Vanessa by Janis Hubschman
The newlyweds had a rough summer, moneywise. Vanessa was laid off from her art therapist’s job at the women’s prison, and her husband’s draftsman’s hours were scaled back at the engineering firm. But they were young, twenty-seven, and still sanguine about their earning future, and so they went ahead with plans to renovate the kitchen in their new house, a former fisherman’s shack in the lower Hudson Valley. They gamely coped through the first weeks of construction, washing dishes in the bathroom sink, ordering takeout or grilling burgers in the backyard. But when heavy rains hit the East Coast in September, and the basement flooded and the roof leaked, Vanessa insisted they reallocate their kitchen renovation funds.
After dinner in their damp living room, Julian phoned the kitchen contractor, who happened to be his best buddy. “Sorry about this, Siggy,” he said. “Maybe we can hold onto the floor tiles in case our situation changes.”
Vanessa sent her husband a questioning look. The stacked cartons blocked their refrigerator. What the hell was he thinking?
“Or maybe not,” he amended with a grimace. “If you can get our money back, that’d be great. We need it for a new roof.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Hey, Sig, why didn’t you talk me out of buying this crappy shack?”
Julian had discovered the one-bedroom house, a casualty of subdivision, on one of his training runs, and he’d lobbied hard for it, deflecting all of Vanessa’s practical concerns about the house’s size and disrepair with his renovation fantasies. And now he had the nerve to bad-mouth it? Annoyed, she carried the empty pizza box into the dusty wreck of their galley kitchen. Julian followed, making sympathetic noises into his phone. He tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention, and then twisted a knuckle in his eye to mime crying.
“Oh, please,” she said at a loud volume. “Tell Siggy we’ve got a tarp on the roof. Our basement’s a freaking swimming pool.”
“Hear that, Sig? Sorry, dude.” He gave a nervous chuckle. “Unless you want the roofing job.”
“Seriously?” She dropped the pizza box on the plywood floor and stomped it flat for recycling, making a racket, until Julian fled the room. He should renovate his life instead of this worthless house, she thought. He was only a few credits shy of receiving his architecture degree, when he ran out of money and quit school. They’d both experienced setbacks. Five years ago, she took out a loan for a master’s in art therapy after the Piermont gallery owner vanished with her money and unsold bowls.
She went out the screen door with the pizza box and shoved it into the recycling bin. At six o’clock, the sun was just setting, turning the grass and trees golden. In two weeks, they’d change the clocks and darkness would seep into the house by late afternoon. Time, like money, was something she never had enough of. She sat on the porch step and opened the top button on her jeans. Ten days late with her period. Too early to affect her waistline. Stress eating was probably to blame for her bloat. Deep breaths, she told herself. Don’t catastrophize. She leaned back on her elbows to watch a wren fly in and out of her neighbor’s eaves with strands of pale grass dangling from its beak. She was no ornithologist, but wasn’t autumn the wrong season for building nests?
Later that evening, Vanessa pulled on rubber boots and joined Julian in their flooded basement. The physical effort of sweeping water towards the new sump pump aggravated her neck and shoulders, tight from a long day bent over a freelance assignment. The basement smelled of mildew, and now she worried about black mold, the cost of removing it.
“Hey, Vanessa,” Julian called from across the basement. “Why can’t Siggy do our roof? He needs work, and we need a roof. It’s a win-win.”
“He’s not a roofer. Actually, dude, a win-win would be Siggy giving you a job. Why aren’t you looking for freelance drafting gigs?”
“I told you,” he said through clenched teeth, “we’re bidding on other projects. My situation could change.”
“Yeah, you could be out of a job.”
“What happened to you, Vanessa?”
“What do you mean?” She saw him taking in her flabby belly, the blue streaks growing out in her choppy blond hair, and her nose ring, an artifact from her art student days she wasn’t ready to part with.
“When did you become such a scaredy-cat? You used to be more fun.”
