Look Closer(4)

I find the silver Mercedes coupe and pull out my key. After a glance around, I run the key along the side of the car, a hideous scrape across the driver’s-side panel.

Sorry about that, Dean.

Now for that haircut.

? ? ?

And thus I go, a dressed-down associate professor off to have the old Russian guy named Ygor (seriously) cut my hair, lest the faculty at my law school think I’m less than tenure quality because my hair is too long. Not that it matters—apparently, I’m withdrawing my application.

The afternoon is steamy hot as I work through the crowd on Michigan Avenue, tourists and rich people and street performers and the homeless, the Magnificent Mile. Though they should really rethink that name these days. But I have more important issues on my mind.

Why do privileged old white men in black robes get to decide what it’s like to be an African American kid stopped on the street by a cop? Why can’t our state supreme court admit that they have the “innocent construction” rule in defamation cases backward? Why does the word “queue” have not only four consecutive silent letters, which is bad enough, but also the same ones repeated? What, they weren’t silent enough the first time through?

Deep thoughts, all of them, as I get within a block of the barbershop at 900 North.

And then I stop moving, my feet planting in the crosswalk, someone bumping into me from behind and forcing me to stumble forward a step.

Because I feel it. I feel you, I swear I do, before I actually see you, walking out of the Bloomingdale’s building. The shape of your head, maybe. The curve of your chin. The way you purse your lips in concentration. Something that defines you as you, even nineteen years later. Something that screams Lauren—

Lauren.

Lauren.

Hey, Simon, how are you?

Great, Lauren. How are you?

—before you fully turn in my direction, wearing those oversize sunglasses like Audrey Hepburn.

? ? ?

It’s you. Your hair is longer and a shade blonder, but it’s you.

You step into the crosswalk, a bounce in your stride, confident like someone accustomed to moving through a crowd without making eye contact with the numerous pairs of eyes on her. Your lips are moving. I don’t see a phone, but when the wind carries your hair, I see an AirPod tucked in your ear.

My usual move when I want to avoid someone—the phone. Plant it against your ear, duck your head like reception is bad and you’re trying to hear. I’ve avoided hundreds of conversations that way in the hallways of my law school.

But I don’t reach for my phone.

I should move, not just stand there in the middle of the crosswalk like a small inlet amid a sea of pedestrians passing me on both sides. I should walk toward you as confidently as you walk toward me, but I can’t. I’m on system shutdown. My feet not moving. My pulse pounding between my ears. My insides stripped raw.

I think I catch a whiff of your perfume as you pass me. You changed it.

You don’t notice me. Probably the swarm of people conceals me, or you’re concentrating on your phone conversation. Or maybe you wouldn’t have noticed me even if you saw me. I’m a distant memory to you. Am I?

I turn and follow you.

“Um, no thanks. It’s called having some dignity?” you say as a question that isn’t really a question. Then you laugh.

The laugh hasn’t changed. It’s you.

You’re wearing a pink dress that compliments your figure. You’re carrying two shopping bags. You have money. That’s no surprise. You have a big rock on your finger. That’s no surprise, either. You never had trouble drawing the attention of wealthy men.

Tap you on the shoulder, Hey, stranger, remember me?

Grab you by the arm, HEY, LAUREN, REMEMBER ME?

I’m too close, so I drop back.

People look at you. Of course, they do. Men and women. You’re a work of art. You must know that. You don’t break stride.

My legs like foam. Bile in the back of my mouth.

You cross Chicago Avenue and turn into a building.

If I walk into that building, into what I assume is the lobby of a condo building, I can’t be anonymous. People don’t casually walk into lobbies of private residential buildings.

But I don’t care. I push through the revolving door about five seconds after you do, just enough time so you won’t see me. I walk into comforting air-conditioning, a sleek, polished, ornate lobby of a fancy downtown condo building.

“Mrs. Betancourt!” says the man standing behind the desk. “Are you here for the weekend?”

“Just dropping some things off, Charlie,” you say. “How are the kids?”

Betancourt. Betancourt.

You got married, Lauren.

I head back outside into the searing heat, people crossing my path from both sides, jostling me, my foot dropping down off the sidewalk into the street, a car horn blaring at me—

I step back, narrowly missing the taxi heading southbound on Michigan Avenue.

I put my hand on a parked car for balance, the engine hot.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Another cabbie, idling at the curb, sticks his head out the window.

I raise my hand in apology, stumble back to the sidewalk, not sure which way to turn.

I shake my head and whisper, “Betancourt. Betancourt.”

Betancourt Betancourt Betancourt Betancourt.