This year was different.
She would later wonder whether her life would have changed so completely if Mollie hadn’t left for Sugarbush on Friday night to spend the long weekend skiing with a classmate named Winona Weingarten, whose parents owned a chalet up there; or if Michael hadn’t decided to run downtown on Monday morning to spend “a few hours” working on this big mysterious case of his. She would recall that the moment he left the apartment at ten-thirty, she’d felt a delicious sense of aloneness, no daughter to care for, no husband to love, honor, and cherish, no students to nurture, just Sarah Fitch Welles, all by her lonesome on one of those magnificently balmy days January sometimes offered as solace to the dwellers of this otherwise wintry gray city.
She stepped smartly out of the building at a quarter to eleven, wearing jeans, ankle-high brown leather boots, a bulky wool turtleneck sweater, and a short woolen car coat — almost dressed too warmly, she realized at once. She said good morning to Luis, made an immediate left turn under the canopy, and began walking the two blocks to Madison Avenue, where she planned to shop the windows and maybe the stores as well. What the hell! Today was a holiday, and she was gloriously alone.
A smoky-blue Acura was parked at the curb some three doors up from her building. Andrew Farrell was half-sitting, half-leaning on the fender of the car, his arms folded across his chest, his head tilted up toward the sun. His eyes were closed, he had not yet seen her. She was starting to turn away, planning to walk back in the opposite direction, when — as if sensing her nearness — he opened his eyes, and turned his head, and looked directly at her.
Her heart was suddenly pounding.
She stood rooted to the sidewalk as he approached.
“Hi,” he said.
No grin this time. Wearing his solemn, serious, grownup look.
“I’ve been waiting since eight o’clock,” he said. “I was afraid I’d miss you.”
“How... how did you... what are you... oh, Jesus, Andrew, what do you want from me?”
“Just you,” he said.
In the car on the way downtown, he told her he remembered Mollie mentioning that they lived on East Eighty-First Street, and whereas he didn’t know her husband’s first name and didn’t think a high school teacher would list herself under her own name, he thought it might be possible that a twelve-year-old girl could have her own telephone. So he’d checked out the name Welles in the Manhattan directory and discovered that there were what appeared to be hundreds of them spelled W-E-L–L-S, but not too many spelled W-E-L–L-E-S. There were no Sarahs, as he’d surmised, and no Mollies, either, but there was a listing for a “Welles MD,” who — if it wasn’t a doctor — might just possibly be Mollie Doris or Mollie Diane or Mollie Dinah or even Mollie Dolly...
“It’s Mollie Dare,” Sarah said.
“Dare?”
“My mother’s maiden name.”
“Even so,” he said, and shrugged.
As fate would have it, however, there wasn’t an address following the MD Welles name, which he thought was maybe being overly cautious, hmmm? Even in this city? Using initials to confuse any obscene phone caller cruising the phone, book, and then hiding the address, too?
“Made it very difficult for someone like me,” he said.
But apparently not too difficult, she thought.
“When were you doing all this?” she asked.
“Late Friday afternoon.”
“Why?”
“Because I had to see you again. And I didn’t want to wait till tomorrow.”
Knew today was a school holiday, she thought. Figured I’d be home today. Tracked me to...
“How did you find me?”
“Well, after I called the school...”
“You what?”
“I’m sorry, but I...”
“Are you crazy? You called the school? Let me out. Stop the car. Please, I want to get out.”
“Please don’t leave me again, okay?” he said.
She looked at him.
“Please,” he said.
“What’d you tell them? Who’d you talk to?”
“I don’t know, some woman in the office. Whoever it was that answered the phone. I told them we had a delivery for a Mrs. Sarah Welles...”
“Who’s we?”
“Grace’s Market.”
“On Seventy-First and Third?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know Grace’s...?”
“Well, that’s another story. Anyway, I told the woman at the school that you’d given us an address on East Eighty-First, but we couldn’t make out your handwriting and we didn’t have a phone number for you. But Herman remembered your telling him you taught at Greer...”
“Herman?”
“I made up a name.”
“Herman?”
“Yeah, which was why I was calling. Because if I could get the correct address on Eighty-First, we’d send the order right over because there was perishable fish involved.”
“Perishable fish,” Sarah repeated.
“Yes.”
“So she gave you my address.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Good.”
“Well.”
“How did you get the address.”
“I remembered something else Mollie said.”
“What was that?”
“The only other time anyone came even close to saving her life was when Luis the doorman yanked her out of the way of a taxi.”
“There must be a hundred doormen named Luis on East Eighty...”
“No, only three.”
“Dear God, please save me,” Sarah said, and began laughing.
“I went to every building that had...”
“A hundred buildings, then.”
“No, I only went to the ones that had doormen. I told whoever was working the door...”
“When was this?”
“Saturday morning. What I said was that Mr. Welles had told me to ask for Luis. If there was no Luis, adios. If there was a Luis, and if the guy on duty said, ‘Who’s Mr. Welles?’ adios again. There was a doorman named Luis in a building near First, but no Welles. There was another Luis near Third, but again no Welles. Your building has a Luis and a Welles. I would have waited for you on Saturday, but I figured your husband might be home.”
“He should’ve been home today, too.”
“Then I’m lucky I caught you alone.”
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Would you like some tea?”
“No.”
“A drink?”
“At eleven in the morning?”
“What would you like?”
She would never know what possessed her to say what she said next. Nor was she sorry when the words left her mouth.
“I’d like you to kiss me again,” she said.
He kissed her at once.
Kissed her the moment she made her blatant suggestion, and then kept kissing her all the way downtown, every time he stopped for a traffic light. He drove the car like a maniac; either he was in a hurry to get wherever he was taking her, or else he was a habitual speeder. Whichever, he screeched to a stop whenever a light turned yellow, and then turned to her with the same alacrity and kissed her full on the mouth while the light remained red, which seemed a shorter while each time. She kept wishing there’d be more red lights, longer red lights, kept wishing he’d pull over to the curb and kiss her incessantly while all the traffic lights in the world flashed yellow and red and green. She kept telling herself this was crazy, she didn’t know this man, who was this man she was kissing so hungrily?