© 2010

9:15 A.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

Downtown 6 platform

East Seventy-seventh Street and Lexington Avenue

New York, New York

It was a miracle.

Meena hurried onto the subway car and grabbed hold of one of the gleaming silver poles, hardly daring to believe her good fortune.

It was morning rush hour, and she was running late.

She’d expected to have to cram herself into a car packed with hundreds of other commuters who were also running late.

But here she was, still panting a little from having run all the way to the station, stepping into a car that was practically empty.

Maybe, she thought, things are going to go my way for a change.

Meena didn’t look around. She kept her gaze fastened on the ad above her head, which declared that she could have beautiful, clear skin if she called a certain Dr. Zizmor right away.

Don’t look, Meena told herself. Whatever you do, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look…

With luck, she thought, she might make it all the way to her stop at Fifty-first Street without making eye contact or having any interaction at all with another human being…

It was the butterflies-life-size-that caught Meena’s attention at first. No city girl would wear white pumps with huge plastic insects on the toes. The romance novel (Meena assumed it was a romance, based on the helpless-looking, doe-eyed young woman on the cover) the girl was reading had Cyrillic writing on it. The giant roller suitcase parked in front of her was an additional clue that the girl was from out of town.

Though none of that-including the fact that she’d pinned her long blond braids onto the top of her head, Sound of Music style, and had paired her cheap yellow polyester dress with purple leggings-was as dead a giveaway to her new-in-town status as what the girl did next.

“Oh, I sorry,” she said, looking up at Meena with a smile that changed her whole face and made her go from merely pretty to almost beautiful. “Please, you want sit?”

The girl moved her purse, which she’d left on the seat next to her, so that Meena could sit down beside her. No New Yorker would ever have done such a thing. Not when there were a dozen other empty seats on the train.

Meena’s heart sank.

Because now she knew two things with absolute certainty: One was that, despite the miracle of the nearly empty subway car, things definitely weren’t going to go her way that day.

The other was that the girl with the plastic butterflies on her shoes was going to be dead before the end of the week.

9:30 A.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

6 train

New York, New York

Meena hoped she was wrong about Miss Butterfly.

Except that Meena was never wrong. Not about death. Giving in to the inevitable, Meena let go of the gleaming metal pole and slid into the seat the girl had offered.

“So, is this your first time visiting the city?” Meena asked Miss Butterfly, even though she already knew the answer.

The girl, still smiling, cocked her head. “Yes. New York City!” she cried enthusiastically.

Great. Her English was basically nonexistent.

Miss Butterfly had pulled out a cell phone and was scrolling through some photos on it. She stopped on one and held it up for Meena to see.

“See?” Miss Butterfly said proudly. “Boyfriend. My American boyfriend, Gerald.”

Meena looked at the grainy picture. Oh, brother, she thought.

Why? Meena asked herself. Why today, of all days? She didn’t have time for this. She had a meeting. And a story to pitch. There was that head writing position, vacant now that Ned had had that very public nervous breakdown in the network dining room during spring sweeps.

Head writer was really where the money was on a show like Insatiable.

Meena needed money. And she was sure the pressure wouldn’t cause her to have a nervous breakdown. She hadn’t had one so far, and she had plenty of things to worry about besides Insatiable’s ratings.

A woman’s voice came over the subway car’s loudspeakers to warn that the doors were closing. The next stop, she announced, would be Forty-second Street, Grand Central Station.

Meena, having missed her own stop, stayed where she was.

God, Meena thought. When will my life stop sucking? “He looks very nice,” she lied to Miss Butterfly about Gerald. “You’re here to visit him?”

Miss Butterfly nodded energetically.

“He help me get visa,” she said. “And-” She used the cell phone to mimic taking photos of herself.

“Head shots,” Meena said. She worked in the business. She understood exactly what Miss Butterfly was talking about. And her heart sank even more. “So you want to be a model. Or an actress?”

Miss Butterfly beamed and nodded. “Yes, yes. Actress.”

Of course. Of course this pretty girl wanted to be an actress.

Fantastic, Meena thought cynically. So Gerald was her manager, too. That explained a lot about the baseball cap-pulled down so low that Meena couldn’t see his eyes-and the number of gold chains around his neck in the photo.

“What’s your name?” Meena asked.

Miss Butterfly pointed at herself, as if surprised Meena cared to discuss her as opposed to the ultra-fantastic Gerald.

“I? I am Yalena.”

“Great,” Meena said. She opened her bag, dug around the mess inside it, and came up with a business card. She always had one handy for exactly this kind of situation, which unfortunately came up all too often…especially when Meena rode the subway. “Yalena, if you need anything-anything at all-I want you to call me. My cell phone number is on there. See it?” She pointed to the number. “You can call me anytime. My name is Meena. If things don’t work out with your boyfriend-if he turns out to be mean to you, or hurts you in any way-I want you to know you can call me. I’ll come get you, wherever you are. Day or night. And listen…,” she added. “Don’t show this card to your boyfriend. This is a secret card. For emergencies. Between girlfriends. Do you understand?”

Yalena just gazed at her, smiling happily.

She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand at all that Meena’s number might literally mean the difference between life and death for her.

They never understood.

The train pulled up to Forty-second Street station. Yalena jumped up.

“Grand Central?” she asked, looking panicky.

“Yes,” Meena said. “This is Grand Central.”

“I meet my boyfriend here,” Yalena said excitedly, grabbing her huge roller bag and giving it a yank. She took Meena’s card in her other hand, beaming. “Thank you! I call.”

She meant she’d call to get together for coffee sometime.

But Meena knew Yalena would call her for something totally different. If she didn’t lose the card…or if Gerald didn’t find it and take it away. Then give her a fist sandwich.

“Remember,” Meena repeated, following her off the train. “Don’t tell your boyfriend you have that. Hide it somewhere.”

“I do,” Yalena said, and scrambled toward the nearest flight of stairs, lugging her suitcase behind her. It was so huge, and Yalena was so small, she could barely drag it. Meena, giving in to the inevitable, picked up the bottom of the girl’s incredibly heavy suitcase and helped her carry it up the steep and crowded staircase. Then she pointed Yalena in the direction the girl needed to go-the boyfriend was meeting her “under the clock” in the “big station.”

Then, with a sigh, Meena turned around and headed for a train back uptown, so she could get to Madison and Fifty-third Street, where her office building was located.