The sun began to peek through between the buildings that littered East Fadingham. Clouds flitted about the top of the sky, little strings of pulled cotton. It was a grey sort of day, looking much like rain wanted to burst from the wispy clouds. He knew, though, that the sun would rise and clouds would cover it just as the buildings did then. The rain would start as a mist, covering everything in a light dusting of acidic water that probably contributed to Global Warming. The day would carry on and people would walk about the dirty Fadingham streets with their umbrellas. And then, just when they thought the rain had stopped (stupid tourists), it would start to downpour and they'd all run and hide in their used cars. He ought to consider becoming a weatherman.

James Conaway stepped out of bed, absently rubbing the back of his head, tousling the hair. He yawned; he stretched; he wiped his eyes free of sleep. Typical morning-routine. Typical day. Typical life. It was draining, when he thought about it. Predictability and consistency were things he would have liked back in the day, back when he was young. And now, at thirty-three, he would have appreciated a bit of change. He felt much older than thirty-three. Is that what happened when one became drained, figuratively speaking? He supposed so and looked at the clock, slipping on a pair of jeans that lay heaped in a corner. The neon letters read 6:48 AM. He hated morning.

He glanced up at the ceiling. It had been two weeks since the new girl moved in upstairs. She was young; only in her early-twenties. He hadn't said more than two words to her, and he didn't really expect to do more than that. She was his complete opposite and, from what he knew, she'd probably annoy the remaining life out of him. He glanced up at his ceiling; her floor. Thank God she was a late sleeper, he thought, now putting on a pot of coffee. If it weren't for their disparate schedules (could they be called that?) Conaway would have already gone insane. She was loud, as he found out one night when she stumbled up the steps of the rickety building at around one o'clock in the morning.

He didn't even know the girl and he already thought of her as a burden. He acted more like he was fifty-three, not thirty-three. He may as well have thrown on some suspenders and a sweater-vest and got a pair of mile-thick spectacles. At least then, Conaway figured, he could look the role he acted. At this sad truth, he sighed, pushing back the infinitely unkempt hair from his eyes. Staring at the coffee dripping into the pot, slowly, methodically, and rather tauntingly, he began to wish he knew how to work the damn machine; at least then he'd be able to have a cup of coffee ready for him when he woke up, and all this frustration and miserable thoughts that accompanied the waiting would be gone. It was too early (barely seven o'clock!) to be wasting away in improvident thoughts.

But still, he thought, hunched over with his chin resting in half-open palms. He couldn't help but wonder about her, this mysterious girl who --

He cut himself off, inwardly scolding his irrelevant thoughts. Even so, they wandered in the way that thoughts seemed to do. He told himself not to go there, yet -- he went there. At the very least, it was his subconscious that went there. James Conaway knew that he thought it was her the very first time he saw his neighbour from afar. "Her." If he was not so tired, he would have scoffed at this use of a pronoun. Just say her god damn name, you cowardly bastard. It was, he realized, because of her that he started calling the season "fall" rather than --

"Autumn." He murmured the name; it was diminutive in its volume, barely audible to anyone more than a foot away had they been there. It was the first time he said the name, in any form of audio, in years. A decade, if not more. And, he thought in all cynicism; leave it to the stranger to bring her up, however unintentionally.

It wasn't the girl's fault that, from behind, when the light hit just right, she looked like Autumn Adderly. The coppery-blonde that the girl's hair took on when the sun shone brightly (for the first time, he supposed, in ages; it was always raining, wasn't it?) was almost identical to Autumn's hair colour, as he remembered it. The way the girl bent forward to pick up her suitcase from the ground and how the hair had fallen forward, a cascading veil that hid the facial features. When she turned around and started towards the door, the girl wore a small frown that completely undermined the smiling exterior she had on prior to the car (a black Mercedes, quite unlike anything he'd have expected to show up) leaving. It was as if Autumn was walking back into his life, only louder and bawdy (if not simply lewd). Regardless, Conaway found himself unsure what to think. So, he did what any "cowardly bastard" would do and avoided meeting the girl at most costs. He tried not to go out of his way.

He missed her more than he could express in words, actions, or thoughts. He loved her; the only woman he'd ever truly loved, unconditionally. For the many years they had dated, and the short amount of time they'd been engaged while he was gone, he didn't expect his life to be wronged the way it was. It was right before he left that he proposed to her. She said she would wait until he was out, a free man again. Autumn said she loved him more than anything and for that she was willing to put everything on hold for him. And as he sat there, each night, wondering where the hell he went wrong, he thought of her. He thought of how she was sleeping alone each night, waking alone each morning, spending each day alone -- all because of him. He couldn't bare living with that, and it was the next time she visited him he told her so.

