escape hung in the air. On the tips of her toes she hooked the end of the bra onto the bottom rung. She came back and we waited. 6:50. 7:00. 7:10. The emergency exit opened with a creak. A middle-aged usher in a red uniform stepped outside, taking refuge from the feature he’d already seen a thousand times. In the snow, he looked like a wooden soldier from the Nutcracker who’d lost his hat. While easing the door shut, he put a program in the crack so that it wouldn’t close completely. The snow fell through the fire escapes and settled on his fake epaulettes.
