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SIX

L ook up, Eddie. Someone’s talking to you.

“Are you okay?”

Eddie, still struggling to reroot himself, hears a voice above him. He squints up to a figure standing in front of him with an outstretched arm, motionless against the city streaming along behind him. He is only a silhouette, backlit by the searing sun, his face in shadow, a hazy halo glow around the edges. Where did he come from? Eddie squints. Does he know you? The figure dips his head to one side, and the sun slices into Eddie’s eyes. He squeezes them shut, a protective instinct.

“I’m fine,” Eddie mumbles. He waves his hand through the air, as if to shoo the intruder.

“Let me help you up.”

Eddie shakes his head. “I said I’m fine,” he says, or tries to say, but he can barely hear his own voice.

The shadow takes a step back. “Are you on something?”

“No.”

“Come on,” the figure says, insisting now. “Grab my hand.”

Eddie looks back up, reluctantly, and that’s when he sees it, right there on the inside of the outstretched arm. A songbird.

Theo.

Eddie searches for a feeling of relief. This should feel like good luck, to have a friendly hand held out to help him. He should smile sheepishly, take the hand, say thank you. But instead, Eddie hides his face and wishes he would dissolve into nothing.

“How long have you been sitting here, Eddie?” Theo asks, using his name, which only makes this worse.

“How… long?” Eddie chokes out, not sure what the answer is. A minute (a day, a week, a lifetime). “I was just, um, I was just fixing my camera.” He holds the Polaroid up to Theo, as if it proves something.

“Uh-huh.” Theo sounds skeptical. Incredulous. He takes the camera, strings it over his shoulder, and holds out his hand again.

Eddie ignores Theo’s hand again and grasps the curb to push himself up. He manages, without falling, because Theo’s other hand is steadying his back.

“I’ve got you,” Theo says. Gentle words. When Eddie’s back on his feet, Theo takes Eddie’s face in his hands. He searches Eddie’s eyes, probably to see if they’re dilated, or bloodshot. But don’t worry, Eddie. They’re clear. Confused, maybe, but clear.

Eddie closes them anyway. Oh, what he would give to slide back into the fantasy, back into his dusty work jacket and scuffed black boots. Back into the shadow of the Jefferson County Courthouse. Back beside the elevated train. Back to that other world. Spanish dancer, turn around! Spanish dancer, touch the ground.

Theo is talking. “You said you’re staying with Cookie, right? On Bedford Street?”

Eddie nods. “Yes,” he musters. “But I’m fine.” His voice wobbles.

“Why don’t I walk you there.”

“I don’t need—” Eddie starts. “I’m not lost. I know where to go.”

Theo doesn’t pay attention. He looks down Sixth Avenue. “Come on,” he says, hiking Cookie’s camera over his shoulder. He begins to walk.

And Eddie, like a child, follows.

“You have a key?” Theo says at the front door of Cookie’s apartment building. It’s the first thing either of them have said since they left the curb.

“Yes,” Eddie says, reaching into his pocket.

Theo turns to face the street, away from Eddie. “I don’t know what’s going on right now,” he says, and it almost sounds like he’s talking to himself. “Here’s a boy who comes into the bakery after closing time. And he’s cute, with this kind of mysterious, awkward smile, and it makes me want to open the door for him. He’s there to buy opera cakes for the famous Cookie, who everyone knows is the coolest person in the Village, and that makes me think he must be something special, too, because whatever Cookie’s got must rub off on a person. And he flirts with me a little, at least I think he does, and I’m watching the door every day wondering when he’ll come back, and then he does come back, and I learn his name, and that name is Eddie, and I want to know even more about Eddie, but then, just like that, he’s gone again. And then, last night, he shows up out of the blue, looking a little bit lost, but he comes in, and has coffee, and talks, and we make croissants together, and it feels like something, like I’m getting to know someone. And now, today. This. He’s on the curb, alone, confused, mussed, looking as strung out as anyone I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what to think.”

The words shame Eddie, and he chokes on his own breath. He can’t even look at Theo. He can only look down. “I’m not strung out.”

“If you say so,” Theo says. He hands the camera back to Eddie. He also holds out a white paper bag with twisted-paper handles. Eddie hadn’t noticed him carrying it until now.

“What’s that?”

“Just take it,” Theo says, pushing the bag into Eddie’s chest. “For Cookie.”

Eddie takes the bag, obediently, and Theo turns away, back toward Sixth Avenue.

Where is he going? To the subway? Uptown, downtown? Eddie doesn’t know. In a split second he imagines Theo’s life, imagines him riding the subway to a street at a different end of the city. He imagines him climbing stairs, up to a little studio apartment, not much more than a bed and a chest of drawers, a little kitchenette in the corner, a window with bars across it that looks out over a church. A lamp, a stack of books. He imagines Theo sitting on the edge of the bed and taking off his shoes, then lying back, tucking the songbird tattoos behind his neck, cradling his head in his hands to watch the sky through the window until he falls asleep.

Eddie should shout after him, shouldn’t he? He should run to him, catch up, say something, acknowledge Theo’s kindness, try to explain what happened today, apologize for something, say thanks for the cakes. Say goodbye, Theo or see you around , but words feel a thousand miles away from his tongue right now. There’s no way to explain what’s happened, and besides, Theo is already rounding the corner at the end of the block. Gone.

Only then, on the empty street, does Eddie find his voice.

“Thank you,” he says, to no one. The words boomerang back, an echo that mocks his sudden, gutting loneliness.