Seven Minutes to Noon

line.
    “That’s why I’m calling,” Alice said. “Lauren never showed up. So I picked Austin up from school. Did you hear from her, by any chance?”
    “Not a peep. What are you thinking, Alice?”
    “She got held up somewhere,” Alice said. “Or maybe she had the baby.”
    “Have you phoned Tim?”
    “I don’t have his numbers, do you?”
    “I’m pretty sure they’re in my Palm Pilot backup at the store,” Maggie said. “All right, but just a small one. Sorry, Ethan’s asking for an Italian ice.”
    “I’ll tell you what, Maggie,” Alice said. “I’ll meet you at the store and we’ll call Tim. Then I’ll take Ethan with us to the butcher so you can work. Did you remember the barbecue at our house tonight?”
    “Translation,” Maggie said, “I don’t have to cook. Of course I remembered.”
    Alice gathered the three children and herded them out of the playground and onto Smith Street, tossing Lauren’s ruined cup of no-longer-iced decaf into a wire mesh garbage can on the corner. As they waited for the light at President Street, a puddle of paper scraps swirled in a cowlick wind, delighting the children with proof of everyday magic. Alice figured a garbage truck had recentlypassed, dribbling refuse. New York just couldn’t keep clean, though it was partly the grit of the place that was so appealing. Grit and possibility.
    She sidestepped the eddy of leftover trash and ushered the children across the street. Two blocks along, Nell made them all stop in a wide swath of shade in front of Smith Home to peer at the window display of silly pull knobs. Nell loved to lure the other kids into the game of choosing which eccentric knob they would buy today if they could. About an inch around, each buffed-pewter knob was a lopsided face, pulled and stretched by some humor or discontent. They reminded Alice of miniature commedia dell’arte masks — pathos, hilarity — and were beautiful in a disturbing kind of way, like two sides of a coin pressed into one exceptional, misaligned image. Scanning the dozens of knobs, Nell announced today’s favorite: fat cheeks, eyes skewed directly upward, mischievous grin. Watching her beloved daughter enact this ritual, Alice made herself a silent promise to both please her children and assuage the sizzle of anxiety she was starting to feel like an itch under her skin every time she thought about that Thirty Day Notice. They would never be able to move in time, but if they found something — signed a contract or a lease — any sane housing court judge would give them the time they needed to move, wouldn’t they? Alice and Mike would have to immediately step up the house hunt. Raise their price, lower their standards. When they found the right house, she would keep the promise she was just now conjuring and make Nell and Peter a gift of silly knobs for their new rooms, a gesture to a new beginning in a new home.
    “Let’s get moving.” Alice turned into a pool of bright sun and started walking. The children noisily followed. It was just two more blocks to Blue Shoes.
    With every step, Alice thought of Lauren and tried to call up her own physical memory of childbirth, its shattering pain, the outrageous joy. Tried to feel herself in Lauren’s experience today. Could it be true? Had she gone into labor? Alice wondered if Tim knew anything.Or if instead Lauren had gathered up an amazing story no one had yet been told: birth in the back of a cab, or in the subway, or at home. All frightening scenarios. Alice hoped she had made it to a hospital. That she hadn’t been alone. And Alice thought, Ivy. At last. You are here.
    Ivy was the women’s secret, a gift they shared before Lauren would pass it on to Tim at their daughter’s birth. As with their first pregnancy, Tim had not wanted to know the baby’s gender. He wanted to be surprised. But motherhood had toughened Lauren and the only surprise she wanted was that the baby was born alive and healthy. It was a feeling Alice and Mike shared: they knew their twins were boys.
    The other gift Lauren had prepared for Tim, along with the surprise of a daughter, was choosing the name, Ivy, after Tim’s favorite grandmother.
    Alice and Maggie had kept Lauren’s secrets for months. Tonight, Tim would finally know.

Chapter 2
    The sun was strong and for a moment the plate-glass storefront of Blue Shoes seemed to float, mirrorlike, against the brick building. Alice was pleased to see that Maggie had remembered to