the flow of people exit. There’s no guarantee that the next train will be any less crowded, and that waiting meeting looms. I shoulder myself on, shimmying toward the door that connects one car to the other; find a space with a little breathing room. The cars fill.
Stand clear of the closing doors.
The doors close, open again, then finally shut for good. The train lurches forward, stops, jostling everyone, then onward again. I close my eyes, try to breathe. The crowded space is closing in already. I am not great in tight spaces, which is an uncomfortable condition for a city dweller. It’s worse since Jack died; the fingers of panic tugging at me more than they used to. I lean my head against the scratched, foggy glass. Breathe. Just breathe. Imagine you’re on a trail in the woods, plenty of space, the tall green trees giving oxygen and shade. There’s a bird singing, the sound of the wind in the leaves. It’s the meditation Dr. Nash gave me for dealing with anxiety in crowds or anywhere. Occasionally, it works.
But when I open my eyes again, he’s there. That hooded man, pressed in among the crowd in the other car, a statue amidst the clutter of shuffling, jostling passengers. His eyes are hidden by the shadow of the hood, but I can feel them. Is it the same man? My heart stutters, a suck of fear at the base of my throat.
Reality cracks, a fissure splits in my awareness. For a moment, quick and sharp, I’m back in my own bedroom. The space beside me on the king mattress is cold when it should be warm. The covers are tossed. Jack left for his run without me, letting me sleep.
“Jack?”
Then I’m back, the train still rattling, rumbling. I’m stunned, a little breathless; what was that? A kind of vivid remembering, a daydream? Okay. It’s not the first time it has happened; but it is the most vivid. The woman next to me gives me a sideways glance, shifts away.
Pull it together, Poppy. The stranger—he’s still there. Is he watching me?
Or is he just another blank commuter, lost in thought about home or work or whatever it is we ponder when we’re zoning out, traveling between the places in our lives. Maybe he’s not seeing me at all. For a moment, I just stare.
Then, unthinking, I push through the doors, stepping out onto the shaking metal platforms between the cars. This is a major subway no-no, I think as I balance and grope my way through the squeal of metal racing past concrete, metal on metal singing, sparking, then through the other door into the relative quiet of the next car.
He moves away, shoving his way through the throng. I follow.
“What the fuck?”
“Watch it.”
“Come on.”
Annoyed passengers shoot dirty looks, shift reluctantly out of my way as I push after him, the black of his hood cutting like a fin through the sea of others.
As we pull into the next station, he disappears through the door at the far end of the car. Trying to follow him, I find myself caught in the flow of people exiting, and get pushed out of the train onto the platform. I finally break free from the crowd, jog up the platform searching for the hooded figure among tall and short, young and old, backpacks, briefcases, suits, light jackets, baseball caps. Where is he?
I want to see his face, need to see it, even though I can’t say why. Distantly, I’m aware that this is not wise behavior. Not street-smart.
Don’t chase trouble, my mother always says. It will find you soon enough.
Then the doors close and I’m too late to get back on. Shit. My phone chimes, finding a rare spot of service underground.
A text from Ben: ETA? They’re going to wait a bit, then reschedule. Assume you’re stuck on the train.
It isn’t until the train pulls away that I see the stranger again, on board, standing in the door window. He’s still watching, or so it seems, his face obscured in the darkness of the hood. I walk, keeping pace with the slow-moving train for a minute, lift my phone and quickly take a couple of pictures. I can almost see his face. Then he’s gone.
I arrive at the office frazzled, sweaty, full of nerves, late for the meeting. In the bathroom, running my wrists under cold water, pulling shaking fingers through my dark hair, I stare at my reflection in the mirror.
Pull. Yourself. Together.
My face is sickly gray under the ugly fluorescents, as I dab some makeup on the eternal dark circles under my eyes, refresh lipstick and blush. A little better, but the girl in the mirror is still a tired, wrung-out version of the person she used to be.
Rustling through my bag, I find the bottle of pills Layla gave me. It’s blank, the little amber vial, no label. For nerves, she said. I hesitate only a second before popping one in my mouth and swallowing it with water from the faucet, then try to take some centering breaths. Dr. Nash is not aware of my unauthorized pill-taking, one of multiple things I keep from her. I know. What’s the point of keeping things from the person who is supposed to be helping you?
As I walk past Ben’s desk, he rises and hands me a stack of messages.
“They’re waiting,” he says, dropping into step beside me. “You’re fine.”
“Great.” My smile feels as stiff and fake as it is. “The subway is a mess.”
“Everything okay?”
He inspects me through thick, dark-rimmed glasses, tugs at his hipster beard. He’s a stellar assistant; I keep trying to promote him but he doesn’t want to go. My clients love him—he’s on top of all their contracts, tracks down their payments, helps with grant and residency applications. Over the past year, he’s been more agent to them than I have. He could probably just take over and I could slip away. It’s tempting, that idea of slipping away, disappearing—another life, another self.
“Yeah,” I say unconvincingly. Ben watches after me with a frown as I push into the conference room.
“His work,” Maura is saying. “It’s stunning.”
“Whose work?” I ask, taking my seat at the head of the conference table. “Sorry I’m late.”
All eyes turn to me. When Jack was alive, I could come and go unnoticed. He ran the meetings and I was the number two—critical to the running of the office, but not the magnetic, energetic head of the meeting table. He brought a light and enthusiasm for the craft, for the business into every gathering. I am not the captain he was, I know, but I’m doing my best. They watch me now—respectful, kind, hopeful.
Jack picked out everything in this room, from the long sleek conference table to the white leather swivel chairs, the enormous flat screen on the wall. His photo from an Inca Trail trek, featured in Travel + Leisure, is blown up onto an enormous canvas. He took it from his campsite above the cloud line—orange tents blossom in white mist, as clouds fall away into a landscape of jade and royal blue, the dip of the valley dark and the sky bright.
“Alvaro’s,” Maura says. “He took that Nat Geo job to photograph the okapi living in the Ituri Rainforest, just got back