“You think I like working and worrying all the time? If we didn’t blow our savings on the down payment, we could be coasting now.” To make the mortgage payments, she’d sacrificed her shared ceramist studio in Nyack. No more weekends and evenings creating art, no more tequila and weed breaks with her studio mates. Now, after losing the prison job, she rarely left the house. Alone day after day, speeding on caffeine, she churned out freelance assignments.
“What do you want, Vanessa?” he said, sounding exasperated but also interested. “What would make you happy again?”
“Well, for one thing, I want you to shave that stupid goatee. You look like a leprechaun.”
He laughed. “I’m your lucky charm—”
“And I don’t want to be the warden anymore,” she continued. “It’s not fair that I have to be the responsible one, shooting down all your crazy ideas.”
“What’s crazy about helping a friend?” He resumed sweeping but more vigorously.
“It’s like that stupid oxygen mask analogy,” she told him. “We can’t help other people if we can’t breathe.”
“My breathing’s fine. Just because you made yourself the warden, Vanessa, doesn’t mean I have to be your prisoner.”
They went to bed without speaking. Their first fight as a married couple. It felt momentous, a turning point. The next morning, she woke up in their bed alone, not unusual, but today his absence felt like a rebuke—for what? —for not giving Siggy the roofing job? Or was that her own conscience needling her?
Later that morning, when she returned from one of her temporary jobs—driving the Russo kid to her private school—the light blinked on her answering machine in the kitchen. Her mood lifted with the prospect of a truce.
“I am Agent John King from the IRS,” the voice on her machine growled in what sounded like an Eastern European accent. “This is our final attempt to contact you before we take legal action.”
Any other person might have panicked, but she’d been hoping for a call like this ever since her sister received a similar one last winter. She replayed the message, copying the phone number on the pregnancy test kit bought on her way home from the school run. She picked up the phone, a wall-mounted original, and called the D.C. number: busy signal. Disappointed, she filled the kettle and set it on the hotplate.
Scaredy-cat, Julian had called her. Screw that. It had taken guts to work with those cynical inmates (so many, victims of poverty and abuse). The guards were no easier: they’d called her Smurf and Michelangelo. And, it took guts to juggle freelance projects and chauffer a wealthy woman’s kid, while searching for another art therapist’s position.
In the bathroom, she ripped open the test kit and glanced at the instructions. She’d had pregnancy scares before, but this time felt different, and she hoped against hope for a negative result. Aside from their tight finances and living quarters, she worried about her maternal fitness. She liked children, or at least she thought she did, until her current nannying job for Cassidy Russo, who droned on about ponies, and Vanessa had to pinch her own thigh to keep from screaming.
She balanced the wet test stick on the pedestal sink and yanked up her jeans. The phone rang in the kitchen, and she ran to answer it. The gruff voice startled her when she’d expected her husband’s stumbling apology. The caller identified himself as Agent John King, badge number ISN60602. Next, he stated her full name and the last four digits of her social to verify her identity.
“Yep. That’s me.” She cradled the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she spooned coffee grounds into the French press.
“You owe government five thousand dollars due to miscalculations on tax returns from 2020 through 2023,” he said. “We sent notification in May. Your failure to respond will be used in a lawsuit against you.”
“A lawsuit? Oh, my god, I don’t want a lawsuit.” This was fun! Like her college improv class where she’d controlled the script.
“Payment must be made today. If you don’t cooperate, we will contact your county sheriff.”
“Oh no, not the sheriff!” The kettle screeched on the hotplate as though to underline her horror. “Please, tell me what to do, Agent King.”
She had two options, he told her: use a pre-paid debit card or wire transfer the five thousand to the special IRS account, but she knew another way, one suggested by the resourceful “agent” who’d contacted her sister.
“I don’t have a debit card,” she said, “but I could get a money order at the Rockland Walmart on Geary Road, and meet you there in two hours.”
He asked her to hold. She moved to the window. The wrens’ nest bulged from her neighbor’s eaves. The nights were growing chillier. What were those birds thinking? Agent King returned to say he’d consult with his supervisor and call back within the hour.
