“I tolerate coffee.” Yaya pursed her lips and licked her teeth. “What to talk about?”

“Well.” Bryant took the first step away from the deli and didn’t take a second until he was sure Yaya stepped beside him. “How about your name?”

“M—Yaya.”

“Just the one?”

“For now.” Especially when Yaya couldn’t seem to get the first straight.

She had almost said Magenta. Someone in her gut wanted something and was going to poke and prod Yaya’s brain to get it. That was fine. Magenta would stay busy, and the walk would keep her from eating any more birds.

10

Just before sunset, Yaya agreed to go home with Bryant. They had gone for coffee, visited the Newark Museum of Art, and wandered some benign darkness in Yaya’s head, although that last locale might’ve been just for her and Magenta.

After the invitation, they picked up a pizza and made the quick drive. His suburban neighborhood shot off from Riverside Avenue, but its street name lay obscured behind a bowing tree limb, its branches not yet skeletal. Every house seemed relaxed, their windows filled with warm light. Everyone who lived here could afford to slip away from the city’s fresh skyscrapers, their properties already valuable and pre-gentrified.

The trees that bordered Bryant’s yard came stunted and coated in needles, partway obscuring his house, a one-level with delusions of grandeur, so long and wide that it encroached on its own back yard. A pointed roof climbed just past the treetops. Yaya noted the windows bore curved patterns that might have been metal or wood, she couldn’t tell. The lawn was neat and leafless.

“Big house for being in computers,” she said, stepping out of the car. The pizza kept her hands warm against the chilly air.

“I diversify my portfolio,” Bryant said, leading her to the front door. In the gloom, his beard seemed a separate creature that clung to his face.

He opened the front door, which led into a short, windowless hall, almost like an airlock, so that the cold outdoors never made direct contact with the warm indoors. A tiny nightlight glowed from a wall socket, the only illumination when Bryant closed the outside door.

Magenta was getting anxious, thinning Yaya’s skin. Bryant passed to her left, a slow, broad shuffle that brushed against her arm. The moment between doors dragged on.

“Sorry,” he said, and keys jangled in his hands. “Cluttered keyring.”

Light flooded the “airlock” as the inner door opened. Yaya kept to Bryant’s heels until she stepped through.

A ten-foot ceiling, broken only where pillars climbed, but they looked more decorative than structurally necessary. The living space was all apiece—living room, dining room, kitchen—much like Yaya’s, except this place could swallow three of her apartments, never mind the back halls that must’ve led to bathrooms, bedrooms, and office. Abstract art decorated each wall, set into black frames. No photos.

Bryant waved her toward the kitchen, guiding the pizza to an island countertop. “You drink, yeah?” he asked, and then disappeared around a corner.