“Now to find a bag for you to put all this in,” he said. “Hold on. I'll go up to the supermarket above and get one. Then I'll go ask at the subway booth when maintenance might come.”
“Oh, you don't really have to,” Gretchen said.
“I want to.”
“I don't even know your name. Um, what is it?”
“Ah!” He smiled, and her legs shuddered. A wonderful smile, friendly brown eyes. He gave a deep, grand bow, which startled her, then he intoned, “Maximus Voo,” which startled her even more. “And who are you?”
“Gretchen Barnett,” she replied.
After he got her a few plastic bags and the MTA told them maintenance wouldn't be out for three weeks, Gretchen decided to abandon her purse. Maximus asked her if she were hungry. She said yes.
“Should I maybe call you Max?” she asked. It seemed strange to call someone Maximus over lunch, or at any time.
“Oh, no, no, no.” He was quite adamant, vehement almost. “Strange name, I know. But they call my dad Max, so I'm Maximus. All three syllables.”
She couldn't tell if this meant he had daddy issues, but let it drop. Maximus was a bit embarrassing to call someone with people overhearing, but maybe she would just not mention his name over lunch.
“I know this great place in Chinatown,” he enthused. “It's a bit ramshackle, but the food is dyn-na-mite! Do you like Chinese?”
Some weeks she subsisted on nothing but, and it wasn't purely out of lack of the joy of cooking. She loved it.
“Do I ever!”
“It's called the Confucius Kung Lucky Duck. Do you know it?”
“No, only the Paradise Bamboo Legendary Express.”
“Ah, that's right across the street. But this place knocks its socks off!”
“I can't wait to try it out!”
“Fantastic, let's go!”
Years later, when Gretchen took a quiet moment for herself, perhaps lingering over a cup of chamomile tea, and thought about the moment she and Maximus met, 'fantastic' was not the word that sprang to mind. In fact, one word alone seemed not to suffice. It was a string of words, a long string. And most of them were vulgar.
CHAPTER TWO NOW
GRETCHEN SCREAMED AS they shoved her into the vestibule. Her Android sailed through the air. It shattered on the floor. One of them slammed shut the door. The other kicked angrily at the remnants of her phone.
“Damn!”
“Wasn't no i-Phone nohow.”
Gretchen whimpered. She was captive between the two locked doors, thrust against the rickety mailboxes. At their mercy. She jerked and screamed again as a third new thug shimmered beside the inspection checklist, then her scream was cut short. It was only the curls of her hair. That happened quite often. Damn peripheral vision. She clutched the almond milk as if it might save her.
They moved closer under the florescent bulb the super still hadn't fixed. But she could make them out in the dinge. Two thugs, scruffy and pimply. No more than 15, she feared. Giggling, out of their minds on God alone knew what. They seemed Hispanic. Or was it Chicano? Blatino...? Gretchen wasn't sure.
One shuffled through the carpet of tattered takeout menus: Indian, Macrobiotic and Thai. He leered lewdly at what her asshole ex-boyfriend Sam had called her fun bags. The other snickered as he reached into his Fubu hoodie and tugged out a gun. He waved it as if it were a basketball trophy. Gretchen screamed again.
The chipped paint and even the mold stains on the hallway walls seemed to fall away as her eyes zeroed in on the weapon, the instrument of death. It looked too big for Snicker's fingers. It was black and ancient and rusty, the barrel covered with what looked like hack marks, but Gretchen was sure it would do the job. Of killing her. If that's what they wanted to do. Her heart pounded against her breastplate. A broken mailbox lock bit into her left shoulder blade. Her head felt like a plastic bag.
“Showtime!” Snicker trilled. Lewd giggled, clapping little claps of glee. Like a tot on Christmas morn unwrapping a PlayStation. Their joy chilled her.
Gretchen felt a flashing certainty that this was the last moment of her life. That this was the last thing she would experience. A car roared by outside, the clappy bits of “Bette Davis Eyes” blaring from an open window. Kim Carnes, alas, the last artist her ears would hear.
