Authors: Clara Ward
She tensed and brought her focus inward, then imagined wrapping a second skin around the man’s whole body, like a cocoon. She knew the emergency team would have a hard time getting him out of an upside-down car in a creek bed like this. He might not survive their rescue, so she had to hurry. Mentally holding his weight and unfastening his seatbelt, she placed her hands on his head and shoulder to help guide him out of the car. No other drivers had come to gape.
She floated the old man up the hill to where it was flat, keeping him wrapped in pressure to limit the loss of blood. She kept her hands more or less under him, imagining some chance witness rushing to phone the tabloids. Lowering him gently to the ground, she hoped he didn’t have a spine injury, though she knew the paramedics couldn’t have moved him more smoothly.
They wouldn’t know that though. They’d wonder how and why she’d moved him at all. It would really be a lot simpler if the car caught fire, obscuring the situation and making it clear that he was safer once moved. As she raised him a centimeter off the ground, easing him farther from the muddy edge, the green car burst into flames despite the rain. Sarah felt the warmth on her frozen fingers as she bent over the man to keep rain from pouring onto his slack face.
Letting her attention diffuse, touching the old man with just her hands, Sarah felt young and uncertain. She remembered her dreams of saving people as a doctor, using her mind to miraculously adjust problems seen in x-rays or MRIs before any surgeon needed to operate. She remembered the day her fear overcame her, knowing someone would eventually suspect, worrying that she might make a mistake. That year she felt so alone, imagining the harm someone like her could do, killing with a thought by collapsing an artery, toppling a building by splitting the foundation. She concluded there either weren’t any others like her or something happened to those who acted out, and she changed her major to anthropology.
Wiping raindrops and wet hair from the man’s forehead, Sarah carefully avoided the rest of his curls, in case there were hidden wounds or bits of glass. Hovering over this complete stranger, she felt like his closest relation, wanting him to live as if it was a personal favor to her. Then she laughed, even as tears started down her face. She’d never had such a moment with her mother, who’d died slowly in bed, from causes Sarah couldn’t affect.
Sarah saw the old man’s chest rise with a breath and felt the warmth of flames behind her as she heard the ambulance sirens approach.
By the time Sarah left the police station, it was eight o’clock. Her hair dripped onto her shoulders, and her sopping sneakers were the only pair of shoes she’d brought. The wetness soaked into her socks every time she pushed the gas pedal. She’d changed out of her wet sweats and into what she’d worn at the group home that day, green pants and a mottled yellow-green sweater. They were clothes designed to compromise, to not embarrass the teenager she drove to a job at the mall but to still look professional to police officers bringing back a runaway. Normally she’d wear a third set of clothes for a board meeting, but there was no time to fetch them. There was no point stopping to look for Spooky, either. It was long past dark.
She turned the car’s heat up full blast, causing pins and needles in her frozen fingers. She rubbed them over the dimpled surface of the steering wheel, finding the smooth patches where previous drivers had preferred to grip. Fast food signs made her stomach growl, which meant she really must be hungry. Just thinking about that greasy food made her mouth unpleasantly fuzzy. There was no time for dinner anyway.
Pulling into the parking lot at Pronoia International, Sarah saw Reggie’s convertible and paused to glance up at her rear view mirror. Her look tonight was pretty much “drowned rat.” It wasn’t that Reggie expected her to always look perfect. He was more likely to be annoyed with her lateness, but she wasn’t sure why it mattered anymore. Originally she’d been on the board because she helped set up the company and might bring in useful social work connections. Now Pronoia’s main project was bringing communications technology to rural Asia and Africa. They offered grants and organizational support to a few U.S. programs, but none that needed Sarah’s assistance. Like a non-digital camera, Sarah grew more and more out-of-place. She remembered Torie’s jibe about her “rich boyfriend” and cringed.
Tonight she fixed what she could, her hair. One pull of a comb
brought back her part; two more pulls smoothed both sides. The shock she hadn’t felt earlier began to hit. Her shoulders tensed and her hand quivered as she put away the comb.
The front of Pronoia International was all glass, adding to the strip mall façade of the place. Sarah wiped her feet carefully on the front mat, then checked behind her as she moved to make sure she wasn’t leaving wet tracks on the sherbet-shaded pattern of the carpet. Their meeting was in the open area at the back, where all the furniture and partitions were easily, and frequently, moved. It gave Sarah a never quite settled feeling. She tried to enter quietly, but Reggie’s co-founder, Phil, an older guy with long hair and the presence of an alpha ram, greeted her, “Glad you could make it Sarah. Hope there weren’t any natural disasters blocking your way?”
Before thinking, Sarah said, “No, I just stopped to rescue someone from an overturned car.”
Full stop. All eyes on Sarah. Why had she said that? She’d successfully played down the event to the paramedics and cops. Did she have some buried need for recognition from her colleagues? Super-Sarah: performs great rescues without letting the world discover her secret powers but still needs acknowledgement from others to boost her self-esteem?
Phil gave her the scouring “what does she mean by that?” look that she seemed to trigger so often from older men. Two more reserved committee members just froze with their eyes open a little too wide. Luckily, there was Reggie to break the silence, and the small smile that still managed to paint his whole expression showed Sarah he was relieved to forgive her for being late. “You know, if anyone else said that, I’d think they were joking. From you, it’s a credible excuse.”
“Thanks. Would it excuse me from wearing shoes? Mine are soggy.”
“Ah, I have just the thing.” Reggie swooped gracefully from his seat to his office across the room. His attitude seemed to spread and all faces around the table relaxed. A moment later he returned, presenting Sarah with a pair of black socks. “Not a glass slipper, but probably warmer.”
