Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

for the treadmills.
    There was an arch in the wall to the right of the entrance so that, walking on the treadmill, I could see Dashiell and he could see me. What I saw after turning on the power and setting the speed was Serge bringing a green plastic basin of water for Dashiell, and though he’d just had a drink from the squirt bottle, I could hear him lapping over the sound of the music.
    Venus and I began to walk on the moving belts, side by side, no one saying anything at first. There was a short, muscular man on a Stairmaster, also on the front wall, windows facing west, the traffic in front of us, the river beyond.
    “Which way was that bicycle going?” I asked, breaking the silence.
    “North,” she said. “It hit him on the right side of his chest. So he saw it coming.”
    “But didn’t have time to get out of the way.”
    “Maybe he didn’t realize—”
    I nodded.
    “He could have thought it was going to turn at the last minute.”
    I nodded again.
    Venus turned away for a moment, then began to fiddle with her treadmill, increasing the speed.
    “Nothing much there,” I said, “to the north. Could be this incident was more on the intentional side than the accidental.”
    “That’s what I’ve been thinking, too,” she said.
    She took a sip from her water bottle.
    I took a sip from mine.
    I was on the comer treadmill, a window in front of me, one to my left. Looking south through the honeycomb iron grating protecting the window, I saw a delivery guy on foot, looking around, confused, checking the address on the fat manila envelope he was carrying, no one else on the street to help him out.
    “What else makes you think it wasn’t an accident?”
    Venus didn’t answer me, and I wondered if she’d heard me or if she was listening to the music Serge had on, a Billie Holiday song, the volume not set so high you’d lose your hearing, maybe thinking about the other Lady Day, the puli, wondering where she was. If she was.
    I turned to look at her. She seemed to be concentrating, gathering up what she needed to say. Then she said it.
    “What would you do if your life was in danger?”
    “I’d go to the cops.”
    “What if you couldn’t?” Turning toward me now, staring.
    For a moment, I was the one gathering thoughts.
    “You want to explain that?”
    Venus nodded. She did.
    “I was very lonely,” Venus said, “working hard at Harbor View, taking care of people, no one in my life to take care of me, take me out to a fine restaurant, tell me how pretty I was, hold my hand, call me darling, say I smell good, listen to my day, make me feel valuable. Oh, I felt valuable at work, of course. Don’t need anyone to tell me how good a job I do at Harbor View. But personally, it was bad. You know what I mean?”
    “I do.”
    “I thought you would. No one volunteers in institutions who doesn’t know what it’s like to feel left out of things.”
    We each took a drink from our water bottles. I looked over at Dashiell, asleep on the cool marble floor.
    “I have a computer at home. I do a lot of research on-line, see what I can find to help the kids. Sometimes I do the autistic chat groups. I’m not family, but I feel like family. I need the support, for sure, but it also helps me to hear the questions, the answers, the concerns of the parents. Sometimes someone stumbles onto something wonderful—that music can help a kid to learn, that some of the kids smile once in a while, that a kid began to talk when she was soaking in the bathtub, maybe the warm water relaxed her, but whatever it was, it was better than it had been before, an improvement. Or this other kid, a pacer, a bath at night helped him sleep better. Vitamins. Herbs. Acupuncture. Flower drops. Breathing exercises. Homeopathy. Massage. People will try anything to help their kids. Me, too. Cautiously, but me, too.
    “Someone started a different chat group a while ago, nine, ten months back. It’s part of the autism web page, but it’s social. This one’s about us, the caregivers, not the kids. A lot of families, they have a kid this difficult, they split up. They can’t take it, maybe each one thinking it’s the other one’s lousy genes caused the kid to be so fucked up. So there’s a lot of people with a difficult kid, a kid needing supervision, patience, lots and lots of care, and now they’re alone, and sometimes they want to talk about something other than the kid, but to someone who’ll understand what their life is