IT’S FRIDAY NIGHT, AFTER HER last show of the week, and Erica is walking home, heading uptown on Sixth Avenue. She’s wearing khaki slacks, a blue oxford, and a straw hat pulled low. She gets some looks, but no one stops her or rushes up for an autograph. She loves how blasé New York is to celebrity. When she’s out in the hinterlands she sometimes feels like a freak, or a specimen—Celebritorus americana—or even public property, available to any crazed fan who wants to shove his face in hers, gushing like a goose on meth. No, she’ll take Manhattan, the Bronx, and (one-of-these-days-she’ll-get-to) Staten Island too. It’s a warm night, close and humid, almost oppressive; there’s an air-quality warning, the new normal, but still Erica treasures the sense of freedom, the chance to people-watch. And what a cool melting pot this town is! No wonder New York is the center of the known universe—it embraces all God’s children. And diversity equals strength.
Erica is hoping the walk will calm her restless mind and taut nerves. Her plate is full, but she’ll deal with things as best she can with—she hopes—smarts and grace and hard work. All well and good, but not quite enough to tame her disquiet, her fears—for her marriage, her relationship with Jenny, and her own life. Joan Marcus’s throat was slit from ear to ear like a pig at slaughter. Someone really didn’t want her talking to Erica. But who? Why?
“We think you’re wonderful,” come the words, delivered with a lovely Indian lilt.
Erica looks over and sees a family—mother and father and three teenage children. They’re all smiling, beaming goodwill at her.
“I know we’re being tragic tourists, but we watch you every night back home in Sacramento,” the mother says. “Thank you for fighting for the truth.”
“You inspire me,” the daughter says.
The air between Erica and the family is filled with simple kindness and humanity—and she feels her eyes welling, her throat tighten.
“You inspire me,” Erica says.
The family moves on, and Erica tries to hold on to the gift they’ve given her. She takes out her phone and calls Jenny.
“Mom,” is the first surly word.
“How are you, baby?”
“I have asked you not to call me baby.”
“How are you, Jenny?”
“Oh, I’m just great, Mom, just great. You cost me my best friend, who dropped me like I had Zika, and now she’s leading a cyber campaign to make me the most unpopular girl in the school. Yeah, I’m just great.”
“That snake, that creepy little snake. What is she doing?”
“What isn’t she doing? Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram. I’m the spoiled little wannabe who relies on her famous mother to have friends. I’m ugly and stupid and have crummy hair and thanks, Mom, thanks a lot!”
“Now you listen to me, Jenny, that Beth London is a nasty kid. I’m going to contact the school and her parents and put a quick end to this.”
“Dad already did.”
“Has it stopped?”
“Too soon to tell.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because you were out in I-don’t-know-where being famous and rich and saving the world. I knew you wouldn’t have time for me.”
Erica feels her stomach hollow out, and now the city that moments ago brought her a measure of solace seems to be mocking her. In that familiar voice she recognizes, a voice that makes her nauseous with dread and sadness. She hears:
Ha-ha, got too big for your britches, didn’t ya, Little Miss Perfect. Well, you got all that fame and money and fancy clothes and blah-blah-blah, but your own daughter hates ya, ha-ha-ha.
Erica picks up her pace, she needs to get away, away from the voice . . .
“Oh, Jenny, please don’t hate me, please . . .”
“I have to go. Game of Thrones is on. Good-bye.”
And now Erica breaks into a run, running past startled pedestrians, not caring about their stares, running away from her pain, running away from her past, knowing even as she does how futile it is, but still she runs, sucking air, fast faster, away away from it all . . .
But, Erica . . . where are you running to?