Spring: a time of rebirth, of life, of joy. Winter coats were gratefully discarded, some people even stripping down to short sleeves. Central Park, Manhattan's priceless emerald, was alive once more. The city seemed to thrum and vibrate with renewed energy.
But Gina Stewart felt dead and empty inside, hollowed out and brittle, like there was nothing left that could care about the beauty of her city. She walked like a ghost, staring blankly ahead, indifferent to the people around her, dark eyes clouded, gaze fixed on the sidewalk. The set of her face- angry, but at the same time cold and detached- was enough to make people blanch and flinch away from her. She had no idea where she was going, but it didn't matter, because she didn't care. Some part of her was aware that her feet were taking her on the same path she and Liam had walked time and time again, but the rest of her didn't want to be aware of that.
She hadn't dreamed in years now. She'd seen so much horror and destruction in the formative years of her life that her subconscious had decided to purge everything as it came in. Night turned to day, to night again, to day again, the cycle neverending, and she barely cared at all. None of it mattered. None of it registered, except the turning of the calendar pages, another day scratched off where Liam hadn't come back to her. It was as if she was running on autopilot, eating, showering, changing her clothes in accordance with a familiar rhythm.
Nine months was a symbolic amount of time, and if they'd held true to the cliché about parted lovers, she would be holding his child in her arms. They hadn't sunk that low, though, believing that they wouldn't be parted for long. Her first fantasy had circled around her birthday, that he would come to her then, falling back into her arms like the autumn leaves. Then it had been Thanksgiving so that she would have something for which she could give thanks. Then it was Christmas, with ribbons tied around his forehead to keep his unruly black hair in place. Then it was Valentine's Day, winter putting a shy blush in his cheeks and a sparkle in his brown eyes. But every time, the day had passed with, at most, a brief phone call. It was only now hitting her that this was a real thing, and to say that she wasn't taking it well would be an understatement.
Her index finger reached into the collar of her t-shirt and rubbed the tarnished silver heart that, as usual, had tangled itself with her gold shamrock. It had been an impulsive gesture on Liam's part all those years ago, a silly little thing that he'd only gotten by chance and given to her on the spur of the moment. It fit their relationship so well, she had put it on and never again taken it off. Somehow it gave her strength. Her mother's family had an old superstition that claimed that if the catch on a necklace slipped to the front, someone was talking about the necklace's wearer. She liked to imagine that every time the elaborate catch crashed into the delicate heart, Liam was telling someone that he was going to come home just as soon as he could, or that she was the girl he loved more than anything.
But they were foolish fancies, nothing more. Anyone who'd seen the carnage unleashed on New York, the first blow in an otherwise undeclared war, knew better than to put their trust in dreams. She remembered seeing the landmark fall, the flames rising to claim the structure, the cloud of smoke that had made breathing the crisp autumn air a challenge, and the blatant disregard for the city's opinion that would follow; somewhere, America had gotten the idea that New Yorkers' beliefs didn't matter just because the disaster had happened on their soil. A lot of growing up had happened that day, the sloughing off of dreams and the destruction of illusions. She wasn't the idealist she'd been only a few years ago, but a cold hard pragmatist who swore even more than she used to and no longer believed in the best in the human soul.
Liam had kept her tied to hope when he was still there for her. When her faith in humanity had wavered, he reminded her that there were people worth worrying about. He was the perfect straight man, forever ready with a line she could turn around to make him blush and laugh. So much alike and yet different in such key ways, they had complemented each other so perfectly that when he left to save his life, half of her went with him.
Lost in her musings, as she so often was these days, she didn't notice that a stocky Latina had fallen into step on her left, steadily guiding her to the brown apartment building on the northwest corner of 57th Street and 7th Avenue. "Por Nuestra Señora, chica, how wouldja ever get home without me?" Christián Espinel asked her darker-haired friend. As usual, there was no answer. Chris loked to the heavens, but if there were a higher power, it too had decided not to answer her. She shrugged fatalistically and herded her friend into the apartment. "Oye, Byrdie, look what I found out in the street!"
