The elevator had a mirror on three sides. Mara could see the back of Bev's head, the worn seam on her own work pants and, reflected behind both, the piece of paper giving the maximum number of people who could fit inside. They had no wish to meet that many people there.
“I could get used to this,” Bev said.
“You've been in an elevator before.”
“One where I don't have to clean the mirror.”
She turned her head and examined the back of her hair. Mara saw a short pale thread on the shoulder of her coat and took it off. Bev let her.
They had come from the Alder. Mara had spent the first hour showing two new women where everything lived; Simon had given her time to go out and come back late, staying at the other end of the day instead. The arrangement was ordinary, written down on the sheet he kept by the office. She'd checked it twice before leaving.
The man waiting upstairs was called Adam. He held the door for them, introduced himself and offered thin covers for their shoes. Bev looked down at her swollen foot.
“Do I have to take them off to do that?”
“No. Here, if you sit—”
He brought a little stool from beside the door. She sat and pulled the covers on. Mara stood on one leg and managed hers, almost putting a hand against the white wall before remembering where it had been all morning.
Inside, the apartment was quiet. There were rugs thick enough to swallow the sound of their shoes and a clock on the wall that didn't seem to move. A little table had been laid with two glasses beside a bowl of lemons. They weren't real lemons; Mara noticed the small line around the middle of the nearest one, where two pieces had been joined.
Bev went straight to the balcony.
Adam opened the door. It moved without catching. Beyond it were two chairs, a table and enough space to stand between them without turning sideways. Bev stepped outside, stopped and looked down over the rail. Mara joined her.
Below them a woman was unloading groceries from a car. She had made a pile beside the rear wheel and was looking into the trunk as though another solution might be waiting there. Beyond the street, rooftops ran toward a strip of water.
“You can see it,” Bev said.
Mara followed her gaze. Between two buildings a boat moved so slowly that for a moment it might have been tied up.
“A bit.”
“Enough.”
Bev sat. She had chosen the chair facing away from the next balcony, a direction Mara wouldn't have thought to choose. She sat too, and found that from there the street almost disappeared. There was the rail, the edge of the sky, a slice of somebody's tree.
Adam remained inside, giving them a minute. He was speaking quietly into his phone, one hand cupped around it. Mara could hear the softness of his reply but none of the words.
“That thing won't fit,” she said.
Bev looked at her.
“Your purple chair.”
“Not out here. It'll get rained on.”
“Inside.”
“It's got its measurements.”
Mara glanced through the glass toward the living room. She could place the chair beside the window. From that position Bev would see the balcony, not the water, but she could put her feet up without anyone telling her a towel didn't belong there.
“You'll need different curtains.”
“I want those big flowers. The ones you hate.”
Mara laughed. Bev held her hand toward the glass as if she could already draw the pattern on it, yellow and orange heads larger than a person ought to have to live beside. The purple would look terrible. Mara tried to imagine it for long enough to be fair and made a noise before she could stop herself.
“Good,” Bev said. “You can tell me every time you come.”
Adam finished his call and showed them the rest. The bathroom had a seat in the shower. Bev stood looking at it for a while, then asked how much work it would be to keep the glass clean. He began explaining something about the finish; Mara said it would still need cleaning, and he smiled and agreed. Bev tried the closet doors. They were heavy and moved properly. There was a little utility cupboard, a bedroom with more space than she needed and another room small enough for Mara to think of a desk before Bev said bed.
“For Anne?” she asked.
“She'll tell me she sleeps better at home. Then she'll stay.”
“You could give her the purple chair.”
“She'd get sick on it.”
Bev leaned against the doorway, tired enough now to let it hold her. Adam gave her a printed sheet. She asked about the regular costs, the elevator and a window that faced the afternoon light. He wrote things down, admitted he needed to confirm one answer and promised to send it rather than guessing. Mara stood near the wall, looking at the clean rectangle where a little bed could go.
