Eveline

Eveline was buying mangoes in a fruit-market kind of store when her 2-year-old son ran out the door and into the city. She was aware that it was trouble, right away, but unfortunately left her credit card with the cashier as she ran after him. At the time she’d been carrying a bag with some sex toys and another bag with some books she’d picked up at a used book store; she left them at the fruit store, too, but she had her purse around her shoulder and carried that with her. When she got out the door of the fruit store she just saw his little form dart around the corner going north toward the square. In a panic she grabbed her purse in her hands so she could run better, but unfortunately ran right into a man who was in a half-run and who had been trying to get around another pedestrian, an older lady on the sidewalk. Right there, just outside the fruit store, there was a collision between the two of them; the lady let out a little cry as she stepped out of the way; Eveline lost her balance but fortunately remained on her feet.

“Oh I’m so sorry,” said Eveline to the man she had hit, a man named Daniel, as she recovered herself.  He was a slightly heavy-set, sincere looking guy with curly hair. “I have go catch my young son.” She tried to put her clothes back in place, as he had really run into her in a most unsettling way.  He too, however, seemed to be polite, dishevelled, in a hurry.

“Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t see you at all,” Daniel said. Some papers he had been carrying were scattered all over the ground, and he started scrambling to get them before the wind blew them into the street.

When Eveline got around the corner the boy was gone, and she was in full-scale panic. There were doorways up and down the northbound sidewalk, going toward the square, but if he was up in the square anything could be happening, and he’d have to get across a busy street up there. He wasn’t very good at crossing busy streets, but he was a curious lad who would try anything. There was no sight of him, no adults looking for flustered parents, nobody, in spite of the fact that this was downtown on a weekday. There were cars driving on the road, and across the street, several pedestrians, but here, on this little stretch of downtown street, nobody.

She checked the doorways as she made her way down the street. One simply had a stairwell up; it was empty as far as she could tell. In the next was a barber shop, in which an old man was getting a haircut.  People didn’t look at her or act in any way like she should be looking for some young child; they didn’t alter their behavior in any way. A panic was settling inside her; her son was lost. She couldn’t believe it; he was lost without a trace.

Back at the fruit store there was an unfortunate convergence of opportunity and financial hardship. The cashier, Darla, asked for an early break and took Eveline’s credit card down the street in the other direction to use it. She ignored the bags on the floor or the inevitability that Eveline would come back after them eventually. Darla was short, heavy-set, and plain-looking, intensely aware of the contrast between herself and Eveline, who was tall, wispy, beautiful. Doreen had had her eye on a necklace that she had been unable to afford for maybe three months. She had the idea that this necklace would be the perfect accessory for her, and would give her just the right appearance. She was convinced that she deserved it, because she worked hard and needed to look good at night.

Now Darla’s crime has been committed before, and in fact people are well-protected against this crime; Doreen’s manager, if he had known what was going on, would have been horrified, would have fired Doreen immediately, would have made every effort to assure Eveline that he would make reparations and would have put Doreen in jail. But he never saw it. He’d been in the back of the store cleaning up a spill of grapes that had been somewhat damaged from being dropped by a box. Later, when asked, he said he just didn’t know what she had done.

Eveline, having determined that her son was not in the barber shop, moved on to the next doorway, which was an American-food kind of restaurant-coffee shop with tables going on back quite a ways, and a cash register over on the right side as she entered. Various sets of people occupied various tables going on back, but the place wasn’t full; it was about eleven a.m. Somehow she thought that, had a two-year-old just run in and run to the back, people would look at her with the familiar look that they give parents as if to say, “oh, there’s the derelict mother of that two-year-old,” and she tried to gauge whether the look she was receiving was in fact that look.   She was in a hurry as there was an outside chance the boy had run all the way up to the square in which case she had better get up there as soon as possible, but instinct told her that the boy would be unable to go past a doorway such as this without at least trying it. So she tried to gauge the reactions of several of the customers. Was it the look of people wondering how a mother could get so far behind a darting young child? Or was it simply the look of people interested by her young, beautiful, slightly disheveled appearance?

Back in front of the fruit-market store, Daniel had collected his scattered papers, which were in fact legal documents pertaining to his divorce from his wife, who had left town with a rock drummer or perhaps it was his roadie, when the band had come through town maybe six months ago. Daniel had been completely flustered by running into Eveline; having collected his papers and rearranged his clothes, he now was unable to continue in the direction he’d been going, but, rather, decided to follow Eveline around the corner where she had disappeared, going north toward the square, in order to get perhaps another look at her. In fact, for the moment, at least, he’d completely forgotten where he’d been going, or why he had been running at a half-trot down the street. He’d been in some kind of a hurry, but all that, and the reasons for it, were now lost. But, amazingly enough, when he got to the first doorway, with the stairs going up to a hallway with apartments coming off of it, who should be coming down those stairs than the young boy, two years old, lost, not quite realizing what he’d done or what the consequences could be. Being two, he had some trouble with the steps alone, but he was aware when a strange man was looking right at him from the doorway below, and they both stopped for a moment in their tracks, exchanging looks.

