Remy worked security in a parking ramp downtown. The company sent him out to other locations when they needed to keep up appearances. Remy was 76 years old. His kids did not want him working nights in the parking ramps, but it all made him feel important and relevant that his boss called him in to work frequently, especially for those special events at Orchestra Hall.

Remy loved the theater and opera. He had gone with Carolyn before their divorce. Carolyn was lovely, elegant and impeccably dressed when they went out on those evenings. On those occasions, Remy pulled out the soft suede loafers, with a name he could not pronounce, that his daughter, Laila, had brought him from Europe. Remy took more time than Carolyn, deciding which tie to put with his grey flannel slacks with the crease in the front, navy cashmere suit jacket and the three-quarter length camel colour coat. He starched his white shirt himself before he got dressed. He always let Carolyn have the last say about the tie, but he made a point of explaining which two he liked the best and which one would pull out a particular colour from the jacket. Remy put a square coloured silk handkerchief in the breast pocket. That much he did not need to ask Carolyn to do.

Remy stood up straight when he was dressed like that and held the doors for Carolyn and anybody following them. He had brown leather gloves with brown stitching down each of the fingers to go with the camel coloured three-quarter-length coat. He took off the gloves and folded them together meticulously when they were inside the theater, sliding them in the coat pocket.

His boss, Khalid, sent him to the parking ramp for those six Thursday and Friday evenings in October, when the symphony opened the season. Remy said hello to the wealthy businessmen from the expensive suburbs and their wives, bejewelled and dressed in full-length dresses. None of them could hold a candle to Carolyn’s lithe silhouette and delicate face with her heart-shaped lips in Remy’s memories though.

Remy held the door for the patrons. He recognized Marilyn Carlson, the owner of Carlson company and her husband. Remy smiled and called her by name. Marilyn was nearly eighty and thrilled that someone still remembered who her family had been in this city. She smiled at Remy, who told her that his ex-wife had once worked at Carlson and Marilyn’s face lit up. Remy knew who the important families in the city were and he was thrilled to see them with glittering jewellery, tottering in high heels as they paraded through the parking ramp on their way to the Plaza after parking in the heated parking ramp where Remy had stationed himself in October for the last fifteen years.

Even if he would not see the symphony, he could hear the distant sound of instruments warming up before they closed the doors for the performance and he could see Carolyn in a lavender dress, the straps of silver from the delicate shoes she wore looked like something fairies wore. Now she was gone. Remy went into the glass office near the entrance to the Plaza and poured a coffee.

It had cost thirteen million dollars to build in 1974.