Mr. Kim let him go a half hour early, Mark barely noticed, flinging his store apron into a bin and racing up the stairs, taking them three at a time.
At the top of the stairs he stood, breathing heavily, shaking with a mixture of relief and anger. Tracy was curled up fetally in the bed, her hands tucked under her head. Mark stood over her as she lay there and suddenly felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead, all of his fears from the day allayed simply by her presence. He sat gently next to her and wiped the hair from her slightly clammy forehead, wanting her to wake up on her own, not wanting to be the one to arouse her from slumber. But something inside him ached to shake her awake and demand an explanation, and he buried it deep. It did not matter, not really, she was here, and that was enough. If he lost her he did not know what he would do, for how could anyone love him as much as she did? Who would understand him?
Under his touch she began to shiver and he pulled up a separate blanket, then stood to go and make some tea. The bed squeaked as he stood and he heard her voice, strangely small, reach out to him as surely as her hand might. "Don't leave me."
He sat again and wrapped his hand around hers, silent. He looked around the room, sighing heavily, unable to release Mr. Kim's words from his mind. Was Tracy a burden? His gaze caught them both in the dresser mirror and quickly he looked away, into the glare of a naked light bulb. Tracy had left the bathroom light on. He felt a tightening on his hand and he squeezed back. She opened her eyes and they were bloodshot, empty, tired.
"Are you all right?" he craned forward.
She smiled weakly, not unlike Mr. Kim's smile from that morning, and he noticed her lips were dry and cracked. "Everything's all right, now. I'm very tired."
He squeezed her hand in support. "I missed you this morning. All that food only for me."
The smile did not fade, but grew more strained. "Make me some hot chocolate, please?"
"Marshmallows?" he asked, smiling carefully.
The smile melted. "No," she said, curling tighter and releasing his hand. "No babies."

He knew right away when someone was not listening to him; somehow his words echoed rather than resonated, as if the ear could be shut off he heard his words boomerang back to his mouth and he paused in reading. Tracy, smoking a cigarette by the open window, waited a moment too long to react to his pause. "You stopped," she said.
"You weren't listening," he said, mildly hurt.
"Yes I was..." she groped for the last idea she could recall. "'The candlestick must have fallen over, setting the room ablaze.'"
"Four pages ago." He saw her mentally shrug and stare out the window again. Wounded, he pouted at the rejection of his story for her, the first where he found he could write the word 'Tracy.' "I'm writing this for you."
She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, tearing her gaze from the window and sitting on the bed, alert and attentive. But he felt this was not her first choice. "Can you close that window? It's freezing in here."
"It's so nice out," she said. "First really nice day we've had." But she latched the window anyway, first tossing her cigarette butt out into the street.
Mark pretended to put the story away.
"Go ahead, I'm ready. Really, I love the story, Mark...I'm just...itchy."
She made him feel like a cruel parent, or a teacher, and he did not speak, just stared at her.
Tracy looked away, but could not resist a peek back at his wide eyes and blank expression. Finally she stood and took the pages from his hand, straddling him on his chair just as she had done before. It never failed to soothe any hurt feelings, and she felt him relax under her, and at the same time become almost instantly aroused. Instead of responding, she merely wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close, and felt him bury his head in her embrace. He sighed, shuddering as he did so, and threaded his arms around her back, pulling her tighter. She did not know he was weeping at first, she did not know until the warm salty wetness coated her arm. And she laid her cheek on his head, closing her eyes, peaceful.

April brought spring to the town, late but blooming violently in the trees and grass, the flowerpots and window boxes of the apartments, the azure sky finally forcing the clouds to separate and dissipate. Creatures and flora not seen in months emerged from their winter homes to peer at the world they thought they had forgotten, returning to their instincts, the daily routine of seeking food, and simple survival. People came from their homes and walked their dogs. The woman across the way began dumping water from her window again. And Mr. Kim propped his front door open to let the fresh mountain breezes air out the winter mustiness from the planks of his store. A grand broom came to sweep the dust of the town away, and start anew.
