“Fannie, you in here?” he called quietly.
“I’m here.” Her voice sounded far away, but it couldn’t be farther away than the bed where he knew she was lying.
Isaac stood still, one hand on the wardrobe, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark.
“Should I cut on the light?”
“No, no. The doctor wants it like this.”
“Pitch-black?” It wasn’t pitch-black, not really. The window shade had been pulled down but there was a generous crack of light between the bottom of the shade and the windowsill. Within a few seconds, he could make out the shape of the wardrobe, the outline of Fannie’s bed, even the magazine on her bedside table. Isaac shut the door, held his hands out in front of him, and moved carefully around the bed to the chair by the window. When he had the chairback in his grip, he moved it closer to the edge of the bed and sat down, heavily. He heard the sheets rustle, Fannie move in the bed, and eventually, when his eyes were fully adjusted, he saw her face, turned toward his.
“It’s like this all day?” Isaac asked. Joseph had told him something about a new treatment regimen but he had been so deep in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even asked about it.
“All day.”
“Why?”
“Dr. Rosenthal thinks it will help bring my blood pressure down.”
“The dark?”
“A few things.”
“Is it really that high?”
“I don’t know. Yes?”
Had their conversations always been so circular? Fannie had been in the hospital for close to two months, and it was as if, in that time, he had forgotten how to talk to her. Had he ever been any good at it? He wasn’t sure.
Isaac’s conversational skills couldn’t have been much better when he had wandered into Adler’s Bakery eight years ago.
“Can I help you?” Fannie had asked, with curiosity, as she leaned into the counter.
Isaac ordered a loaf of challah, hoping it would keep him for a meal or two, then reached into his pocket and counted out the last of his loose change. He’d been in Atlantic City for nearly a week, and if he didn’t land a job soon, he’d be walking the forty miles back to Alliance with his tail between his legs.
“This is your first time here?” she said as she bagged the bread.
“I’m new to town.”
“From where?”
Isaac hated claiming Alliance as his hometown. It told people too much about him. “West Palm Beach.”
Fannie raised her eyebrows as she handed him the bag. “Exotic.”
“Sometimes,” he said, wanting badly to come off as a guy who got around.
Isaac handed Fannie the change. She was an attractive girl, not beautiful like some of the girls he’d gone out with in West Palm Beach, but definitely pretty.
Isaac bought three more loaves of challah, on three subsequent visits, before he saw Fannie again. The following Friday, to save himself from buying a fourth loaf unnecessarily, he walked past the store twice, just to be sure she was working behind the counter.
“I came in yesterday but you weren’t here,” he said, once he had made it to the front of the line.
“I’m at secretarial school on Thursdays.”
“Ah. And Wednesdays?”
“You came in on Wednesday as well?” Fannie asked, a large smile spreading across her face.
