A Quiet Death

ONE

Once upon a time, I worked in Washington, DC.

Then, in an extreme case of downsizing, I lost my job to the recession and a breast to cancer – both in the same year.

Now, I was back, threading my way through a knot of entrepreneurs at the McPherson Square Metro station – a sad-eyed Korean girl selling roses, a ukulele-playing panhandler, and some guy pimping Krispy Kremes – and it occurred to me that I didn’t miss the job or the commute one little bit. The breast? Well, that was another matter. Reconstructive surgery had worked its magic – my husband thinks I look hot in my red and white tankini – but the fact remained that Sports Illustrated magazine wouldn’t be featuring me in their annual swimsuit issue any time soon.

A swimsuit, I wish! What better attire for sweltering in a Washington, DC subway station on a busy Tuesday afternoon? For three thirty, the platform was unexpectedly crammed. Tourists drooped, still jabbering about their tour of the nearby White House. School kids sagged under the weight of their backpacks. Other commuters in sweat-stained cotton shirts loafed about, mopping their collective brows, enjoying a temporary respite in the underground tunnel from the relentless triple-digit temperatures. An early-September heatwave had swept over the eastern seaboard, breaking all previous records. When I left Annapolis earlier that morning, the thermometer on my shaded patio had already read eighty-nine degrees. Now, even in the air-conditioned station, I could feel sweat beading along my hairline and trickling down between my breasts.

A blue line train slid into the station and carried some of the wilted passengers away, but by the time I pushed my way on to the lead car of an orange line train heading for New Carrollton, and the parking garage where I’d left my Volvo, it was still standing room only, so I planted my heels firmly on the floor and grabbed on to a pole as the train picked up speed.

At Metro Center, more people got on than off, squeezing damp bodies, bags and backpacks into the overcrowded car, and squashing me against a guy who, according to his Hoyas T-shirt, was a student at Georgetown University. As my hip ground into his, I readjusted my shoulder bag so it hung in front of me – pickpockets were not unknown on the DC Metro system – and looked around somewhat desperately for a seat.

Several stops later, at L’Enfant Plaza, I was eyeing a vacant seat toward the front of the car, when a teenager muscled by, tethered to an iPod Nano by white ear buds screwed in tight, a scratchy boom-chica-boom-chica-boom leaking out of his ears. He beat me to it. I scowled in his general direction, and at the sign on the bulkhead behind his seat that stated in bold, black letters: ‘Priority Seating: Reserved for the Elderly and Handicapped,’ not knowing whether to feel outraged by his discourtesy, or secretly pleased that I didn’t appear to be all that elderly.

At Eastern Market, I plopped myself down gratefully at the rear of the car next to a young businessman cradling a shopping bag in his arms like a newborn, closed my eyes and inventoried the contents of my freezer, trying to decide what I might throw together for dinner. When the train popped out of the underground tunnel into the blazing sunlight after the Stadium Armory station, I used my iPhone to call my husband, who was probably still grading papers in his office at the Naval Academy.

Paul answered right away. ‘Hannah.’

‘Caller ID never ceases to amaze me.’

‘How was the fashion show?’ Paul was referring to the fund-raising luncheon I’d just attended, sponsored by a prominent DC law firm in partnership with Nordstrom in order to raise money for breast cancer research.

‘Gorgeous. There was this Eileen Fisher beaded wool cardigan. Only three hundred bucks. You’re lucky I left my checkbook at home, Mr Ives.’

‘How can you seriously look at sweaters in all this heat, Hannah?’

‘You forget. I’m a trained professional.’ I shifted the phone from my left ear to my right and relaxed into the vinyl upholstery, deliciously cool against the tepid dampness of my favorite knee-length, black and white paisley dress. I adored that dress, purchased at a boutique on Fosse Street while on vacation in Dartmouth, England, the previous summer.

‘Crossing Eye Street was a hazard, no surprise. You know those cute little Prada slingbacks I slipped into this morning?’ I asked, knowing he wouldn’t. ‘I thought I was going to lose them, sucked into the tarmac like the La Brea Tar Pits, not to be rediscovered until late in the thirty-first century.’

On the other end of the line, Paul chuckled. ‘I didn’t jog today either.’

‘Sensible lad.’ I checked my watch. ‘Look, I’m running late. Would you mind swinging by Whole Foods on your way home from the Academy? Pick up something interesting for dinner?’

