The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips

said.
    At other times in their life she would have laughed. He tried to open the window to let in some air, but it jammed after just an inch.
    She turned on the hall light, which burned fiercely for a few seconds before popping into darkness. In the dark, they couldn’t locate any spare bulbs.
    “What did we do to deserve this?” she said.
    “We broke someone’s heirloom plate,” he said.
    She looked over at him, but it was too dark to tell whether he was being funny or serious.
    Late in the night—after they’d bought lightbulbs at a bodega, after he’d managed to say something that forced her to smile, after they’d found a pizza place (“hint of hinterland,” he observed when the pie arrived thick-crusted)—he held her tightly.
    She was feeling kinder, despite the poisonous fragrance of the plants; she was about to murmur “041-74-3400” like a term of endearment.
    “Don’t be a stone,” he said. “You can’t be a stone anymore.”
    Tone y tore.
    Only ore.
    She pulled away from him, confused, offended.
    *   *   *
    It was a rainy weekend. She appreciated the appropriateness of the weather. They slipped into a kind of mute peace. She kept her mind bland, hardly thought about her office, the gray files piling up toward the ceiling.
    On Sunday night, they went for a walk. The rain had given way to a light mist. They were passing a Catholic church and convent with a FOR LEASE sign when it began to pour again. As they grappled with their shared umbrella, she sensed another couple walking annoyingly close behind them, their shadows overlapping with hers and Joseph’s. That couple was also struggling to make an umbrella cover two.
    In the churchyard, a spotlight glared up at a marble statue of Mary. Above the statue, a single rain-battered tree scattered leaves as fragile as discarded tissues. Beyond the leaves, red stained-glass windows gleamed dully. Josephine imagined nuns with candles, gliding insomniacs, terribly beautiful, terribly silent, pretending the FOR LEASE sign didn’t exist.
    Glancing behind, she realized that the couple following too near to them was in fact them—an illusion born of the conflicting shadows cast by the streetlights. She looked down at the sidewalk and tried to parse the disorderly shadows, but she got distracted by something: shining slimy in the streetlight, a proliferation of drowned worms, enough worms to make one’s gut tremble.
    She decided not to mention the worms. She didn’t want him to have to know about all the worms they couldn’t help but step on, all the remnants in the treads of their shoes.

TWENTY-TWO
    On Monday morning, Josephine got dressed for work. She stood in the bathroom with Joseph. There was a row of plants on the rim of the bathtub, bamboo and other things. As they brushed their teeth they made bug-eyed faces at each other in the mirror. She was absorbed enough in the face-making that it was a moment before she noticed the pitiful state of her eyes, her skin. She spat.
    She was dressed for work. It seemed that she was going to go to work. It seemed that she was going to sit down at her desk, enter her password into the Database, reach for a file from the hill of files.
    But she lingered as he put on his coat.
    “You coming?” he said.
    “I need a few more minutes,” she said. “Go ahead without me.”
    He hugged her, but breezily, and was gone. She stood, unmoving. She was going to go to work. She ran to the door, about to yell for him—wait for me, I’m ready. But something caught her eye when she opened the door: THIRD DELIVERY ATTEMPT FAILED .
    Tempt paled.
    Lent ailed.
    She yanked the postal notice off the door, ripped it in half, separating the JOSEPHINE from the NEWBURY . No one knew this latest address.
    *   *   *
    Walking in the park, Josephine tried to imitate a happy person, a satisfied, relaxed, competent person strolling in a park, but she kept having the sensation of people staring at her. A small girl with a soccer