"Don't strangle me, Joseph. Well, if nothin' else, they all laugh differently. Kind of fuller. I guess maybe it's relaxin'. Hey, can I ask you a question?"

"Is it about last night?"

"No, it's about her in Vienna."

"Okay."

We crossed the street into a patch of sunlight. The street glistened; someone passed us talking feverishly to his friend about Alitalia Airlines. She took my arm and slid her hand into mine in my pocket. It was warm and thin, fragile as an egg.

I looked at her. She'd pulled the muffler down from her top lip. She stopped and pulled me against her with the hand she had in my pocket. "All right. What's her name?"

"India."

"India? What a nice name. India what?"

"Tate. Come on, let's walk."

"What does she look like, Joseph? Is she pretty?"

"She's a lot older than you, for one thing. But, yes, she's quite pretty. Tall and thin, dark hair, kind of long."

"But you think she's pretty?"

"Yes, but in a different way than you."

"How?" Her eyes were skeptical.

"India is fall and you're spring."

"Hmm."

Five minutes later, the sun snuck behind the clouds and stayed. The sky turned to steel, and people began walking with their heads hunched into their shoulders. Neither of us said anything, but I knew the day was failing, no matter how many truths had shown their faces along the way. There was love on both sides, but it was cloudy and formless. I felt that if I didn't do something right then, this cloudiness would drain the intimacy from the day and leave us confused and disappointed.

Ross and Bobby went to New York a lot. They explored the city as if they were looking for buried treasure and, in so doing, found just what they wanted. Manhattan is full of strange and mysterious places that hide under the city like a secret heartbeat: the windows over the front entrance to Grand Central Terminal that go up ten stories and look down over the inside of the building like God's eyeballs through dirty glasses. Or a bomb shelter on the East Side designed to hold a million people and dug so deep into the earth that a tractor moving across the floor looks, from one of the upper staircases, like a yellow matchbox with headlights.

The two of them collected these spots and told me about them once in a while. But they shared very little, whether it was cigarettes or a bottle of stolen liquor, and they were even more tight-fisted when it came to showing anyone these unknown, magical places.

Consequently, I almost swooned the day they offered to take me to the abandoned subway station off Park Avenue. It was the only one of their trove of places I ever actually saw with them. I decided on the spur of the moment to take Karen down there.

When we arrived at the spot on the sidewalk, I bent down and started to yank at one end of a long rectangular subway grate. She asked me what I was doing, but I was too busy groaning and pulling to answer. I realized after too long that there was a latch beneath the grate that had to be released before anything would happen. As soon as I'd done that, the thing flew right up and almost decapitated me. The two of us were down on our knees over a subway grate, huffing and puffing to get it up, and not a soul stopped or said a word to us. I doubt if anyone even looked at what we were doing. Welcome to New York.

A flight of steel steps went straight down into the darkness, but Karen climbed down without a question. The last I saw of her face, she had a little knowing smile on. I followed right on her heels and pulled the grate over me like a submarine hatch.

"Joseph, my dear, what the hell is this?"

"Keep going. If we're lucky you'll see a light in a minute. Follow it."

"My God! Where'd you ever find this place? Looks as if the last time a train stopped here was in 1920."

For some reason the station was still lit by two dim bulbs at either end of the platform. We stood there, and only after some time did the distant sound of a train break the enormous silence. It got louder and louder, and when it scrabbled through on an outside track, Karen put her arm around my shoulder and drew my head to hers so I would be able to hear her above the roar.

"You are completely nuts! I love this!"

"Do you love me?"

"YES!"

When we were out of there and had walked a few blocks, Karen suddenly grabbed my coat and swung me around to face her.

"Joseph, let's not sleep together for a while. I want you so much I'm dyin', I won't be able to breathe. Can you understand? It's goin' to happen, but let's wait until" – she shook her head from side to side in a delighted flurry – "until we're drivin' ourselves crazy. Okay?"

I slid my arms around her and, for the first time, pulled her close to me. "Okay, but when it gets to that point, it's boom and it happens. No questions asked, and either side gets to say boom. Fair enough?"

"Yes, fair enough."

She gave me an incredibly hard squeeze, which left me gasping. To look at her, you'd never have thought she was that strong. It made "boom" even more wonderful to anticipate.

I was in New York for almost two months before India called. I knew that, compared to my growing feelings for Karen, I had never truly been in love with India. I felt guilty about that, but Karen and New York and the excitement of this new life drew a thick velvet curtain between me and what had happened in Vienna. When I was alone I wondered what I would do if the call or letter came. I honestly didn't know.

When I was a boy the house next door to ours burned down. For a year after that I was terrified whenever I heard the fire alarm go off in town. It blew in such a way that you knew immediately where the fire was: five toots – western section, four – eastern . . . But that made no difference to me. No matter where I was, I would run for a telephone and call home to see if everything was all right. Finally, and it really was almost a year later, I was playing punchball after school when the alarm went off. No answering alarm echoed inside of me, and I knew I was all right again. That night the house on the other side of ours went up in flames.

"Joseph Lennox?"

"Yes?" I was alone in my apartment. Karen was at a faculty meeting. It was snowing outside. I watched it wisp and float as the connection went through.

"Vienna is calling. One moment, please."

"Joey? It's India. Joey, are you there?"

"Yes, India, I'm here! How are you?"

"Not so good, Joey. I think you have to come home."

Karen came in her front door with a big package under her arm.

"I see you lookin' at this box. Don't think it's for you 'cause it's not. I bought myself a little somethin' which I will show you in a minute."

I was always glad to see her. Neither of us had gotten to the "boom" stage yet, but for days both of us had reveled in the delicious edge the waiting created. She dropped her coat on the couch and bent down to kiss my nose – her favorite form of greeting. The cold steamed off her, and her cheeks were wet with melted snow. She didn't notice anything was wrong because she was in too much of a hurry to get on with her show.

I looked out the window and wondered briefly if it was snowing in Vienna. Paul had returned and so frightened India with his Little Boy tricks that over the phone she seemed on the verge of a breakdown. The curtains to their bedroom had burst into flame that night as she was getting into bed. It was over in a few seconds, but it was only the latest thing. She admitted that since I'd left he had constantly been at her, but she'd avoided telling me because she'd kept hoping he would come to her and talk. He hadn't, and now she was at the end of her taut rope.