Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

Molly wondered what he meant about Charlie liking the cafeteria. She casually asked her brother where he had lunch on the days he had writing class. “The school cafeteria, of course,” he said, looking at her as if it was the dumbest question he’d ever heard. “They’ve got excellent food.”

Molly found someone to fill in for her at T.G.I. Friday’s and e-mailed Nick that she could meet him in the school cafeteria at one. She wondered if this would be purely social or if Nick wanted to talk about Charlie. Maybe he expected Charlie there, too. It wasn’t quite clear. No, it’s a date or at least a semi-date , she told herself. Charlie worked at the Jewel on Mondays. Even if it was just a cafeteria in a community college, she was considering this a date.

Molly received her copy of The Eskimo Pie Breakfast from UPS late Monday morning. She brought it along when she caught the El to Evanston. The overcast skies looked ominous, as if it might snow at any minute. While waiting for a cab at the Evanston station, Molly decided to call Charlie at the Jewel, just to double-check that he wasn’t part of this lunch with Nick.

“You want to talk to Charlie Wright?” asked the woman who picked up the phone at the store.

“Yes, this is his sister,” Molly said into her cell. She covered her other ear as the El started up with a roar.

“Charlie quit,” the woman told her. “He hasn’t been here in — like — two weeks. In fact, we have his last paycheck here. Do you want us to mail it to him?”

Baffled, Molly asked to talk to Charlie’s boss. He got on the line and confirmed that Charlie had given his notice: “He just waltzed in here late two Fridays ago and said he was finished,” the man told her. “He said he’s going to publish a book — or something like that.”

Molly wondered what the hell Charlie was thinking. Where had he been every workday for the last two weeks?

No cabs were stopping, and while she stood there stranded, it started to snow. By the time a taxi pulled over, and she ducked into the backseat, Molly was frazzled. She remembered what Nick had said in his e-mail: The cafeteria here at the school isn’t bad, and as you must know, Charlie seems to like it. She figured her brother must have been hanging out at the community college’s cafeteria all this time, maybe writing his stories or chatting up the other students and the cafeteria workers. He had a way of starting conversations with total strangers wherever he went. About one time in twelve he’d hit the jackpot and find someone who actually didn’t mind talking with him.

She was furious at Charlie for quitting his job and not telling her. Plus the people at the Jewel had been so good to him. Not many places would hire someone like Charlie. What was she going to do with him now?

About six blocks from the college, the snow became thicker, and Molly realized that this date with Nick would almost certainly include her now-unemployed brother. That was one more reason to be furious at Charlie.

And now that she thought about it, she was pretty mad at her mother, too. Why did she have to look after Charlie while her mother played shuffleboard with friends down in Vero Beach? Wasn’t she allowed to have a life? She remembered how her mother had planned to stick Charlie in that horrible halfway house. “Well, it’s either that or you’ll have to be responsible for him, dear,” she remembered her mother saying. “I simply can’t do it anymore.”

Molly glanced at her wristwatch: ten after one. She was already late for this stupid lunch meeting.

Two blocks from the college, the taxi’s windshield wipers had fanned a clearing on the snow-covered glass. Molly noticed something that looked like an accident on the road ahead, right in front of the community college. Ambulances and about a dozen police cars — their red strobes swirling — had arrived on the scene. At least a hundred people stood huddled in the snow just outside the school.

“This is Chicago,” the taxi driver muttered. “You’d think some of these idiots on the road would learn how to drive in the snow. Looks like a pile-up ahead. We’ll get caught in this gridlock if we keep going.”

“It’s okay,” Molly said, reaching for her purse. “I can get out and walk from here.” She paid the man, thanked him, and climbed out of the taxi. With Nick’s book tucked inside her coat, Molly treaded through the snow toward the school. The sidewalk was already starting to get slippery. She didn’t see a car wreck ahead — just the emergency vehicles, and all the bystanders. What were they gaping at?

As she got closer to the school, Molly passed several people who weren’t wearing jackets. They huddled together on the sidewalk and the snow-covered grass. Molly spotted a policeman escorting a young woman to an ambulance, and she was crying hysterically. She wasn’t wearing a jacket, either. There was blood on her white blouse.

“What’s going on?” Molly asked a thin, young Asian man who stood shivering in his shirt and jeans. He clutched some schoolbooks to his chest.

“They evacuated the school,” he said. “There was a shooting in the cafeteria.”

“What?” Molly murmured. Nick Sorenson was waiting for her there — probably with Charlie. She could just see her brother trying to be a hero in a situation like this and getting himself shot. “Do you know if anyone’s hurt?” Molly asked him, panic-stricken. “I think my brother’s in the cafeteria. Do you know what happened?”

“I was there!” gasped a short young woman with stringy blond hair. Tears streaming down her face, she stood beside Molly. She was in a short-sleeved blouse, and she frantically rubbed her bare arms. “I saw it all,” she cried. “This guy walked in the cafeteria and just started shooting people! I don’t know who he was — some creepy guy in a Hells Angels jacket. He pulled out a gun and just started shooting. . ”

Molly shook her head. She told herself she hadn’t heard it right. She glanced around at the police cars and ambulances. In the distance, someone gave instructions over a static-laced police radio. TV-news vans were just arriving on the scene. Molly gazed at the crying, shivering, scared people. She could hear their sobbing. Her brother couldn’t have been responsible for all this.

“How many people did he kill?” Molly heard someone ask.

“At least seven are down, maybe more,” answered an older man standing nearby.

Molly turned toward him. “Do you know what happened to the man doing the shooting? Do the police have him?”

Frowning, the older man shook his head. “A security guard shot the son of a bitch. He’s dead, thank God.”

The man turned away.

Molly numbly stared at his back as he threaded through the crowd. Then she glanced up at the snow. She felt the cold, wet flakes on her face.

Nick Sorenson’s book slipped from under her coat and landed in a puddle on the ground. Molly’s legs buckled.

She had no memory of collapsing and hitting her forehead on the sidewalk. She barely remembered them sewing up the gash at the hospital. Four stitches — the doctor did an exceptional job. Within a few months, the scar disappeared completely.

It was the only thing that ever really healed from that day.

Rubbing her forehead, Molly shifted in the cushioned chair in Lynette Hahn’s living room. She glanced up at Lieutenant Chet Blazevich, standing by Lynette’s fireplace, giving his talk. His pale green eyes seemed to stare right through her, and Molly realized she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. Blinking, she straightened in the chair.

She felt clammy and light-headed, and hoped to God her morning sickness wasn’t coming back. She didn’t want anyone here putting two and two together and guessing she was pregnant. She would have hated for Lynette, Angela, and company to know about the baby before Jeff.