Saturday, June 8
NAN SHANE LAID THE FINAL CARD faceup on the table. “Six of cups, reversed. You have opportunities ahead. New vistas.”
The waiter shook his head. “New vistas? Again? Send those cards back to the factory for a tune-up.”
Nan cupped a hand around a yawn. “I don’t think these jerks are ever going to show up.” She lifted her drink, a Tequila Sunrise in a stem glass, and drained the last diluted dregs. “Do me a favor, J.J.—see if you can get me a refill?”
The thin-hipped, redheaded waiter carried Nan’s glass across the softly lit interior of Tiffany lamps and red-checked tablecloths. There was practically nobody in the place.
The bartender—a young, overweight guy in shirtsleeves—wore a jowl-to-jowl frown as he polished the gleaming maple bar with slow swipes of a chamois. Nan could see him refuse to make her another drink. Hostility came off him in waves.
She gathered up her cards and shuffled them into a neat stack.
The waiter returned. “Sorry.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Nan slipped the cards back into their box and dropped the box into her tote bag. She gave the waiter’s hand a pat. “But thanks for trying.”
In the corner of the bar a four-year-old with blond pigtails stood on tiptoe playing with the buttons on an old-fashioned rainbow-colored jukebox. Nan Shane snapped a finger. “Come on, Dodie. Hit the road to dreamland.”
The little girl turned. She had huge eyes and pouting lips.
“No,” Nan said. “Don’t even ask. You’ve played that song enough.”
Dodie didn’t move.
“I said come here.”
Dodie began crying.
Nan Shane had to cross the bar and take Dodie by the hand and pull her to the door. The child whined and held on to chairs and table legs. Nan kicked the door open, and Dodie’s wail hit the night air like shattering glass.
“Shut up,” Nan said.
Dodie didn’t shut up.
There was really no decision to be made. Nan let Dodie have it across the face, outer edge of the backhand.
“And that,” Nan said, “is just a warning.”
Dodie was quiet now. Nan could hear the city again. Overhead, the bar’s sign gave a squeak in the steamy breeze. Nan loved that sign. The owner had promised she could have it if he ever closed the bar. It was varnished driftwood, with rustic carved letters, and the letters spelled ACHILLES FOOT.
“Lady,” a voice said.
Nan Shane blinked. Out of nowhere a man was coming toward her. She realized he’d been standing just beyond the circle of light that fell from the window, but standing so still that she’d mistaken him for a shadow.
“Lady, why did you hit that child?”
Why was it, Nan Shane asked herself, that everyone in New York City knew how to run a single mother’s life better than she did herself? “This is my child. Thank you for your concern, but this is mother-daughter business. Please keep out of it. Come on, Dodie. Homeward-bound.”
Dodie began crying again.
“Don’t you know children belong to God?”
He said it so quietly, with a look of such gentleness on his face, that at first Nan registered nothing but his tone. It was the tone for saying, What a lovely child.
“I beg your pardon?” Nan said.
“You mustn’t slap that child. God hates people who beat children.”
Her head felt like a TV set that was picking up video from one channel and audio from another. What she was hearing and what she was seeing didn’t go together. He was dressed in clean jogging clothes, like a stockbroker out for a late-night run, and he had a smile you’d say yes to in a minute if you met him in a bar. But what he was saying was crazy. God and hate and beating children—what kind of a conversation was that to start with a stranger at two A.M. on a New York sidewalk?
Nan Shane sensed a creepie vibe coming off this guy.
“Come on, Dodie. Beddie-bye.” She reached for her daughter’s hand.
But Dodie didn’t move. She just stood there and stared at the man. Ever since Nan had split from Dodie’s father, the girl had stared at men.
“Come on.” Nan gave Dodie’s hand a yank. “We’re going home. Now.”
Dodie began screaming. Nan gripped the child’s hand hard and didn’t let go and took off at a fast walk. She’d drunk a little more than she ought to have, and Dodie decided it would be cute to act like a deadweight, and between the booze and the brat Nan had a difficult time walking straight.
The child stumbled and fell. Wouldn’t you know it, the screams got even louder. Any minute now people would be sticking their heads out the windows to see who was getting murdered.
“Will you stop play-acting?” Nan gave the girl a good hard pull to stand her up straight. “You’re embarrassing me!”
“You’re abusing that little girl,” the man said.
Nan didn’t believe it. The man was walking right alongside them, grinning, happy with himself, sure as hell happy with something. You’d have thought she’d invited him to walk her home and stop up for a drink.
“Will you do me a favor and get lost?” she said.
He was not one to take a hint.
Nan glanced up and down the street. A taxi with its off-duty light on had passed them and was waiting at a red light two blocks north. Except for parked cars and that one taxi, Third Avenue was empty.
“You don’t deserve a child,” the man said.
“What I don’t deserve at two o’clock in the morning is you, you goddamn creep. So fuck off before I call a cop.”
“You don’t deserve anyone.”
“You want me to scream? Because my kid gets it from me. I taught her how.” Speaking of which, Nan brought the flat of her hand down sharp on Dodie’s skull. “Shut up, the both of you!”
“You’re a monster, and I’m not going to let you abuse that little girl anymore.”
Nan stopped and whirled to face him, so angry now that she could see her own spittle fly. “You want to adopt a kid, go to Family Services. This one’s mine—so butt out, asshole!”
That did it. There was a startle reflex in his eyes. He fell back a step.
Nan Shane grabbed Dodie’s hand tight. “Come on, kid, move it. He’s a weirdo.”
Nan began running.
But suddenly it felt all wrong.
Her feet were running in a dream, getting nowhere. Something was holding her from behind. A mirror flashed in front of her eyes, left to right. A burn went across her throat. The mirror flashed again, going the other way, and then she felt a hot stinging dampness burst under her chin.
Pink was spraying in front of her, and Dodie was looking up at her, wide-eyed. The child’s face was nothing but a baby-toothed shrieking hole, and blood was flying, like the time Nan’s Aunt Mattie put a finger in the blender to unstick the Bloody Mary mix.
Then gravity kicked in, and Nan hit the sidewalk in a tangle of arms and shawl and necklace and legs and skirt.
And then the pain in her stomach began.