Free While She Was Out by Ed Bryant Page B

stores, looking for something on sale in deep blue, a pair she could wear after Kenneth’s office party for staff and spouses. What she
really
wanted were some new boots. Time enough for those after the holiday when the prices went down. Nothing appealed to her. Della knew she should be shopping for Kenneth’s family in Nebraska. She couldn’t wait forever to mail off their packages.
    The hell with it. Della realized she was simply delaying returning home. Maybe she
did
need a therapy group, she thought. There was no relish to the thought of spending another night sleeping beside Kenneth, listening to the snoring that was interrupted only by the grinding of teeth. She thought that the sound of Kenneth’s jaws moving against one another must be like hearing a speeded-up recording of continental drift.
    She looked at her watch. A little after nine. No use waiting any longer. She did up the front of her coat and joined the flow of shoppers out into the snow.
    Della realized, as she passed the rusted old Plymouth, that something wasn’t the same.
What’s wrong with this picture?
It was the note. It wasn’t there. Probably it had slipped out from under the wiper blade with the wind and the water. Maybe the flimsy notebook paper had simply dissolved.
    She no longer felt like writing another note. She dismissed the irritating lumber barge from her reality and walked on to her car.
    Della let the Subaru warm up for thirty seconds (the consumer auto mechanics class had told her not to let the engine idle for the long minutes she had once believed necessary) and then slipped the shift into reverse.
    The passenger compartment flooded with light.
    She glanced into the rearview mirror and looked quickly away. A bright, glaring eye had stared back. Another quivered in the side mirror.
    â€œJesus Christ,” she said under her breath. “The crazies are out tonight.” She hit the clutch with one foot. the brake with the other, and waited for the car behind her to remove itself. Nothing happened. The headlights in the mirror flicked to bright. “Dammit.” Della left the Subaru in neutral and got out of the car.
    She shaded her eyes and squinted. The front of the car behind hers looked familiar. It was the gold Plymouth.
    Two unseen car-doors clicked open and chunked shut again.
    The lights abruptly went out and Della blinked, her eyes trying to adjust to the dim mercury vapor illumination from the pole a few car- lengths away.
    She felt a cold thrill of unease in her belly and turned back toward the car.
    â€œI’ve got a gun,” said a voice. “Really.” It sounded male and young. “I’ll aim at your snatch first.”
    Someone else giggled, high and shrill.
    Della froze in place. This couldn’t be happening. It absolutely could not.
    Her eyes were adjusting, the glare-phantoms drifting out to the limit of her peripheral vision and vanishing. She saw three figures in front of her, then a fourth. She didn’t see a gun.
    â€œJust what do you think you’re doing?” she said.
    â€œNot doing
nothin’, yet.”
That, she saw, was the black one. He stood to the left of the white kid who had claimed to have a gun. The pair was bracketed by a boy who looked Chinese or Vietnamese and a young man with dark, Hispanic goodlooks. All four looked to be in their late teens or very early twenties. Four young men. Four ethnic groups represented. Della repressed a giggle she thought might be the first step toward hysteria.
    â€œSo what are you guys? Working on your merit badge in tolerance? Maybe selling magazine subscriptions?” Della immediately regretted saying that. Her husband was always riding her for smarting off.
    â€œFunny lady,” said the Hispanic. “We just happen to get along.” He glanced to his left. “You laughing, Huey?”
    The black shook his head. “Too cold. I’m shiverin’ out here. I didn’t bring no