Evenings, when the people who lived downstairs were usually quiet and it was soft and still in her room, empty and peaceful, could have been Lydia’s favorite part of the day. She’d walk home every afternoon, her coat bunched tightly around her in cold weather and her hands buried deep in her pockets, her eyes on the sidewalk in front of her.
Left, straight, left – and before she reached the right turn to start heading home, Lydia would walk straight for a while longer. Tucked away in an unlikely place was a Chinese take-out place, and Lydia would walk in, the bell on the door chiming softly.
There was usually a line, two or three people waiting to give their orders, and a few more standing around. There were no tables inside, just a few chairs along one wall, a counter in the back, and a small candy machine that looked like it hadn’t been used in ages. Despite the ancient appearance, kids occasionally pleaded a quarter out of their parents and, as Lydia watched, squealed with delight as dusty candy trickled out onto their waiting palms. They’d drop their prize sometimes, and, scrabbling around on the floor, pick it up and pop it back into their mouths. Lydia would raise her eyebrows, flare her nostrils, and smile, just a bit.
Standing in line Tuesday, Lydia kept her hands in her coat. It was warmer in here than it was outside, but every time the glass door opened and shut air invaded the small space, frigid, and threatened to overcome the combined forces of the stoves and the body heat of the customers.
A couple and two others stood in line in front of Lydia, the couple studying the menu and giggling together. The man directly in front of Lydia sighed, impatiently and loudly, but Lydia simply waited. It wouldn’t take longer than she could afford, and there was a pleasant atmosphere to the place.
Cheap, cheesy panels and fans covered the walls, pseudo-Chinese and slightly worn. A mirror stood along one wall, opposite the chairs and the candy dispenser, and an older woman sitting in one of those chairs turned her head from side to side as she looked sternly at her reflection, as though daring each side of her prominent nose to look offensively back at her. Her face set, she turned it straight forward and lowered her chin slightly, her head positioned directly over where her hands clenched the curved top of her cane. Glaring at herself in the mirror, she turned away from the reflection and looked out the large glass front around the door.
Lydia turned her head slightly to the side. She could just see her reflection before the mirror stopped, and briefly she took in pale lashes, wide eyes and a slim nose. Moving her gaze, she saw the others in line – the impatient man, scowling at the back of the head of the woman in front of him, who fumbled through her purse in search of something, and the couple, who had stopped their giggling and were now conferring with each other while the vaguely oriental woman behind the counter looked on with a smile that was only slightly forced.
For a moment, Lydia wondered, again, whether the owners of the Golden Dragon Food-to-Go were truly Chinese, before deciding, again, that it didn’t matter. Turning her gaze forward from the mirror, she saw the cooking happening behind the smiling face of the woman behind the counter. Two men wearing jeans, dirty t-shirts and shabby aprons were tending various woks, pots, and cutting boards, a two-person whirlwind of organized chaos. It was a vaguely comforting sight, the warmth and smells from the kitchen wafting towards Lydia and creating a pleasant contrast with the chill at her back.
As the couple moved to sit in chairs near, but not beside, the severe woman, Lydia unconsciously moved up as the line progressed. There was another person in line behind her, and though Lydia desperately wanted to turn around and see who it could be, she bit her lip and decided it would be rude. Instead, she looked at the menu above the cashier’s head, seeing the faded, ugly pictures and cracked plastic rather than the words and prices. It was garish and tacky, backlit by an offensive fluorescent light, but it was interesting. Dust gathered in strange places behind the plastic, creating unusual patterns that were a distraction from the murmurs of the woman at the head of the line.
Finally, Lydia decided it would be safe to glance in the mirror, and she caught a glimpse of the person behind her. It was a young women, plainly dressed and slightly tired-looking, but pleasant mild-mannered in appearance. Before the other could catch her eye, Lydia glanced at the ground. Her gaze remained on the blue-and-white linoleum ‘tiles,’ admiring the slight film of grunge, until she was at the front of the line.
“May I help you?”
“Yes, please,” Lydia said, smiling slightly at the woman. They recognized each other, but never said a word to say so. Nothing needed to change for them to know where they stood. “I’d like a number 2, 43, and 61, please.”
“That’s one steamed rice, one vegetable spring roll, and an order of General Tso’s chicken. Will you be having anything to drink?”
“No, thank you.”
“All right, that will be ready in fifteen minutes.”
Lydia smiled and nodded, walking over towards the chairs. She didn’t sit, however, even though the stern woman had stood and was walking towards the counter. Instead, she walked past the six red-cushioned chairs and stood by the wall, several feet past the line of chairs and where the mirror only reflected beige cinder blocks.
Uncomfortably close to the door, which opened six times before her food was ready, Lydia held her coat close to her and kept her eyes alternately on the menu, the mirror, the painted “bamboo” panel in front of her, the floor by her feet, or the asphalt that could be seen out the glass front of the take-away restaurant.
In thirteen and a half minutes, Lydia walked out of the Golden Dragon $6.05 the lighter, clutching a slightly greasy brown paper bag in her left hand.
Left straight, left, straight, a right and a left and two blocks and she was home.

