OF COURSE, THE TELEPHONE did eventually ring and some friend or another persuaded Ruth to go out after all. Iris fell asleep at eleven o’clock to an empty apartment and woke up after ten hours of monumental slumber, rich with dreams. She checked the other bedroom, where Ruth lay on the bed atop the covers, facedown, wearing nothing but her satin slip.

Iris hobbled into the kitchen on her crutches and made coffee. While the percolator got going, she found an overlooked glass or two, and a piece of discarded cheese crawling with ants. She cleaned them up. On her way past the front door, she spied a small white note on the floorboard. It was addressed to her and went like this:

Dolce Iris, is it too much trouble to meet a fellow for coffee in some scurvy dive where we won’t be interrupted by motorcycles or siblings? I propose the Vespri Siciliani on Via del Plebiscito at 11. It’s only a short walk from your place but if you’d rather not, no hard feelings. I’ll wait until noon. Yours ever, S.

Ruth

JUNE 1952

New York City

Nine mornings out of ten, I’m the first person to report for duty at the Herbert Hudson Modeling Agency, and the day after Sumner Fox’s visit I believe I set some kind of record, charging through the glassy lobby at twelve minutes to seven—this in a business where people regularly stagger to their desks at eleven o’clock, still drunk from the night before.

I flip on the lights and make coffee, and when the coffee’s good and hot I sit at my desk, light a cigarette, and flip through the morning papers, because nothing distracts you from your woes like the woes of other people.

But my luck is out, I guess. First off, my eye catches some headline to do with those missing English diplomats. ONE YEAR LATER, MACLEAN WIFE AND CHILDREN CARRY ON, it laments. I suck down some coffee and turn the page, but you know how it is when a particular item of news fascinates you. You can turn the page, all right; you can force your attention on all kinds of worthy stories about corruption at City Hall and the plight of refugees in some war-stricken country you’ve never heard of. But your brain wants what it wants, does it not?