You Have Seven Messages by Stewart Lewis

realize …”
    “You must be Jules’s daughter.”
    “Yes, hi.”
    “Kit Langley, with Citi Habitats. Your father put the property on the market yesterday. Shall we give you a minute?”
    “No, it’s okay. I was just leaving anyway.”
    I realize there are still tears on my face. I grab my bag and walk past them, trying to smile and be normal.
    From the third-floor landing I can hear Kit using her key words.
Cozy. Light-drenched
. I have to talk to my father about this. Why didn’t he consult me? Was he afraid of the things I’d find if I went back there? It’s too late for that.
    The streets are piled with trash bags stacked in front of the pristine brownstones. Some window cleaners whistle at me, and I realize for the first time that though they definitely aren’t as big as Janine’s, I have noticeable breasts. With my hair down I could probably pass for eighteen. When I get back home I go right into my father’s office.
    “You’re selling Mom’s place?”
    “Moon, it’s empty. I should have sold it months ago. What do you want me to do?”
    “I want to use it after school, to do my homework and stuff.”
    He looks at me, knowing I have more leverage now. Themore information I find out about him, the more transparent he becomes. I am chipping away at his exterior.
    “The maintenance is over a thousand a month, my accountant—”
    “Screw the accountant. I’m not ready for you to just sell Mom’s place like it’s some … investment.”
    I don’t really know what I’m saying, but I’m furious. At my mom for leaving the world, at my dad for lying to me, at the Rachels for thinking they’re so cool, and at myself for not being smart enough to see it all coming.
    His phone rings. It says
Birnbaum, Alex
—his agent.
    “I have to take this.”
    “Good,” I say, turning to leave, “you’ll be needing more jobs to pay the maintenance.”
    He widens his eyes at me and I smile like I’m kidding, but I’m really not.

CHAPTER 20
PARTNERS IN CRIME?
    I find a note taped to my door when I get home:
    fifteen
—
5:30—my roof—6th floor

be there
—
o
    I look at my watch: 5:28. I drop my bag and turn right around, tucking the note into my back pocket. When I get to the sixth floor and open the exit door, Oliver greets me with a bowl of popcorn and points to the recliner chairs set up in the center of the roof.
    “How’d you get those up here?”
    “I know people.”
    I smile, walk slowly over to them, and sit down. I guess our second try at talking to Cole will have to wait.
    He says, “Stay right here.”
    I hear the hum of a projector and see a large white square of light appear on the side of the next building, and then the first shot: golden fields and blue sky. It’s my favorite movie!
    “
Witness
,” he says. “Your
Singin’ in the Rain
.”
    I feel like the luckiest girl on the Upper West Side.
    During the movie, Oliver refills my Sprite and occasionally holds my hand.
    “How the hell did you do this?” I ask him.
    “Isaac, the guy in the penthouse. He shows movies up here sometimes. I tutor his son in math, so I pulled a string.”
    “Wow.” There I go again. Surfer talk.
    As always, the movie is riveting and very human. I’m so happy that I don’t even mind Oliver falling asleep a little toward the end. When the credits roll I catch him looking at me with that incredible smile. I blush a little and turn toward him, waiting for the inevitable, and there it is again: his violet lips, soft as a cloud, and everything becomes irrelevant. I am drowning in a moment I hope will never end.
    The next day Oliver meets me at the Creperie. I thank him profusely for the movie and he waves it away like it was nothing. He gets a call from his father, I can tell by his voice. He becomes very tense, and it’s strange watchingthe transformation. When he hangs up I say, “Gosh, he must really have some claws on you.”
    “You don’t even know. He calls me like three times a day. He knows