Vigil for a Stranger by Kitty Burns Florey Page B

his watch chain, his lightly-freckled bald head, his beard.
    He was sitting across his desk from me, still smiling, though somewhat anxiously. “It does get to people sometimes. Would you like me to draw the curtains?”
    â€œNo, it’s nothing, I’m fine now,” I managed to say.
    â€œIt doesn’t bother me at all,” he said. “But some people just don’t have a head for heights.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThey get sick, they get panicky.” He shrugged, and his smile turned reassuring. “There’s no hurry. Take your time.”
    I drained the glass, remembering the calm that filled me when I talked to Alison Kaye. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. I opened my eyes. I didn’t look toward the window. I looked at Orin Pierce. I said, “Well,” and tried to smile back at him. “Tell me something about Manhattan real estate. I’m a real babe in the woods here, and I want to know what I’m getting into.”
    He immediately switched into a new gear. He told me about the frenzy of development in the city, about neighborhoods, about condominium fees and creative financing. I studied him, watching him talk—his mouth, his gestures, his eyes. I tried to figure out why my first reaction had been that this was Pierce, and why I had then decided it wasn’t.
    The no was easier: he was bearded, bald, aging. He was immaculately dressed—a bit of a dandy. He was also, in his way, handsomer than Pierce. His small hands looked manicured: could they have once held a guitar? a marijuana cigarette? a skull lifted from a biology lab? He was—I searched for a word— unctuous ? Eager to please, at least.
    Pierce was sarcastic. Pierce was scruffy. He was skinny, full of nervous energy. He cared nothing for clothes. But looking at this man, I realized that he had reminded me, in that first second, of Pierce’s father, the history professor, whom I had met twice, and who had been bald in exactly the way this man was: bald as a monk, the tonsure bordered with thick brown hair as neatly trimmed as fringe on a curtain.
    But that wasn’t the only thing. There was something about him—indefinable, elusive, possibly deliberately held back, but definitely there—a hint of recklessness that recalled Pierce: a tone in his voice beneath the polite business talk, a look in his eyes, as if he had raced motorcycles in his youth, or been a big-time gambler. Or had, before he assumed this dual disguise of middle age and propriety, been Pierce. And looking at his dark blue eyes, I was able to remember that Pierce’s eyes were blue.
    He wound up his speech and looked at me expectantly. I had taken in almost nothing of what he said, and I wasn’t sure what to do. Why go on with it? Why give him the story I had prepared, a naïve request for four rooms in a small, old-fashioned, friendly building close to a park? Why tell him the price range I had carefully worked out on the train coming down?
    And yet I wasn’t sure, I wasn’t even remotely sure of anything. He and Pierce had blue eyes, he and Pierce’s father had bald heads, he had a look in his eye that I fancied reminded me of Pierce. The fact remained that he hadn’t recognized me. There hadn’t been the smallest sign, not one. True, Pierce was an actor. But he had acted onstage, not in his life—had he? Not with me. In that moment, when I tried to decide what to say, Charlie’s question hit me hard: if this was Pierce, why was he pretending to be a bald man in a three-piece suit who sold real estate? I wished Charlie were with me. I began to wonder if I could photograph him and send Charlie the result for his opinion.
    He said, “It might help if you tell me exactly what you’re looking for.”
    I looked into his eyes and knew I had to answer truthfully. There was nothing else I could do. I said, “I’m looking for you.”
    â€œI beg your