Addie sits folded in a leather chair in the corner of The Last Word, the soft purr of the cat emanating from the shelves somewhere behind her head, as she watches customers lean toward Henry like flowers toward the sun.
Once you know about a thing, you start to see it everywhere.
Someone says the words purple elephant, and all of a sudden, you catch sight of them in shop windows and on T-shirts, stuffed animals and billboards, and you wonder how you never noticed.
It is the same with Henry, and the deal he made. A man, laughing at everything he says.
A woman beams, radiant with joy.
A teenage girl steals chances to touch his shoulder, his arm, blushing with blatant attraction.
Despite it all, Addie is not jealous.
She has lived too long and lost too much, and what little she’s had has been borrowed or stolen, never kept to herself. She has learned to share— and yet, every time Henry steals a glance her way, she feels a pleasant flush of warmth, as welcome as the sudden appearance of sunlight between clouds.
Addie draws her legs up into the chair, a book of poems open in her lap. She’s swapped the paint-spattered clothes for a new pair of black jeans,
and an oversized sweater, lifted from a thrift store while Henry was working. But she kept the boots, the little flecks of yellow and blue a reminder of the night before, the closest thing she has to a photo, a material memory. “Ready?”
She looks up, sees the shop sign already turned outwardly to CLOSED, and Henry standing near the door, his jacket slung over his arm. He holds out his hand, helps her from the leather chair, which, he explains, has a way of eating people.
They step outside, climb the four steps back to the street. “Where to?” asks Addie.
It is early, and Henry’s buzzing with a restless energy. It seems to worsen around dusk, sunset a steady marker of one day gone, time passing with the loss of light.
“Have you been to the Ice Cream Factory?” “That sounds like fun.”
His face falls. “You’ve already been.” “I don’t mind going again.”
But Henry shakes his head, and says, “I want to show you something new. Is there anywhere you haven’t been?” he asks, and after a long moment, Addie shrugs.
“I’m sure there is,” she says. “But I haven’t found it yet.”
She meant it to be funny, light, but Henry frowns, deep in thought, and looks around.
“Okay,” he says, grabbing her hand. “Come with me.” An hour later, they are standing in Grand Central.
“I hate to break it to you,” she says, looking around at the bustling station, “but I’ve been here before. Most people have.”
But Henry shoots her a grin that’s pure mischief. “This way.”
She follows him down the escalator to the station’s lower level. They weave, hand in hand, through a steady sea of evening travelers, toward the bustling food hall, but Henry stops short, beneath an intersection of tile arches, corridors branching every direction. He draws her into one of the pillared corners, where the arches split, curving overhead and across, turns her toward the tiled wall.
“Stay here,” he says, and starts to walk away.
“Where are you going?” she asks, already turning to follow.
But Henry returns, squaring her shoulders to the arch. “Stay here, like this,” he says. “And listen.”
Addie turns her ear to the tile wall, but she can’t hear anything over the shuffle of foot traffic, the clatter and rattle of the evening crowd. She
glances over her shoulder. “Henry, I don’t—”
But Henry isn’t there. He’s jogging across the hall to the opposite side of the arch, maybe thirty feet away. He looks back at her, and then turns away and buries his face in the corner, looking for all the world like a kid playing hide-and-seek, counting to ten.
Addie feels ridiculous, but she leans in close to the tiled wall, and waits, and listens.
And then, impossibly, she hears his voice. “Addie.”
She startles. The word is soft but clear, as if he’s standing right beside her.
“How are you doing this?” she asks the arch. And she can hear the smile in his voice when he answers.
“The sound follows the curve of the arch. A phenomenon that happens when spaces bend just right. It’s called a whispering gallery.”
Addie marvels. Three hundred years, and there are still new things to learn.
“Talk to me,” comes the voice against the tile. “What should I say?” she whispers to the wall.
“Well,” says Henry, softly, in her ear. “Why don’t you tell me a story?”