When he first woke and she wasn't there he supposed, in a distant, clear way, that he should not have been surprised, that on some level he knew it had to happen. He stared at the horizon in his mind and knew he had been anticipating this for weeks, months. He did not even have to glance at the dresser to know her boa was gone. But he looked anyway.
And then he broke. The pink flash was missing, and with it Tracy. Later he would find her note, and later he would see she had taken nothing from the apartment save what she brought in, including his coffee can full of money, but at the notation of the pink feathered atrocity gone from where it had been tied all winter, he sank back onto his bed and thrust his fists in his eyes. Yellow and red flashes drove the pain into his skull and he ground his fists harder, harder, hoping when he opened them the boa would be back, and all would be well. When he brought his hands down they were wet but no tears ran down his face. Mark tilted his face upwards, mouth wide open, and closed his eyes, breathing deeply, long, until he felt near faint. Then he stood and threw a recently-used coffee mug at the dresser, where it shattered into unimportant ceramic shards.
Wobbly, he stood and went to the open window, standing where the curtains blew softly into the room, feeling his way, staring only at the wood floor. At the window, hidden by the haze of afternoon he forced himself to look outside, to stare at the corner where no one stood, and no cars stopped. He began to breathe normally, but did not move from his place until the sun had gone down and the harsh orange light he had begun to forget flickered on and spilled onto the sidewalk. His feet cramped and his body tense from nerves, he thought briefly that he could even hear the light calling, saying come to me, stand under me, be with me, you can stay with me, and as if responding he truly heard female voices approaching from down the street, all decked out in tight, flashy clothing, tall boots and glitter. Trixie was still there, as was Grace. He did not see Myrna. They looked sleek, the two of them, apparently the winter had done them well. They stood around, legs thrust outward, and leaned on the streetlight from time to time. A car drove by, and Grace leaned in, but finally the driver moved on without either of the women.
And then they glanced up and waved to the distance. Mark's fingers dug into his palms as he watched Tracy, pink boa wrapped casually around her neck, saunter towards them, allowing herself to be hugged and petted by her friends. She was wearing an outfit he had not seen in all the days she had been with him. As long as she had stayed with him she had worn mostly his clothing, and seeing her tarted up, tightly lashed into a spotted halter top and hot pants he quickly looked away, seeing only the red sheet which had blotted out his vision.
He slammed the windows closed and the glass in one cracked neatly down the middle. He started to close the curtains and instead ended up tearing them down, falling backwards on the bed, biting the cloth to prevent himself from howling out loud.
Then he stopped. Of course. She simply thought she had to leave when the weather improved. It all was very simple, he thought. She thought it was understood. All he had to do was tell her there was no reason to remain where she was. Mark smiled, the red sheet falling away. He threw some clothes on and raced down the stairs, through Mr. Kim's closed shop and out into the street.
She was gone. Grace was leaning into another car and Trixie, seeing him on the street, flipped her hair back. Mark sprinted to where she stood. "Where is she?" he demanded.
"Where is who, honey?" Trixie asked him, smiling, swaying side to side.
"Tracy...where did she go...please tell me." He felt a terrible sense of desperation wash over him.
Trixie smiled and he wanted to smack the look off of her face. "Hey, Nat. He wants to know where Tracy is."
Grace stepped back from the car and popped her gum. "There ain't no Tracy, sweetie. Ain't you wised up to that?" She waved her arm in dismissal and leaned back in the car.
The anger began to descend on Mark again. Trixie saw his eyes darken and took some pity. "She just left with a guy, honey. You should go home. I could go with you. I can be Tracy."
Mark steeled himself. "In a car? Did they go in a car?"
Trixie smiled. "That way. They just walked that way. He's a regular, has an apartment around here on Pleasant Street. Nice guy. You shouldn't worry."
