Radiant City
Orsa
Orsa stood at the kitchen sink, the faucet on and the water still running over her left hand, holding a bowl her daughter had eaten cereal out of several hours ago. It was Saturday and Orsa had the apartment to herself.
As she dried the bowl and put it away in the cupboard, Orsa imagined her mother in her kitchen, looking out the window into the yard. Lenke always forgot to power off her phone, and she usually left it on the countertop with the screen still illuminated. Orsa thought she remembered seeing that her mother's screensaver was a blurry screenshot of Erin's school picture that Orsa sent her mother last year. She had sent the photo to her mother more as a formality; Orsa didn't think the photo really looked like Erin, with all the spotlights and flash, giving her daughters' skin a plasticy gleam. The green background the school always used, she thought, made the kids look like packaged toys.
Living in the city was better than living in a suburb of the city, or at least the suburb that Orsa had grown up in, where her mother Lenke lived now, alone. Orsa moved to the apartment complex where she now lived with her daughter, Erin, and Terret, her fiancee, after she was offered a job at the city's administrative offices. It was a regular job answering phones and updating spreadsheets with contact information. Most of the contacts were people who lived in the city's suburbs. It was Orsa's job to make sure that these people did, in fact, exist, and were registered inhabitants of the city, as well as the region, which not all of them were.
Orsa was given a list of questions to ask the people who picked up her calls. How long have you been a resident? What is the name of the hospital where you were born? What is your current occupation? In addition to these questions, Orsa was supposed to pay attention to subtle details. Important details, she learned during training, could be the background noise during their call, or the tone of their voice, whether it was rushed, or if their words began to slur, indicating either anxiety or drunkenness. These details were often more important than the answers the people gave.
If it sounded like the person was outside when they picked up the call, that was important to note, because if they were not inside during regular working hours, they were likely unemployed. If they were unemployed, they were not offered discounted housing in the city, and could be a squatter. It was Orsa's job to identify these people who might be a.) unemployed b.) unmarried c.) childless. If people were all three of these things, they were probably also unregistered occupants.
Several years ago, before the city was considered an official section of the region in the state of Nevada, Orsa's job did not exist. At that time, Orsa worked at Erin's preschool as an assistant teacher. The job was rewarding but did not pay well, though Orsa spent lots of time with her daughter, so to her the job was worth it. The reason Orsa took this job and quit her position at the preschool was for several reasons, the first being Erin's graduation to secondary school a year early, and the second being the numerous benefits the administrative office job advertised on the online listing, most importantly, discounted housing in one of the twelve evenly-spaced domestic housing rectangles situated on either side of the long boulevards that ran though the city center.
Yesterday at work, Orsa had a strange phone call and spent most of the day afterwards thinking about it. She had found the phone number on the contact spreadsheet the administrative director had shared with her at the beginning of the month. Orsa was not as fast at her job as some of the other people who worked in the department, which could be because her calls lasted longer than the other employees–mostly women–who worked at the city's administrative offices.
The man who picked up her phone call appeared to be outside because the wind created an unpleasant staticky noise on her end. Orsa began the call as she always did, by introducing herself and explaining the reason for her call.
"Hello, this is Orsa Rivik calling from Central Administrative Services. Would you mind answering a couple questions I have for you. It won't take more than–"
"You have reached Seymour Hofstra. I'm sorry I wasn't expecting your call. Would it be alright if I called back in several minutes?" The man's reply sounded recorded, like it was coming from an answering machine. Orsa did not respond, being unprepared for this kind of response. She glanced at the protocol sheet taped to the wall of her cubicle.
"Trust me, I'll call back," Seymour said, adding, "but don't be alarmed if it's from a different phone number. My parents have better reception down there," he added before he hanging up.
As Orsa waited for Seymour's call, she listened to the unnatural quiet inside her cubicle, and the office floor. Spinning to the left slightly, she read the clock and saw it was already one, so people were probably out to lunch. She adjusted her headset, moving the mouth piece out to the side and down a bit, so she could take a drink from her water bottle. Orsa wondered if the man would call her back and entertained the idea of skipping this one, marking him as a resident in one of the large public housing complexes scattered around the perimeter of the city. It was highly likely that Seymour actually did live in a housing complex, because around 45 percent of the city's inhabitants lived in one.
While Orsa scanned the list of names and phone numbers, she heard the monitor beep twice, indicating an incoming call.