‘Not exactly on my way, is it, but I’m happy to oblige. What are you in the mood for?’

‘Anything but poultry,’ I said, remembering the chicken salad I’d had for lunch that had all the taste and consistency of a minced dishrag.

‘Cuisine?’

‘Anything but fried.’ I mentally reviewed the items on offer at the numerous prepared foods bars of the upscale supermarket, factored in the heat of the day and concluded, ‘Salads! That’s the ticket.’

‘Will do.’

‘And wine. I could use some right now, in fact. A bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. Well chilled. With a straw.’

‘Hold that thought,’ Paul said, and rang off.

I stared at the screen on my iPhone for a moment, wondering if I had time for a game of Bejeweled, when the guy sitting next to me stirred. ‘You like it?’

I turned to face him. ‘My iPhone, you mean?’

He laid his bundle across his knees. ‘Been thinking about getting one, but I’ve got Verizon.’

‘Apple’s working on that,’ I said, noticing that his shopping bag carried the Julius Garfinkel & Co label, a landmark Washington, DC department store that had gone out of business more than twenty years before. ‘My mother sent me off to college wearing clothes we bought at Garfinkel’s,’ I told him, indicating the bag. ‘Back when dressing for dinner meant something more refined than pushing a tray through a cafeteria line while wearing clean jeans and an Eminem T-shirt.’

‘I know what you mean,’ he said, dark eyes serious under pale, shaggy brows that marched across his forehead like caterpillars. ‘Nobody’s got standards any more. Although I can’t wait to get out of this suit.’ He plucked at his shirt collar, open wide at the neck. His tie, navy blue with minute red and yellow stripes, had already been removed, rolled up and tucked into the breast pocket of his jacket, where it peeked out like a plump sausage. ‘Jesus. If the heat doesn’t break soon, people are going to start going postal. Is it always this hot in September?’

‘Rarely,’ I chuckled. ‘Usually we go straight from summer into winter, skipping the business of fall altogether, except for a few perfectly splendid days in mid-October which make one ridiculously happy to be alive.’ I paused for a moment. ‘Do you sail?’

‘Me?’ He managed a smile. ‘Never. Boats don’t agree with my stomach.’

‘Cruising the Chesapeake Bay in October is one of life’s greatest pleasures. We don’t have a sailboat,’ I added, ‘but my sister-in-law does, and she’s always looking for crew. I provide ballast,’ I said with a grin.

‘How long is this heat supposed to last?’ my seat-mate wanted to know.

I shrugged. ‘Couple of days? Wait a minute.’ While he observed over my shoulder, I tapped the weather app on my iPhone. When the five-day display appeared, I turned the tiny screen in his direction. ‘Looks like we’re back to normal on Friday.’

‘What’s normal?’ my seat-mate asked as he watched the Cheverly station roll by outside the window.

‘Low to mid-seventies,’ I informed the back of his head, which was covered with a tangle of sandy curls.

‘Huh,’ he replied.

The four o’clock Acela Express screamed past on its way north, sucking the air out of our car in one greedy, pneumatic gasp. My seat-mate jumped like he’d been shot, then settled back into his seat and continued staring silently out the window, our deeply intellectual conversation about the weather clearly over. I zoned out, mesmerized by the blur of passing scenery and the comforting chubunk-chubunk-chubunk of the wheels along the tracks.

As we pulled into the station at Landover, my seat-mate stood, tucked his package under his arm, and eased past my legs into the aisle. I thought he was preparing to get off, but when the train rolled out of the station again, he remained standing in the aisle near the door, grasping a metal pole with one hand and his Garfinkel’s shopping bag with the other.

My iPhone peeped. A text message from my daughter, Emily, asking if I’d RUN C’PL TOM. I was mentally rearranging the next day’s schedule so I could drive my grandchildren to school, when a voice from the front of the car screamed, ‘Oh, no!’

Startled, I looked up just in time to see my seat-mate vanish into a cloud of dust, glass, seats and carpeting that rolled up the aisle toward me in an undulating wave – ten feet, five feet, four, three – before sucking me into the undertow.

The squeal of metal against metal, a teeth-rattling jolt. The train rocked once, twice, before settling nose up and tilted to one side with a mournful, metallic groan. For a few moments, there was utter silence.

And then the chaos began.