She carried her coffee mug to the drafting table in her bedroom and opened her laptop. Last January, after Vanessa’s sister came close to losing seven grand to her phony IRS agent, the siblings fantasized several revenge scenarios. And, now she would put one into action. To create a counterfeit document, she needed the internet, Photoshop, and good quality stock. On Pinterest, she found a clear image of a Walmart money order and set to work doctoring the fonts and watermark, skills she’d learned from Faith, an incarcerated forger. For the heat-sensitive fraud protection patch, Vanessa would use the holographic rainbow tape leftover from the arts-and-crafts party she’d thrown for Cassidy’s seventh birthday. A half hour later, she retrieved the two-sided color copy from the printer. Not up to Faith’s standards, but convincing enough. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when the crook tried to cash it.
The phone rang in the kitchen, and she ran to answer it.
“Here’s what you must to do,” Agent King said as soon as she picked up. “You must obtain a postal money order—”
“But postal money orders have a seven-hundred-dollar limit. I’d need eight.” Inside info from Faith the forger, who’d also revealed that the postal money order, with its Ben Franklin watermarks and ultra-violet security strips, was the most difficult financial document to fake, which explained why the “supervisor” preferred it.
“Regular money order then.” He sounded rushed and huffy. “Be at CVS on Route 303 at 12:15—”
“CVS? Why not Walmart?”
A knock at the door. The shadow of Bigfoot loomed behind the screen. She shrank back into the hallway, stretching the phone cord to its limit. The con artist knew her name and number, the last digits of her social, so why not her address? Stay calm, she told herself. Keep him talking on the landline, while calling 911 on her cell, which was— shit—in the charger on the countertop. “Fine, CVS,” she said.
He asked for her cell number, and she reluctantly supplied it. The gorilla pressed his forehead against the screen, flattening his nose. Siggy! She opened the door for her husband’s friend, index finger pressed to her lips.
To Agent King, she said, “Please sir, I’m begging you, give me more time.”
Siggy stared at her, mouth open, and then catching himself, turned to the stacked cartons.
“Fifteen minutes more,” King said. “After twelve-thirty, we’ll call sheriff.”
She felt obliged to gasp.
“I’m taking these babies off your hands,” Siggy told her after she’d ended the call. “Me and the tile guy worked it out. You’ll get a refund.” He rotated his thick neck, and then bent over the boxes, his T-shirt straining against his broad back and shoulders. Ordinarily, his visits cost her something—extra burgers on the grill or less room on the couch when he came to watch a ballgame—but now she realized he could be an asset. Agent King would not be expecting a man built like a linebacker.
“Hey, Sig, you have time to help me out?”
He straightened and wiped his hands on his baggy cargo shorts. “I got nothing but time,” he said, with no trace of resentment. She promised to explain everything in the car. While he loaded the cartons into his truck, she returned to her laptop and swapped out the Walmart logo with CVS on the money order. She printed out the new copy and shoved it into her canvas messenger bag, along with the holographic tape and a pair of scissors. When she returned to the kitchen, Siggy and the cartons were gone. The toilet flushed, the pipes knocked in the wall, and he appeared with a sheepish smile. “Uh, Vanessa?”
“Again?” she said. “Hold on, I’ll get the plunger—”
“No, not that.” He blushed. “The pregnancy thingy?”
“Oh!” She took a step back, startled that she’d repressed something so big. “Don’t say a word, Sig.” She averted her face and waved her hands. “I’m not ready. Not yet.”
Siggy looked miserable stuffed into her Honda Fit. His forearms rested on her messenger bag, and his knees bumped the glove compartment. He lowered his window. A blast of warm, gritty air filled the car. She knew him well enough to guess he wanted to talk about the pregnancy test.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she shouted over the rumble of trucks, “but it’s a bad time for a baby. We’ve got a shit ton of money troubles. You’d never know that talking to Julian. He’s your typical glass half-full guy. He’s always saying everything’s gonna work out, just because he wants it to—”
“Do you mind telling me where we’re going?” he said.
“We’re going to even the score. That’s where we’re going.” As she filled him in on the scammer’s call, he sent her uneasy glances.
“How do you know it’s not for real?” he said.
“Because it happened to my sister. You remember Gina?”
