Step on a Crack (12 page)

IN HER DREAM, Laura Winston, the
Vogue
magazine-dubbed “Fashion Queen of the New Millennium,” was out on the lake at Ralph Lauren’s estate in northern Westchester. She was lying alone in a canoe dressed in a sheet of white muslin, and she was floating beneath a sky of bright, endless blue. The boat skimmed along the shore beneath the boughs of a stand of cherry blossom trees, and a blizzard of falling white petals, fine as angel eyelids, softly landed on her face, her throat, her breasts. When she tried to sit up in the canoe, she realized that the muslin was wrapped tightly around her arms. She was dead and in her funeral boat, she realized-and she began to scream.

Laura Winston woke with a start and banged her head hard on the wooden arm of the church pew she’d propped it against.

There was a heavy
clop-clop
of booted feet, and two ski-masked men with bandoliers of grenades strapped across the front of their brown robes passed slowly up the center aisle of the chapel.

What an idiot, she thought. Right now, if she had wisely begged
off
the funeral, she’d be thirty thousand feet above the South Caribbean in a Gulf Four, banking toward her twenty-one-million-dollar French Renaissance palace in St. Bart’s to put the finishing touches on her New Year’s Eve celebration. Giorgio, Donatella, Ralph, and Miuccia had already RSVP’d.

Instead, she had ignored that little voice, her prudent inner survivor that had piped up just the night before:
Hel-lo! High-profile NYC event, neon bull’s-eye terrorist target. Stay away
!

And then, of course, there was that other little secret voice that was just starting to warm up its dry, agonizing pipes.

She was out of her pills.

The OxyContin had originally been prescribed for a lower-back tennis injury. A month later, after learning that her doctor was more than willing to keep prescribing, she was taking them with her multivitamins. The ultimate energy boost, the ultimate stress eraser.

Laura didn’t want to admit it, but for about the last hour or so, she’d been jonesing. It had happened once before on a shoot that had gone a day over in Morocco. The withdrawal had started out like a tiny itch in her blood. Soon the itch got much worse, and she had started throwing up. After dry heaving for an hour or so, she couldn’t stop shaking. After ten hours, she would have gladly pulled out her own hair to make it stop. She’d managed to survive that episode with half a bottle of Valium mercifully given to her by the photographer.

But now,
here
, she had nothing.

Maybe some of the others had something, she thought quickly. These Hollywood types were known for their Dr. Feelgood prescriptions. She could politely inquire, couldn’t she? They were all in the same boat. Share and share alike.

No! she thought, shuddering. Her “Itness” was all she had. To lose it was simply unacceptable. No one could know about her “hillbilly heroin” addiction. She had to think. Think!

Bottom line. What did the hijackers want? Either money or some political aim, she reasoned. Either way, her being alive was important to them, wasn’t it?

What if she staged some kind of illness. A heart attack? No, all they’d have to do is take her pulse to see that she was faking. What other kinds of medical emergencies did people suddenly suffer from? Diabetic fits, panic attacks?

That was it! A panic attack! Wouldn’t have to fake too hard there, either. She was already sweating; her heartbeat was elevated.

Withdrawal hidden in a panic attack. A brilliant plan that would salvage her potentially billion-dollar reputation. Worst case, she’d be separated from the rest of the celebs to vomit in peace.

Laura Winston relaxed her resistance against her shaking, and
went with it
.

EUGENA HUMPHREY WAS so deeply zoned into her soothing Pranayama yoga breathing that at first she didn’t even notice when Laura Winston stood up. Eugena’s breath escaped from the high part of her lungs in a definitively non-Tantric gush when the elegant fashion guru suddenly started moaning like a rabid squirrel.

A second ago, the fashion diva had been sleeping blissfully. Now, with her pasty face and her exquisitely colored hair in a rat’s nest, she looked like she might have been sleepwalking. Except that her eyes were open.

“Sit down, Laura,” Eugena said. “You saw what happened to Mercedes. These men aren’t playin’.”

