There Was an Old Woman

by Hallie Ephron

  “You know how they say time slowed down? Well, that’s not what happened at all. I felt sick, like I was going to throw up. And we were moving so fast that I had to hang on to the railing of the elevator to keep from floating. I knew Betty was thinking about her husband. I was sure it was the end.”

  “Aunt Mina?” Brian said.

  Evie kept her focus on Mrs. Yetner, but out of the corner of her eye she could see Brian looking in from the dining room. There was a woman with him.

  “Aunt Mina, this is Dora Fleischer, the woman—”

  Mrs. Yetner sent him an icy look. “I’ll talk to her later,” she said. Brian hung in the doorway for a moment, then he turned around and went into the kitchen with the woman.

  Turning back to Evie, Mrs. Yetner lowered her voice. “After that, my memories are jumbled. There was a funny smell. That must have been all that burning fuel. And a light overhead. Like a flashlight. I have no idea how long we were down there. The next thing I remember is being outside, lying on a stretcher. Astonished that I was still alive. This priest—he had a pale face, and his glasses were streaked with soot—was standing over me and reading me last rites. I told him to please stop. I wasn’t Catholic, and I’d already forgiven them for not giving me that job.”

  She leaned forward and picked up the Empire State souvenir from the table. “I must have been holding this when I got into that elevator, because one of the rescue workers brought it to me later in the hospital. He said he’d been flabbergasted that either of us had a pulse. I’d broken my back, and the bones in my legs had to be pinned back together. He said the floor of the elevator had cracked like the shell of an egg.” She shook her head. “Like the shell of an egg.”

  Mrs. Yetner leaned back and exhaled, her face relaxed. “I’ve never told that story to anyone but Annabelle and Henry. I was afraid people would think I was a hero. But there was nothing heroic about it. What happened just happened.”

  Evie turned off the recorder. “What an amazing, fascinating story. Thank you so much. This is just incredible.”

  Mrs. Yetner held the miniature out to Evie. “Here. Do you think the Historical Society would want this? I don’t need any more good luck.”

  “I’m sure they’d love to have it. Thank you.” Evie reached out and took it. The metal felt soft in her hand. Its blurred surface was a testimony to the destructive force of a fire that, against all odds, had spared at least two of its victims. Tomorrow she’d take it to the Historical Society. Already she knew exactly the spot for it in the exhibit. Too bad they hadn’t gotten it in time to be featured in the poster.

  “You know,” Evie said, “you could have headed for the stairs and saved yourself, just like everyone else. But you didn’t. You stayed to help your friend.”

  “See? There you go. That’s what I mean. The truth is, I didn’t do anything. It just happened, and I was in the wrong place at the right time.”

  Evie didn’t argue. She saw her point. “Would you mind writing a note, saying that you’re donating the souvenir and giving the Five-Boroughs Historical Society permission to use your oral history?”

  “Oral history? Is that what they call long, old stories these days?”

  Evie laughed.

  Mrs. Yetner reached over, opened a drawer in the coffee table, and pulled out a pad and pen. In a careful slanting hand, like what Evie had seen in old penmanship books, Mrs. Yetner began to write.

  “Just one more thing,” Evie said, getting out her cell phone. “Would you let me take a picture of you signing the bequest?”

  Mrs. Yetner put her hand up and smoothed her hair. “I suppose,” she said, touching the pearls she wore around her neck. Then she put the notebook in her lap and held the pen to the page. Evie set the little statue beside her so it would be in the picture, too. As Mrs. Yetner signed and dated the note, Evie snapped a picture, then another. After that she took a picture of the old photo on Mrs. Yetner’s mantel—Mrs. Yetner with her sister when they were girls. Then she carefully tore the page from the notebook and tucked it into her bag along with her cassette recorder and cell phone.

  “So you weren’t burned in that fire, were you?” Evie said, taking a seat on the couch opposite Mrs. Yetner.

  “No.”

  “But how—?” Evie touched the spot on her own cheek where Mrs. Yetner had a scar on hers.

