Pandora's Closet

LADY IN RED by A. M. Strout

When I packed in August for freshman year at NYU, my friends in Ohio warned me to get my degree and get out as quick as possible before New York City hardened my soul. “Lara,” they said, “You’re much too sweet, much too naïve, to make it in the Big Poisoned Apple.”

To them I simply sang the old Sinatra line my Nana had used to convince me to move out east in the first place. “If I can make it there,” I’d sing, smiling sweetly and giving a few Rockette-style high-kicks, “I can make it anywhere.”

I had laughed at their warnings at the time, but two months into my first semester I was standing in a thrift store on West 8th Street engaging in a tug of war with an old crone over a red hoodie that I adored. I was beginning to see what they meant. Nothing comes cheap in the city, and with the chill of October setting in, I was on the hunt for a little warmth with my limited student budget. I had spotted the most perfect little red hoodie half hidden by the press of clothes hanging on either side of it. It practically called out to me, and when I saw the three dollar price tag, I was over the rainbow for it. I took it down, carefully folded it over my arm, and was on my way to the counter when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and felt a tugging on my arm.

A gaudy looking woman in her early fifties had latched onto my red hoodie. The Cinderella blonde dye job on her wild hair was fading, and large clumps of gray were seeping through, giving her a manic appearance that perfectly matched her actions. She tugged again, harder this time.

“Excuse me,” I said, clamping my arm against my body to maintain my hold. I almost laughed at the absurdity of her, but my amusement was quickly shut out by my animalistic desire to keep the hoodie. I viciously tore it away from her. “Mine!” she said, lunging for it, but missing it completely. Instead, her nails raked dryly against my skin, causing something primal and protective to snap inside of me.

“No,” I said politely but firmly, “it’s not.”

I held it at arm’s length away from her. The crone moved even closer, and the earthy old-person stink of her choked me. Her eyes twitched back and forth, following the hood that now dangled from my outstretched arm. She practically foamed at the mouth.

I realized everything seemed a little scary and off kilter. This type of surreal behavior didn’t happen in the middle of a store. I felt my heart racing like a scared little girl, and I wondered if my friends had been right about me coming to city after all.

“I want that for my daughter,” she screamed, spittle flying.

I was startled as she raised her voice, but just then the balding man behind the counter spoke up.

“Hey,” he shouted, breaking the strange spell that wove between us. “Mrs. Punzelli, knock it off. You play nice or I’m gonna have to call the cops on you. You got that?”

The old woman’s body relaxed, but her eyes were still intent on the hoodie. I backed toward the register, calming a little with each step. I was thankful she made no effort to follow. She glowered at me several moments longer and finally made an unpleasant (and not to mention unsanitary) gesture flicking her thumb against her teeth. With that, she wandered off to the back of the store and muttered into a filthy gothic mirror hanging from the wall.

“What a pushy bitch,” I said as I put my purchase on the counter.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “She’s usually not that bad.”

“Why do you even let her in?” I took a crumpled wad of bills from my backpack and pulled out three singles.

The old shopkeeper shrugged. “I feel bad for her. She’s got a daughter up in Bellevue. They’ve got her locked away up on one of them top floors, where they keep all the cuckoos. The old lady’s just about gone crazy herself over that. I hear her daughter got in regular trouble too, helping other crazies escape out the window by letting them climb down her long, golden hair. I’ve seen pictures, girl’s got the longest hair you ever seen!”

I suddenly felt a little bad about they way I’d duked it out with the old woman, but hey, what the hell was I supposed to do? Besides, she’d already lost interest, and despite the sad little tale I had just heard, the hoodie was mine now and I needed it. College students couldn’t afford guilt in NYC. I paid the owner and thanked him.

“You need a bag?”

“No. I’ll just wear it.”

I waved as I headed out the door, and he smiled, instantly restoring my faith in the kindness of most people I had met during my short time in the city. Sure, I had noticed pockets of rude and indifferent folks living in The Big Apple, but I still held onto my optimism.

