Heart of Glass Read Free Page B

it in Swinging Sixties London. It had been fun to see the city where I’d lived for five years, having teenage fun with my sister and our pack of friends while Mother partied and serial-dated, spending her divorce settlement. For years after we moved back to the States, I would draw diagrams of our flats so I would remember the places and times I missed so much. It had been a way to map my recent past, to remember where I had been.
    I turned the key in the lock and opened my apartmentdoor to find Washington in full shooting stance, his gun pointed right at me.
    â€œShit!” I raised my book bag like a shield. Bernstein jumped out from behind the door. I was surrounded.
    â€œYou should have knocked,” Washington replied matter-of-factly.
    â€œBut I live here!” I sputtered.
    Bernstein shook his head and headed for the sofa, uncocking his weapon. He seemed pissed off that he hadn’t been able to use me for target practice. I looked around for Beth, but she was barricaded in her room.
    â€œWe have some forms we need you to sign; you’ll most likely be subpoenaed after the suspect is apprehended and taken to trial.” Washington motioned with his gun to a pile of papers on the dining table while I wondered how close they’d come to blowing my head off. He holstered his weapon, took a pen out of his breast pocket, and clicked it, handing it to me with a flourish. “Here.” He pointed a thin, elegant finger to where he wanted me to sign my name. “And here.” His nails were perfect.
    I went to my room and put my bag down on a red-painted wooden chair that I had picked up on the street one day. White flight, rotating students, musicians, and artists had made the downtown sidewalks into a kind of pop-up Salvation Army or Goodwill. I had put a filmy piece of pale green, patterned fabric over my one window. My futon was covered by an Indian-print tablecloth that I had bought at Pier 1. I had decorated the bare white walls with a few postcards, photos, and some pictures I’d cut out of magazines. It was pretty sparse, but I hadn’t been able to get much from my mother’s house before I left. My last conversation with her had not gone well after I’d informed her that I was no longer planning to turn over my $50,000 college fund to her when I turned twenty-one. That money had been left to me by my grandfather, her father, who had obviously known there wouldn’t be anything left to pay for college if she had access to it. So my records, clothes, winter coat, and all my other belongings were at her house, if she hadn’t yet set fire to them in a fit of rage.
    After doing some French homework and studying for a History of Film test, I jotted down some notes about Blow-Up to prepare for the paper I’d be writing. Michael was busy that evening, seeing a play he had an audition for to replace one of the actors. I didn’t feel like spending the evening with Washington and Bernstein, so I decided to go to the movies. The Man Who Fell to Earth was playing at Cinema Village on East Twelfth Street, and as a big David Bowie fan, I didn’t want to miss it. I’d always loved all the glitter-rock guys: Marc Bolan from T. Rex, Bryan Ferry from Roxy Music, and of course Bowie. Robin and I had even gone to his house in London, one day after school, and rung the doorbell, but ran away when the prospect of meeting our idol was too much for us to handle.
    The movie theater was already dark when I slid into a seat with my dinner of fifty-cent popcorn. Only a few other people were in the audience. Bowie plays an alien who hastraveled to Earth to find water for his planet, where everyone is dying. He loses his way and becomes addicted to television and alcohol. Everyone on his planet, including his wife and children, perish while he rides around drunk in a limo. The movie was trippy, with eerily haunting images, and Bowie looked both ethereal and fantastic in tailored