“Purple is stupendous.” He took the pen and twirled it idly between his fingers, squinting to himself as I scanned the road.

A cab pulled up at the taxi stand, dropping off a late operagoer. I raced to snag it.

“Seventy-first and Central Park West,” I said, slamming the door behind us. Then I offered my arm to Oscar.

He cradled my wrist, smoothing one finger along the bone, like he was worried about breaking me. Then he bit the cap off my purple pen and started to write. I closed my eyes, enjoying the rocking of the taxi, the tickling, sliding touch of the pen marking me. Oscar’s music, covering me.

I felt him sigh, a warm gust, and opened my eyes to see him staring at my face.

He smiled slowly. “Sorry. Just a little . . .”

“You don’t have to.” I laughed. “It was only an idea.”

“No, this is great. If you really don’t mind.” He kept going, quickly now, all the way up to the curve of my biceps.

When he finished, he kissed my palm lightly, a thank-you, and my whole body went fizzy.

As we got out of the cab, Oscar held my arm gently upright, like he thought the notes might tumble onto the sidewalk.

It was dark inside the basement apartment. Oscar fumbled for the light switch, and when the overheads came on, I let out a surprised laugh. The mess of composition pages had spread, carpeting the floor around the sofa, while some sparse neater pages taped to the wall flapped in the AC unit’s breeze. How did he live like this?

Oscar wandered to his bed, pulling me with him. He smoothed a corner of his striped duvet for me to sit on, then joined me on the mattress. It felt like a line crossed to sit here, even though Oscar was working, carefully transcribing his music from my arm to his notation paper.

“This okay?” he murmured, scooting closer.

“Yeah.” I kept still, feeling the gentle heat of his exhalations— distracting myself by trying to make sense of what he’d written. That note was an E, maybe, if it lined up with the dots he’d drawn on the side? F sharp, after that?

His finger slid up my arm. I refocused on the music. Were those eighth notes, sixteenths . . . would Dad know? Could Mom look at this and decipher it?

“What do you think?” Oscar asked, tossing the pen onto the ground. “Oh. Sorry . . . here.”

He handed me the sheet of paper where he’d transcribed the notes. In these few minutes, he’d added chords to it, a winding countermelody along the bass line. I could pick out the main theme now. I hummed it and it started to take form, an echo against stone, lilting but sad . . .

A grin flitted across Oscar’s face. “You have a pretty voice.”