James told her that he didn't want her to miss out on opportunities because of his misfortune. He told her that he hated himself for not being able to be there with her each day, for not being able to kiss her lips or hold her hand. She said she understood; that everything was going to be fine once things were sorted out. And in the hardest decision of his life, he told her he couldn't marry her. He felt crazy trying to explain to her it was all out of love, that it wasn't her fault, and he wouldn't ever stop loving her. The way she looked at him with tear-stricken eyes made him want to stay away forever.

And he did. He hadn't seen her since that day. He wondered about her occasionally, asked himself if she was happier, better off. Each time he answered yes, she was. It was inevitable that Autumn would have found herself in a new relationship; she was probably married by now, too. Conaway sighed and glanced at the coffee pot which was full. It had finished brewing, something he found to be a relief. At least with caffeine in his system, he figured, he'd be able to control his thoughts. Maybe.

He was almost finished his second cup of coffee when he heard a loud thump above him. He slowly raised an eyebrow, reached across the table for a cigarette and lit it. He was hardly an avid smoker, but popped one in his mouth from time to time. It seemed like as good a time as any, right? Conaway shrugged inwardly, exhaling the effluvium of cigarette smoke. He was almost in a complete calm, thanks to a combination of nicotine and caffeine, before there was a shriek. He scowled, staring into his almost-empty cup of coffee. With unreasonable vehemence shot at the ceiling, the noise from upstairs continued, this time a wail followed by a collection of loud murmurs that melted into the floor, into his ceiling, into his mind.

"Shut up," he muttered to himself, shooting another angry glance at the ceiling. He could hear her light footsteps above. Noise carried through the building like water through air. There was virtually no interruption. He had half a mind to go upstairs, knock on her door, and ask her to please, would she kindly shut the fuck up? Rather to his displeasure, he also had the other half of a mind, telling him to relax and get over himself. He ignored that half and, marching to the beat of the neighbour's voice and noise, opened his door.

Stepping over the threshold, hands in his pockets, he put on his best "angry neighbour" face and started up the staircase. He made his steps heavy, his eyebrows furrowed, and shoulders slightly hunched. Conaway thought himself to be quite threatening in his appearance. That is, until he finally walked up to the door and knocked. The string of curse words that followed caught him off guard, knocking down his tough-guy exterior. When she actually answered the door, she appraised him almost mockingly; one hand on her hip, the other's fingers playing with a lock of her honey-coloured hair as she leaned, ostentatiously, against the door frame. She raised a pencil-thin eyebrow in a delicate manner, light hazel eyes staring up at him as he, through contrastingly dark eyes, looked down at her.

If ever he had to look down at someone it was now. He stood at least a foot taller than her, and he must've weighed twice as much as she. Conaway thought, rashly, that he might break her in half if he touched her in the slightest way. She was as petite as petite came; it was unnerving and uncomfortable. So, he settled on looking at her. He had forgotten what he wanted to say to her and instead settled for furrowing his eyebrows and frowning nonplussed. She sighed exasperatedly, clicking her tongue in pure impatience. When he said nothing, still, she rolled her eyes.

"Who the hell are you and what do you want?" she demanded; he felt pressured. Had she ever considered working for the CIA or FBI or any other mélange of vowels and consonant? quipped James. She was staring, still, her eyes like rapiers being thrusted into his skull and blasting his mind to pieces. She was, in one word, intense (even if the sort of "intense" she constituted for was not exactly traditional). "Well?" Conaway sighed inaudibly. She probably thought he was mute or dull or not all there. Maybe he wasn't.

"James Conaway. I live downstairs." As if to confirm this statement, she glanced down at the floor and back at him. He assumed it was acceptable enough for her, so he offered out his hand. She disregarded it. Instead, she turned around and waved her hand in a way which seemed an invitation inside. He hoped that was what it was, at least, as he took an awkward step over the threshold of her door. In an afterthought, he took hold of the knob and pulled it shut. "I was just downstairs, you know, in my kitchen and I heard some . . . noises." He blinked slightly, rubbing at the back of his neck in a nervous habit. She was nerve-inducing, he thought. He supposed she would have to make up for it somehow, being so small. He shrugged. "I wanted to make sure you were all right."

