wiggles loose her oversize iPhone. In the mirror I watch her fingers dance across the screen, watch her face flicker. I imagine her writing to Alistair.
“Excuse me?” the barista asks.
The woman taps on her phone.
“Excuse me?”
And now—what am I doing?—I clear my throat. “You’re up,” I mutter.
She stops, nods in my direction. “Oh,” she says, then turns to the man behind the counter. “Skim latte, medium.”
She didn’t even look at me. I look at myself, in the mirror, see me standing in back of her like a specter, an avenging angel. I’ve come for her.
“Skim latte, medium. Did you want something to eat with that?”
I watch the mirror, watch her mouth—small, precision-cut, so unlike Jane’s. A little wave of anger wells within me, swells within me, crests against the base of my brain. “No,” she says after a second. Then, with a bright sickle smile: “No, I’d better not.”
Behind us, a chorus of chairs scrapes across the floor. I glance over my shoulder; a party of four is heading for the door. I turn back.
The barista, his voice ringing above the din: “Name?”
Then the woman and I lock eyes in the mirror. Her shoulders hop. Her smile melts.
For an instant, time freezes, that breathless moment when you’re sailing off the road, into the gorge.
And without turning around, without averting her gaze, she replies, in the same clear tone, “Jane.”
Jane.
The name bubbles to my lips before I can swallow it down. The woman pivots, spears me with a stare.
“I’m surprised to see you here.” Her tone as flat as her eyes. Shark eyes, I think, cold, hard. I want to point out that I’m surprised to be here myself, but the words skid on my tongue.
“I thought you were . . . impaired,” she continues. Withering.
I shake my head. She says nothing further.
I clear my throat again. Where is she and who are you? I want to ask. Who are you and where is she? Voices swirl around me, mingle with the words inside my head.
“What?”
“Who are you?” There.
“Jane.” It isn’t her voice, but the barista’s, floating across the counter, tapping Jane on the shoulder. “Skim latte for Jane.”
She keeps looking at me, watching me, as though I might strike. I’m a well-regarded psychologist, I could say to her, should say to her. And you’re a liar and a fraud.
“Jane?” The barista, trying a third time. “Your latte?”
She swivels, accepts the cup in its snug cardboard jacket. “You know who I am,” she tells me.
I shake my head once more. “I know Jane. I met her. I saw her in her house.” My voice is quaky but clear.
“It’s my house, and you didn’t see anyone.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t,” says the woman.
“I—”
“I hear you’re a drunk. I hear you’re on pills.” She’s moving now, circling me, the way a lioness does. Slowly I revolve with her, trying to keep up. I feel like a child. The conversations around us have stalled, stilled; there’s a brittle silence. In the corner of my eye, in a corner of the coffee shop, I can see the Takeda boy, still stationed by the door.
“You’re watching my house. You’re following me.”
I shake my head, drag it back and forth, slow, stupid.
“This has got to stop. We can’t live like this. Maybe you can, but we can’t.”
“Just tell me where she is,” I whisper.
We’ve come full circle.
“I don’t know who or what you’re talking about. And I’m calling the police.” She pushes past me, knocks my shoulder with her own. In the mirror I watch her leave, maneuvering between the tables as though they’re buoys.
The bell cries as she opens the door, again when it slams behind her.
I stand there. The room is quiet. My gaze sinks to my umbrella. My eyes close. It’s like the outside is trying to get in. I feel harrowed, hollowed. And once again, I’ve learned nothing.
Except this: She wasn’t arguing with me—not only arguing with me, anyway.
I think she was pleading.
62
“Dr. Fox?”
A voice, hushed, right behind me. A hand, gentle, on my elbow. I turn, crack an eyelid.
It’s the Takeda boy.
Still can’t remember his name. I close my eye.
“Do you need some help?”
Do I need some help? I’m a couple hundred yards from my home, swaying in my bathrobe with my eyes screwed shut in the middle of a coffee shop. Yes, I need some help. I dip my head.
His grip tightens. “Let’s go this way,” he says.
He steers me through the café, the umbrella slapping against chairs and knees as though it’s