He didn’t know what to do now. Didn’t know what to think. Call again now? Call again later? If so, how much later? Don’t call and just show up? Go to Brooklyn, then call again from Brooklyn Heights? Go to the hotel and sleep and call her the next morning? Is she sleeping? Is she out? Is she on her way here because she’s concerned about me? Is she home but doesn’t want to pick up because she’s changed her mind about me coming over? Is she okay? If she’s not okay, what would I do? Call the cops and send them there? Or would that be a job for EMS? Fuck, maybe Lewis came over and she doesn’t want to pick up? Or she wants to pick up but knows that she shouldn’t? What if she isn’t okay? Is she okay? What if he’s there? What are they doing? Are they talking? Are they eating? Are they sleeping? Are they making love? Are they fucking? If they are, is she liking it? Is she on top? Or is she on the bottom? On her back or on her belly? Are they standing up against the fridge? Is she bent over with her head in the fridge and her legs apart? Is she okay? Is she okay? Is she okay? Did she really mean to tell me to come over? Did she mean it then change her mind? What if I went over there now, what the fuck would we do anyway? Talk? Sleep? Eat? Make love with her head in the refrigerator? Or would we start kissing at the door then make love right there—half in, half out, half clothed, half nude, half sane, half mad—and roll down the steps halfway into the street and confuse a drunk driver? Is she okay? Is she okay? Is she okay?

He decided to call her again, but he was out of change. As he stood at the curb to cross the street to get some, a cab discharged a fare in front of him. He stood there looking at the open door, not knowing what to do until the driver, a Russian with limp brown hair, asked him where he was going.

“Brooklyn.”

“Where exactly, sir?”

He thought for a minute. Should he go to his or hers? He mumbled directions to the driver, leaned against the door, and went to sleep.

Like a higgler, he stood at the top of the steps with his shoulders straight, his back erect, his body aligned to ease the burden that weighed on his head. Through the door a bunch of keys were tinkling like a kora, and soft feet moved on the floorboards like mallets on the keys of a marimba.

She was home. A sigh curled him over like a bent blue note, giving him release, toppling the basket of woes at her doorway, where she was standing now, in slippers and white pajamas, framed by yellow light, needing only wings to be an angel.