by Kate Walbert
“I mean unless you want to,” Stephanie G. says. “If you want to, that would be terrific.”
“No, I’m good,” Elizabeth says. “That sounds great,” she adds, not quite understanding what she’s agreed, or not agreed to. She had joined the Environmental Committee after the e-mail went out that every parent was expected to serve on a volunteer committee or two, given the lackluster response to the all-volunteer volunteer committees. She had a vision of herself with the rest of the committee in gloves and comfortable boots, the sun streaming down as they tended to the delicate morning glories entwining the chain-link fence that guarded the children from running off the roof playground, or clipped a potted hedgerow or two, possibly, or watered a copse of birch, birch mostly foreign to the City, especially downtown, but for a while she could picture it: the kindergarteners tricycling through the birch, their little legs turning the wheels as fast as they could, careering around the roof playground as if they had suddenly found themselves in a magic forest. The birch might even mute the sounds of traffic and attract the wildlife from farther north, near Central Park, the families of squirrel and raccoon and even otter.
“Anyway, there’s no rush,” Stephanie G. is saying, “though we do hope to get everything in by the end of the year.”
“All right,” Elizabeth says. “We’ll think of something,” she says.
“Wonderful!” Stephanie G. says, striding down the steps and disappearing into the band of suitably stretched women. They will run from here a few blocks north, across Fourteenth Street, then up the West Side Highway bike path as far as they can go, some of them, even, sprinting the GW Bridge to the Palisades, these the most determined, the marathoners, the ones who, heads down, feet sneakered, push and push their tired hearts, as that runner once did to warn the Athenians of the Spartans, or maybe it was the other way around.
* * *
*What Ifs were favorites of Dr. Constantine’s, who often opened her monthly Cappuccinos with Constantine by tossing What Ifs to the crowd: What If an earthquake were to knock out the power grid? What If an outbreak of avian flu occurred during a blizzard? What If I never do my homework? Elizabeth’s son, Ben, newly thirteen, now liked to throw back at her. What If I refuse to get out of bed?
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ALSO BY KATE WALBERT
Where She Went: Stories
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2001 by Kate Walbert
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ISBN-10: 0-7432-1978-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-1978-5
Chapter one, book one, originally appeared in DoubleTake magazine, and was reissued in The Pushcart Prize 2000 and O. Henry Prize Stories 2000.