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Get inside, lock the doors, and if you can’t see a psycho on the sidewalk holding a machete, you forget about it. Which I did.”
    “But it happened again?”
    “Not for two, three weeks. Then one night I was walking back after dark, taking the same route from the same subway, and … yes, it happened again.”
    “What, exactly? I’m cloudy on what was actually taking place here.”
    “I knew I was being followed. Isn’t that enough?”
    “Of course,” I said. “But in terms of—”
    “I turned to look a couple of times, didn’t see anyone, but I had this really strong sense that someone I knew well was close by, watching me, trying to get closer. At one point I even thought I heard someone softly say my name. Then, as I was turning into my street, I caught a glimpse of someone on the corner of Bleecker.”
    “What did he look like?”
    “Average height, slim build. He was only there for a second, and it was dark. I couldn’t see his face.”
    “Any idea who he might have been?”
    It seemed to me that she hesitated. “No.”
    “No guy across the hall who was always there to say good morning? No one at work who could have misunderstood the colleague/potential boyfriend boundary?”
    “I don’t think so. Though I suppose you never know the effect you have on other people.”
    “And this has been going on for ten years ?”
    She glanced at me irritably. “Of course not. I met Mark soon after, and we just clicked, and within a month I was effectively living at his place in Murray Hill. The feeling of being followed stopped when I moved there. And I forgot about it. I got married. Our daughters were born; they’re six and four now. We moved to Chelsea five years ago. Everything was great. Is great.”
    “Until?”
    She exhaled in one short, sharp breath. “We live on 18th. It’s nice, quiet, close to the school, and you got all the restaurants and stuff on Eighth Avenue—though it’s not exactly knee-deep in culture, right? Hence I’ve been going to the reading group at Swift’s, which is how I met …” She gestured across the table.
    “Kristina,” I said.
    “Exactly. Until a few weeks ago I was taking a cab home. Now it’s warmer, so I walk. I go via the market on Seventh—Mark’s addicted to their shrimp salad, so there’s domestic brownie points to be earned right there. But the last two, three times I’ve turned onto my street … someone’s been back at the corner.”
    “Eighth is busy, especially in the evening.”
    She spoke sharply. “Right. Which means people tend to keep moving . Going where they’re headed. Not standing on the corner, looking down my street.”
    “You’ve never got a good look at his face?”
    “No.”
    “So what makes you believe it’s the same person?”
    “I just feel it is. You … wouldn’t understand.”
    “Maybe not.” There are women who believe they have recourse to intuitive powers beyond the understanding of male kind, and what they “feel” supersedes information available to the more conventional senses. This can be irritating, especially if you happen to be one of the dullard male robots who apparently can’t see past the end of his own unspeakable genitals. In my own woman’s case, I had reason to know such a belief could be justified, however, and so I didn’t call Catherine on it. “And it’s never been more than that? This impression of being followed?”
    “No. Though two weeks ago I was drawing the curtains in the girls’ room and I saw someone on the sidewalk below. I know he was looking up at the window. But Ella started fussing and I had to deal with her and the next time I got a chance to look … he’d gone.”
    She trailed off, looking at me defiantly. I didn’t know what to say, and so I didn’t say anything, which is generally my policy.
    “I knew this was going to sound ridiculous,” she muttered. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
    “You said you’d mentioned this to your husband?”
    “I get