Authors: Michael Marshall
Presumably.
It was six o’clock. She was a twenty-minute walk from the park. Said park was a ten- or fifteen-minute cab ride back down to Nolita. The reading group didn’t start until seven thirty and it wasn’t like you got shot for being five minutes late. Eyebrows might be raised—and God knows the raising of educated eyebrows could make you feel small as hell—but no one would actually stand up and point at her.
The park was nowhere near the part of town where Reinhart had caught her. There was no reason to expect him to be in this neighborhood. She wasn’t expected at the restaurant for a few hours, but John
would
be working—which gave her a rare window of free will.
If it came right down to it, she didn’t need a reason.
She wanted to go.
The park was almost empty. A couple of tourists sat huddled over one of the little tables at the top of the steps at the library end, looking cold and daunted. A few office workers cut down the side paths, heads down, focused on getting to the subway or a working dinner or somewhere to grab a couple of private drinks before getting into the next phase of their existence. If there was anything that working a bar taught you it was that there was a whole lot of parallel living going on—people who presented one way for ninety-five percent of the time but lived somewhere more private in the remaining sliver. Kristina had occasionally wondered what proportion of the city’s inhabitants spent the hours between five thirty and eight either drinking or covertly holding the hand of a coworker, but had decided it wasn’t a question that led anywhere happy.
She walked to the middle of the grass and looked around. She watched the couple at the top of the steps get up and head wearily to their hotel to shower and regroup for an evening’s fun in a foreign city and to try to ignore the fact that if they were honest, simply fabulous though it all was, just for tonight they’d prefer to be back at home watching TV and wearing sweatpants.
She checked her watch. Did she wait a little longer, or get a cab? That’s what made sense, of course. Heading down to Swift’s, meeting with Catherine and patching things up, an hour’s chat about the gentle—and slim—novel they’d enjoyed (or, in Kristina’s case, tolerated with growing irritation). Then get to the bar and her job and lover and life. Run along that track.
Her
track.
She didn’t want to. Not tonight. She wanted something else. She wanted something
new
.
When she looked up she saw there were now people at all four points of the park. Dark figures, their faces unclear, alone or in pairs.
“Hey,” she said. Either it wasn’t loud enough, or they chose not to respond. She said it again.
“Hello.”
The response came from much closer than she was expecting, and from behind. Kris turned and found Lizzie there. Her heart hit a heavy beat. “Hey.”
“You got the message.”
“Just about. Why didn’t you talk to me?”
“I can’t.”
“Why? And why did it sound so weak?”
“It’s too boring to explain,” Lizzie said. “I’m glad you came.”
Kristina found herself tongue-tied, and nodded.
The figures from the corner of the park had moved while she wasn’t looking, and congregated at the Sixth Avenue end. Kristina recognized several from the previous meeting, including the plump girl. They were all watching her, as if waiting for something.
Lizzie took Kristina’s hand. “Let’s have some fun.”
Kristina followed the Angels out of the park and into the streets as lights started to come on, and the mood of the streets shifted from afternoon to evening in a city that prides itself on never sleeping. She crossed the avenue, into a knot of streets lined with restaurants and bars on the other side, feeling—knowing—this was a gang that didn’t let outsiders in very often, if at all. Sometimes they walked together, chattering to Kristina, asking her questions about her life. Then they’d be spread out across the street and both sidewalks, as if they had no connection to one another.
She let herself be led, following in their slipstream—sensing that it was kind of a buzz for them, leading someone like her. Sometimes they’d cut through side streets; at others they’d walk down the middle of the road, weaving between the cars with enough grace and timing that they never got honked (though Kris did, more than once), as if they were cold, hard streams of mountain water cutting through forest soil. She found herself being led into a bar. It was noisy and crowded and dark and it seemed to Kristina that her new friends relaxed when they were inside. Lizzie certainly did. When on the street she always seemed watchful. Here in the hectic gloom there was greater freedom in her movement.
Kristina was confused. Was this a stop off for a drink? No one seemed to be heading toward the bar, but if they weren’t here for that, then what could it be? Or were they expecting
her
to step up? The idea didn’t bother her—it was clear these people wouldn’t have money for Midtown prices—but wasn’t anyone going to say anything, or even look hopefully at her? It’d been a long time since Kristina felt gauche (except in Catherine Warren’s company), but she didn’t understand the rules or what was supposed to happen next. It reminded her of being an adolescent, or even younger—of being young enough to long to fit in, desperate to have a friend who’d show you the way and always have your back.
She noticed the plump girl was standing at the corner of the bar, behind a pair of women in business suits perched on stools with big glasses of wine. One was talking hard and fast. The other was listening intently.
The girl was watching them with the focus of a cat waiting for the mouse to stay still …
Then her hand whipped out like a frog tongue smacking on a fly. She grabbed the glass of the nearest woman, took a sip, and had it back on the counter within three seconds.
Kristina blinked.
Her male friend then did the same thing, to the other glass. He was even faster. Both only took sips.
The girl looked at Kris and grinned, then nodded her head toward the drink.
Dare ya
.
Kristina glanced at Lizzie, a pocket of calm in the crowd. “I wouldn’t,” Lizzie said. “It’s not a game everyone can play.”
The plump girl’s head was still cocked with the same expression on her face, however.
Knowing it was dumb and risky, Kristina grabbed the drink, took a sip, and had it back on the counter before its owner looked back. The girl and her boyfriend laughed delightedly, clapping their hands.
A moment later the woman on the stool grabbed a mouthful of her wine, still listening to her companion, no idea of what had just happened—and apparently not noticing the girl standing next to her even though she was clapping and cheering.
Kristina realized the other Angels were grinning at her, too, delighted, as if she’d passed some kind of test. Even Lizzie smiled, though she rolled her eyes.
