Tracking Time

'How can you talk to me like that?' Grace took her hand off her perfectly formed hip and left the room, shaking her head. 'I know there's no man,' she murmured. 'You just want to hurt us, that's all.'

'There is a man. There is,' Allegra said softly.

As soon as her mother was gone, Allegra poured the cream-spiked coffee down the sink. Then she hung around all morning thinking about The Scarlet Letter. She brooded about why people did what they did. Why did Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina have to commit suicide because of their love affairs? Why fall for a jerk in the first place? Why not kill the men who hurt them? Why kill themselves? Where was the sense in the thing? She couldn't figure life out at all.

After her mother left for work, she lay there dreaming about Maslow Atkins. She wanted to go on CNN, on 60 Minutes, on Sally Jesse or the Springer Show and tell the truth about her 'doctor.' She wanted to tell the whole world about the fraud he was and the fraud she was, too. She knew it would make a good story.

Six

David Owen was in an excited condition around seven when his mother, Janice Owen, came into his room without knocking and screamed at him for a while. She continued screaming as she left to get in the shower. He pulled the covers over his head to block out the noise. Jesus Christ. He wished she were a bug he could squash.

There was no sign of his dad, who worked on Wall Street lawyering people to death twenty hours a day. David wondered if he'd worked all night again and hadn't come home at all. It was hard to know. His father was always gone by the time David hauled himself out of bed, which he did his best to avoid every morning. Only rarely did he succeed in staying in bed. Not even throwing up worked with his mother anymore. Now he had to have a fever of 101 to get her attention.

Jesus Christ. Same shit every morning. David hated school. Hated it. He heard the kids call him a loser. Did they think he was deaf? They said it practically to his face. He hated it. He'd rather be dead than go there. The work was too hard for him, and he just couldn't manage being cool.

He watched the other boys being easy with each other. They knew how to make friends and hang out. He just couldn't do it. He didn't know how to act or what to say. He had friends from camp, but no one at school ever came up to shake his hand when he arrived in the morning the way the 'in' kids did with each other. No one called him at night. No one invited him to their parties. Mostly they ignored him. But sometimes he heard them refer to him as a loser. It made him nuts.

Every school morning David hid out under the covers as long as he could, playing with himself, moaning, and trying to avoid being taken to school by his mother. If he was lucky and managed to be really late, she'd leave him. But that didn't happen too often, either. Janice Owen liked taking her son to school in her limo. It made her feel she was being a good mother. David was certain she did it just to torture him because he was too old for that. Everybody else came on their own. On the subway or whatever. Only the little kids came with their mothers in the car service. But his mother just loved getting him in that car-he, unshowered and hastily pulled together, she in a suit with her hair styled and sprayed and her makeup on, wearing jewelry, talking so fast the words swam together like a school of fish. She called the big swing north up to his school in the navy blue Lincoln Town Car-on her way to the bank that was more than thirty blocks south-their quality time together.

This Wednesday morning, when he felt elated and close to happy for the first time in his life, she came into his room three times. First in her robe, then in her skirt and silk blouse with her hair still wet. Then dressed to kill, strapping on her watch. By then, she was yelling like a maniac that if he didn't go with her, he wasn't getting the Beamer when he finished Driver's Ed and his private Saturday morning driving lessons. That made him get up, throw on his clothes, and leave his building on Park and Sixty-fifth Street and jump in the limo with his mom just like always.

As soon as Janice was in the car she got happy. She yammered on about the bank's second merger with another bank in three years and her chances, this time, of being promoted or fired and her contingency plans in either case.

'If I get promoted and you get a 3.0 average, we'll go to the south of France this summer. And if Dad can't go, Dad can't go.' She gave him one of her high-wattage, brave smiles. 'What do you say?'

David yawned.

His mother's smile broke up. 'I thought those pills were supposed to wake you up. Are you taking your pills?' she demanded.

'I'm awake,' he grumbled. He was taking the Ritalin, but he'd stopped taking the Zoloft on the second day. It made him feel funny.

'Did you take your pill?' Sharp look from the hyper mom.

'I took the pill,' he assured her.

'What time did you get home last night?' Questions, questions, every day the same questions.

David looked at his mother and saw an evil person, someone who took pleasure in torturing him just because he wasn't like her. Her disappointment in him had squared her off. When David had been a little boy, his mother had been a pretty, smiley woman, giggling all the time. Now she was hard and cruel as a mirror, twenty pounds too fat, dressed to the nines, and all business. She fixed him with her steely eyes, hammering him into the corner with all her questions. And she never answered any of his. Does Dad have a girlfriend? Do you have a boyfriend? Are you getting your face lifted? When can I stop going to that asshole shrink?

'Early,' he lied. He never even saw her last night. When did she get in? He was pissed at her for lying to him, but he gave her a sincere look because he was going to flunk math and get a C in biology, and he wanted that Beamer bad. He knew she'd give it to him.

The limo sped up Park Avenue, and he peered hungrily out the window as they passed Brandy's building at Seventy-fifth Street. Brandy had told him she'd give him a call as soon as her mother let her out. They'd be together by noon, going over their triumphs. Now he was cool.

'Good, I'm glad you slept well. You need your rest.' Janice's eyes softened. She was satisfied, snapped open her briefcase, and started flipping through a pile of papers. Then her cell phone rang and she answered it. She became engrossed in her conversation and didn't even notice that David got out at a red light two blocks shy of school. She was happy with their exchange and had no idea he was playing hooky.

Seven

Woody was at his desk talking on the phone, chewing a bite of bagel, when April came out of her office at half past eight. She could tell by the way he had his feet up on the desk and was making decorative little piles of crumbs with the end of his pen that it was a personal call. She caught his eye and wiggled her fingers at him just the way her boss did to her when he wanted her to jump.

His brow furrowed. Now? he mouthed at her.

'Now,' she said loud enough for the three ugly henchmen to exchange glances.

Woody said something she couldn't hear and hung up. 'What's up, boss?' he asked.

'A shrink didn't show up for an appointment last night. We're going to check it out.'

Woody processed that bit of information as he got to his feet. April knew he was thinking the lieutenant hadn't mentioned any missing person complaint. She didn't enlighten him as they left the squad room, trotted down the stairs, said hey to some uniforms hovering around the front door, and went outside to their unmarked unit. Not until they were in the car did she give him Maslow Atkins's Upper West Side address, which just happened to be outside their precinct.

'Who is this guy?' Woody asked.

'Young shrink in training with Jason Frank.'