The lights were on downstairs, and as she walked back along the side of the house Lydia could see shadows moving through the curtains. Furrowing her eyebrows, she wished, again, that there were a back entrance to the yard so that she wouldn’t have to walk so very close the windows of the McGregors’ house. It felt uncomfortably like spying.
Her right hand was frigid, holding the paper bag. She had switched halfway home, the heat radiating through the paper not enough to keep her left hand from going numb. Now she switched back, fumbling with cold fingers for her key. Jamming it into the lock, she turned and placed her right shoulder near the door frame. With an almighty push, Lydia half-walked, half-stumbled onto the bottom of her stairway.
Lydia held the door steady with one foot and a shoulder as she wiggled her key out from the lock and shut the door. Reaching out with her hand that still had the key in it, she flicked on the lights and locked the door once more. Shivering, for somehow it seemed colder when it was chilly inside the small space than when it was cold outside, she transferred her keys back to her pocket and her bag into her right hand again, and kept her left hand on the splintering rail as she walked three stories up to her room.
Unlock, open, close, lights, relock. Setting her bag beside the door, Lydia took off her coat and hung it on the nail. Sighing slightly, she bent over and picked up her bag. It was warm in the attic – it always was a little hotter up here than it was outside, which was damned annoying in the summer but convenient now. She’d run the space heater last night, and so the room was still comfortable if not cozy. She crossed to the small device now, dropping to her knees beside it as she turned it on and bent her fingers in front of it. Smiling at the warmth, she also chuckled a bit at her own silliness as she stood, brushed off her knees, and picked up her dinner.
Lydia had one chair in her room, a plain wooden one missing one slat along the seat and one bar between the legs. It stood near the only table, a small, low coffee table that somebody had left out near the trash one day. Lydia sat in the chair, straightening her skirt, and set her bag on the table as she set about unpacking it. It was cooler over here than it was by the heater, but Lydia knew it would heat up eventually.
Forks and chopsticks and salt and pepper and soy sauce all sat wrapped inside napkins in the top of the bag. Stacked beneath that were two chinese carry-out containers and a greasy foil-wrapped short cylinder. Lydia ate the spring roll first, eating it ungarnished and unwrapping it as she went. When it was two-thirds eaten, she wrapped the remainder up and set it down.
Next she ate the chicken, using the fork. She ate all of the baby corn, and half of the carrots, and two-thirds of the chicken, and some of the broccoli and none of the peppers.
She set down that container, and turned to the rice. Completely emptying one of the packets of soy sauce on it, she ate half of the rice. When she finished, she wiped her fingers and the table and the fork with a napkin, placed all of the trash back inside the bag, and picked up the chopsticks, the salt, and the pepper.
Crossing the room, she opened a small drawer at the bottom of her bookcase. Carefully, she placed the items beside other exactly like it, and shut the half-full drawer.
The bag, and the napkins, went into the trash can. The chair was put back in its original position, near the coffee table but not facing it.
Stretching, Lydia looked out the window with lazy eyes. The sun would set in half an hour.

The dresser and her clothes stood halfway across the room, and as Lydia stood behind her chair she could see the back of it. The chest of drawers looked ugly from the back, pressed wood that didn’t even attempt to appear at all authentic. Bits of it peeled off, and it was warbled and crooked.
Lydia stood beside her hamper before she started unbuttoning her shirt, and dropped it in quickly. She knelt, as if fearing someone invisible was floating directly outside her window and would see her nakedness if she didn’t hide behind the dresser, and removed her bra. As quickly as she could, she opened the middle drawer of the chest and pulled out a plain white shirt and tugged it on. The pink blouse she put carefully into the fraying wicker hamper; the bra she set on top of the dresser. Unzipping her skirt, she placed it on top of the blouse and opened the bottom drawer, pulling out plain gray loose pants, thick cotton with an elastic top. The air touching her bare arms was warm now, and only her toes still felt chilly.
Lydia walked away from the window, to her bookcase. It was mostly empty, with a stack of five books on the second shelf and maybe ten or so standing upright on the bottom. Lydia pulled out the top book of the five, and moved the large pillow that stood before the bookcase to a slightly better position. Settling in, she rested her back against the drawers beneath the shelves, rearranged her legs on the pillow and tucked her feet beneath it, and opened to her bookmark.
A small lamp stood on the floor beside the bookcase, and Lydia turned it on.
Directly across from her, below the window, a long golden thread of lights stretched out.
The sun was beginning to set.

