jacket.
Ms. Cameron had called to confirm that I was to arrive at six Saturday evening because she was to leave for her, ha-ha, business meeting at six-thirty.
I had worried a bit about getting to the Garden with Tom Terrific at midnight. I'm not a nervous sort of person, but for a fourteen-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy to walk the streets of Boston in the middle of a Saturday night, there has to be some death wish involved. At first Seth said he'd come and walk with us. But, much as I was beginning to like Seth, I wasn't sure he would be all that much protection, not at midnight. He was almost six feet tall; but somehow his body had forgotten to add any flesh to those six feet. He looked a little like a gross picture I had seen once in one of my mother's medical books. Its caption was: Failure to Thrive.
Hawk announced that he would pick all of us up in his car. Now it became "Synchronize your watches, men" time. He would pick Seth up at the corner of Commonwealth and Clarendon, a few doors from his apartment building, at eleven-forty. Ten minutes later, at eleven-fifty, they would collect Tom Terrific and me from the house on West Cedar Street. We were to be waiting just inside the door. As Hawk pointed out to Seth, and Seth repeated to me, if the residents of West Cedar Street noticed a black man idling his beat-up car there in the middle of the night, every telephone around would be dialing 911, the emergency police number.
And the bag ladies would get to the duck pond on their own. I worried for a minute about that. But Seth pointed out that they were used to it. Most of them probably slept in subways and parks anyway. They were a little subculture of survivors.
Frankly, I was beginning to hope that we would all survive this.
***
I arrived at Ms. Cameron's at six with my backpack on my back. She took it from me politely and set it on a tufted Victorian sofa in the front hall. I wondered if she was puzzled by its bulkiness, but she didn't say anything. Probably she assumed that it contained a toothbrush, a frilly Lanz nightgown, and a matching quilted robe. Maybe a pair of fuzzy slippers.
Actually it contained a black turtleneck sweater, my newest jeans, which hadn't faded much yet so they were still dark blue, and a pair of dark brown hiking boots. That was as close as I could come to an all-black ensemble. Also in the pack was a navy blue knitted ski cap. You could feel a little silly wearing a ski cap on a warm August night. But my hair is light; I figured I could reduce my visibility by stuffing it into the cap.
I wonder if full-time burglars ever get over feeling silly as they select their burglaring outfits.
It was not raining. Thank you, Howie Friendly.
Now, as for Ms. Cameron and her bogus business trip. For this alleged business trip, she was dressed in a blue silk dress, low necked with lots of cleavage, high-heeled sandals, and dangling silver earrings. She was wearing make-up, which
she never wore in the daytime, and White Shoulders perfume.
(Whenever I'm wandering through the first floor of Jordan Marsh, I squirt myself with one of the sample perfumes. Then I rush home so Mrs. Kolodny can guess what it is. If there is ever a TV quiz program where perfume identification is the competition, Mrs. Kolodny can be a contestant and win thousands of dollars. White Shoulders is a pretty easy one. The one Mrs. Kolodny hasn't mastered yet is Lagerfeld's Chloe. I can always stump her on Chloe.)
It made me feel (a) stupid, that Ms. Cameron thought I would
believe
that she had a business engagement, and (b) sordid, that I was dressed in last summer's too-small sundress when she was decked out in silk. Both adjectives, of course, go nicely with the name Enid.
Her "business partner" arrived in a Mercedes; he was handsome in a Marlboro-ad sort of way (though he was dressed up in a dark suit and tie) and his name was Dave Guthrie. She introduced us. Tom Terrific knew him already; obviously he'd been
Ms. Cameron had called to confirm that I was to arrive at six Saturday evening because she was to leave for her, ha-ha, business meeting at six-thirty.
I had worried a bit about getting to the Garden with Tom Terrific at midnight. I'm not a nervous sort of person, but for a fourteen-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy to walk the streets of Boston in the middle of a Saturday night, there has to be some death wish involved. At first Seth said he'd come and walk with us. But, much as I was beginning to like Seth, I wasn't sure he would be all that much protection, not at midnight. He was almost six feet tall; but somehow his body had forgotten to add any flesh to those six feet. He looked a little like a gross picture I had seen once in one of my mother's medical books. Its caption was: Failure to Thrive.
Hawk announced that he would pick all of us up in his car. Now it became "Synchronize your watches, men" time. He would pick Seth up at the corner of Commonwealth and Clarendon, a few doors from his apartment building, at eleven-forty. Ten minutes later, at eleven-fifty, they would collect Tom Terrific and me from the house on West Cedar Street. We were to be waiting just inside the door. As Hawk pointed out to Seth, and Seth repeated to me, if the residents of West Cedar Street noticed a black man idling his beat-up car there in the middle of the night, every telephone around would be dialing 911, the emergency police number.
And the bag ladies would get to the duck pond on their own. I worried for a minute about that. But Seth pointed out that they were used to it. Most of them probably slept in subways and parks anyway. They were a little subculture of survivors.
Frankly, I was beginning to hope that we would all survive this.
***
I arrived at Ms. Cameron's at six with my backpack on my back. She took it from me politely and set it on a tufted Victorian sofa in the front hall. I wondered if she was puzzled by its bulkiness, but she didn't say anything. Probably she assumed that it contained a toothbrush, a frilly Lanz nightgown, and a matching quilted robe. Maybe a pair of fuzzy slippers.
Actually it contained a black turtleneck sweater, my newest jeans, which hadn't faded much yet so they were still dark blue, and a pair of dark brown hiking boots. That was as close as I could come to an all-black ensemble. Also in the pack was a navy blue knitted ski cap. You could feel a little silly wearing a ski cap on a warm August night. But my hair is light; I figured I could reduce my visibility by stuffing it into the cap.
I wonder if full-time burglars ever get over feeling silly as they select their burglaring outfits.
It was not raining. Thank you, Howie Friendly.
Now, as for Ms. Cameron and her bogus business trip. For this alleged business trip, she was dressed in a blue silk dress, low necked with lots of cleavage, high-heeled sandals, and dangling silver earrings. She was wearing make-up, which
she never wore in the daytime, and White Shoulders perfume.
(Whenever I'm wandering through the first floor of Jordan Marsh, I squirt myself with one of the sample perfumes. Then I rush home so Mrs. Kolodny can guess what it is. If there is ever a TV quiz program where perfume identification is the competition, Mrs. Kolodny can be a contestant and win thousands of dollars. White Shoulders is a pretty easy one. The one Mrs. Kolodny hasn't mastered yet is Lagerfeld's Chloe. I can always stump her on Chloe.)
It made me feel (a) stupid, that Ms. Cameron thought I would
believe
that she had a business engagement, and (b) sordid, that I was dressed in last summer's too-small sundress when she was decked out in silk. Both adjectives, of course, go nicely with the name Enid.
Her "business partner" arrived in a Mercedes; he was handsome in a Marlboro-ad sort of way (though he was dressed up in a dark suit and tie) and his name was Dave Guthrie. She introduced us. Tom Terrific knew him already; obviously he'd been
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