Home > One of Our Own(3)

One of Our Own(3)
Author: Jane Haddam

“Right,” Sister Margaret Mary said.

Sounds came drifting down the hall from the Girl Scout meeting.

Sister Margaret Mary opened the front door again. “I’ll see you in a couple of minutes,” she said.

Then she stepped all the way out into the rain and shut the door behind her.

The street was still the street. The boys were still the boys. The rain and sleet pounded against her veil like tiny bullets.

There was no sign of the big black van anywhere, but somehow, that didn’t make Sister Margaret Mary feel any less apprehensive.

 

 

4


Meera Agerwal was so sick, she almost didn’t understand what she was seeing. She had a fever of 102. The girls in her office had taken it right before they had packed up to leave, right on time at five o’clock, like good little Americans. Americans made Meera furious. They didn’t expect to really work for anything. They started on time. They finished on time. Then they wanted everything, and if the company wouldn’t give it to them, they voted for stupid politicians who promised to make the company do it.

Her body was freezing cold, but there was sweat running down the back of her neck. She’d ended up leaving work “on time” herself, because she couldn’t think straight with this fever. She came down out of the building and headed in the direction of her apartment. It was only five blocks away. The sleet was slick and sharp. It stung against her face. Then all of a sudden there was this hulking shape in front of her, this woman in a thick coat that fit as tightly as a sausage casing, just there, and she crashed right into her and fell.

“Watch where you’re going,” the woman said, and stomped off.

The sidewalk was hard and wet. People walked around her without stopping. She got on her hands and knees and tried to push herself up. Then a man did stop and held out his hand.

“Are you all right? Can you get up? I could call 911.”

Meera took one of his hands, and then the other. She pulled against him until she had one foot flat on the pavement. Then she pulled some more until the other foot came up. She was upright. She was also unsteady.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to call for some help? You don’t look too good.”

“I will be fine. Thank you.”

The man was black. Meera was never sure how to feel about American blacks. This man was extremely polite. He was also almost elderly. She took a deep breath. It hurt her to breathe.

“Thank you,” she said again. “I have a cold. I need to go lie down.”

“I could walk with you if you wanted, just to make sure you don’t fall again. Most people aren’t like that—that person. I can’t believe the way some people behave. My grandson would say it’s because you’re black. We’re black, so white people don’t see us.”

“I am from Mumbai,” Meera said. She felt as if somebody had reached up and snatched the caste mark right off her forehead.

“Mumbai,” the man said. “I bet it’s warm there. Warm and sunny. Not like this.”

“I can get home on my own,” Meera said. “I need to go home now.”

“Then I’ll let you get on your way. As long as you’re sure.”

“I’m sure. Thank you for helping me up.”

“No problem. You get some rest now.”

Meera made herself start walking. He wasn’t going to leave if she didn’t start walking. It hurt her to walk at the beginning. There was dirt on her hands. She would have to check to see if he was following her. You never knew with American blacks. Maybe he was just being helpful so that he could get her home and get into her apartment and then rob her, or worse. American blacks were supposed to be very prone to the worse. All her friends from Mumbai who had come to America before her had told her about it.

She made it to her red brick row house. She made it up the stoop. She made it up the four flights of stairs to her apartment. The apartment took up half the floor. She let herself in. She forced herself to make it a little farther, across the tiny foyer and into the living room, and collapsed in the very first chair.

It was then she realized that the woman who had knocked her down had not been a stranger. She knew that body. She knew that coat. The woman had not seemed to recognize her. What could that mean?

She wanted to fall asleep where she was. Instead, she made herself get up again. There was a contraption in the kitchen for making coffee. In Mumbai there would have been somebody at home to help her. She wouldn’t have had to make her own coffee or cook her own meals. Even students didn’t have to fend for themselves, and students were poor.

She got the coffee started, sat down in a kitchen chair, and took out her phone. Then she hit two on her speed dial and waited.

Cary was a typical American in many ways, but he had irons in the fire, as he put it. He stayed late at work.

He picked up. He said “Cary Alder” and nothing else.

The rudeness of Americans was mind-boggling. In Mumbai, even untouchables didn’t talk to each other this way.

“This is Meera Agerwal,” she said. He wanted her to call him Cary. She wouldn’t do it.

“Meera? You’re calling me? Why didn’t you just come down the hall?”

“Because I’m not in the office.”

“At home? I don’t believe it. You never leave before I do.”

The little timer thing on the coffee maker went off. She left it. She shouldn’t have coffee in the state she was in. She should have tea with honey in it. Later.

“I have the flu,” she said. “I need to tell you what happened to me.”

“Something happened to you? Are you all right? Do you think you should call a doctor? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Then she closed her eyes and counted to ten. In Hindi. Finally, she said, “Please, listen,” and launched into the story of the woman who had knocked her down.

After that, there was a long stretch of silence.

“Damn,” Cary said finally. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Marta Warkowski.”

“Yes.”

“Did she come to the office?”

“Not while I was there. And when I left, I closed up. The girls had all gone home. If she went to the office after she ran into me, she would have found it closed. And you’re in the back. You wouldn’t have heard her knocking.”

“Hernandez says she never goes out in the dark. She comes home after Mass and locks herself in and won’t answer the door.”

“Well, she was here tonight. And I don’t see what business she’d have in that neighborhood except for us.”

“True.”

Meera couldn’t do this anymore. “I need to lie down now,” she said. “I just wanted you to know. And to tell you you should be careful. Maybe she came up and she’s waiting right there outside the door, waiting for you to try to leave.”

“Crap.”

“I am going to hang up now. But I am going to tell you what I always tell you. Dealing with her was a mistake.”

Meera turned the phone off and put it down on the kitchen table. She would have to take it with her when she went into the bedroom. She would make tea and go there and lie down. If somebody tried to wake her up, she would pretend to be dead.

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)
» The War of Two Queens (Blood and Ash #4)