Eugena tugged the hem of the fashionista’s butter-soft black suede Chanel skirt.

“Get your hands OFF ME!” Laura Winston screamed.

Hysterical,
Eugena thought. She had to calm the woman down before she got herself killed.

“Laura, what’s wrong?” Eugena said as calmly as she could. “Just talk to me. It’s okay. I can help you.”

“I can’t TAKE IT!” Laura yelled, jogging out into the aisle. “HELP ME, PLEASE! Pleeeeeaaaaase! SOMEBODY!”

The short, stocky lead hijacker appeared by the rail as Laura dropped, wailing, to her knees.

“We can’t have her bugging out like this,” he called to Little John across the chapel. “Take care of her.”

The extra-large hijacker stepped over and lifted Laura up from the marble floor by her lapels.

“Ma’am? You’ll have to get back in your seat,” he said.

“PLEASE HELP ME!” she yelled after a loud, rattling sob. “You can help me, can’t you, please? I can’t breathe. My chest. I need air. So hot in here. I need to go to a hospital.”

“To Bellevue maybe,” the big hijacker said with a chuckle. “Ma’am, you’re hysterical. The only way I know how to deal with hysterical people is to slap them. You don’t want to get slapped, do you?”

The hijacker grabbed the middle-aged woman by her wrist when she tried to bolt past him. He turned her bony arm around behind her, then took her by the back of her haute couture top and led her out beyond the rail.

“If that’s the way you want to play it,” Little John said, shaking his head.

Next to an enormous statue of Jesus in Mary’s lap, he opened up a confessional door. He pushed the now screaming Laura Winston inside. When she tried to rush out, he put a combat boot to her chest, sent her flying, and slammed the door shut.

“Jeez,” Little John said, shaking his head at the other hostages. “Some people, huh?”

SECONDS LATER, as Little John strutted down the center aisle like a conquering hero, comedian John Rooney lost it. Being forced to idly watch the gunmen abuse Laura Winston had set some deep chord within Rooney humming. He forgot about his safety, about the resistance plan, about the police outside. He just sprang up from his seat and jumped the hijacker.

Little John stumbled and dropped when Rooney slammed into the back of his knees. Rooney then managed to wrap an arm around his neck and squeeze with every ounce of his pent-up fear and rage.

Rooney was still on top of Little John when the other gunmen started kicking him. Steel-toed boots struck his shoulder, his neck, his forehead. Instead of letting go, he closed his eyes and concentrated on one thing:
the pressure of his arm on the hijacker’s windpipe
.

The kicking stopped suddenly. Then Rooney heard a metallic snapping and felt something cold and hard press against his temple.

He opened one of his eyes and saw Jack, the lead hijacker, smiling at him from the opposite end of an M16.

“I’m only going to ask you once,” Jack said. “Let him go.”

“Shoot me!” Rooney found himself saying. Adrenaline burned like acid in his blood. “I’m not going to sit and watch you animals beat up on old people and women!”

Jack squinted at him between the holes in his mask. Finally, he slowly lowered the M16.

“Okay, Mr. Rooney,” the hijacker said. “Point taken. I’ll take measures to tone down the aggressive crowd control. Now, if you would please release my colleague. If he dies, I’m afraid it’ll start quite a bad precedent.”

Rooney released the big man and stood up, breathing loudly. His cheek was bleeding from where a boot lace had scratched it, and his right arm felt like it had been in an industrial accident, but his blood sang.
He’d actually done something about this outrage
.

Jack checked Little John in the chest with the rifle when he leapt up like a Doberman off the floor. “Go get something to eat and some rest,” he told him.

“Mr. Rooney, please retake your seat. I’d like to address everyone.”

Rooney sat as Jack went to the podium and cleared his throat. Then he smiled, and with his suddenly cheerful demeanor, he could have been an airline spokesman updating terminal passengers about a delay.