For most of the day, the window filled the attic with a soft light, enough to keep the dark in the corners but no streaming sunbeams, no bright glares, nothing spectacular. At sunset, when the sun dipped down into the pollution and peaked below the eaves of the roof, light streamed into Lydia’s room. It was a golden light, soft and powerful. The line of it could be seen creeping across the plain wooden slats of the floor, and the entire room was filled with a buttery sort of glow.
Lydia never missed the sight.


With her ponytail holder wrapped around her wrist and her fair brown hair falling in strings across her face, Lydia tucked herself deeper against her pillow and read. The sunlight tracked a course across the floor, and Lydias lips moved softly with the words on her pages. When the golden glow reached her knees, she set down the book for a moment and looked out the window.
Gently, the light flowed through the specks of dust, ever-present in the attic, which hung suspended in the air. They glowed, ethereal in the sun, and the cheap panes of glass in the window shone golden as well. Lydia couldn’t see the sun itself, dying and tepid-weak by now – her face was still shadowed from the sun, lit up from the side by her lamp.
Rich and yellow, a path stretched from below her feet, across the floor and out the window and up. It looked warm to the touch, and soft, and melted away at the edges to join the shadows of Lydia’s room.
Lydia paused, and looked.


Friday, and Lydia was taking her break. It was one in the afternoon, and the diner was still busy, but Marge had almost pushed Lydia out of the door. The other three of them could handle it, she said, calling Lydia child the way she sometimes did, and you look like you could use some sleep, so a rest would have to do. “I got ten hours,” Lydia protested weakly, but by then she was already standing outside with her coat on. Undecisive, she nudged the ground with her foot for a few moments before setting off at a walk.
She wasn’t tired, not really, and she had gotten her usual amount of sleep and – Lydia rubbed the dark circles under her eyes. And she was waking up half an hour earlier than usual, and it really wasn’t that much and it shouldn’t affect her. Sighing, lydia grit her teeth and frowned.
It was cold out, and the wind was blowing, although today the sky was clear and blue. Lydia tugged her gloves on tighter and pulled her hat lower around her ears, walking into the wind with her eyes shut against the breeze and her face squeezed tight.

“Hello, little mouse!”
Lydia looked flatly at the barista.
Todd was unfazed. “All in brown, you know, small and quiet–“
Lydia’s look grew flatter still.
“All right, all right. Apologies. Forgive me?”
“One mocha, please.”
“What size?”
Lydia almost rolled her eyes. “Tall, please. And double espresso, if you will.”
Todd shook his head and reached for a white mug.
“Blue, if you will.”
This time Todd stopped moving, looking at Lydia with something akin to disbelief – though that couldn’t be right, as she had done nothing new. She blinked, and stared back for a few seconds, before dropping her gaze and looking at the ripped and stained menu taped to the top of the counter.
Todd made her coffee in silence.
“So,” he said.
“Yes?
“I –“ Lydia waited for him to finish, but he just looked thoughtful.
Lydia stood, shifted from foot to foot in her discomfort.
He handed her the coffee. “If you don’t like mochas,” he said with a sigh, “then why?”
Lydia looked him in the eye, just for a moment. “Thank you,” she said, just louder than a whisper, and laid seven quarters on the counter. She turned away, towards the door.
“Wait!” She paused, slightly mortified. He had been loud. Surely everybody in the café had heard, had wondered, was looking at her – she shut her eyes and couldn’t bear to turn around.
“You’ll be sitting outside again?”
If she didn’t turn, then she’d be talking to the middle of the room. She turned. “Yes.”
“It’s cold. Stay in here.”
To Lydia, he sounded brusque. Looking at the ground, she shook her head. No, no, thank you. She opened her mouth to speak – but why had he ordered her inside? Hurt, she turned towards the door without another word.

