Devil's Plaything - Matt Richtel [120]
It takes a second for me to realize that he means my backpack. I turn around and see a few papers have scattered on the ground in the station.
I also see Faith. She’s scooped up several of the straggling pieces of paper and is fast approaching. Where has she been? I turn back to the agent.
“Some guy nearly pushed me into the tracks. Can you call the police?”
“Nothing’s missing?” he asks. He clearly hates the idea of the bureaucratic time sink involved with reporting a non-mugging.
“You must have cameras,” I say.
I’m thinking of the surveillance cameras must have seen the incident and maybe got a good look at the falling mountain.
I turn to Faith, who stands just a few feet away, holding my papers. Part of me is wondering what she’s doing, why she followed me, and where she came from, why she’s wearing a skirt after dark in rainy mid-January. I’ve got a more pointed question.
“You must have seen him,” I say.
“You should sit down. You look a little green.”
I’m sure she’s right. It doesn’t take a former med student to recognize I’ve got a head contusion and maybe a concussion.
“I’m okay. I’ll get to a doctor,” I say. Even as I say it, I know I’m unlikely to get it checked.
“Your backpack has taken a mortal blow. It’s bleeding papers,” she says, then pauses. “Seen him?” she asks. “Who?”
“The guy who toppled me over. You passed him in the tunnel, or he passed you. You each appeared out of nowhere, simultaneously.”
She looks momentarily stricken. “I didn’t get a good look. I’m sorry.”
Even under these circumstances, I am conflicted about whether to press this gorgeous and empathic woman, or flirt. I split the difference. I take a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I usually don’t interrogate a woman when I first meet her. Usually, it’s cup of coffee, or a beer, maybe dinner, and only then do I start treating her like a witness or suspect.”
She laughs. “I wanted to make sure you were okay,” she says. For a millisecond, she lowers her brown eyes and then looks back up. She smiles, reassuringly.
“What’s on your sweatshirt? Did you get sick?”
I look down at the green splotch just above the left shoulder on my gray sweatshirt.
“Or did your baby get sick?” she asks.
What’s with this woman? Does she know something about me?
“I’ve got a nephew,” she explains. “When he was a baby, that’s right about the spot where he liked to press his face when I fed him.”
I look again at the splotch on my shoulder, and feel light-headed again, momentarily unreal. I shake myself back into the strange moment. This prescient woman is right. I’ve got feeding casualty on my shoulder. Isaac. My son. I’ll see him again. I manage a smile.
“Masticated avocado,” I say. “From the mouths of babes. Right onto my shoulder.”
“I take it your son is not in his 20s.”
I feel my eyes mist. “Eight months, give or take. Spits up like an Olympian.”
I cannot possibly be connecting with a woman, not under these circumstances, not given my track record in relationships. I’m a romantic Hindenburg; promising take-offs, brief smooth sailing, splat. It’s probably not the time to blurt that out, or disclose my dysfunctional personal life and worldview. I’m no longer with Isaac’s mom, and he’s with her. And I’m far from at peace with the whole thing.
“They’re out of town,” I say. At her parents for a visit.
“Who?”
“Never mind.” Good job, Nat. Instead of confessing your romantic failings, you mutter non-sequiturs.
“Anyhow,” says Faith. “I’ve got to catch a cab and get home.”
“Wait. Please.” I’m coursing with a dozen questions, chiefly: what did Faith see? I ask her if she can spare five more minutes to help me deconstruct what happened on the platform. She acquiesces, with a light flavor of impatience, denoted by fidgeting fingers and diminished eye contact. She tells me that she made a quick phone call, then headed down to the tracks to get the K. When she arrived, she saw the “big man” fall down towards me. She couldn’t tell if it was deliberate or not, but she could tell it was a major impact. “He squished you,” she says.
It’s not particularly