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than she was willing to reveal. She had found a way to detach herself, and it was her aloofness that most appealed to him. Priscilla didn’t need anyone; her attitude made that loud and clear. She was a survivor, someone who could take whatever life felt like dishing out. She had an air about her that made Philip believe she had already experienced far worse than he could ever imagine, yet she was still standing, still taking life’s crude insults without ever breaking her stride.
    As Philip ripped the third sheet from his blotter, a wildly optimistic idea occurred to him. It was crazy, but the more he thought of it, the more he became convinced it was the right thing to do. But how should he approach it? Should he come right out and ask, “Priscilla, would you like to go out with me sometime?”
    Just hearing those words in his mind made him grimace. He would have to be subtler than that, and he would have to find a way to do it that wouldn’t put her on the spot. But coming up with the right tactic would require thought. As his best inspirations often came to him while wandering around the city, Philip grabbed his jacket and locked his door, leaving his worries behind for a few tranquil hours.

Four
    Priscilla pushed through the door of her third-floor walk-up on the lower Eastside, more sweaty and aggravated than usual. The day had become far too warm to warrant the heavy wool coat that weighted her down as she trudged up all twenty-eight steps to her dark, poorly ventilated quarters.
    She had initially taken her rent-controlled apartment with the understanding that the elevator was only temporarily out of order, only to find out after she moved in it hadn’t been operational since Eisenhower was in office. The ancient relic was now too outmoded to be repaired and the landlord was too much of a skinflint to spring for a new one. The tenants grumbled over this fact every time they hauled bags and parcels up the dilapidated stairs, especially those unfortunate enough to live on the fourth floor.
    Priscilla kicked the door closed behind her, plopping her bags and newspapers on the closest chair while she struggled to free herself from the oppressive heat of her pea coat. She was sick of the necessity of wearing winter clothes and she was relieved that spring was finally starting to show itself.
    She wadded up the badly worn garment and threw it on the floor of her cramped coat closet, certain in her over-heated condition she wouldn’t need it for a long time to come, preferably never. She was sick to death of freezing four months out of the year. As far as she was concerned, this “global warming” environmentalists warned of couldn’t come soon enough.
    She kicked off her shoes and opened her only two windows, the small one over her kitchen sink and the somewhat larger one in her bedroom, conjuring up a cross-breeze that set her various piles of notebooks fluttering.
    She unbuttoned her shirt as she walked to her fridge and stood there with her top open, luxuriating in the refreshing wafts of cold air as she hunted for something to drink. All she had was a can of V-8, opened too long ago to still be any good, and a couple cans of grapefruit juice, leftovers from some crackpot diet. Her mouth puckered just looking at it. She settled instead for a half-empty bottle of flat seltzer water and poured it into a glass filled with ice.
    As she cooled down, her mood improved, and after a few minutes of sprawling across her tattered futon, she got up and began to put her groceries away. Her cooking expertise didn’t go much further than spaghetti or grilled cheese sandwiches, so her grocery shopping didn’t require much time or imagination. If she was feeling especially flush, she might pick up a T-bone steak or a couple pork chops, though they never tasted all that great when she cooked them.
    Occasionally she went out, but the places she could afford were all too reminiscent of places where she’d worked, and not very