“Sorry,” I say. I look at her again…is she? No. She’s not even looking at us anymore. Sean and I keep walking.
Finally we reach the top of the hill, the street ends at the entrance to Golden Gate Park. There’s a grassy area in the front, and behind it a paved pathway winding back. A young couple is leaning against a brick wall kissing. Three guys are kicking around a Hacky Sack. A half-dozen people are sitting in a circle, drinking out of paper bags, listening to a girl playing guitar. Sean gasps suddenly, he grabs my upper arm, squeezes it.
“Ellie,” he whispers. “Ellie.” I can feel his hand shaking. He motions toward a little group standing just a few feet away, a girl with long dark hair, a big guy with red hair, a smaller guy with blond hair, and a girl with a blonde pixie cut. They’re all looking around, like they’re waiting for someone. The girl with the long dark hair is smoking a cigarette. The big guy glances at his watch.
And all of them are wearing identical Tshirts, white V-necks with a graphic drawn in the center. A sweep of a jawline, the arch of an eyebrow, the crescent of a crooked smile.
It’s a face: mine.
Sean leans in close. “Bingo,” he whispers.
We walk forward. The girl with the long dark hair takes a final drag of her cigarette, tosses the butt on the ground, and grinds it out with the heel of her boot. She watches us approach.
“Hey,” Sean says. “I really like your shirt.”
“Yeah?” The girl tips her head to one side. She has giant eyes rimmed in gold eyeliner. Her friends are clumped together behind her. The blonde girl behind her is staring at me. Our eyes meet. She holds my gaze a second too long.
“Yeah,” Sean says. “It’s really fucking cool.”
“Thanks.” The dark-haired girl grins. “This local artist makes them.”
The big guy steps forward. He’s about six-five, with giant arm muscles bulging under the thin white fabric of his T-shirt, which is almost exactly the same as hers, except my face is a little distorted where it’s stretched across his massive chest. “We each got one.”
“Awesome,” Sean says, nodding. “Really cool.” He pauses. “You don’t happen to know where I might find the person who made the shirts, do you? We’re from out of town and these would be great to bring back home.”
“I do indeed,” the guy says. He turns around. He points to his back over his shoulder.
NINA WRIGLEY DESIGNS:
Custom-Made Hand-drawn Tshirts.
1414 Avery Square, San Francisco, CA
“She sells them out of her apartment,” the guy says. “You can just go there right now, I bet she’ll be there.”
“Thanks, man,” Sean says. He squeezes my hand. “Can you tell me how to get there?”
The guy glances at me, and then back to Sean. “I’ll do you one better, I’ll take you there myself.”
Sean starts shaking his head. “Nah, that’s okay, man. You don’t need to do that.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” the guy says. “Let me!”
“No, seriously, you can’t,” Sean says. “I mean…we’re not going to go tonight. We’ll just probably go tomorrow or the next day or something.”
“Okay,” the guy says, slowly. “Okay. Okay.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out a little notepad and a pen. He starts scribbling down the directions. Sean is watching the guy. The girl behind him is still watching me. When our eyes meet again something flickers across her face. The guy hands the directions to Sean.
“Cool,” says Sean. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” the guy says.
“Good luck,” says the girl.
We turn, and start walking. Sean is holding on to my arm, his entire body shaking. “Let’s just get this over with,” he says. “We’ll just go now, no stopping, no thinking. We’ll go and then we’ll find somewhere to sleep and then when we wake up tomorrow morning, this will all be behind us.”
“Yes,” I say to Sean. I am walking beside him, breathing in and out and in and out, reminding myself to have faith in her. To keep walking. And when the time comes, to be ready. “By tomorrow morning everything will be different.”
Forty-one
We turn right and walk up a steep hill on a narrow street, surrounded by tall skinny houses on either side. It’s pretty and peaceful. Not the setting you’d expect for something like this. But really, what is?
Sean’s hand is on his stomach, holding on to the gun through his shirt. “This has already happened,” he whispers. “All of this has already happened.”
We’re both panting. We turn right, then left, then right again. I think I hear footsteps behind us, but I’m too scared to turn around. My heart is pounding.