executive-summaried, and support-staffed. I fall in step with one of the older women. She has a sweet, rounded face and wears a hand-knit sweater. A saleswoman, I think, or a librarian’s assistant. We stop together at the edge of the square in front of the Dorchester, waiting for the traffic to give us an even break.
“There should be a light here,” she says, slightly annoyed. “Or at least a stop sign.”
I scan the cars whizzing by. “I agree.”
“They’ll kill you to get home five minutes faster.”
A Cadillac driver waves us across the street. I lose the saleswoman on Twentieth Street, after the high-rises that demarcate the residential west end of town. I look behind me. The people on the sidewalk look normal. I check back again half a block later, and only two are left. One is a teenage girl with a backpack slung over her shoulder and the other is a flashy woman with lots of shiny shopping bags.
Something catches my eye at the corner of Spruce and Twenty-first. Not the people, the cars. Two white cars are stopped at a light, and after them is a brown one. A brown Cadillac, an older model, somewhat beat-up. An Eldorado or Toronado, one of those.
I squint at the car. Is it the same Cadillac that let me go by in front of the Dorchester?
I can’t remember, but try not to leap to conclusions. There are a million Cadillacs in the world, I tell myself, moving quickly to cross.
I turn onto Delancey and can’t help but glance back over my shoulder. The Cadillac is coming toward Delancey, cruising slowly. Close up, it looks like the same car.
Chill, as Judy would say. So what if it’s the same car? Maybe it’s someone looking for a parking space. I used to do it all the time, driving pointlessly around and around the same block. Now I pay a fortune to park in a garage nearby. It’s worth every penny.
I stride down Delancey Street, remembering the magazine articles I’ve read about crime. Don’t look like a victim or you’ll be one. Stand tall, walk fast. I hoist the plastic bag up and barrel ahead. As I do, I hear the smooth acceleration of a powerful engine coming down the street behind me. I pick up my pace for the half block that’s left and check over my shoulder at the corner.
I feel my stomach tighten.
It’s the Cadillac, blocked by a station wagon that’s trying to wedge itself into a parking space. I catch my breath. I feel like bolting across the street, but there’s too much traffic. A limo rolls by, then a clunker and an endless parade of Hondas. I’m only a block from home.
I look back. The Cadillac has freed itself. It’s moving forward, speeding to the corner without effort.
I feel panic begin to rise in my throat. “Come on, come on,” I say to the traffic. I spot an opening in front of an empty school bus and run for it, my briefcase banging against my thigh. The bus driver protests with a startlingly loudhaaaannk. I almost drop the briefcase but make it to the other side of the street, breathless.
Run, says the Mike-voice, softly.Run.
I glance backward at the top of my street. The traffic screens most of Delancey from view, but glinting at me from between the moving cars is the shimmer of a battered chrome grill. The Cadillac’s still there. My heart begins to race. I can’t see the driver. The windshield reflects a cloudy sky.
Run. Run. Run for your life.
So I do, a dead run, without looking back. Instantly, I hear the Cadillac gun its engine as it crosses onto my street. I speed up. The Cadillac speeds up. It’s almost at my heels as I tear down the street like a madwoman.
Run, run.
The Cadillac’s right behind me.
I hear someone screaming and it’s me. “No! No! Help!” I keep running until I reach my front door.
Christ! My keys! The answering machine clatters to the sidewalk as I rummage furiously in my bag. Where are my fucking keys?
The Cadillac screeches to a stop behind me, right in front of my door.
“No!” I turn and scream at the car. My back is plastered against the front door, my breast heaving. “You fucking asshole, leave me alone!”
In my fear and panic, I see the driver.
A woman, dark-haired, Hispanic. The Cadillac is loaded with kids. The oldest one, a boy in the back seat, is in hysterics.
I can’t quite believe it. I blink at the sight.
A mother and children. She looks upset, but I don’t know why, since I’m the one having the coronary. Like my grandfather used to say, my heart attacked me.
The mother leans over an infant in a plastic car seat. “Ah, I scare you,” she says, in highly flavored English. “I so sorry. I scare you, poor lady. I no mean.”
I almost cry with relief. My briefcase falls to the ground with a leathery slap.
The mother turns to the boy in the back, who’s still laughing, and says something to him I can’t hear. He leans out of the open window with a smirk. The trace of a mustache covers a prominent lip.
“My mutha says she’s sorry she scared you. We’re lost. We got off the expressway too soon. She shoulda stayed on. I told her to stay on, but she wouldn’t listen.” He laughs again. “I told her not to keep after you too, but she wanted to tell you not to be scared. She don’t listen to nobody.” He points at his temple, and his mother cuffs him lightly on the shoulder. “Get offa me!” he shouts at her,muy macho.
They just wanted directions. Christ. I try to recover as they talk again.
The boy leans out of the car. “She wants to know if you’re awright, you want to go to the hospital. I told her you don’t go to the hospital for this, but she don’t listen.”
“Tell her thank you for me, will you? I’m fine. Tell her it’s okay. It’s not her fault.”
They talk again, but the mother looks doubtful.
“It’s not your fault!” I yell into the car, but she gets distracted by the little girls in the back, fighting over a troll doll. She snatches the troll from them and they begin to wail, identically. They look to be the same age. “Are they twins?”
The mother cups her ear.
“Twins? I’m a twin, too. I have a twin sister.”
The mother chatters excitedly to the son and pushes him toward the window. He wrests his arm away and sticks his head out of the car. His expression is pained. “My mutha says that twins are a special blessing from God. You are a special person.” Then he rolls his eyes.
I feel my eyes moisten, like an idiot. I want to hug his mother. “Tell her I said thank you. She is a special person, too.”
He examines a set of filthy nails. “Great, we’re all special. So, you know how to get to the South Street exit?”
“Tell your mother how special she is.”
He looks up at me, a wry challenge. “Are you for real?”
I straighten my blazer and pick up my briefcase. “The realest.”
He turns from me and shouts at his twin sisters, who are still whimpering. Then he says something to his mother, and she smiles at me happily. He leans back out of the window. “Awright?”
“Thank you. Take a right at the top of the street, then go left on Spruce. Take another right and follow it to Lombard. It’ll go right into South Street.”
“Got it, babe.” He leans back into the car and says something to his mother. The mother waves good-bye. As the Cadillac pulls away, the kid flips me the finger.
I laugh, unaccountably elated. I pick up the answering machine, wondering whether it broke when it fell, but it looks fine. I tuck it under my arm and dig, calmly now, in the bottom of my purse for my keys. I feel giddy, reminded of my father’s old joke. Why are your keys always in the last place you look? To which Angie and I would moan, in stereo: Because once you find them, you don’t look anymore.
I find my keys and let myself in. I pick up my mail. My heart is even lighter when I find there are no anonymous notes in the mail. I feel like I’ve gotten a reprieve as I climb the stairs to my door.
But halfway up the staircase, as I thumb through the key ring for my apartment key, I notice that something about the stairwell looks different.
Then I see why.
