Read Online You Are Here by Donald Breckenridge - Free Book Online

toenails, “I remember having a lot of fun,” and her exquisitely turned ankles had eradicated the host of implausible explanations coursing through his head, “on that field trip,” in the unlikely event that Elaine would interrogate his secretary after being unable to reach him on his cell phone. A group of adults in matching green T-shirts and grey sweat pants were being helped aboard an idling bus by a heavyset black man wearing a Mets cap. Stephanie looked at Alan with a smile, “I come out here on my bike all the time,” as the sunlight reflecting off the nearby unisphere caused her to squint, “I really love this park.” They walked along the sidewalk as starlings filled the air with their mimicry. Alan held the door for her, “after you,” and watched her hips sway before him as they entered the museum. Stephanie greeted the elderly female attendant behind the counter while fishing a few quarters from her purse. The woman handed over two small green stickers and told them to have a good visit.
    The desk fan on her dresser cast another wave of cool air, “I came home one afternoon,” over their bare bodies, “right after they’d had another fight… their final fight,” as they lay facing each other, “and the house was really quiet,” with their heads resting on a pair of pillows, “in a weird way,” and the white sheets, “like the way the sky is charged before a thunderstorm,” were crumpled beneath them, “like if you breathe too deeply it might shock you.” The drawn blinds and the late afternoon sun, “I’d usually go to the movies then… and I saw so many crappy ones,” created broad streaks on the wall above her double bed, “sometimes I’d just sit in the theater and wait for the movie to start again,” Stephanie turned onto her back and studied the cracks on the ceiling, “but I stayed in my room.” Alan suppressed a yawn before closing his eyes. “I heard a car door slam so I went to the window and watched my father driving away.” An ice cream truck slowly passed on the street below her window. “My mother started dating a few weeks later. She would bring these young guys from her office home or married men she’d meet in bars.”
    Alan and Stephanie stepped onto the wide, glass-bottomed balcony as the model of the city, depicting every building and roadway constructed in all five boroughs before 1992, lay sprawled before them. Thousands of multicolored building blocks rose above the vast grid-work of streets, alleyways, avenues, boulevards, and highways, dozens of skyscrapers punctuated the meticulously replicated Manhattan skyline, tiny piers jutting into the deep blue Hudson, the various shades of green plastic turf representing the city’s parks and infrequent vacant lots, while the Harlem River and the East River, both painted the same unlikely deep blue, were spanned by the bridges that connected Manhattan to faithfully rendered reproductions of the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn—and from Brooklyn to Staten Island via the replica of the Verrazano Bridge—thousands of streets and avenues, seemingly endless expressways, all bordered by thousands upon thousands of blocks of houses, storefronts, tenements, factories, housing projects, scaled mile upon mile of hilly green parks coated in various shades of green, headstone filled cemeteries, long stretches of elevated subway lines and their faithfully rendered stations, two airports, a wildlife preservation and the narrow stretches of the city’s sandy beaches were all contained in this vast air-conditioned room. Stephanie was happy to be sharing the view from one of her favorite places in the city with Alan, “I’m going to kiss you all night,” and squeezed his hands. He drew her closer, “I’d like that.” They shared a passionate kiss as the overhead lights gradually dimmed