The sun was beginning its early descent, and I put down my backpack and slipped on the hoodie as the chill began to set in. It felt cozy, warm and familiar, and as I zippered it up, my cell phone went off in my backpack. I fished it out and checked the display. My mother’s picture came up-my favorite picture of her in the whole world. It was from the governor’s ball where my mother, a lowly impoverished intern at the time, had caught the eye of the young governor. Within a few months they were married, just like a storybook romance. It had angered her wicked and more privileged stepsisters to no end.

I flipped the cell phone open and put it to my ear.

“Little Red Riding Hood,” I answered.

“What?” my mother said. “Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I just bought myself the cutest little hoodie for three bucks, that’s all.”

“Oh,” she said stiffly. “I see. You have time to shop, but not enough time to study.”

I had done little in the way of attending classes so far this semester, and, still wowed by being in Manhattan, I had already gotten chewed out about my impending miserable grades.

“Enough about me,” I said cheerily, hoping to change the subject, “Is everything okay?”

She sighed into the phone. “Just another charity fund-raising luncheon for the victims of the latest Blunderbore Corporation’s chemical dumping. You know your father.”

Jack the Giant Killer they called him, always taking on the corporate big guns.

“But that’s not why I called,” she continued. “It’s about your grandmother.”

“Which?” I asked.

“The one in Queens,” she said. “Nana.”

Nana was by far my favorite, although I didn’t get to see her as often as I would like. She was the one who had convinced me I’d be fine in New York. She was the hip grandma, active, the cool one I could actually talk to. She had never moved from the Russian neighborhood she had settled in when she arrived in the States from her tiny European village. Her old garden brownstone had been modernized since then, and the Jackson Heights neighborhood had changed over the years, but she was still the same old lovable Nana. When my mother mentioned her, I was concerned.

“Is anything wrong with her?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Well, that’s not entirely true. She’s a little under the weather and, well, I was hoping you would be a dear and pick up some things and run them out to her.”

I utilized my mental planner book and ran my mental finger down the mental page to find today. I was pleasantly surprised that today was blank.

“Not a problem,” I said. I fished a pen out of my backpack and a piece of paper, the trusty weapons of any English major. “What does she need?”

My mother rattled off a list of items. Bread, milk, something for her stomach, a couple of cabbages, fresh beets, flour, eggs, and, last, red wine. I was going to ask if Nana was hosting a cocktail party, but I held my tongue. Would she be needing pigs-in-a-blanket too?

“And remember,” my mother said in the infamous lecturing tone I had grown up around, “I just want you to go straight there, okay? Your father and I worry about you. Make sure you give yourself enough time to get out there and stay for a visit this time. And be careful. Make sure you don’t poke around her place. Make sure you spend some time with her.”

My mother had always been borderline neurotic when it came to protecting me, but this seemed beyond and above the call. I said a quick goodbye before she could cycle conversationally back to my grades. Then I immediately set out north to the organic market at Union Square.

Half an hour later, as I stepped to the curb with four plastic bags full of Nana’s groceries, a Manhattan miracle happened-a cab pulled up before I had to figure out how the hell I was going to flag one down with my hands fully loaded. I threw my stuff in the back seat, slid in, and slammed the door.

The driver was coughing, and I waited for him to stop. He looked Eastern European, probably in his forties. He wore a short black goatee that on a younger man would have been trendy five years ago, but on him, it was befitting.

“Where to?” he said when he stopped coughing up his lungs long enough to speak.

“ Jackson Heights,” I said, then checked the exact address I had scrawled on the back of the shopping list. “ 3352 85th Street. Between Northern Boulevard and 34th Avenue.” I hadn’t been there in a while.

“You want me to take the Willamsburg or 59th Street bridge?” he asked, pulling away from the curb.

“Uh, 59th is fine,” I said. I sat back and closed my eyes. I relished the momentary silence of the cab ride, but sadly, it didn’t last long. The driver was chatty behind his goatee.