Lenke
Lenke looked out of the double window over the kitchen sink. In the yard, she saw the lawnmower leaning against a tree. Where was Henry? She leaned closer to the window, hoping to see him busy at work weeding the garden. Didn't she pay him to do that? At least he could be fixing the screen door of the shed, which she remembered had blown off its hinges during a windstorm that April. She leaned further over the sink, her chest pressing against the faucet nozzle. She could feel a dime-sized spot where the faucet had wetted her shirt and the dampness spreading outwards. Looking to the street, she saw Henry's orange truck (what a terrible color for a car) still parked there, though not quite parallel to the curb.
He must be around somewhere. Lenke had been dubious of Henry's carpentry skills when Filip had found the man's advertisement in the newspaper almost a year ago. Henry Thoreneo: former employee of Ron's Hardware and Garden Accessories, graduate of Truckee Meadows College with an Associate Degree in Welding. Open to Yard and Carpentry Work. Available Tuesday to Sunday. Could travel up to 70 miles if necessary. Filip had left the newspaper with Henry's advertisement, circled in orange Sharpie, on the kitchen counter.
Lenke and Filip left each other notes and articles under the tea cabinet, next to the intercom system that Phillip had bought three years ago but was never installed. Fillip had begun this routine, or at least this was how Lenke remembered it beginning, their leaving post-its for each other in the corner of their kitchen. Lenke [did not share] her husband's interests in the town's local newspaper (which he often read front to back, including the ads). Sometimes, she listened to the news, which was like reading, but with your ears. It gave her some things to say at her monthly gardening club meetings, where she could easily impress the other attendees, most of them in their 60s and 70s, like her, though more wrapped up in their children's lives than she was. They mostly wanted to talk about their daughter's promotion or a grandchild who had just been born, so cute, but with no hair, should they be worried?
A truck with an orange arrow that pointed upwards in a semicircular curve roared past, its exhaust making bits of trash and dried leaves scatter to either curb. In the side mirror of Henry's truck, Lenke saw a medium-sized rectangular package resting against the mailbox post. Lenke pulled a paper towel square from the roll and turned away from the window, dabbing at the damp spot the wet nozzle had left on the front of her shirt. As she walked out of the kitchen she passed the sticky note area next to the intercom system, which maybe Henry could install, if he ever turned up, that is. Lenke paused at the entrance to the kitchen, next to the sticky note area. There was Henry's advertisement which Filip had circled in the local newspaper. Neatly printed in the margins was his note: Should I call on Monday about the back porch extension? Lenke remembered reading the ad and thinking Henry's credentials looked acceptable, but couldn't Filip have looked online? There were forums, Facebook, blogs, and other places where people posted all kinds of listings, offering their services for hire.
Every time she exhaled into the microphone, the reverb amplified the sound of her breath. This made Milena extra aware of herself as a person occupying a human body, as if she needed to be reminded of this obvious fact that she usually didn’t think about as she performed repetitive labors of the day, as the protocol sheet dictated, until she had met the quota for hours worked and could clock out, or log off, same thing. Milena readjusted the microphone so that it ran parallel to her jaw and pressed the button on the right side of her headset, which emitted two slow beeps. This meant she was being connected to the other line. Milena began typing Seymour’s phone number into the computer. Almost immediately after she was connected, Milena heard a loud clatter on the other end. It went silent for thirty seconds or so, then she heard a stringent scraping (the phone being picked up off the floor, she assumed), then, “Sorry I dropped you!” said the man whose voice she recognized from earlier.
“Is this Seymour Hofstra?”
“Yes.”
Milena didn’t need to reference the protocol sheet because she had the questions memorized. At this point in the call (1 minute and 30 seconds in), she was supposed to remind the receiver that the call would be recorded. After that, she should press the ‘z’ on her computer keyboard, followed by the return key.
“We ask that you remain indoors for the duration of the call, which will last around 10 minutes. Are you currently located somewhere where your voice will not be obscured by noise?”
“Ah, well, in this house, the indoors and the outdoors are kind of one and the same.”
“And by that you mean?”
“I can’t very well silence the birds. When they chirp, they chirp, but I’ll do my best to find the quietest location for us to speak.”
They were already at four minutes, and the conversation so far hadn’t been of much substance, meaning Milena couldn’t even answer the first question on her list: ‘Was the call recipient located indoors or outdoors during the conversation?’ Below the question were two bubbles; she needed to click one to move on to the next question.
“Are you calling from your primary residence?” Milena asked.
