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PART ONE

"Yeah, I guess I can do a Monday night show."

Elizabeth Woolridge Grant clasped her new, jet black Nokia gently as she lounged in her modest living room. The television was on - nothing worth her attention - just some report on Paul O'Neill of the Yankees in the sports section of the news. She liked having the TV on in the background to block out the noise of the city that creeped in through the thin walls of her Brooklyn apartment. She had moved here just after finishing college upstate more than two years ago. Although she was now much closer to her family on Long Island, she still rarely saw them. That was, until her little sister Chuck started attending Parsons School of Design four days ago.

"Where did you say it was?" She asked, having zoned out slightly.

"Windows, Lizzie, windows on the world." Her old friend Tristan said from the other side of the call as it started to break up.

"I'll call you back in a bit, you're connection is bad." She hung up on him. Back on her screen, the story had changed. It was an update on the mayoral election. Still uninterested, she turned off her set and reclined on her couch, massaging her temples as she did so and focusing upon the numbing hum of the traffic outside. This was a rarity indeed - a Friday night when she had no gigs to play nor any shifts to run to at the midtown coffee house she worked at. She thought of her little sister - eighteen and living in the city without her parents for the first time. She knew that she would be alright, but she still planned to send her e-mails twice a week or so when they didn't have the chance to meet up. She decided that since it was only her first weekend, and her workload wouldn't be too demanding this early, she would take her out for breakfast tomorrow. She dialed her, knowing that the interference from earlier was almost certainly coming from Tristan's end. Two rings was all it took.

"Chuck, hey, are you doing anything tomorrow morning?"

"No, there aren't any classes and I don't need to be studying until later on." She replied as she situated herself upon her bed, books sprawled about before her.

"Do you wanna pick up some bagels or coffee around 7:30?

"Sure, I'd like that." She smiled. It had been a long time since the two of them had eaten a meal together. It had been three months since the graduation dinner that saw Chuck also celebrating her acceptance into Parsons and her first real venture out into the world.

"Good, good. We can meet up at that place on 110th."

"Alright, I'll see you there."

After they said their goodbyes, Lizzy traipsed into her kitchen, stared around at its barren walls and waltzed right back to her previous position on the beige fabric of her rather ordinary couch. It wasn't the meager size of the apartment that depressed her, it was its lack of color, which clashed with the general aesthetic and atmosphere of the city known for its liveliness. All around her the interesting events were happening, art was being made, deals were being conducted and life went on, but within the confines of a place she could at least somewhat call her own, she found something lacking. She found solace that night on the roof.

She lit up a Marlboro as she stared out across the waters of the East River, which was carved out by ice in the last glacial period about 11,000 years ago, and up to the towers of Manhattan, significantly younger but majestic nonetheless. As she breathed the toxic fumes of nicotine and carbon monoxide, she wondered how many of those buildings - fifty, sixty, seventy story giants were banks. How many were home to the stock traders and the trust funds and investment bankers - the leeches of society, the welfare queens on the government's payroll, in the pockets of the politicians who were undoubtedly campaigning at this very moment in some fundraiser on the Upper East Side. Maybe perched in a tower across the waterway was her future lover - her husband-to-be. Maybe it was someone she already knew. She entertained the thought for a second before dismissing it. She needed something new, a way to start again, and she felt like this Windows gig, even if it were just for a night, could provide just what she was yearning for.