  Mrs. Yetner tilted her head. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “I . . .” Evie was baffled. “Should I?”

  “No. But I thought you might.”

  “Why? Was I there? When?”

  “A very long time ago. We’ll talk about it. Another time.” Mrs. Yetner leaned back in the chair. She looked very tired.

  Evie couldn’t push her, not after the story she’d just heard. “I’ll come back and tell you all about what everyone says when they hear your story. I’ll bring you a picture showing your little Empire State Building mounted in the exhibit hall. In fact, I hope you’ll let me escort you to the gala opening. You’ll come, won’t you?”

  Mrs. Yetner flushed. “Oh, good heavens. You can’t be serious.”

  “You have to come. It won’t be right without you. People will be dying to meet you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “And you won’t make a heroine out of me, will you?”

  “Promise.”

  Mrs. Yetner smiled. “Good. Then I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Under her breath she added, “Go out in a blaze of glory, that’s what I say.” Then she called out, “Brian! We’re done here.”

  Brian came in from the kitchen. Following him was the woman who’d arrived earlier. From the neck down she looked like a visiting nurse: loose but ironed pastel hospital scrubs and a man’s watch on her wrist. But from the neck up she could have been on her way to a ladies’ lunch at Olive Garden: not a strand of her dark hair was out of place, her pink lipstick thick and carefully applied.

  But she seemed to know what she was about. She went over to Mrs. Yetner and crouched in front of her, trailing a wake of gingery scent. She took one of her hands. “My name is Dora. I’ll be staying with you—”

  Brian picked up Evie’s purse from the floor and handed it to her, clearly her cue to leave. Evie stood and followed him to the door.

  “I think it’s great what you’re doing. Arranging it so your aunt can live where she wants to.” Evie looked up the stairs. The door at the top was closed. “Sounds like you’re doing quite a bit of work up there. My mother always wanted a second bath.”

  “I am sorry about your mother,” Brian said, holding the door open for her.

  “You were friends?”

  “Friends?” Brian looked aghast.

  “No, of course not,” Evie said. “Never mind. I’ll try to get back soon to see your aunt.”

  “Dora will be here. She’ll let you know whether Aunt Mina is up to company.”

  Evie wondered if there was something about Mrs. Yetner’s health that she didn’t know. She started to ask. Then thought better of it. Selfish of her, really, but she couldn’t take any more bad news.

  Outside, the panel truck was gone. In the dark, Evie could see that pieces of lumber and building debris were not so much stacked as tossed, willy-nilly, in Mrs. Yetner’s driveway. It was just as well that Mrs. Yetner couldn’t see it. She’d have pitched a fit.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  “I had no idea that you liked Ivory,” Mina said to Brian after Evie left. “Evie said you came over in the middle of the night to look after her.”

  “Is that what she told you?” Brian eyed her warily.

  “And after you left, she found the whistle to my teakettle and those papers you brought over for me to sign. Know where they were? Under the couch where Ivory was hiding.”

  He gave her a cool look. “You need to be more careful about where you put your things.”

  “Me? Why would I put the whistle to the teakettle under the couch? And why would I stuff my eyeglasses into the bas
e of a potted plant?”

  Brian folded his arms across his chest. “I’m sure it made sense at the time.”

  She wanted to strangle him.

  He shook his head. “Aunt Mina, I didn’t take your teapot whistle, and I certainly didn’t hide your glasses. But I’m not sorry those things happened, especially if it helps convince you that it’s time to get some help.”

  That took some of the wind out of Mina’s sails. She lowered her eyes and said, more into her lap than to Brian, “I don’t know why I need someone sleeping in the house with me.” The walker seemed like an unnecessary nuisance as well. She was sore, but not incapacitated.

  “Let’s try it this way for a few nights,” Brian said, “and if you can get along without the help, we’ll let her go. In the meanwhile, try to relax and enjoy having someone wait on you.”