“Yes,” Seymour responded.
“Is it located near any major architectural or natural landmarks?” This technically wasn’t a question on the protocol sheet, but it could lead to useful information, so Milena asked it anyway.
“Yes, it’s at the headwaters of the river, actually.”
“Oh!” Hearing this comforted Milena because it meant that Seymour lived within the city limits, which included the suburban provinces.
“Actually, our house is one of the original farmhouses. You know, the ones they built for the farmers who grew the crops that supplied the city. In the next town over are the barge loading docks.”
Milena was familiar with the landmark Seymour described, but she had never been to the barge-loading dock. It wasn’t really in service anymore because most of the city’s food suppliers were located in rural parts of the state and had to be airlifted in. Milena had a friend in primary school who lived in one of the original farming towns, one of which, it seemed, Seymour also lived in.
Gabriela Rivik
Gabriela made her way down the hallway towards the front door to retrieve the package. The house was dark because she didn’t believe in turning on the lights during the day. Gabriela could see where she was going because of the light shining in through a pane of glass on the front door, leaving a trapezoidal square on the floorboards. As she passed the living room, Gabriela could barely make out the shadow of the grandfather clock in the living room, and of the couch next to it, a wooden chair with a straw seat pushed up against the wall, a throw with a blue and grey zig zag-like pattern (though the pattern might have more colors, Gabriela couldn’t see them) draped over its tall back.
Gabriela remembered the small apartment in one of the rectangular housing units, where they used to live before moving to the house. They did not have a living room in the apartment. There hadn’t even been room for the grandfather clock– a family heirloom from her side of the family. Filip had suggested that maybe the clock was too big, rather than the apartment being too small.
One thing that had been better about the apartment, though, was the light. The windows were very well designed, and in the mornings, light streamed through, glinting off the aluminum appliances (the appliances did not follow them to the house because they belonged to the housing complex, as did most of the furniture in the apartment, except for the couch– they had bought the couch). Gabriela had a hard time picturing the apartment because its layout was almost identical to that of all the other rectangular housing units she had visited, including the one where Milena and Terret were living now. Overall, Milena did not recall the years in the apartment fondly, a time when each year felt almost indistinguishable from the next.
The specific suburb where Gabriela had chosen to live with her husband, Filip, was advertised to them by the real estate agent as the quietest of the two second-tier suburban provinces, the only two left for them to choose from, the rest of the provinces being already at capacity (the state of Nevada was starting to get very strict about population regulation).
Rick Leviathan was the real estate agent they used to find the house. Rick’s father, Charles, owned an Oyster and Clam distribution service, which was how Filip had learned about Charles’ son’s business. Filip hired Charles’ catering company to supply clams (he abhorred oysters and couldn’t even stand the sight of people eating them) for an event he was organizing at the office.
As far as Filip knew, the clams were sourced from Coos Bay, a place he had never been, but his colleagues unanimously agreed the shellfish tasted pretty much like they were freshly caught. In fact, the clams and small batch cocktail sauce provided by Leviathan Catering were such a hit at the event that Charles’ clams became a mainstay of office events (for a couple years at least, until Betty, one of the computer technicians who wore scrubs in pastel colors as though they were a uniform, pulled Filip aside during one of these events and told him that Shapman’s, the big box grocery store in the next province over, sold frozen clams in packs of three dozen for $12.50). Unable to argue with that price, Filip picked up 15 packages of frozen clams for the next office event (a baby shower for Janice’s thirdborn).
Since no one could tell the difference between the frozen clams and the ones from Charles’ catering company, he just ended up ordering those for the rest of the office events when he was in charge of food. I guess this could have been considered embarrassing, but Charles understood, so he and Filip remained friends for several years following.
Two springs ago, Filip had phoned Rick Leviathan after finding his business card in a stack of miscellaneous papers in one of his desk drawers. Finding the card was funny because Filip didn’t remember Charles ever giving him his son’s card, but it turned up at an opportune moment since Filip was retiring. Retirement meant they had to move from the public housing complex where they had been living for 2 years. Since public housing was restricted to employed city residents, they could not afford a private home. Finding Rick’s card was actually what put the idea in Filip’s head, and he put it in the spot where he and Gabriela left each other notes (in their apartment; the note area had been on the table in the entryway), knowing she checked there regularly. Filip didn’t write a note or anything next to Rick’s card because he knew Gabriela would understand what Filip meant by leaving the card.
