The room was nearly empty. A few half-full cardboard boxes pressed to the perimeter and hangers hanging from the closet bar. Dust bunnies shadowed the corners white with still-settling plaster dust. A double mattress and boxspring leaned against the far wall, reaching up to the ceiling in the interest of saving ground space. Jamie sat on a wide white windowsill, staring out at the corner of Bowery and Delancey through the bars of a poorly bolted fire escape. Her breath clouded the glass. She touched it with a bitten index finger, traced a spiral into the condensation and watched it disappear into an oily finger prints. It was cold outside. She could tell by the way people hugged their parkas on the street and the way none of them let their ears show. Hats, scarves, muffs. Not even an earlobe hanging out in the chill.

     Karen was going to stay. She had found a new roommate, some investment banker type who worked on Wall Street and was willing to pay nearly fifty percent more than Jamie's room was worth. At first Karen had felt bad that she was making him pay that much. She just didn't want to leave Manhattan, she said. She'd end up in mice-ridden hole in Brooklyn, right next to where bodies get dumped in the river on the weekends. Jamie told her anyone willing to pay that much money was asking for it anyway.

     It had started out okay, the end. Karen was willing to keep her furniture for her in exchange for its use after Jamie left. Jamie had started cleaning, happy she didn't have to ship anything back besides small personal items too heavy to take on an airplane. But Tuesday, a day and a half before she was supposed to leave, Karen had one of her bouts, and told Jamie she'd have to get her shit out of the apartment if she wanted to see it again after she left. Then she slammed her bedroom door shut and cut up the sides of her arms again. A couple light bulbs shattered against the walls. Jamie left while Karen cleaned everything up.

     Under normal circumstances, Jamie would have let the matter alone, given Karen a few days to confer with her therapist and get back on her medication. But she didn't have a few days. So she called Nick, and at ten o'clock the night before they had moved a desk, some boxes, a featherbed and her television to a storage center in Seaport. Some other stuff, the cheap stuff, was left on the curb for people to take if they wanted, or for the garbage men to take to the Pocanos. She still didn't known what to do with the mattress. Jamie asked Nick if he wouldn't mind if she spent the night on his mattress. He said yes, and instead of staying her last night in New York City alone in her own bed at 139 Chrystie, she spent it with her legs open uptown for a man she had loved but stopped loving. She was grateful for the refuge.

     She had climbed the stairs back to the apartment close to seven in the morning, a list of things to do before her plane left in her pocket, hoping Karen wouldn't be there when she said a real goodbye. She wasn't. Jamie walked into her bedroom, where the mattress sagged upright against the wall, walked to the windowsill, and sat down. The giant billboard that hung across Bowery was blank for once. A year ago it posted a neon green ad for Nu-Power, a Chinese supplement. Jamie was worried she was going to spend the year sleeping under a neon green hue and the watchful eye of a creepy Chinese man in a gray suit. Then it was bought by some Hollywood conglomerate, and provided a constant view of sexy movie stars for the rest of the year. Now it was white. Maybe it was being changed, Jamie thought. Or for sale again. Maybe the lease was up for the Hollywood people, too.

     She pressed her hands again the cold glass of the window and pushed up. It was open, and gave. She thrust one leg, then the other onto the creaky fire escape. It hung unceremoniously over the air duct between buildings, where Karen had watched the senile Chinese lady plummet to her death as she was hanging socks from a clothes line. Karen still refused even to open her blinds. Jamie had missed it. She had missed the firemen and the police, and the bright yellow tape Karen said had blocked off the scene. She had never been able to see the blood staining the asphalt below. She looked for it now, hanging a little bit over the fire escape. If it was there, it was covered with dirt and ice, discarded bottles and a lost shirt. She wondered if that had fallen with the lady. Flying behind her like a cape. Or a shroud.