This is how I will die? Gretchen thought, panicked and dismayed. Holding a quart of almond milk? Please, Lord, no. Not at the hands of these two...dorks!
She didn't know what was more humiliating, more terrifying: that they seemed stupid, that they were high, or that they were half her age. She knew the callousness of youth.
They must've started following her when she rounded the corner onto her block a few minutes before. Like nocturnal animals, stalking their prey, the prey that was returning from the hipster organic deli three blocks away. It stocked the almond milk Gretchen had finished up and had to replace before her roommate noticed. The thugs needn't have been so stealthy; Gretchen had been so enraged by what she was hearing on the phone that the danger she was in passed her by. From her Tourette-like rants down the line as she passed the Korean deli on her block, then the Arabic one, then the bodega, anyone else chancing upon her, anyone not reckless or high, would've steered clear, would've thought her a bitch, and an unhinged one at that. She usually wasn't, but that was what the phone call had reduced her to. An unhinged bitch.
With good reason: she had tried logic with one of the representatives on the phone the week before. It hadn't worked. Two days later she had tried tears. They hadn't cared. Yesterday she had begged. Useless. Her only option left was rage. If need be, she could always do rage well. Perhaps only too well. She was her mother's daughter. Ursula Barnett's. As proof, Gretchen had the hair of a blazing forest fire, as her mother's had once been, before Ursula had moved upmarket to an eggplant-colored bob to hide the gray.
Gretchen could duke it out with anyone in a battle of wits, could unleash her rapier tongue when needed. But her two captors seemed to have no wits. Where was her infamous rage now? It had suddenly fled, as had her hopes for further life. Her fear and confusion were stronger than anger. What do they want from me? her brain wondered feverishly. My money? My life? My innocence? My faith in humanity?
“You wanna see a bullet hole?” Snicker wondered, a smile of malice on his young face as he continued to wave the gun.
“Take my money” Gretchen implored. “And the milk!”
She held out the plastic bag to Lewd so she could search her pockets. Thank the Lord she hadn't taken her purse with her. But there was the change of the twenty in one pocket, and maybe she had some more in the other. Would that placate them? The plastic bag trembled in the air. Lewd smacked it from her hand. The milk container exploded on the tiles that hadn't been mopped since the last snowfall.
“You wanna know what a bullet hole in the middle of your forehead look like?” As an afterthought, Snicker added, “Bitch.” For extra menace, she supposed.
Gretchen despaired. She and her life were at the mercy of these snickering fools. If Snicker shot her, she was sure she'd have more important things to wonder about than the appearance of the bullet hole. She'd be dead, after all. The gift of sight gone. Along with touch and smell and the others. How could she examine a bullet hole in her forehead?
She threw a rumpled ten, a five and a handful of coins at them. She turned her pocket inside out so they could see there was no more money hidden there. She reached into her other pocket and tossed out a lip balm, a breath mint and some lint.
“There!” she wailed, hating how her voice trembled, how weak she sounded. “Take it! That's all I have! Take it all, please! And go! Just go! Leave me alone!”
Lewd made strange sucking noises with his teeth. Gretchen fixed the lapels of her raincoat around her breasts to reduce their allure. Snicker shook his head at the pitiful funds and useless items on the floor. Gretchen felt tears well.
Snicker looked at Lewd and cocked his head towards the door to the stair
well.
“I think she got mo' money upstairs in that cozy white girl apartment of hers.”
Snicker's gold teeth glinted in the dark. Excited grunts came from Lewd's mouth. Gretchen's brain froze. She had just that morning given Roz the rent in cash. Roz never wanted checks, something to do with the IRS. Gretchen saw the money in her mind's eye, the stack of twenties and fifties and the odd hundred on the coffee table between the nail polish, bits of jewelry, a well-thumbed copy of her cousin Moira's roman a clef, Lotto Balls of Shame, and the pile of old Flight Attendants Monthly magazines. Her precious money, the fruit of interminable hours slaving away at her dead-end job at Nickel and Dime. She'd be damned it she had trudged through all that overtime, labored through all those time zones, just to hand the money over to these two idiots. Fury finally started to scald her insides, but some corner of her brain warned against. There had to be a way to get out of this. Anger wasn't it. She forced her head to bob with what she hoped passed for understanding.
