Page 41 of Hunger

"I need a piece of sheet music. Meditation from Thaïs, by Massenet. The violin part with piano accompaniment."

"Yes, sir."

"By tomorrow afternoon."

"By noon, sir."

"Thank you."

I hang up. I cross to the room with no windows. I lower myself to the floor with my back against the wall.

The day comes.

I let it come.

I sit with what I now know — all of it, the whole long shape of her — until the sun moves overhead and the house above me goes still.

* * *

Jenny

I don't sleep.

Morning comes to the edges of the curtain and I'm still lying on my back in the same position, my hand resting against my own jaw where the cold finger traced me. The shaking hasn't stopped. It's changed — it's faint now, low, a thing that lives in my chest more than in my hands — but it hasn't stopped.

I don't move after the sun comes up. The room slowly fills with the thin winter light. The shape of the violin case on the floor. The boxes of rosin on the desk. The dying jasmine in its paper cup.

The phone in the kitchen rings at seven.

I know who it is. Tammy calls Friday mornings before her early shift to make sure I'm up. I have never not been up.

I get out of bed and go to the kitchen. I pick up the receiver on the fourth ring.

"Hello."

"Why do you sound like that?"

"I'm sick."

"Bullshit."

"Tammy."

"Are you actually sick? Like, throwing up?"

"I'm not coming in."

There's a pause. I can hear the kitchen noises in her apartment behind her — the radio on low, Marcus saying something in the background.

"Jenny."

"I'm not coming in. Please."

She doesn't push. I have never asked her for anything in eight months. I think this might be the first time I have asked her for anything.

"Okay. Okay. I'll tell Dale. He's going to be a dick about it."

"He's always a dick about it."