You’ve Been Warned

Chapter 29

I’M NOT SURE WHAT to think after that phone call except that I really don’t feel like hanging around my apartment. Maybe because I’m shaking and I can’t make it stop.

As for the word weirdness to describe what’s going on, it’s officially far too mild a term.

At times like this, as if there’s ever been a time like this before in my life, I try to think of a bigger picture. For example. One second the whole universe was smaller than the head of a pin. The next second it was billions of times larger than the Earth. And the lesson to be learned from the big picture is exactly what?

Thankfully, there’s an errand I have to run. Errands are good when you think you might be going stark-raving mad. So after showering and getting dressed, I hail a cab for Gotham Photo over in Chelsea. I’ve got a camera that needs a new lens.

“Hi. Is Javier here today?” I ask, walking up to the counter at Gotham. I notice that my shaking has finally stopped. Hey, the song in my head is gone too.

“He’s in the back,” says the clerk. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to wait for him.”

“Sure, I’ll let him know,” he says. “You’re Kristin, right?”

“Yep. Hi.”

The entire staff at Gotham Photo is friendly and they all know their stuff, but Javier’s my favorite. He’s always able to explain some of the more technical aspects of lenses and film without making me feel like an amateur. Truly, he’s as nice as can be.

“How are you, Kristin? It’s good to see you,” he greets me, smiling. He’s tall and thin and cultured, with a very gentle way about him.

We chat for a bit about anything and everything – so long as it has to do with photography. This isn’t merely a job for Javier; it’s more like a calling. He loves cameras that much. “My mother bought me my first, a Rollei Thirty-five when I was six years old,” he once told me.

I believe it.

“So when am I going to read about you in Blind Spot?” he asks. That’s the hip magazine that covers the famous as well as up-and-coming photographers.

“Just as soon as I get a new lens,” I answer.

I tell him about breaking mine, and we get busy choosing a replacement. After discussing a few, we settle on the latest Leica, which he highly recommends.

“It’s lighter and shoots cleaner,” he says. “And the best part is that I can give it to you for over a hundred dollars less than the one you had.”

Twist my arm, Javier.

As he writes up the sales slip, I casually tell him about the transparent-like effect happening with the pictures I developed from the hotel. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to bring the shots with me. I do my best to describe the glitch, but without Javier’s being able to see it, he can offer only educated guesses. Most I’ve thought of, a few I haven’t.

“Of course, if it had anything to do with your old lens,” he says with a grin, “your problem is solved.”

I’m anxious to find out, so I start taking pics the moment I leave the store. I want a full roll to develop when I get home later.

After snapping a few shots of a meticulously groomed Lhasa apso being walked by a woman who looks like Nancy Reagan, I head north and come upon two block-shaped movers struggling to load a huge armoire onto their truck. Both their faces twist and contort so horribly that it’s absolutely beautiful.

Click, click, click.

I smile to myself. I never feel more comfortable, more at home, than I do behind a camera. It’s so relaxing and yet, at the same time, so empowering. You see people in an entirely different light. Sure, they say the eyes are the windows to the soul, but for my money it’s the camera eye that gives you the real glimpse of what’s inside a person.

I’ve got a few more shots left on the roll as I’m aiming at the stream of people crossing the street up at the next “Walk” sign. They move in almost perfect unison and yet remain oblivious to one another, all looking directly ahead at the coming sidewalk.

All, that is, except for one.

It’s a man standing still at the corner. He’s caught my eye.

I focus on his face, watching in the viewfinder as the image slowly transforms from blurry to -

Holy shit!

Staring back at me, clear as day, is something I can’t believe. Not even after what’s happened during the last few days.

Something impossible.

Something that makes me feel that I must be crazy.

Only it’s worse than that, because I know I’m not crazy.

But what I’m looking at sure is.

Chapter 30

I’M SHIVERING UNCONTROLLABLY and that burning smell is in the air again, but my lens remains focused straight ahead. On him.

He’s standing on the far corner, wearing a long single-button gray coat that looks as if it came from one of those vintage clothing stores over on Bleecker Street.

Only I know it didn’t come from some shop on Bleecker or anywhere else in New York. Actually, it’s from Concord, Massachusetts.

Suspicious, I lower my camera as if somehow this piece of metal and molded plastic in my hands is the culprit, the cause of all this.

It’s not.

I can see clearly with my own eyes. The square jaw, the bullet-shaped head, the thick glasses, even the narrow, hunched shoulders. It’s him.

My father is standing there on that street corner.

Don’t think, just shoot.

Quickly, I snap a few shots, even though my hands are jiggling the camera insanely. Then I call out.

My father sees me, I know he sees me, but he doesn’t answer.

I take a few steps forward and call out again, louder. “Dad!”

He’s looking right at me. Why won’t he say anything? Or wave? Or something?

I continue toward him, and at last he reacts.

By walking away! Fast walking. As if he’s afraid of me or something.

“Wait!” I yell. “Dad! Please don’t go. I need to talk to you!”

He disappears around the corner, and I immediately sprint after him. Crossing the street, I see him farther up the block. He’s ru

What’s going on? What can this possibly mean?

I call out again, begging him to stop. “I just want to talk to you! Dad! Dad! Daaad!”

We were always so close, practically inseparable. When I was a little girl, he used to pretend to race me all the time. Back then I knew he was letting me win because he loved me so much.

He wasn’t letting me win now, though. Obviously not now.

Chapter 31

I’M RUNNING AS FAST as I can. The sidewalk is crowded, and I try my best to weave in and out of pissed off-looking people while keeping an eye on the gray coat and crew cut head bobbing farther up the block.

“Hey, watch it!” a woman barks angrily, as we slam shoulders.

“Sorry,” I say.

My father turns another corner. Then he darts across an intersection, just as the light turns green. Cars, cabs, and trucks hit the gas.

But I don’t stop. I don’t even look both ways. I have to catch him – nothing is more important. I’m convinced he’s the answer to everything that’s happening.

Leaping from the curb, I hear tires screeching and feel the hot breezes kicked up from the asphalt by one near collision after another. The huge chrome grille of a bus misses me by less than a foot. “What the hell is your problem, lady?” yells the driver out his window.

You have no idea.

“Please, Dad! Please stop!” I yell. “Daddy – please!”

And just like that, the gray coat comes to a halt. My father turns on the sidewalk, and our eyes meet. We’re maybe fifty feet apart.

“I want to help you,” he says. “But you have to do it yourself.”

“Dad, what’s happening to me?”

“Be careful, Kristin.”

I open my mouth to ask, Why? How? What is it that I have to do? but he takes off again before the words can form.