     Jamie pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pockets, which she had bought at the deli on the corner of 137th and Broadway before taking the 1 back downtown from Nick's apartment, after he had kissed her goodbye on concrete steps below a concrete arch. Girls played double dutch there in the summer time. Their grandparents chided them in Nuyorican Spanish, crouched in cheap folding chairs meant for beaches and backyard barbeques, or hanging out the windows while they hung out their wash to dry in the August humidity. Jamie peeled the cellophane away from the hard cigarette box, and smacked the bottom and top of the box against the heel of her palm, hard to pack the tobacco. She opened up the box, and dug in her jacket pockets for a lighter, cigarette clasped gently between her slightly chapped lips. She sucked in a deep drag, slow and long so it would stay lit in the breeze. As she exhaled, the smoke filtered into the clear morning air, gray blended with the white of her own breath. She watched it for a moment, holding the cigarette in a reddened hand. Nick hated it when she smoked. She only did it when she knew she wouldn't see him.

     Her cell phone vibrated on the window sill inside. Jamie put out the last of her cigarette, and tossed it down the air duct before stepping back into the apartment. It was warm in there. She picked up her phone.

     "Hey," she said. "You're up early."

     "Yeah, you know, I have to work early this morning."

     "School work or work work?"

     Jacob laughed over the phone and Jamie smiled.

     "School work," he said. "I'm at Starbucks now. You know they're going to stop being open twenty four hours?"

     "No," Jamie said. "That's terrible. Guess I'm leaving just in time."

     "Guess you are. So anyway, I'm taking a break. You gonna be around in about twenty minutes?"

     "Yes," Jamie said. "I'm just packing up a few things before the UPS guy comes to pick them up."

     "Okay," Jacob said. "I'm walking down right now."

     "Kay, see ya." Jamie hung up the phone and turned to the boxes in the room, flaps hanging out. Limp. She didn't want to finish packing. She wanted another cigarette. She walked out of the bedroom into the kitchenette and opened the refrigerator. They had some orange juice, so she took it out and poured some into one of the thick pint glasses she had bought after Karen broke two of her blue plates. The plates were only worth about five dollars. Karen was mad when she found that out after buying Jamie a twenty-five dollar gift certificate to replace them. Don't worry about it, Jamie had said. We'll get glasses instead. We don't have any of those.

     Jamie sipped the orange juice, sloshing it around her mouth to rid her saliva and gums of tobacco residue. She would have to brush her teeth, too. Maybe use some mouthwash. She had decided to give Karen her blue dishes, as well as the glasses, and all of her kitchen appliances for Christmas. She had run out of money, didn't even have enough to tip the cab driver for her ride to JFK. So she had come home from a final with a brilliant idea. Karen didn't have any dishes. She would love to have Jamie's. Karen, she had said when she opened the door. Merry Christmas! Karen had looked at her, confused. What, what is it? Merry Christmas, Jamie had said again. I want to give you all of my kitchen stuff for Christmas. All of it. Karen had looked at her, with a funny expression, a blank look that matched the blank color of her skin and hair. Oh, she had said. Thanks, I guess. And gone back to watching another episode of Everybody Loves Raymond on TBS.

     Now Jamie wished she could take back her gift. She didn't even want her cheap kitchenware, bought wholesale just for something to eat on eleven months before, when she had first moved in. But she wished she could take each of the blue plates still in there, and fling them off the fire escape like ceramic Frisbees, to crash into the brick and concrete, to haunt Karen with dead dishes and Chinese ladies alike. But she wouldn't. She would just drink the rest of the orange juice and leave without another word. She poured herself another glass. The carton was still fairly full. Jamie had a day of orange juice ahead of her.

     The buzzer killed, loud and obnoxious. Jamie pressed the button on the intercom, moved her lips closer.

     "Who is it?" she asked.

     "Jacob, let me up!"