“You mean the sister who won’t return my calls?” he asked.
At Vanessa’s wedding, Gina and Siggy had shared a drunken kiss in the stairwell. Later, Vanessa advised her sister to steer clear, citing Siggy’s unsteady employment.
“My sister’s pretty busy. Did you know she’s a dressmaker?”
“We didn’t get that far,” he said.
“Just between you and me, she gives discounts to cash-paying customers, which means her accounting’s a little fuzzy at tax time. That’s why she fell for the con. If you can believe it, she was in the Walmart parking lot with seven grand stuffed in a plastic bag, when she came to her senses and called her accountant. You know what he told her? He told her the IRS never, ever phones.”
Her cell phone buzzed in her messenger bag on his lap. “Get that,” she said. “It’s probably him. Outside pocket.” He poked his big mitt into the wrong pocket before he found the right one. “It’s Julian,” he said, reading the screen. “He says you owe him an apology.”
“He owes me an apology. Text him that.” She gave Siggy her password, her wedding date, and watched him type with one thick index finger, his pinky raised. “Tell Julian he has to stop making stupid decisions, or we’ll be living in a cardboard box down by the river.”
He gawped at her. She snatched the phone away and read what he’d written: Sorry plus three heart emoticons. “What the hell, Sig?”
“I hate seeing you guys fight. You’re so great together. I love the way you’re always trying to make each other laugh. And, you really listen to each other.”
“Well, he’s not listening now.”
“What are you fighting about anyways?”
“You, Sig. We’re fighting about you. My true-blue husband wants you to do our roofing job.”
Traffic slowed. They’d entered the business district during the lunch-hour exodus from the office buildings. The speedometer registered twenty as her car inched towards the strip mall, the tall red CVS sign a beacon in the near distance. A horn blast made her jump. She raised her eyes to the mirror and saw a blue Chevy Impala; the driver, a weasel-faced blond guy, honked the horn again. Where did he expect her to go? Like everyone else, she was trapped. She jerked the wheel to the right and drove in the narrow shoulder, tapping her tinny horn in warning. She entered the strip mall lot and searched for a parking space. The outdoor Starbucks tables were filled with children and the women who looked after them. These women had the same dead-eyed look as Vanessa’s incarcerated clients. They gave an impression of dreary confinement, of waiting for something to change.
A van backed out of a space in front of CVS, and she braked for it. The blue Impala from the highway pulled up behind her, and the driver gunned his engine, little growls of impatience. She took her sweet time backing into the vacated space. When the car sped off, Siggy flashed his middle finger, making her laugh. She placed her cell on the dash and lifted the messenger bag from his lap.
“What’s your plan anyways?” he said. “Do you even have one?”
“Of course. When he makes contact, you sneak over and take his picture. Get his license plate, too. I’ll follow up with this.” She pulled the money order out of her bag with a flourish. He gaped at the counterfeit document, no doubt impressed with her Photoshop skills.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Vanessa,” he said, “but are you out of your fucking mind? These people are mobsters. They kill for sport.”
“You watch way too many cop shows.” She took her scissors from the bag and started to cut out the money order. “Don’t forget, I worked with convicts. You wouldn’t believe the stories, the lack of planning, the dumb mistakes. We’d make better criminals,” she said, waggling the scissors back and forth between them. “We can think two, three, even four steps ahead. But that’s precisely why we’re not criminals.”
“You only know people who got caught,” he said. “And, for your information, I’m not doing your roof. I’d never take advantage of my friend that way. But you? You’re about to ruin his life. What the hell, Vanessa, you’re a forger now?”
“Don’t be so dramatic. I won’t be the one trying to cash this.” She watched the Impala roll past for the second time. “What’s his problem? There’s loads of empty spaces.” And then it came to her. “He’s looking for us. Quick, get a picture.”
They reached at the same time for the phone and knocked it off the dashboard. It buzzed near her feet. As she groped the floor, the scissors slid from her lap into the crevice between her seat and the center console. She left them there and grabbed the phone. Two texts. She read them out loud: I here where u? and give location. Honk horn 3X. She hit the horn twice, but Siggy grabbed her wrist before she could hit it again.
