huddled in their overcoats, trying to keep nature’s cold bite from their collars. Seth tried to lose the girl, but she kept pace with him.
“Is it far?” Lelani asked.
“Is what far?”
“The cafe.”
“Cafe?”
“The tea?”
“We’re not going for tea. I just said that to get Joe off my ass. I’m picking up some… uh, supplies.”
They arrived at a tenement on Avenue C. Two young girls were building a snow wall around the stoop.
“Hey, Mr. Picture Man,” one of them said. She raised her hand for a high-five slap.
“Hey, Ms. Sassafras, what’s happening?” Seth obliged.
“When you gonna take my picture and make me famous?”
“Caitlin, you don’t want to be famous. You want to read books and work in an office. And don’t tell anyone you have money or they’ll all come a-borrowing.”
“I already got a moms, Mr. Picture Man. What I need you for if you ain’t gonna make me a star?”
“Just keeping you honest. Building a fort, huh?”
“Them stupid boys from the projects come ’round and throw snowballs at us. We just minding our own business.”
“Why are you even out here in the cold?” Seth asked.
Caitlin gazed at her boot. She ground the snow beneath her toe.
“Your mom?” Seth guessed.
Caitlin looked up. “I hate it when she all shaking and throwing up.”
“Is your mother ill?” Lelani asked the girl.
Caitlin remained quiet. Seth felt pressure to say something right, but nothing came into his head. He pulled out five dollars. “Here. Take your friend to the pizza shop. Have a slice, play video games.”
Caitlin and her friend were halfway down the block when she turned around and shouted, “When I’m famous, I’ma buy you a limo, Mr. Picture Man!”
“What color, Sassafras?” he returned, but the girls were long gone.
Lelani looked confused. “Should we look in on your friend’s mother?”
Seth considered it, but decided against it. “None of our business,” he responded.
They entered the building. Five flights up, Seth rapped a coded beat on the door. There was a rustling in the apartment. Through the door a muffled voice sang, “The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things: of shoes-and ships-and sealing wax-of cabbages-and kings…”
“Open the fucking door, Earl,” Seth said, pounding.
Earl, in his boxers and tank top, looked like he just awoke from a long sleep. He showed them into the kitchen while ringing out his ear with a finger and said, “You know… the code’s for everyone’s protection, man.”
“Is the insignificant other around?” Seth asked.
“At work. Who’s the chick?”
“Nobody. Ignore her.”
“This is my place of business, man. How do I know she’s clean?”
“You don’t.”
“You think with your dick, man.”
“Hey, can we get on with it? I’ve got deadlines.”
Earl disappeared into the back room. They heard a window open and then the clang of boots ascending a fire-escape ladder. Seth sat next to a peeling radiator pipe on a wiry kitchen table chair.
Seth pointed to the other chair and said, “This may take a while.”
“I’ll stand, thank you.”
“Really, make yourself comfortable. He has to go up to the roof, across two buildings, and down three apartments. Most paranoid fucker I ever met.”
“Paranoia is just another form of awareness. These chairs do not look sturdy.”
“I’ve sat in them a dozen times. They’ve never let me down.”
“You’re mocking me.”
“Suit yourself.”
“You think I’m strange.”
“Well, you’re beautiful-that makes you crazy by default.”
Lelani took her overcoat off, revealing an olive turtleneck knit, blue jeans, and black riding boots. The pattern of her shirt ran vertically, hugging the contours of her body. Seth took measure of her in his professional capacity- too meaty for the scrawny centerfolds in his third-rate periodicals, since the camera added pounds, but perfect in reality.
“You find me comely?” she asked, smiling.
Seth blushed, a first for him. His world was full of promiscuous women, desperate for money, for whom no breach in decorum was likely. Lelani, however, had him on the ropes. He got the impression she knew something he didn’t-something profound. A face like hers could land the cover of Playboy. Red could have any straight man she desired, and convert a few souls from the other team as well. What did she want from him?
“You still think you know me from before the accident that killed my folks?” he asked.
“I recognize many things about you.”
“People change.”
“So far, I haven’t been surprised by what I’ve found. Character stays constant, and you are who you are. Incidentally, what is your trade?”
“‘Mr. Picture Man.’ I’m a photographer.”
“An artist? No one at school expected you to succeed. At anything.”
“We went to school together?”
“The best in Aandor.”
“So I am Canadian?”
Lelani’s watch alarm went off. She pulled a pill case from her satchel. “Does your friend have any tea?”
Seth checked the refrigerator and found a can of iced tea.
“Cold tea?” Lelani said, examining the can.
“Beggars and choosers…”
She placed a purple pill into her mouth, then washed the pill down with the tea. Seth wondered if it was Prozac or some other mind-stabilizing substance.
“Vitamins?” he asked, innocently enough.
“Allergies.”
“Right. So tell me about our school. Did the girls wear those plaid micro skirts?”
“Why you were permitted into our school is a subject of much speculation. There was no evidence that you were intellectually gifted. And no, you are not Canadian.”
“Did you search for me just so you could insult my intelligence?”
“I found you because you have a duty to complete for some very important people, and I intend to see you fulfill it.”
“How could I possibly have had any important obligations at thirteen? Let me guess… I’m royalty.”
Lelani laughed. “Your mother was a tavern wench.”
“… Okay, you’re a time traveler. We have to save the future!”
Her cool manner and the earnestness of her gaze were unsettling. This was either the most amazing prank ever or the woman was deeply disturbed.
“You’re mocking me again,” she said. “You do have a healthy imagination, though. Good thing, because you’ll need it.”
“Now you’re mocking me,” he said, throwing her vernacular back at her.
“Things are seldom what they seem. There are thirteen years of your life which you cannot account for. Open your mind. Your origins will challenge everything you hold to be true-about your role, your world, even your
