Raincheck Read Free Page A

before opening his eyes. Fortunately, he could see very well in the dark.
     
    The crack didn’t look any worse than the day before. He knew what he’d felt, though; he didn’t think he was imagining things. With a resigned sigh, he quickly pulled himself back up to the roof.
     
    That was when he saw it. The small table set out in the middle of the rooftop. As he approached, he could see that it really was a packing crate covered with a red-and-white-checked cloth. On it sat a bottle of beer, condensation still beading on the surface of the glass. Beside the bottle was a plate holding a large sandwich, a mound of potato chips, and a pickle slice. Rodney looked around to see if someone else was on the roof, planning to enjoy an al fresco meal, but there was no one else there. That’s when his eye caught sight of the folded piece of paper sticking out from underneath the plate.
     
    He opened the sheet of paper and angled it so he could read it in the ambient light from the city around him.
     
    Rodney, it read.
     
    I’ve been thinking about what you said and decided that despite the fact you won’t come out with me, that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, right? It’s cool with me if you don’t want to leave the building. I’ve narrowed down the possibilities—you’re a reclusive genius with agoraphobia or a wanted fugitive or a superhero. I’m right, aren’t I? Now if I only knew which one.
     
    David
     
    PS. Since you won’t grab a bite with me, I brought it to you. Hope you find it in time. Otherwise, I’ll owe you another raincheck. Damn. I should have put this in a cooler, huh?
     
    Rodney grinned. So, David was an idiot and a bit of a romantic as well, whether he realized it or not. It didn’t mean Rodney couldn’t enjoy the meal. It would make a nice change from pigeon. He peered at the top of the beer bottle, trying to figure out how he was supposed to open it. “Huh. Fancy that,” he said aloud to the night as he grasped the bottle top with clawed fingers and twisted it off. “Screw top. What will they think of next?”
     
    He’d tasted beer before, in the dregs of bottles left behind in the trash. Never before had he consumed a beer still cold from the fridge, though. It was so unexpectedly satisfying that he’d drunk almost half the bottle before he’d realized it. He quickly turned his attention to the sandwich. The layers of meat and cheese, combined with the crisp bacon and fresh lettuce, exploded on his taste buds in a way that made him moan with pleasure. The only drawbacks were the little wooden sticks embedded within; he didn’t see the appeal to them whatsoever. It was only when he’d eaten three quarters of the sandwich that he realized that the sticks were meant to pin the layers together and that he probably wasn’t supposed to eat them.
     
    He left the empty plate and bottle on the packing crate, the idea of flying down to ground level to dispose of the trash as ludicrous as his going shopping in the local hardware store for concrete mix and a trowel. He started to leave the note as well but thought better of it. Walking over to the air-conditioning unit, he removed a panel at its base. Inside, he kept a few private things. The playbill from Phantom of the Opera ; a cracked snow globe, rescued from the trash and depicting a family setting out from a well-lit home in a horse-drawn sleigh; three different versions of the Bible—well, two and a half, if you considered that the pocket copy contained only the New Testament and Psalms; a crystal pendant, found twinkling in a storm gutter on a frosty winter night; a well-thumbed copy of Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers; and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, snagged out of the fifty-cent box in front of the used bookstore three blocks over and paid for with the dollar he’d found the week before. Pity the bookseller hadn’t made the mistake of leaving the box out overnight again. He never knew if the owner had found the