Chapter One

GOOD.  HE WASN’T THERE.

She glanced around Corner Café again, slightly paranoid, she looked like a weirdo with her sunglasses still on, despite having come inside the popular coffee house chain. But the glasses were a barrier in case she saw him.

The whole thing was strange and whenever she tried to explain it to anyone, it sounded trite. Or like she was being paranoid. Or worse, slightly flattered.

She certainly wasn’t flattered.

At first, he was just another face in the crowd of faces at the café.

Every morning, she walked in with the coffee-before-work crowd. The woman who always managed to tell the barista what new horrible thing had happened in her life. The woman Mara hoped was a nanny, looking infinitely annoyed by the little lives in her care. Two men, always in suits, with obnoxious ties that screamed money, managing to laugh louder than the ambient noise of the coffee shop. 

At a certain point, she noticed him. And she noticed whenever she risked a glance, this man with a spiral-bound notebook perpetually in front of him looked up and met her gaze. Froggish eyes, bulging from a sallow complexion. Large flat hands spread out on the table.

After a while, Mara stopped looking.

That is, she stopped looking at him and started to look for him. Heavy polished boots beneath the table, tightly laced. The open notebook. A brown coat, unfashionably large, that looked like it needed a day at the laundromat.

People at work didn’t understand.

Tad said he was probably a homeless man trying to get out of the weather. The pleasant Chicago autumn, with winds blowing in and around tall buildings had slipped away, replaced by bitterness in the air.

It wasn’t winter yet but late October, with a winter ready to blanket the metropolis.

When Mara described the situation to Wendy, her version of it was blindly romantic. Maybe the man was a down-and-out writer, letting the world pass him by in the hope of inspiration. And maybe, maybe he stared at Mara because she was a vision of the new heroine in the book he’d been trying to write for the last seven years.

Sure. Okay.

During her commute, Wendy kept audio books on repeat so saccharine Mara was surprised she didn’t suffer cavities.

Eventually, she stopped explaining and switched coffee shops. It wasn’t worth being this upset. Whether she was a product of too many PSAs for women on the dangers of men who look at you, or maybe she had some hypochondriac persecution complex; it didn’t matter. The Corner Café two blocks from her apartment complex was nixed in favor of the location one block away from work.

And he wasn’t there. And he hadn’t been for a week now.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING this weekend, Mara?

Typical of him on a Friday, Tad from accounting leaned over the frame of her plexiglass cubicle with anticipation across his expression.

Without fail, he asked this every week, assuming her single life must mean she was out painting the city every shade of red each weekend. More than once, Mara wished she had more exciting plans to tell him. Grocery shopping, watching a football game with her brother, and maybe dissolving into the shows recorded on her dvr were generally how she spent Friday to Sunday. There had been times she wanted to make up some wild escapade, like having a one-night stand with a studly man she met at a bar on the South Side, just to watch delight flash across Tad’s face.

Because for him, the weekend meant round-the-clock care for his ailing mother and her increasing dementia. 

You and one of your gal-pals aren’t going out to a bar this weekend?

All the gals he referred to were married with kids.

Would it make you feel better if I told you Suze invited me to her barre class? 

You’re no fun.

He turned towards his cubicle at the end of the hall.

I might treat myself to the triple caramel cinnamon bar from Corner Café tonight, she hollered.

Once upon a time, weekends were committed to doing Heaven-knows-what that was of paramount importance then. But early mid-thirties had simplified a lot.

Makeup, for example. Foundation didn’t need layers. Mascara could be worn sans eyeshadow and liner. 

Which was why an occasional indulgence in the triple caramel cinnamon bar from Corner Café was okay and definitely the plan on her way home.

On Fridays, personnel were allowed to leave a half hour early, provided they made it through stacks of forms and calls for service from companies who had purchased one of the four types of highly-automated vending machines manufactured just a few floors below.

