Silent Fall

in submission.
    "All right, but you know Tae Bo aerobics doesn't really qualify for self-defense," he drawled.
    "Just bring the car seat and the bag with you."
    Matt followed her into her apartment, expecting to see something similar to his place, something clean and utilitarian with perhaps a feminine touch. What he saw was sheer chaos, layers and layers of white fabrics, silks and satins adorning the couch and the love seat, spools of threads, stacks of lace, a sewing machine in one corner, and a mannequin in the other. There were bridal magazines on the coffee table, boxes of pearls and beads, and swatches of ribbons on the floor in a discarded heap. It was a single man's nightmare. Maybe that was it. Maybe he'd fallen asleep on his feet. Maybe he was dreaming.
    "I have to wake up," he said. "Just wake up."
    She stared at him uncertainly. "Have you been drinking?"
    "No."
    "Really? You look like you have a hangover."
    "I haven't had much sleep the last three days. I've been too busy pulling a city official's hand out of the till. You can read about it in the morning paper, by the way."
    "Oh, I don't get the newspaper," she said with an offhand toss of her head.
    "You don't get the paper?" Everyone got the paper. It was part of life, a ritual as important as eating and drinking and sleeping. "Why don't you get the paper?"
    "The news depresses me. Can you see if there is a diaper in that bag?"
    "The news may be depressing, but it's important. How can you manage your life if you don't read the paper, if you don't know what is going on in the city you live in, the world that surrounds you?"
    She cleared her throat. "Okay, I lied. I read the paper every morning."
    "Now, you are lying. What is wrong with you?" He didn't understand how anyone could not read the newspaper.
    "Right now I'm holding a stinky baby. That's what's wrong with me. Did you find that diaper yet?"
    Matt set the bag down on the floor and dug through it, wishing he'd never come home at all. He'd been looking forward to peace and quiet, some downtime after the stress of the last few days, but here he was right back in the middle of somebody else's mess. Relieved to find a disposable diaper in the bag, he pulled it out and handed it to her.
    She cleared off the end of one couch and laid the baby down, then quickly changed her. She didn't seem to have any problem with the baby's flailing legs and arms or the shrill crying that continued until she fixed the last piece of tape.
    "You look like you've done that before," he commented.
    "A few times. I baby-sat when I was a teenager." She picked the baby up and offered her to him. "Do you want to hold her now?"
    "No. No." He shoved his hands into his pockets and took a step back, almost tripping over a large spool of lace.
    "Sorry about that." She gave the spool a nudge with her foot. "I'm on deadline."
    "For what? Are you getting married in the morning?"
    "I'm doing the alterations on a wedding dress. I have a bridal shop on Union Street. Devereaux's is the name. Do you know it?"
    "I don't make a habit of knowing where the nearest bridal shop is."
    She offered him the first genuine smile he'd seen all night. "I bet you don't."
    "What is your name anyway?"
    "Caitlyn Devereaux."
    "So why isn't all this stuff at your shop?"
    "Because Tiffany Waterhouse moved up her wedding date. It turns out she's pregnant, and she absolutely cannot go down the aisle looking like a watermelon -- her words, not mine. I brought her dress home to finish because she's getting married at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning instead of in four weeks as she'd originally planned. And her family is very well connected, so I don't want to disappoint her."
    Matt looked at the yards and yards of material draped over the couch. "She must be really fat."
    "That's just her train, a six-foot trail of lace that goes down the aisle after her," she added at his blank expression. Caitlyn moved the baby from one shoulder to the other. "She still isn't happy. I wonder if she's hungry."
    "I wonder who she is."
    "We should call the police."
    "I suppose." Even as he agreed, he felt the same prickly uneasiness he'd experienced earlier. Why would anyone leave a baby in his hallway?
    "She's so young," Caitlyn murmured, caressing the baby's head with her fingers. "She can't be more than two months old. How could anyone just put her down and walk away? Especially her mother." She shook her head in bewilderment. "How could they do that?"
    Matt had a hundred