The Girl in Times Square Read Online Free Page A

Memorial Day, is it?” replied her grandmother, a white-haired, small woman, portly and of serious mien, who took the bags out of Lily’s hands and carried them briskly to the kitchen at the back of the house.
    Grandma’s home was tidy except for the newspapers that were piled on top of the round kitchen table, The New York Times first, then The Observer , then The Wall Street Journal , and then the tabloids, Newsday, Post and News.
    “Do you want a cup of tea?”
    “No, I’m going to have to get going soon.”
    “Get going! You just got here.”
    “Last week of finals, Grandma. Perhaps you’ve heard.” Lily smiled just in case her grandmother decided to take offense.
    “I’ve heard, I’ve heard plenty. How are the subways this morning?”
    “They’re fine—”
    “Oh, sure, you can’t even fake a polite answer anymore. Did you stand far from the yellow line?”
    “I did better than that,” said Lily, putting milk in the refrigerator. “I sat down on the bench.”
    Her grandmother squirmed. “Oh, Lily, how is that better? Sitting on that filth-covered bench, how many of those people who sat on it before washed their clothes that morning? And they’re sitting next to you, breathing on you, watching over your shoulder, seeing what you’re reading, hearing your Walkman songs, such loss of privacy. All the homeless sit on that bench.”
    Lily wanted to remark that, no, all the homeless were lying on the steps of the 53rd Street church on Fifth Avenue, but said nothing.
    “From now on, I give you money, you take a cab to see me.”
    Lily wanted to button up her jacket, if only she had one. “So what’s going on with you?”
    “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” said her grandmother, Claudia Vail, seventy-nine years old, widow, war survivor, death-camp survivor, all cataracts removed, a new pacemaker installed, arthritis in check, no mysterious bumps, growths, or distensions, but widow first and foremost, “On Sunday a child fell out of his sixth-floor apartment in the projects and died. This is on a Sunday. What are the parents doing if not looking after their child on a Sunday? On Monday a five-year-old girl was stabbed and killed by her brother and his friend who were supposed to be looking after her. The mother when she returned home from work said, ‘It’s so unlike him. He’s usually such a nice boy.’ Then we find out that this boy, age eleven, had already spent three years in juvenile detention for beating his grandmother blind. The mother apparently overlooked that when she left her child with him.”
    “Grandma,” Lily said feebly, putting up her hands in a defensive gesture.
    “Last Friday, a vegan couple in Canarsie were arrested for feeding their child soybeans and tofu from the day she was born. That mother’s milk must have been all dried up because at sixteen months the child weighed ten pounds, the weight of a two-to-three-month-old.”
    “Grandma,” said Lily helplessly. Her grandmother was cornering her between herself and the fridge. Lily could tell by her grandmother’s eyes she was a long way from done. “Did anything happen on Saturday?”
    “On Saturday your sister and that no-good man of hers came over—”
    “Which sister?”
    “And I told her,” Claudia continued, “that she was lucky not to have any children.”
    “Oh. That one. Grandma, if life is no good here, why don’t you move? Move to Bedford with Amanda. Nothing ever happens in Bedford. Hence the name. City of beds.”
    “Who said life is not good here? Life is perfect. And are youinsane? With Amanda and her four kids? So she could take care of me, too? Why would I do that to her? Why would I do that to myself?”
    “Did José bring your groceries this week?” The kitchen looked a bit bare.
    “Not anymore. I fired him.”
    “You did?” Lily was alarmed. Not for her grandmother—for herself. If José was no longer delivering groceries, then who was going to? “Why did you fire