Forty-six steps from her door to the elevator. Three-hundred-and-seventy-nine to the Starbucks on Astor Place—where she did not work. Five-hundred-and-seventeen more to the Starbucks at Barnes & Noble—where she also did not work. One foot in front of the other: left right left right left right left, six-hundred-and-twenty-three paces to the Starbucks at Broadway and Bond Street— where she did work, Monday to Thursday, afternoon to closing.
“Hey honey.”
Stephanie stopped, startled. A man sat on the threshold of an empty storefront a few doors down from the Starbucks.
“Got an extra dollar to help a guy get a cup of coffee? It’s cold out here.”
Stephanie shrugged. “Sorry,” she said. She always found it strange when people asked if she had an “extra” dime or quarter or dollar. What did that mean? “No cash.” She glanced at the Starbucks; she would look like an asshole, turning the guy down only to stroll into the land of six-dollar extra-hot vanilla half-caf skinny lattés. She almost explained that she was going there to work, but that didn’t seem right either. “Sorry,” she said again before walking away.
It was actually warm for late November, but that wasn’t saying much; Manhattan had utterly given up on autumn and resigned itself to grey days under a low ceiling of cloud cover and a perpetual forecast of wintry mix. Wintry mix, Stephanie thought as she opened the door, sending a blast of cold air into the half-empty café. We should have a blend called wintry mix. The customers nearest the entrance shivered and glared at her. It would be bitter. And never quite hot enough.
Conrad looked up from the first register. His hair was greasy and a prodigious pimple had erupted in the center of his forehead. “You’re late,” he said. She wasn’t, but there was no point in arguing. The seventeen-year-old outranked her in the sacred hierarchy of Starbucks seniority, and it was a Wednesday. The newest employee was always “late” on Wednesdays, when the bathroom had to be properly cleaned in anticipation of the general manager’s Thursday morning check. If you were late, come closing time you got stuck with the shittiest tasks. Literally.
Stephanie sighed. “Yeah. Right. Hello to you too.”
“Whatever.” Conrad was fiddling with his one-hitter and glancing at the door. His eyes were bloodshot. “I’m taking a break,” he said. “Watch my register.” He tossed his apron next to the industrial coffee grinder and came around the counter, the skunky smell of cheap pot floating in his wake. “Try not to fuck it up.” 
The steady flow of customers didn’t let up until twenty minutes before closing. Stephanie was still cleaning the bathroom when Conrad paused at the door to say he was heading out. As the shift manager, he was supposed to stay until the alarm was set and the security gate was down, but when he closed with Stephanie he usually left her to it; he figured a grad student was smart enough to follow instructions, and she needed the job too badly to snitch.
Stephanie turned off the main lights in the empty store and set the bathroom trash bag next to the rest of the garbage that Conrad hadn’t bothered to take out to the curb. She gathered her things from the break room and closed up shop, hauling the trash behind her. As she approached the curb, one of the bags opened. It was filled with untouched food that had been marked out for City Harvest; Starbucks had a contract to donate food left over on its sell-by date, but in her four months as an employee she had never witnessed a pickup. She tucked a few sandwiches into her backpack before tying up the bag and leaving it by the side of the street.
When she reached the corner, she saw that the man she’d passed by on her way to work was still sitting in the same place. He didn’t seem to notice her. She cleared her throat, trying to get his attention. He looked up. “Hello,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Must have been one big-ass cup of coffee,” he said.
“I wasn’t— I mean I just work there…” Her voice trailed off. She took her backpack from her shoulder. “Would you like a sandwich?” she asked.
“What kind?”
“Um…” She hadn’t thought about it. She rummaged around in her backpack, but it was too dark to see much. She narrowed her eyes, trying to read the labels.
The man scowled. “There it is.”
“What?” Stephanie asked, looking up.
“That face. Pisses you off, huh? Beggars being choosers.”
She looked at him for a moment, then stepped toward a streetlight and turned her attention back to the sandwiches. The yellow glow lit up her hair and cast sharp shadows on her cheekbones.
“I bet guys like me are always talking at you, telling you you’re beautiful and shit.”
“I don’t know,” Stephanie replied.
“You don’t know?” He laughed.
“No. I mean— Maybe I don’t pay attention to that kind of thing.”
“We’re invisible, huh?”
“What?”
He smirked. “We aren’t worthy of your attention. We don’t rate a second look.” He flicked his cigarette into the street. The girl was still looking through her bag. “Or a first.”
