The Woman in the Window: The most exciting debut thriller of 2018. A. Finn J.

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       4

      A RANGY TEENAGER BURSTS from the front door of number 207, like a horse from the starting gate, and gallops east down the street, past my front windows. I don’t get a good look—I’ve awoken early, after a late night with Out of the Past, and am trying to decide if a swallow of merlot might be wise; but I catch a bolt of blond, a backpack slung from one shoulder. Then he’s gone.

      I slug a glass, float upstairs, settle myself at my desk. Reach for my Nikon.

      In the kitchen of 207 I can see the father, big and broad, backlit by a television screen. I press the camera to my eye and zoom in: the Today show. I might head down and switch on my own TV, I muse, watch alongside my neighbor. Or I might view it right here, on his set, through the lens.

      I decide to do that.

      IT’S BEEN a while since I took in the facade, but Google furnishes a street view: whitewashed stone, faintly Beaux-Arts, capped with a widow’s walk. From here, of course, I can set my sights only on the side of the house; through its east windows, I’ve a clear shot into the kitchen, a second-floor parlor, and a bedroom above.

      Yesterday a platoon of movers arrived, hauling sofas and television sets and an ancient armoire. The husband has been directing traffic. I haven’t seen the wife since the night they moved in. I wonder what she looks like.

      I’M ABOUT to checkmate Rook&Roll this afternoon when I hear the bell. I shuffle downstairs, slap the buzzer, unlock the hall door, and find my tenant looming there, looking, as they say, rough and ready. He is handsome, with his long jaw, his eyes like trapdoors, dark and deep. Gregory Peck after a late evening. (I’m not the only one who thinks so. David likes to entertain the occasional lady friend, I’ve noticed. Heard, really.)

      “I’m heading to Brooklyn tonight,” he reports.

      I drag a hand through my hair. “Okay.”

      “You need me to take care of anything before I go?” It sounds like a proposition, like a line from a noir. You just put your lips together and blow.

      “Thanks. I’m fine.”

      He gazes past me, squints. “Bulbs need changing? It’s dark in here.”

      “I like it dim,” I say. Like my men, I want to add. Is that the joke from Airplane? “Have …” Fun? A good time? Sex? “… a good time.”

      He turns to go.

      “You know you can just come on in through the basement door,” I tell him, trying for playful. “Chances are I’ll be home.” I hope he’ll smile. He’s been here two months, and I haven’t once seen him grin.

      He nods. He leaves.

      I close the door, double-bolt the lock.

      I STUDY myself in the mirror. Wrinkles like spokes around my eyes. A slur of dark hair, tigered here and there with gray, loose about my shoulders; stubble in the scoop of my armpit. My belly has gone slack. Dimples stipple my thighs. Skin almost luridly pale, veins flowing violet within my arms and legs.

      Dimples, stipples, stubble, wrinkles: I need work. I had a down-home appeal once, according to some, according to Ed. “I thought of you as the girl next door,” he said sadly, toward the end.

      I look down at my toes rippling against the tile—long and fine, one (or ten) of my better features, but a bit small-predator right now. I rummage through my medicine cabinet, pill bottles stacked atop one another like totem poles, and excavate a nail clipper. At last, a problem I can fix.