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Marianne ascended the stairs of the train station and hurried down the white streets of the Upper East Side, passing women in coats that pinched in at their tiny waists, snug and well-insulated as flattering cocoons, as they made the short trip between shop and townhouse. For longer journeys, these women concealed themselves behind the tinted windows of the large black SUVs that now clogged the streets, causing the horns of lesser cars to bleat their annoyance.
Marianne stopped at a building where a doorman held open a gilded door for her. In the lobby, a chandelier sagging with crystals hung over her head and the golden doors of an elevator parted. The elevator opened again, and Marianne entered a spacious apartment where a young girl was waiting for her.
Like her peers, who clustered together at 3 o’clock in sets of three and four, waiting for the black SUVs with tinted windows to pick them up on the clean-swept sidewalks in front of their private schools, this girl, at thirteen, had skin as clear and unblemished as a porcelain doll’s.
Marianne tutored her in history, at a table spread with papers, a backpack thrown on the floor between them. They bent their heads towards each other, the gray light from the tall windows laying like frost on the mahogany table, Marianne’s scribbling hand, her student’s cheek.
The girl’s mother came into the room to inform them that she was going to step out for a minute. She had on a fitted coat that pinched in at her tiny waist, snug and well-insulated as a flattering cocoon.
Marianne finished tutoring. She went back through the golden doors of the elevator and the gilded doors of the building. Outside, the cold blew through her coat as if through a mirage.
Shadows stretched from the awnings, and the mailboxes, from the women passing by in coats snug and well-insulated as flattering cocoons. And from the black SUVs with tinted windows gliding on fat rubber wheels through the streets.
About Rachel Kalina
Rachel Kalina has published fiction in Cornice Magazine and articles in Our Town and The West Side Spirit, two New York City-based newspapers. Originally from New York, she now lives in Chicago.
