I LOOK AT THE FLOOR-TO-CEILING windows of my office and see nothing but my own reflection in the glass. It is already dark outside when I leave my job on Paulista, an avenue lined with financial institutions and the offices of foreign companies. I drive down Consolation Street to meet friends for dinner as well as Teresa, my lover of seven years.
It is summer, and the day has been hot and humid, but when I park my car on a street corner, a cool breeze sways the leaves of a lonely tree, as if a giant fan had been placed at the mouth of the tunnel across the street to blow cold air toward the Round Bar and Restaurant. Familiar sounds fill the evening: horns blow, brakes squeal, and engines hum under the chatting of pedestrians. A succession of buses shake on their way up and down the street, passengers hanging from the doors by scrawny limbs. The wind presses the fabric of their clothes against their skins, revealing forms – buttocks, the curve of a back, and the taut muscles of a shoulder. People rush by on their way home, to evening classes, or to graveyard shifts. The city cannot afford to sleep, so the end of the day merely signals shift changes.
When I arrive at the reserved table by the large glass window, most of my friends are already seated, sipping cold wine, beer or frosty cocktails. We are a jovial group of elegant, professional women in pantsuits,
…
Nana Howton is a Brazilian-born American writer with a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from Columbia University. She has attended the Iowa Writers' Summer Workshop twice, and her stories and essays have appeared in various publications including the Rio Grande Review, UK's Litro Magazine, Pacific Review, Arts and Letters, and Fiction Fix, where she won a Reader’s Circle Award and Editor’s Choice Award, as well as nominations to the Pushcart Prize and American Best Short Stories. Saisons des Feux (Des Femmes, Paris) – Burning Seasons (Scribe, UK and Australia) is her first novel. www.nanahowton.com