Stephanie wanted to walk away, but something about the conversation agitated her, and she couldn’t let it go. “You… Whoever you mean by we—” She exhaled sharply, then took a deep breath. “I try, you know?”
This amused him. “I see.” He took out another cigarette, lit it, and blew a thick plume of smoke in her general direction.
Stephanie held his gaze. “I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
“And I bet you feel real good about that, too.”
“Not particularly.” She shifted her backpack. The sandwiches added just enough weight to make it cumbersome. The temperature had fallen, and a huge, icy raindrop crashed against her cheek. “Do you want a sandwich or not?”
“Right. You were about to take my order.” His voice was thick with sarcasm. “What were the daily specials again?”
She knew she should just move on. She got enough crap from her customers and supervisors; she didn’t need this. But she wouldn’t give a stranger the satisfaction of letting him believe he could see right through her. “Turkey and brie with stone-ground mustard on brioche, tuna Niçoise on a baguette, or three cheese. On wheat.” She flashed a saccharine smile. “We’re all out of the foie gras, I’m afraid.”
The man took a drag on his cigarette. He looked her up and down. “You’re not, you know.”
“Not what?”
“Beautiful.”
Stephanie sighed. She was tired, and her hands were numb with cold. “Yeah,” she said. “I know.” She hefted her bag over her shoulder and pulled up her collar. “Good night.” She turned and began to walk away.
“Turkey!” the man’s voice echoed in the empty street. “And what the hell. I guess the tuna would be OK too.”
Stephanie paused. She took the sandwiches from her bag, placed them on a bench, and continued walking without looking back.
The next night, Stephanie approached the man with an air of fresh determination. “Better be careful, honey,” he said before she could get a word out. Her confidence faltered. “People will say we’re in love.”
Stephanie stared at him a moment, then collected herself. She set down her backpack, opened the main compartment, and took out five sandwiches. “I got you one of each,” she said. She handed them to him one by one as he looked her up and down.
“Don’t you ever eat?” he asked. “You should put some meat on those bones.”
“I eat plenty,” she said, a hint of defensiveness in her voice. “But none of these are vegan.”
The man snorted. “You’re vegan. Of course you are.”
Stephanie said nothing. She picked up her bag and yanked the zipper. It snagged. “Damn it,” she muttered, tugging at the metal pull. When the man spoke again she looked up, flustered.
“What’s your name?” He held up one of the sandwiches and flashed a toothless smile. “It’s our second dinner date. I should at least get your name.”
“Stephanie,” she said. She hesitated, then put down her bag and reached out to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
He didn’t move. She let her arm drop. He sized her up, then smirked. “Yeah,” he said. “You look like a Stephanie.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothin’ honey. Nothing at all.”
Stephanie fumbled with the zipper. It had been broken for a while and was threatening to come apart again.
The man stared at her, waiting. Finally, he shook his head. “You’re not even gonna ask?”
“Ask what?”
“My name.”
“What’s your name?” she said, her voice flat, her eyes still fixed on her worn-out bag.
He didn’t answer. After a few moments, she looked up. “So? Are you going to tell me or not?”
He locked eyes with her, then gazed out at the street. “No. I don’t think I will.”
Stephanie shrugged. “Fine then,” she said. The zipper snapped onto its track, and she slid it back and forth a few times to make sure it would hold. She leaned against the doorframe and looked down. “I’ll call you Jack.”
“What?”
“Jack. You don’t want to tell me your name, that’s fine. I’ll just call you Jack.”
“Damn. What— Who the fuck do you think you are? You can’t just give me a name.”
She shrugged again. “I didn’t pick mine.”
They were both quiet for a few minutes. Across the street, a woman was walking a meticulously groomed toy poodle. The tiny dog squatted and took a massive shit in front of Shakespeare & Co. The woman looked around furtively, then walked off with her dog, leaving the steaming pile in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Ok Stephanie. You win. It’s Jeffery. Jeff.”
Stephanie glanced at him, then looked away. “I don’t know,” she said, staring off at nothing in particular.
“You don’t know what?”
She turned toward him. “I’m going to call you Jack,” she said. “You look like a Jack.”
“You again?” Jeff said as Stephanie approached him on Monday night. She hadn’t been around over the weekend; he figured she’d found some new cause. Tonight she was carrying a plastic Starbucks bag. She started to reach inside, then looked around at the empty street and handed Jeff the whole bag. It contained eleven sandwiches. All turkey.