“Hey, what are you doing?” she said. “Let go!”
He released her. “I can’t let you do this. Your plan’s never going to work. Nothing will happen to this guy. You have no evidence.”
“Who needs evidence? When he tries to cash this, the bank will call the police. If only I could just be there to see it. The only flaw in my plan.”
“The only—are you serious? Your whole plan’s flawed. It’s going to blow up in your face. You’re not thinking clearly. It’s because you’re—”
She hit the horn three times. As if in reply, a police cruiser entered the lot. A help or a hindrance? She couldn’t decide. The cop double parked and went inside Starbucks.
“Oh, will you look at that,” Siggy said, watching the Impala take off. “Too bad. I was looking forward to taking his picture.”
“Very funny.” Her phone pinged and she read her calendar reminder. “It’s just as well. I’m out of time. Cassidy’s school lets out early today.” She dropped the phone on her lap and drove towards the exit. “Do me a favor, Sig. Try not to look so happy.”
Vanessa pulled into the drive at the Hudson River Day School, an imposing gray stone building, the former country estate of some early twentieth century industrialist. Cassidy waited with a gaggle of girls dressed in maroon blazers and skirts. An enormously pregnant teacher opened the Honda’s backdoor like a valet, and Cassidy clambered into the backseat, trailing the nostalgic odors of paste and lunchbox. She shrieked at the sight of Siggy. Whenever their paths crossed at Vanessa’s house, the girl assailed him with stories and questions. Now she passed her drawing to him between the seats.
“Ponies! I didn’t know you liked ponies,” he teased.
“Seatbelt,” Vanessa instructed.
“I love ponies! I want to marry a pony!” Cassidy’s voice came out muffled as she struggled with the seatbelt. Siggy unbuckled his own belt and reached back to help her. Vanessa admired his patience. Julian was good with children, too. When he’d helped out at Cassidy’s birthday party, the kids fell in love with him. She had no doubt that he’d make a good father, but if his employer landed the bridge project, he’d have to work overtime and weekends for at least two years, and where would that leave her? In the no-fun zone, that’s where.
The phone buzzed on her lap and she read the screen, expecting to see Julian’s overdue apology, but the text came from a private number: Change plans. Meet at Rockland Walmart on Geary Road 1 p.m. Her original suggestion. She groaned.
“Everything okay?” Siggy asked, buckling up again.
“I don’t know. Ask Julian.” She blinked back tears as she drove away from the school, heading for home. An angry sadness gripped her, making her feel simultaneously edgy and drained. “Why hasn’t he texted, Sig? He must’ve read your stupid apology by now. I mean, I get it, I’m boring. All I do is work or complain about working.”
“You’re the least boring person I know.”
“But am I fun?”
“Fun?” he said, clearly afraid to put his size thirteen foot in his mouth.
“Julian says I’m not fun anymore.”
“Well, you’re pretty intense these days, but you are under a lot of pressure.”
She sent him a grateful smile. “Speaking of pressure, I have a five o’clock deadline on a project I haven’t even started yet.” Without the paycheck from ABC Awnings, she couldn’t pay her car insurance. Without insurance, she couldn’t drive Cassidy Russo around. And, without the Russo income, she couldn’t meet her mortgage payment.
“Anything I can do to help?” he said.
His kindness made her eyes fill with tears again. She made a sharp left turn, and her phone flew off her lap and onto the floor at Siggy’s feet. He bent forward to grope for it, giving her time to compose herself.
“Could you watch Cassidy at my house for a couple of hours while I work?” she said. “I’m sorry, I can’t pay you.”
“I’d be delighted,” he said.
“We can play ponies!” Cassidy shouted.
Vanessa and Siggy exchanged a look of mock horror.
“Guess what?” Cassidy said. “We learned more sign language today! Wanna see the sign for pony?” She kicked the back of Siggy’s seat, until he turned around. “See? My fingers are the ears. Feed me oats, Siggy.” She kicked his seat again.