As Sarah sat down, Reggie knelt before her and began to remove her wet shoes. From anyone else it would seem awkward or overdone, but Reggie had a knack for carrying off whatever scene he chose to play. He could dramatically dry her feet with a paper napkin, and still seem most refined with his perfect posture and elegant clothing. Sarah gazed at the shiny black curls that brushed the collar of his sapphire peasant shirt and wondered why he’d stayed her boyfriend for three years.
The sappy thoughts dispersed as Phil asked, “Was the accident nearby? Is everyone all right?”
“An old car went into a creek by my mom’s house. I saw it, so I hit 911 and went down to check. There was just the man driving the car, and he’s in the hospital now. They say he’ll be all right.”
“You got him out of the car?”
“Yeah. It didn’t seem safe. The car caught fire later.”
Reggie stopped, warm hands tight on her foot, “It caught fire? How much later?”
“I had the guy safely up the hill by then.”
“But what if . . .” the questions kept coming. Clearly the agenda had been dropped in favor of hearing how Sarah ended up at the meeting late and in soggy sneakers. She replied, trying to sound steady but plain, “I was just driving home . . . Anyone would have done the same.”
Sarah was glad her dramatic opening had been well received, but she wished she hadn’t said anything. People like Reggie, who ran places like Pronoia International, floated wit as social currency, but would rather be mute than appear to be trying too hard. Sarah generally kept to the sidelines as others competed with clever remarks and personal anecdotes.
She felt Reggie slide his wool dress socks over her calves. She knew he kept a suit at work, in case he needed to look impressive. Not that Reggie ever looked unimpressive, whatever he put on. Part of it was an innate sense of style inherited from his rich Italian mother. He only chose good clothes, and he always wore them well. The socks from his suit were wool, she knew; they had to be hand washed. But they were silkier than anything she’d ever called wool before meeting Reggie. They were also warm, or was that because Reggie was the one slipping them on her while she quietly described the events of the evening? Sarah felt herself begin to blush and hoped those listening would attribute it to her story.
Chill fog lingered the next morning as Sarah knocked on the carved oak door up the hill. There was a brass doorbell to the side and a heavy brass knocker just above center, but Sarah always knocked on doors with her bare hand first. She heard a click before the door opened, revealing a woman of Chinese decent who stood silently staring at Sarah.
“Hi, um, sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for this cat?” Sarah held up a photo she’d printed out. “I think he sometimes goes in your yard-“
“You’re the girl from the house behind us? Come in. I’m Mei Mei Chen.”
“Sarah Duncan. Uh, glad to meet you.”
Sarah stepped in as a memory of her mother reminded her to never enter a stranger’s house. She slipped off her Birkenstocks where she saw other shoes lined up beside the door. Her feet pressed against the smoothness of marble as she followed her hostess through a dim entryway then turned toward light and white carpet.
The room before her seemed all Chinese, though Sarah had never been to China. Still, this must be what fancy Chinese restaurants were trying to imitate. There was a dining area to the left with a glossy mahogany table. The chairs had red upholstered cushions and ornately carved backs with lions in the design. The sitting area, ahead of her and a step down, had carpet almost entirely covered by a red Oriental rug, with another rug placed between two black couches. Her feet, already nestled in plush white carpeting, wriggled in anticipation of standing atop two more rugs on top of the carpet. There was more mahogany furniture, some of it with jeweled inlays, probably real antique stuff.
But Mei Mei motioned her to the window before Sarah had time to finish studying the room. The window took up the whole back wall of the sitting area. Framed by the light, Mei Mei in silhouette became the centerpiece for her sitting room. She looked liked a sculpture of a woman, her hair a perfect smooth black, bobbed softly below the ears. Her skin was healthy and impossibly smooth, though slight wrinkles around her eyes and mouth hinted that she was probably fifty, at least. The flowing amber dress she wore looked like silk, and Sarah wondered if Mei Mei always dressed this well or if she was on her way out. That reminded Sarah that she was supposed to say something.
“What an amazing view you have, you can see my whole street. That’s my backyard there, a little to the left. I don’t see Spooky anywhere, though.”
Sarah was scanning the enormous hill, which sloped down from this window to the fence at the back of her house and others on her street. The lots up here were much larger than in her development. She’d seen them before from her side, but it wasn’t nearly so impressive looking up. Mei Mei was staring at her, but Sarah continued to look out at the smooth lawn and well-placed trees and rocks that made up Mei Mei’s backyard. It looked natural, if only nature planned for perfect views.
“I remember seeing you play down there when you were a child,” Mei Mei said, smiling briefly. “You haven’t changed much. You still look so strong and have such beautiful blond hair. When my Robert was born, I’d sit here and rock him and see you running in the sprinklers. You must have been five or six. I’d watch you turn cartwheels through the water or shape yourself into letters of the alphabet. When my children were older, I let them play in the sprinklers, but they never seemed to enjoy it the way you did.”
Funny how this elegant, refined woman nodded at the end of her stories, just the way Sarah’s mom had. Sarah slipped into the pattern of exchanging stories, but she mostly kept her eyes to the window, anxious under Mei Mei’s intense gaze.
“I once carved a fort out of those blackberry bushes along our fence. They were so dense I could just use yard shears and hack away anything I didn’t want. One of the tunnels I cut led to the back corner where I could see between the fence boards into your yard. I saw your kids; they must have been two or three at the time. The boy, Robert I guess, was wearing a white and blue sailor suit. The girl had a lacy white party dress. They ran on the grass, but never fought with each other or mussed their clothes. I’d like to say they reminded me of a famous painting, but at the time, I thought of it as a picture on a greeting card. Guess that’s my American heritage. But they did seem like wonderful children.”