Alaine Byrd looked up from her notebook. "Chris, y'know you're not s'posed to bring strange gals home," she said in a mild tone of reproof. Even after nearly two years out of the sleepy Virginia town where she had grown up, her voice still carried a heavy Southern drawl. Before Chris could simmer in an unbecoming funk, Alaine added, "C'mon, y'know she's near as strange as they come, right?" She bestowed affectionate hair ruffles on both of her best friends, then pushed Gina into an armchair. The purple quilt folded over its back soon covered Gina as Alaine and Chris withdrew from the room. She was dimly aware that they were talking, but she couldn't be bothered making out the words. All she could hear was the lazy rhythm of Alaine's Southern drawl and the staccato sing-song of Chris's pronounced Brooklyn accent. The blend, however unusual, was something warm and familiar that reassured her and allowed her mind to drift.
She didn't see Alaine turn away so that no one could see the way her tears highlighted the lines on her face.
The sky is slate gray, contaminated by a boundless source of pollution. It darkens her beloved city so that the streetlights are no brighter than fireflies- of course, the fireflies all died years ago. She's running, and it doesn't hurt, which is funny because running usually puts stress on her chest. But she doesn't think about that. There's too much else to worry about. The need to find her friends drives her- maybe it's the only thing left that can drive her in this warped, destroyed world.
"Save me," Chris whispers, and Gina doesn't know where her voice is coming from, only that she can hear it as if Chris were standing right next to her and whispering in her ear like a lover. She runs, and somehow she knows where to run, because this is a dream world and in dreams all things make sense except the things that are supposed to make sense.
The Manhattan street takes her to her Queens grammar school, populated by people she barely knew in college and high school. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembers this dream from her childhood and knows that it will end with a gunshot, but with Chris's death instead of Luz Castro's.
The shot rings out, and the gunman shouts, "Espinel's gone, bring out Byrd!" That's not the way the dream is supposed to go, and the second shot freezes her blood. "Byrd's gone, bring out Stewart!" Hands seize her shirt and throw her at the gunman's feet. She looks up into Liam's bearded, but still familiar, face, and her shrill scream drowns out the gunshot that ends the dream.
The uptown- and Queens-bound platform at the 57th Street station was like an old friend to Gina. Time and time again, no matter where she and Liam had wandered, this would be the most convenient way for him to take her home. She sensed that there was some irony in how she had ended up living on the very corner where she and Liam had so often parted, even though their last parting had taken place in her old neighborhood.
She wasn't waiting for anything in particular, just standing on the platform and watching the trains go by: the Q, making its turnaround to Brooklyn; the N, biding its time until it came above ground in Long Island City; the R, chugging steadily along to Forest Hills. By this time, the useless W had finally been eliminated, so the pattern of Astoria-bound and Forest Hills-bound trains had evened out. Even for a late Sunday night, the platform was eerily quiet. There was no one to shove her out of the way as they would have on a weekday. She could stand there and stare at the tracks undisturbed, watching the leaky pipes drip into the stagnant puddles, the way the wind from departing trains stirred up stray litter, the sleek rats that crept between the ties with sinuous movements.
When she had been a little girl, falling into the tracks had been her biggest fear. She would walk down the middle of a platform or hug the wall, anything to stay away from the edge. Now she approached the yellow caution stripe with the same disdain as her fellow New Yorkers, leaning as far over as she needed to see if a train was coming. When she was feeling particularly daring, she'd dip her toes over the edge and let them hang out in space.
As soon as a train had left, she sat down on the edge of the platform, the better to examine the enchanting underbelly of the underworld. It would be so easy to jump down there to see things even more closely, to stay down there forever. Darkness invited her in. She leaned her weight forward to fall.
A hand seized the back of her t-shirt and started pulling. "Goddamn it, Gina, what the hey-ull y'think you're doin'? C'mon, git yoahself up! Someone! Help!" Someone with more force helped Alaine pull Gina back up on the platform. No more than a minute later, a train bound for Ditmars Boulevard roared into the station. "Thank-ee kindly, stranger. G, what happened? You near to scared the daylights outta me! You evah do such a damn-fool thing 'gain, I'll box yoah eahs!" Alaine was crying, the tears streaking down her pale cheeks and choking up her voice so that she was even harder to understand than usual.
"'Lainey, don't cry, I don't want you to cry for me," Gina said quietly, the first thing she'd said in close to three days.
"Then you oughtn't be so foolish! How's this gonna bring him home? Use your head for a change! Come on back from wherevah 'tis you've gone. I miss you." For a moment, Alaine thought she saw signs of life in Gina's face, but the mask quickly covered them again. With a long-suffering sigh, the Southerner brought the no-longer-resisting Gina home. "Lord, I can't wait for Laurel to git a place for us. I'm mighty tired of sittin' for Gina, much as I-"
Chris laughed at the way Alaine abruptly stopped the sentence and blushed. "Chica, I may be street but I ain't stupid. We both know Laurie's been after you to move in with her for the last three months, but ya haven't 'cause you've stayed with Gina. I know how ya feel- hell, by now all'a Midtown knows how ya feel 'bout her."
