Left Neglected Read Online Free PDF

clock on the dash reads 7:50. I’m going to be late. Again. Clenching my teeth and the steering wheel, I pull out of Sunny Horizons and start rummaging through my bag for my phone.
    My bag is embarrassingly huge. Depending on where I am and whom I’m with, it functions as a briefcase, a pocketbook, a diaper bag, or a backpack. Wherever I am and whomever I’m with, I feel like a Sherpa carrying this thing. As I grope around for the phone, I touch my laptop, crayons, pens, my wallet, lipstick, keys, Goldfish crackers, a juice box, business cards, tampons, a diaper, receipts, Band-Aids, a Handi Wipes container, a calculator, and folders stuffed with papers. I do not touch my phone. I upend the bag, dumping the contents onto the passenger seat, and look for it.
    Where the heck is it? I have about five minutes to find it. I’m aware that my eyes are spending significantly more time on my passenger seat and floor than on the road. The guy gunning past me on the right is flipping me off. And talking on his phone.
    I suddenly see it, but it’s in my mind’s eye. On the kitchen table. Crap, crap, crap! I’m on the Mass Pike, about twenty minutes from work. I think for a second about where I could get off and find a pay phone. But then I think,
Do pay phones even exist anymore?
I can’t remember the last time I saw one anywhere. Maybe I could stop in a CVS or a Starbucks. Some nice person there would probably lend me their phone.
For a minute. Sarah, your meeting is for the next hour. Just get there.
    As I race like a NASCAR driver on crack, I try crystallizing my notes for this meeting in my head, but I’m having trouble concentrating. I can’t think. It isn’t until I pull into the Prudential garage that I realize my thoughts are competing with Linus’s video.
    Elmo wants to learn more about families.



CHAPTER   3

    I am sitting in the front row of the Wang Theatre, just to the right of center. I check my watch and look up again, stretching my neck, searching the faces of the densely crowded aisles for Bob. A small elderly woman walks toward me. At first I think the woman must want to tell me something important, but then I realize that she’s eyeing the empty seat to my left.
    “This seat’s taken,” I say, placing my hand on it.
    “Is someone sitting here?” the woman asks, her brown eyes murky and confused.
    “Someone will be.”
    “Huh?”
    “SOMEONE WILL BE.”
    “I won’t be able to see if I don’t sit in front.”
    “Sorry, someone’s sitting here.”
    The old woman’s muddy eyes suddenly turn lucid and piercing.
    “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
    A man two rows back gets up from his seat and heads up the aisle, maybe to go to the men’s room. The old woman notices this and leaves me alone.
    I touch the collar of my snakeskin coat. I don’t want to take it off. It’s nippy in the theatre, and I feel beautiful in it. But I don’t want someone to steal Bob’s seat. I check my watch and my ticket. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Where is Bob? I take off my coat and save Bob’s seat with it. A chill slithers up the base of my back to my shoulders. I rub my bare arms.
    I search for Bob again but soon get taken in by the magnificence of the theatre—the regal red velvet curtains, the towering columns, the Greek and Roman marble statues. I look up. The ceiling is open air, a breathtaking view of the night sky. While I am still enchanted with the stars above my head, I feel the subtle weight of a shadow fall upon my face. I expect to see Bob, but instead it’s Richard, my boss. He tosses my coat to the floor and plops down next to me.
    “I’m surprised to see you here,” he says.
    “Of course I’m here. I’m so excited to see the show.”
    “Sarah, the show is over. You missed it.”
    What? I look back at all the people standing in the aisles and see only the backs of their heads. Everyone is leaving.

T U E S D A Y

    It’s 3:30, and I have a half hour, the first gap of