Read Visible City for Free Online Page B

crowded, people’s worshipful faces upturned toward the sun. For a few blocks, he was behind a woman in jeans, pushing a stroller laden with bags. As Leon drew closer, he recognized her. She was the young mother—Nina, he recalled, was her name—whom he’d met earlier that day in Starbucks. He’d spoken to her only because he’d become aware that she snuck glances at what he was reading, and he felt a prickle of pleasure at her interest.
    When she stopped at a Don’t Walk sign, he had a few seconds to decide whether to acknowledge her. Better, perhaps, to leave unexamined those moments of strangerly connection, to allow them to dangle without taking on a fixed meaning. But it didn’t matter what he decided. As though she knew him far better than she did, she turned and smiled as he approached.
    “Leon, right?” she said.
    “Are you following me, or am I following you?” he asked.
    “Both,” she said.
    He fell into step beside her. They were going in the same direction, and like him, she was a fast walker. The first time he met her, the children were sleeping. Now they were babbling, snacking, spilling. Both kids had inherited her straight, dark hair, pretty blue eyes, and round face with its innocent, unguarded expression. Once again, he noticed her unexpected curiosity, as though she was waiting for him to say something. It wasn’t unlike the look Emma had given him that morning, but somehow with this woman, it was intriguing rather than exhausting.
    “Are you heading home?” she asked.
    “I’m meeting my wife and daughter at that new café at Broadway. Have you been in yet?”
    “The cakes look tempting, but my kids are too noisy,” Nina said.
    “The whole city is noisy,” Leon said, and thought about their earlier conversation when he’d lied about not having heard the woman screaming. At the sound of Claudia’s voice, he’d rushed into the bedroom thinking she was hurt but had stopped in the doorway, shocked, as before his eyes, his even-tempered wife had come unleashed. It was one thing for him to see Claudia this way, but disturbing to realize that of course others heard her as well. She would be mortified if anyone knew that she was behind that screaming voice, yet he was propelled, inexplicably, by the need to say more.
    “My wife is the one screaming at the construction workers,” Leon confessed.
    She took in what he’d told her, as surprised as he was by the revelation.
    “Why does the noise bother her so much?” she asked.
    “I don’t know,” he admitted. “To be honest, it didn’t occur to me to ask her.”
    They walked quickly. Leon had no need to look at the signs to know which block they were on. The Victoria’s Secret on 85th Street jarred with his inner map, and for those who’d lived here long enough, the storefront with the pink-and-white-striped awning and lingerie-clad mannequins would always be Broadway Farm. All those who lived here crafted their own internal rendering of the city based on how long they’d been here. He too carried his own version of the neighborhood—he’d grown up on the West Side and remembered when it had boasted one of the city’s highest crime rates. His parents had lived with an ever-present worry that he would be mugged, and had they been alive, they would have relished the upscale stores and safe parks. Like him, they wouldn’t have bemoaned the neighborhood’s transformation. He could never summon the indignation of those who’d once gathered outside Victoria’s Secret to protest, with equal vigor, the skimpiness of the attire and the lack of a good neighborhood grocery store. Skeptical of their motivation, he wished their placards conveyed not the slogans written in bright, bold letters, but the quieter internal ones, such as
Afraid of Change,
or
Need Outlet for My Anger.
    “How long have you lived in the city?” Leon asked Nina.
    “Since college. My main criterion for picking a school was that it had to be in New York.”
    “I