“Hi, everybody,” he said. “We’ve started the negotiation process, and things seem to be working quite smoothly. If things continue to go this well, there’s a shot of getting you back home to your families by Christmas morning.”

There was no applause, but Rooney definitely thought he detected a collective sigh.

“Now, unfortunately, the bad news,” Jack went on. “If things deteriorate, we’ll more likely than not be forced to kill a number of you.”

A low moan rose from the back of the chapel.

“Since we are here in a house of worship,” Jack continued, “I’d advise any of you who have religious aspirations to get your prayers in now.”

Linda London, the reality TV socialite, doubled over and began sobbing.

“People,” Jack chided amiably. “People, please. You act like we’re going to torture you. You have my word. All executions will consist of a quick, humane shot to the back of the head.”

Jack stepped back down from the pulpit and stopped beside where Rooney sat.

“Oh, and one more thing,” he said, stabbing Rooney in the throat with a stun gun. Rooney’s eyes shut of their own accord as every muscle in his body clenched at once. But instead of black, all he saw was sizzling television fuzz. A dry heave of a scream was lost in his throat as he bounced numbly off the floor and rolled under the seat.

“We’re not your lifestyle coaches or your Pilates instructors, and this isn’t Letterman’s greenroom.” Rooney heard Jack through his semiconsciousness. He even came up with one coherent idea when he managed to gather the scraps of his pain-ravaged thoughts:
I should have let him shoot me
.

“I thought you had to have some brains to be successful in this country,” Jack complained. “Which part of ‘step out of line and we’ll kill you’ are you morons not getting?”

IT WAS TEN TO SEVEN in the morning when eleven-year-old Brian Bennett tapped on his sister’s door.

“Julia?” he whispered. “You up?”

Julia came out, combing her wet hair. Already showered, Brian thought with disappointment. He’d wanted to be the first one up, the leader of the family. He was the oldest boy, after all. When had Julia the Great woken up? Six?

“I was just about to get you,” Julia said. “Dad still sleeping?”

“Like a dead… I mean, like a rock,” Brian said quickly. “Who knows when he came in last night. You want me to start getting the cereal out and you wake the monsters?”

“Okay, but if you get finished before I get the girls up, go in and get Trent and Eddie and Ricky,” Julia said. “It’s going to take me a while to get the girls dressed right and do their hair.”

“Okay,” Brian said. He began to turn in the dim hall, but then stopped.

“Hey, Julia,” he said.

“What?”

“I feel bad about when Dad came in last night and busted us. I really think this will make it up to him. Great idea to get up early and get everyone ready.”

“Why thanks, Bri,” Julia said. “That’s really nice of you to say.”

Man! Brian thought, wincing. She was right. What the hell was he doing being all fuzzy and nice to his sister?

“Last one to get their team ready is a retarded loser,” Brian called over his shoulder as he left.

He threw open the door to the boys’ room after he had quickly set the kitchen table. He was shaking Ricky’s foot at the bottom bunk when Trent swung out from the top and hung upside down like a bat.

“Did he come? Did he come?” Trent asked urgently.

“Did
who
come?” Brian said, flipping his five-year-old brother out of his bed and onto his bare feet.

“SANTA!” Trent screamed.

“Shhhh!” Brian said. “No.”

“What?” Trent said sadly. “Santa didn’t come? Why not? Are you lying, Bri? I know I was a little naughty, but I was nice, too.”

“It’s not Christmas yet, you little maniac,” Brian said, heading toward the closet. “Wake up Ricky and go brush your teeth. Brush and flush. Now.”

Brian smiled when he opened the bedroom door five minutes later. The girls were just coming out of their room. He’d thought Ms. Perfect in Every Way Julia would have the little ladies doing calisthenics or something by this time.
But no. Snag. It was a tie
.

Brian laughed when he flicked on the kitchen light. Even though it was corny, he had to admit, seeing everyone with their costumes on was also hilarious.