“How much turkey do you think a guy can eat?” Jeff asked.
Stephanie shrugged. “I guess I thought there would be more homeless people. I just realized you’re the only one I pass on my way home.”
“What makes you think I’m homeless?”
Stephanie looked at his tattered clothes and cup of coins and crumpled dollar bills. “Or you could give some to your friends or something…”
“Right. ‘Cause we bums all know each other.”
Stephanie shook her head. “I didn’t mean…” Her voice trailed off. What was she supposed to say?
“I’m just fucking with you,” Jeff said. “You make it easy.” He chuckled. “How long you been in New York, anyway? Five minutes?”
Stephanie looked tired. “Longer,” she said. “What about you? How long have you lived here?”
He smirked. “Here in the city, or here on the street?”
“Either.” She shrugged. “Both.”
Jeff sighed. He was tired, too. “The city? A few lifetimes,” he said. “Give or take.”
“And the street?”
He lit a cigarette. “That’s a longer story.”
“Longer than a few lifetimes?”
He laughed mirthlessly. “Feels like it.”
Stephanie nodded. When she looked him in the eye, the intensity of her gaze made him uncomfortable—like someone had turned on a floodlight. He couldn’t read her face. She was looking at him and not saying anything and it was all starting to get on his nerves. “Why do you care anyway?”
“What makes you think I care?”
Jeff couldn’t tell whether or not she was joking. The fact that he didn’t know if he should be offended was in and of itself irritating. “Seriously,” he said, his voice rough with bitterness, “what the hell are you doing out here? You think you’re some Mother fucking Theresa ‘cause you give out your little sandwiches? They’re not even yours to give. You fucking stole them. From Starbucks.”
Stephanie seemed unperturbed. “I don’t like seeing things go to waste,” she answered, her manner measured and reasonable.
“Right. Sure.” Jeff shook his head. Met with her dispassionate demeanor, his aggravation only gained momentum. “You know, we’re not out here to make you feel better about yourself.”
Stephanie took a step back, and her face fell into shadow. She was quiet for what seemed like a long time. Jeff started to wonder if he’d been too harsh. He was about to apologize when she finally spoke up. “I know that, Jack,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “You couldn’t if you tried.”
“My name is Jeff, for fuck’s sake.” His anger swelled.
Stephanie just nodded, then began to walk away. After a few paces, she turned and came back.
“What? Did you forget something? Besides my name, I mean?”
Stephanie took a wax paper pastry sleeve from her backpack and held it out to him. “Just that I also have some cookies tonight. If you want.”
Jeff didn’t know what to say. Bewildered, he took the bag and looked inside.
“Snickerdoodle,” Stephanie said. “And I didn’t forget your name.”
Jeff said nothing. He watched her walk up Broadway and turn the corner at 9th Street. After a while, he unwrapped one of the cookies and took a bite. Snickerdoodle was his favorite.
On Wednesday night, Stephanie looked a bit ragged around the edges. She handed Jeff two sandwiches. “Don’t worry,” she muttered. “They’re not turkey.”
“Right,” Jeff said. He clamped his cigarette between his lips and held the sandwiches up to the light. Grilled chicken on ciabatta and portobella mushroom on seven-grain flatbread. “Thanks,” he said. He waited for her to continue on her way, but she didn’t move. “What?” he asked.
“Can I bum one?”
Jeff laughed. “Seriously?”
Stephanie sighed. “Forget it,” she said, turning to leave.
“Nah, wait…” Jeff held out his pack of Reds. “Makes for a change. Not being the bum, for once.”
Stephanie took a cigarette. “Thank you.” She gave back the pack. Jeff took one for himself, then pulled out a book of matches. He cupped his hands around the flame, but the wind kept blowing it out before it could catch. Finally, he abandoned his efforts and glanced up at her, chuckling. “Look at you: Vegan college girl. Bet you do yoga three times a week, and you smoke.”
She put the cigarette to her lips and plucked a silver butane lighter from her pocket. “I don’t,” she said, lighting his cigarette, then hers.
“Sure as shit looks like you do.”
She said nothing.
“Why buy that fancy-ass Zippo if you don’t smoke?”
Stephanie put away the lighter. “I didn’t pay for it.”