  Mina was glad when he left a short time later, leaving her in the hands of the capable Dora. There was no point telling Brian that at her stage of life she got a lot more pleasure from taking care of herself. So she bit her tongue and let Dora take her blood pressure and listen to her heartbeat, turn down her covers, help her into her nightgown, and settle her into bed. By then, Mina’s hip was throbbing like a bad headache. She took another pain pill with the glass of warm milk Dora brought her.

  Dora positioned the walker alongside the bed and set Mina’s bedroom slippers inside its perimeter. “If you have to get up in the middle of the night, it’ll be right here for you,” she said. “I know you’d rather take care of yourself, but if you need help, I’ll be right out in the living room, sleeping on the couch. I’m a light sleeper, so just call out. That’s what I’m here for.”

  Dora wished her a good night and left the bedroom door ajar. Mina hadn’t even seen the day’s headlines, and she’d missed two days’ worth of obituaries. If she’d had her glasses, she’d have sat up in bed for a while, reading the paper. Instead, she lay there letting her mind wander.

  What a relief it had been to talk about the day that the plane had crashed, practically right into her office widow. Evie had been a wonderful listener. She hadn’t treated Mina like a sideshow freak the way reporters had treated Betty, trailing around behind her in the months after she was pulled from the wreckage. Other than to thank her rescuers, Mina had refused to speak with the press. But now she didn’t want her story vanishing into obscurity along with the rest of her memories.

  And what about the troubling news the girl had brought her? It never occurred to Mina that other homeowners were being offered the same deal with the devil that Brian had wanted her to sign, property in exchange for short-term ease. She wondered if Finn had figured out who was behind the demolition of Angela Quintanilla’s house. And what about the demolished house a few doors up from Angela’s? Were the same folks poised to bulldoze Sandra’s house?

  Bulldozed houses. A battery-less fire alarm. A whistle-less teapot. A golf ball that came out of nowhere. The more Mina tried to make sense, the more the pieces slipped around. She needed to make a list. But she couldn’t rouse herself to get out of bed, never mind call Dora to get her paper and pencil. Finally she gave up and let her thoughts swirl as she stared up at the ceiling, whose cracks she knew like the back of her hand but could not see.

  She could hear Dora padding around in the kitchen. An occasional thump from overhead. Could the men still be working up there? From outside came the sounds of the night. The high whistle of what might have been a nighthawk. The burr-up of a bullfrog. She’d seen one, so camouflaged he was nearly invisible, in her garden just the other day, and she’d been careful not to disturb him. Nighthawks ate what frogs ate. Insects. She was happy to share her marsh with all three.

  Ivory settled and resettled beside Mina’s pillow, resting her paw possessively on Mina’s cheek. The cat had been doing that ever since she was a kitten, and it never failed to make Mina smile. She rubbed Ivory on the forehead, then turned over onto her good side. Soon she’d drifted off, only dimly aware some time later of quiet footsteps. Dora was in her bedroom. Closing the windows. Drawing the shades.

  Mina tried to rouse herself, to tell Dora to stop. She liked to sleep with the window open and the shades drawn halfway. That way, when she woke up she could tell if it was morning without having to put her glasses on to check the clock.

  But Mina could barely open her eyes, never mind say anything. Sleep was overtaking her like a thick fog. Was she dreaming, or could she hear a man and woman laughing together? Was that the smell of cigarette smoke? Maybe Sandra Ferrante was back. She often sat outside late at night, smoking on her back porch, laughing with a gentleman caller, the smoke drifting in through Mina’s window.

  Later—how much later Mina had no idea—she came awake to the sounds of a door shutting, thumps and scrapes like furniture being moved around. She strained to listen but heard nothing but silence until sleep pulled her back into unconsciousness.

  A jiggle on the mattress awakened her again. A shift of weight. Had Ivory gotten up? Then a low grrrowwRRRR and a bounce, as if the cat had jumped down off the bed. The growl turned to a prolonged hiss and whine. Wrowww.

