A sharp, rapping voice emanating from somewhere within the precincts of the school building guided Janice’s eyes back to the red stone façade and up to a tall window, behind which a woman, wearing horn-rimmed glasses, stood watching her with concern. Janice recognized the face but could not think of her name.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Templeton?” The woman had opened the window slightly and was shouting down at her. “Do you need help?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I do.” Janice laughed helplessly.
The woman vanished instantly and in the very next moment was clambering down the icy steps, her hands extended toward Janice in a helping gesture.
“I suddenly felt faint,” Janice explained, allowing the woman to take her arm and cautiously walk her across the pavement and up the concrete steps.
“I came to pick up Ivy; a bit late, I’m afraid.” Janice dreaded asking the next question. “I hope she waited for me in the office?”
“No,” the woman said. “There’s no child in the office.”
She sat Janice down on a hard oaken bench just inside the registrar’s office and went to fetch aspirin and water.
The room was deserted. The copper nameplate on the desk said Mrs. Elsie Stanton. The wall clock read three forty-one. Janice saw a telephone on a nearby table and lunged at it, swaying slightly as she dialed her home number. There was no answer. She let it ring ten times, then hung up and dialed the desk number in the lobby of Des Artistes. Dominick answered.
“This is Mrs. Templeton, Dominick. Is Ivy in the lobby by any chance?” Janice made the words sound light and casual.
“Just a minute, Miz Templeton.”
Janice felt the cold sweats and the feelings of dread encroaching subtly as the seconds swept by on the Western Union clock above her.
“No, Miz Templeton,” Dominick said regretfully upon his return. “She ain’t in the lobby or outside on the street.”
“Thank you, Dominick. If you should see her, please keep an eye on her until I arrive.”
“Sure thing, Miz Templeton.”
Janice stood there, shakily readjusting the belt on her raincoat, which had become twisted somehow, concentrating on straightening it out, in a futile effort to forestall the consideration of topics of greater importance. But her mind would not cooperate, kept fielding the darts of anxiety battering through the frivolous defense. Ivy was not at school! Ivy was not at home! What alternative was left? None! She had been met by the man! He had taken her! It was that simple, really. Simple? Oh, my God! Janice felt a scream begin to well up from somewhere deep within the core of her despair, felt herself yielding to a blinding impulse to run screaming from the building.
“Take them with the full glass of water,” Mrs. Stanton prescribed, placing the aspirin and glass in Janice’s trembling hands. “They’ll work faster that way.”
As Janice swallowed the pills, refreshed by the cool liquid which eased her parched throat, she knew what her very next step must be.
Without asking permission, Janice picked up the receiver and dialed Bill’s office number. She was put through to his secretary, who told her that Bill was at an important outside meeting and would not be returning to the office.
It was while she was listening to the secretary’s full-bodied, authoritative voice that Janice remembered something that sent a sudden surge of renewed hope coursing through her. Once before, less than a year ago, Janice had been delayed and Ivy had waited for her across the street in the park. Of course, it had been a beautiful spring day then, but still, perhaps the snow had worked its own kind of spell on Ivy and she was there right now, waiting for her, just beyond the wall, building a snowman.
Mrs. Stanton’s cautionary recommendations scarcely registered as Janice desperately propelled herself toward the exit doors and out into the cold afternoon. The concrete steps were covered by a layer of slippery snow, forcing Janice to descend slowly and cling to the frigid metallic railing for support. The snow was falling densely now, in large quarter-sized flakes. At the curb Janice strained hard to see across the sluggish traffic, seeking a glimpse of Ivy on the park side of Central Park West. But the thick wall of white made it impossible to see beyond the center of the street. With singleminded objectivity and total disregard for personal danger, Janice plunged ahead into the heavy traffic and crossed the wide boulevard in the center of the block. Squealing brakes and blasting car horns followed her fool’s march across to the other side.
In the brief time it took to reach the edge of the low rock wall which separated the promenade from the park, the snow had turned to frozen sleet. Tiny pellets of ice were stinging at Janice’s face; still, she found herself perspiring as she daintily picked her way through drifts of crusting snow which had gathered along the wall’s edge. With the aid of her hands, cupped tightly around her eyes, Janice scoured the immediate area of the park, squinting hard to penetrate the opaque shield of wind-whipped ice falling madly about her. Once, when the wind shifted slightly, she thought she saw the figure of a girl gamboling amid the falling snow on a hillock a short distance away. But she couldn’t be sure and decided to climb over the wall in order to gain a closer vantage point. She felt a number of things ripping as she straddled the wall and gradually lowered herself down on the other side, her hands clinging to the slippery ledge. Hanging there, her feet seeking purchase and finding none, Janice had the sinking feeling that her body was dangling over a gaping hole and would be swallowed into the earth if she ever let go. She would have remained fixed in this position had not her fingers lost their hold on the frozen concrete. Her feet met the ground a few inches below her, but the slant and slickness of the terrain upset her balance and sent her plunging sideways down a gentle embankment, rolling uncontrollably down the crusted snow to the edge of a pathway. Janice sustained the ordeal in total silence, accepting it as the next logical step in the day’s insanity.
The sleet was descending in hard, twisting sheets all around her as she rose unsteadily to her feet and gently flexed the muscles of her body, briefly checking for possible injuries. She felt stupid and foolish and was thankful that the impenetrable curtain of sleet had obscured her mad antics from the prying eyes of any passersby. It was then she realized that her purse was missing, but she couldn’t take the time to look for it now.
Turning toward the hillock where she thought she had seen the child romping, she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Ivy! Ivy! Can you hear me, Ivy?”
But the wind-driven sleet threw the words back into her face, forcing her to trudge on ahead through wet clumps of ice-blistered snow.
“Ivy!” she shouted, hurling the word forth at the top of her failing voice. “Ivy! It’s Mother!”
“Ivy is at home,” said a man’s quiet, courteous voice beside her. “She waited for you until three twenty-five, then left.”
The voice spoke at Janice’s left side, close enough for her to see plumes of steam accompany each word. She must not look at him, Janice commanded herself, her bruised body shivering. Above all, she must not look at him or acknowledge him in any way.
“She’s quite all right,” the voice continued softly, factually, and with no sign of aggression. “She’s waiting for you in the lobby.”
Janice stood rooted, feeling the flush of terror rise within her, hearing her respiration coming faster and faster. She would not look at him, nor would she enter into conversation with him.
“Here,” he said. “You dropped it when you fell.”