Mark winced and followed her finger pointing, running hard down Pleasant, a cul-de-sac of apartments, one just like the other. He stared upwards, panting, and watched the window of one swing open, for a moment thinking he saw pink feathers. Sprinting up the stairs he punched all the buzzers until someone let him in, then ran up the stairs, three at a time, pounding his fist on the apartment door at the end of the hall.
To his surprise, it opened and a small man in glasses and a suit appeared at the door. "I'm sorry, but you must have the wrong apartment."
Pumped up by his anger and abandonment Mark pushed him aside and strode into the apartment. Gazing out the window absently, a cigarette in her hand and the boa still loose around her neck, was Tracy. Apparently she had not been listening, yet again, and turned to say "Who was it, Harvey --" and jumped visibly when she saw Mark.
Harvey put his hand on Mark's shoulder. "If you will leave my home," he said, but in a glance Mark could see it was no home. It was more sparsely furnished than his own abode, just a large bed and a mirror, nothing on the walls nor any other furniture. This apartment had but one purpose. Mark turned and in a flash smacked his fist into Harvey's glasses, seeing the older man fall to the ground, clutching his eyes, moaning.
"Mark. You can't be here." Tracy's voice was strong but wavered on the last word. Her fingers gripped the cigarette tightly and she rested on hand on the windowpane to steady herself.
Mark was frozen in his tracks, the blood pounding in his head, his hand aching from the impact. He could feel his heart beating, fluttering like a large bird that wants to escape, and with great effort he walked to Tracy.
"I...left a note," she said weakly, and tossed her cigarette out the window, the fiery ember falling four floors before touching the ground.
"I didn't read it," he said. "You can come home. It's all right."
She shook her head. "I am home, Mark, this is my home."
He felt his heart would burst. "No, it's not."
She winced and in that one moment he saw he had lost her. "You don't know me, Mark, you never have. I don't love you." Her voice grew stronger as she spoke.
He grasped her arms for support and began to grip her tightly, trying to blink away the red. "It's okay, that's okay, I just want you back with me. You don't have to do this."
She sighed. "Yes, I do," she said with a finality, her words growing stronger. "You have no idea. You could never understand."
Without thinking he shook her hard and she stumbled back a step. "I don't want to understand!" His voice rose higher, grew louder.
"Stop, Mark. Go away. I don't want you here." She was trying to keep her voice under control, to remain on top of this but was not succeeding.
He gripped her arm and pulled. "Please. Come with me. We have to get out of here."
When it happened it was not like in books; it was too fast for words. She ripped her arm from him and lashed out with the other, slapping him hard on the cheek. And he would never be able to explain what came over him -- there were no words for that, either. Slapped, he pushed back hard, as if Tracy was his typewriter, and already off balance she fell from the open window, down four flights, screaming as she went, a sound never finished as she hit the pavement

Mark stood on the porch, the rain still coming down in soft pattering drops, the rain which the warm sirocco wind had promised just a few days ago. He could not remember how he had escaped this far, or why he had come back to his home town, but after her scream he had run as far and as fast as he could, not thinking, back to Mr. Kim's and then on a bus home. He had told his friends what had happened and they had not judged, only told him what they had to do. What he had to do. It was all the same thing, now. He had watched Paul pick up the receiver and dial.
Mark pushed open the porch door, knowing they were watching him, daring them to follow. The door slapped shut, wood on wood, angry at not being allowed to stand open. Paul watched Mark from the porch, watched him walk to the water of the lake, and held Patrick back. "He's not going anywhere, Patrick. Leave him be."
He could see them out there, hear their music between the raindrops, and Mark walked towards the Jordainaires, still beckoning to him at the edge of the lake. He stood there with them, their ghostly arms enfolding him, caressing him, the patter of the rain and the whisper of their words calming him down, making him unafraid. And that was how they found him, drenched from the rain, eyes dully brown, and then they took him away.

for john