She should have stolen warmer pants.
Shoving the paper bag in her pocket, Addie tucks Fred’s book under her arm and abandons the park, heading east down Union and up toward the waterfront.
Halfway there, she stops at the sound of a violin, the notes picked out like ripened fruit.
On the sidewalk, a woman perches on a stool, the instrument tucked beneath her chin. The melody is sweet and slow, drawing Addie back to Marseilles, to Budapest, to Dublin.
A handful of people gather to listen, and when the song ends, the sidewalk fills with soft applause, and passing bodies. Addie digs the last change out of her pocket, and drops it into the open case, and carries on, lighter, and fuller.
When she reaches the theater in Cobble Hill, she checks the posted timetable and then pushes open the door, quickening her pace as she crosses the crowded lobby.
“Hey,” Addie says, flagging down a teen boy with a broom. “I think I left my purse in theater three.”
Lying is easy, so long as you choose the right words.
He waves her on without looking up, and she ducks beneath the velvet ticket-taker’s rope and into the darkened hall, the urgency falling away with every step. Muted thunder rolls beneath the doors of an action film. Music seeps into the hall from a romantic comedy. The highs and lows of voices, and scores. She ambles down the corridor, studying the COMING SOON posters and the ticker tapes announcing the showings above each door. She’s seen them all a dozen times, but she doesn’t care.
The credits must be rolling on number five, because the doors swing open, and a stream of people spill out into the corridor. Addie ducks past them, into the emptying room, and finds an overturned bucket of popcorn in the second row, golden pebbles littering the sticky floor. She scoops it up and marches back to the lobby, and the concession stand, waits in line behind a trio of preteen girls before reaching the counter, and the boy behind it.
She runs a hand through her hair, mussing it slightly, and blows out her breath.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “some little boy kicked over my popcorn.” She shakes her head, and so does he, a mimic, echoing her exasperation. “Is there any way you could charge me the refill cost instead of…” She is already reaching in her pocket, as if to pull out a wallet, but the boy takes the bucket.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says, glancing around. “I’ve got you.”
Addie beams. “You’re a star,” she says, meeting his eyes, and the boy blushes fiercely, and stammers that it’s really no problem, no problem at all, even as he scans the lobby for a superior. He dumps out the rest of the spilled popcorn and fills it fresh, passing it like a secret back across the counter.
“Enjoy your show.”
Of all the inventions Addie has seen ushered into the world—steam-powered trains, electric lights, photography, and phones, and airplanes, and computers—movies might just be her favorite one.
Books are wonderful, portable, lasting, but sitting there, in the darkened theater, the wide screen filling her vision, the world falls away, and for a few short hours she is someone else, plunged into romance and intrigue and comedy and adventure. All of it complete with 4K picture and stereo sound.
A quiet heaviness fills her chest when the credits roll. For a while she was weightless, but now she returns to herself, sinking until her feet are back on the ground.
By the time Addie gets out of the theater it is almost six, and the sun is going down.
She winds her way back through the tree-lined streets, past the park, the market now shuttered and the stalls already gone, and toward the rusted green table at the other edge. Fred is still sitting there in his chair, reading M.
The pattern of spines on the table has shifted a little, an empty space here where a book has sold, a new rise there where another has been added. The light is getting low, and soon he’ll have to go in, pack up the boxes and carry them one by one back into the house, and up the two floors to his one-bedroom. Addie has offered many times to help, but Fred insists on doing it himself. Another echo of Estele. Stubborn as stale bread.
Addie crouches down beside the table, and rises with the borrowed book in hand, as if it had simply fallen off the end. She sets it back, careful not to upset the stack, and Fred must be at a good spot in the story, because he grunts without ever looking up at her, or the book, or the paper bag she sets on top, the one with the chocolate-chip muffin inside.
It’s the only kind he likes.
Candace always gave him hell for his sweet tooth, he told Addie one morning, said it would kill him, but life’s a bitch with a crooked sense of humor—’cause she’s gone, and he’s still eating shit (his words, not hers).
The temperature is falling, and Addie tucks her hands in her pockets and wishes Fred a good night before continuing down the block, her back to the low sun and her shadow long ahead.
It’s dark by the time Addie gets to the Alloway—one of those places that seems to relish its status as a dive bar, a reputation tarnished by the fact it’s become a favorite among headliners who want that Brooklyn feel. A handful of people mill around on the curb, smoking, chatting, waiting for friends, and Addie lingers among them a moment. She bums a cigarette, just to have something to do, resisting the easy draw of the door for as long as she can, that tipping sense of the familiar, déjà vu.
She knows this road.
Knows where it leads.
Inside, the Alloway is shaped like a bottle of whisky, the narrow stem of the entry, the dark wooden bar widening to a room of tables and chairs. She takes a seat at the counter. The man on her left buys her a drink, and she lets him.
“Let me guess,” says the man. “A rosé?”
And she thinks of ordering whisky just to see the surprise on his face, but that was never her drink; she’s always gone for sweet.
“Champagne.”
He orders, and they make small talk until he gets a call, and steps away, promising to be right back. She knows he won’t, is grateful for it as she sips her drink and waits for Toby to go onstage.
He takes a seat, one knee up to steady his guitar, and flashes that bashful smile, almost apologetic. He hasn’t learned yet how to take up space, but she’s sure he will. He looks out at the small crowd before he starts to play, and Addie closes her eyes and lets herself vanish into the music. He plays a few covers. One of his own folk tunes. And then, this.
The first chords float through the Alloway, and Addie is back in his place. She is sitting at the piano, coaxing out notes, and he is there, beside her, fingers folded over hers.
It is coming together now, words wrapped over melody. It is becoming his. It is like a tree, taking root. He will remember, on his own; not her, of course—not her, but this. Their song.
It ends, the music replaced by applause, and Toby sidles up to the bar, orders a Jack and Coke because they’ll give it to him for free, and somewhere between the first sip and the third he sees her, and smiles, and for an instant Addie thinks—hopes, even now—that he remembers something, because he looks at her as if he knows her, but the truth is simply that he wants to; attraction can look an awful lot like recognition in the wrong light.
“Sorry,” Toby says, head ducking the way it does whenever he’s embarrassed. The way it did that morning when he found her in his living room.
Someone brushes Addie’s shoulder as they reach past her for the bar door. She blinks, and the dream falls away.
She has not gone in. She is still standing on the street, the cigarette burned away to nothing between her fingers.