You’re right about that last line, bud, she thought ruefully. But as for the needing-a-break line, she wanted to shout back: You needed the break from me. At least be honest with yourself.
Still, Milly couldn’t get it out of her head that he was so nearby. When she ran errands in the neighborhood, she was terrified she’d somehow run into him. Then the day came when she put on her floppy-brimmed hat and large sunglasses and walked down to the site for the UnderPark. Of course the entrance was guarded and cordoned off to the public. Inside a deli across the street, she sat on a stool near the window, nursing an iced tea and feeling like a fool. She scrutinized every person who came and went past the guards.
Finally, she saw the guy, Char, the transgender black man whom she knew he worked with, come out, wiping his hands on a rag. Char turned back around, said something, and a moment later, right behind Char, there he was. Oh my goodness, Milly thought, there he was. Twenty-eight years old now! Oh, look at him! So lean and fit, his arms covered in tattoos. So he worked out now. Not that skinny dopesick kid she remembered, the kid she used to lose sleep over. So handsome, so healthy! With a red bandanna tied around his head, just like how he wore it the year he finally became a skater boy. Her hands flew to her lips watching him.
Then she realized, with horror, they were coming her way — they were taking a deli break. She fled the deli, twisting her head and neck to the left under her glasses and hat as she hurried down the street. Only at the end of the block did she dare glance back. They were out of view. Milly walked home stunned that she’d seen him, relieved to know he looked healthy, desperately hoping he hadn’t recognized her.
“Why didn’t you say something to him?” Gallegos asked her two days later.
“Are you kidding?” she said. “I’m not a glutton for punishment. I don’t need to debase myself.”
A couple days later, there was a horrible early-summer rainstorm that caused flooding all over the city. Milly rode it out uptown with her father and didn’t come back downtown for two nights. But when she finally did, she woke up again in the Christodora to the familiar morning sounds of dogs barking and children playing down in the park. She walked to the window. It was late May and the temperature was already up in the high eighties at — what time was it?
She peered at her tablet. Ten A.M. Good Lord, she thought, I can feel the heat already. She idly watched people dart through the park on their way to work. The usual neighborhood bums were already gathering, paper coffee cups in hand. A young, dark-haired man on a bench, wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and white sneakers, was reading a tablet.
Then he raised his head and looked straight up at Milly’s window.
She stood up and stepped back, her heart pounding, hand over her mouth. Was that him? Was she crazy? She turned, walked slowly back to the window, peeked out from the side. The young man was gone.
Then her buzzer buzzed.
She just stood there with her hand over her mouth. It buzzed again. She walked toward the door, pressed a button. “Who is this?” she asked.
“It’s Mateo,” a voice said. “I just saw you.”
She put her hand on the wall. Then, finally, a hand on the “talk” button. “What do you want?” she asked.
“Can I come up and talk to you?”
“Just give me a few minutes,” she said.
She walked away from the buzzer, sat down on the couch. Suddenly, the past bitter, lonely decade of her life broke over her like a giant wave. Lost years, lost years! she thought, balling her hands into fists. Why should she talk to him now?
Finally she managed to go to the window again. Mateo was sitting there on the bench again, his back to the Christodora.
Milly opened the window and stuck out her head. “I’ll be down in a minute,” she called to him. He turned around and held up a hand in recognition.
She washed her face, brushed her teeth, combed her hair and pulled it back in an elastic. She put on some jeans and a T-shirt and flats, took the elevator down the six flights, walked out the door of the building, across Avenue B, into the park and toward the bench Mateo was sitting on.
Mateo stared at her inscrutably as she approached. The first thing she thought was What a handsome man I raised. The second thing she noticed was that he had some gray flecks by his temples and furrows in his brow. And finally, she was just so relieved that he wasn’t a scarecrow anymore.
She sat down on the bench a few feet away from him. “You look just like you look in all the tablet photos,” she said. It was about all she could think of to say.
Mateo smiled dutifully and looked down again. Milly made idle patterns with her index finger on the leg of her jeans. Occasionally, she glanced at him. He was looking down in his lap, at his tablet screen, which had reverted to swirly sleep-mode patterns.
Milly noticed Ardit, the super, sweeping the sidewalk across the street in front of the building. He kept glancing their way, trying to be subtle. “Ardit’s watching us,” she finally said.
Mateo laughed a little, the way someone in an uncomfortable situation might allow a distracted laugh. Then the two of them continued to sit there in silence.
“Thanks for coming down,” Mateo finally said, his voice scratchy.
“For some reason it was easier for me to come down than to have you come up,” Milly said.
“That’s okay.” Mateo made another scratchy, scraping sound in his throat. “I wasn’t going to just buzz you by surprise,” he said. “I was getting ready to call you on this”—he pointed toward his tablet—“to see if you were okay with talking.”
“It’s okay.”
“But then I saw you in the window and I just got up and buzzed. That was kind of stupid.” He looked away again. He’s barely been able to make eye contact with me, Milly thought.
“No, no, it’s fine,” she said. “I mean, here we are now. It’s all fine.”
But Mateo just kept looking down, paining Milly. “You look good,” she continued, trying to brighten her tone. “You look healthy. You’re healthy, right?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty healthy,” he said, still looking away. “I’ve been clean ten years now.”
“I know,” she said. “Drew told me. That’s wonderful. And you’ve done really well for yourself.”
Finally, he looked at her with stricken eyes. “You look good, too,” he said.
“Oh, please!” She laughed. “I’m an old lady. Withered on the vine!”
“No,” he said. “You look good. Maybe like you need to eat a little more, though.”
Milly laughed again. “Well, now you know what I used to think every time I looked at you.”
At last Mateo laughed softly. “Okay,” he said. “Fair enough.” He flashed her an amused look, then turned away again.
They fell back into silence. “How’s the UnderPark going?” Milly finally asked.
That earned her another glance. “Pretty good,” he replied. “We had a setback with the rain. We had to vacate the site for four days while they remediated.”
“Remediated! Wow. Is that the word they used?”
“That’s the word they used.”
“Very high-tech,” she said.
He laughed again. “Yeah. It’s a very high-tech, high-grade, high-stakes operation, painting leaves on a wall.”