Chapter 18 - Elisa #2
Maybe today is the day I get to be wrong about danger and right about breakfast.
My phone buzzes again.
It is not a number I recognize.
I don’t open it.
Then Nico’s name lights the screen, half-covered by my thumb.
He has sent a photo of the same bad knot and three words.
You still mad?
I am not mad.
I am something that could start with M and end with terrified if I let it.
I type, Not mad. Busy. Call you later.
My finger hovers over send.
I erase later and write soon.
I erase soon and write today.
I put the phone away before I start revising the dictionary.
At the corner a woman with a stroller smiles at me because women with strollers know things they do not say.
I smile back and step into the crosswalk with her.
The light changes and the cars in the first lane do that small lurch that means everyone is impatient.
The stroller’s wheel catches a crack.
I reach to lift it over.
The mother thanks me without words.
The air smells like wet paper and exhaust.
Brooklyn in a coat.
Halfway up the next block, I stop pretending I’m not going to call the doctor.
Mom is right.
My thumb is clumsy on the screen.
The office line rings and rings.
I brace for the receptionist voice that greets with three rules.
Instead, it’s Mira herself.
Dr. Conte answers like she expects bad news and doesn’t fear it.
“Conte,” she says.
“It’s Elisa,” I say. “I need to come in.”
“Today,” she says. It is not a question. “I have nine thirty. If anyone asks, you are a scheduling error.”
“I can be an error,” I say. “Thank you.”
“Bring water,” she says. “And don’t smell anything stupid on the way here.”
“Working on it,” I say.
I’m five minutes from the hospital if I cut through the small park.
I don’t cut through the small park.
I stay on the avenue where there are witnesses eating bagels and people who get in the way, which is exactly what I want.
The SUV pulls from the curb at a polite pace.
It keeps a car and a half between us like it read a handbook.
Knit cap from the bus stop crosses behind me and then ahead as if he forgot something.
Shoe-lace man disappears into a deli and reappears with nothing in his hands.
Maybe he was hungry for breath.
I pass the bakery where I used to work weekends when the ovens ran too hot for the day crew.
The new kid at the counter has my old apron.
He doesn’t wear it right.
He waves because I am still the woman who knows which buns to move to the top shelf when the line looks like cousins.
I don’t wave back.
My stomach has opinions.
Rizzo calls to say she got my message about the doctor and not to worry about the chart I left unfinished.
“I told them you are allergic to the color of that room,” she says. “Also, I have ginger tea. Come steal it from me later.”
“I will,” I say. “Thank you for yesterday.”
“You bet,” she says. “And if a strange car tries to be your friend, you remember I am meaner than it.”
“I know,” I say. I want to say more.
I don’t.
She hangs up in the way that says she will text me a photo of a cat in a sweater if I sound shaky.
A bike messenger cuts too close.
I step back, bump someone’s shoulder, say sorry, keep moving.
My skin is buzzing in that way it does when I have slept too little and thought too much.
The SUV drops back and then edges forward.
It wants to teach me a rhythm.
I speed up and pick a new one.
By the time the hospital is in sight, the crowd has thinned into the morning lull between bus schedules.
This is the part of the day I like least.
The light is flat, the street is quiet, and everything feels like it is waiting.
At the curb by the service entrance, a white van half-blocks the alley.
There is a cartoon wrench on the side and a phone number in a font that looks like it lies.
The rear doors are open a crack.
Inside I see tool cases lined up too neatly.
The driver is on the phone, nodding at nothing, the way men nod when they want to look like they belong.
A second van idles at the hydrant with a city sticker peeling from the windshield.
I tell myself to look at the door, not the van.
Professional.
Normal.
Boring.
I call this the hospital face.
It keeps men with clipboards from giving me instructions I do not need.
“Morning,” a voice says, warm and casual.
The man who says it has a clipboard and a reflective vest and the kind of smile that sells memberships.
He steps into my path smoothly.
“We’re doing a quick fire drill on the east wing. Need a staff signature so we can keep the elevators free.”
“Ask security,” I say.
I step to the side.
He does too.
“It takes a second,” he says, lifting the page like it’s a peace offering.
The paper is blank.
His pen is not uncapped.
His eyes are wrong.
I pivot to go around him.
Someone else appears at my elbow, too close.
A woman.
Mid-forties, maybe.
She wears a cardigan and a laminated ID on a lanyard that swings.
The photo on it is a blur of someone not her.
“You’re Elisa, right?” she says brightly. “We spoke yesterday. About the patient transfer.”
She pats her bag as if there is a form inside that matters to me.
Her perfume is too sweet for morning.
Her smile travels only as far as her lips.
“I didn’t speak to you,” I say. My voice stays even. “I’m late.”
“We’ll walk you in,” she says, helpful. “There’s an issue with the badge reader.”
Now I look at the badge reader.
It is fine.
The guard is inside, at his stool, reading the sports page.
He has not looked up.
The van’s rear doors widen the smallest possible amount.
I pivot again and start for the main doors.
The woman stays on my right.
The man with the vest drifts to my left.
The sidewalk has turned into a funnel without any walls.
A delivery cart rolls out from the alley and into my path.
The boxes on it are labeled Linen.
A third person pushes it, head down, cap low.