It was dress rehearsal today at Holy Name for the Christmas pageant, and everyone had a part to play. Chrissy, Shawna, Bridget, and Fiona were garland-haloed angels. Trent and Eddie were shepherds. Ricky had scored the part of Joseph and was sporting a totally fake and funny black beard. Even Jane and Julia, who were in the choir, were wearing long silver robes. Of course he, himself, had the coolest, most uncorny costume, being one of the three wise men.

“Look at them,” Brian said, standing at the head of the table next to Julia. “They’re almost, like, cute or something.”

Julia took a camera out of her robe and snapped a picture of the little Bennetts. What was up with girls? Brian thought. How did they always know the right things to do?

Julia showed Brian the screen on her camera.

“Do you think Mom will like that one?” she said.

“Maybe,” Brian said. “How the heck should I know?”

WHEN THE MUTED
clunk
and giggles and bangs and cries of my family getting ready woke me that morning, I sensed the absence on my wife’s side of the bed and was grateful. The workday-morning deal between Maeve and me was that she would get them dressed and I would take them to school. To let me sleep in while she did the much heavier work of getting our double-digit familia together was the type of kindness by omission only people who are long married can understand.

I tossed around and was reaching for the warmth of her body pillow when I felt the cold, stiff sheets beside me, and I remembered.

As I lay there, taking my first morning sip of personal horror, a chilling question occurred to me.

I swung my bare feet onto the cold hardwood and grabbed my tattered and holey robe off the bedpost.

If Maeve wasn’t getting the kids ready, who was?

It’s hard to describe how I felt when I stepped into the kitchen and saw my children fully dressed for their Christmas pageant. I was convinced I was dreaming, or maybe even dead, seeing the kids transformed around our breakfast table into some surreal Renaissance painting of a heavenly multitude. Then Trent knocked his SpongeBob cereal bowl off the table-and everyone turned around.

“
DAD
!” they said at once.

How could they have gotten themselves ready? I thought. What a bad father I was. I hadn’t even remembered about the play. I didn’t know why I started crying when I stooped to pick up Froot Loops off the linoleum. Then I did know.

The kids being able to take care of themselves felt like Maeve had done her job. Like she had tied up all the loose ends and was now ready to go.

I wiped my tears on the sleeve of my robe as Chrissy hugged me hard and gave me a butterfly kiss by fluttering her eyelashes on my neck.

A deep breath helped me pull myself together. If Maeve saw me cry in front of them, she’d kick my ass.

And so, I felt a joyful smile invade my face when I looked at them again. My kids really were angels. They were completely unreal. I nodded at Julia and Brian. Had anyone, let alone a couple of kids, risen to a horrible occasion with such selflessness? I gritted my teeth to kill another wave of sorrow; then I cleared my throat.

“I know it’s not Sunday,” I yelled with enthusiasm, “but who needs a Sunday breakfast as much as me?”

The cries of “We do” and “Me” rang off the walls as I slapped two cast-iron frying pans up on the stove.

Seamus arrived in the kitchen as I was dispensing my bacon, egg, potato, and green onion hash to my guys.

“Ock. Faith and begora,” he said, glaring wide-eyed at the costumed kids. “Halloween already?”

“NO!” the kids cried, giggling at their grandfather.

Mary Catherine came in a minute later, a quizzical look on her face. I handed her a plate.

“I warned you we were nuts,” I said, smiling.

For a few glorious seconds, I just stood at the stove, staring out at my family, listening to them eat and laugh. My bliss lasted until I spotted my cell phone and keys on the counter next to the coffee machine.

Damn world, I thought. I wished it would just lay off already.

I thought of the hostages and how the clock was ticking against them. It was the hostage-takers themselves that finally got me to uproot myself and head for the shower. I smiled bitterly as I felt the heavy, black resentment in me shift away from myself and toward them like the cannon of a tank. Jack was the one responsible for taking me away from my loved ones, I realized.

You don’t know who you’re messing with, buddy,
I mentally e-mailed him.
You might think you do. But you have no idea.