“You live out there?” he asked, through the halfway-drawn partition between us.

I wanted to enjoy a nice, quiet, uninterrupted ride to the outer boroughs, so I decided to ignore the question. My body, however, had different thoughts on the matter, and before I even realized what I was doing, I began speaking.

“No, it’s my grandmother’s place,” I blurted out. “She’s not feeling well and I’ve got a bunch of food and wine I’m bringing to cheer her up. I love her, but she’s a billion years old, and I honestly wish she’d hire someone to take care of her. It’s not like she doesn’t have the loot. Her place is huge.”

As soon as the words were out, I clamped my hand down over my mouth to stop myself from going further. What the hell was I doing? Being a young woman in the city-not to mention how tiny I was-I rarely ran at the mouth around strangers. Here I was divulging all kinds of personal-ad info and family dish. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw that the driver was leering at me. His goatee looked devilish as I noticed a shift in his attitude.

“Its so sad when old people live alone, isn’t it?” I could hear the clumsy craftiness in his voice as he spoke. “She does live alone, doesn’t she?”

My hands were still over my mouth, but I still answered a muffled but discernible “yes” through them. I was confused and beginning to panic as we sped up Park Avenue toward Grand Central Station. I felt as though I had swallowed some truth serum with my morning Fruit Loops. We were just making every light as they turned green, and I began to wonder how the hell I might get out of the cab if it never slowed down. It felt as though I were being kidnapped. I looked at the license on display.

LUNA CANIDAE the name read. I committed it to memory. The driver began another coughing fit, this one longer than the first, and as I listened, the harsh staccato began to sound more and more like the bark of a dog. I pressed myself forward against the glass for a better look.

“Mister,” I started, “are you all right?”

The driver was hunched over from hacking, and his once well-groomed goatee had gone wild and had grown into a full beard that was rapidly taking over the rest of his face. He was changing before my eyes, and as incredible as it was, I think the hours of blowing off class to watch old movies somewhat prepared me for coping with this. Everything about the driver was becoming more and more wolf-like. His coughing had indeed become a bark, and his hands elongated into the shape of sharp-clawed paws, making it nearly impossible for him to grip the wheel.

The traffic lights were still turning green for us, but his inability to control the vehicle sent us careening off the road and head-on into a lamppost. I was lucky enough to slam into the cushiony back of the seat in front of me, but the man-wolf yelped as his head hit the steering wheel and he fell silent. I grabbed for my bags, threw open the door, and tumbled out of the cab onto the sidewalk. A small group of passersby gathered, asking if I was okay. But I ignored them and pushed through the crowd and ran the two blocks to Grand Central Station. As I neared one of the main entrances, I was blocked by a family apparently on an after-dinner stroll-a hulking papa, a medium sized mama, and a tiny toddler.

“… was too hot, dear,” I heard the father say as I bumped into him.

“Hey,” he growled, bearlike. “Watch it!”

“Sorry,” I said quickly, and dashed into Grand Central Station. As I rushed down to the main concourse, enormous trees the size of redwoods came shooting up through the station’s floor, bits of marble flying everywhere. All around me the room was transforming into a forest. People ran back and forth to avoid the debris and branches that shot past.

What the hell was going on?

Was I losing my mind?

Had living in New York City driven me insane?

I fervently wished I had listened to my friends back home. They were right. I was having a mental break from reality, and after only two months here. I snapped my eyes shut, counted to ten, and opened them again, hoping for some clarity.

Everything was still going crazy around me.

I made my peace with the fact that, crazy or not, I was going to have to deal with it. I ran for the bookstore along the west side of the main concourse. Things inside the store seemed normal compared to what was happening out on the concourse, but I didn’t know how long that might last. The smocked clerk only got out the “Can…” of “Can I help you?” before I interrupted.

“Children’s books,” I said, somewhat breathless from my run. “Fairy tales.”

“Third aisle, last bay on the left,” he said, pointing.

