Bait and Switch by Sharon Healy-Yang

Author:Sharon Healy-Yang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TouchPoint Press
Published: 2021-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

It was late, but some cars still passed below, their taped headlights barely cutting strips of fuzzy light into the fog. The haze was deeper over the river, consigning to a rolling gray limbo anything beyond the steel scaffolding near the Brooklyn Bridge promenade. As soon as Crawford said that they hadn’t been followed, that it was safe to stop and rest, Jessica seized the moment to take five. There’d been too much dashing about tonight for anyone not named Seabiscuit. Leaning wearily against the rail, she tried to catch her breath.

Crawford had unobtrusively turned away from her, and before Jessica recognized what he was doing he had slipped part way out of his jacket sleeve, torn open a sulfur packet, and shook it into his wound.

“Your arm? How is it?” Jess questioned, concerned, leaning toward Crawford to check.

But he waved her back with, “It’s not pretty, but it’s not bad. Don’t worry. As I said, I’ve had far worse. I’m done, anyway. I can bandage it up better when I light somewhere.”

His arm back in his jacket sleeve, Crawford leaned against the railing and commented, “I don’t mind a bit of a breather myself, now. How about you, any better?”

Jess nodded, trying hard not to shake as her adrenaline drained away. Crawford’s mustache quirked into a smile, and she realized he was probably thinking that this was one of the few times she had been at a loss for words. Jess shifted slightly to peer down at the river behind them.

Crawford was looking ahead, his attention captured by an irregular series of strange flashes haunting the fog with a distant glow.

“Lightning,” Jessica remarked.

Still observing the flashes, Crawford noted, “A bit late in the year for that sort of thing, isn’t it?”

Jessica shook her head, adding with a dry smile, “I can remember a few nights back home, in

Massachusetts, when we had storms like this.” A vague rumbling interrupted.

“Just like this,” Jess continued. “Humph, thunder in autumn. I haven’t thought about, well, there’s this old saying about the weather there....”

“If you don’t like it, wait a minute; it will change. Mark Twain, right?” Jessica’s lips turned up mischievously. “Once again, a well-read man, I see.”

Crawford smiled quietly, as if he’d let down a barrier. Then he turned back to the flashes over the river, his features suddenly haunted. Under her eyes he remained silent, his expression growing more troubled.

Finally, she ventured, “Does the storm remind you of the blitz?”

Crawford didn’t bother to look at her when he answered, “There’s nothing, anywhere, like the blitz.”

“You were in London?” Jessica questioned quietly.

He pulled a flake of paint from the rail before answering quickly, but with control, “London, Coventry—or what’s left of them.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Crawford. I didn’t mean to press you on something painful.”

Crawford faced Jessica and explained, with a bitter smile, “It’s not actually a matter of pain. You learn to live with certain things, accept them, or at least stop thinking about them. To face seeing your homeland, your people, smashed and battered.

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