The Unseen World by Liz Moore Page A

than anyone Ada had ever met, and several years before had installed central air in her hundred-year-old house, which cost her more than she cared to admit. All spring Ada had seen men working on Liston’s roof, coming and going through the front door. Now a large metal box occupied a space in her backyard, near the patio, and inside the house it felt calm and cool and shadowy. The sweat on Ada’s neck cooled and disappeared.
    She had only been in Liston’s house a handful of times before. Normally when she and David got together outside work it was at a restaurant, or at David’s house. In its layout her home was similar to David’s—living room, sitting room, dining room, kitchen on the first floor; bedrooms above—but she had decorated it quite differently. All the upholstery was floral or patterned in some way, in accordance with the fashion of the decade. Large framed mirrors hung on some of the walls, so that Ada could not avoid seeing herself at every turn; prints of famous paintings or reproductions of movie posters hung on others.
    Liston brought her into the kitchen, which was larger than David’s, and sat Ada down at a built-in nook that looked something like a booth at a restaurant.
    â€œWhat can I get you to eat, hon?” asked Liston, and rattled off a list of all the snacks of the 1980s that Ada was never permitted to have: canned pastas by Chef Boyardee, Fluffernutter sandwiches, fluorescent Kraft macaroni and cheese. In truth, Ada had never even heard of some of the food Liston offered her. She chose the sandwich, thinking it would mean the least work, and Liston scooped out something white and soft and put it on a piece of Wonder Bread, with peanut butter on another piece, and then she closed them together with a clap, and handed it to Ada with a glass of milk.
    For a while she watched Ada eat. Then, finally, she spoke.
    â€œWhat do you want to do? Do you want to watch TV?”
    Ada opened and closed her mouth twice.
    â€œDo you not watch TV?” Liston inquired.
    â€œNo, I do,” said Ada, and told herself that it was not, in fact, a lie, because there was a police drama that David and she watched together sometimes, and occasionally David rented and watched old films or television shows on the VCR, which counted, she supposed.
    Ada followed Liston into what she called “the TV room,” which David would have called a sitting room, and there it was, a big box of a television, as big as any Ada had ever seen. Facing it was a couch with a right angle built into it. She sat down there, in the elbow of the curve. She put a pillow over her lap.
    Liston turned on the television with a remote control, which she handed to Ada. “We just got cable,” said Liston. “There are probably a hundred channels on there. I don’t know what half of them are.”
    Ada inspected the remote. David had made a primitive variant that they used at home, but this one looked official, and had many more buttons.
    â€œI’ll be working in the kitchen if you need me,” said Liston.
    Ada flipped upward through the channels. The following images came onto the screen—and for the rest of her life, for reasons she could never explain, they stayed with her. A bride in a dress. Two men fishing. A gentleman walking through an empty home. Congresspeople debating. A redheaded girl with a redheaded boy. Somebody standing in a field of blue flowers. A cartoon of Superman flying. A movie about war, with soldiers climbing over a low stone wall. She left the last one on and watched as they advanced on the opposition. It looked like it was meant to be World War II, and the troops looked like they were meant to be British. David liked war movies. Ada knew about war.
    She watched the entire film and then she began to watch the next one, which was its sequel, when suddenly she noticed someone standing next to her, in her peripheral vision. She kept her face turned very