Page 164 of Antihero

“A woman’s secrets are her own.”

Leaning in, she kissed him on the cheek. He could smell her hair, plumeria lotion, the scent of her. Behind them the plain wooden door cracked open, the service letting out, churchgoers flocking onto the plaza. Evan turned to look for Anca and when he pivoted back, Candy was gone.

He touched his cheek and his fingertips came away tacky, rouged with pink.

The exodus of congregants continued, more of them, it seemed, than the church could hold. He stood firm, the herd parting around him, and then Anca bobbed into view, conveyed toward him. She wore her rose-patterned shawl draped across her shoulders. The bruise around her eye was nearly gone and she walked fluidly, without discomfort.

She arrived before him. The crowd kept streaming out, enveloping them.

“It’s over,” he said. “They’re in the hands of the law now. You are, too.”

“No,” she said. “Better hands.”

The crowd kept coming, streaming by, everything feeling suddenly rushed.

“Where do you go now?” she asked. “What do you do next?”

“This again, I suppose.”

“You’re like a Western cowboy. Shane.”

“Strong, silent American.”

Her smile glowed. “Boring, quiet American.”

People kept moving around them, jostling them slightly. After all they’d been through together, it was an awkward place to say good-bye. They stood there, a cocoon of stillness within the flowing crowd.

Down on the street, a cabbie laid on the horn, leaning out the window to scream at a bike messenger who’d tangled up with pedestrians at the curb. Above, an electronic billboard cycled to a new image, a close-up of a phallic lipstick core rising to meet a woman’s O-shaped mouth.

“The city,” he said, “keeps citying.”

“And people keep people’ing.” She twisted one of the shawl’s tassels between her thumb and forefinger. “Everyone is just trying their best.”

“Except everyone who’s not.”

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

“How much grace should they get? We. Should we get?”

“Some,” she said.

“But not much.”

Another smile. “Good-bye, Evan.”

A strange impulse seized him. To hug her. But he had never initiated a hug. Not once. He didn’t know how. He nodded instead.

She lingered, too.

Her eyes welled. “This,” she said. “This is everything.” She made a fist, tapped it gently against his chest. “So know what you are. To me.” Her face trembled. “I’ll pray for you.” The throng tugged at her and she gave him a last look and let it sweep her away.

He remained. He could feel the sun on his shoulders. For the first time in a long time, he had nowhere to go.

After a while, the plaza cleared.

His shadow lay out clear on the ground before him. Above rose that hexagonal cupola, the intersecting slashes of the cross.

An X stood on end.