Page 17 of I Love My Mistake
Chapter Ten
3:33 A.M.
After we ate and had more drinks, talking about everything but love – to save our sanity – I said goodbye to Jess. Now I’m on the wrong train to my house. Not because I’m a little inebriated, which I am. I took the wrong train, because I’m not going to my house. When I walk off it, and turn the familiar right onto Little West 12th I tell myself I’m just taking a walk. I might stop in. I mean, I forgot my scarf there the other day, didn’t I? Yes. It is cold out, yes? Yes.
Few people are on the street, and they travel in packs, intoxicated more often than not, at this hour. I’m keeping my eyes focused ahead, but I see I’ve got unwanted company coming. Walking toward me are three guys in their early twenties; Italian, stocky… trouble.
The shortest one with the most muscles and the most to prove, locks his eyes on me and calls out from twenty steps up, “Where you going, long legs? Can we come?”
I don’t answer.
“Hey, I asked you a question. Cat got your tongue?” he snickers, more loudly, closer now. The other two stare, slowing their pace.
I keep my eyes forward, never meeting theirs, my pace steady and deliberate. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone.
They stop.
The leader watches me walk by and says, “Why don’t you come party with us?” He reaches for my arm. His fingers begin to wrap around my skin. I snatch my arm away, throwing him off balance, and flip around to face them all.
“HEY! Don’t fucking touch me!”
The rage I feel for all the women before me who’ve been bullied by men over the centuries, flares up and boils. My harassers back a step away, surprised at the look on my face. Pure unadulterated rage.
I stare down the little one, the leader. “What the fuck is wrong with you that you would touch a woman who’s walking by herself alone at night? Do you not know what we women have to go through? How when we walk down a street, we’re aware how we might be in danger just by being there? That when we go into a parking lot, we practically run to our cars in case someone is there to attack us. And here I am, walking home and you think you’re being funny ganging up on me, because there’s three of you? Hear me good and hear me now, don’t you ever treat a woman the way you just treated me, again. I guarantee that if you were justyou,” I point to the instigator, the three of them silent. “There is no way – NO WAY – you would have pulled that shit you just pulled with me. So, why don’t you try a new way of impressing your friends by being a gentleman, respecting what we women have gone through, what your mother has given you, and next time, do what you can to protect us, for God’s sake.”
“Shit. I was just asking you to…” he says nervously, chuckling and looking at his buddies in a way that’s supposed to make me feel like I’m crazy. But it isn’t working.
“Hush. I know what you were doing. Now leave me alone and keep walking. Hear?”
“Yeah,” the little one says, and walks off first, in a huff of macho bravado. It seems he’s the only one with a voice. But the taller one, still a bit shorter than me in heels, looks at me like he’s sorry. The third is the shyest, and he just looks mortified by the whole thing. At least they heard me. Maybe they’ll handle things differently next time.
I wait until they’re on their way, to start walking. A girl across the street stopped to watch. She meets my eyes as I turn. She nods at me; a nod of understanding and sisterhood. We don’t smile. This is no smiling matter. My heart rate is pounding and my adrenaline is still engaged. She and I walk our separate ways, but we just bonded in the way that all women are bonded… it’s just something we often forget. I look forward to a time when we lift each other up more than we bring each other down.
As I make my way up the pavement another block and a half, I hold my arms around myself. Looking up, flickering candlelight lets me know he’s in there, painting. I pull out my keys and bring them to the lock, but I hesitate. My hand is shaking a little from the run-in. I think it’s from the run-in. I look up again, see the glow drifting out above me from the paned glass. Dropping my hand, I step away from the door, walk to the other side of the street; see if I can see him from there. For awhile, I see only the ceiling, the walls, nothing more. I lean against a lamppost and relax. Michael, why do you have this pull on me? I’ve never met another man who makes me feel as alive as you do.
I see him come into view now. Walk closer to the window. Like he hears me, he walks to it, a coffee mug in his hand, his loosely hung t-shirt resting on his broad shoulders, a long smear of paint on it from where he wiped his hand. He looks out the window at his eye level, at nothing in particular, thinking about something. I should get out of the street, move out of view, but I can’t tear myself away. What are you thinking about, Michael, as you take that slow sip of coffee and frown like the world’s problems are only yours to solve? He runs one hand through his hair and shakes it out, then walks away from the window and out of my sight.
I let out a breath and realize... I was holding it.
“He’s very handsome,” a voice says, next to me, her sound aged and thick with a Romanian accent.
I shoot the old gypsy woman a look and focus back on the window.
“Have a dollar?” she rasps.
I sigh. “Sure. Yeah.” I have a few for her. That’s what my mother would do, and it is her money after all.
She takes them with glee and asks, “You want I read your fortune?” Then she smiles, surprisingly still in possession of all of her yellowed teeth.
I smile back and push myself off the light pole. “No, thank you.”
She smiles wider, her eyebrows high enough to look silly. “I can tell you what will happen between you and the man?”
I freeze. Oooo those gypsies are good. I look back at her and consider it but. But I know in my heart that she can’t help me. “Thanks, but I think I already know. You have a good night.” I walk back to the subway, casting one furtive glance up to the window before I leave.