Terror
They romped around the rest of the Square, ate a pastry at Au Bon Pain, browsed through clothes at the Coop, dawdled on Brattle Street, caught a late train back to Boston. They had missed the five o'clock crowd so that train was barely full when they pulled out of the station. JC let the train rock her back and forth, her thoughts gently scooting around. Marci read all the advertisements on the opposite side of the car. The train pulled into the Charles Street station and JC swiveled in her seat to soak up the casual blue sky and sunlit water. Then the train slid back into the tunnel and came to a jerky halt at Park. They clambered up the stairs, racing each other, and scared a bunch of pigeons as they came bursting out of the doors.
"You hungry?" Marci said.
"No. I'm thirsty, though."
"There's a Macdonald's near here. Let's go."
They crossed the street, a river of bright metal and gargling sounds, and walked in an easy fashion down the sidewalk, weaving in and out of the crowd. At Macdonald's they bought their Cokes and sat down, not saying much, occasionally pointing out a funny-looking person with blue hair and a safety pin in her ear or the black kid with his huge boom box rappin' down the street. They were sitting in a booth about halfway back in the room, both of them facing the street.
When they walked back onto the street the sun was high and the people flowed around them like a river. "C'mon," said Marci, "let's go home." She started across the street, looking back at JC with a smile on her face, and neither of them saw the car. When it hit Marci, when it tossed her body twenty feet down the road, when the driver stopped and got out and ran to Marci, when JC saw that Marci wasn't moving and the man was breathing into her mouth and pumping on her chest, when she saw the police cars and ambulance pull up, when she cradled Marci's body in her arms before they loaded what she knew was Marci's body into the truck -- it was as if it was all real and not real. There she was, laughing, moving, call out JC's name, and then the next moment, gone. Simple as that. Gone.
During the whole time that Lin held her and she heard the doctor as they all waited in the stuffy-smelling waiting room at the hospital say that Marci'd never even known what hit her, she noticed such stupid things as how the officer's front tooth was chipped as he took down her statement and the Spanish on the paramedic's tattoo as he lifted the stretcher into the ambulance, and she wanted to tell Marci about how weird the tooth looked and how funny the tattoo was. But Marci was gone. Marci was gone.
* * *
JC lay in the bed in the room she had shared with Marci. Lin's face was puffy from crying and Murray, her husband, stood in the background, his arms crossed across his chest and his eyes cast on the floor. The three of them were silent and JC realized that there was really nothing to say.
"I'll, we'll, be right in the next room." As Lin got up she took Murray by the arm and turned out the light.
The shirt with Marci's blood on it was on the table by the bed -- JC had insisted that Lin not throw it away. The darkness pressed on her and she knew that she couldn't stay here. Lin had called her mother and JC, speaking to her through the thin telephone line, suddenly ached so hard to see her face and hear everyone's voices. Her mother was going to drive out there in the morning to pick her up.
But she couldn't wait that long. It was too much to bear. She would leave tonight. She had to leave tonight, otherwise she felt she would be crushed. She would see her mother soon enough -- maybe she would understand how something could be so good one second and so horrible the next. But she couldn't wait. She got up and put on her clothes, borrowing a pair of Marci's pants; she put the bloodstained shirt into Marci's bag. When she walked out of the room she could the see the flicker of television light on the walls and Murray's head silhouetted against it. He had his arm around Lin and the two of them sat there bathed in the chatter and flare of the television. JC eased the sliding door open and slipped through and in few seconds was on Joy Street heading toward the Commons.