There was a space for a visitor's shoes. A hook by the door. She pictured coming with an overnight bag, not because she had to stay or because Bev needed looking after. The idea surprised her enough that she looked away from the room before she could furnish it.
They went back to the balcony while Adam checked his messages. Bev's plastic shoe cover had split along one side. She put her foot on the other chair and pulled the loose bit away.
“I'm not buying anything today,” she said.
“I know.”
“I've told him. It could go before I can do anything. There'll be others.”
Mara sat opposite her. The woman below had begun carrying the grocery bags inside one at a time. Each trip took long enough for the remaining bags to look briefly abandoned.
“Have you talked to anyone?” Mara asked.
Bev turned toward her.
“About the ticket.”
“I've got an appointment.”
“Right.”
They watched the woman make another trip. Bev took the plastic cover off her foot and held it in one hand, a small empty blue bag.
“What do you want to ask me?” she said.
Mara folded her own hands between her knees.
“Would you agree to it? Now you know. The five of us, equal.”
Bev didn't answer immediately. She looked at Mara's face, then down at the bag. Mara waited, letting the little sounds from the street fill the place where she would usually have added her reason.
“No,” Bev said.
Mara nodded, though nothing in her felt like agreement.
“We were doing it all those years.”
“I was there.”
“Elena was too.”
“I know.”
“It was one argument.”
“And she stopped. You gave her money back. I don't know what that means when all the lawyers have had a go. I know I didn't get asked before you told everyone what we'd do.”
Mara looked through the glass. Adam was standing by the table, reading the printed sheet before putting another copy into a folder. She was glad he couldn't hear.
“I'm asking now.”
“I know you are.”
Bev had not raised her voice. There was no unkind way she could have said it that Mara would have found easier to take. The woman who had pulled her onto a stage two nights ago was sitting in front of a room she wanted, saying no to a thing she could afford to say yes to if it became hers.
“What about what she did for us?” Mara asked.
Bev looked at her for a long time. “What about what we did for her?”
Mara heard the staircase, all the carried chairs, the mornings Bev had come in with a back that made her hold the cart sideways until she'd been moving for an hour.
“She can still be my friend,” Bev said. “I haven't asked her to pay me for that.”
Mara rubbed the mark from the couch strap, a line across her finger that looked pale when she bent it. She let her hand go still.
“I'm not agreeing to your promise,” Bev said. “It wasn't yours to make. I've been trying to work out how to say that without you thinking I don't want you around.”
Mara looked out over the balcony. The woman below had left one bag beside the wheel, something long and green sticking out of it. Mara wanted to call down that there was one left. She laughed once, an ugly little sound. Bev put the plastic cover on the table. It caught a drop of rain left from some earlier shower, folded inward and stayed there.
“Anne and I are going away in February,” she said. “Nothing paid yet. She wants somewhere warm. I want somewhere she won't have to drive. You can come for some of it, if you want.”
“February?” Mara asked.
“Anne's birthday. I asked her yesterday about you coming. She says you can keep her out of those stores where they give her free things till she's spent a hundred dollars.”
The balcony had gone quiet. Adam tapped the glass gently to ask whether they needed more time. Bev lifted a hand, one minute, and he stepped away again.
“I'd like that,” Mara said.
Bev nodded. “Good. We'll send you things to dislike.”
Mara smiled. She could imagine the messages, Anne's photographs of pools, Bev asking how anyone expected her to get out of a chair that low. She would answer. She would send her own.
They left without signing anything. In the elevator Bev watched Mara struggle to get the covers off her shoes and held out a hand. Mara took it, stood on one foot and pulled. The cover came away all at once. She lurched against Bev's shoulder, and they both had to brace themselves against the rail.
“Sorry,” Mara said.
Bev squeezed her hand before letting go. Downstairs, the woman with the groceries had finished. Only a patch of damp pavement showed where the bags had stood.
They drove back to the hotel together. Bev asked Mara to turn up the radio, then closed her eyes and rested while someone else found the way.