can look at them without fearing that her face has turned into a Medusa mask of don’t-speak-to-me, don’t-come-near-me, I’m-late-to-pick-up-my-daughter.
The slide show is taking a thousand years. She’s trapped here by good manners and by her desire to work for them. The minutes are flying by. What now? What now? What now?
They could stop at any point. She needs to pick up Daisy!
“Right,” she says. “I’ve got this.”
It takes all of Charlotte’s self-control not to look at her watch and look again ten seconds later.
“Yes, well,” says the man, “one more detail before we break up the party. It’s a bit of a delicate question, but . . . can we assume your business includes employees of color? It’s not a question I’d ask, but there are other voices in the mix, voices I have to listen to.”
“You can,” Charlotte says. “It does. I do.” Though she’ll be damned if she’ll pimp out—by name—the Mexican, black, and Asian kids at her Bushwick studio. Plus she needs to leave. Now.
“Then let’s go forward,” Boss Man says. All three shake Charlotte’s hand. By the time she leaves—thank you, got to run!—she has twenty minutes to get Daisy before the end of after-school.
It’s seems she’s got the job. But she’s too nervous to process that, too anxious to feel happy.
The assistant who shows Charlotte to the elevator is wobbling so perilously on painful-looking Louboutin heels that Charlotte lurches forward to catch her. The young woman shoots her a filthy look.
“Thanks.” What is she thanking her for?
“No problem. Have a good one.” The young woman says it like a curse. That’s probably just Charlotte’s own anxiety and paranoia.
Have a good what? A good what?
IT’S JUST MONEY. Charlotte will just have to pay extra—the late fine—and the fine is not all that much. But Daisy will be alarmed. That’s what Charlotte wants to avoid.
The minute she leaves the building, she gets a text from Rocco: Home.
Great. Too late now.
Another text from Rocco. Going to sleep. Don’t call.
Great again. Why would she call at this point? Charlotte’s probably being unreasonable . . . but she can’t shake the certainty that Ruth has sent the text. Rocco would never say, Don’t call, not even if he was exhausted.
Well, they’re safely home from Mexico. One less thing to worry about.
Then she begins to run.
At least she had the wherewithal to bring along her sneakers.
When you race down the street without being chased, it’s as if you’re surrounded by a cocoon of stress and pain. People move out of your way, like drivers moving over for an ambulance with its siren wailing. Beneath everything, humans are animals. They recognize animal fear.
Don’t worry until something actually happens. She tries to hear Ted’s sensible voice.
There’s nothing to be afraid of. Five dollars for every ten minutes you’re late. So that’s . . . she’s too freaked to do the math.
She runs down the block, crossing diagonally against the light, weaving between cars. How awful if she were killed on her way to pick up her daughter. Daisy would never get over it. No matter how much of a hurry Charlotte’s in, she has to wait for the light, look both ways.
She tries hailing a cab, but there are no cabs. There never are when you need them. Finally, a rogue limo slows down.
The driver leans out his window.
“Where you going?”
“First Avenue and Twelfth Street.”
“Thirty dollars.” He must see the panic on her face.
It’s an outrageous price, but she’ll pay. If he’d said a hundred dollars, a million dollars, she would have paid that too. Well, maybe not a million. She can hardly breathe.
“Can you hurry?” she says.
“My favorite words,” the driver says, and zooms off down the street.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Charlotte rushes into the cafeteria, hoping she looks as anxious and breathless as she feels so that the after-school teachers will know she’s made every effort—every painful, superhuman attempt—to get there on time.
There are at least ten kids still there, so Charlotte’s not the last, which is a relief. They’re all slurping something out of a paper cup, and when she passes, one of the kids says, “Microwave pizza!”
“Cool,” says Charlotte. “Delicious.”
She doesn’t see Daisy, but that happens. Sometimes her group stays behind in the classroom or goes to the library.
Charlotte’s anxious, but she always is. She never once comes to pick up Daisy—and she does it every day—without feeling that twinge of absurd, irrational fear that her daughter won’t be there. It only makes her happier to see her sweet little