"'Ceptin' her," Alaine said, indicating the bedroom where Gina lay sleeping. She knew Gina's position by heart: stretched straight out on her stomach, right side of her face pressed into the pillow, one arm pinned under her midsection, the other tucked beneath the pillow, taking up as little space as possible like she expected Liam to slide in next to her and warm the chill in her soul. More than once, Alaine had been tempted to fill the empty space, but she dared not, and it hurt.
In the dream, she is still asleep, only now she is aware of the darkness behind her eyelids, the lazy thump of her heart, the gentle rhythm of her breathing, the wonderful numbness of her body. Hyperaware of not being aware, she could stay here forever.
And then the roaches come, crawling up the back wall, reaching for her with their antennae. They come at her from all sides, and their feet on the cheap thin sheets create a rustle like a long-forgotten lullaby that only entrances her further. Soon a glossy brown blanket of them covers her so that no trace of her can be seen.
Her dark hair, so recently shorn for the warm seasons ahead, starts to grow out, first to her shoulders (that was where it had been at their six-month anniversary), then to the middle of her back (two years together, and he had awkwardly braided it for her that day), to her waist (the day she first knew she loved him, she had wrung out every inch of it with a wistful, romantic sigh), to her knees (and she was five again, princess of the kindergarten classroom; Rapunzel, they called her when they thought she couldn't hear), until she is Lady Godiva with cellulite and a faded white t-shirt. Her dream self awakens suddenly. Roaches and their ilk are her mortal fear, and she draws in a breath to scream. But this is the opening that the invaders awaited with inhuman patience. She chokes first on her scream, then on her captors. She tries to escape, but her beautiful long hair that she once wore with such pride traps and ensnares her so she cannot move.
When the swarm flows off the bed, there is a human-shaped hollow in the mattress and a head-shaped dent in the plumped perfection of her pillow, but of the woman who slept there, there is no sign. They have claimed her as one of their own, one of the masses. They have turned her into the ultimate pest that is also the ultimate survivor. Her vantage point is insanely low to the ground, but she still sees with human eyes and hears with human ears the shrieks of disgust coming from far above.
She senses- scents? tastes?- something heavenly and breaks from the group. Someone has left food out for her, and she crawls over it eagerly. Only when it is already within her can she taste the poison hidden in the sweetness. In agony, she convulses on the ground. A foot comes down to end her life, and she recognizes Liam's boot just before everything goes black.
She thrashed and screamed, waking with a start. Alaine was there in a heartbeat to stroke her hair and whisper that it was only a bad dream. "But I don't dream," she said, bemused. "I just woke up. I don't know why or how."
"'T'all be right in the mornin'," Alaine replied sleepily, and Gina realized that it was two in the morning, and Alaine looked like she hadn't gone to bed yet. "Quit yoah starin', 'tain't like I nevah been up this late. Hush up an' go back to sleep."
Gina pressed her face to the pillow and took a deep breath.
His hands are in her hair, as they usually are. When she has absently forgotten to attack her tresses with a hairbrush, he combs out the tangles with his fingers; when her hair is in perfect order, he satisfies himself with stroking her hair and hearing the murmurs of contentment that come from low in her throat.
She presses closer to him, savoring the scent of leather and Old Spice that clings to him even in the height of summer, the scent that makes her heart beat faster and her mouth suddenly run dry. "I thought you'd never come home," she whispers. "I thought you were gone for good. I thought you'd found some pretty Chinese girl who would give you everything you ever wanted."
"No one could. You're everything I've ever wanted, and I love you, and I'd never leave you behind." He kisses her deeply, as if to steal the air from her lungs. Her breathing hitches once, twice, thrice. "The best of you will always be with me."
And she knows it to be true. She's only the best she can be when he's there to support her. Their partnership, however unlikely it was when they had first met in the darkened mezzanine of Madison Square Garden, was perfect. Only when they are together are they whole.
She woke the next morning for her job of mindless data entry. If she had known of the disconnect between her conscious and her subconscious, she would have been furious about the wonderful dream her conscious had missed. But her psychiatric experience was limited to one semester of introductory work her sophomore year in college, so she remained unaware and achingly lonely.
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