The Mask

it scattered a lot of papers all over the floor. A terrible mess. Some of them were rumpled and dirty when we gathered them up, and a great many of them were damp from the rain. In spite of that, Margie, my secretary, was able to put them in order—except, of course, for your application. We can’t find it anywhere. I suppose it might have blown out through one of the broken windows. I don’t know why your papers should be the only ones we’ve lost, and of course we must have a completed, signed application before we can present your names to the recommendations committee. I’m extremely sorry about this inconvenience, Mr. Tracy, I truly am.”
    “It wasn’t your fault,” Paul said. “I’ll just stop in later today and pick up another form. Carol and I can fill it out and sign it tonight.”
    “Good,” O’Brian said. “I’m glad to hear that. It has to be back in my hands early tomorrow morning if we’re going to make the next meeting of the committee. Margie needs three full business days to run the required verifications on the information in your application, and that’s just about how much time we have before next Wednesday’s committee meeting. If we miss that session, there’s not another one for two weeks.”
    “I’ll be in to pick up the form before noon,” Paul assured him. “And I’ll have it back to you first thing Friday morning.”
    They exchanged goodbyes, and Paul put down the phone.
    THUNK!
    When he heard that sound, he sagged, dispirited.
    He was going to have to fix a shutter after all. And then drive into the city to pick up the new application. And then drive home. And by the time he did all of that, half the day would be shot, and he wouldn’t have written a single word.
    THUNK! THUNK!
    “Dammit,” he said.
    Thunk, thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk…
    It definitely was going to be one of those days.
    He went downstairs to the hall closet where he kept his raincoat and galoshes.
     
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    The windshield wipers flogged back and forth, back and forth, with a short, shrill squeak that made Carol grit her teeth. She hunched forward a bit, over the steering wheel, squinting through the streaming rain.
    The streets glistened; the macadam was slick, greasy looking. Dirty water raced along the gutters and formed filthy pools around clogged drainage grids.
    At ten minutes past nine, the morning rush hour was just over. Although the streets were still moderately busy, traffic was moving smoothly and swiftly. In fact everyone was driving too fast to suit Carol, and she hung back a little, watchful and cautious.
    Two blocks from her office, her caution proved justified, but it still wasn’t enough to avert disaster altogether. Without bothering to look for oncoming traffic, a young blond woman stepped out from between two vans, directly into the path of the VW Rabbit.
    “Christ!” Carol said, ramming her foot down on the brake pedal so hard that she lifted herself up off the seat.
    The blonde glanced up and froze, wide-eyed.
    Although the VW was moving at only twenty miles an hour, there was no hope of stopping it in time. The brakes shrieked. The tires bit—but also skidded—on the wet pavement.
    God, no! Carol thought with a sick, sinking feeling.
    The car hit the blonde and lifted her off the ground, tossed her backwards onto the hood, and then the rear end of the VW began to slide around to the left, into the path of an oncoming Cadillac, and the Caddy swerved, brakes squealing, and the other driver hit his horn as if he thought a sufficient volume of sound might magically push Carol safely out of his way, and for an instant she was certain they would collide, but the Caddy slid past without scraping, missing her by only an inch or two—all of this in two or three or four seconds—and at the same time the blonde rolled off the hood, toward the right side, the curb side, and the VW came to a full stop, sitting aslant the street, rocking on its springs as if it were a child’s hobby horse.
     
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    None of the shutters was missing. Not one. None of them was loose and flapping in the wind, as Paul had thought.
    Wearing galoshes and a raincoat with a hood, he walked all the way around the house, studying each set of shutters on the first and second floors, but he couldn’t see anything amiss. The place showed no sign of storm damage.
    Perplexed, he circled the house again, each step resulting in a squishing noise as the rain-saturated lawn gave like a sodden sponge beneath him. This time around, he looked for