In-two-three—
I jolt the door open. Light and air blast me.
FOR AN instant it’s silent, as silent as the film, as slow as the sunset. The houses opposite. The three kids between. The street around them. Quiet and still, a stopped clock.
I could swear I hear a crack, as of a felled tree.
And then—
—AND THEN it bulges toward me, swelling, now rushing, a boulder flung from a catapult; slams me with such force, walloping my gut, that I fold. My mouth opens like a window. Wind whips into it. I’m an empty house, rotten rafters and howling air. My roof collapses with a groan—
—and I’m groaning, sliding, avalanching, one hand scraped along the brick, the other lunging into space. Eyes reel and roll: the lurid red of leaves, then darkness; lights up on a woman in black, vision blanching, bleaching, until molten white swarms my eyes and pools there, thick and deep. I try to cry out, my lips brush grit. I taste concrete. I taste blood. I feel my limbs pinwheeled on the ground. The ground ripples against my body. My body ripples against the air.
Somewhere in the attic of my brain I recall that this happened once before, on these same steps. I remember the low tide of voices, the odd word breaching bright and clear: fallen, neighbor, anyone, crazy. This time, nothing.
ARM SLUNG around someone’s neck. Hair, coarser than my own, rubs my face. Feet scuffle feebly on the ground, on the floor; and now I’m inside, in the chill of the hall, in the warmth of the living room.
“YOU TOOK A TUMBLE!”
My vision fills like a Polaroid print. I’m looking at the ceiling, at a single recessed light socket staring back at me, a beady eye.
“I’m getting something for you—one second …”
I let my head loll to one side. Velvet fizzes in my ear. The living room chaise—the fainting couch. Ha.
“One second, one second …”
At the kitchen sink stands a woman, turned away from me, a rope of dark hair trailing down her back.
I bring my hands to my face, cup them over my nose and mouth, breathe in, breathe out. Calm. Calm. My lip aches.
“I was just headed next door when I saw those little shits chucking eggs,” she explains. “I said to them, ‘What are you up to, little shits?,’ and then you sort of … lurched through the door and went down like a sack of …” She doesn’t finish the sentence. I wonder if she was going to say shit.
Instead she turns, a glass in each hand, one filled with water, one with something thick and gold. Brandy, I hope, from the liquor cabinet.
“No idea if brandy actually works,” she says. “I feel like I’m in Downton Abbey. I’m your Florence Nightingale!”
“You’re the woman from across the park,” I mumble. The words stagger off my tongue like drunks from a bar. I’m tough. Pathetic.
“What’s that?”
And then, in spite of myself: “You’re Jane Russell.”
She stops, looking at me in wonder, then laughs, her teeth glinting in the half-light. “How do you know that?”
“You said you were going next door?” Trying to enunciate. Irish wristwatch, I think. Unique New York. “Your son came by.”
Through the mesh of my eyelashes I study her. She’s what Ed might call, approvingly, a ripe woman: hips and lips full, bust ample, skin mellow, face merry, eyes a gas-jet blue. She wears indigo jeans and a black sweater, scoop-necked, with a silver pendant resting on her chest. Late thirties, I’d guess. She must have been a baby when she had her baby.
As with her son, I like her on sight.
She moves to the chaise, knocks my knee with her own.
“Sit up. In case you’ve got a concussion.” I oblige, dragging myself into position, as she sets the glasses on the table, then parks herself across from me, where her son sat yesterday. She turns to the television, furrows her brow.
“What are you watching? A black-and-white movie?” Baffled.
I reach for the remote and tap the power button. The screen goes blank.
“Dark in here,” Jane observes.
“Could you get the lights?” I ask. “I’m feeling a little …” Can’t finish.
“Sure.” She reaches over the back of the sofa, switches on the floor lamp. The room glows.
I tip my head back, stare at the beveled molding on the ceiling. In, two, three, four. It could use a touch-up. I’ll ask David. Out, two, three, four.
“So,” Jane says, elbows on her knees, scrutinizing me. “What happened out there?”
I shut my eyes. “Panic attack.”
“Oh, honey—what’s your name?”
“Anna. Fox.”
“Anna. They were just some stupid kids.”
“No, that wasn’t it. I can’t go outside.” I look down, grasp for the brandy.
“But you did go outside. Easy does it with that stuff,” she adds as I knock back my drink.
“I shouldn’t have. Gone outside.”
“Why not? You a vampire?”
Practically, I think, appraising my arm—fish-belly white. “I’m agoraphobic?” I say.
She purses her lips. “Is that a question?”
“No, I just wasn’t sure you’d know what it meant.”
“Of course I know. You don’t do open spaces.”
I close my eyes again, nod.
“But I thought agoraphobia means you just can’t, you know, go camping. Outdoorsy stuff.”
“I can’t go anywhere.”
Jane sucks her teeth. “How long has this been going on?”
I drain the last drops of brandy. “Ten months.”
She doesn’t pursue it. I breathe deeply, cough.
“Do you need an inhaler or something?”
I shake my head. “That would only make it worse. Raise my heart rate.”
She considers this. “What about a paper bag?”
I set the glass down, reach for the water. “No. I mean, sometimes, but not now. Thank you for bringing me inside. I’m very embarrassed.”
“Oh, don’t—”
“No, I am. Very. It won’t become a habit, I promise.”
She purses her lips again. Very active mouth, I notice. Possible smoker, although she smells of shea butter. “So it’s happened before? You going outside, and …?”
I grimace. “Back in the spring. Delivery guy left my groceries on the front steps, and I thought I could just … grab them.”
“And you couldn’t.”
“I couldn’t. But there were lots of people passing by that time. It took them a minute to decide I wasn’t crazy or homeless.”
Jane looks