Orsa
Orsa stood at the kitchen sink, the faucet on and the water still running over her left hand, holding a bowl her daughter had eaten cereal out of several hours ago. It was Saturday and Orsa had the apartment to herself.
As she dried the bowl and put it away in the cupboard, Orsa imagined her mother in her kitchen, looking out the window into the yard. Lenke always forgot to power off her phone, and she usually left it on the countertop with the screen still illuminated. Orsa thought she remembered seeing that her mother's screensaver was a blurry screenshot of Erin's school picture that Orsa sent her mother last year. She had sent the photo to her mother more as a formality; Orsa didn't think the photo really looked like Erin, with all the spotlights and flash, giving her daughters' skin a plasticy gleam. The green background the school always used, she thought, made the kids look like packaged toys.
Living in the city was better than living in a suburb of the city, or at least the suburb that Orsa had grown up in, where her mother Lenke lived now, alone. Orsa moved to the apartment complex where she now lived with her daughter, Erin, and Terret, her fiancee, after she was offered a job at the city's administrative offices. It was a regular job answering phones and updating spreadsheets with contact information. Most of the contacts were people who lived in the city's suburbs. It was Orsa's job to make sure that these people did, in fact, exist, and were registered inhabitants of the city, as well as the region, which not all of them were.
Orsa was given a list of questions to ask the people who picked up her calls. How long have you been a resident? What is the name of the hospital where you were born? What is your current occupation? In addition to these questions, Orsa was supposed to pay attention to subtle details. Important details, she learned during training, could be the background noise during their call, or the tone of their voice, whether it was rushed, or if their words began to slur, indicating either anxiety or drunkenness. These details were often more important than the answers the people gave.
If it sounded like the person was outside when they picked up the call, that was important to note, because if they were not inside during regular working hours, they were likely unemployed. If they were unemployed, they were not offered discounted housing in the city, and could be a squatter. It was Orsa's job to identify these people who might be a.) unemployed b.) unmarried c.) childless. If people were all three of these things, they were probably also unregistered occupants.
Several years ago, before the city was considered an official section of the region in the state of Nevada, Orsa's job did not exist. At that time, Orsa worked at Erin's preschool as an assistant teacher. The job was rewarding but did not pay well, though Orsa spent lots of time with her daughter, so to her the job was worth it. The reason Orsa took this job and quit her position at the preschool was for several reasons, the first being Erin's graduation to secondary school a year early, and the second being the numerous benefits the administrative office job advertised on the online listing, most importantly, discounted housing in one of the twelve evenly-spaced domestic housing rectangles situated on either side of the long boulevards that ran though the city center.
Yesterday at work, Orsa had a strange phone call and spent most of the day afterwards thinking about it. She had found the phone number on the contact spreadsheet the administrative director had shared with her at the beginning of the month. Orsa was not as fast at her job as some of the other people who worked in the department, which could be because her calls lasted longer than the other employees–mostly women–who worked at the city's administrative offices.
The man who picked up her phone call appeared to be outside because the wind created an unpleasant staticky noise on her end. Orsa began the call as she always did, by introducing herself and explaining the reason for her call.
"Hello, this is Orsa Rivik calling from Central Administrative Services. Would you mind answering a couple questions I have for you. It won't take more than–"
"You have reached Seymour Hofstra. I'm sorry I wasn't expecting your call. Would it be alright if I called back in several minutes?" The man's reply sounded recorded, like it was coming from an answering machine. Orsa did not respond, being unprepared for this kind of response. She glanced at the protocol sheet taped to the wall of her cubicle.
"Trust me, I'll call back," Seymour said, adding, "but don't be alarmed if it's from a different phone number. My parents have better reception down there," he added before he hanging up.
As Orsa waited for Seymour's call, she listened to the unnatural quiet inside her cubicle, and the office floor. Spinning to the left slightly, she read the clock and saw it was already one, so people were probably out to lunch. She adjusted her headset, moving the mouth piece out to the side and down a bit, so she could take a drink from her water bottle. Orsa wondered if the man would call her back and entertained the idea of skipping this one, marking him as a resident in one of the large public housing complexes scattered around the perimeter of the city. It was highly likely that Seymour actually did live in a housing complex, because around 45 percent of the city's inhabitants lived in one.
While Orsa scanned the list of names and phone numbers, she heard the monitor beep twice, indicating an incoming call.
