LITMIR.BIZ

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Look at this!” Emma Gardner squealed like the child she once was, not the freshly minted teenager she had so recently become. Standing there on Broadway in SoHo, in front of shops she had only ever dreamed about back in Edwardsville, Illinois, she was again her mother’s little girl, the ghosts of her horrible ordeal for the moment cast off, gone.

      “Yuck!” exclaimed Rory. He was about to turn eleven, and still had no use for girls, much less girlish things. But such was his love for his sister that even he managed to feign interest in the latest fashions that almost entirely occupied the minds of girls.

      “Say cheese!” shouted Hope. Rory and Emma struck a mock-pose as she snapped the picture with her cell phone camera. She didn’t care if she looked like a dumb tourist. She was a dumb tourist, in New York City for the first time in her life, and loving it. “Now, who’s for some lunch?”

      “I am!” “I am!!”

      They walked up Broadway to Houston Street. The plastic map she was consulting indicated that the mysterious and wonderful place called Greenwich Village lay to the west, and a brisk walk should bring them into that legendary land of hippies, gays, poets, and painters in just a few minutes.

      “I like New York,” said Emma. “And I’m getting real hungry.”

      “Me, too,” seconded Rory.

      They crossed Seventh Avenue and soon found themselves in the maze of the West Village. The angles of the streets confused Hope. She was determined to show her kids that she was in charge, but when they crossed the intersection of West 4th Street and West 10th Street, she was sure her world had turned upside down.

      “Mom, are you sure you know where we’re going?” asked Rory skeptically, scratching his head. He didn’t know much about Manhattan streets, but he knew what a grid looked like, and this wasn’t it.

      Hope looked at the map in her hands and realized it wasn’t there. Rory had snatched it away and was studying it like an expert cartographer charting the coast of Malabar. “This way,” he decided, and off he went, heading north by northeast, with Hope and Emma trailing.

      Hope took Emma’s hand as they walked past the rows of brownstones and red brick houses, so unlike her notion of what New York City was. This was one of the oldest surviving parts of Manhattan, and as she walked she began to understand what it was that had attracted so many people to Greenwich Village over the centuries. It really was like a little village, if you didn’t count the whizzing yellow cabs and the trucks rumbling down Seventh Avenue and the…unusual…people on the street.

      They passed restaurant after restaurant, but didn’t stop. Although none of them would admit it, there was something forbidding about Manhattan eateries. It was almost as if they were a series of private clubs, with admittance only to familiars; Hope was sure that the minute she entered one the people inside would immediately spot them for the tourists they so obviously were, and would make fun of them behind their backs, or take advantage of them. Besides, the prices…

      Emma clutched her mother’s hand tightly. It wasn’t that she was afraid—the nightmares had finally stopped a few months ago, and she knew she was as safe here, in the middle of the largest city in the country and the greatest city in the world, as she possibly could be. But there was something reassuring about the physical contract, a warmth that helped dispel the lingering fear.

      Suddenly, she shivered and stopped. “What is it?” asked Hope, and then she heard it: Thwack thwack thwack…The sound of angels’ wings. The sound of a helicopter.

      Hope turned and craned her neck. Emma looked down at the dirty pavement. Rory felt, rather than saw, that they had stopped, and was rushing back to his sister. Thwack thwack thwack…

      Then Hope saw it: high over the Hudson, a police chopper was describing a lazy arc in the sky as it surveyed the area along what the locals still referred to as the West Side Highway, even though the highway was long gone. It was not threatening, not alarming, but the sight and sound brought back unwelcomed memories for both Hope and Emma.

      “Food!” shouted Rory, rushing ahead.

      In their ignorance, they had wandered north of 14th Street, where Rory had spotted a Sabrett’s hot dog vendor wheeling his pushcart north. A hot dog was far from haute cuisine, but it was certainly better than nothing.

      The vendor, however, didn’t seem to want to stop. From time to time he glanced down at his watch, and then cast a look at the sky, but he kept pushing the cart north on Seventh Avenue, Rory on his heels. “Hey, mister, wait up! We wanna buy some hot dogs.”

      The pushcart vendor, however, didn’t stop, but kept up his steady pace. He wasn’t exactly running—you couldn’t really run with a pushcart, Rory noticed—but his pace was quick, almost double-time, and he either didn’t hear Rory or wasn’t inclined to stop.

      “Hey, mister!”

      The man looked over his shoulder: “Off duty!” he shouted and kept right on moving.

      Hope watched her son chase the man up the avenue. She had already learned the hard way that, in New York, when people said they were off-duty, they were off-duty. A couple of fruitless interactions with yellow cabs and the mysterious dome-light signals had taught her that.

      Still, Rory was not about to give up. When the vendor had to halt at a light, the boy caught up with him. “Three hot dogs, please,” he said, brightly.

      The man turned to look at him. Rory wasn’t much good at guessing grown-ups’ ages—they all looked old to him—but he figured the guy had to be somewhere between 20 and 50, African American, with close-cropped hair and a small mustache. He noticed the man had a couple of tats on his big arms. He looked like he worked out pretty regularly, and you wouldn’t want to mess with him.

      “Off duty,” said the man and started up the pushcart again. Then, suddenly, he changed his mind, flipped open the top, and pulled out three dogs as Hope and Emma approached. “What d’you want on ’em?” the man asked.

      “One with ketchup, one with mustard, and one with sauerkraut,” replied Rory.

      “You got it,” said the man, much friendlier, coming up with the three hot dogs.

      “My name’s Rory. Rory Gardner. What’s yours?” For a moment, Rory thought the man was going to snap at him, but instead he smiled a nice smile and replied, “Ben. My name’s Ben.”

      Ben stuffed the hot dogs into buns, added the condiments, and handed them over.

      “Thank you so much,” said Hope, handing him a $20 bill as Emma and Rory tucked in. “Please forgive my son. He’s just curious, is all.”

      Ben smiled again. “First time in New York, huh?” he said. “Have a nice day.” And then he was gone.

      “People sure are weird here,” said Emma. Rory made a face at Emma as they walked and ate, just like real New Yorkers. Hope was glad to see them laughing and kidding…and then she remembered the hurt and the void at the center of her heart. She took a bite out of her hot dog and looked up at the sky. The noise had distracted her: not just one helicopter now, but two, three, more, circling in the clear blue sky.

      A taxi slowed to turn the corner. It was available. “Come on, kids,” shouted Hope, signaling to the cab. Astoundingly, it rolled to a stop. “Who’s up for a movie?” Gleefully, they all piled into the backseat.”

      “Times Square, please,” said Hope. The driver hit the pedal, sending them tumbling back into the seat cushion. This was going to be fun.

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      New Orleans

      Maryam noticed the car behind them before Devlin did. “Seven o’clock,” she said. They were driving up Canal Street, past the ghost of Ignatius J. Reilly and the clock.

      “Bogies?”

      “What is bogies?”

      Sometimes

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