“Pretty scary,” Noah murmurs. I don’t really have anything to add.
“At least there’s no draft,” Margaret says.
“We’ll see,” Pam says ominously.
The conversation has stopped. I find myself nostalgic for ten minutes ago, and want to get us back to the lighter place where our group friendship resides. “What nonwar things are you afraid of?” I ask Noah.
“I already told you about the windows ...”
“Oh.” I wince. I feel flustered. I feel exactly like the wordflustered. Full of feathers in the face. I turn and ask Margaret the same question.
She seems to have heard, but doesn’t say anything. We head out, walk on. I figure it’s a dead subject. Then I hear a voice at my side.
“I’m scared of being alone,” she says. This draws me back into focus—I turn to her, only to see that she is looking straight at Pam, who is facing forward, not realizing. Andie hears—she puts her arm around Margaret and says, “Hey, you’ve got us.”
I want to tell her,That’s not the point.
Margaret looks at me. “What areyouafraid of?” she asks.
I don’t know what to say, what I can say.
Andie interrupts. “What—him? He isn’t afraid of anything.”
I am confused. If it had been anyone but Andie, I would be mortified by the sarcasm. But it isn’t sarcasm. I don’t think shedoessarcasm.
They’ve mistaken my silence for something else.
They don’t know me at all.
I don’t correct her. I let her statement sit there, as if leaving it uncontested will make it a fact. Our steps continue, and so does the conversation—off on its own line of tangents. I don’t say anything, and no one seems to notice.
A headlight shines in my eyes—I blink too hard and one of my contact lenses jams in my eye. I try to rub the wrinkle out, but that makes it worse. The lens falls out. I look to the ground, terrified. I don’t see a thing until I look at my jeans and see an extra-subtle glare.
I don’t want to look up. My mind becomes a movie camera placed in one of the buildings above me. It is as if I can witness the memory as it is being made. I can see the scene, can even see myself in it, bending down. Stopping. As the rest of them continue forward, walking to Chinatown without a catch in their conversation, becoming more and more distant as I withdraw. In the final frame, I am still crouching. The angle widens. I become a dot, a speck. End cue. Fade out.
I don’t want to look up, but I do. I always do, always will. Noah is standing there, squinting a little as he says, “Problem?”
I go to pick the lens off my jeans and nudge it the wrong way, onto the ground.
“Shit,” I say, bending over.
“There it is.” Noah points, crouching now too.
“Oh.” I pick it up and turn toward him. Half-blind extreme close-up.
“Look—” he starts.
“Thanks,” I say.
“No problem.”
“I’m so glad I wasn’t walking on a grate. I couldn’t take Andie’s ‘I told you so.’”
“Andnobody stepped on it,” Noah adds.
“Right. Such problems!” I say. “I really don’t enjoy the city, you know. Well, sometimes I do, but a lot of the time it seems like such a hassle.”
“It’s really not that bad. It’s all I’ve ever known. Are your eyes okay?”
