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have done, or what he wants from me, or what I should do now. I want to smell his skin close up.

    He looks above me— Please look back at me —at a round mirror above my head. It's the size of a large pizza.

    "I used to have a mirror just like that," he says. "I kept it in the back of my truck." "Really?" I have no idea what he's talking about.
    "That's when I was way into coke."

    "You must have been really serious," I say, and look at the mirror, because that's where he's looking.

    The representative of the world catches my eye in the reflection. "No, not serious. Just eighteen."

    For no reason, I smile.

    On my way back into my building, Danny, the night doorman, stops me by the elevator. "Hey, I've got something for you," he says.

    Whatever it is, a package, mail—I don't want it. "A friend of mine wanted me to give you this." I have to pee.
    "My friend said, 'Tell her I'm looking out for her.' " I shake my head.
    Danny hands me a baseball card with a picture of Barry Bonds on it. "He told me, 'I'm from San Francisco, she's from San Francisco. I look out for my own.' "

    "Thanks, Danny," I say. He's joking, of course. The card is from him. The truth is, I feel bad for Danny. He drinks. I've seen him drinking on the job. His wife and daughter left him, the story goes.

    "You're a smart girl," he says. "Thank you," I say.
    "Did I ever tell you I made call-backs for Jeopardy ?" "Really?" I say. One of the other doormen has told me this. "Know the question that stumped me?"
    I've heard this too. "No," I say. "Actually, it was the answer." I nod.

    "The male host on the Today Show."

    I hold the picture of Barry Bonds in my hand, wondering what I'll do with it. "Fucking Matt Lauer!" he booms.
    Then his face changes. "You want to see a picture of my Daphne?" "Sure," I say, unsure of who Daphne is—girlfriend, ex-wife, dog.
    From his wallet he pulls out a photo thinned and faded with age. It's of his daughter, looking about eight.

    "How cute," I say. "When was this taken?" "About twelve years ago."
    "Really," I say. The picture shows her on a swing, a woman's legs behind her, adult arms pushing. "So now she's how old?"

    "About your age," he says. "She'll be twenty on April 27." I don't know what to say.
    "That's right," he beams. "A Taurus, just like her father."

    He wishes me a good night. "Don't let the bed bugs bite," he adds as I'm stepping into the elevator.
    Upstairs on the bathroom mirror is a Post-it note with a message from Susan: ' Cording to ancient lore
    She who doesn't wash the floor Owns evil in her true heart's core
    O! Won't you won't you do your ?

    I wake up early. I go out to try to find a newspaper and a muffin. I have to walk for blocks to find a store that's open. A familiar figure in a peacoat ambles toward me: the ROTC boy.

    "What are you doing?" I say. "Man, what a night."
    "What happened?" He looks awful. "Is that a black eye?"

    He ignores my second question. "I was looking for the dude." "What dude?"
    "Your dude, the one with the gun."

    "You were?" I'm flattered and surprised and sick to my stomach. "Did he do that to you?" I say and try to look him in both eyes.
    "No, I never found him. I accidentally went into this trans-vestite club and got in a fight with some moron. I got knocked through a car window."

    "What?"

    "I just got back from the emergency room. They were pulling shards of glass out of my back. Hurt like a mother."

    I'm not sure if I believe him.

    "But the nurse was really hot," he says.

    I can't resist chiding him. "Did she have lips and skin like mine?" I ask. "No, she was from Venezuela."
    "I'm talking about the story you wrote, how I was the girl." "What girl?"
    "You know, with the skin. And the lips."

    He looks at me and touches the area around his eye, which is turning the colors of a gasoline spill in sunlight.

    "I can't believe you actually fell for that," he says, and shakes his head.

    I go to a lecture for my Portraiture in Painting class. The professor