“I understand why you want to mug me. I'm white. But not every white person is rich. Unfortunately.”
Defensiveness shot through their eyes. Snicker raised the gun in protest. Gretchen fought the urge to roll her eyes. Why did the biggest racists, even the reverse ones, always think they were the most tolerant? When their racism was pointed out, they were the most vehement in balking at the notion. What strange brains some people had. She knew all about the battle of the baggy versus the skinny jeans in her neighborhood, Dominican versus hipster, the old world battling the new.
“But,” Gretchen hurried to add, “I can see how you might think it's true. I hate those white trust fund kids that have been moving into the neighborhood in droves, too, you know. Their new SUVs, their whiny voices, their beards, their skinny jeans, their caramel macchiatos, their endless allergies, no, excuse me, 'sensitivities,'” here her hands did air quotes, “to everything from wheat to strawberries. How can anybody be sensitive to wheat? Everybody's been eating it, surviving on it, for centuries! Except now suddenly them!” As if to prove her point, at precisely that moment the Lord must have a sent a gaggle of just such hipsters down the sidewalk outside; she heard their incessant earnest babbling, then their gay laughter. It was like a taunt. They passed the door. The thugs were nodding their heads in agreement. Snicker had lowered his gun. Encouraged, Gretchen continued bravely on. “I'll have you know, that almond milk,” she nodded to the puddle forming on the floor, “isn't for me. It's for my roommate. I drink real milk like a regular person. Cow milk. And am I wearing skinny jeans? No. Look at my sundress.” Lewd snorted and tittered as she dismantled her raincoat and flashed the hem of her vintage flowered dress. “And I've got two jobs and still can't make ends meet. In fact, I owe so much money to my landlord, and he lives on the first floor here, that he's always standing in the hallway when I come in. He must know the sound of the footsteps of every tenant, I guess. He'll be standing there if I unlock the door to take you upstairs. Every night when I come home, there he is, towering over me on the stairs, his hand out, eyes bulging, screaming for the rent. Shall I unlock the door and you can meet him for yourselves?” She reached into the pocket of her raincoat, drew out her keys, jingled them before their faces, and prayed and begged the Lord above they wouldn't call her bluff. She had no idea where her landlord lived, and she was never late with rent. Her relentless overtime at Nickel and Dime saw to that, at least. Bills paid on time.
She appealed to their dull eyes. “I know what it's like to be broke.” The keys slipped back into her pocket. “I know what it's like to need money. So I understand what you guys are doing. I wish I could help you more, but I—”
Anger suddenly glinted in those dull eyes.
“Help us?!” Snicker roared.
“Broke?!” Lewd snorted.
“Stupid white bitch! You think we need help? You think we need money?”
“Look at these shoes! Look!” Lewd displayed them to her. Gaudy and horrid, offensive to good taste, but not as dirty as his fingernails. “The latest Michael Jordans. Ex—kloo—sives! You know how much they go for?”
“And look at this chain! Pure gold!”
“And my watch!”
Lewd flashed some showy Rolex-looking thing that dangled on his twig-like arm. The thugs both peered at Lewd's watch. It looked as if they were checking the time.
“We don't need your money!” Snicker roared.
“Then why the hell—”
She bit her tongue. Anger, again. Perhaps some light comedy would throw them off? She would have to proceed cautiously, unsure what sense of humor gangbangers might have. They certainly loved to howl with laughter at the misfortunes of others; she had seen them often enough on subway platforms, pointing and cackling uproariously when old women with canes slipped down the stairs, when eight-month pregnant women struggling up those stairs with a stroller stuffed with babies had one fall out and roll down. She forced a smile. Would they fall for it?
“Well, if I don't have any money, and you have so much, perhaps you shouldn't be mugging me. I should be mugging you!” She gave a limp wave her hand to show that this was a joke, as if her forced titter weren't enough of a clue. She found it easy to flash a smile. Nickel and Dime had drilled it into her: Smile Even When Under Duress.
