After leaving the post office, Casey followed the redhead to a bookstore just off Union Square. She counted out pocket change to buy a small cup of coffee and proceeded to nurse it for several hours while she sat in a comfortable chair reading magazines off the rack. At a table nearby, Casey pretended to be engrossed in a thick textbook plucked from a shelf in the science section, while noting every detail about the redhead.
She took only one magazine at a time, turning the pages carefully and making sure she didn’t spill a drop of coffee on the merchandise. She read each magazine cover--to--cover and when she finished, she returned it to the proper slot on the rack, rather than placing it haphazardly or leaving it where she was sitting, the way other so--called customers were doing. Her choice in reading material was eclectic: the highbrow New Yorker and Paris Review were followed by Us Weekly and Sports Illustrated.
So she’s brainy with a frivolous and athletic streak; she’s conscientious, and she’s either frugal or flat broke. She’s also most likely unattached, judging by her bare ring finger and the fact that she never once looks at her phone or sends or receives a text. These days, lovers in her age group constantly check in with each other electronically.
Dusk has fallen beyond the plate--glass windows when at last the redhead stands and stretches. She takes her time putting the last magazine back on the rack and doesn’t seem to notice Casey making a hasty exit to the street, leaving the textbook sitting open on the table.
Never once looking over her shoulder, she walks north on Broadway through Chelsea, turns left at 28th Street, and walks west, following it as it curves past the Penn South residential complex toward the Hudson River. She crosses Eleventh Avenue and covers half the final block before unlocking the door to a small, narrow apartment building.
Casey can’t follow her inside, but makes note of the address and the fact that there’s a large Con Edison facility directly opposite the building. Interesting. Maybe it’s some kind of sign that this is meant to be.
Less than a minute after the redhead disappears inside, a light goes on in the fourth--floor apartment. As if to confirm that it’s the right place, and provide yet another sign, she appears in the window briefly, a real--life Rapunzel with coppery hair.
Then she’s gone again, leaving Casey to gaze thoughtfully at the grillwork ladders and platforms that zigzag up the front of the building, right to her window. Watching her from the fire escape would almost feel like watching Rowan through the skylight, from the high branches of the elm tree in her yard.
Adrenaline spikes through Casey’s veins, undiminished by the voice of reason: What if someone sees you up there and calls the police?
Pedestrian and vehicle traffic on this block is relatively light. A nosy neighbor in the same building or even on the same side of the street would have to stick his or her head all the way out the window to even see the fire escape. That’s not likely on a gloomy December night. There are no residential buildings facing the apartment from across the street, only the windowless Con Ed facility. Still . . .
You’re too smart to take stupid chances.
Smarter than anyone. Smarter than everyone.
Casey walks away, vowing to forget about her even though another bleak Sunday looms just ahead.
From the Mundy’s Landing Tribune Archives
Lifestyles
June 10, 1966
For Modern Mundys,
History a Source of Pride, Not Shame
Their ties to this village stretch back over three centuries and are well documented at the Mundy’s Landing Historical Society in the basement of the Elsworth Ransom Library. According to director Miss Ora Abrams, “The Mundy family tree includes a Revolutionary War general, a wealthy industrialist, and a hero who went down with the Titanic after saving the lives of several steerage children.”
She added that the society’s former curator, her great--aunt Etta Abrams, graduated from Mundy’s Landing High School in 1900 with Maxwell Mundy Ransom—-who until his hospitalization last winter resided at his ancestral home here on Battlefield Road. He served in the House of Representatives during the Great Depression and was instrumental in New Deal legislation.
Miss Abrams said, “It’s a rich legacy of which any family would be proud.”