Ellen leaned forward over the sink and took a last,
critical look at her makeup in the bathroom mirror. She
could see that the eyes were good. The way to look
trustworthy was to look trusting, and her eyes seemed big
and blue and wide-open. The color on the cheeks was good,
too: she could tell it was clear, smooth, and natural,
even though the mirror was pocked with black spots, and
the light in here was harsh and yellow. But she intended
to be there early enough to slip into the ladies' room, do
a recheck, and make any necessary revisions before she was
seen. She had been training herself not to take anything
for granted since she was nine years old, and she was
twenty-four now. Not to anticipate problems was to invite
them.
She went back into her kitchen, picked her purse off the
table, and slung it over her shoulder, then opened her
thin leather briefcase to be sure she had everything. She
always carried a small kit consisting of the brochures and
forms necessary to commit a customer to one of the common
policies: term life, whole life, health, home owner's,
auto. Before she had left the office last night, she had
added some of the more exotic ones to cover art, jewelry,
planes, and boats. The application forms she carried
always had her name typed in as agent, with her telephone
extension and office and e-mail addresses in the other
boxes, and her signature already in the space at the
bottom. She never left the home office in doubt about who
should get the commission.
Clipped to the inside of her briefcase she carried a slim
gold pen that felt good in a customer's hand when he
signed his name, and she kept an identical one, never
used, out of sight below it so there could never be a
moment when she was ready to close on a customer and
couldn't. Taking a few simple, habitual precautions was
usually enough to keep her from lying in bed at night
worrying about lost opportunity, failure, and humiliation.
She reached into the other side of the divider in her
briefcase, pulled out the claim forms she had prepared,
and examined them. She was not proofreading the entries.
She knew there were no mistakes. She had been up late,
studying the files, filling in the blank spaces on the
forms with a typewriter, so there would be no real
paperwork left to do. This morning she used the forms to
test her memory of family names, addresses, dates.
She had no illusion that she was engaged in anything but
an act of dissimulation. It was conscious, studied, and
practiced, and anything less than a flawless performance
would be a disaster. When she had all the personal details
by heart it made her listener feel as though she cared
about him. Having them wrong was to be caught out as a
hypocrite and a fraud. If she convinced her listener that
she cared -- really had his interests at heart -- then she
was not halfway there, she was all the way.
Ellen made sure the coffee was unplugged and the lights
were all off before she went out the door and locked it.
As she turned, she heard a sudden noise over her shoulder
and jumped. She stared in the direction of the sound, and
decided it was nothing -- just an orange falling from the
tree in the corner of the yard. But it was still an hour
before the sun would be up, and even Pasadena could be a
bit creepy in the darkness and silence.
She knew that if she screamed, she couldn't expect the
other four girls who lived in the small apartments in this
building to come to her rescue, but they would at least
wake up and look out their windows to see what was going
on. If somebody grabbed her, she must not rely on her
neighbors altruism. She must yell "Fire!" while she
fought. She had read that this was what the experts
advised, and so that was what she would try to do.
She wished she weren't feeling so jumpy. For the past two
days she had been increasingly anxious, and the discomfort
seemed to have gotten more vivid this morning. She had to
remind herself that this was not something to be afraid
of. It was an opportunity. If she used it well, it was a
step toward getting everything she wanted.
She looked down the empty driveway at the street, then
stepped toward the open garage where her car was parked,
and took the time to check and be sure the car was locked.
This compulsion to check everything made her a bit
ashamed. She had not just been worrying about
accomplishing what she had to do this morning. She had
been having feelings that something was wrong. At times,
she had detected the sensation that someone was watching
her. Yesterday she had been walking down the street in Old
Town, looking in shops not far from the office, and had
sensed eyes on her. She had stopped abruptly, pretending
to look in a store window, and studied the sidewalk behind
her in the reflection. She had waited until the other
pedestrians had walked past her and had determined that
they all appeared harmless before she moved on. She had
told herself that she had just sensed some man staring at
her. They did that, after all, and they meant no harm. But
she had not convinced herself: when they meant no harm,
they were always easy to catch. They wanted to be caught.
She made her way down the driveway to wait for the cab to
arrive. She glanced at her watch. It was still not even
five a.m. There was no reason to feel impatient. The cab
wasn't late; she was early. Probably she had been spending
too much time alone lately.
She defended herself from her own accusation. The
isolation had not really been her fault. Even after a year
here, the people in the Pasadena office were still the
only people she knew in southern California. She had seen
at the beginning that none of them were likely to become
close friends. At best they were allies, and at worst they
were obstacles, fixed objects she would have to work her
way around. To get what she needed, she would have to
deceive them about her feelings, keep certain information
she picked up away from them, and use it to her advantage,
all the while smiling and evading. She had done that. No
wonder she was nervous.
She stared up the dark street, searching for headlights.
In the heavy stillness of the residential neighborhood,
she could hear distant engine sounds at the far end of the
next block, where the street met Colorado Boulevard. Every
few seconds, a car or truck would swish past the
intersection, but none of them made the turn. The
faintness of the sounds reminded her of how alone she was.
She had read an article in a women's magazine that said if
a person had a feeling - an uneasy intuition that
something was wrong, that a man she was with made her
uncomfortable, that a place made her feel vulnerable --
she should not ignore it. Her eyes had probably seen
something, her ears had probably heard something, but her
mind was trying to brush it aside and explain it away
because denial was easier than facing the danger.
Ellen caught herself forming a clear mental image of John
Walker. She could see his dark brown hair, his calm, wise
eyes. She was sure it was the uneasiness that had brought
him back. When she had been with him, she had always felt
safe. It was not just because he was tall and broad-
shouldered and physically fit. He had a quiet, thoughtful
manner, and he was reliable. She felt a sharp pang that
surprised her. She could have been with him - maybe not
married him, because that would have ruined everything,
but at least had him nearby. Driving over here before dawn
to pick her up was exactly the sort of thing he would have
done, and she would have known -- positively known -- that
he would be here on time. She made an effort to push him
out of her mind and obscure his image in her memory. The
worst thing for a person to worry about was some decision
she had made in the past.
© 2003-2026