The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [71]
“You a friend of Steve’s?” he said over his shoulder.
“No. But I know his cousin, Kyle Marion.”
He paused mid-step. “Not San Francisco Kyle Marion.”
“Yes!” Phoebe said. “You know him?”
There was a pause. “I went to high school with him,” the man said. He waited at the next landing. Phoebe’s curiosity had the better of her now, and in spite of her bruises she looked full at him. The recognition broke across her in a single white flash, raising goosebumps on her legs and scalp.
“Wolf,” she said.
The color had left his face.
They both stared, speechless. It was Wolf. He looked as if he might faint. “I’m Phoebe,” she said.
“I know who you are,” Wolf said, and he pulled Phoebe to him, rocking her in arms whose feel was instantly familiar to her. “I know who you are, Phoebe, Jesus.” He drew away to look at her, smiling that sheepish smile of older relatives who haven’t seen you in years. He gripped the tops of Phoebe’s arms, her heavy backpack still dangling from his shoulder. “Phoebe O’Connor,” he said. “I’ll be damned.”
He looked smaller than she remembered. In Phoebe’s mind Wolf had grown vast with the years, ballooning in size and strength at twice the rate she herself had, since childhood. Now his chipped features looked almost frail. But his face was the same: white teeth, narrow green-gray eyes like the animal he’d been nicknamed for, the brown hair that once had fallen halfway down his back cut short now, so it stood up a little from his head. He’d lost his indelible tan. But for all that he was Wolf, familiar in every detail down to the hands on Phoebe’s arms, hands she’d watched rolling joints, steering his pickup truck with invisible ticks of movement, sifting through her sister’s hair.
“What are you doing here?” Wolf said.
“Traveling.” It was all the explanation she could muster. “How do you know Steven Lake?”
Wolf shook his head. “Americans in Munich,” he said. “I’ve known him for years.”
“But you never knew he and Kyle were cousins?”
“No idea. I mean … isn’t Steve from New York?”
They were climbing the last flight of stairs. Through an open door Phoebe stepped into a large, spare living room overlooking a backyard. In contrast to the sumptuous decay of the building, the apartment itself was sleekly renovated, crisp walls, knotty blond floor.
“Have a seat, walk around, make yourself at home,” Wolf said, setting Phoebe’s backpack inside the door. “Some coffee?”
Phoebe followed Wolf into a kitchen. His shape was the same, she decided, broad torso, long legs, but the smallness, the slight ness of him disconcerted her. He was no bigger than any other tall man.
Wolf set the kettle to boil and turned to Phoebe, smiling. “You grew up,” he said.
Phoebe crossed her arms.
“You were, like, a child the last time I saw you.”
“Ten,” she said. “I was ten.”
“Now you’re what, sixteen, seventeen?”
“Eighteen.”
“Eighteen,” Wolf said. “God, I forget how long it’s been.”
The kettle sang. He lifted it from the stove with a potholder, pouring an arc of scalding water into the filter.
“Your hair’s so short,” Phoebe said shyly. “And you have glasses now.”
“I always had glasses, I just never wore them,” Wolf said, laughing. “My blurred youth.”
“You look different,” Phoebe said. She couldn’t get over it. “You look, I don’t know, respectable.”
Wolf gave a wry half-smile. “It’s a different world.”
They brought their mugs to the living room and sat on a striped blue couch. Sunlight poured through the windows. In the bright light Wolf suddenly leaned toward Phoebe, peering at her forehead. “What’s happened to you?” he said softly.
“I fell.”
Gently Wolf pressed a palm to Phoebe’s head. The cool of his hand felt good. “Looks like someone beat you up,” he said. “How did you do this?”
“Oh, it’s not worth telling,” Phoebe said. “Stairs.”
Wolf let it go, but she sensed his reluctance, his concern, and they felt like balm. The bright light hurt her eyes; she closed them awhile and leaned back. It seemed an unfathomable luxury, being in somebody’s home.
“How’s your mom?” Wolf said.
“She’s good, I guess.