Uptown Darla’s hands shook as she signed the credit card receipt buying the necklace for $47; she was grateful it was under $50, considering the possibility that she would be caught, and the fact that stealing things under $50 in value was considerably different from stealing things over $50. All I need, she thought, is this necklace. She had, on the way down to the jewelry store, weighed the pros and cons of the crime she was about to commit, having something of a morality crisis, but had come down anyway on the side of committing it. Her job was going nowhere. Her life was meaningless. Only the necklace made any sense to her, and even then, only when it was on her neck. She ran it through her fingers as she slipped it on, and admired herself in the mirror provided by the store. But alas, when they handed her the receipt to sign, she had forgotten Eveline’s natme, and spelled it “Avalon.” The owner, who had seen her in the shop eyeing the necklace earlier, looked at her with suspicion, but said nothing.

In the restaurant, nobody paid any attention to Eveline, except an extremely well-dressed man way over on the side, who put his napkin on the table, rose and approached her. He was a crime syndicate boss; he lived in this same block, in fact on the same second floor apartment where her son had just wandered; he ran a sophisticated numbers racket which included various other kinds of crime, and in general did most of his business at a fancier restaurant a few blocks away; however, he frequently ate here, because he lived here, and because he needed some variety occasionally. He was  evil, if you considered the way he made a living and the way he dispatched with his enemies, yet he was extremely sensitive and could tell immediately that the young woman was in trouble. He asked politely if he could be of service. He was even willing to interrupt his own dinner. He would have, in a minute, marshaled the resources to find her son, or help her in any other way she deemed necessary. Knowing him, being involved with him, would undoubtedly be a mistake, however. He wore a fine, tailored suit with a red handkerchief in the pocket.

You have to realize that this happened in about 1999, before the era of cell phones really kicked in. A young woman now can be presumed to be instantaneously connected to thousands of family and close friends, all willing to help at a single text; she would be crazy to take a toddler into town without this. In this particular era, however, it was possible for a woman to be uptown, with her child, but without instantaneous connection to all her friends or her family, but rather relying on her instinct, or an occasional use of a pay phone, or on the kindness of strangers. Furthermore, in this era, in many cities, people came downtown to shop and spend the day; many shops offered a variety of things, and restaurants such as this one would fill up with hungry shoppers around noon and do a healthy business almost every day. Yet the regulars, such as the crime boss, the waitresses, or the jewelry store owner, for example, people who were in this neighborhood day in and day out, knew the lay of the land; they knew when unusual people passed through; they knew when something wasn’t right. It was a community.

So it was that a waitress raised her eyebrow when the crime boss approached Eveline, because she knew that he was a very wealthy, polished character, and she could see that Eveline was disheveled, upset, vulnerable, yet quite beautiful. The waitress was busy, and unable to help Eveline herself; but took interest in their conversation, because she too could see that Eveline was distraught about something. But right at that moment, Daniel could be seen from the front window, walking up the street, holding the young boy’s hand.  Back in the stairwell they had had an awkward moment. The young guy was afraid now, since his mother didn’t follow him up the stairs; he hadn’t seen much up there, and he encountered Daniel when he’d come back down. But, as luck would have it, Daniel remembered exactly what his mother looked like; he had seen just enough of the boy coming out of the store and going around the corner to associate the two together, and could clearly see their resemblance to each other. He asked the boy if he’d lost his mother; he assured the boy that he would find her, and, taking the boy’s hand in his, he was true to his word.

The reunion of the mother and boy, right in the front of the restaurant, was a sight for everyone to see; the crime boss felt a little left out, however, and went back to his meal. Eveline thanked Daniel repeatedly, and promised to hold onto her son more carefully. Daniel, it seemed, was happy just to talk to her again. He walked them back to the fruit store, where her packages were retrieved, but she forgot about the credit card until later. That story didn’t turn out so well for Darla, but Darla hadn’t really been thinking very clearly that day at all; years later she would look back at that day as the beginning of a long decline.  Months later, however, Eveline had forgotten everything: Daniel, the mangoes, the restaurant, the credit card, everything except perhaps the cut of the crime boss’ suit.  The image of that suit, with its red handkerchief, stayed in her mind for months, jarring her out of an otherwise routine life. The boy, however, remembered it for a lifetime.