Page 10 of Drawn Together
“It’s subjective. But to me, and I think a lot of others, it’s about the ending. What you’ve been reading and watching, those are tragic love stories.”
He is silent for so long I check behind me to make sure he didn’t turn the corner.
“Is there a difference?”
“Is there a— Yes, there is a massive difference.”
He shrugs, as if to say, if you say so, and something about it irks me.
“Is there a difference between hard pretzels in a bag and a pastry soft pretzel homemade by a woman’s soft hands?”
He opens to answer, but I cut him off. Mr. Trivia will wait for all my questions.
“Is there a difference between a two-dollar pizza and a pizza that costs twenty-six dollars and comes with microgreens?”
“I think I understand what you’re—”
“How about the Q train and the G train? Still the same thing?”
“Okay, well now you’re pushing it.”
I swerve past a trashcan in my way. “It matters because of what you feel when the book closes. Or, when the title credits pop up. What are you left with?”
“Nausea, usually.”
My eyes roll as we turn the corner where the entrance of my building sits amid all the other apartments. A warm, yellow light from the street lamps caresses the brownstones—brick facades highlighted against the night—as a gentle breeze whispers through the sparse trees, their shadows stretching and shifting across the sidewalk.
I come to a full stop at the steps that lead to the lobby. “Well, this is me, as I am sure you know.”
“I do know that.” He points over his shoulder to the brownstone directly across the street. “And, that is me.”
I grind down on my molars. “You live there?”
“Have for the last two years.”
“Lennon didn’t mention it.”
Lennon mentions nothing, to be fair. Our conversations are less conversations and more me asking where I should eat and her shrugging with an ‘eat what you want,’ before slipping off to her room.
“Does she even talk to you?”
No, but he doesn’t know that. Does he?
“I came with her tonight,” I say, as if that is proof that we are more than just two strangers living one wall apart.
“If she talked to you, then you would know exactly why I live nearby.”
And with that ominous statement, Fletcher turns on his heel and heads right toward his own apartment, hands still in his pockets.
“Have a good night, Flora Anderson.”
It’s not until later that night, when I get tucked under my fall bedspread, that I realize he had my jacket in his hands as he crossed the street.
Fletcher Harding no longer hated the color yellow.
Banana Laffy Taffy yellow.
Five
