"Esther M. Friesner - Birthday" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

You go to hell." And she slams the door in my face.

I feel like a fool, but by the time I reach the next address on the list the
feeling has faded. It's better here. The woman's name is Maris and she lives
alone. She urges me to come in, to have a cup of tea, some cookies, anything
I'd
like. Her apartment is small but tasteful, a lot of wicker, a lot of sunlight.
"God bless you," she says. "I was just about at my wits' end. I thought if I
had
to go through that one more time I'd go crazy. It 's supposed to get easier
with
time, but it just gets harder. I've got three more years to go before I'm
free.
Never again, believe me; never again."

She rubs the sampler sheet over her thumb and watches like a hawk as I fumble
it
into its thin plastic envelope. The envelope goes into the cold pack and the
cold pack goes back into my purse. "Are you sure you remember my password?"
she
asks as she sees me to the door.

"Yes, but please change it after today," I tell her.

The third and fourth women are not as hospitable as Maris, but there is no one
there to tell me to go to hell. One of them is an artist, the other lost her
job, and Maris, I recall, told me she'd taken a sick day off from work just on
the off chance the Woman's Center could find a runner to come help her. It
feels
very strange to me, sitting in rooms freckled with spring sunshine, to be
talking with strange women when I would normally be at work. In the course of
these three visitations I drink three cups of tea and also share a little gin
with the woman who has lost her job. My head spins with passwords and special
instructions, my hands clasp a pile of three plain brown self-addressed
stamped
envelopes by the time I teeter out the door in search of my final contact.

I take the bus uptown. Out the window I see news leaves unfurl in blurs of
green
made more heartstoppingly tender by the gin. It was a mistake to drink, but if
I
looked into the glass I didn't have to look into the woman's eyes. I decide to
get off the bus a few blocks away from my stop. A walk will clear my head.

The blue and red and white lights flash, dazzling me. Two police cars and a
crowd have gathered outside a restaurant that's trying to be a Paris sidewalk
cafe. A man is clinging to the curlicued iron fence around one of the trees in
front of the place, his face a paler green than the leaves above his head. I
smell vomit, sour and pungent. I watch where I step as I try to make my way
through the crowd.