Free Double Take by Abby Bardi Page B

shadows for her meat. She reached for his hand. He had no gloves either, and his hand was even colder than hers. He clasped her fingers, then let go.
    â€œWhere to?” he asked. It was what he always said.
    â€œI don’t know any more.” She found herself wishing it was summer and they could walk over to the lake and listen to the conga drums, but for some reason, as she had discovered last summer, the drums were no longer there.
    â€œIt’s like Hamelin,” Bando said, as if he knew what she was thinking. “All the children are gone. Let’s just walk.”
    As they headed east toward the lake, the air grew even colder. Her breath hung in clouds, and she dug her bare hands into her pockets and pulled her coat around her. As they passed a row of gray stone houses, there was a warm lull, but at the end of the block, a blast of wind whipped them. Bando always walked as if he knew exactly where he was headed, but she knew this was an affectation and that he had no idea.
    They hurried through a muraled viaduct beneath the train tracks where it was even colder and darker, and for a moment Rachel felt the fear of tunnels and trains she had had as a child going downtown with her mother. They paused outside a drug store, where Bando went in and bought cigarettes. He offered her one.
    â€œI don’t smoke any more,” Rachel said. “And neither you do.”
    â€œOf course not,” Bando said, lighting a cigarette. “I’m not smoking.” He gestured toward an apartment building on their left, a gracious old high-rise. “You know who lives there? A famous writer,” he said in the withering voice he had often used with her in the past when she didn’t know something, before she had been to college. “All he can see from that window is the lake.”
    â€œWhat should he see? Us down here?”
    â€œNo, Rachel. We’re not the least bit interesting.” He stopped and scowled upward.
    She followed him across the street into the lobby of the high-rise where his father lived. He nodded to the concierge, who nodded back, and they got on the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. She had been there before one night when they were looking for somewhere to drink a bottle of pink Chablis a wino had copped for them. They snuck into the building’s ballroom and had their own party there, drinking wine, smoking a joint, and gazing out at the dark, unknowable lake. The lake always looked exactly the way she thought it ought to look. When she was feeling good it was clear and blue, when she was depressed, it was gray. It was always uncannily right, like someone with good clothes sense.
    She sat on a black vinyl couch that faced the window. The lake was steely gray with mean little whitecaps. Bando sat next to her and pulled a flask of Southern Comfort from his pocket. He took a sip and then offered her one.
    â€œNo thanks,” she said. “I don’t drink any more.”
    â€œOf course,” Bando said. “I forgot. You’re living the life of the mind.” He gave her one of his rare smiles.
    â€œIt’s not a big deal. I just don’t feel like drinking.”
    â€œI applaud you. I don’t feel like drinking either.”
    â€œI was a little worried when I didn’t hear from you. You were so good about writing last year.”
    â€œI’ve been busy.”
    â€œDoing what?”
    â€œNothing worthy of mention.” He took another sip from his flask.
    It seemed so pretentious to be drinking Southern Comfort in the middle of the afternoon, so Janis Joplin-like, that she felt annoyed. She had an impulse to grab the flask away from him and throw it out the window but was afraid it might kill a passing pedestrian.
    â€œSo you’re living at home?” she asked.
    â€œIt’s not exactly home at this point.”
    â€œWith your mother, I mean. Are you working or what?”
    â€œYes, I’m