They smoked in silence for a few moments. Then all at once, Stephanie tossed her bookbag unceremoniously to the ground and sat down next to Jeff, pulling her knees to her chest.
“The fuck you doin’?” Jeff asked, eyeing the dark stain where her white jeans soaked up the black rivulets that streaked Broadway in the aftermath of the evening’s rain.
She didn’t answer. Her eyes were trained on the awning of an antique shop on the corner. It had come loose on one end and was flailing in the wind as though it were trying to get away. She flicked her ash and tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. “I tried yoga,” she said. “Once.”
Jeff wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t really give a fuck about yoga—or the girl, for that matter—but for some reason he found himself wanting to be polite. “Why just once?”
Stephanie shrugged. “It was… I don’t know. Just sitting there, and breathing…” She shook her head and stubbed out the glowing butt of her spent cigarette. “And the mirrors.”
Jeff waited for her to go on, but it seemed she had nothing else to say on the subject. “Right, he said.” He field-stripped his filter and threw it away, tucking the remaining strands of tobacco into his jacket pocket. The drizzle started up again, and he began to gather his few possessions into the IKEA bag he’d been sitting on. He looked down at where Stephanie still sat on the pavement, unmoving. The rain had dampened the corner of a sketchbook that had slipped from her open backpack. Charcoal bled from its thick pages. She didn’t seem to notice. “It’s raining,” Jeff said.
She nodded, still staring off. Then she stood up, checked that she had her things, and started down Broadway. Jeff was about to turn when Stephanie stopped short and looked back. “See you,” she said, then shouldered her bag and walked away as the wind picked up and the rain came pouring down.
Stephanie was later than usual on Thursday night. She was pale. She was walking with her head down, her eyes fixed on the ground in front of her. She walked past Jeff without stopping.
“What’s wrong with you?” he called after her.
She looked back, flustered. “Why do you think something’s wrong with me?”
Jeff was startled by the sharp edge in her voice. “I don’t mean wrong wrong,” he said. “Just…” He gestured at her, sizing her up. “Every night, walking around like that, never smiling… All you got going for you, and you never smile.”
Stephanie paused, then looked away. “What do people really mean when they say that?”
“What?”
She continued as though she hadn’t heard him. “Or when they say they’ve ‘lost everything?’” She shook her head, gazing into the distance. “I mean…” Her voice faded. After a moment, she looked back at Jeff. “How do you know?”
“Know what?”
“When you have nothing left to lose?”
Jeff sighed. It was a question with a thousand answers, and every single one of them was wrong. “You ok?” he asked.
Stephanie didn’t answer right away. In the spotlight glow of the street’s yellow lamp, she looked like an actress who was struggling to remember her lines. After a moment, she took off her backpack and reached inside. She pulled out her sketchbook and gave it to Jeff. He turned it over in his hands, then looked up at her, confused.
“I don’t have any food,” she said.
Jeff flipped through the pages. The second half of the book was blank. He tried to make sense of what was going on. He failed. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
Stephanie shrugged. “I asked myself the same thing.”
Before Jeff could think of anything else to say, Stephanie smiled. “Goodbye Jack,” she said.
Jeff felt uneasy. He tried to come up with a good reason to follow her as she walked away, but nothing came to mind. She rounded the corner, as always, and disappeared into the night.
Jeff turned his attention to the book. The pages were filled with portraits: A woman examining a window display at Macy’s, her ghost reflected in the polished glass. A boy in a soccer uniform lacing up his cleats. People sitting in a coffee shop, laughing, hunched over steaming mugs. And Jeff, framed in his doorway, looking out at the street. She had captured every nuance of his posture and faithfully followed each line of his wizened face. He looked sad, but proud.
He lay the open book on the step beside him. The city felt cold and hard and profoundly empty. All of a sudden, a gust from the subway grating whipped through the pages, exposing the inside of the tome’s leather cover. There was a faint inscription that Jeff couldn’t quite make out. He stood and moved into the light:
This book belongs to Gillian Monroe.
The next night, Jeff waited anxiously for Stephanie to emerge from the coffee shop. When the lights finally went out, he looked up; a man he had never seen before was pulling down the security gate. A few days passed. Then a week. Jeff had almost put Stephanie from his mind when on a blindingly sunny Wednesday weeks after she had vanished, he caught sight of himself reflected in the storefront across the street, and felt he looked small—lost in a swathe of jackets, pale in the shadow of his turned-up collar, ghostly in the translucence of his displaced image. He scowled at the stranger who wore his face, then pulled out Stephanie’s—Gillian’s?—sketchbook and flipped back to meet his eyes in the solid man in his concrete frame. He took to studying the sketches when the streets were quiet. The thick pages—undyed, soft with their cotton weave and linen finish, became loose in their hand-bound spine, and the charcoal faded and smeared, worse for the wear of the rough-handed city.
