Bridge of Sighs

guard.
    “Because that’s what you make it sound like.”
    “No, I see us as being the subject of endless gossip, sharing the university apartment and all.”
    “You’d be taking your life in your hands.” Risking a night with him was one thing, a whole semester another entirely. Unless these freak-outs truly were gone for good.
    “I don’t think you’d hurt me, Noonan. Awake or asleep.”
    “Why did I think I already had?”
    “Oh, that,” she said after a pause, suddenly serious. “Well, I guess I don’t think you would again.”
    For some reason he didn’t think so either, but after a long history of disappointing women he’d become accustomed to preparing them for the worst at or near the beginning. “What happens when you come home early some afternoon and find me with some pretty grad student?” Not one of Irwin’s skinny, sallow-skinned, stapled creatures but some buxom beauty he hadn’t met yet.
    “What happens if that
doesn’t
happen?” Anne said playfully. “When you realize the pretty grad student doesn’t want you, or only wants you because you’re famous and can make her career? Or, maybe, when it dawns on you that you don’t want
her
? That you prefer me instead?”
    And the weird, scary part, now, today, in the Soho bar? That she might be right.
    Hugh seemed more than a little anxious himself. “Let me think,” he said. “Do I approve of this?”
    “Did somebody ask you to sign off?”
    “Oh, all right, I guess I do. Just promise me it’s just a sharing-turpentine sort of arrangement, strictly fluids, that you’re not planning to wed the poor woman.”
    “Mind your own business. Quit worrying about what I do with my stiff but gentle brush.”
    Hugh was already sliding off his stool. “Should I tell our unironic friend to toss you out by eight-thirty? You’re to be at Coco Pazzo by nine.”
    “Lovely. Italian food. I don’t get enough of that.”
    “Congratulations, Robbie,” Hugh said seriously. “You—”
    “Go away. I can always tell when you’re about to get maudlin.”
    “Dear God, I
was,
wasn’t I.” Hugh looked mortified. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into his coat pocket. “This was left for you at the gallery.”
    He handed him an envelope addressed to “Bobby” in a small neat hand. Who called him that anymore?
    “The woman who left it said she was an old friend of yours. She didn’t quite seem to realize what an unlikely story that was. You may have noticed her, actually. She was with a skinny black girl who had the habit of standing on one foot, like a stork.”
    Now that Hugh mentioned it, Noonan did have a vague recollection. They’d looked out of place for a gallery opening, and he’d concluded that she was a teacher or social worker trying to expand the cultural horizons of some inner-city kid. He’d particularly noticed the woman because she’d been staring at him, or seemed to be, from behind her dark glasses. Of course that wasn’t so surprising, given the occasion. People were always pointing out or staring at the artist at an opening. She’d quickly looked away when their eyes met, the trace of a smile on her face. Later, when he was sneaking out, he’d noticed her again, this time talking to Anne, which had surprised him, since he’d thought it was his own work that had interested her. She’d stood for a very long time directly in front of
Young Woman at a Window.
    The letter was five pages long, but Noonan skipped to the end to verify what he already knew. Though he hadn’t seen it in thirty years, the handwriting hadn’t changed, which was probably why she’d printed his name on the envelope. No wonder she’d stood so long before that painting, as if she were committing its every last detail to memory.
    “She was still at the gallery when I came looking for you,” Hugh was saying. “No doubt hoping she could talk you into visiting her eighth-grade class in Jamaica Plain. What’s so amusing?”
    “You have no idea who she was?”
    “Should I?”
    “Not really. If I didn’t recognize her—”
    “Dear God,” Hugh said, the penny dropping.
             
     
    D EAR B OBBY,
the letter began. He waited until the tavern door closed behind him—“Are you sure you’re all right?” Hugh asked. “Because you look a little—” and then moved over to a table near the stained-glass window, where the light was marginally better, if still a bit on the ghostly side.
I hope this letter doesn’t come