Ellis shook his head. “I lost my credit card.” His days as Carlos Breuer had been over for ten days now. His remaining cash came from a purse a woman had left unattended at La Galería.
“The bus.”
“I don’t have anywhere to go.”
She chewed on her lip, smashing her cigarette in the ashtray. “You’ve got shoes,” she spat, pointing at his feet. “Long as you’ve got those, you can walk out of here and never come back.”
“I’m coming back.” He couldn’t help but smile now. “You just wait for me. I’ll be back in time for dinner. You go back to bed a while.”
He slipped through the door before she could protest and locked it against the sound of her quiet weeping.
* * *
He walked back toward his old apartment thinking of what she’d said about his shoes. He decided she was right, but it couldn’t be helped now. His car had disappeared from the parking lot at some point in the past few weeks. Perhaps whoever had stolen his gas came back for the rest of it.
It was a miracle he’d kept up with his keys all this time, just as it had been a wise decision to pay his rent a few months ahead. It wasn’t as cheap as a storage unit, but it was probably safer. He was turning the doorknob before he saw the letter taped above it. The landlady’s handwriting. His mother was looking for him. She was ringing the landlady’s phone daily. She was threatening to call the police. He didn’t read the rest of it.
He’d come for only one thing. His clothes, stupid, ill-fitting pieces of shit from the thrift store, could stay there. La Artista, in her charity, had already bought him a new wardrobe to complement her own. Until this morning it seemed he would be staying there for good.
The leather satchel containing his laptop computer lay at the foot of his bed, untouched since the night he went out to meet La Artista for the first time. He wiped the dust from it and strapped it over his shoulder. He had no need for it anymore, but he figured La Artista might like it, especially since she’d been neglecting her own, much more important email lately. That was, after all, how they’d met. He felt sure she’d let him monitor her correspondence.
On his way out the door he stopped by the phone. His answering machine was full, probably all messages from his mother, or maybe a couple from Karen. “I really am sorry,” he said clearly, not stuttering at all, and pressed Erase at the beginning of each one before the caller spoke. He left the key in front of the door for the landlady.
His apartment was only a few blocks from campus. He no longer feared encountering a professor or old acquaintance. He believed they wouldn’t recognize him, though his appearance was unchanged. Head high, walking with impressive posture, he went to the academic halls and taped notes to his old professors’ doors: I’m sorry, I’m going to Canada. I’m sorry, I’m going to Mexico. I’m sorry, I’m going to the Bahamas for a late and extended spring break. He thought it might be poetic to feel some slight regret but could muster none.
* * *
It was dark when he returned to La Artista’s apartment. He believed he’d walked around the city for a couple of hours but didn’t remember for certain. The lights in the apartment were off but all the curtains were open, and the melding of the city lights and the moon across the floor looked like something out of the most surreal dream, something he might paint himself if he ever rediscovered the talent.
He found La Artista in the bedroom, sleeping in a white bra and panties. She had paint smeared over her arms from the studio. He was suddenly afraid to touch her. A lump rose in his throat. For a moment he feared he’d done something wrong today, but then he remembered their argument, her black, soulless eyes.
“It’s okay, baby,” he whispered. He opened the door to the balcony, stepping clumsily out of his shoes and picking them up by their laces. They were getting too old anyway. With no further hesitation he dropped them over the railing, watched until they hit the pavement below, dead and useless to him now.
La Artista was sitting up when he came back inside, beautiful and expectant. She looked at his bare feet and began unfastening her bra.
“You’re gonna have to buy me new ones,” he said, coming to kneel at the edge of her bed. “I won’t be able to leave in them if you buy them for me.”
La Artista laughed quietly and turned her eyes to the open balcony door, waiting as if for a publicity photo, for the moonlight to find her face.