EQMM 2007-01 by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

Author:Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine [Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

With the Rich, a Little Patience

by John Van Kirk

John Van Kirk teaches writing and literature at Marshall University in West Virginia. His short stories and essays have appeared in The Hudson Review, The New York Times Magazine, West Branch, and Paragraph, as well as in several anthologies. “Newark Job,” his first published story, won an O. Henry Award in 1993. He makes his EQMM debut here with a Christmas story with an O. Henry-like twist at the end.

Have you ever even lied to anybody? Did you ever just take something… you know, just because you wanted it? Christ, Little Ms. Perfect, did you ever do anything bad in your life?”

Nobody had ever spoken to Emily like that before, or nobody but her father, and he never would have asked those questions, but now, finally, secure in her seat on the train, her Christmas boxes tucked around her, she had time to think about what her boss was trying to tell her when he had called her into his office an hour before. “I’m not saying you have to have larceny in your heart,” Wade had gone on, “but, my God, you have to want something, you have to have hunger. If you go on like this, you’re going to give away everything we have.”

The train gave its first soft lurch and Emily looked up to see a hugely pregnant woman in a threadbare red coat teetering toward the open seat next to her. She had that glow people say some pregnant women have, and Emily said to herself, This is a beautiful woman, this is a beautiful pregnant woman steering her way toward me, and she started clearing her parcels from the empty seat to make room, another act of generosity that Wade wouldn’t approve of. Although she only saw Wade at work, she could easily imagine him on the train: He wouldn’t invite this girl, for as she drew closer she was revealed to be quite young, younger by ten years than Emily herself… Wade would never invite this girl to sit beside him; he would guard his space until he had no choice but to surrender it, and then he would manage to give it to a thin person who wouldn’t encroach on his breathing room.

“Permiso. Gracias. Thank you,” the young woman said as she settled herself and several shopping bags next to Emily.

“You’re welcome,” Emily said. “De nada.”

“You speak Spanish? ¿Usted habla Español?” the woman said.

“Yes. Sí, sí, algo.”

Suddenly a torrent of rapid-fire Spanish poured from the young woman. Emily could just keep up. “Could you watch my things a moment?” the young woman asked. “I must find a bathroom,” and she indicated her belly. “I can’t go ten minutes these days.”

Ill at ease with the responsibility of guarding the young woman’s possessions, but unable to say no, Emily stretched her arm across the seat next to her, and tried to extend her sense of property over all that it contained. The train had pulled out of the station, and was lumbering through the dark underground passageways that led out of the city.

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