LUCA

It was supposed to be temporary, just until he sorted things out. He moved back into the Spartan room he occupied before. He hadn’t paid any attention to the décor then. This time he brought an explosion of things from the apartment in San Francisco, things he couldn’t bear to leave behind. He shipped the black lacquered desk, a Paris flea market find, the red velvet chair he’d bought in Dallas, a rug he purchased in Morocco. There were boxes overflowing with papers, and coffee table books, clothes—so many clothes—and shoes. His bathroom looked like a branch of I. Magnin’s men’s grooming counter.

The room was large with a high ceiling edged in crown molding, two tall windows, and an intricate parquet floor. He hadn’t noticed those details, or the quality of the light before, how warm it was.

The woman was a surprise, someone Martin met and befriended since he’d been gone. He’d moved her into what had once been a maid’s quarters. She was a photographer, Martin said. There was nothing in her room except a chest of drawers and a bed made up with white sheets and a brown quilt, tucked tight. She was personable enough when she was around. He hadn’t spoken to Martin about it. He assumed Martin had told her something of why he’d come to stay. He wondered how much she knew. She wasn’t around enough his first few weeks there to get to know her beyond pleasantries. Most days she went to her studio to work. Some nights she didn’t come home.

Luca spent his days prowling the neighborhood, shopping for food for meals he made for Martin, and Charlotte, when she was home. He figured if he couldn’t pay Martin for the room, the least he could do was feed him. Martin had gained some weight; they both had. And Martin’s color was better.

At a newsstand across from Central Park, Luca bought the San Francisco papers. He sat in the park every day and scanned them for articles about the battered conventioneer, but there were none.

Back in his room, Luca pulled the little box, which once held a garlic bulb, out from under the bed. He’d taken it with him when he left. He inspected the mushroom through the safety of the cellophane window. It had continued to shrink, and Luca wondered if would it eventually turn to dust.

“That’s all in the past,” he told himself, relieved that the dread and desolation he felt when he returned to New York was beginning to lift.