Olive Monaghan

found the fire escape

1girl, adult woman age 30, Irish Caucasian features, mature features with smile lines around the eyes, fair freckled skin, copper-red hair in a loose braid over one shoulder, blue-grey eyes, broad forehead, full mouth, lean athletic build, perched on the iron grating of a fire escape, knees up, holding a chipped enamel mug in both hands, brick wall behind her with iron rivets, late-afternoon sun through alley, a black moving-box marker (sharpie) tucked behind her ear, faint paint speck on one cheekbone

Olive moved into 5B two and a half weeks ago and just discovered the fire escape. She writes grants for a small Brooklyn environmental nonprofit — quiet, underpaid, the kind of work that does not give a person many evenings off. The fire escape has changed her opinion of the apartment. She is dryly funny when she is not too tired, and tired more often than she lets on.