pondered giving in to a hangover that wouldn't have

bothered me with just a few more hours' sleep.

"There isn't any."

"No Cheerios? No Raisin Bran?"

My little brother, the only other sibling I'd ever actualy

lived with, made a familiar noise of disgust. "I don't like

those kind."

"Then I guess you must not be that hungry." I was hungry,

but didn't feel like getting out of bed at the butt-crack of

dawn to fix toast. "Arty, it's too early to cal me. What did

I tel you about that?"

"Can't you come over and make me some pancakes?" His

little-boy voice sounded very far away. I pictured him in

his Spider-Man pajamas, bare feet swinging because his

legs weren't long enough to reach the floor. "Please?"

Maybe if I kept my eyes closed I'd fal back to sleep. I

snuggled deeper under my soft blankets. "Buddy, I don't

live there anymore. I told you that. I told you I couldn't just

come over whenever you caled."

Silence.

"But I miss you," Arthur said in a tiny voice.

I sighed. "I miss you, too, buddy. How about I come

down and take you to the movies sometime soon?"

"When?" At nearly seven, the kid had been reading since

he was four and could tel time on an analogue clock, a

skil that sometimes stumped me. There wasn't much that

slipped past him. "Today?"

"Not today, no. Maybe later this week."

"When? When?"

I couldn't think straight and just tossed out a day.

"Wednesday?"

"Saturday. Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday.

That's a week!"

He sounded so dismayed I hated to laugh. Laughing, in

fact, hurt my head. "Not quite. Five days."

"That's too long!" Arthur's voice pitched high enough to

"That's too long!" Arthur's voice pitched high enough to

dril my tender ears.

"You've got gymnastics on Tuesday, and Monday I've got

an appointment in the evening. Sorry, buddy. You have to

wait until Wednesday. Besides," I said, offering an

incentive against despair, "the new Power Heroes movie

comes out on Wednesday. How about that?"

"Okay." He didn't sound convinced, only resigned. "But I'm hungry now, Paige."

"Cereal. Or have a snack from the drawer."

"Mama says no snacks from the drawer until after

breakfast."

"Aren't there any cereal bars in the drawer?" I bit back

another yawn. If I didn't get back to sleep in the next ten

minutes I was not going to be a happy camper.

"Yesss…" Even Arthur knew where I was going with this,

but he sounded like it might be too good to be true.

"Have one of those. They're cereal, right?"

"Can I tel Mama you said it was okay?"

"Can I tel Mama you said it was okay?"

"Sure." It wouldn't be the first time she'd holer at me for giving the kid permission to do something she'd have

refused. On the other hand, this was the woman who'd

alowed me to go to school in a pair of hand-me-down,

slip-on Candie's shoes in the sixth grade and bought me

my first package of rubbers in the tenth. She was a

different sort of mother to Arthur than she'd been to me.

"Now let me go back to sleep, okay?"

"Okay. Bye, Paige."

"Bye."

"I love you," my little brother said before I could hang up.

It wasn't the first time he'd ever said it, but suddenly the

memory of how he'd smeled as a baby washed over me

with enough force to push my eyelids open like snapped-

open blinds. How his hair had been so soft against my lips

when I kissed his little baby head, and how the heavy

weight of him had filed my arms and lap. How I used to

hold him while I watched hour after hour of bad TV, just

because he was so smal and sweet. Just because he loved

me.

me.

"I love you, too, buddy. I'l see you on Wednesday."

He had a seven-year-old's social graces and didn't say

goodbye again, just hung up. I put the phone back in the

cradle of its receiver and my head back in the cradle of my

pilow, but sleep had vanished and there was no getting it

back.

With a groan, I looked at the clock. Almost eight. And I'd

gone to sleep, what, just before six this morning? God. I

was so going to pay that kid back one day, maybe when

he was a teenager and prone to sleeping as late as he

could…yeah. I'd wake him up.

Unfortunately, my revenge was far-flung and I was stil

awake. I stretched and sat up, waiting for the rush and boil

of acid stomach or the pound of a headache, but aside

from a gnawing hunger, I felt al right. At least until I heard

the muted beep from my cel phone, which I'd left

abandoned in my sparkly purse under the pile of my

discarded clothes. I had to dig past my Steve Madden

pumps to reach it.

Five missed cals.

Five? Crap. I thumbed the keypad to check out the

numbers. I had voice mails, too, though without dialing in I

couldn't tel how many. Kira had caled me around 4:00

a.m. but hadn't left a message. That could be good or bad,

depending. One was an old cal from my mother I hadn't

deleted. The other three were from Austin.

Triple crap.

The voice mails were from him, too, half an hour apart.

The first two were brief "when are you going to get here?"

messages. The last one had come in around six-fifteen,

after I'd already gone to bed. It turned the corners of my

mouth down.

"Look, I know I've been an asshole to you in the past."

Then fifteen seconds of awkward silence, punctuated only

by the soft in-out of his breathing. "I'm sorry. I just…I was

a fuckwad, and I'm sorry. Cal me, okay? Please."

A few more seconds of silence and he added, "Please."

Is there anything more simultaneously pathetic and

arousing than a pleading man?

