Today, too late, he wished that he had.
Edison nuzzled his hand. His brown eyes looked worried.
“I’m OK.” Joe scratched the dog behind the ears and dropped the phone into his pouch, cutting himself off from the grid again. “Lunch?”
Edison’s tail wagged at the familiar word, but his eyes said he knew Joe wasn’t OK.
Joe headed over to Grand Central’s underground food court. At the Tri-Tip Grill, he ordered steak sandwiches for himself and for Edison. Joe also got fries and a Coke, but Edison would have to make do with water once they got back to the house.
The dog’s eyes fastened on the brown paper bag, and he licked his lips.
“Soon enough,” Joe said. “Greedy Gus.”
Edison gave him an injured look and stood, ready to go.
By way of apology, Joe fished a piece of meat out of Edison’s sandwich and fed it to him, resting his hand on the dog’s shoulder before they hurried up the long ramp to the concourse.
He usually stopped to admire his surrogate heaven — the green-blue ceiling painted with Zodiac constellations was the only sky he saw these days — but today he gave it only a quick glance because he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. A gray and white pigeon flew diagonally across the space, landing behind a carved ship’s wheel far from the floor.
A pair nested at the edge of the green-blue ceiling — the only wild animals in this man-made room. He wished that he had some dry corn to feed them. He and his father had fed the pigeons in Central Park during Joe’s rare visits. His father had practically tamed the pigeons, and they had perched on his wrist and had taken the corn from his palm. Joe would have liked to have tried to tame these two, but suspected that feeding them would draw unwanted attention and maybe get the birds in trouble, so he left them alone and admired them from afar.
He wove between travelers to get to the iconic clock mounted on the round information booth at the very center of the concourse — a familiar meeting place to any New Yorker. The clock read almost 12:30 (cyan, blue: red, black). He tapped on the brass door, and waved to Miss Evaline, the woman who presided over the booth with good-natured authority.
The information booth was built around a large, hollow column. Inside the column, a spiral staircase led to the creaky elevator that would carry Joe and Edison to their underground home.
“Did you have a nice walk?” Miss Evaline opened the door to the concourse and let them in. Curious tourists stopped to look. Civilians didn’t go through that door.
“We did, thank you.” Joe stepped inside and fitted his key into the second door. He needed to go downstairs, and he dreaded it. “How was your morning?”
“Busy. Can’t complain.” She straightened the black cap on her head before stooping to pet Edison. He was on duty, so he kept his serious face, but the tiny wag of his tail betrayed him. He liked her. “But I’m sorry to say you can’t go down right now.”
The bottom fell out of Joe’s stomach. “Why not?”
“Elevator inspection,” she said. “Should only be a few hours.”
Edison licked his hand, but it didn’t calm Joe down.
He thanked Evaline, but the words stuck in his throat. He needed to go home, but he didn’t have time to wind through the tunnels again. He had to be somewhere with Wi-Fi by one (cyan). Quickly, he ran over his Wi-Fi options: the Apple Store — too public; Track 36 (red, orange) by the Station Master’s office — even more public, he might not even get a chance to sit down; and the Hyatt — which would have to do. He could check into a hotel room for a few hours and get the Wi-Fi password from the concierge. Not long ago he would have balked at the expense, but it didn’t matter anymore. After Pellucid went public, he’d never had to worry about money again.
He jogged across the terminal, slid through the hallway separating the Hyatt from Grand Central without looking toward the glass doors leading outside, checked in, and took the elevator up to his temporary room. Even though he’d lived in the Hyatt for months before moving down below, he didn’t feel comfortable in the room. Its anonymity felt wrong, today of all days. This wasn’t where he should be for this call. But he didn’t have a choice.
He dumped Edison’s sandwich onto a towel in the bathroom and filled the ice bucket with water so the dog could have a drink. Edison bolted his sandwich in three bites and lapped noisily at the water.
Joe glanced at the window that ran along one side of the room. The window looked onto the outside edge of Grand Central Terminal. He never saw the building from the outside.
Sunlight poured through the window onto the carpet. He couldn’t go near the light. The curtain was so close, but he’d have to cross the light to get to it. That wasn’t possible, so he’d have to sit on the floor on the other side of the bed with his laptop in his lap. Not ideal.
Edison trotted across the room, took the curtain gently in his mouth, and pulled it closed. The room was safe again. The dog’s ability to read Joe’s moods and respond was uncanny, and Joe loved him for it. He took another treat out of his pocket and gave it to him.
Joe clicked on the desk lamp and took his phone out of his pocket. He settled down to wait. He had made it with a few minutes to spare. He chewed his sandwich, not tasting it, and washed it down with a swig of cold Coke. He was too upset to stomach the fries.
The clock at the corner of his computer screen read one (cyan). He tapped his fingers against the desktop. He wanted the call to come in, and he didn’t want it to.
His phone rang. Vivian Torres was calling him on FaceTime. Characteristically prompt.
Sweat sprang up on Joe’s palms, and he wiped his hands on his pants before accepting the call.
Vivian looked tanner than usual. She’d been soaking up the summer sun, like nature intended. His father would have been proud of her. She’d also cut her black hair shorter, into a bob. It suited her, but just about everything suited her. Even though she didn’t seem to know it, she was a beautiful woman.
“Torres here. I’m at the entrance to the cemetery,” she said.
Hydraulic brakes sighed behind her, probably from the bus she’d arrived on. She tilted her phone to show a wrought-iron gate with New York Marble Cemetery written across the top.
Joe’s mouth went dry, and he croaked, “Thanks.”
The funeral was about to begin, and he wasn’t there. He was in some hotel room, alone with his dog.
“I can’t see anyone from out here,” she said. “I’m going to walk into the cemetery and see what’s going on.”
Joe nodded, then remembered she wasn’t looking at him. “OK.”
He took a long sip of Coke and cleared his throat.
She panned her phone from side to side to show brick walls and a faraway strip of bright green grass. “I don’t know how they’ll feel about me filming once I get in the cemetery, so I’m going to put you in my front pocket to be discreet.”
The view dropped a foot, dipped behind white fabric, then settled.
“I feel short,” Joe said.
“If you think I’m taping this thing to the side of my head, you’ve got another think coming.”
Joe smiled, grateful he could. “I’ll go on mute now.”
He didn’t want any hotel noises beaming out into the cemetery during the service.
“Gotcha, boss.” The phone wiggled as if she had nodded. She started forward, and the green grass neared. That must be the cemetery itself.