We’re in motion within seconds, reversing out of the parking spot, accelerating and turning back onto the main road. The car smells like leather and vanilla. He turns at random, I think, left here, right there, three lefts, straight for several blocks, and then another right, his eyes watching his mirrors as much as the traffic ahead.
“I don’t see any signs we’re being followed,” he says to me, a triumphant grin on his face. “We did it, X! You were awesome!”
“Awesome? I had a panic attack as soon as we walked out, Logan. I’m still feeling sick. Nothing feels right. I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know what’s happening. Half of me feels like I just made the biggest mistake of my life, and the other half is so relieved I could cry.”
“You’re allowed to feel however you feel. We’ll take everything slow, all right? What do you want to do first?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything, Logan.”
He nods. “That’s fine, too. Just let me take care of everything, then, okay? You think of anything you want, just say it.”
He presses a circular knob on the console between us, and loud music fills the air, cacophonous, angry-sounding, a man’s voice screaming in rage. I cringe against the door, immediately tensed and confused by the volume and the raw hatred in the singer’s voice. Singer . . . a word I’m not sure applies to what I’m hearing, exactly. Logan twists the knob, and the volume lowers to a tolerable level, and then he taps another button, twists, presses the knob, and the music changes, now all drums and keyboard and a more palatable female voice singing.
“Sorry,” Logan says. “I suppose Slipknot is probably not your thing.”
“Slipknot?”
“Yeah. Heavy metal.” He glances at me. “Let me take a wild guess here and say that you don’t know what kind of music you like, either?”
“You would be guessing correctly,” I admit.
“What do you know you like?”
I sigh. “Very little. I like books, I guess I can say that with confidence. Old books, signed first editions, rare versions. Fiction of all kinds.”
Logan is quiet for a moment. The song changes, something about uptown funk, although what that is I couldn’t say. It’s catchy, though, and I find myself bobbing my head to the rhythm.
“If you had to say there was one thing you wanted right now more than anything, what would it be?”
“A shower. A long, hot shower. Comfortable clothes. And then something to eat.” I pause for a moment, and then blurt what feels like a secret. “Unhealthy food. Something greasy and satisfying.”
Logan smiles at me. “Easy enough. First stop, then, is Macy’s.”
I didn’t realize how wide my eyes could go until Logan led me on a dizzying tour of Macy’s department store. I was thoroughly lost within seconds, a few turns down one aisle and then another and I would have been hard-pressed to find my way out. Not that I would have minded, I think. I could have wandered endlessly, flipped through rack after rack of clothes, content to simply look, to simply see all the various things one could buy. Logan was ceaselessly vigilant, seemingly casual as he guided me from area to area, pretending to glance at a shirt or a dress while watching in every direction at the same time.
I choose plain, comfortable clothes: a pair of jeans, a shirt, undergarments, a pair of slip-on ballet flats. I don’t try anything on, merely guessing at sizes. Logan seems relieved when we’re back in his vehicle, and now he drives a less circuitous route across Manhattan to a quiet, narrow, tree-lined street with low brownstone houses connected to each other in a long row. He parks his truck beside a tree, which is ringed in brick, small lights buried in the mulch at the base of the tree. Three steps up, a key turned in a lock, and then there’s a loud beeping noise coming from a white panel on the wall just inside the door. Logan presses a series of numbered buttons, and the beeping stops.
“Disarmed,” a disembodied, electronic, vaguely female voice says.
There’s a wild, ceaseless barking coming from behind a door somewhere. Logan closes the door behind me, twists the knob to engage the deadbolt. “Come on in,” he says. “I’ve gotta go let Cocoa out of her room. She’s friendly, I promise. Exuberant in her welcomes, but friendly.”
I don’t have time to even panic before Logan vanishes down the hallway, opens a door, and the barking grows louder, louder, and then there’s a brown blur and the scrabble of sharp claws on hardwood.
“Cocoa, down, girl!” Logan shouts, but it’s too late.
A heavy warm wiggling barking licking mass slams into me, huge bear paws on my shoulders, a tongue slapping wetly on my face, and the dog’s weight plows me backward, topples me off balance, and then I’m on the ground, curled into a tight ball, fighting tears, fending off a crazy tongue, a paw on my shoulder, a cold nose shoving under my hands to get at my face.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I hear Logan laughing.
“Get her off me, Logan,” I manage to say, past the canine tongue that seems to be trying to see what I ate last via my throat, and how recently I’ve blown my nose via tongue-examination of my nostrils.
“Cocoa, sit.” Logan’s voice is hard, and sharp.
Immediately, the huge brown animal—which I recognize from Logan’s cell phone screen—stops licking me and sits on her haunches, whining in her throat.
“X, say hello to Cocoa.” He kneels down beside me as I lever myself to a sitting position on the floor, wiping at my face. “Tell her to shake, X.”
I stare at the dog suspiciously. “Will she try to eat me again?”
Logan laughs. “Eat you? She was just saying hi, in crazy puppy language.”
I give him side-eye. “Puppy? She’s the size of a grizzly bear, Logan.”
“She’s barely a year old, and not even eighty pounds yet.” He cuffs her ear affectionately, rubbing in circles with his thumb. “She’s a good girl, aren’t you, Cocoa?”
I give my still-damp face one last wipe with my forearm, and then twist on my backside so I’m facing the dog. “Shake, Cocoa.”
The dog lifts her paw, a goofy dog grin on her face. I take her paw and shake it as I would a man’s hand, and she barks.
“Tell her good girl,” Logan instructs.
“Good girl, Cocoa,” I say, and the dog immediately launches herself at me, tongue first. This time, I try what Logan did, making my voice sharp and hard. “Sit, Cocoa.”
“See?” Logan says, grabbing the dog around the neck and hauling her against his chest, letting her lick his chin, laughing. “She’s a good girl.”
Clearly, the man loves his dog. Something about this makes my heart twist, and melt. I don’t know what to do with myself as I watch Logan rub, pet, and kiss his dog as if she were a beloved child. Other than try not to melt, that is.
Finally, Logan stands up, wipes his face. “Gotta go outside, Cocoa?”
Cocoa barks and, with a clicking scrabble of claws, tears across the house to a back door and plants her haunches on the gleaming hardwood, thick tail flailing wildly, her head swiveling between Logan and the door. Logan pulls the sliding glass door aside, and Cocoa lunges through the opening as soon as it’s wide enough to fit her bulk. The outdoor space—which I hadn’t realized existed in Manhattan—is small but elaborate and beautiful. A small terrace of cobblestone, a round wrought-iron table with four chairs, a gleaming silver grill, and a plot of green grass maybe a dozen steps across, flowering bushes lining the back fence. Logan follows Cocoa out, and I follow him; we stand together, watching the dog prance around happily, circle three times, and then squat to do her business.
It’s quiet here. Even in the middle of the day, there is no babel of traffic sounds, no horns or grinding engines or sirens.
“This isn’t where I imagined you living,” I say, apropos of nothing.
“Expected some downtown high-rise, probably? Big views and lots of black marble?” He shoves a hand in his hip pocket, scraping at the cobblestone with his boot toe.