When No One Is Watching(24)

My phone’s screen is still frozen and I try to force restart, but the app stubbornly resists.

We pass a couple who’ve stopped to kiss in the middle of the sidewalk and I bang on the window as we fly past them, but when I look back they’re laughing and she’s giving me the finger. They didn’t see that I was trying to get help, not judging them for their PDA.

“Back in the day people didn’t take romantic walks over here. It was a good place to chat with people who didn’t understand civility, and make them understand.” He laughs, as if he’s reminiscing about something benign. “But I guess that’s the stuff people call brutality these days. People who don’t know what it takes to keep a community safe.”

I’m digging in my purse for my keys. I’m gonna have to jab one into his neck on the right, and then reach past him on the left for the master lock. I am not dying in a motherfucking Uber, at the hands of a Sox fan no less.

I slide the keys between my knuckles and flex my fingers around them, my heart thumping and my hands tingling, preparing myself to strike, but then the car pulls to an abrupt stop and I jerk forward and then back.

My keys puncture the leather at the back of the driver’s seat, leaving two small rips.

Drew looks back over his shoulder at me. “Location is a block over but this street is one-way. Hope you don’t mind walking a little, Ms. Green.”

The doors unlock and I push out of the car and jog off on wobbly legs, not bothering to close the door.

Up ahead, I see the flow of human traffic on Fulton Street and jog toward it. When I stumble out into the middle of the sidewalk, stopping short of one of the subway grates, people look at me funny but flow around me without saying anything.

I fumble with my phone, trying to take a screenshot of the frozen page with Drew’s info, but when I look at the screen, it shows the message letting me know that Terrel canceled the ride.

Shit. Shit.

I look behind me and the street is empty.

Did I imagine that whole ride? No. I can’t have. A wisp of seat stuffing is still clinging to my keys.

I think about Seattle, and Marcus looking at me quizzically when I asked him about the texts I’d seen pop up on his phone and telling me he had no idea what I was talking about.

I shake my head and compose a text message to send to Drea.

Just had a wild ass Uber ride. I thought the motherfucker was gonna kill me. He knew my last name somehow?

I look at the last message Drea sent me, in the middle of the night when I’d texted to see if she was awake after my latest nightmare.

I know you’re not feeling therapy after what happened in Seattle and everything else, but I can’t be the only one carrying this with you. I love you, but I’m stressed, too.

I delete the message I was about to send her and pull myself together. Okay. The car ride was scary but I have no evidence and nothing happened in the end—I don’t need to worry Drea, and it’s not like I can get the police involved. I’ll send a report to Uber and be more careful in the future.

I’m okay.

I’m not okay.

I call Mommy and feel a bit of relief go through me when her voicemail message plays. I don’t hang up after the beep.

“Something scary just happened,” I say as I begin to walk. “I was ready to use my keys how you taught me, though. He really had the wrong one. I’ll—I’ll see you soon, okay?”

I get to the shop and stand in front of the window covered with glossy posters of Black women of all shades sporting different braided styles, and see myself reflected, phone pressed to my chest to still my racing heart, expression wild and unfamiliar.

Breathe, Sydney. Get it together.

A white couple walks past behind me as I take deep breaths while pretending to choose a style.

“Uh yeah, guess we’re never going in here,” the dude says as their reflections pass behind mine. “Can you imagine?”

“What are you talking about? Maybe I’ll get some of those Kardashian braids,” his girlfriend says. They laugh, and then their reflections are gone.

Survival of the fittest.

I go inside.

FOUR AND A half hours later, Sandrine, my hair braider, taps me on the shoulder for probably the fifteenth time and I jerk awake.

In the background, the low shouts of drama as a Real Housewife of Somewhere flips over a table on the television filter through the small, clean three-chair salon.

“Here.” Her Malian accent softens the r in the word. She presses a cup of coffee from the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts into my hand. “The mailman who always flirts picked it up for us. Yours is light and sweet with hazelnut flavor.”

“Thank you.” I lift the cup to my mouth to cover my yawn, then work at the plastic lid. “I’m sorry I keep falling asleep and making it harder for you.”

I take a sip and let the impending sugar crash flood my taste buds. I’d vaguely mentioned not sleeping and having a bad experience with my driver when she’d noticed how shaken I was earlier. I’d fallen asleep because I was tired, but also because I had kind of shut down after the adrenaline rush.

She laughs softly as she separates some strands from the pack of brightly colored hair I picked up. “If you’re so tired you can sleep through getting your scalp pulled, then you must need the rest. I’m almost done.”

I raise my brows dubiously. “I’m not falling for that. You’ll have me getting all excited to get out of this chair, then start splitting the same one-inch tuft of hair into fifty braids.”