"All right, Getaway—to-morrow—Coney!"
He did not conceal his surge of pleasure, grasping her small hand in both his. "Good girlie!"
"Good night, Getaway," she said, but with the inflection of something left unsaid.
He felt the unfinished intonation, like a rocket that had never dropped its stick, and started up the steps after her.
"What is it, Marylin?"
"Nothing," she said and ran in.
The window in her little rear room with the zigzag of fire escape across it was already full of dusk. She took off her hat, a black straw with a little pink-cotton rose on it, and, rubbing her brow where it had left a red rut, sat down beside the window. There were smells there from a city bouquet of frying foods; from a pool of old water near a drain pipe; from the rear of a butcher shop. Slops. Noises, too. Babies, traffic, whistles, oaths, barterings, women, strife, life. On her very own ceiling the whisper of footsteps—of restless comings and goings—stealthy comings and goings—and then after an hour, suddenly and ever so softly, the ball-of-a-foot—squeak! The-ball-of-a-foot—squeak!
Marylin knew that step.
And yet she sat, quiet. A star had come out. Looking up at the napkin of sky let in through the walls of the vertical city, Marylin had learned to greet it almost every clear evening. It did something for her. It was a little voice. A little kiss. A little upside down pool of light without a spill. A little of herself up there in that beyond—that little napkin of beyond that her eyes had the lift to see.
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