Catch 26: A Novel. Carol Prisant

easily accomplished via her newborn and seemingly osmotically acquired computer skills, for which she is surprised and very grateful. She’s a little less grateful for the apartment she’s rented, however. It is painfully small by St. Louis standards, and what’s more, it’s been decorated in a blandly neutral style that isn’t “her” at all. Or wasn’t. Before. It’s $159 per day, too – an amount Fernanda believes, wholly unironically, that would have given Stanley a heart attack.

      So, almost settled in now, almost sorted out, she’s been thinking of finding men, getting a job – maybe in the art world, maybe at a gallery somewhere – and meeting people. Making friends, maybe. Not necessarily in that order. Although this is New York, so nothing will come easily, she supposes.

      Recently, however, she believes that someone in her elevator has noticed her: a wispy young woman – about her own age (it’s very hard to tell anymore) – who lives somewhere above her and who seems to spend a great deal of time walking a smallish long-haired dog. The woman may have noticed Fernanda because her dog does: it whines when she enters the car.

      “I’m sorry,” says its owner one afternoon. “Bean’s a little spooky. She was mistreated by her former owners, I’m pretty sure.”

      “Oh, don’t worry about it.”

      Fernanda hears her own voice for the first time today. The city can be lonely.

      ‘Although,” she adds, because of that, “if I’m going to worry your dog, we ought to introduce ourselves.” She offers her hand. “I’m Fra … Fernanda Turner, on nine.”

      “I’m Marcia Welliver. On twelve. You’re new in the building, aren’t you?”

      “I am new. New to New York City, in fact.”

      “Oh wow. And how’s that going? I can’t imagine. I’m a native. ‘Borough-bred’, we call it.”

      “No kidding! It never occurred to me that anybody has ever actually been born here!” Fernanda laughs aloud, her first wholehearted laugh, she thinks, since That Day. “Maybe you’d show me around sometime?” The elevator doors open at the lobby and as the cab empties out, Marcia stoops to tuck the trembling dog beneath her arm and hollers “Sure” at Fernanda’s retreating back.

      A friend, Fernanda thinks, nodding shyly at the uniformed doorman.

      Her height makes her conspicuous on the sidewalk, unfortunately, but it also allows her to see over other pedestrians, which she finds to be a useful, yet peculiar, sensation. And everyone’s looking at her, she’s sure. But no one’s looking at her, too, she’s sure. She seems to have a full-blown case of adolescent paranoia. Really bizarre at sixty-six.

      Still, it isn’t just the height of her head. It’s her legs. They’re so long and so foreign and unmanageable, that often, Fernanda feels like she’s about to fall forward and tries to catch herself. And she’s always misjudging stairways and curbs, and when she sits – just to get them out of her way – she has to wind the legs up: either around each other or around the legs of her chair. She keeps forgetting to duck, too. Which is why she almost daily discovers purplish bruises on her brand-new forehead or accidentally runs a comb over those tender bumps on her scalp. And her voice sounds different, of course. At least to her: it’s low and suggestively creamy, but almost pretty when she sings. In fact, when Fernanda isn’t marveling at herself in the tub, watching the water slide across her ivory thighs and perfect breasts, she occasionally breaks into song. Really softly, though. Stephen Foster. Joan Baez. Folk songs from her youth. Perfect for the bath.