"Huh." It was all she said. He craned his neck to see where she had gone to, following the sound of her word. She was in the kitchen, James discovered, messing around with some pots and pans. The telephone was on the floor, the batteries misplaced and laying a couple of feet from the phone itself. He looked at it, half-broken and defeated. She was not only intense and nerve-wrecking, she was also violent. Violent towards inanimate objects. He slowly turned his eyes back on her and watched her reach for a knife in one of the many drawers. Good god, he thought; a knife. A chopping knife. In one swift movement, knife still in hand (which, he had to admit, was frightening), she opened the refrigerator door and pulling out a bag of carrots.

Conaway couldn't help but stare, eyebrows raised slightly in uneasy anticipation. The carrots, he thought as he looked at them, could be a cover. She could very easily have ulterior motives -- bad ones, at that. Perhaps she lived alone with fifty cats (they hid in the closet when a visitor arrived on their mistress' doorstep), he mused. She was a spinster-in-the-making and felt the need to do away with all her acquaintances. He sighed, pushing these inane thoughts deep into the back of his mind.

"So, what's yo--"

James was unable to get out half his sentence before she began chopping like mad. The carrots were no longer long strips of orange that one might envision in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. They were halved, quartered, eighthed, and sixteenthed. She made it an art form; a nonconformist's art form that was utterly dangerous and very disconcerting to an onlooker such as himself. In the blink of an eye she had made a whole new substance.

"What's your name?" he asked, mistaking her temporary break for a permanent one. In another quick moment she was scraping the orange mush into a bowl. Conaway couldn't help but ponder what she planned to do with that. Feed it to the cats, his inner-self thought. He almost chuckled at that but figured better of it. She was wielding a knife and proved herself fully capable of using it.

"Dali," she answered without looking at him. She had moved onto a new victim: celery. Did she even eat the vegetables? he wondered. He didn't ask.

In the same manner, Dali began beating the celery to a pulp. Still, she was almost graceful in her violence. He found it entertaining to watch, the way she held the vegetable knife at the handle with her other hand placed over the dull side of the blade. The hand gently (gently, but swiftly) guided the knife in its different directions, making sure each and every bit of the green celery got chopped up to her satisfaction. He felt intimidated.

"Ohhhh," Conaway said, drawing out the single syllable. It seemed insignificant, like it, too, was chopped up along with the celery. He hated the silence that filled the air. Not complete silence, but close enough. There was no conversation, he argued in his mind. No conversation conveyed, to him, silence. He wasn't sure what to do. He felt stupid just standing there, his hands stuffed into his pockets and shoulders hunched slightly forward like they always seemed to be. As he watched her, watched the knife, he felt like a bystander who was looking into a whole new life through a fogged up window. Except there was no window, no fog. He wasn't looking in, either. She was right there, completely real and attached to a name. Dali, she'd said. It was interesting -- he hadn't heard it before. James figured it may have been a nick-name. She seemed like a nick-namey type (if there was a type for that). "What do you do?"

She stopped her chopping, taking the question into deep consideration. He raised an eyebrow at this; one would think one's occupation would be just as automatic an answer as one's name or hair colour. Apparently not, though, as she was thwarting that assumption right then and there. For the first time since he had been inside her flat, she set down the knife. She placed it aside after carefully wiping the bits of celery off of it, and she looked at him. With one hand propped against her hip and the other holding her weight against the countertop she looked very reminiscent of earlier. That didn't surprise him. He watched her. He didn't look at her, nor stare at her, nor glance at her. He was watching her, intent upon an answer and her odd habits. He was sure he could refer to her habits as odd, seeing as she said but ten or twelve words to him, a stranger, and proceeded to cut up vegetables into a pulp. Odd.

"Some of this, some of that." Dali shrugged, removing the hand from her hip so as to inspect the red-varnished nails. Women like her always wore red varnish, didn't they? He had to admit, however, that he wasn't sure there were many other women like her. She may as well have had her own separate category. He wasn't sure what that was.

"Like Barbie?" he asked, a small smile lifting the corner of his mouth. Maybe she was like Barbie, only prettier, void of plastic, and living in a shit-hole rather than a Dream Palace. He thought back to the Mercedes that dropped her off here one day. It wasn't a Lexus or a Porsche but it was certainly new-looking and ... Well, someone she knew had money. More money than the both of them put together, he figured.

"Barbie? No. People like me better than Barbie." She dropped her hand to her side, sighing faintly. He wondered if that meant she was mass produced as well. Her sales must've been astronomical, then, to be more liked than Barbie. "I just enjoy different types, you know? I don't like sticking to just one. I like change every now and then."