Lenke
Lenke looked out of the double window over the kitchen sink. In the yard, she saw the lawnmower leaning against a tree. Where was Henry? She leaned closer to the window, hoping to see him busy at work weeding the garden. Didn't she pay him to do that? At least he could be fixing the screen door of the shed, which she remembered had blown off its hinges during a windstorm that April. She leaned further over the sink, her chest pressing against the faucet nozzle. She could feel a dime-sized spot where the faucet had wetted her shirt and the dampness spreading outwards. Looking to the street, she saw Henry's orange truck (what a terrible color for a car) still parked there, though not quite parallel to the curb.
He must be around somewhere. Lenke had been dubious of Henry's carpentry skills when Filip had found the man's advertisement in the newspaper almost a year ago. Henry Thoreneo: former employee of Ron's Hardware and Garden Accessories, graduate of Truckee Meadows College with an Associate Degree in Welding. Open to Yard and Carpentry Work. Available Tuesday to Sunday. Could travel up to 70 miles if necessary. Filip had left the newspaper with Henry's advertisement, circled in orange Sharpie, on the kitchen counter.
Lenke and Filip left each other notes and articles under the tea cabinet, next to the intercom system that Phillip had bought three years ago but was never installed. Fillip had begun this routine, or at least this was how Lenke remembered it beginning, their leaving post-its for each other in the corner of their kitchen. Lenke [did not share] her husband's interests in the town's local newspaper (which he often read front to back, including the ads). Sometimes, she listened to the news, which was like reading, but with your ears. It gave her some things to say at her monthly gardening club meetings, where she could easily impress the other attendees, most of them in their 60s and 70s, like her, though more wrapped up in their children's lives than she was. They mostly wanted to talk about their daughter's promotion or a grandchild who had just been born, so cute, but with no hair, should they be worried?
A truck with an orange arrow that pointed upwards in a semicircular curve roared past, its exhaust making bits of trash and dried leaves scatter to either curb. In the side mirror of Henry's truck, Lenke saw a medium-sized rectangular package resting against the mailbox post. Lenke pulled a paper towel square from the roll and turned away from the window, dabbing at the damp spot the wet nozzle had left on the front of her shirt. As she walked out of the kitchen she passed the sticky note area next to the intercom system, which maybe Henry could install, if he ever turned up, that is. Lenke paused at the entrance to the kitchen, next to the sticky note area. There was Henry's advertisement which Filip had circled in the local newspaper. Neatly printed in the margins was his note: Should I call on Monday about the back porch extension? Lenke remembered reading the ad and thinking Henry's credentials looked acceptable, but couldn't Filip have looked online? There were forums, Facebook, blogs, and other places where people posted all kinds of listings, offering their services for hire.
Every time she exhaled into the microphone, the reverb amplified the sound of her breath. This made Milena extra aware of herself as a person occupying a human body, as if she needed to be reminded of this obvious fact that she usually didn’t think about as she performed repetitive labors of the day, as the protocol sheet dictated, until she had met the quota for hours worked and could clock out, or log off, same thing. Milena readjusted the microphone so that it ran parallel to her jaw and pressed the button on the right side of her headset, which emitted two slow beeps. This meant she was being connected to the other line. Milena began typing Seymour’s phone number into the computer. Almost immediately after she was connected, Milena heard a loud clatter on the other end. It went silent for thirty seconds or so, then she heard a stringent scraping (the phone being picked up off the floor, she assumed), then, “Sorry I dropped you!” said the man whose voice she recognized from earlier.
“Is this Seymour Hofstra?”
“Yes.”
Milena didn’t need to reference the protocol sheet because she had the questions memorized. At this point in the call (1 minute and 30 seconds in), she was supposed to remind the receiver that the call would be recorded. After that, she should press the ‘z’ on her computer keyboard, followed by the return key.
“We ask that you remain indoors for the duration of the call, which will last around 10 minutes. Are you currently located somewhere where your voice will not be obscured by noise?”
“Ah, well, in this house, the indoors and the outdoors are kind of one and the same.”
“And by that you mean?”
“I can’t very well silence the birds. When they chirp, they chirp, but I’ll do my best to find the quietest location for us to speak.”
They were already at four minutes, and the conversation so far hadn’t been of much substance, meaning Milena couldn’t even answer the first question on her list: ‘Was the call recipient located indoors or outdoors during the conversation?’ Below the question were two bubbles; she needed to click one to move on to the next question.
“Are you calling from your primary residence?” Milena asked.