  Mina knew the stance that went with that sound—back humped, head down, tail bushed out like a squirrel’s, mouth open and teeth bared. Was she imagining shapes on the floor? Ivory and her doppelgänger facing off? Or were there three of them—like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, one splitting into two, two into four. As Mina drifted off to sleep yet again, she felt a breeze from an open window and warm bodies settling in around her.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Evie left for work the next day at dawn, energized and determined to put in as many hours as she could before she had to travel to the Bronx to spell Ginger at the hospital. She was halfway to Sparkles when she realized that everyone had their garbage at the curb, waiting for pickup. She’d have to remember to ask Finn what the schedule was.

  Except for a security guard at reception, the Historical Society offices were dark and empty when she arrived at seven A.M. She waved her arms to coax the automatic lighting into flickering on as she walked from the elevator to her office.

  First, she set about trying to confirm Mrs. Yetner’s amazing survival story. Newspapers from the time were full of her friend Betty. Betty Lou Oliver, a twenty-year-old elevator operator, became New York’s sweetheart in the wake of her miraculous survival. Her husband was a navy torpedo man, and he had been on his way home after a year and a half in the Pacific.

  Evie found a Daily News photograph of Betty Lou, a slender woman with auburn curls, walking with crutches at Bellevue Hospital, months after the crash. According to the caption, the nurses had nicknamed her “Miss Sunshine.” Evie smiled. She could not imagine Mrs. Yetner ever having been anyone’s Miss Sunshine.

  There was nothing in any of the news articles about a second survivor. But Evie did find traces of Mrs. Yetner in the records. A day after the crash, the New York Herald-Tribune listed “Wilhelmina Higgs” among seventeen dead or missing. In later accounts, the official death toll was fourteen and her name was no longer among them.

  Still, Evie wondered how on earth anyone could have survived what must have been at least an eight-hundred-foot fall. She found article after article in which “experts” tried to explain what everyone agreed was a miracle.

  The most convincing explanation came from a spokesman for Otis Elevator, interviewed soon after the accident. He started by saying that an elevator “free fall” was as unlikely to happen “as finding life on other planets.” In fact, the elevator in the Empire State Building was the one and only instance he’d ever encountered. There were too many fail-safes, ancillary cables whose sole purpose was simply to prevent a disaster if the main cables broke.

  The Otis Elevator inspectors found that in this case, however, all the elevator’s cables did fail—including the automatic braking cable. They’d been damaged when the jet engine and burning fuel fell down the adjacent shaft, and so they’d all snapped while the elevator was being lowered.
Ironically, it had been those severed cables that probably saved Mrs. Yetner and her friend Betty. The cables had piled up in a tangled coil in the subbasement under the falling elevator. That, combined with compressed air trapped in the shaft by the rapid descent, cushioned the final impact. Betty Lou and Mrs. Yetner had been pulled to safety moments before flames engulfed the elevator pit.

  Evie pulled the metal miniature of the Empire State Building from her purse. It was made of pot metal and there was no question that it had gotten so hot that it had begun to melt—another piece of evidence supporting Mrs. Yetner’s story.

  She slipped Mrs. Yetner’s bequest, donating her story and the miniature, into a Mylar sleeve. Then she photographed the figure and logged it into the archives along with the audiotape and photographs of Mrs. Yetner. She added a lengthy research note summarizing Mrs. Yetner’s story. Under Provenance, she put: “Gift of Wilhelmina Higgs Yetner.”

  As she typed into the system, the name Higgs lit up. That meant another Higgs had made a donation to the Historical Society. Intrigued, Evie scanned through the system. A collection of ceramic pottery shards, attributed to the Siwanoy Indians, had been donated in 1940 by a Mr. Thomas Higgs. That had to be Mrs. Yetner’s father. A research note said they’d been excavated in 1923. That must have been during the development of Snakapins Point.

  “I didn’t expect you to be here.” Evie looked up, startled by the voice. Connor was hovering in her office doorway. “How’s your mother doing?”

  “Still the same. Thanks for asking. I’ll go back to the hospital this afternoon. Ginger and I are taking turns, though I don’t think my mother realizes we’re even there.”

  “It’s important to be there anyway. If not for her, for you. I told you, take the time you need.”

  Evie felt a rush of gratitude. “I will. I am.”