I hurried down the aisle and found the section. I dropped my grocery bags. An ugly little girl sitting a few feet away jumped at the sound, and her mother-far prettier than her-moved protectively close. I knew I must have looked crazy to them, but I turned away and began searching through the books until I found what I was looking for-a collection of Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm.

I flipped open to the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. The tale itself wasn’t long, and by the time I was done, I more or less had confirmed my suspicions. I glanced over at the ugly little girl. She now was an anthropomorphic duck, and she quacked at me.

I didn’t much care for the way the story ended. Sure, the grandmother and Red ended up alive, but only after a huntsman had cut them free from the wolf’s belly. Of course, the tale didn’t discuss the years of therapy Nana and I would have had to endure after such a traumatic experience. My brain was slowly accepting the insanity, but my heart was panicked. I had to stop this.

I grabbed the zipper on the hoodie, but it was stuck. I frantically tried tugging the whole top up and over my head, but the cloth seemed fused to my body and it wouldn’t come free. I gave it a few more panicked yanks, feeling trapped, and broke several of my nails as I freaked out. The hood slipped onto my head as I tossed and turned, and the world slipped into cartoon colors.

My surroundings swirled, the trees outside the store looking more gnarled, the duck girl at my feet more threatening. I felt so tiny just then, so absolutely helpless, so afraid I was going mad.

I somehow knew I had to get to Nana’s, and quick, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to chance another cab. I had never taken the train out there before, but I gathered up my grocery bags and followed the signs to the subway. After consulting the map, I decided that the train seemed the closest, and I dashed down to the platform, catching the last car as the doors closed behind me with perfect timing.

Two stops later, my empty car began to fill… and began to be affected by whatever cruel magic was in my hoodie. Any man who sat within ten feet of me began acting creepier than the usual guys I ran into on the train. One of them started by itching his hand, then his chin, and then started scratching at his whole face. Another snuffled and sniffed in my general direction. When a third’s facial hair started growing out into a full beard in less than a minute, I stood up and hurried to the next car, dragging my bags with me and almost losing them between cars.

When the men on that car began behaving strangely, I moved to the next, this time tripping over a kid with the biggest nose I had ever seen arguing with an older man I presumed was his grandfather.

“Don’t lie to me!” I heard the old man shout as the boy turned into a wooden doll with loose strings hanging from his legs and wrists.

The door between cars thankfully closed behind me.

The cars themselves were growing thick with vines that snaked after me. The forest path of the story was following my lead, and I shuddered at the audible cracks and slithers of it taking over the train. Underneath those sounds, I could hear the normal passengers shouting in surprise as the parade of man-wolves continued following me, several men jumping up from their seats to join in. They seemed to be intent only on me and hadn’t made any attempt to harm any of the other passengers. Right now, the big, bad wolves had achieved only the level of “moderately annoying” as they slathered, drooled, and growled along behind me.

We pulled into the 82nd Street station in the proverbial nick of time. The stench of approaching wolves filled the car. It was the last car. I had nowhere else to go. I was trapped again.

I had never heard a sweeter sound when the doors dinged, and I was thrilled when they rolled open, but I stayed where I was, fighting my urge to flee. I waited until the last possible second-the wolves were mere feet away, and I could feel their hot breath on me-before I slid out through the closing doors. The now-trapped wolf-men could only stare through the glass and howl as their train pulled out of the station. Although scared, I waved goodbye to them in defiance.

Queens was like a foreign kingdom to me, so different from the inner city that I was used to and even more foreign in the strange cartoon Technicolor I was seeing in now. I asked the hunchback manning the booth for directions to Nana’s house and then set off at a run, the muscles in my arms straining under the weight of my load. The plastic grocery bags had woven themselves into four wicker baskets.

I headed down the station stairs and tore off along the first block. A flurry of movement caught my attention, and I couldn’t help but turn to see a large gray-brown tabby cat, standing on its hind legs, wearing hip-high boots, an Elizabethan neck ruffle, and a purple plumed Musketeer’s hat. He was fighting off a pack of dogs like a champion fencer. The claws on one hand were extended like vicious looking knives, and although the cat was outnumbered, I had a distinct feeling the advantage was his. I pressed on.

