Cobwebs Read Free Page A

meant no heights and no depths. When Nancy grew dizzy on one of Dad’s rooftops, she’d leave. Down to Mama’s basement, her pied-à-terre. Foot on the ground. Where, if you stood in the kitchen looking out toward the greenhouse, your nose was on a level with the grass. The truth was, Nancy wasn’t really comfortable anywhere.
    But she tried. It was the old nature/nurture question, which Nancy had studied in freshman biology. The question was what made you who you were: The nature you got from your parents’ genes? Or your experiences? Her parents couldn’t change her nature, but they were determined not to skimp on experiences, whether or not they drove Nancy nuts in the process. Rachel taught her weaving, that was her way, and asked for nothing more. But Ned was always pushing her, leading her, guiding her to the edges of things. And then telling her not to look down!
    Clorox and Ajax and Windex. Sponges and mops and ammonia. A ball-peen hammer and brass nails.
The New York Times
and the
New York Post
and the
Daily News.
General Tso’s chicken and moo shu pancakes and plum sauce. Red wine, and tomato juice and vodka so Ned could make his Bloody Mary in the morning. A box of Rice Krispies for Nancy.
    Outside the cleaned-up windows, hours later, the lights of the city twinkled on and the moon rose up. Furniture would come later. For tonight, Nancy and Ned would sleep in sleeping bags, cocooned in theirown warmth. Reflected light dappled the ceiling.
    “Thirty thousand nights,” Ned said.
    “What?” Nancy was trying to go directly to sleep without thinking of the drop outside.
    “That’s what we’re given on this planet.”
    “Thirty thousand?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s a long time.”
    “Long enough to get sick of them, take them for granted.”
    “So?” she asked slowly.
    “So, we don’t even look up to see if the stars are there or the moon is out.”
    “I do.”
    Ned rolled onto his stomach, leaned on his elbows. “What if you only got one night, Nancy egg? It’d be magic! You couldn’t stop looking. You’d never go to sleep, all night long.” He sat up so that he could see out the windows. He sat there so long that at last Nancy sat up, too, and put a hand on his shoulder.
    “Dad, you live here now,” she said. “It’ll be here tomorrow.”
    “
We
live here now.” He put his finger on her nose,smiled a little, lay down, and went to sleep pretty fast.
    How could Nancy sleep with that empty space waiting for her to fall through it, just beyond the low wall? She slid from her sleeping bag and pushed open the metal door. She padded silently to the edge, grasped the curved railing of the ladder.
    You’re going to have to, Nancy,
said the voice in her head. She had been working on a theory, based on an article she’d read in the
Times.
Paralyzed people were learning to walk again by having their legs mechanically put through the motions of walking. Supposedly this electrified some part of their brains, the walking part made dead by paralysis, and brought it back to life. Maybe, Nancy reasoned, if she placed herself in spidery situations, she could electrify some inactive spidery part of her brain.
    She stepped onto the ladder.
    On a rooftop in Vinegar Hill where he was spending the night, Dion turned over in his sleep, pulled his overcoat up to his chin, and began to have one of his climbing dreams.
    The rail curved slippery-slick beneath Nancy’s hands, the metal so cold it felt buttered. Nancy forcedher bare feet to climb the rusty-edged steps. She instructed her toes to hold on tight. At the top of the wall she crouched, scared to stand and raise her center of gravity into the wind.
Make it quick, Nancy; get it over with; don’t think about how you’ll get back up.
    With a nauseating twist she forced herself to turn, wrenching her body through dark space. Sweat sprang out in shudders across her neck and between her shoulders. City lights swirled above her. Her toe caught the step and her