Chapter 1 — Next Station, Yesterday

In the dream, the destination board inside the train car never showed the name of a place. The letters flipped too fast to read, as if someone still hadn’t decided where Mira was supposed to go. She stood in front of doors that refused to slide open while a woman’s voice announced over the loudspeaker in polite, measured tones, “Next station, yesterday.”

The other passengers took it as ordinary travel information. A child closed a picture book. Someone adjusted the knot of a scarf. Mira opened her mouth to ask whether the train was ever going to stop, and her alarm went off first.

It was 06.43.

She knew the numbers before looking at her phone. Three minutes from now, the bathroom pipe on the floor above would clear its throat. Right after that, the door to Niko’s apartment next door would open, close, and open a second time because he always forgot something inside. At 07.02 Mira would check her stove knob, even though she hadn’t turned the burner on that morning. Once, she had forced herself to leave without checking it. All the way to work she had thought about the unlit stove.

Upstairs, the pipe cleared its throat right on schedule.

“Good morning,” Mira said to the ceiling.

Three months ago she had changed her alarm tone to the sound of chirping birds. That night she dreamed of a flock of birds arguing over a train timetable, and the next morning she overslept. Before going to bed she switched the old chime back on. When she told Niko about it, he said her body had clearly signed a binding contract with the old alarm. Ever since then, Mira had honored a contract she had never read.

Out in the third-floor hallway, Niko was locking his front door with a large manila envelope clamped under his chin. He was wearing the same coat as yesterday. His wool scarf hadn’t left his neck since November. Spotting Mira, he raised one hand in greeting, and the envelope dropped to the floorboards.

“Don’t say it,” Mira said.

“I haven’t said a word.”

“Your umbrella is still inside.”

Niko looked at the rain streaking the stairwell window, then at his locked door, then at the envelope on the floor. “It might clear up today.”

“You said that yesterday.”

“And it did clear up.”

“After we got home.”

Smiling, he picked up the envelope and unlocked his door again. Mira started down the stairs without waiting for him. Niko would catch up at the second-floor landing. Eight years was plenty of time to memorize how long it took a man to find his umbrella.

Solène’s bakery sat on the street corner, twenty paces from the front door of their building. The instant the two of them stepped inside, Solène set two paper bags on the counter. Behind Mira, a customer in line let out an audible sigh.

“The long loaf for you,” Solène said to Niko. “The small roll for you. Didn’t sleep again, Mira?”

“I slept.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

Solène was nearly seventy, though she rejected any number people tried to pin on her. On the wall beside the door hung a framed photograph of her as a young woman, standing in front of this very bakery beside a man. Customers liked to ask who the man was. Solène’s answer changed every week. Sometimes he was her first husband, sometimes a war criminal, sometimes a locksmith who had taken too long to return a spare key.

Mira paid her coins and took the bread she genuinely wanted to eat. Nobody forced it on her. Every morning she walked through that door and chose it all over again.

Out on the sidewalk, Niko popped open his umbrella, whose left metal rib was bent at an angle. Mira’s outer shoulder stayed exposed to the drizzle. When Niko tilted the canopy toward her, his own shoulder took the rain.

“We could buy a new umbrella,” Mira said.

“This one still works.”

“As a colander, too.”

“Mira, every object in this world has more than one use.”

“Now I understand why you’ve lasted so long at the print shop.”

“Because I respect paper?”

“Because you think every mistake can simply be reprinted.”

He turned his head. His smile vanished, and Mira regretted the sentence half a second before she saw his face. Usually the two of them lobbed remarks back and forth without thinking twice. This morning every word leaving Mira’s mouth came out with a sharp edge.

At the steps of the Parmentier Métro station, Niko said, “See you tonight,” as if they had made an appointment. In truth, they rode home together almost every evening. Mira gave a nod and walked down the steps.

The boutique hotel where she worked sat on a narrow street near Bourse, six stops away. Waiting at the front desk were the morning arrivals list, cancellations, date changes, and special requests from guests asking for a quiet room in the middle of central Paris. Camille, her colleague at the next terminal, had once remarked that Mira was capable of resenting a problem before the problem even happened. Across her monitor, names arrived and departed all day long. Mira’s own name never appeared on the departure screen.