“Yes,” Seymour responded.
“Is it located near any major architectural or natural landmarks?” This technically wasn’t a question on the protocol sheet, but it could lead to useful information, so Milena asked it anyway.
“Yes, it’s at the headwaters of the river, actually.”
“Oh!” Hearing this comforted Milena because it meant that Seymour lived within the city limits, which included the suburban provinces.
“Actually, our house is one of the original farmhouses. You know, the ones they built for the farmers who grew the crops that supplied the city. In the next town over are the barge loading docks.”
Milena was familiar with the landmark Seymour described, but she had never been to the barge-loading dock. It wasn’t really in service anymore because most of the city’s food suppliers were located in rural parts of the state and had to be airlifted in. Milena had a friend in primary school who lived in one of the original farming towns, one of which, it seemed, Seymour also lived in.
Gabriela Rivik
Gabriela made her way down the hallway towards the front door to retrieve the package. The house was dark because she didn’t believe in turning on the lights during the day. Gabriela could see where she was going because of the light shining in through a pane of glass on the front door, leaving a trapezoidal square on the floorboards. As she passed the living room, Gabriela could barely make out the shadow of the grandfather clock in the living room, and of the couch next to it, a wooden chair with a straw seat pushed up against the wall, a throw with a blue and grey zig zag-like pattern (though the pattern might have more colors, Gabriela couldn’t see them) draped over its tall back.
Gabriela remembered the small apartment in one of the rectangular housing units, where they used to live before moving to the house. They did not have a living room in the apartment. There hadn’t even been room for the grandfather clock– a family heirloom from her side of the family. Filip had suggested that maybe the clock was too big, rather than the apartment being too small.
One thing that had been better about the apartment, though, was the light. The windows were very well designed, and in the mornings, light streamed through, glinting off the aluminum appliances (the appliances did not follow them to the house because they belonged to the housing complex, as did most of the furniture in the apartment, except for the couch– they had bought the couch). Gabriela had a hard time picturing the apartment because its layout was almost identical to that of all the other rectangular housing units she had visited, including the one where Milena and Terret were living now. Overall, Milena did not recall the years in the apartment fondly, a time when each year felt almost indistinguishable from the next.
The specific suburb where Gabriela had chosen to live with her husband, Filip, was advertised to them by the real estate agent as the quietest of the two second-tier suburban provinces, the only two left for them to choose from, the rest of the provinces being already at capacity (the state of Nevada was starting to get very strict about population regulation).
Rick Leviathan was the real estate agent they used to find the house. Rick’s father, Charles, owned an Oyster and Clam distribution service, which was how Filip had learned about Charles’ son’s business. Filip hired Charles’ catering company to supply clams (he abhorred oysters and couldn’t even stand the sight of people eating them) for an event he was organizing at the office.
As far as Filip knew, the clams were sourced from Coos Bay, a place he had never been, but his colleagues unanimously agreed the shellfish tasted pretty much like they were freshly caught. In fact, the clams and small batch cocktail sauce provided by Leviathan Catering were such a hit at the event that Charles’ clams became a mainstay of office events (for a couple years at least, until Betty, one of the computer technicians who wore scrubs in pastel colors as though they were a uniform, pulled Filip aside during one of these events and told him that Shapman’s, the big box grocery store in the next province over, sold frozen clams in packs of three dozen for $12.50). Unable to argue with that price, Filip picked up 15 packages of frozen clams for the next office event (a baby shower for Janice’s thirdborn).
Since no one could tell the difference between the frozen clams and the ones from Charles’ catering company, he just ended up ordering those for the rest of the office events when he was in charge of food. I guess this could have been considered embarrassing, but Charles understood, so he and Filip remained friends for several years following.
Two springs ago, Filip had phoned Rick Leviathan after finding his business card in a stack of miscellaneous papers in one of his desk drawers. Finding the card was funny because Filip didn’t remember Charles ever giving him his son’s card, but it turned up at an opportune moment since Filip was retiring. Retirement meant they had to move from the public housing complex where they had been living for 2 years. Since public housing was restricted to employed city residents, they could not afford a private home. Finding Rick’s card was actually what put the idea in Filip’s head, and he put it in the spot where he and Gabriela left each other notes (in their apartment; the note area had been on the table in the entryway), knowing she checked there regularly. Filip didn’t write a note or anything next to Rick’s card because he knew Gabriela would understand what Filip meant by leaving the card.