Manhattan Is My Beat

ankle boots. There were twenty-seven silver bracelets, all different, on her left forearm.
    Her lips varied in size, compressing, expanding. A barometer of her mood. She had a round face; her nose pleased her. Her friends sometimes said she looked like certain actresses who appeared in independent films. But there were few present-day actresses she cared about or tried to look like; if you took Audrey Hepburn and put her in a Downtown, New Wave version of
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
—that’s who Rune wanted to resemble and in many ways she did.
    She paused, looked at herself in a mirror sitting in an antiques shop window, the words WHOLESALE ONLY larger than the name of the place. Several months ago she’d gotten tired of her spiky black-purple haircut, had rinsed out the frightening colors, and had stopped trimming the do herself. The strands were longer now and the natural chestnut was emerging. Staring at the mirror, she now teased the hair out with her fingers. Then patted it back down. It wasn’t long, it wasn’t short. The ambivalence of it made her feel more homeless than she normally did.
    She started once more on her journey to the East Village.
    Rune glanced down at the receipt again.
    Robert Kelly.
    If Tony’d told her right away who the customer was, she wouldn’t have given him so much crap.
    Kelly, Robert. Member since: May 2. Deposit: Cash
.
    Robert Kelly.
    “My boyfriend.”
    That’s what she’d told Frankie Greek and Eddie at the store. They’d blinked, trying to figure out what
that
meant. But then she’d laughed and made it sound like a joke—before they grinned and sneered and asked what was it like to be in bed with a seventy-year-old man?
    Though she’d added, “Well, we
have
been out on a date.” Which left enough doubt to make it fun.
    Robert Kelly
was
her friend. More of a friend than most of the men she’d met in the store. And he
was
also the only one she’d ever gone out with—in her three months’ working there. Tony had a rule against going out with customers—not that any rule of Tony’s would slow her up for more than a half-second. But the only men she ever seemed to meet at the store were either long domesticated or about what you’d expect from somebody who picks up clerks in a Greenwich Village video store.
    Hi, I’m John, Fred, Stan, Sam, call me Sammie, I live up the street, this’s an Armani, you like it, I’m a fashion photographer, I work for Morgan-Stanley, I got some blow, hey, you wanna go to my place and fuck?
    Kelly, Robert, deposit: cash, wore a suit and tie every time she’d seen him. He was fifty years older than she was. And when she’d offered to do him a favor, a little thing, copy a tape for him, for free, he’d looked down, blushing, and he’d asked her out to lunch to thank her.
    They’d gone to a highly turquoise 1950s revival soda shop, called the Soda Shop, on St. Marks, and, surrounded by NYU students who managed to be both morbidly serious and giddy at the same time, had eaten grilled cheese sandwiches with pickles. She’d ordered a martini. He’d laughed in surprise and said in a whisper he’d thought she was sixteen. The waitress had somehow accepted the fake ID, which showed her age to be 23. According to the authentic documentation—her Ohio driver’s license—Rune was twenty.
    At lunch he’d been a little awkward at first. But that didn’t matter. Rune was an old hand at keeping the conversation going. Then he warmed up and they’d had a great time. Talking about New York City—he knew it real well even though he’d been born in the Midwest. How he used to go to clubs in Hell’s Kitchen, west of Midtown. How he’d have picnics in Battery Park. How he used to go for hikes in Central Park with a “lady friend” of his— Rune loved that expression. When she was old she hoped she’d be somebody’s lady friend. She’d—
    Oh, damn
…
    Rune stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
Goddamn
. She reached into her bag and found that she’d forgotten the tape she’d made for him. Which was too bad for Mr. Kelly because he’d be looking forward to it. But mostly it was too bad for her—because she’d left it at the store and if Tony found she’d made a bootleg of a store tape, Jesus, he’d kick her right out on her ass. No pleas for mercy accepted at Washington Square Video.
    But she couldn’t very well go back now and pull it out from underneath the counter where she’d hidden it. She’d bring it to Mr.