The cart bumps my shin. It looks like clumsiness.
It feels like intent.
“Watch it,” I say, too loud.
The guard finally looks up.
His mouth opens.
He starts to stand.
He is three beats too late.
The man with the clipboard leans in.
His hand lands on my upper arm lightly, like an uncle.
“This way,” he says, friendly. “We’ll be quick.”
Every warning my mother ever spoke and every rule Nico ever tucked into a sentence climb into my throat.
Turn to a crowd.
Make noise.
Don’t let anyone steer your feet unless a name you trust is attached to the hand.
I pull my arm back and step to my left.
The woman mirrors me.
The cart surges at my knee, just enough to force another step the wrong way.
The alley yawns.
The second van inches forward so the hydrant is boxed and the sightlines narrow.
The SUV from my block has arrived without any engine sound I can pick out.
It slides to the curb across the street.
The windows stay black.
“I said no,” I say. My voice is steady but loud. Good. “Security,” I call. “Hey.”
The guard takes a step.
He says “Ma’am” in a way that sounds like a question.
The woman clicks her tongue.
“We don’t need to make a thing of it,” she coos.
She has the kind of voice that makes grocery store lines move faster.
She uses it like a tool. “Come on.”
Someone behind me says my name as if he owns it. “Elisa.”
It is quiet.
It is not Nico.
It is not anyone from the hospital.
The syllables sit wrong in the air.
I turn my head because I am human.
That is all they need.
The man with the vest moves fast, no more talking.
His hand is on my elbow again, not light.
The woman slips behind me and presses her body to my back as if we are old friends taking a picture.
The cart blocks my knees.
The alley breathes.
For a breath, I think I can still break through. I am not small.
I am not slow.
I have elbows and a voice.
I open my mouth to yell.
A hand covers it, not hard, just sure.
The woman’s breath is in my ear.
“Don’t fight,” she whispers, and her voice is not sweet now. “It is worse if you fight.”
I do anyway.
I twist and go low like the orderlies taught me to when an angry father tried to make the hallway his.
My shoulder hits the edge of the cart.
A box slides, thumps the ground, pops open.
It is not linen.
It is straps.
The sight punches something primitive in me.
I kick backward with my heel.
I catch a shin.
Someone hisses.
Good.
The guard finally clears the threshold and then freezes because he has to choose who to tackle and nothing in his training covered a fake fire drill with a nice lady.
A passerby stops and raises a phone.
The woman drops her weight and locks her arm around my waist.
The man with the vest pins my forearm in a hold that speaks of practice.
The cart shoves.
We tilt toward the alley.
“Hey,” I hear. Rizzo.
She is at the corner, out for coffee she meant to bring me later.
She sees me and breaks into a run that turns heads.
She is not fast.
She does not need to be.
Her voice is a siren all by itself.
“Let her go,” she shouts. “Hey! Let her go!”
The nice woman smiles at Rizzo like this is a misunderstanding in a grocery aisle.
“She’s with us,” she calls back. “Transfer.”
Rizzo does not slow.
“The hell she is,” she says.
There is a coffee cup in her hand.
She throws it without ceremony.
It hits the man with the vest in the face and bursts.
He flinches, curses, and his grip loosens.
I yank my arm down, half free.
The cart bangs my knee a second time.
The second van door opens the rest of the way.
Two more bodies.
Too many hands.
“Run,” Rizzo yells.
I try.
I get one step.
A black-gloved hand clamps on my coat at the back of the neck and hauls.
The world tilts a little.
Then a horn blasts at the corner as a box truck decides to announce itself.
The noise eats my second shout.
A bystander decides he has to be at work and moves on.
The guard is on his radio now, but his legs look slow.
The woman speaks again, low and pleased.
“Shh,” she says, like this is the part where she wins. “Shh.”
I bite her hand.
She jolts and swears.
I savor the sound and slam my heel down hard, anywhere.
Something gives under my shoe.
A groan.
The grip on my coat loosens again.
I twist toward the street.
A sedan glides up so close the mirror brushes my sleeve.
The back door opens.
It smells like leather and clean chemicals.
A man inside says, calmly, “Now.”
The alley collapses to a point.
Hands lift.
The world rises and then slides sideways.
My phone spills out of my pocket and skitters under the cart.
I see the screen flash one last time with Nico’s name.
The woman’s hair is in my face.
The man with the vest says, almost fondly, “That’s it.”
The guard shouts something that won’t matter.
Rizzo throws the empty cup at the van and keeps running, swearing like a saint having a bad day.
I catch a last slice of sky over the roofline, the gray just starting to think about blue.
My mouth tastes like ginger and fear.
I twist, once more, useless, and then my shoulders hit the sedan’s seat.
The door slams.
Darkness.
A hand pushes my head down.
Another pulls my feet in.
Someone says, “Drive.”
The car lurches.
The alley slides past in a smear.
Rizzo pounds on the window with her palm.
The glass doesn’t care.
The city takes the scene back like it always does, and the sound of tires replaces my name.
I try to get one knee up.
A belt bites across my shins.
A voice very close to my ear says, almost kindly, “Don’t.”
I do not stop listening to the street until there is nothing left to hear.
Then the world narrows to the inside of a moving car, the smell of someone else’s coat, and the taste of lemon still on my tongue.