The Chinese cop had given Allegra her home number. Allegra still had it with her. The call box was right there, right near, where she was sitting. It was painted dark green and had a plaque that read "Gift of Central Park Conservancy" on it. She thought of calling the police on the phone. The detective had seemed very nice, understanding. Allegra wondered if she should call her and explain everything.

But what could she say? If she hadn't spooked Maslow, he wouldn't have had to avoid her. He wouldn't have had to run away. He would just have jogged right back out of the park as he was supposed to. She didn't understand why he hadn't just jogged back. He was angry at her, but he would never run away.

She didn't understand him at all. He was so rigid, just like her father. He hadn't let her explain last night. But the truth was Maslow never let her explain. He just never let her. No matter how hard she tried, he wouldn't let her take her story where it needed to go.

It made her sick to think that he was in the dark about so many things. And now he might never know her. Allegra sat there for a long time struggling with emotions that were too big to hold inside her. She loved her mother, loved her so much right at that moment. She wished she could go home and tell her mother everything. But her mother would be so angry. Her mother believed intelligent people should solve their own problems. Her father felt even stronger about it. He was almost a maniac about it. They both believed that psychiatrists were the very last resort, only for people who were really crazy. Allegra wasn't really crazy. Ordinary people like them could get over anything. Her mother wanted Allegra to just get over it, just get on with her life. She'd be furious, just furious at what

Allegra had done to get relief. So many lies her parents and she had told, and for what, so that she could expose them all in the end? No, she couldn't tell her mother.

There was another reason Allegra could not leave her bench and return home to her real identity. She was afraid to go on the subway. She couldn't go down those stairs and face the train tonight. Now she had even more reason to kill herself.

Allegra was in a state of extreme agitation when she saw the shadows of the two kids slinking into the park. Boy and girl. The boy, very big. The girl, little, like her. She frowned in the dark. She'd seen them last night. They'd come out of the park while she was waiting for Maslow to return. They'd been a mess. She remembered their wet sneakers, squishing as they walked past her. Again, she thought of calling the detective. Maybe they had seen Maslow. But she didn't call the police, and she was too tired to follow their fast pace. She moved to another bench and waited for them to come back.

Thirty

Tanice Owen got home from work at eleven. The apartment was dark. She picked up the phone. There were no messages, not even from her husband, Bill. In the kitchen was a note left for David by Alvera, the housekeeper they'd had since David was two. The note read, "I waited to six. Can't wait no more. Pills came"- arrow to the refill of David's antidepressant, Zoloft, from the drugstore on the counter-"Your dinner in fridge, microwave five minutes. It's your favorite, chili. Alvera."

Janice was annoyed. She had to be a damn detective to find out what was going on with everybody. She read the note, furious on two counts. Alvera was supposed to stay until David got home so David wouldn't have to eat alone every night. As a devoted mother, Janice took a lot of care to make sure she had these things covered. She didn't like it when her carefully arranged schedule didn't work out according to plan. Now she finds out Alvera had left early again, and probably had counted on David to cover for her. The fact that the note was still sitting there meant either David had come home and left again because no one was home, or David had not come home and eaten his dinner and he'd lied when they'd talked on the phone. She'd spoken to him at seven during the cocktail hour before her business dinner. He'd told her then he was on his way home. But who knew with him.

These last few years David had been a huge pain in the neck. He wasn't "flourishing," so said the idiots at his fancy school. They'd wanted to kick him out. She and Bill had vigorously opposed hurting David in that way, so they'd had dozens of meetings with counselors, and testers, and psychiatrists to get David back on track. They wanted and expected and needed a kid who "flourished" just the way they had. The kid was loved and cared for. There was no reason for him not to do well.

She was most gratified to find out that the important tests, the intelligence ones, showed that David was smart, not stupid. He just didn't concentrate well. He was depressed. They'd gotten him one of the best psychiatrists, referred by the counselor at school, an expert on Attention Deficit Disorders. The psychiatrist prescribed medications; the school had been appeased by David's test scores and granted him a stay of execution. After all her hard work promoting David's cause to the school, plus their investment of thousands of dollars in fees for tests and consultations, diagnosis, medication, and treatment, Janice had been confident they'd finally gotten everything worked out last spring. He'd done well at camp.

But now in only the second week of school David was starting to slip already. She was very angry at him for letting her down. She couldn't bear the idea of starting the year like this and having him get behind again. She didn't need this.

Before she'd gotten home, Janice had felt successful. She'd left the office early to have a forty-minute massage, a facial, and her hair blow-dried for the event that evening. At the dinner, she'd been complimented on her new red-and-black Escada suit that her sales consultant at the Fifty-seventh Street store had advised her to take even though Janice had been afraid the standout color was something of a risk. Elaine of Escada, who was well informed on these matters, had insisted that combinations of red, gray, and black were going to be the power colors this season. The whole of last year had been gray, gray, gray, completely unrelieved, and it had been a horrible, difficult year all around. The color of spring and summer had been pink, pink, pink everywhere. She didn't wear pink. Since Janice was afraid she'd lose her job in the new merger, she'd taken the plunge for red. Yesterday her boss and associates had liked the suit, so she felt hopeful if they didn't get fired, she wouldn't get fired. At dinner, she'd enjoyed the wine and the food.

But now she was upset again. She did not want to be upset with her wonderful courageous David-who had a problem flourishing because of his ADD, which made her feel guilty because she had no idea where it came from since she and Bill were so very focused-so she played detective and looked in the fridge for the chili. She knew if he'd eaten it that he had come home after speaking to her. She hoped this was the case. Unfortunately, the chili was still there, wrapped in plastic wrap, sprinkled with cheese and onions the way he liked it. David was a big eater, despite the terrible pain he had from the awful Ritalin all the doctors bar none said he had to take to concentrate on his schoolwork. If David had come home, he would have eaten the chili. Janice wandered into her son's room, her pleasure in the wonderful evening draining away with every passing minute. "Jesus!"

There was clutter everywhere. Toys from when David was ten. Pennants from camp. Books, papers, used and unused athletic equipment. Even though Alvera cleaned it up and changed the sheets every week, it smelled horrible. Stale, sweaty boy smell and who knew what else. It occurred to her that she should search his room for signs of drug use. All the ads about kids said she ought to be thinking about this, and she knew other mothers who probed and pried constantly. But David said the idea of drugs disgusted him, and that was good enough for her.