A moment later she sat down across the table from him, setting down her menu and a glass of iced tea. His belly jolted slightly at the boldness of the move. It felt as though she was about to confront him over something.
Then she opened her mouth and proved him right.
“So here’s a question, art survey guy, and hold on to your hat, because it’s a big one.”
“You’re the only one here wearing a hat,” he said. He felt his face redden, because it had been a lame and silly attempt to defuse the moment with humor. “Okay. Sorry. Go.”
“Is there really an art survey? Because I looked up that art institute at the library. And it doesn’t seem to exist.”
“No. There was never any art survey. I just wanted to get you to the door to see if you were okay.”
“Then who are you?”
“Nobody. I’m just the guy across the avenue. Who doesn’t want to see you get hurt.”
“But we’re total strangers. Why would that guy even care?”
“We’re not total strangers. We know each other well enough that we’re sitting here getting ready to order lunch together.”
Actually, he had no idea if she would stay at his booth through lunch, or even the ordering of it. But she had brought her menu and her iced tea. That felt like a good sign. Anyway, it was worth a try.
“And how well did you know me when you knocked on my door yesterday morning?”
“Not at all,” he said, his gaze cast down to the shiny metal table, heavy with something like shame.
“So back to the original question.”
“No,” he said, finding his voice and his strength again. Because he was trying to do the right thing, no matter her opinion about it. “No, I have a question for you. And hold on to your hat, because it’s a big one. How well do I need to know a person before I’m allowed to prefer that nothing terrible happens to them?”
She let the question sit on the table in silence for a beat or two. Then the waiter showed up, pad in hand, to take their order.
“The usual?” he asked Edith.
She nodded slightly, still silent.
The waiter turned his eyes to Anthony, who ordered the chili with chopped onions and extra cheese.
When the waiter left, Edith raised her face and pulled off her sunglasses. The bruising under her eye was lighter than the previous morning, but still sickening to observe. Less deep purple and more light yellow and green. He looked away from it, noticing her nose instead, which was straight and narrow, and fairly long. It made her less than fashion-model pretty, but he thought it looked dignified and refined. He liked it because it was different. Something by which to know her. A way in which she was purely herself and not anyone else he knew.
“Okay,” she said. “I hear that. I get that. I’ll give you that much. You’re a good guy. You’re just trying to be a good person. And I give you credit for it. But there’s still a big part of this that doesn’t add up.”
“What part is that?”
“You came to my door. And you saw I had a black eye. And so you wanted to know that I was okay. Which I get. But I don’t get why you came to my door in the first place. Why were you worried before you knocked?”
“Because what happened . . . you know . . . night before last. It happened in front of the window.”
For a time, no answer. She set her face in her hands, her eyes hidden from his view. Quite a bit of time passed. Anthony began to wonder if she was ever going to speak again.
The food arrived, breaking her spell. His chili and her turkey sandwich on wheat bread. She lifted her head out of her hands, possibly for lack of other reasonable options.
“They make the best turkey sandwiches here,” she said, seeming to shake herself awake again. “With cream cheese and cranberry sauce.” She lifted the top slice of bread to show him the cranberry sauce. It was a streak of deep red that he found unnerving. Like a gash. Like blood. “I try to make them myself at home, but they just don’t come out the same. So I have one here every day for lunch. Well . . . every weekday.”
He said nothing. He was trying to decide if she was purposely telling him her whereabouts every day at lunchtime. If there was an overt message there. And, if so, why. He wanted to say he’d gathered as much already from the waiter’s reference to her “usual” order. Though of course he couldn’t have known it was every weekday.
“You never think anybody will be looking in on a thing like that,” she said, her voice more hushed. “That hit me pretty hard. No pun intended. That’s pretty damned humiliating.”
“I don’t know why,” he said, picking up his soup spoon and stirring the half-melted cheese into his chili. “It’s not a reflection on you.”
But it might have been, he realized—depending on how many times her husband had hurt her, and how many times she had forgiven him and stayed. He wanted to ask how long she’d been married to the man, but of course he didn’t. He couldn’t. It was none of his business. Any fool would know that.
“I’m surprised you could even see in any detail from the fourteenth floor,” she said.
Which was interesting to Anthony, because it meant she had been listening when he told her where he lived, and she had remembered.
“Well, it’s really only the thirteenth floor. They just call it fourteen because some people are superstitious.” When she didn’t answer straight away, he added, “Are you superstitious?”
He took a bite of chili. It was amazingly good. It woke him up inside. It had spice. Heat. It was interesting. Suddenly everything in his life felt interesting, though he realized the chili might be only a small part of that big feeling.
“Not about things like that. But you avoided something there, and I think you know it.”
He sighed. “Look,” he said. “There’s a reason why it happened the way it did—my being able to see what I saw. And it might not sound like a thing that makes sense to somebody else, because it has to do with getting used to doing things one-handed.” He paused, noticing her gaze flicker to his stump again. “I know it doesn’t sound like the two are related, but you have to trust me on this. I swear on my grandfather’s grave, I was not trying to be nosy by looking through your window. It was a weird accident. I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles, it was just this weird thing that I didn’t mean to have happen. I know you don’t know me very well, but I’m not a liar. I’m not a perfect person, but you can count on me to tell you the truth at least.”
He pitched back into his chili, waiting to see if she trusted him or not. If she absolved him or not. If it seemed she could forgive him for violating her privacy, accidentally or not.
“Oh.” She smacked herself on the forehead with the heel of her hand. “You called the police. I just now got that. I’m a little slow, I guess. We thought it was the old man next door.”
“I had to do something,” he said.
Time stretched out without an answer from her. She ate her turkey sandwich as though it required her undivided attention. Anthony never stopped being unsettled by its flashes of deep blood red, even though he knew in his head it was only cranberry sauce.
“So you lost your hand recently,” she said after several minutes. “When you see a thing like that, you always figure it happened years ago, and that the person is totally used to it.”