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But I wouldn't want to die there...part 1 |
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One week later, it was her boss who broke the news to me that my friend Carol Margolis was dead. This message I took in person, when Carol's boss called from a law office in New York City to my home in Port Frederick, Massachusetts.
"Jenny Cain?" she asked.
"Yes," I confirmed.
"This is Patricia Vinitsky," she announced, I heard New York City in the accent and a faraway familiarity in the name. "I'm president of the board of the Hart Foundation. I believe you . . . uh, have been a friend of our . . . uh, director, Carol Margolis."
"Why, yes," i said enthusiastically and unsuspectingly.
"I father you don't know, and I regret to tell you, that Carol is dead; she was killed in a street robbery one night last week. I'm sorry nobody thought to inform you before this. Her parents probably didn't know how to reach you, and her husband . . . well, you know how Steve is . . ."
"No, I-"
Didn't want to know. Any part of this. Wanted it to stop. Wanted to go back to when my phone rang, and wanted to refuse to answer it.
"Carol . . ." I said.
We'd become friends because we held twin jobs as directors of a community foundation. We'd met at a convention, and we'd hit it off immediately. Then we'd commented that sort of rare, intense friendship that you can usually only conduct with somebody you see infrequently. At those times--usually at conventions--we'd share a year's worth of gossip and intimacy and hilarity. If we'd been lovers, we'd have wanted to see each other more often; since we were friends, it was enough to share a room once a year and to talk by phone. Although we were seperated by time and space, Carol Margolis was one of my best friends. Even so, I hadn't spoken to her since right after my mother died; she'd left that last message and a couple of earlier innocuous ones that I hadn't gotten around to returning' I'd been preoccupied, I'd known that she would understand, I hadn't known it would matter. I had thought I'd be seeing her at the next convention or talking to her soon on the phone . . .
Vinitsky's next words slipped past me like cars sliding downhill in the earthquake. I grasped the horror of it and wanted to reach out and stop them, but I was helpless to do anything more than observe it all in silence of shock.
"It happened on West End Avenue. She was running like she did every evening. Some b*****d tried to rob her, that's what they're saying, but she wasn't carrying anything, no money, not even wearing a watch, not even a fanny pack. She'd taken along enough money for coffee at a place she liked, but she'd already spent that, she'd already had the coffee.
---------wait next month for part 2!
Shelina Kuchiki   Koichi Sonuba · Mon Jun 30, 2008 @ 01:03am · 0 Comments |
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