Come Closer by Sara Gran Read Free Book Online Page A

o’clock. That couldn’t be right. I bent down to look at the clock on James’s desk. They jibed. Three o’clock.
    My mind took a step backwards and then forwards, trying to make sense of the situation. I had gone to Pete’s for a burger, then to the magazine stand on the corner, then back to work. I had looked at my watch on the way back and seen five to. One hour.
    Impossible. But here I was. James was looking at me with his big gray eyes. I felt as if the ground underneath me was no longer stable but tilting, one way and then the other. My mind stopped to rearrange itself. I went into an emergency mode where the first thing was to deal with James Cronin.
    “Oh, yeah, I did leave at one,” I told James, as if I hadn’t said it a moment before with an entirely different tone. “I had some errands.”
    I turned and sat down at my own desk. I went over the hour—no, two hours—in my mind again. First I had gone to the coffee shop for a hamburger. There was the usual waitress, the tired brunette. While I ate I read the newspaper, which I left in the coffee shop when I was done. Then I went to the magazine stand on the corner, down the block. I looked through a few women’s magazines before I picked up Architectural Record. There was a little piece on my firm in the New and Noteworthy column. Of course we had a copy at the office but I wanted to show Ed. I checked my watch, twenty to two. Plenty of time. I flipped through a few women’s magazines, a guilty pleasure. And then:
    “Hey, hey. You can’t read those here. Buy or don’t buy. No reading.”
    I turned. It was the man running the shop.
    “Well I AM buying, I’m getting this and I’m deciding about these others.” I was angry, but only for a second or two. Ridiculous man. How could people know what to buy if they didn’t look first? I thought of the utter absurdity of the situation: a man who was talking customers out of shopping in his store. Probably went home every night wondering why he didn’t sell more magazines.
    And then again: “Buy or don’t buy. Come on, lady.” I would have walked out but I had been looking for that magazine for a week now, it was mostly sold by subscription and wasn’t easy to find at a newsstand. I went to the counter.
    “You know you’re very rude, how is a person supposed to shop without looking around first?” I paid with five dollar bills and two quarters.
    “You don’t like it, get out. I don’t need this.”
    I got angrier. All I wanted were a few magazines and here was this abuse. “I am getting out, and I won’t come back.”
    I turned and left. I heard him behind me: “Fucking bitch.”
    I ignored him. What a nut. How does a person like that come to run a business? I lit a cigarette and smoked a few drags. I was still angry, even though I was embarrassed about it. It should be beneath me, taking this moronic woman-hater seriously.
    I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes left. If I walked the long way back to work, took the streets instead of the avenue, that would fill the time nicely. I could smoke another cigarette and relax. Stressful morning, trouble with the electricians at the Fitzgerald house, and now this ridiculous fight with a stranger. I was about to step into the street when a woman rushed by, or maybe a man with long hair, lightning fast, and almost knocked me down. I stumbled, and then caught myself. Fucking messengers.
    And then a dip. I had closed my eyes for a second, a blink in anticipation of being hit by the messenger. I closed my eyes and there was a dip, a dip or a drop out of consciousness. I had a cigarette in my hand, the air smelled hot and dirty on the street corner, the messenger rushed by, I lost my balance, stumbled and then, I could just barely remember it, I saw black and lost the feeling of my feet on the ground.
    It passed as quickly as it came, and there I was in front in the magazine store on the corner. The cigarette was gone. Of course you don’t usually remember