     She didn't say anything, just pressed the button for the door, holding it five seconds before she let go. Her fingers were still a little cold. She unlocked the door and walked back the orange juice on the counter. She was the tipping her head back to drain the rest of the glass when Jacob walked in and the door banged shut behind him.

     "Hey," he said.

     "Hey," Jamie said, slightly breathless from too many orange gulps. Her throat hurt a little from the acid.

     "Havin' some juice?"

     She nodded, pouring herself another glass.

     "I'm going to finish it."

     Jacob didn't know what that meant, so he just nodded. Jamie smiled, and followed him back to her bedroom.

     "You just get up or something?"

     Jamie looked at her reflection in the window. Her hair was messy in its ponytail, and she knew there was mascara smudged under her right eye. Her clothes had spent the night in a corner in Nick's bedroom.

     "No," she said. "I just got home. Stayed the night at Nick's."

     "Ohhh," said Jacob. "I see. Wow, it looks so much bigger without all the furniture. This it?"

     "Yeah," said Jamie. "Here, I'll bring it down so you can try it out." She pulled the sagging mattress set back to the floor, gentle with the box spring so it wouldn't scratch the hard wood finish. Jacob flopped onto the mattress, curling into a fetal position and closing his eyes.

     "Well?" said Jamie. "What do you think."

     "Give me a second," Jacob said. He kept his eyes closed, and Jamie waited next to the mattress, watching him pretend to sleep, even pretending to toss and turn. He sat up. "I like it," he said. "But I can't get anyone to help bring it up until late tonight, that okay?"

     Jamie nodded.

     "That's fine," she said. "I'll be up all night, anyway, and I can be your third person. My plane doesn't leave till five in the morning."

     Jacob grimaced, showing his slightly crooked teeth.

     "Yuck," he said. "Have fun."

     "Have you have breakfast yet?" asked Jamie. "I'm tired of this orange juice, and there's nothing else in the fridge."

     Jacob shook his head.

     "I was thinking of going to B & H," he said.

     They walked back down the six flights of stairs after Jamie wiped the mascara away and changed into a clean pair of jeans, the ones she planned to wear on the airplane. She wrapped her head in a thick white scarf, and grabbed her thick sherpa coat, which had pockets like mittens. They walked up Chrystie, across the street from the park which housed basketball courts and neighborhood gardens next to the wholesale beer distributors and lumberyard. They ducked under the scaffolding at the corner of Chrystie and Houston. A luxury high rise was being constructed on top of a Whole Foods Center.

     "This is bullshit," Jamie said. "This kind of the building doesn't belong on the Lower East Side. It makes me feel like I'm uptown with the yuppies." She said that every time she walked under the scaffolding. Jacob had heard her say it before, and nodded again.

     They crossed Houston, where Chrystie turned into Second Avenue. Natchez, the Cajun restaurant where Jamie had a date with a yuppie four months prior. He had tried to sleep with her, and after spending the night in her bed without getting past second base, never called her again. She hadn't cared that much. But she had gone back to the bar where they'd met a few times after, hoping to run into him. Jamie dreamed of confrontation but never achieved it.

     They passed the tattoo parlor where Jamie had gotten a black circle tattooed around her right bicep, and later had a ring placed in her upper ear cartilage. You couldn't see it now. Like everyone else, she had covered her ears, in an orange cap. She and Jacob chatted about pending classes and the weather on the West Coast, and watching their breath puff out in clouds when they spoke.

     "Everyone smokes in the winter time," Jamie said, and realized she had forgotten her cigarettes at the apartment.

     "Yeah," said Jacob. "I guess they do." He stopped in front of a door no one would notice if they hadn't known where they were going. "You coming?"

     Jamie followed him inside B & H Diner, a yellowish tube with a row of two person tables on the left, and a long bar on the right where the cook worked fried eggs and sandwiches. There was barely enough room to maneuver between each side, complicated by the several other patrons enjoying their food. Jacob and Jamie found two seats at the end of the bar by the kitchen, and peeled their layers off before taking their seats on the swivel chairs.

