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floral ambiguity of the scent of garbage, the rust motes alive in the air, descending from the disintegrating fire escapes and window grates that spidered up the flanks of the building. Eve followed these with her eyes, up and up.
    And there he was. A tight package of balance and nerve, poised high on the parapet, halfway down the alley. He was wearing purposeful
clothes, she could see, like those of a specialized kind of climber. The shoes looked thin soled but grippy. The cargo pants trim to the legs. The hoodie functional and black. She noted that one of his hands was gloved but that the other was now bandaged, and she remembered him shaking it out on the roof earlier. She could make out his face from where she stood, although he hadn’t seen her and was staring straight ahead as if the view down were of little interest. He had dark features and eyes that, though steady, seemed to fix in an expression of playfulness. Not much like Ali at all in that regard, who tended to be serious, except that the expression contained no fear. Even from that distance, Eve could see that the man was utterly certain about what came next. Certain and pleased at the same time. His feet parallel, the tips of his shoes lipped out a fraction over those six stories of brick below, six stories down to pavement where she stood. And she saw that he was bouncing slightly in place, completely at ease with his balance as if it were something that would never be questioned. He might have been contemplating a standing broad jump across the alley.
    She wanted to yell: “Don’t!” Or to shout up: “Stop!” But she didn’t, thinking she might startle him and actually cause him to fall. But perhaps more because he was clearly going to jump no matter what she would say. And exactly as she had that thought, the young man stepped back off the parapet and disappeared from view on the hidden rooftop. Eve imagined him flexing his legs, a quick hand down to each ankle to stretch the quads. Limbering up. Eyes front, locked on the far side.
    She made an involuntary noise, a choked and fearful squeak. But here he was again. He would have leaned forward a fraction before uncoiling. He would have taken about a six-step run-up. Bim bim. Bop bop. BAP. BAP. And bursting into view, into the open air. He made a long parabola against the gray and cooling sky directly above her. He filled the empty space, his arms spread for balance, his legs tucked. And then, impossibly, he rolled at the top of his arc. He flipped in
midair, which brought about a microsecond of complete silence and stillness in her. The whole movement was completely dangerous and completely harmonious. And it pinned her to the spot.
    Gone. Across the alley, through space, over the parapet of the far building. Without a sound. Without a reason. No motive, nobody chasing him. No audience that he could have known of, since he hadn’t looked down to see that she was there.
    It was breathtaking. The most beautiful thing she’d seen in years.
     
    HOME LATE. Winding down the cedar-scented avenues. Nick came out from his den and made her an omelet and a salad, poured her a glass of wine, telling her about the grapes and the vintage as she took her first sip. Young vines, clay soil, surprising body. Fruit, acid, harvest times. A cold room lined with barrels of toasted oak. Nick journeyed the wine from its vineyard to her glass, then sat staring into the bookshelf over her shoulder, waiting for her to notice him. Waiting for her to speak.
    Eve said: “Sorry.”
    “I can’t make up your mind for you,” Nick told her.
    “I just have certain questions about the whole thing.”
    “Work is work.”
    “It’s not the money. You want me back out there.”
    “I think it’s healthy that you get back out there, yes.”
    “So I start peddling my former self.”
    “Former,” Nick said. “What, is that person gone?”
    “I mean all this business of my story. ”
    “Not everybody gets asked to tell their