Page 13

TWELVE

When Alex looks up from reading, the light at the windows has shifted, throwing the office into the shadow of the surrounding buildings. Alex glances at the clock affixed to the wall above the door. Its gold hands and roman numerals show that it is already well past 8 p.m. It is easy to lose track of time back here, she thinks. Alex has been so engrossed in the letters she’s nearly forgotten where she is. She yawns, extending her arms into the air and looking around the room.

Her stomach feels sour and empty. She should eat something. Just one more letter first. There is something thrilling about being allowed into a complete stranger’s deepest thoughts and desires, being let into their inner life. She is quickly finding the letters addictive. Alex reaches across the desk and pulls the dangling chain on the green-glassed banker’s lamp, but it remains dark. She fishes for the cord and finds it dangling below the desk unplugged.

She drops to her hands and knees on the worn Turkish carpet, dragging herself into the small space under her desk. She can feel the dust working into her palms as she crawls back to the outlet, hidden cleverly in a brass panel in the floor. As she plugs the lamp in, sending a dim beam of light behind her, she sees a shadow of something below the heavy wooden leg. It is a book, its pages bent and unfurling, wedged against the floor. It must have slid off the top of the desk and gotten stuck there. She twists it out, pulling it with her as she shimmies backward out of the space. The lamp casts a yellowy glow onto the book, a collection of poems by William Butler Yeats.

It is an old copy without a dust jacket. She delicately flips through the first pages, sending out a cloud of dust that makes her nose run. It’s a first edition, she notes on the copyright page, probably quite a valuable book. Strange it should have been forgotten.

On the dedication page is a note, hand-scrawled in black with darker splatters of ink, like it came from a leaking fountain pen.

To Francis. Hearts are not had as a gift, but hearts are earned.

As she lowers the book to her desk, something flutters to the ground from between the pages. Alex bends down and picks up a rectangular piece of pale-green cardstock. It’s heavy, the kind that you buy in a stationery store to write proper thank-you notes on, with a delicate gold line embossed around the border. There is a note on one side; this handwriting is a far cry from the inky stain in the dedication. It is neat, tilted script straight across the center, precise as if done with a ruler. It says simply:

I know.

She flips it over, but the back of the card is unmarked.

There’s a knock on the door, and Alex slips the note into the pocket of her skirt and slides the book into her desk drawer, embarrassed that she’s allowed herself to become so distracted, especially on her first day. She wants Howard Demetri’s first image of her to be Alex Marks, hard at work, not Alex Marks, covered in dust with her nose in a book of poetry.

“Come in,” she calls out, her voice catching. But instead of Howard, it is Lucy who pops her head once again around the side of the door.

“I’m going to go home now, if that’s okay with you.” She’s wearing a tote bag from the Strand bookshop and holds a thermos in her hand. Alex realizes that she doesn’t know where Lucy even works. Does she have a desk somewhere, or does she just exist in the strange in-between of the mailroom and Alex’s office?

“Thanks so much for your help today.” Lucy beams. She is so young-looking it’s hard for Alex to believe she was Francis’s assistant for more than five years. “Truly, you’ve been a lifesaver. I don’t know what I would have done here all on my own. I haven’t seen Howard all day and I don’t think Jonathan likes me very much,” she admits.

“Don’t even thank me, it’s my job. I’m happy to help,” Lucy says, surveying the unopened pile of letters on her desk. “You’re sure you don’t need help going through these? I can stay late if you need me to.”

“I’ll be fine,” Alex says definitively. She’s used to being alone. And she feels a tug of pride. She wants to be independent the way Francis was. “You haven’t seen Howard around, have you?”

Lucy shakes her head. “He may have gone home for the day.”

Alex tries to hide her disappointment.

“Did you need something?”

“No, I mean, he was going to stop by, he said.” Had he just forgotten her there? All day she’s listened for him in the hall, expecting his long-limbed figure at the door. She notices a flash of anxiety on Lucy’s face at the mention of Howard. She glances behind her as though eager to leave. “It’s fine. You go.”

“Okay then. See you tomorrow, Alex.” Lucy gives her a little wave and a strained smile.

Everyone seems a little on edge here, Alex thinks, remembering the sickly sheen on Jonathan’s face earlier. What is it about this place? She opens a letter and begins to read a plea from a woman who wants help fixing her ailing marriage, but then puts it down, distracted.

Alex goes to the window, chewing on the inside of her cheek. The sky outside has gone dark denim blue. The last flares of an orange sunset streak the sky. She presses her forehead to the cool glass and looks down. Far below are lines of white and red light, traffic crawling across Midtown. Now that she’s not reading, Alex feels her ears ringing from the quiet of her office. The silence agitates her. A little break from this room will be good. She wants to be out there, in the real world. She watches a crowd of people gather at the corner, their bodies moving as one through the crosswalk when the light changes, all heading home from work or out to dinner. She can see the lights from a coffee shop spilling out onto the street. Suddenly she wants to be down there with all of them, to leave the sterile chill of the Herald ’s giant air-conditioning system and walk out into that wallop of heat.