Endangered Species Read Online Free PDF Page A

a restaurant, and a writers’ cooperative. Despite all attempts to rent the spaces, they remained empty, their windows gathering layers of posters, a visible testament to a lack of faith in the area.
    Other signs of erosion were apparent. Welfare families were coming in, owners were going out. For Sale signs were sprouting like mushrooms on a wet fall day. Every community group in the area had a plan. None of them were working. Which was too bad. Not only did I like Westcott, but on a strictly selfish level, if the street went down, so would the value of my house, which was close enough to be vulnerable.
    It was ten in the evening by the time I arrived at 226. A group of kids who, by the looks of them, should have been home in bed by now, were hanging out in front of the convenience store across the way. The bass from the rap music they were playing crept into my car and seeped into my brain as I pulled alongside the curb. I cranked up the radio and blasted them with the 1812 Overture. Zsa Zsa whimpered. I apologized to her, turned the radio back down, and opened the carton of Chinese takeout I’d bought on my way across town.
    The streetlamp glare made the orange beef look like something you’d get at a school cafeteria. Not that it mattered. Zsa Zsa and I were both so hungry we would have eaten anything short of pickled cow dung at the moment. As I chewed, I contemplated the trees and the unkempt hedges surrounding the house Eli was living in. Now, with the leaves off the trees, the house was visible, but by summer it would be enveloped in a canopy of green, invisible to a passerby on the street.
    The outside front light was on. It cast a dim, yellowish wash on the small, square porch. The more I studied the place the more familiar it seemed. And then, suddenly, I realized why. I’d visited the house a long time ago. My husband Murphy and I had looked at it when we’d moved up from New York City. We’d seen it at the end of a long, tiring day.
    The house had been a pleasant, unremarkable, three-bedroom Colonial, owned, if I remembered correctly, by a retired high school teacher who was planning on relocating to Florida. Murphy had liked it. I hadn’t. Even though the price had been right and the screen of greenery had been a plus, I’d seen the lack of a garage and the steps leading up to the house as two big negatives.
    The steps were too steep, and the idea of having to trudge up and down them all the time, not to mention the amount of shoveling and salting you’d have to do to keep them clear, was less than inviting. I remember saying to the real-estate agent that if I was going to buy a house, at least I wanted one that was convenient. I also remember Murphy telling me I was a fucking idiot, storming out the door, and driving off, leaving me with an embarrassed real-estate agent who had looked everywhere but at me, while launching into a monologue about her cat’s medical problems. It had been what they call in film circles a defining moment.
    I licked the glop from the orange beef off my fingers. But, of course, I hadn’t known that then. Who ever does except in hindsight? If I had, I would have gone back to the city. Instead, I’d stayed. After all, Murphy and I were starting a new life together. I sighed. That fantasy hadn’t lasted too long. Four months to be exact. I wondered when the house had been converted? Probably awhile ago. Even when we were looking, the neighborhood had been changing from owner-owned to rental properties.
    I opened the car door. Zsa Zsa jumped out. I followed. As I locked up, I caught a stirring of interest coming from the group of kids across the street. They leaned closer together, exchanging words, while their eyes raked me over, methodical, coolly, scanning for weaknesses. I turned, faced them full on, and stared them down. They returned the favor. Then the moment passed and I climbed the stairs. They were steep. A mat of leaves, leaves