LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER TWO

      MATT STARED IN stunned silence at the woman on the other side of his desk.

      “Twenty years ago? On the Green Line to Oak Park?” she prompted.

      The memory rushed at him like the train coming into the station. He’d been seventeen. It had been around 3 p.m. on a late-winter day, and except for some other teens he didn’t know on the far end of the platform, the subway station had been pretty much deserted. He had been on his way to his gang initiation. The sound of jeering caught his attention. Two girls were fighting, surrounded by a small circle of onlookers. Matt tried to ignore them. But another loud cheer made him look back. That was when he realized it wasn’t a fight so much as a jostling, though one girl in particular was on the receiving end of the pushing and shoving. Her backpack flew across the platform and Matt tensed. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the headlights of the incoming train reflected on the tunnel walls. There was a scream, followed by a girl flying through the air, her hair streaming behind her, onto the train tracks.

      But she hadn’t been this...this woman. Had she? Dry mouthed, Matt said, “Why don’t you take a seat?”

      She set a briefcase on the floor and pulled up the chair adjacent to his desk. “You remember, don’t you. I can see it in your face.”

      “I...I do remember that day but you... Your hair...was longer and...” Matt searched through his memory for other details.

      She touched manicured fingers to the knot at the base of her neck. “A bit shorter now and I have it up at the moment...” Her voice, already only a thin whisper, trailed off.

      He waited for her to catch her breath. Memories of that day had been with him for twenty years, lurking just beneath the surface. He could see himself charging down the platform but had no recollection of jumping onto the tracks. Just that he was suddenly there, grabbing onto a thick winter coat and then wrapping his arms around a girl. Lifting her, then shoving her up onto the platform. Scrambling after her as the train roared into the station and screamed to a halt. It all happened in seconds. Fractions of seconds.

      Matt leaned across the desk for a closer look. That day he hadn’t noticed the color of her eyes, just the stark horror in them. He looked at her—the greenish-brown tints in eyes now blurred with memory, the scatter of pale freckles across her nose.

      “How old were you then?”

      “Fifteen.”

      A kid. Not anymore though. She’d be thirty-five now, though as he took in the business attire and the prim hairdo, he thought they added at least a decade. But she definitely hadn’t been beautiful then, as she was now. He’d have remembered that.

      “And you?”

      “Me?”

      “How old were you?”

      “Seventeen.”

      She nodded thoughtfully. “You seemed older. Later, when I was thinking of you, I pictured someone much older.”

      Matt had been much older in some ways that day than he was right now. He cleared his throat. “So...uh...it looks like things worked out okay for you.”

      “I’m alive.” Her smile added another dimension to his new picture of her. But the smile didn’t reach her eyes. They’d shared a terrifying moment that day and clearly each had some common recollections of it, but as for afterward? Different stories.

      “I’m sure you’d have—”

      “No.” Her voice pitched. She shook her head. “No one... They all were just standing there. In shock, I guess. That girl pushed me. I went backward and fell over my backpack onto the tracks. When you ran to help me, they all took off. A woman came along as the train was leaving the station. I was still sitting there, where you set me down.” She waited a second. “She helped me gather up my things. She wanted to call the police but what was the point? They were all gone. I didn’t know any of them.”

      Matt was processing that when she blurted, “Why didn’t you stay?”

      He winced. He’d tortured himself with that question for years. “Well, you seemed okay. And, uh...I had to get somewhere.” Like far away from my original destination, he added silently. He ought to have stayed, but as he had done so many times back then, he’d disappointed someone. That time it had been her.

      “I kept thinking I might see you again. On the Green Line. To thank you.”

      “I didn’t usually take that line but...uh...I was visiting someone.” The lie slipped out. Matt glanced down at the files on his desk. Now what? What was the social etiquette around meeting for the first time someone—a beautiful woman—whose life you once saved?

      “My name’s Matt. Matt Rodriguez,” he said, realizing that they hadn’t officially met.

      “Yes, so I read in the paper. There was a photo and caption, along with an article about a budget cut.”

      “Is that how you found me? The article in yesterday’s Trib?”

      She nodded. “I saw it this morning.” Then added, “I’m Dana Sothern.”

      She must have come right here, Matt realized. After she’d made the connection she could have passed on the opportunity to meet face-to-face. Yet she hadn’t. He wondered about that. “Since you’ve come all this way, would you like a tour?”

      She hesitated, then said, “Okay.”

      She didn’t seem ready to go, as if she were content to just sit and stare a bit longer. But Matt needed to get up and away from that clear-eyed gaze, though he couldn’t explain why he found it so unsettling. The perfectly ordinary teenage girl from twenty years ago had definitely morphed into someone interesting, he thought. Well, she grew up, buddy. Like you.

      He led the way from his office into the large open space of the center. “You may have noticed the information boards on your way in. We run a number of activities for the kids, to accommodate the age range and interests.”

      “Which is?”

      “Nine to fifteen.”

      “Why that range?”

      The questions—or was it the intensity of

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