Weekends were long. Lydia worked on Sunday evenings, her only dinner shift of the week – it was survivable, more for the slight decrease in sound level brought on by the sabbath than for the overtime pay. All of Saturday, though, and half of Sunday were Lydia’s alone.
She woke up at five each day, later than she would on a weekday. The urge to reach out and turn off a non-existent noise was always there, and sometimes she was holding the alarm clock before she realized that it hadn’t rung. When she figured it out, Lydia would sink back into the bed, rearranging her worn coverlet and snuggling further underneath the warmth. It would still be mostly dark outside, stars visible through the window if it was a clear morning. Lydia would lay in bed, awake but unmoving, and watch the wall or the ceiling or the world or the way all the muted colors, shades of black, really, merged together when viewed through her lashes.
When the sun had risen, she would stand, shivering at the feel of air against her bare arms and feet, and cross to the heater. Kneeling before it, she’d turn up the heat and sit by the machine until her skin felt heated and her throat uncomfortably dry from the way the heater pulled the moisture out of the atmosphere. Standing then, she’d walk to her dresser. It would be cold again, just barely uncomfortable without actually being chilly, but Lydia would move quickly and pretend that it wasn’t. From the top drawer she’d pull clean underwear and a bra, from the bottom drawer a neat pair of jeans and a solid colored tee shirt.
She’d pile them all beside the sink as she took a fifteen-minute shower.
Her hair would still be pulled back into a ponytail, but rather than one tight and riding high on the top of her head, it would be low and loose at the nape of her neck.
Lazily, she’d dress, her movements indolent and almost carefree. Then she’d glance in the mirror, a tiny look, and suddenly she’d be filled with purpose.
Not speed, not quite, and not urgency, but the clothes would be pulled on rather than slid, buttons fastened swiftly rather than slowly, her eyes would be open. Looking where her hands were, and then once more, quickly, at the mirror, Lydia would leave the bathroom still barefoot.
Wet now, she would not be cold, for the efficient little space heater would have filled the space with heat. Air didn’t move much up here, for all the vents very visibly placed at the top of the outer wall. It didn’t take long to heat up.
Her feet would be chilly, though, and so Lydia would pull socks out of the top drawer, sighing for not having remembered to take them into the bathroom with her, again. It never happened during the week, and the wood was so unkind to bare feet.
Lydia would pull her pillow off her bed and put it by the cushion that stood before the bookcase, and pulling a book from the stack of five she’d read it by the light of the lamp, curled up like a cat. Sometimes she read from the neatly line up books a shelf beneath, and a few times she’d even gone back to bed and lain there, curled up on her side or flat on her back. She never slept, but sometimes she’d simply breathe.
At some point, halfway through the morning, Lydia would grow hungry. When that happened she’d Get up, put on old tennis shoes that stood beside her dresser, and check how much money she had in her coat. She’d always turn off the lamp before she left. The overhead bulb would never be on.
McDonald’s served crappy breakfasts, but then Lydia never was much of a breakfast person. Brunch, she called it, and food was food was food. There was no McDonalds nearby, and so Lydia would sometimes go to the local convenience store and buy a small bottle of orange juice and a bagel, or something similar. Sometimes she’d feel up to walking downtown, to the nearest McDonald’s or fast food joint where at least the food was warm. Warm food in the stomach was a feeling that left all of Lydia feeling less chilly.
Finished with her breakfast/brunch, Lydia would pick up something to eat for lunch, back in her room, and go home. It would still be early, maybe 10 in the morning, and at lunch time all of the eateries and delis and various small restaurants where Lydia would pick up take-away would be crowded. Lunch was different every Saturday.
This Saturday it was personal pizza from Tony’s, on South Boulevard street. Lydia didn’t like pepperoni, and she picked them off.
Back at her room, Lydia would read and she would clean, and alternate the two. Cleaning meant organizing, and wiping the dust of the surfaces of the dresser and her coffee table and her chair and her bookcase and her bed and her alarm clock. Rags and Orangeclean were stored in the bottom shelf of the bookcase.
She’d make her bed, and clean her bathroom, and clean her windows, and read her books, and every now and again she’d pull an old journal out from the bookcase, where it stood upright between a textbook on world politics and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. She’d write, then – a sentence, a page, ten – and when she’d finished, she’d start to read it over, and stop. Putting the journal back, she’d absentmindedly set the pencil down, surprised days or weeks later when she found it in whatever peculiar place she’d left it. She’d run out of peculiar places by now, and though the surprise was undiminished the novelty was undeniably fading.
After eating breakfast, Lydia would gather up her five books, or sometimes six or four, and place them in a plastic grocery bag.
Saturdays, Lydia went to the library.