I couldn't bring myself to delete that message. I thought I

might want to listen to it a couple-twenty more times. I

thought I might want to get that statement, "Sorry, I'm a

fuckwad.—Austin Miller" embroidered on a tea towel

and wipe my hands with it.

It was the only time Austin had ever apologized to me for

anything he'd ever done. I wasn't sure it meant anything

now. Not after al this time had passed.

I didn't delete the message, but I didn't cal him back,

either. Instead, I hauled my sorry ass out of bed and

stumbled to the bathroom where I peed for what felt like

an hour and brushed my teeth and puled my hair on top of

my head in a messy ponytail.

I wanted to go back to sleep, but I knew better than to

expect to be able to. I was up for the day now. My

stomach rumbled and I took my last two slices of wheat

bread from the fridge, where I kept it to prevent mold, and

popped them into my toaster oven. I needed to hit the

grocery store in the worst way, though the state of my

finances meant it would be another week of on-sale tuna

and ramen noodles rather than steak and lobster. Ah, wel.

There was nothing new about that. I'd grown up thinking

There was nothing new about that. I'd grown up thinking

Kraft shels and cheese was gourmet fare.

While my toast browned, I sifted through the pile of junk

mail I'd brought in the night before. I tossed aside a few

catalogs addressed to the former tenant. I thought of the

note I'd had yesterday, the beautiful paper and the words

written in that fine hand. What had it said to do? Make a

list of flaws and strengths? I thought of it as I ate my toast

dry because I had no butter or jam.

You wil write a list of ten. Five flaws. Five strengths.

Deliver them promptly…

From the junk drawer next to my fridge I puled a yelow

legal pad and a stub of a pencil with a point rubbed to

softness by the creation of many lists. Chore lists, mostly,

or grocery. I'd never used it to detail my flaws and

strengths.

I tapped the pencil against my lips as I thought.

Proud

Stubborn

Independent

Independent

Smart

Curious

Determined

Conscientious

That was it. As far as lists went, it didn't feel complete, but

I couldn't think of more than that. So much for the ten, I

thought as I put away the pen and paper.

And the real question was, which had I written? Flaws or

strengths? Couldn't they sometimes be both?

I looked again at the tablet on the table. It had made me

think hard about myself, though it hadn't been meant for

me. I hoped the person it was meant for had better luck.

Chapter 06

I finished my shopping just before noon. I had only two

smal bags of groceries, the bare minimum to get me

through until payday. I'd left a few bucks in my walet on

purpose, though, for one reason. I didn't need a large

coffee with extra cream and a gooey cinnamon bun, but I

wanted them.

Located in the building adjoining Riverview Manor, the

Morningstar Mocha teemed with people out for a caffeine

fix. A few joggers, bundled against the cold, filed travel

mugs at the smal stand in the corner holding the sweetener

packets and jugs of milk and bins of creamer containers.

And in the corner, my corner, the seat I took because it

was in the smalest table and I was usualy alone, sat my

elevator eye-fucking buddy, Mr. Mystery.

Was it synchronicity? Or serendipity? His wasn't the only

familiar face there. I spied a few people from my building,

one or two I recognized as Mocha regulars, and of course

I knew the girl behind the counter. Her name was Brandy,

and you couldn't miss her. She chewed gum like cud.

I deliberately tried not to stare at him while I ordered my

I deliberately tried not to stare at him while I ordered my

coffee and bun, but he was stil there by the time they

arrived. Stil there when I'd dumped my mug ful of sugar

and cream. He wore a white, long-sleeved shirt beneath a

black concert T-shirt and worn jeans that suited him

nicely. His hair looked as if he'd run a hand through it a

few times or just roled out of bed. He had a large mug in

front of him, stil steaming, and a plate with the remains of

a bagel slathered with cream cheese and lox. He was

staring out the glass onto the street, empty but for the

occasional weekend-traffic car cruising slowly past. In

front of him sat a pad of legal-size paper, white not yelow,

and in his left hand he held a thick-barreled pen. A worn

leather bag rested at his feet as faithful as a hound.

The lighting inside the Mocha was golden and indirect, but

late-winter bright sunshine shafted through the plate-glass

window and across his face. I wanted to stare and drink in

the fine-featured grace of him. The casual beauty. The

crooked twist of his mouth as he bit down on his lip in

concentration, the furrow of his brow. The way his hand

curled around the pen caressing the paper.

Fortunately for me, he was stil staring out the window,

absently doodling, when two people in matching tracksuits

slammed into me and knocked my coffee and cinnamon

slammed into me and knocked my coffee and cinnamon

bun al over a couple, who looked as if they hadn't yet

gone to bed, sitting at the table in front of me.

The fitness twins were very kind. They bought me new

coffee and pastry and replaced the party-kids' bagels,

soaked through by my spiled drink. They did it al with a

fanfare that smacked a bit of "look at me, what a good

person I am," but they did it. I didn't dare look at the man

by the window until al the fuss and feathers had died

down. When I did, finaly, my fresh mug was burning my

palm and my eyes had blurred from the dip in my blood

sugar. I didn't want to shove the entire bun into my mouth,

but a dainty nibble wasn't going to get the goods down my

throat and into my stomach fast enough.

He glanced over at me as I was licking icing off my mouth.