Saint John of the Five Boroughs. Ed Falco

and listened, and when she didn’t hear anything more, she went quietly along the hall to the bathroom, where she washed down three aspirin in a palmful of water and then chewed four Tums on her way back to her bed. The living room was a disaster. The couch was overturned where Zach had tripped over it, and there was a stain on the carpeting where the wine bottle he had just opened had spilled as he’d fallen on his face. Drunk as he was, he wasn’t drunk enough not to be embarrassed. He kept promising to clean it in the morning or to pay the damage deposit until Avery finally shut him up by taking him by the hand and pulling him into her bedroom. What she remembered most vividly, though, was the way Grant, Melanie’s shaved-headed pickup for the night, had calmly watched Zach from where he leaned back soberly into the window frame, and then the way his eyes met hers just as she was closing the bedroom door.

      While she was gone, Zach had stretched out like a skydiver, his spread-eagled arms and legs reaching to the four corners of the mattress. His body was freakish, and Avery observed him for a long moment with fascination. From head to toe, he was everywhere twice as thick as most other guys. His calves had the girth of telephone poles, and they widened proportionally to massive thighs, a back broad as a coffee table, an impossibly thick neck, and an almost square head with fleecy dark hair. It seemed impossible that she had actually just had sex with this guy. It looked like the weight of him alone would crush her.

      She went to the window and looked out over a narrow strip of moonlit lawn that ended at a line of tall trees, beyond which was the highway, and while she was at the window, a doe wandered halfway through the tree line, looked about for a few seconds, and then bounded away through the trees and out onto the quiet highway. Avery went back to her bed, sat on the edge of the mattress, and shook Zach’s arm. “Zach,” she said, and he opened his eyes instantly.

      “Hey—” He blinked a few times and looked as though he were working to pull himself back fully into consciousness. “What? Are you okay?” He propped his head up on his elbow and then, as if to announce he was now awake, smiled sweetly.

      “Sure,” Avery said. “I’m fine. But, look, you have to go.”

      “Really,” he said. “You want me to leave?”

      “It’s just, you know—” She made a face, as if she expected him to understand, naturally, why it was obvious he should leave.

      “What?” he said. “Was I snoring?”

      “Loud,” she said. “Really, I’m sorry. I’m not used to it.”

      “Oh . . .” He grimaced. “I do that.” He thought about it for another second and then added, “I could try to stop.”

      Avery brushed a long strand of hair back off his forehead. “You’ve been sweet,” she said. “You’re not at all like you seemed at the party.”

      “I’m not?” he said. “How did I seem? At the party.”

      “Yo! Missy!” Avery mocked his voice.

      Zach laughed. “That’s just—” he said. “I’m not like that. I’ve got to drink to put on that whole thing.”

      “Why?” Avery folded her hands in her lap and looked at him like a schoolteacher working with a student. “Why do you have to put on that whole thing?”

      “Otherwise I never meet anyone,” he said. “The guys make fun of me. They’re all like—” He looked away for a moment, up over Avery’s head. “They make fun of me is all.” He laughed, as if amused at himself. “I realized, you know, I’ve got to act a certain way or else they make my life miserable.”

      “You have to step in front of girls and go, Yo! Missy!” She did his voice again, which made him laugh again.

      “Exactly.” He leaned close and kissed Avery’s thigh through the shreds of denim fringe. “You sure I have to go?”

      “I need to get some sleep,” she said, “and I’m not used to anybody else in my bed.”

      “That’s good,” he said. “That’s encouraging.”

      “Really? Why?”

      Zach watched Avery as if he were trying to say something to her with his eyes and a slight, mischievous, smile. Then he spun around and out of bed and stood naked in front of her.

      “You’re full of yourself, aren’t you?” she said.

      “Me?” He sounded as if he had no idea what she was talking about, even though the grin on his face said he did. “Why?”

      “ ‘Why?’ Are you modeling for me?”

      “Oh.” Zach looked down at himself. “You think I could be a model?”

      Avery said, “I think you should get dressed.” While Zach was getting into his clothes, she cocked her head at what she thought was the sound of the refrigerator door opening.

      Zach apparently didn’t hear anything. He said, “Want to see me out?”

      “Sure.” She slid off the bed and gave him a hug. “You’re sweet,” she said again and led him out into the living room, where she was startled by the reflection in the sliding glass doors to the balcony. She saw herself a step in front of Zach as he loomed hugely behind her, her head reaching up only to his shoulders, her body dwarfed by his bulk. With her braless, in fringed jeans and snug T, and Zach in tight denims and short sleeves that threatened to rip at his biceps, they looked like a couple of characters out of the Dukes of Hazzard. In the background of the reflection, Grant stood at the refrigerator with a bowl of ice cream in one hand and a spoon in the other. He nodded at Zach and Avery before he lifted the spoon to his mouth. The couch had been turned upright, and a wet towel lay over the wine stain on the carpet. “Shit,” Zach said, looking down at the towel. “I forgot about the wine.”

      Grant nodded toward the towel and said, “I thought that might help.” Then he shrugged as if he actually had no idea whether or not it would do any good.

      Avery liked the sound of his voice. She asked another question mostly just to hear him speak again. “You know something about cleaning up spilled wine?”

      Grant smiled enigmatically and then took a seat on the couch, turned on the television, and started flipping through channels.

      Avery gave Zach a look, and he hesitated at the door, as if to ask if she were wary of Grant. She leaned against him and stood on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Good night, Zach,” she said.

      “Can I call you tomorrow?”

      “I made plans with my family for tomorrow. Call me during the week.”

      Zach nodded, the disappointment on his face obvious. Before he left, he glanced over to Grant on the couch, where he had settled in before a black-and-white movie.

      Once Zach was gone, Avery locked the door and leaned back against it. The movie on the television was Casablanca. She had seen it ten times, at least. It was coming up on the scene where the Nazis are in the club and Rick has the band play “La Marseillaise.” “I love this scene,” she said and sat on the other end of the couch.

      Grant’s eyes were fixed on the television as he held the bowl of ice cream in his lap. Avery was tempted to ask how old he was. She also wondered why he was out here and not with Melanie. He was, she decided again, handsome—in an interesting way. His lips were pink and shapely and full—the kind of lips women hope for when they get collagen injections—but the top of his nose was flat and wide, the broad lines merging with thick eyebrows that looked like a pair of wings over intense dark eyes. His ears were smallish and pressed back almost flat against his head. The overall effect, emphasized by the military haircut, was brutal, warrior-like, at least at first glance, though the lips undercut the harshness and suggested other possibilities.

      “I think,” she said, referring to the “Marseillaise” scene, which had just ended, “it’s, like, the hopelessness of the gesture, standing up to the Nazis, that’s so moving.”