“Colette.” There’s caution in Aaron’s tone. “I’m not sure—”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Of course I’m happy to rework the book, but we need to set up a schedule to talk more about some of these experiences you want to include. With all due respect, Teb, it’s been hard to sit down with you.”
“I think what the mayor means,” Aaron says, “is that this isn’t working.”
“I get it. So let’s talk about how to fix it.”
Aaron begins to speak, but Teb cuts him off. “I’m sorry to say this, C. But we have to bring in another writer.”
“Another writer?”
Aaron leans forward in his chair. “We’ve spoken to the editor,” Aaron says. “We’re hiring someone else to fix the book. Someone with a bigger name. That guy from Esquire.”
“You’re kidding. You’ve already arranged this? Without talking to me?”
“Come on, Colette,” Aaron says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This book is going to be an integral part of the mayor’s race for re-election. You know that. We can’t bring what you’ve written to the publisher or the voters. We’re in a ton of shit with this baby-abduction thing. That crazy real estate guy is throwing money at our opponent. We’re barely hanging on here.”
She searches for the right response, and then says nothing. It’s done.
She doesn’t have to pretend any longer that she can manage the baby and this work. She’ll get to stay home with Poppy.
“You’re sure about this?” She addresses Teb, but Aaron is the one to answer.
“I’m afraid so, Colette.” His phone beeps. “And we, unfortunately, need to go.” Teb is staring out the window, unwilling to look at her. “The banking people are here,” Aaron says, buttoning his jacket, gesturing toward the door. “Colette, thank you so much.” His manner is light, as if they’re wrapping up a conversation in which they’ve decided on brunch plans. “The mayor has really enjoyed working with you.”
She stands, expecting Teb to say something, but he remains silent. She walks out of his office, toward the elevator. Her head is swimming. What happens now? What will this mean for her career? She should call the editor, or her agent; she needs to explain herself.
But then she pictures Poppy, alone with a woman she doesn’t know.
She races past the elevator, down the four flights of stairs. Outside, there are no taxis in sight, and she runs as fast as she can across City Hall Park, down the stairs to the subway. A train is on the platform, and the doors are beginning to close as she swipes through the turnstile. She gets there just in time to stick her arm between them, and they close on her elbow. The doors open a few inches, and before they can close again, she pries them apart with both hands, wide enough to slip inside and take one of the last empty seats. The woman next to her smells of hair spray, and Colette catches the eye of an older woman with a pile of orange plastic shopping bags on the floor between her feet. The woman tsks loudly. “Slowing everyone else down,” she says, scowling. Colette looks away. Her elbow is throbbing.
Rap music blares from the headphones of a man sitting across from her, and she presses her fingers to her ears, trying to think of how to explain this to Charlie. He doesn’t know how badly the book has been going, how much she’s been struggling. What is he going to say? Colette opens her eyes, seeing that the man across from her is holding open a copy of the New York Post, the photograph of Nell from the Jolly Llama on its cover.
The air fills with the sound of squealing brakes and the sudden wail of a baby. The woman beside her clutches Colette’s thigh as the train jolts to an abrupt stop, and an older man near the door falls to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” the woman next to her says, removing her hand. A young couple is helping to lift the man, and people are glancing up from their phones, scanning each other’s faces as a stunned hush settles over the subway car. The older woman with the shopping bags tsks again and begins to say something, but her words are swallowed by the voice of the conductor. “Police to the tracks. If you can hear me, police to the lower-level tracks near the F platform. We have a person on the tracks.” There’s a moment of static and then: “He’s strapped to something.”
The power is cut, silencing the air-conditioning, cutting the lights; a ghostly quiet settles over the car. Colette feels the shift around her as people turn to their cell phones, as she does, knowing she won’t have service.
I have to get home to Poppy.
The door at the end of the car skids open. “You didn’t think this was coming?” The guy wears jean shorts and a thin white tank top revealing wiry, muscular arms. He walks briskly through the car toward the door at the opposite end, weaving between the people standing in the aisles. “You didn’t think we’d see a suicide bomber in New York, with this jackass as our president?”
The panic builds in her chest. She sees Poppy’s face, how she looked in the middle of the night, nursing, her deep blue eyes naked with love, staring up at Colette. Colette is incredulous, still, that she can feel a love this bottomless, like the abandoned quarry she was too afraid to jump into as a child, the one that later swallowed up a boy from her high school, his body never found. She takes her phone from her lap and types a text to Charlie. She won’t be able to send it without service, but if someone finds her phone, if it survives the explosion . . .
I love you more than anything. Poppy. Please let her know—
The lights flash back on, and then the jolt of the AC hits. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the conductor. We’re going to open the doors in the front car. Make your way forward to exit. Be as quick and orderly as you can.”
Colette stands, entering the silent stream of people making their way down the crowded aisle. In the next car, a teenage girl is sitting alone at a window seat, holding her phone in her hand, a tear sliding down her cheek. She wears argyle tights, with a rip in one knee, and a gold stud glitters at the bend of one nostril. Colette touches her arm, and the girl looks up at her.
“I need to call my mom, but I don’t have any service.”
“Come on,” Colette says, taking the girl by the arm. “Walk with me.” She keeps her hand on the girl’s elbow, guiding her forward. When they get to the first car, she’s relieved to see that the front half is in a station; they won’t have to walk along the tracks. She waits her turn to exit, and then she and the girl begin to run with the rest of the crowd, down the platform, through the turnstiles, and up the stairs. The girl disappears in a swarm of people, and Colette sprints away from the subway entrance. On the next block she sees someone exiting a cab and dashes toward it, stepping in front of a man about to climb in the back seat.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I need to get home.”
She slams the door against the horrible names the man is calling her, the sound of his fists banging the window. “Brooklyn,” she says to the driver, giving him her address. “Please hurry.”
She closes her eyes, and it seems like hours have passed when they arrive at her building. The sky is drained of light, and her legs are weak as she goes inside, approaching the doorman’s desk. “I need Sonya’s apartment number.”
On the second floor she tries to compose herself, and then knocks gently on Sonya’s door. There’s no answer. She keeps banging, so hard her fists ache.
“Hello? Sonya?” The door across the hall opens. It’s a man in his late twenties, a small dog nipping at his heels behind him, classical music playing in the background.
“What are you doing?” he asks, easing the dog back into the apartment with a bare heel.
“She’s not answering her door. She has my baby. I live upstairs.”
“She left.”
“Left?”
“Yeah, I heard her go out. You can hear everything through these walls.”
“What time?”