THE WALK HOME
Chapter 1
“Hey.”
That was about the last thing I was expecting to hear. Not that the word was unusual to me, but the circumstances were. A soft, light, feminine voice, not demanding anything, and that was unusual enough, spending a lot of my life (especially at work) with demanding men, but I heard it on a deserted street at two in the morning. The sound had come from the direction of one of those old apartment buildings, a three-story walkup overlooking the sidewalk,
When I hear that word at two in the morning on a deserted street, it’s usually followed by a question or a threat, but when I froze in place and looked around, it wasn’t. Instead, all I got was another, “Hey.” Still as casual as the first, made more insistent only by its repetition.
I looked up, towards the apartments. There was a figure towering over me, in silhouette, in one of those little sunrooms that jutted out from the building. The figure was standing in the window on the main floor, which put her feet at the level of my stomach, although I could only see her from the knees up. Even then, because of the reflection from the nearby streetlamp and the light from the apartment behind her, I couldn’t see more than just a vague, dark outline.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“What are you doing out so late?” the voice asked me back.
“Walking home from work. What are you doing up so late?“
“Reading,” the voice replied. “I do it a lot. Why are you working so late?”
“Gotta have a job,” I answered with a shrug. “If I want enough hours to afford food and my apartment, I gotta take the late shift.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Yeah, very. That’s why I’m going home,” I said, but I didn’t move. “Why not read during the day?”
“I do. I pretty much read all the time, when I’m not having my treatments.”
What did she mean by treatments? “Are you sick?”
“Uh huh. You don’t want the details. And even if you do I don’t want to give them.” It sounded like she was laughing some.
“Who are you?” I asked, stepping a bit closer.
The figure stepped back from the window, maybe involuntarily. “Jessica. Jess. Who are you?”
I nodded. “Priya. Nice to, uh...”
Jess giggled. “Yeah it’s nice to meet you, Priya. Don’t you know it’s not safe being out this late?”
“Don’t have a car, bus doesn’t drop me off near home, so I have to walk some.” I felt a bit uncomfortable all of a sudden. She was right, it was never really safe, and explaining to some of the more awful people around the finer differences between ‘African heritage’ and ‘Indian heritage’ was usually a waste of time.
“Don’t worry, Priya, I’ll never tell anyone.” She giggled again like she was keeping a secret.
The laugh was infectious. “Better not or I could be in trouble.”
“Well maybe you should buy my silence,” she said, stepping closer to the window. I still couldn’t see anything but a shadowy figure. “I’m bored and could use some company.”
“Uh...” I think I was staring. “Do you... want me to come in?”
I could see Jess’ head shaking, and long dark strands of hair moving against the light. “Nope. You bring anything in with you, I could die. Immunocompromised and all that.”
“But the window’s...”
“Nothing’s getting in through the window.” She laughed. “Just trust me, okay?”
“Yeah, sure, but how am I supposed to keep you company?”
Her hands went to her hips, and the silhouette reminded me of Peter Pan’s shadow. “You’re doing it right now, Priya.” Her voice was a mix of teasing, taunting, explanation, and disappointment at my silly ideas.
“Oh. Oh! right.” I shook my head. “Sorry, it’s a long day and a long walk.”
“So,” Jess said with a smile in her voice, “you could use a break, right?”
I knew better than to argue. “Mind if I sit?”
“Sure don’t.”
I put my butt on the thin strip of grass under the window and arranged my sari around me.
“That’s no fair,” she complained. “I can’t see you from there. Except your feet.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t see you from anywhere, except your shadow.”
“Sure, but you can walk away, I’m stuck here.”
I sighed. “Look, uh, Jess, um...”
“No, wait!” she said, sounding frantic. “I really want this, Priya, you seem so... uh... interesting!”
“Interesting?” I looked up at the light spilling around the edge of the window, a little shocked at her desperate language and tone. “Jess, what is it you want from me?”
“I’m so bored!” She actually whined at me. “I do nothing but read and write and take meds and sleep and sometimes eat. I just want someone to spend a little time with. In this world, not in the virtual one.“
“So you stopped me, scared me half to death, took up my time, just to have someone to talk to?”
There was a pause. “Yes?”
I grinned into the darkness and let my own answer wait just long enough to make Jess nervous. “Good thing I can use a friend, myself.”
Her relieved laughter was amazing, and cut through the night in a way that was both fun and a touch worrying. I was a little concerned about what people might think if they heard her and spotted my dark face in the lamplight under her window, but that fear soon passed, listening to the sound; it was like her voice was just made to laugh.
I closed my eyes and imagined the face that might go with that voice; I already knew about her long hair, so I pictured it raven-black, framing a thin face, thin and pale from being ill, like a 19th-century consumptive. A bit vampire-like, perhaps. Green—no, blue eyes, sharp and intelligent. An imperfect, aquiline nose, a little hawkish, a little crooked, a little long, but one that accents her sallow features. Definitely pictured her as a white girl from her voice; not sure why, though. It’s not like after twenty-one years living in the city that my accent was any different from anyone else’s. Maybe it was her name.
