Seven Minutes to Noon

the title. They knew it wouldn’t be cheap, but the price tag awakened them to a shift that had transformed the real estate markets when they weren’t paying attention: 1.7 million dollars for a two-family brownstone. Alice was struck dumb when she first heard it. Mike’s reaction was to laugh. Joey shrugged his shoulders. He found a buyer in two weeks.
    “I still think it’s outrageous.” Drops of sweat had gathered on Lauren’s forehead and she wiped them off with the palm of her swollen hand. Her body had assumed a laden quality, and Alice had a feeling Lauren’s baby wouldn’t wait for her due date in mid-September. “So much money for a house. People around here are getting pathologically greedy.”
    It was true. Lately, the streets of Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and even Boerum Hill seemed to be turning to gold.
    “Any news on your housing problems?” Alice asked Lauren.
    “Nothing yet.” Lauren pressed her hands beneath her belly and lifted its weight off her thighs. “Tim’s got someone at his firm handling it. He says if he can prove this eviction’s illegal, he’ll probably find they’re doing it to other tenants too. Metro Properties owns a lot of buildings in the area. Corporate landlords are the worst; we don’t even know who our landlord is. I think Tim wants to bust Metro and I’m starting to feel the same way. I’m so angry at those bloodsuckers for putting us through this.”
    “If I were you, I’d get on with it and move,” Maggie said. “It isn’t worth fighting over scraps.”
    The remark clearly annoyed Lauren. Her lips scrunched and she looked away. Alice’s gaze wandered after Lauren’s to a bright red ball that was just then spinning toward their feet. A little boy of about three was chasing it, stumbling over his own chunky sneakers and finally crashing face-first onto the black rubberized mat that covered the play areas for just this reason. He wailed tragically. Alice flinched toward him, about tooffer comfort, when a woman raced over and scooped him up in her arms. Young, probably not yet thirty, she wore a scoop-neck purple T-shirt tucked into jeans, and black leather sneakers. Her dark hair was bobbed at her jaw, heightening the contrast of her paper-white skin. The round pink lenses of her sunglasses partially obscured her eyes.
    “Shh, buddy. It’s okay.” Her voice was clear and deep, warmly resonant yet without a ripple of worry for the child. She was not his mother.
    To test her hunch, Alice asked, “Is your son all right?”
    The woman lifted her face from the boy’s thick brown hair. “He’ll be fine.” She smiled, but only halfway.
    Alice found a clean tissue in her purse and got up to offer it.
    “My kids fall all the time,” she said, “and, oh, the drama!”
    The woman accepted the tissue and began to dry the boy’s teary cheeks.
    “He’s adorable,” Alice said.
    “Yes,” the woman said, “my nephew’s a doll.”
    “I’m not a doll!” the boy blurted out. “I’m a person!”
    Now the young woman smiled fully. “You’re my big boy.” She ruffled his hair. As soon as she set him down, he crouched to pick up his red ball, threw it and resumed the chase. His aunt calmly watched him. She didn’t wear a wedding ring, Alice noticed. No jewelry at all, as a matter of fact, not even earrings. She was lean and muscular as a gymnast.
    “I’ve seen you here before,” Alice said.
    “I watch him now and then. It keeps me sane, you know?”
    “Funny, being with my kids keeps me crazy.” Alice glanced back at Lauren and Maggie to see if they’d caught her joke. They had, and were both furiously nodding.
    “I’m Alice.”
    “Frannie.”
    “Nice to meet you.”
    A shriek issued from the other side of the playground, beyond the women’s sight. Alice quickly scanned the immediate area for her children but saw neither.
    “Excuse me,” Alice muttered as she hurried to the other side of the jungle gym.
    Someone else’s child was fighting for a turn on the tire swing. Alice relaxed as she caught sight of Nell huddled with a girl from her class on a low wooden platform. They were bent over their prized card collections, hands veiled by Nell’s long peachy hair. Peter, darkly handsome like his father, was standing at the top of the tall slide, waiting his turn to go down. Flushed with relief, Alice walked back to the bench. Frannie was gone.
    “That little jog winded me,” Alice said.
    “You’re telling me. I can barely move