The Girl in Times Square Read Free Page B

to ring. She stared out the window, trying to make her mind a blank. The bedroom windows faced the inner courtyard of several apartment buildings. There were many greening trees and long narrow yards. Most people never pulled down the shades on the windows that faced inward. The trees, the grass were perceived to be shields from the world. Shields maybe from the world but not from Lily’seyes. What kind of a pervert stared into other people’s windows anyway?
    Lily stared into other people’s windows. She stared into other people’s lives.
    One man sat and read the paper in the morning. For two hours he sat. Lily drew him for her art class. She drew another lady, a young woman, who, after her shower, always leaned out of her window and stared at the trees. For her improv class, she drew her favorite—the unmarried couple who in the morning walked around naked and at night had sex with the shades up and the lights on. She watched them from behind her own shades, embarrassed for them and herself. They obviously thought only the demons were watching them, judging from the naughty things they got up to. Lily knew they were unmarried because when he wasn’t home, she read “Today’s Bride” magazine and then fought with him each Saturday night after drinking.
    Lily had drawn their cat many times. But today she got out her sketchbook and mindlessly penciled in the number, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49. It couldn’t be, right? It was just a cosmic mistake? Of course! Of course it was, the numbers may have been correct, but they were for a different date: how many times has she heard about that? She sprung up to check.
    No, no. Numbers matched. Date matched, too.
    She went into Amy’s room. She and Amy were going to go to the movies today, but Amy wasn’t home, and there was no sign of her; she hadn’t come home from wherever she was yesterday.
    Lily waited. Amy always gave the appearance of coming right back.
    Lily. Her mother forgot to put the third L into her name. Though she herself was an Allison with a double L. Oh, for God’s sake, what was she thinking about? Was Lilianne jealous of her mother’s double L? Where was her mind going with this? Away from six numbers. Away from 49, 45, 39, 24, 18, 1.
    She had a shower. She dried her pleasingly boyish hair, she looked through The Daily News and settled on the 2:15 at the Angelica of The Butcher Boy.
    While walking past the grocery store she thought of something, and taking a deep breath, stepped inside.
    “Excuse me,” Lily said, coughing from acute discomfort. “What’s the lottery up to at the last drawing?” She felt ridiculous even asking. She was red in the pale face.
    “For how many numbers?” the clerk said gruffly.
    Not looking at him, Lily thought about not replying. She finally said to the Almond Joy bars, “All of them.”
    “All six? Let’s see…ah, yes, eighteen million dollars. But it depends who else wins.”
    “Of course.” She backed out of the store.
    “Usually a few people win.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Did your numbers come in?”
    “No, no.”
    Lily got out as fast as she could.
    18 was one of the numbers. So was 1.
    That was in April. After Joshua, Lily swore off men for life, concluding that there wasn’t a single decent one in the entire tri-state area, except for Paul and he was incontrovertibly (as if there were any other way) gay. Rachel kept offering her somewhat unwelcome matchmaking services, Paul and Amy kept offering their welcome support services. They went to see other movies besides The Butcher Boy , and The Phantom Menace and sat until all hours drinking tequila and discussing Joshua’s various demerits to make Lily feel better. And eventually both the tequila and the discussions did.
    Lily—making her lottery ticket into wall art for the time being—affixed it with red thumbtacks to her corkboard that had thumbtacked to it all sorts of scraps from her life: photos of her together with her brother, some