     "I can't believe I've never been here," Jamie said.

     "You've never been here?" asked Jacob.

     "No," said Jamie. "Never. And look at this food. It looks so good."

     "It's cheap, too," said Jacob. "It's great."

     The cook behind the counter handed them each menus and two slices of challah bread. His large middle was covered by a dirty white apron, and there was a black line underneath his fingernails. Jamie placed a bite of the soft, thick bread in her mouth while she examined her options. Everything was kosher, which was nice to know even though she wasn't Jewish. She figured it was just nice to know that people abided by standards. It could almost be any standards, as long as they were there. Jacob ordered a spinach omelet, but Jamie decided she wasn't in the mood for breakfast anymore. She ordered the goat cheese sandwich on challah bread, and a cup of the mushroom barley soup which steamed in front of her. The steam was gray, not white. The cook also gave her two more piece of challah bread on the side. All together she had six pieces to eat.

     "So, can I ask?" Jacob said through a mouthful of egg, which also steamed on his plate. That steam seemed more white than gray.

     "Ask what?"

     "Are you glad to be going?"

     Jamie held her goat cheese sandwich in front of her. There was too much cheese, and she wasn't sure she could eat it all. She took a bite and changed her mind.

     "Well," she said, her words muffled. "Yes. This whole thing with Karen is kind of a pain in the ass. I'm ready for it all to be over."

     "It's not really her fault, though," Jacob said, gesturing with his fork. There was still a shred of spinach dangling on the end. "My friend is a psych major, and she told me that borderlines have huge issues with abandonment. Like, it's more stressful than anything else."

     "I know," said Jamie. "But it's still a pain in the ass. I'm just ready to get out of here already."

     "Aren't you sad to be leaving, though?"

     Jamie thought about that for a second. Then she nodded.

     "Maybe a little," she said. "I'll miss my friends. Like you."

     Jacob snorted. He said she was corny. Then he said he'd miss her, too. He nudged her on the shoulder, and started talking about a management class he was going to take that would somehow incorporate literary theory. Jamie listened while she watched the cook make another omelet with his greasy hands. At least it was kosher, she thought. She nodded when Jacob paused in the conversation.

     "So I have to get back to studying," Jacob said, finishing up his omelet. Jamie realized she had one more piece of challah bread to eat. She used it to sponge up the residue from the mushroom barley soup.

     "Okay," she said. They left their cash on the counter and hopped off the stools.

     The cold outside hit Jamie's face like needles, briefly pinching her skin. She wrapped her head again and zipped up her jacket.

     "God, it's cold," she said.

     "You think it'll snow?" Jacob asked.

     Jamie shook her head.

     "Look at the sky," she said. "It's blue. Too dry to snow."

     The water gathered on the street gutters had already frozen, a layer of translucent white on top of the black concrete.

     "So I'll see you later tonight?" she asked Jacob through a layer of wool.

     "Yes," he said. His face wasn't covered, but he had on a gray hat to cover his ears. "I'll call you around ten o'clock."

     "Okay," said Jamie. They hugged for a second. Jacob waved as he walked around the corner to St. Mark's place. Jamie turned back to walk back down Second Avenue, bending her head low into the oncoming breeze.

     The cold snap broke eight days later, when Jamie was already in Seattle. Two weeks after that a blizzard coated New England with about three feet of snow. Meanwhile, Jamie's scarves hung limp in her closets, unnecessary in the balmy sixty-degree winds blowing through Seattle in January.

     When she returned to the apartment, Jamie noticed she had left her bedroom window slightly open. The wind, picking up a little outside, whistled through it like a distant train. The apartment was still empty. Jamie strode into her room, her boots loud on the hard wood floor. She slammed the window shut tight, sitting on the window sill again, and pressing her forehead against the pane. Her breath made clouds again, but she didn't touch them. For just a moment, she didn't want to see.