“What did I tell you about kicking the seat?” Vanessa met the girl’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Flashing cherries turned the mirror red. A police cruiser came up fast behind her. Vanessa pulled over to the curb, holding her breath, bracing for punishment. The cruiser raced past, and she exhaled. Talk about scaredy-cats. Here she was, an upright, tax-paying citizen, cowering in her car, while the phony IRS agent escaped scot free. She slumped behind the steering wheel. Why was she giving up so easily? Double crossing the con artist was the most fun she’d had since ziplining over the Costa Rican rainforest on her honeymoon four months ago. She made a U-turn and headed in the direction of Rockland.
“Where are we?” Siggy said, looking around. They’d entered the industrial section of town.
“Shortcut,” she lied. She made the turn onto Geary Road and cruised past Len’s Auto Body, Rockland Glass and Mirror, the Yankee Kennels, and then entered the strip mall parking lot. The cracked macadam was weedy and mined with potholes.
“I read his text, Vanessa.” He clutched her phone. “Don’t do this. Think about the b-a-b-y.”
“I’m not a baby,” Cassidy said. “I’m seven, and I can spell!”
“Relax,” Vanessa told him. “He doesn’t know my car. I just want to get a look at him.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” Siggy asked. He raised his window and triggered the central lock button.
She drove past the Dollar Tree and the check cashing place, the only stores open besides Walmart. All the rest had brown butcher paper covering the windows. In a primo spot close to the Walmart entrance, the Impala idled, exhaust curling from its rusted tailpipe. Siggy, unprompted, took several pictures of the license plates.
The con artist swiveled his head to watch the Honda Fit approach, clearly convinced that another chump would surrender her life’s savings. Not this hormonal chump. Overworked and underpaid, she was carrying a whopping mortgage on a house that had sprung more leaks than the Titanic. No way would she go down with the ship without first confronting the iceberg. She pulled into the space on the Impala’s passenger side and lowered her window. The driver turned his greedy, calculating eyes to her.
“Agent King? You looking for money orders?” She reached for the messenger bag, but Siggy knocked it from his lap onto the floor and then planted his clodhoppers on top of it. She settled for flashing her middle finger. “Here you go, you blood-sucking parasite!” She threw the car in reverse and peeled out of the parking lot. Siggy gripped the dashboard and swiveled his head to look at Cassidy and then back at the road.
“He’s chasing us!” Cassidy shrieked. “Go faster!”
Vanessa tore down Geary Road with the con artist in hot pursuit. What now? A car chase hadn’t factored into any of her revenge scenarios.
“Take that exit,” Siggy said, pointing. “We’ll lose him on the highway.”
Vanessa obeyed, racing down the entrance ramp with the Impala on her tail. When it came time to merge, she lost her nerve and decelerated. Merging was her Achilles heel.
“Just get in there,” Siggy directed. “Force them to make room for you.”
She inched closer, cringing at the sound of horns and the irritation on motorists’ faces as they sped up to prevent her entry. A fellow Honda Fit driver slowed to make room for her, waving in solidarity.
“Is the bad man going to kill us?” Cassidy said as they took off down the highway.
“Don’t be silly,” Vanessa said. “He’s way back there. He’ll never catch us.” She didn’t believe that. The two-lane highway was a death trap with cars pulling in and out of shopping centers and traffic lights appearing every two hundred yards. They’d have better luck on the back roads. Within minutes, the blue sedan stalked her again like an overdue bill notice. Horns blared as she wove through the cars, trying to shake him. “Where are the cops when you need them?” she mumbled.
“Look Vanessa,” Cassidy said, “this is the sign for policeman.”
In the rearview mirror, Vanessa watched her make a C shape with her right hand and tap it twice on her chest. “It’s the policeman’s badge,” the girl announced.
“Good one to know,” Vanessa said. “What a great memory you have.” Cassidy would surely remember a car chase on the way home from school. No matter what happened, Vanessa could kiss this job good-bye.
Siggy held her phone to his ear, talking to the 911 dispatcher. “We’re heading north on 303, approaching the Webster Road exit. I can give you his registration. Hold on, I have to find the photo. It’s on this phone.”
