On Monday, January 11, there was thin snow on the Northlake steps.
Not enough to shovel.
Enough to show every footprint.
It was 7:40 AM on the first day of class.
I had ceil-blue scrubs on under my coat.
Mom's moss-green cardigan was under that.
She'd said a nurse should be warm.
She'd said it four times.
The fourth time, she did the wooden buttons herself.
My bag was the same one Kendall's bodyguard had turned upside down.
The blue container was still cracked.
The pierogi inside were fresh.
I still worked Saturdays and Sundays at the Halden, three to eleven.
Denise had put me there herself.
Theo was at the bottom of the steps.
He had two paper cups, both steaming.
He wasn't parked anywhere I could see.
"You took the bus," he said.
"I took the bus."
"I know."
He held out one cup.
I took it.
"I'm buying tomorrow's."
"Okay."
"And the one after."
"Okay."
He'd learned a lot since November.
He used to open with a ride.
Now he opened with coffee.
My phone buzzed in my coat pocket.
I looked at the preview.
It was from an account with a lock beside the name.
one sit-down, on camera. please. it would mean
The preview cut off there.
I didn't open it.
I deleted it with my thumb, standing in the snow.
Theo watched me do it.
He didn't ask who it was.
He already knew.
Whitlock & Sons had papered over its Oak Street windows, and Kendall's account had gone private.
The phone buzzed again.
Mom.
A photo of her insulin pen on the kitchen table, next to her knitting.
The cap was on.
She'd wanted me to see that.
go learn
I put the phone away.
Theo set his coffee on the railing.
He reached into his own coat pocket.
Then he held out his hand and opened it.
JOSIE · HOUSEKEEPING
The brass had been polished.
The J was still worn brighter than the rest.
"Kept it off the floor," he said.
I didn't take it right away.
I looked at it the way you look at a room you used to clean.
"You had it this whole time."
"Every day."
"In that coat?"
"In every coat."
I took it.
It was warm from his pocket.
"You polished it."
"Badly."
"There's polish in the letters."
"I used a napkin."
"Whose napkin?"
"Mine."
"One more thing," he said.
"Director of housekeeping."
"Any hotel."
"Pick a city."
A girl went past us up the steps with a stethoscope around her neck, still in its plastic.
"No," I said.
He waited.
"I'm going to be a nurse."
He laughed.
It was a real laugh, the kind that fogs in the cold.
"I know."
"Then why ask?"
"So you could say no."
"You practiced that."
"Twice."
"Where?"
"In the elevator."
I looked at him over my coffee.
He'd let me hand back a hundred-dollar bill.
He'd let me ride the bus.
He'd let me walk into a courtroom without his coat and a ballroom without his arm.
He'd handed me a microphone and stood two paces back.
I clipped the badge to my bag strap.
The magnet caught with a little click.
The same sound it made on the lobby stone.
Different direction.
Theo looked at it on the strap.
"It suits the bag," he said.
"It suits me."
Two steps up, a girl in a purple puffer coat stopped walking.
She'd sat next to me at info night.
She'd leaned away from me that night.
She'd stopped leaning away by December.
She had a phone in her hand.
She wasn't filming.
"Kiss her, Theo!"
Half the steps turned around.
Theo looked at me.
He didn't move.
He was asking.
"It's my steps," I said.
So I went up one, so we were the same height.
I kissed him.
Once.
The coffee in my left hand tipped and dripped on the snow.
The girl in purple clapped with her mittens on.
Somebody whistled from the door.
A woman in a lanyard held it open and said, "Class, people."
I stepped back.
Theo picked up his cup from the railing.
"Seven-forty," he said.
"I know."
"I'll be here at three."
"I work at three on Saturdays."
"It's Monday."
"Then I'll be here at three."
"Okay."
He didn't come up.
He stayed at the bottom with his coffee.
I turned around.
There were eleven steps.
I counted them like towels.
The badge swung against my bag strap, and the brass J caught the light.
At the top, the woman in the lanyard checked my student ID against her list.
Then she looked at the badge.
"Josie?"
"Josie," I said.
I wore my name up the steps.