One block left.

I passed two little roly-poly kids speaking what sounded to me like German. They were following a path of lollipops and candy bars up a walkway toward a brownstone that appeared to be made entirely out of candy, from its gingerbread paneling to its ribbon candy shutters.

“Hey, kids,” I shouted as I stopped. They seemed to shake out of their fugue state and turned to look at me, their chubby little hands stuffed with candy already. “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.”

They stood there, confused still.

“Unless you want the lady who owns that place going all Hannibal Lechter on you.”

At this their eyes widened, and the boy turned to the girl, and said, “C’mon. Let’s get out of here, Gretel.” The little girl hesitated, grabbed a sticky bun that was part of the house’s gate, and followed her brother. For a moment I actually felt good for helping them out. I felt the tiniest hint of optimism.

The feeling died quickly, however, when I turned back toward my Nana’s and found the crunched in nose of the cab I rode back in Manhattan. It was sitting empty underneath the shade of a tree and was pointed at Nana’s house half a block away. The panic of incredibility set in once again, and I broke into a heart-pounding sprint.

While most of the other brownstones in the neighborhood had been turned into three-family homes over the years, Nana’s remained all her own. I walked timidly up the front steps, the fear pulsing thick in me. The door stood slightly ajar, and I eased it open farther and set the baskets down as quietly as possible.

The old house was silent. Even when it was busy with activity, I found the place creepy, but now it was like walking through a mausoleum filled with Russian antiques. Many of them were knocked over.

The trail of destruction led upstairs, and I followed it. Her bedroom was at the back of the house, and I knew from the Brothers Grimm that the wolf had headed there. I tiptoed the last few steps, hoping the pounding in my chest wasn’t as loud as it sounded.

The door was cracked open, and I hesitantly pushed it wide. Sure enough, there in the bed was a shadowy figure. As I stepped closer, I could see the pronounced goatee of the cab driver beneath the furry snarl of the wolf’s snout. The shirt he had been wearing was in tatters now. I checked the room for blood and was relieved to see none. Was Nana somewhere hidden in here or had she escaped? I stopped in the center of the room and looked around. She could have been under the bed or even in the closet, but I couldn’t tell.

The wolf snarled.

“Finish this!” he barked, remaining tucked beneath the sheet on the bed. He seemed to be struggling, fighting the urge to leap up and devour me, but was bound by some power from doing so.

The power of the tale was binding him somehow.

I tried the zipper again, but it still wouldn’t budge. I grabbed bunches of the fabric and tore at it, but it wouldn’t give. I slipped my backpack off my shoulders and began searching through it for something, anything that might help.

“Why Nana,” I said slowly, fighting against my compulsion to speak the words, “what big ears you have.”

“Better to hear youuuuu,” the wolf howled.

I shuddered as the sound ripped through me. I had to think. What were my advantages? I was much smaller than him, and I seemed to possess a greater knowledge of the situation.

“And what big eyes you have,” I continued, as I kept rummaging through the bag. I was coming across nothing of use. I doubted my iPod would help, unless I could wedge my earphones into his ears and hope the old maxim that music hath charms to soothe the savage beast held true.

“Better to see you with, my dear,” he barked. His body tensed in anticipation of the final lines of our roles being fulfilled.

“And,” I said finally, fighting, dreading the words as they came spilling out, “what a terrible big mouth you have.”

A clatter came from down the hall, and I craned my neck to see Nana. How the hell had she eluded the wolf? I had never really thought about it before, but Nana was in remarkably good shape for a woman in her seventies. She was moving at a brisk pace.

“The better…” the wolf began with finality.

I tensed with fear.

He threw off the covers and readied himself to pounce, “to eat you with!”