Vanessa glanced over her shoulder at the girl, sucking on the end of her ponytail, looking worried, and she felt a sudden urge to throw herself on top of Cassidy like a protective shield. Ironic, when it was her own reckless actions that had put them all in danger.
“Red light. Red light,” Siggy shouted. She turned forward as the amber light turned red; she made a split-second decision to speed through the intersection, leaving the Impala stuck at the light. Elated and relieved, she turned to Siggy, her hand raised for a high-five.
“Stop! Stop!” he screamed, dropping the phone to brace his arms on the dashboard. She braked hard and squealed to a fishtailing stop, narrowly missing a tractor-trailer pulling onto the highway from a shopping center. All the blood left her body. She peed herself a little.
“Damn it, Vanessa.” He turned to check on Cassidy. “You okay, Pony Girl? Yeah? You sure? You look a little green around the gills.” He picked up the phone. “We got cut off. Me and the dispatcher. Doesn’t matter now. Just get us home in one piece. Can you manage that?” He lowered his window and leaned one elbow out as though to put more distance between them.
She drove under the speed limit, eyes straight ahead. Beyond her dusty windshield, the sky faded to white in the afternoon heat, cars shimmered in the sunlight, plastic bags flapped on the scraggly bushes in the median strip—all of it marvelous, a miracle. She had the wrung-out feeling that came after a long cry or a high fever. All the fight and fury and useless blame had drained away.
“Siggy?” she said. “You can have our roofing job if you need it. I trust you.”
“You don’t mean that, but thanks. I appreciate it.”
“We’re almost home,” Vanessa told Cassidy as she took the exit for her neighborhood. “You and Siggy can play ponies, while I get some work done.”
She cruised through the quiet afternoon streets, steering around two landscapers unloading mowers from the back of a red pickup, and then she slowed for a postal truck pulling away from a mailbox. Julian, her best friend, would be home from work now. Home. The word had all the appeal of a big soft feather pillow. Home could be anywhere, even a cardboard box by the river, as long as Julian was there. So what if he insisted the glass was half full, while she knew for a fact that it was half empty. As long as they were both drinking from the same glass. She turned down her street, and drove in the shade of gold and scarlet leaves, the Hudson River sparkling in the distance. Through the trees, she spotted the luminous blue roof tarp, and then her little white house came into view. Her stomach growled, asserting her body’s needs despite the circumstances.
She pulled into the gravel driveway and stopped behind Julian’s VW Rabbit and Siggy’s rusted pickup and shut off the engine. She sensed a presence behind her and checked the side mirror. The Impala blocked the entrance to the driveway. The driver showed her what looked like the snub nose of a revolver over his steering wheel.
She poked Siggy’s arm. “It’s him,” she whispered, raising her eyes to the mirror.
Siggy gave her a nod before turning to the backseat. “Get down on the floor, Pony Girl. We’re going to surprise Julian. Don’t come out until we say it’s okay.” He wedged his hand into the crevice between Vanessa’s seat and the console and wriggled out the scissors. He slipped them into the deep pocket on his cargo shorts.
The screen door flew open and Julian, her big-hearted, clean-shaven husband, ran out to meet them. He held his arms in an awkward position. He cradled an invisible baby, she realized. Their invisible baby. He stopped short, his arms falling to his sides; his goofy expression changed to confusion.
The Impala had pulled up alongside Vanessa’s car, and the driver jumped out on bandy legs, waving his gun and shouting.
Siggy locked eyes with Vanessa before handing her the phone. He opened the door and slowly unfolded his hulking frame. The criminal took a step back, his rodent features twitching. Vanessa tossed the phone to the backseat and then turning slightly, formed a C shape with her right hand, and knocked it twice against her chest. Cassidy grabbed the phone and worked her thumbs on the screen. The child would save them. Vanessa left the car, hands raised in surrender.
Janis Hubschman is the author of the story collection, Take Me With You Next Time. She has published dozens of stories in literary magazines that include, Colorado Review, Electric Literature, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Saturday Evening Post. She teaches fiction writing at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
11 September 2026
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