Page 74 of Alone With You in the Ether

This is worth… Well, this is worth a tidy sum, to tell you the truth.

Tidy enough for you to want it?

Yes, definitely enough for that, let me make a phone call.

What next?

A bag, the bag that Regan had always known she’d one day pack, only this time when she stopped to place the things that mattered inside it she’d find that nothing here had mattered at all. Instead she’d throw nearly everything into garbage bags, countless balloons of bulging plastic to contain all her immaterial materials, and that would be another conversation. Two conversations, actually.

The first would be short: Regan, I’m walking into a meeting, what is it?

Nothing important, just letting you know I won’t be there when you get home, thank you for the shape you took in my life but it’s over now, it doesn’t fit.

Then the second: May I help you?

Yes, how much is all this worth?

Well, I really don’t know, this is an entire wardrobe.

Yes, I know. How soon will you know?

Maybe… maybe tomorrow? The next day?

That’s fine, take your time, here’s my phone number.

Where are you located? If we can’t accept some things—

I don’t know yet. If you can’t accept it, just donate it.

Are you sure? This is a lot of stuff, most of it looks expensive.

Yes, I’m sure.

Then, when everything was gone, she’d find something, anything. Three hundred square feet? Sure, fine, she didn’t need space. What did she possess? As long as the light was good, it would do.

We’ll need to run a standard credit check, obviously. You understand.

I can give you a year’s rent upfront.

You… you can?

Yes. Cashier’s check okay?

Well… alright, yes, fine.

(It’s not the best neighborhood, but not the worst, either.)

She wouldn’t throw her phone in the river or the lake. That was running away, which she wasn’t doing.

She wasn’t running away. She wasn’t running at all. She was coming back, and it would only look and feel like running until she knocked on Aldo’s door and he pulled it open, and then it would go like this:

Are you ready?

And she would say: Yes, I’m ready.

Come on, Rinaldo, let’s start again.

part four, firsts.

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