“Great, Priya!” I heard Jess clapping for joy. “We’ll be friends!”
My laugh in reply was genuine. “Sounds good, Jess! I don’t have many friends.”
“You don’t?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“I work five days a week until one in the morning,” I explained, “and on Sunday and Monday I have to clean my apartment, do my laundry, whatever else I have to take care of. I don’t have a lot of time to socialize.”
“Well you can waste a few minutes with me right now!”
I yawned involuntarily. “That’s about all I can do, or I’ll fall asleep here.”
“Would that be so bad?”
I thought about my nice, warm bed and big, soft pillows and yawned again. “Yes,” I said. “I don’t want to wake up on the ground.”
Jess giggled. “I get it. You must be super tired.”
“All the yawning clue you in?” I asked.
“Uh huh, well that and your story. You work long hours, you have to walk home. Probably spend the whole shift on your feet, too, so the walking is just the icing on the cake, right?”
I nodded, before realizing Jessica couldn’t actually see my head. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Uh huh, and I bet that sitting down is really relaxing right now, isn’t it?”
“Sure is.” I stretched out my legs and worked out the knots in my ankles and toes. I was aware, suddenly, that Jess could see that, and I wasn’t sure why I cared that my grungy, beat-up runners might be visible. “That’s why I don’t want to sit here too long.”
“I bet it won’t be too long, no matter how long it actually is.” I could hear that smile again. I imagined it on that thin, pale face I could see in my mind, which softened the somewhat harsh visage I’d been picturing, enough that I hardly noticed that what she said didn’t really make a lot of sense. “And then afterwards you’ll finish your walk home feeling so much better.”
That sounded pretty great, actually. “That sounds pretty great, actually,” I said, leaning back on my hands and resting my head against the wall.
“I bet it would. I mean, I’m fresh as a daisy, I just woke up a couple hours ago, but you’ve been working so long and you’re on your way to your nice, warm bed...”
If she kept talking like that, I was sure that I would fall asleep. “If you keep talking like that,” I yawned, “I’m sure I’ll fall asleep.”
I heard Jess giggle again. “Then you could talk with me in your dreams.”
Sounded to me like those would be fun dreams. “Sounds to me like they would be fun dreams.”
“You seem pretty dreamy already, Priya.” Jess sounded very self-satisfied.
I was. “Yeah, I am,” I said. I pushed myself up a bit. “I think I should be heading home.”
“Aw,” Jess groaned, her voice more amused than disappointed. “Well, do you always walk this way?”
I got to my feet a little unsteadily. “Yeah, I do.”
“Especially now that you know I’m here, right?”
I turned to face the window, smiling. “Of course. Now that I know.” I still couldn’t see more than a silhouette.
“Well don’t let me keep you, Priya!” Jess giggled. “It was great meeting you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow, Jess” I said, turning to continue my walk home.
It was only another ten minutes’ walk, but the whole time my mind was occupied by the mysterious silhouette in the window, the strange voice that floated on an unseen smile. I wondered if my imagined vision of Jess was anything like the real thing, with the dark hair, bird-like face, and intelligent eyes. She certainly seemed smart, anyway, and if she had nothing to do but read all day that might definitely have had something to do with it.
And that laugh. Warm and inviting and as far as I could tell never hurtful, at least with me. As I was opening the door to my building, I had a laugh myself; for some reason I was thinking of Jess as I might an old friend, not like a complete stranger that I’d had a short conversation with. Maybe she was mean and cruel for the other twenty-three hours of the day.
When she wasn’t sleeping or deathly ill. I rolled my eyes at myself. Yeah, she seemed like a real monster, there. I unlocked my apartment door, stepped in, kicked off my shoes and socks, locked the door, and started pulling pins, first out of my now-messy braid to let my hair down, running my fingers through it down to my waist, and then out of the well-loved sari that my aunt had sent me for my birthday. By that point, I was in the bedroom. I was debating having a shower before bed, or after getting up, or possibly both.
But then I started looking at my nice, warm bed, thinking how comfortable it would be as I pulled my blouse off over my head and undid my bra, letting both fall to the floor, then dropped my petticoat and sat on the edge of the bed in just my panties. I had been working so long, but I felt a lot better than when my shift ended, even with my twenty-minute walk.
I lay back across the bed, reveling in how nice and soft and warm it was. I just didn’t want to get up, not even to put on the shirt I usually wore to bed. The shower would wait until the morning. The air was nice and cool on my body. I didn’t even want to move, not even to turn to put my head on the pillows and my feet on the mattress. I just closed my eyes and let myself drift off. I knew my neck and back would pay for it in the morning, and I did not care.
* * *