One Thursday, when she had yet to reappear, Jeff left the shelter early and settled into his spot on Broadway by noon. Starbucks customers and employees came and went as the hours crawled by, but Stephanie was not among them.
As closing time drew near, Jeff grew tired of waiting. He gathered his things and headed toward the café, passing a mountain of trash at the curb. He couldn’t help but notice a bag full of sandwiches, pristine in their unopened packages.
The few customers who still lingered at tables wrinkled their noses and lowered their voices. They stole glances at him but carefully avoided making eye contact. When Jeff got to the counter, the boy at the register looked at him with thinly veiled contempt.
“Uh, sir, the bathroom is only for paying cust—”
Jeff cut him off. “Is Stephanie here?”
“Uh, what?”
“Stephanie. She works here.”
“Um… Who are you?”
“I’m…” Jeff’s voice trailed off. He felt exposed in the bright shop. The kid behind the counter was fiddling with the nametag pinned to his apron. Conrad. “I’m Jeff—Jack.”
Conrad stared back with a glazed expression of half-stoned incredulity. “Your name is ‘Jeff Jack’?”
Jeff hesitated. “It’s… Fuck it. It’s Jack.” He shook his head. “Jesus. What does my name have to do with anything anyway?” His voice came out louder and sharper than he had intended. He took a deep breath. “Sorry. Yeah, I’m Jack.”
The kid just narrowed his eyes and picked at what little black polish still clung to his fingernails. Jeff felt he needed to say something more. “Um, Jack Smith.”
“Right. Jack Smith.” Conrad shrugged. “Look dude. There have been like four Stephanies here since I started…”
Jeff exhaled sharply, frustrated.
Suddenly, the barista’s eyes came into focus. “Oh, wait! Do you mean fat Stephanie?”
“What?”
“With all the shit in her face?”
“Huh?” Jeff sighed and shook his head. “No.”
“Oh. Yeah, well… I mean, like, if you had her last name—but even then I think there’d be some rule or something about—”
“She should be here today. And last night. She wasn’t there last night…”
“There where?” Conrad fidgeted anxiously, trying to resist the urge to cover his nose. The line was backing up into the café, and the smell of the homeless man’s unwashed clothes was turning his stomach. “Look… Are you gonna buy something or what?”
Jeff groped at his pockets, unsure of what to do. “Maybe if you have an employee picture or something I could—”
“Dude. I’m a fuc—friggin’ barista, not Human Resources. And come on. This is Starbucks. It’s not like everyone always gives you two weeks’ notice. They just leave. You don’t exactly hang on for a pension here, you know?” The man didn’t move. Conrad’s patience ran out.” And people like you can’t just come in here and ask all this stalker stuff. That’s some put-the-fucking-lotion-in-the-basket shit right there.”
Jeff felt eyes on him. People were staring openly. He stood up tall, straightened his coat, and took a deep breath, composing himself. “It’s just… I mean Stephanie wouldn’t…”
Conrad backed away from the register. He had his cell phone in his hand and was reaching for a list of emergency contact numbers.
Jeff sighed, defeated. When he picked up his bag and turned to leave, the tension that had mounted in the narrow shop began to ease. But after a beat he looked back. “Come on,” he said, approaching the counter again. His voice took on a tone of soft desperation. “Her name is Stephanie…” He glanced down at the sketchbook in his bag. “But she might go by Gillian. I think her last name could be Monroe…” As the words came tumbling out, he became aware of crazy he sounded. “She’s short. Well, petite, I guess you say. She’s from—” Jeff realized he had no idea. “Not New York. Kind of light hair. And funny… But not trying to be. You know?”
The barista shook his head slowly, his face blank.
Jeff’s voice cracked. “She’s…” By now everyone was looking at him, like rubberneckers watching a dozen-car pile-up. The silence was palpable. The air was thick with steam and charged with the spicy aroma of cinnamon.
“She was beautiful.”
Conrad shrugged. “That’s not exactly specific.”
Jeff paused. “Yes,” he said. “It is.”