He was puzzled. She probably confused people into liking her. How else could she beat out Barbie? James blinked and scolded himself silently; he was taking that all too far. Enough of that, now. "Types of what?" Knives? She seemed to be fond of knives. Perhaps she sold some knives and different other kitchen utensils for a living. That would explain why she lived here, he mused. Not many people that he knew of bought knives or forks off of a woman going door-to-door. Then again, she was Barbie's competitor. He snorted faintly, inaudibly.

"Men." She flashed a smile, pushing back from the counter and walking past him with her little strut. That's what she had, he noticed. A strut. Not a stroll, not a walk, not a gait. She strutted along; full of confidence and God only knew what else.

"You -- men?" he asked, both eyebrows rose in incredulity. She had strutted on past him, sitting on top of the table, now. She was looking at him, that smile still on her face. He muttered uncomfortably, "You mean, you --"

"Prostitute." The smile widened. "Yep, that's me. Dandy Dali, working the streets for the big bucks." She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

He stared. "They must not be very 'big bucks', then, if you're living here." Touché, he thought. "What streets? I've never seen you before. In fact, I haven't seen many girls 'working the streets'. I think I'd have noticed, too."

"Oh, I have plenty of money." She shrugged, jumping down from the table. He was reminded of a child, the way she couldn't stay still for very long. The most concentration he had seen her with, Conaway noted, was when she was cutting up the carrots and celery. "A couple of different streets. You see, I've the right to withhold that information from you. Since you know me, now, apart from my job then -- Well, I couldn't sell myself to you, now could I? It would be immoral. And, for the record, you wouldn't have noticed if you're gay."

"No one in their right mind would choose to live here if they had plenty of money." She didn't have much of a right mind, though, he quipped. "What? I -- No. That's not why I was asking. I didn't want to ... buy you." He blinked; he never thought he would have had to say that sentence. "I'm not gay! I'm completely straight. Straighter than straight, even. I'm full of masculinity." It irritated him that he felt such a strong need to defend himself (and his sexuality, apparently) to a twenty-something-year-old woman who he met but thirty or so minutes ago.

She looked at him, an eyebrow rising. "Don't get your undies in a bunch, Conaway. I'm only kidding with you. I've always wanted to see how someone would react if I told them I was a prostitute." She smiled, nodding, and patted him on the back. "I'm a cook. A chef. I work at a restaurant."

"What one?" he asked, unable to prevent the wave of relief that came over him upon this revelation.

"That's irrelevant." She shrugged; and, in her mind, it was wholly irrelevant. Why did it matter where she worked? She worked and that was that. "One day I'm going to have my own," she said with a genuine smile that barely touched her lips. It was there, though. Whole and happy and reminiscent of a child's naïve elation.

"Is that why you live here?" he asked. "I mean, surely by working at a chef you'd have enough to get by elsewhere. But I suppose if you want to buy your own restaurant you'd have to save money. And what better way of saving money than living in the crappiest efficiency building of all time?"

She paused and looked deep in thought again -- just as she had when thinking about her occupation. Conaway looked at her, waiting an answer. Absentmindedly, she began to twist a strand of honey-coloured hair around her thin forefinger. "Umm, sure." Sidestepping the question and the situation as a whole, Dali smiled a small smile. He thought it to be a sad one that hardly reached the corners of her mouth let alone her eyes.

After a few more lasting moments of silence, Conaway told her it was getting late and that he ought to get going, he wouldn't want to be a burden. He stood up, walking past the small kitchen that, he thought, was hardly big enough for someone with a passion for cooking. He glanced at the tackily tiled floor, noticing the fallen telephone still there. He reached in and picked up the pieces. Upon having stuck the batteries back into their spot and closing the back, he handed it to her. She gave another sad smile.

"Thanks. I got a bit carried away earlier," she said with a small, forced laugh. "That damn sister of mine. She doesn't understand anything, I guess." Dali shrugged lightly, half-heartedly. "She loves me, though. She's only got what's best for me in her mind. And I love her, too. It's just --" She broke off, sighing. "I don't know." She looked at the phone in her hand and tossed it onto the couch.

"Well, bye, Dali. It was nice meeting you." Conaway smiled crookedly, holding out his hand. She took it, briefly, before letting her own drop back to her side.

"You too, Connie."

As he turned and shut the door behind him, James Conaway decided that, yes, she was indeed a "nick-namey person." Even if those nick-names were not for her alone. He smiled a genuine smile.