Then they all seemed to be leaving, slipping through the crowds toward the door like fish swimming against the current. Kristina followed, having a much harder time of it.
At the door she glanced back at the woman still perched on her stool at the bar, drinking her depleted wine. She realized that if you could do something that simple—if you could learn to always be standing where people weren’t looking, and pick your moments so they didn’t notice you—then there were a lot of gaps between people, and holes, in the city.
There was a whole world to explore, and to live, in the spaces in between.
Another bar, then a couple of restaurants, grabbing a sip here and a gulp there, even a mouthful of someone’s neglected tapas. They passed a few stores and Kristina noticed some of the Angels looking in with a professional eye, as if with a mission in mind … but nobody did anything except for one time when an Angel slipped into a second-hand record place. Kristina saw the way he moved between the customers flicking through cases of retro vinyl, how he clocked shopping bags left on the floor and handbags hanging open off people’s shoulders. The Angel did nothing but look, however, before floating back out toward the street. As far as Kris could tell, no one had noticed that he had been in the store at all.
By then it was full dark and something had begun to change about the quality of the streetlights or the relationship between the Angels and the normal citizens they moved among. It was like tipping over from being drunk to
very
drunk, or the point where recreational drugs that had so far been supporting an evening of good cheer abruptly gained the upper hand and started leading
you
rather than the other way around.
Quite a few covert mouthfuls of wine had been consumed by that time, but that wasn’t it. Kristina felt
less
clumsy, rather than more so, and she stopped finding it hard to follow the Angels along the streets. It felt as if she’d started to hit the same rhythm they were following, as if she’d got the knack of stepping away at the correct time and being where people were not looking, breathing out when everyone else on the street—all the normal people, she caught herself thinking—were breathing in. The adaptation didn’t happen all at once. It was more as if the tracks they’d been following started to wend closer and closer. She’d lose the knack for a moment and bash into someone, but then be right back in the groove.
Then the Angels all started running.
At first Kris thought they must be must be running
away
from someone, that they’d been spotted stealing drinks in the last bar. Then she realized this was merely her own sense of guilt, and that the Angels were instead running with a kind of joy, or glee.
They ran out of the road and down Eighth Avenue, and it seemed for a time that there were more of them than there had been before, many more. The newcomers weren’t dressed in black and rich colors, however, so it was hard to be sure … but there seemed to be other people running alongside them, or walking fast, or waving as they went by. People on street corners and at bus stops. People walking by. People whom you’d never look at twice when you passed. Background people, who for once had turned to look in your direction, revealing themselves not just to be a texture but living things after all.
Animals, too, dogs and cats and a weirdly large fox, and a little girl whose head seemed far too small …
Then it was back to the group in black again, and Kristina—slowing rapidly, by now out of breath—limped after Lizzie as she ducked off the avenue and onto a residential street. The Angels stopped too, laughing and high-fiving one another, as Kris bent over, leaning against the fence until she’d gotten her breath back and lost most of the spots before her eyes. None of the others seemed at all out of breath. Either they were a
lot
fitter than she was, or …
“Oh, look,” one of them said quietly—a short, squat guy who’d been on the periphery of the group until now. He was pointing across the street. “Looky there.”
Everyone turned. The road was lined with houses. On one of these, three buildings along from where they stood, the front door hung open. Halfway down the street a man was struggling along with a huge and saggy cardboard box in his arms, toward a car.
“Easy as pie,” the plump girl said.
“Um, friends,” Lizzie said—but the group was already in movement across the street, heading toward the house. Kristina was carried along with them. Part of this was being drawn in their wake. A larger part was not wanting to be left behind.
The Angels ran up the steps in front of the house, but hesitated on the threshold. Though Lizzie had seemed doubtful, when they ceded control to her, she took it.
She glanced across at the man still trudging up the street with his box. Then smiled mischievously.
“Quickly, then,” she said, and they all went inside.
They swarmed into the hallway. The floor was uncarpeted, bare boards. A similarly unclad staircase led up the left side of the hall to the upper floor. The man who’d cased out the record store went loping straight up it.
A corridor led off to a rear area where a small television played quietly, presumably a kitchen. On the right was a door, and Kristina followed Lizzie and the others through it, scarcely able to believe what was happening, knowing what they should be doing—what
she
should be doing, most of all—was getting the hell out before the guy came back and found them there.
What on earth would they say? Yes, of course there were more of them than there were of him, and maybe they could push past him and run away, but that didn’t make it okay. This was …
a very bad thing to do
.
That awareness didn’t stop her from following Lizzie into the middle of the room. The plump girl’s boyfriend went to the window and checked back along the street, presumably acting as lookout—though by the time he saw the guy coming they’d have no chance of leaving without being seen. So what
was
the plan—would they just run straight past him, trusting on speed and the fact that the guy would be so freaked out that he wouldn’t give chase?
Was
there even a plan?
Would
they retreat, or was she part of some kind of fucked-up home invasion?
A big shabby rug covered most of the floor. On the other side facing the door (and the battered TV next to it) squatted a lumpy sofa. An armchair lurked at one end. Dotted around the walls were unframed posters from gigs and exhibitions of yesteryear, low-rent versions of the artfully positioned look-what-we-do statements regimented over the walls of the homes of people like Catherine Warren thirty blocks downtown. Box-carrying guy evidently didn’t spend too much time worrying about housecleaning. You could see the dust on the empty portions of the shelves from halfway across the room, and the whole place looked like it could do with a wipe and then repainting.
Half of the wall under a back window was taken up with a wooden table. This was strewn with books, pens, and the insides of a laptop computer.
And on the floor underneath it was a child’s toy.
Kristina stared at it, thinking:
Oh Christ
.
Then there was a noise out in the hallway. Her heart stopped. Someone was coming.