“Sort of,” said Frank. “I make ads.”
“I was sure you were a writer,” she said.
“Why?”
“Crisp,” said Cleo, raising an eyebrow.
“I started an agency,” said Frank. “We’re where the people who don’t make it as writers go.”
They walked until they found the twenty-four-hour bodega glowing on the corner, flanked by buckets of heavy-headed roses and frothy carnations. Frank pulled the door open for her with a jingle. In the bright fluorescence of the shop’s interior they looked at each other openly for the first time.
Frank was, she estimated, in his late thirties or early forties. Kind eyes, was her first thought. They crinkled automatically as they met hers. Long, feathery lashes that brushed against his spectacle lenses, lending his angular face a surprising softness. Curly dark hair, spry as lamb’s wool, thinning a little on the top. Now, sensing her eyes on this, he ran a hand through his hair self-consciously. The skin on the back of his hand and face was freckled, still tanned despite the winter. It matched his tan cashmere scarf, tucked into a well-tailored topcoat. He had the slight, energetic build of a retired dancer, a body that suggested economy and intelligence. Cleo smiled approvingly.
He smiled back. Like most people, he noticed her hair first. It hung over her shoulder in two golden curtains, sweeping open to reveal that much-anticipated first act: her face. And it was a performance, her face. He felt instinctively that he could watch it for hours. She’d drawn thick black wings over her eyelids, 1960s style, finishing each flick with a tiny gold star. Her cheeks were dusted with something shimmering and gold too; it sparkled like champagne in the light. A heavy sheepskin coat encased her, paired with the pink kid gloves he’d noticed earlier and a white woolen beret. On her feet were embroidered cream cowboy boots. Everything about her was deliberate. Frank, who had spent much of his life surrounded by beautiful people, had never met anyone who looked like her.
Embarrassed by the directness of his stare, Cleo turned to examine a shelf filled, inopportunely, with cans of cat food. She was wearing too much makeup, she worried, and looked clownish in the light.
“My brother,” said Frank to the man behind the counter. “Happy New Year.”
The man looked up from his newspaper, where he was reading about more government-sanctioned tortures in his country. He wondered what made this white man think they were brothers, then smiled.
“And to you,” he said.
“Where’s the ice?”
“No ice.” He shrugged.
“What kind of deli doesn’t sell ice?”
“This one,” said the man.
Frank lifted his hands in surrender.
“Okay, no ice.” He turned to Cleo. “You want your smokes?”
Cleo had been scanning the cigarette prices on the shelf. She pulled out her wallet, which, Frank noted, was not really a wallet at all but a velvet pouch stuffed with papers and wrappers. Her long fingers haltingly picked through its contents.
“You know what?” she said. “I have a few rolling papers in here. I’ll just get a bag of tobacco. A small one. How much is that?”
Frank watched the man’s whole posture relax forward as she addressed him. It was like watching the front of an ice glacier dissolve into the sea; he melted.
“Beautiful girl,” he murmured. “How much you want to pay?”
A red blush was rising up her neck to her chin.
“Let me get this,” said Frank, slapping down his credit card. “And—” He picked up a bar of milk chocolate. “This too. In case you get hungry.”
Cleo gave him a grateful look, but she did not hesitate.
“Pack of Capris please,” she said. “The magenta ones.”
Back outside, Cleo scanned up and down the street.
“You’ll never get a cab tonight,” Frank said. “Where do you live?”
“East Village,” she said. “Near Tompkins Square Park. But I’ll just walk, it’s not too far.”
“I’ll walk with you,” he said.
“No, you mustn’t,” she protested. “It’s too far.”
“I thought it wasn’t far?”
“You’ll miss the countdown.”
“Fuck the countdown,” said Frank.
“And the ice?”
“You’re right. The ice is important.”
Cleo’s face fell. Frank laughed. He began marching north, so she had no choice but to follow him. He looked over to find her trotting along beside him and slowed down.