They didn't seem to find it funny, but they at least appeared to be mulling this over with looks at each other. They seemed like contestants before the investors on Shark Tank when confronted with an offer and nowhere to discuss it. They must've understood what the eyes of the other said, because they both nodded together, and then Snicker, pointing the gun at her again and grinning horribly, said, “We like you, so we ain't gonna rob you.”
“You ain't got no money to give us nohow.”
“We like you so much, gonna give you tips how to not get mugged.”
“You walking down the street with your keys in your hand. We know you next to home. So don't keep keys in your hand.”
“When you get to the door, you need to look around.”
“Check nobody checking you out.”
“Like you guys?” she asked.
Snicker leaned forward. The stench of marijuana emanated from his pores.
“Now we helped you. We don't want your money. But you got something else we want.”
“Hungh, hungh, hungh.”
“Hee hee hee.”
They ran dripping tongues over their young mouths. Dear God, don't let them kiss me in addition to...! She shuddered as her mind grew blank. They ogled the mounds of her raincoat as if two of the latest i-Phones were strapped there. They shuffled closer, eyes shining with vulgarity.
“I want me some of that white sugar. Ain't had none before.”
“Yeah, let's take us some of your librarian-like stuff.”
Though fully clothed, Gretchen felt stripped. Sweat trickled down her face, mingling with the tears coursing down her freckled cheeks. She whimpered like a trapped ferret against the mailboxes. Don't be predictable! she longed to tell them.
Could she say she was pregnant? HIV positive? No. She had seen an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit where the psychologist told Olivia Benson that such lies, instead of deterring would-be defilers, made them angrier. And more violent. What else might deter them? Gretchen couldn't wriggle her nose and magically change her sex. Short of revealing she were a secret transvestite or pre-op transexual, both of which would earn her a bloody lip, two black eyes and probably worse, there was nothing she could say.
Lewd reached toward the mound of her raincoat where her left breast was, Snicker toward her right. And maybe they would shoot her afterward after all, just for fun. She had seen their faces.
If they allowed her to live, she was sure to be traumatized for years after, perhaps severely. She had even seen on that same episode of Law and Order a girl who had been reduced to a catatonic mess. Regrets of misspent time cascaded into Gretchen's brain, I should've done those Eight Minute Abs workouts, I should've tried quail eg
gs, I should've have those children I wanted, I should've learned Russian, I should've gone to church every Sunday...I should've... should've...shouldn't have wasted those years with that damn poseur poet...
Now it was too late.
Lewd snickered. Snicker giggled. One hand pinned her left shoulder against a mailbox, the other her right arm, which Gretchen was undulating in defense, against the inspection poster.
Another car zoomed past outside, this one blaring Meghan Trainor's “Lips Are Movin.”
Dear God, please don't let “Lips Are Movin” be the last thing I hear before I die. Besides the gunshot, that is.
And lips were moving: toward her. Lewd's tongue wriggled through the air towards Gretchen's horrified lips. Why had nobody told him there were products to reduce fuzzy tongue? Snicker's tongue followed suit. The pimply-looking tongue, and the other one, were slinking closer.
This was where her life would forevermore be divided between before and after. Gretchen sobbed against the locks and prayed for a miracle.
CHAPTER THREE TWO YEARS AGO
IT WAS TWENTY MINUTES later. Gretchen noticed Maximus smelled like black peppercorn and lime. He explained on the ride down to Chinatown that he did something technical for a company called BytesTech. Gretchen hadn't really been paying attention. She'd been too busy checking him out. As they pushed through the crowds towards the subway exit, she was realizing this Maximus always seemed to enthuse; there seemed to be a pent-up energy within him begging for release. Yes, perhaps it was drugs, but she didn't think so. She knew enough to know the signs.
Gretchen had long wondered if there were any sane men left in New York. After the string of losers, alcoholics and deadbeat divorcees she had dated since Sam, she dared not hope for anything but disappointment where a man was concerned. But this Maximus Voo seemed poles apart. Sam and his beery odor were forgotten for the moment.
Emergency Exit (The Irish Lottery Series Book 6) Page 2