Just before noon, a couple arrived too early for check-in. The husband was hauling two suitcases and a duty-free shopping bag from the airport. His wife chattered brightly about having a window that looked out over the rooftops of Paris.

“We came here to start a brand-new life,” she told Mira across the counter.

“Your room will be ready in half an hour. I can store your luggage in the meantime.”

“Wonderful. Everything feels possible in this city.”

Turning, she kissed her husband’s cheek while he patted his coat pockets looking for a phone charger.

After locking their suitcases in the luggage room, Mira walked into the staff restroom and let out a quiet laugh in front of the sink mirror. Everything feels possible in this city. A second later her eyes stung with tears. That morning an email had arrived from her landlord, three lines long. Her apartment lease had renewed automatically for a ninth year, same rent, same door. An hour after that, her mother had texted a photo of an ultrasound printout. Her youngest sister, twenty-six, with three exclamation marks. Underneath, her mother had written, When is it your turn, sweetheart? Just kidding. Nobody had left her. Nothing had changed. In two minutes she had to walk back out to the front desk and answer questions about breakfast hours.

Camille rapped lightly on the door. “Are you in there?”

“Yes. Coming out in a second.”

“No rush. Room twelve is looking for an iron. I can handle that tragedy on my own.”

Dabbing her eyes with a thin paper towel, Mira waited until Camille’s footsteps faded before stepping out. She walked past the mirror without looking at it.

That afternoon, sorting credit card slips beside the room chart, Camille glanced up. “That brand-new-life couple is going to complain their window is too small.”

“They haven’t even gone up to the room yet.”

“That has never stopped anyone from expecting too much from a window.”

When Mira reached her building that night, the third-floor hallway light was flickering at half strength. Behind the door next to hers, Niko coughed once. Nine minutes later her phone chimed.

Niko had texted her a photo of a freshly printed wedding invitation. Between two names set in ornate calligraphy, the bride’s given name had been swapped with her mother’s name. Mira pictured the family opening a hundred cream envelopes and having to explain why the groom appeared to be marrying his future mother-in-law.

Prototype, Niko wrote. Don’t call the police yet.

Mira laughed loud enough for the thin plaster wall between their apartments to hear. Keep one for the archives. Most stable love story of the year.

Niko replied with a picture of a leaky umbrella.

Before climbing into bed, Mira tore a sheet from a hotel notepad and listed the things she could change without asking anyone’s permission. Her walking route to the station. The position of the small side table in her living room. Her Wi-Fi network name. Breakfast. Within thirty seconds the list looked like homework assigned to someone who was tired of her own house. She crumpled the paper into a ball, then uncrumpled it because the plumber’s phone number was written on the back.

At 06.43 the next morning, her alarm went off. Upstairs, the pipe cleared its throat. Next door, Niko’s door opened, closed, and opened again.

Inside the bakery, Solène slid the small paper bag across the counter before Mira even reached the register. Mira kept her hands at her sides.

“I want something else today.”

Solène glanced down at the display tray. “Something else like what?”

Mira looked at the tray too. For years she had walked into this shop without really seeing what lay behind the glass. There were sugar brioches, cheese pastries, and three kinds of tarts whose names she had never learned. She pointed to the pastry farthest from her usual roll.

Solène arched one eyebrow. “You don’t like raisins.”

“Maybe I’m starting to like them.”

“The raisins haven’t changed.”

“People can change.”

Right behind her, Niko stepped through the door. “Before seven in the morning? Give the rest of us a warning first.”

Mira bought the raisin pastry anyway. Carrying it out to the sidewalk like a small trophy, she took her first bite and felt the victory crumble in her mouth. The raisins were warm and overly sweet, the wrong fruit hiding inside otherwise decent dough.

Walking beside her, Niko didn’t say a word. Mira knew he was eyeing the remaining three-quarters of the pastry sitting untouched in her hand. Halfway to the Métro station, Mira stopped short on the pavement.

“Just say it.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“That’s the problem. Normally you’d have made three jokes by now.”

“I’m respecting your personal journey toward becoming a raisin person.”

Mira wanted to laugh, except her irritation got there first.

“I want to get married.”

Niko nearly walked straight into a man wheeling a bicycle.