It's true then, Tom's ways are different from the old ways. And times are changing. Not that Mike the Bear's not smart, no one would say that. But the new times, they call for another approach. A guy like Tom, he makes everyone look legit. That's what's needed now.
Tom's happy.
LAURA'S STORY
Chapter 4
The night before—the night of the day Harry died—Laura had submerged herself in a blanket on the couch in her own apartment and waited for the hours to pass. Headlights brightened the room, fell away, rose again, a seashore rhythm. Car engines purred, a motorcycle roared by. From the staircase came a sudden laugh, as pleased and tipsy people passed Laura's front door.
To all of these Laura attended, lying curled and sleepless. She would have to relearn them now. In the nearly three years that she and Harry had been together, these had become unfamiliar, the sounds, sights, and cadences of the cramped and sunless downtown studio that in any case had never been her home.
Harry had been here only twice: once, on a Sunday morning in early spring, out of a cheerful, demanding curiosity. A quick glance had shown him everything the room had to offer; he'd laughed and taken her in his arms. They'd perched with paper coffee cups on the roof and admired the view over Lower Manhattan. Harry had pointed out this building and that, one neighborhood and another. Laura had been two years in New York by then and would have bridled at a geography lesson from anyone else. But Harry, as always, took the measure perfectly of what she knew and offered detail or context, footnotes or background. And Laura, as always when she listened to Harry—and this was especially true when his subject was his first love, New York—felt a thrill that was part anticipation, part relief, part a sense of herself as privileged beyond hope. It was—and she had laughed when she'd realized this, and never told Harry—the same thrill she'd felt when, as a little girl, she had begun to learn to read.
Though even through her joy, Laura, listening to Harry's measured drawl, heard an urgency behind it, as though he saw the tide slowly rising and had much to tell her before the island where they stood was engulfed and they had to strike out for shore.
That morning they'd climbed back down the fire escape and in through Laura's window. They made laughing, teasing love on a jumble of blankets on the floor, Harry refusing to have any part of anything so tacky as Laura's fold-out couch.
Lying together afterwards, Laura asked Harry, “Can you swim?”
“I can barely float. Why do you ask?”
Laura, who had spent three summers as a lifeguard at a lakeside beach, held him more closely and answered, “I'm not sure.”
The second time Harry had been to Laura's apartment was three days after the attacks. With the smoke still rising, they had climbed to the roof to stare out over Lower Manhattan again.
Leaving Leo's office now, Laura threw her bag over her shoulder, strode through the newsroom as though hurrying to an assignment. Heads turned toward her; she met no one's eyes, and they turned away again. Across the room, Georgie pivoted his chair to follow her progress but did not rise. She stood at the elevator with her back to them all.
In the normal course of things Laura had preferred to walk uptown to Harry's apartment, varying her route according to her mood. Some days she went for speed, beating traffic lights and leaping to curbs, so that she was perspiring, her heart pounding, when she arrived. Other times she meandered, ambling behind a couple or a group she'd choose for their intriguing conversation. Later she and Harry would play a game, assuming that overheard conversation to have been a critical turning point in the speakers' lives, inventing characters and circumstances of whom that could be true.
In the beginning Laura's stories were always reasonable and logical, Harry's fanciful and ridiculous. Later Laura had resolved to out-absurd Harry and had achieved, they both agreed, some significant successes. In the first weeks after September 11 they had not had the heart for the game and had stopped it. Then one day three weeks ago, as the pasta water was boiling, Harry had asked whether anyone had had anything momentous to say on Laura's walk home. From then they had begun the game again. Laura, in what seemed to her like an earlier century but was, she realized with a lurch of her heart, just the past week, had stored up two story lines for future use, to make Harry laugh.
She was grateful for the elevator's sluggishness until she realized she was, and her gratitude flashed into anger. When she finally reached the lobby, she charged straight toward the subway.
