Burning Time

41

Emma got off the treadmill when the odometer read three and a half miles and hobbled to the fridge. There wasn’t much of anything in it, and most definitely no club soda. She was covered with sweat and shivered slightly, annoyed at herself for not stopping to pick up some water on the way home.

Checking the clock on the wall, she was also irritated that she had left a message for Jason hours ago, and he hadn’t called her back yet. She was sure she hadn’t heard the phone ring. And the machine still didn’t have any messages on it. If the machine wasn’t working, she’d start getting complaints pretty quickly from people whose calls she hadn’t returned. She hoped Ronnie hadn’t tried to reach her.

She loved to run, always had, even as a kid. It was a natural high, gave her energy, made her feel exhilarated. That afternoon she had run farther and faster than she ever had before. She was now exhausted.

Where the hell was Jason? She drank some water from the tap. People said there was bacteria in it now from all the sewage in upstate towns leaching into the city’s reservoirs.

It didn’t taste too bad, but Emma didn’t like drinking it. She went back to the fridge with the glass in her hand. Although she’d had lunch, she knew she’d be hungry again soon. All that exercise. Even after she stopped, the perspiration was still pouring off her. She opened the door and studied the contents of the refrigerator, distressed at the way it seemed to symbolize her life. It looked like the refrigerator of someone who didn’t have a family. There were some tired lettuce and carrots in the crisper. A lot of half-used jars of things scattered around on the shelves. Some unopened, out-of-date yogurt, and cottage cheese she always bought but never ate.

The problem was they didn’t eat many meals together, and when they did, it was never anything she liked. Jason complained when she brought home cheese, or any kind of dairy product, salami, baloney, liverwurst or pâté. Red meat was out. So was duck, foie gras, chicken or calves’ liver. They had bread, but no butter. Pasta with tomato sauce, but no shellfish, no squid, no sausage, no anchovies.

Other forbidden foods were omelets with bacon—omelets with anything in fact—osso buco, artichokes with hollandaise. Emma liked hollandaise so thick a spoon could stand straight up in it. She began to salivate thinking about all the foods she liked and Jason felt would kill him if he so much as encountered them in his refrigerator. She had eaten a lot of strange things in her childhood. Her mother was always leaving the base to find the markets where the local foods were sold, unlike the other wives who stuck to the Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes and Campbell’s Tomato Soup they could find from home in the canteen.

Food was the way her mother kept the evenings civil. Every night a food surprise. Emma bought the same way. She went to the markets on Broadway, and always bought things fresh: arugula, a chicken breast, a few bananas. Only healthy things, and just enough for one night. If she tried to slip in anything interesting, Jason left it on the plate. He didn’t want to die of clogged arteries before he finished the work he was meant to do.

She sipped at the water. Well, Jason wasn’t here now. She could go out and get anything she wanted, have a fat fest and run the extra calories off tomorrow. She closed the refrigerator door and went into the bedroom. The muscles in her legs were a little trembly. She probably hadn’t given herself enough cooling-down time. If she walked slowly to the store, it would be better than sitting down.

She showered, considering it. Should she sit and wait for Jason, who might not call her back for many more hours, or go out for club soda and forbidden food before it got dark? She put conditioner on her hair and combed it through, rubbed body lotion into her skin. As she pulled on faded jeans and a sweatshirt, she decided to go out. She stuffed her money and her key in her pocket. She didn’t bother to take her handbag with her driver’s license and credit cards in it. She left the apartment, closing the door carefully.

As she waited for the elevator, she ran her fingers through her damp hair. She had been too hungry to take the time to dry it. She looked up at the elevator, which she could see on the top floor. It was the old-fashioned kind, an open cage that hadn’t been changed from the day it was installed decades ago.

The stairs going up went around in a big square, so everyone could see everyone else coming in and out of their doors, and what they were carrying. From any level one could look all the way up to the top of the building where there was a stained-glass skylight, like a kaleidoscope with only one picture. While she waited for the elevator, Emma looked up at it. When she reached the lobby she looked at it again. She could tell what kind of day it was and sometimes the hour, too, by the way the light came through the colored glass.

The doorman opened the heavy wrought-iron doors for her.

“Hello, Mrs. Frank, going for a jog?”

Emma shook her head with a smile. “I did that already. Just going to the store.”

“I’ll watch you down the street.”

“Thanks.”

He always said that. He was missing most of his teeth and was hardly five feet tall. But he had been a marine and kept a baseball bat beside his chair. Emma had no doubt that he would use it if something happened. It was quiet now, though. No sirens, no homeless.

Emma stepped outside and greedily breathed the fresh salty air from the river. Her building was on the corner of Riverside Drive, two long blocks from Broadway where all the stores were. She began walking slowly, testing the muscles in her legs. The ache went very deep. It was hard to imagine people running in the marathon for twenty-six miles at a stretch.

She wondered how it felt as they were doing it, and if it felt anything like this afterwards? After running only three and a half miles, she had to admit she didn’t feel all that wonderful. As she walked, she glanced at the trees which were in full leaf now, noticed the few cars that passed. Riverside and West End Avenue were quiet streets. Broadway was where all the trouble was. She considered what she would buy. Something really bad, with a crusty French bread.

As she got to the corner of West End Avenue, she decided to open a bottle of wine. She passed the thick old tree that partially blocked the view to the intersection. A car was parked in the space in front of the fire hydrant. Emma watched the traffic light change to green, and had prepared to speed up to make it when an arm snaked around her from the back.

“Hi, Emma.”

“Wha—” She jerked back and the arm tightened, wrenching her shoulder.

“Don’t get upset. I’m not going to hurt you.” The voice was calm, very polite.

“Ow.” A hard object was shoved into her stomach, pushing the air out of her lungs.

She saw it. It was a gun.

“Ah—” Her knees buckled.

“Get in the car, Emma, or I will shoot you.”

Now she could see that the car door was open. Blue car. Her knees sagged. She couldn’t stand up. A scream gathered in her throat trying to take shape, but she had no breath. Her mouth wouldn’t move.

“Uh, ah—”

“Not a sound,” he said. “It’s gonna to be fine. It’s gonna be great. Don’t worry about a thing.”

He moved her into the car as if she were a sack of laundry, then hit her on the head with the butt of the gun, hit her maybe a little harder than he meant to. The thunk was quite loud and startled him. She slumped over in the front seat.

He checked her pulse to make sure she was still alive, then covered her with a pale blue blanket, tucking it in carefully so it wouldn’t fall off. Then he looked around quickly, closed the door, and walked around to the driver’s seat.

“Say good-bye, Emma,” he murmured, patting the blue blanket as he drove off.