At five-thirty, she shut off the computer and grabbed her coat. A glance to her cell phone showed three missed texts: one from her brother asking if she’d make buffalo chicken dip for the game Sunday, an invitation from Suze to a hot yoga session at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning, and one from the vet, reminding her Sugar’s arthritis medication was ready to be picked up.

While she stood in the elevator with three workers from finance, making absent-minded conversation, Mara decided to grab her indulgent dessert before she drove to the vet and then maybe order dinner from that little Indian place in the same parking lot. She hadn’t had Mattar Paneer in a long time and sucked at making it.

On the other side of the building’s heavy glass doors, Chicago’s wind found her instantly, whipping around like a frozen silk scarf.

Above, the city glowed with its peculiar electric blue hue. Only the brightest stars fought against the powerful glow of Chicago, their pinpoint light wild and dazzling in the indigo high overhead.

It was a glance before she stuffed her chin behind her puffy coat’s collar and shoved gloved hands into pockets, electing to walk to Corner Café. 

Though the holiday season had yet to descend upon the city, with garland and bells ringing from Salvation Army Santas on every other street corner, there was a difference in the way people walked down the avenues. Something of a hustle and bustle—to get out of the cold, to rush home,  to wrap themselves in blankets and enjoy a hot meal.

Summer slogged. Spring was damp. But the nip of late Autumn brought with its winds a sort of community in the cold. Soon the hustle and bustle would fill with boxes and bows and the magic of one special night.

Romantic thoughts that. Wistful. They’d go well with the triple caramel cinnamon bar while curled on her couch with a blanket, Sugar asleep on the carpet, and the tv playing one of several shows she looked forward to each week.

With a yank against the wind, the warmth of pleasant thoughts around her, she pulled the café’s door open and stepped inside.

Yet the glow and whimsy of her reveries broke apart and Mara felt like her coat was suddenly made from wet wool, heavy and stifling.

He sat at the table closest to the display case of baked goods. The buggish eyes were down on the notebook, its page nearly black with scrawled words. Those wide flat hands were splayed out on either side, fingers stretched apart.

Stock still in front of the door, people moved around her with little sighs of irritation, a few mumbling an exasperated excuse me. But the soles of her boots had melted into the floor.

How?

How could he be here? The decision to come now was spur of the moment.

Terrified he’d look up and see her staring, Mara lurched forward, as if walking was unnatural to her body. The barista looked at her with some alarm and the words that came out of Mara’s mouth were weak and wheezing.

Can I...can I get one....

Can you tell me who this guy is and how he’s here right now? Does he come all the time and spend all day here?

To the wide-eyed stare on Mara’s face and the way her order trailed off,  the barista, concern showing in her expression, asked, Are you alright, Ma’am?

Huh? Sure. Yes, I’m sorry. Can I—can I get one triple caramel cinnamon bar, please?

Of course. You’re lucky; you’re getting the last one. These have been popular this season.

I bet, Mara mumbled, steeling herself against looking over while she fumbled for her wallet, hoping she had enough cash to just plop down and leave.

Do you want it warmed up?

No. No, thank you.

Your total is—

Mara leaned over the counter. Can you tell me something?

Again, the concerned expression drifted over the young woman’s face.

Uh—

I know this sounds weird—

It sounds really weird and I swear I’m not the one being odd here.

But that man with the heavy coat. Does he... does he come here all the time?

Glancing over, the barista shook her head. It’s the first time I’ve seen him. But I’m still kinda new here, she offered, with a hesitant smile to what Mara knew was a wild look on her face.

Glancing at the total on the register, she plopped down ten dollars before grabbing the delicately designed paper bag with her treat inside and leaving.

The romance of the cold night was gone now. Gulping in the biting air, her body’s temperature stiflingly hot, she forbade herself to look behind her and see if he followed. By the time she neared the parking garage, her keys were between her fingers like an animal’s claws.

Just in case.

Oh my God, just in case! What is going on? It must be some sick coincidence. I must be making more out of this than there really is. Things like this happen in tv dramas.. I don’t recognize him at all.

Never had Mara been one of those women who locked the car