I dove for the door at the same time he lunged. My hand had wrapped around something small and cylindrical in my bag. The rest of the bag tore away from me as the wolf’s claws caught the strap, the contents of my little life leaking out onto the floor. I screamed as I tumbled through the doorway, and slammed the door behind me. I held it shut as I felt the full weight of the wolf charge into the door on the other side.

“Run!” I screamed at Nana.

Nana did just that, making it to the bottom of the stairs at record speed and heading for the front door. I felt the doorknob twitching in my hand as the wolf clawed at it clumsily. It was only a matter of time before he smashed his way through.

A claw punched through the bottom of the door and snagged my leg. I yelped in pain. I felt blood trickle down my leg. I heard a large snuffle from the other side of the door and I imagined the wolf fully taking in the scent of my O Positive.

I decided it was better not to wait around for him to break all the way through. I bolted for the stairs, hurling myself down them without a thought for my safety. Behind me, the door flung open and the wolf leaped out, landing right where I had been standing a heartbeat ago. I swallowed hard and spun to face the beast, almost losing my footing on the stairs. My mind was racing, and I suddenly remembered one last component-one last character-to the story.

“No reason I can’t be the huntsman too,” I said and ducked low as he charged at me. In my hand, I gripped the lone weapon I had managed to retrieve from my bag. I thrust it up, and only after I drove it into the beast’s chest, did I disappointingly realize was it was. A pen. What the hell good was a pen going to do?

The wolf cleared me and practically flew down the rest of the stairs, hitting the wall, spinning, landing on its back at the bottom. It writhed frantically, howling, clawing at its own chest, and smoke began to rise from the small wound I’d inflicted. The smell of acrid burning hair filled the room, and after what seemed like an eternity of screaming, the wolf stopped moving.

I stood slack-jawed, both horrified and pleased by what I had done.

Nana was crying, and my own breath was heaving in and out in great bursts. Outside, sirens went screaming by, and the two of us simply stood over the beast. Tears of relief started running down my face.

Nana stared. “How did you do that? How did you stop that monster?”

I shrugged, stepped over the wolf, and hugged her. I could feel her heart going a mile a minute.

“I have no idea,” I said. “All I did was stab it with a pen.”

I released her and leaned over the lifeless body. Holding back my own personal squick factor, I pulled the pen free, and lifted it up for examination. I began to laugh.

“What is it, dear?” Nana asked. I was sure I must have looked unhinged. And maybe I was. My mind was still reeling from the events of the past few hours.

“Well,” I said when I could finally speak, wiping the tears from my face, “What else does every college freshman have from their Nana but a nice graduation writing set? A silver writing set, to be exact.”

“And you said you’d get no use out of such a thing,” she tsk-tsked.

I hugged her even harder than before.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked.

Nana nodded. “That was a pretty fancy move you did on the stairs.”

“I guess watching reruns of Buffy must have paid off.”

“From what I hear,” Nana said disapprovingly, “that’s all that’s paying off. About those grades of yours…”

“Nana, please,” I said, “I just saved your life. Maybe you could call my mom and put in a good word for me?”

She thought for a minute, then smiled. “I suppose I could put in a good word or two for my favorite little Red Riding Hood.”

With the mention of that name, I tugged at the zipper on the hoodie once again. This time it came free. The brightness of the Technicolor world faded and things around me turned to normal. The wolf melted into the floor.

I held the hoodie at arm’s length.

It was a bittersweet parting; I had loved the way it looked on me, but what I had been through was definitely too high a price for fashion’s sake.

The following day I returned to the thrift store, and asked for my money back. Hey, three dollars was three dollars. That was like three meals off the dollar menu or three midnight movies! Besides, I secretly held the wicked desire that that old crone who frequented the place, Mrs. Punzelli, might come back for it.

As I left, I caught the latest breaking news on the thrift store’s one working television. The story concerned a pack of wolves that had reportedly leaped from the subway car at the end of the 7 line the previous night. No one had been hurt, luckily, and after dispersing they were all later found surrounding a brick high-rise, barely able to move, and exhausted-from prolonged huffing and puffing, I had no doubt.