Read Online Subway Love by Nora Raleigh Baskin - Free Book Online
Authors: Nora Raleigh Baskin
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Everybody was wary — of strangers, of perverts, of thieves. There had been a rash of people stealing iPhones right out of people’s hands on the subway.
Laura — Laura, right? — didn’t have a cell phone visible. She probably hid it. Or she was one of those Neo-Luddites he had heard about, in which case she would hate him. But more likely she
was
just wary. He had been too forward. She’d never talk to him now.
“No,” she answered. “I live upstate. I’m just visiting my dad. My parents are divorced. Oh, God, did I just say that?”
So she wasn’t wary. She wasn’t from New York, that’s why.
Jonas laughed. “Mine are, too. No worries. I’m —”
Still, if he got off when
she
got off, if he, oh, just coincidentally, was going where
she
was going, then she might start to worry. But he needed to do something quickly, and the Facebook thing hadn’t worked last time.
“Can I text you? You want my cell number?”
She crinkled her brow. Her eyes were brown and her lashes short but dark, and there were so many of them.
“Your what?”
“My number? So you could call me. Or I could call you?”
“Oh.” Laura smiled. “Sure. At my dad’s?”
That caught Jonas off-guard for a minute, like maybe she was one of those religious girls and she needed her father’s permission, or she was just screwing around with him. Yanking his chain, pretending to be interested. Pretending to be nice. Several scenarios ran through his head, but you can’t pretend to be so pretty, so he said, “Yeah, your dad’s house is good.”
She stood up. “Is this the Fifty-ninth Street stop?” She was nervous.
It made him feel good to answer. “Yeah, Fifty-ninth. And Lexington. Between Park and Third.”
Good God, stop talking.
For a second Jonas racked his brain for a reason he could be getting off here, too. He put his hand on his camera bag. He hoped she didn’t think it was a man purse or anything.
“This is a camera,” he said.
“I know,” Laura said. She started out the open doors. “So you want my dad’s phone number?” And she gave it to him, area code and all. Just like that. He had her name. And her phone number, albeit her
dad’s
phone number.
She got off the train, and as fast as he could, he pulled out his phone and keyed it in.
New contact:
Laura.
HE tried every configuration. He must have typed it in wrong. Reversed a number or something. It had to be.
“I think she was just dicking you around,” Nick said.
“No way.”
They were at Nick’s house because there was a chance (or a hope) you needed a landline to call another landline, and Jonas’s mom — to save money — didn’t have one.
“OK, then, maybe it’s a 718 number,” Nick tried.
“I tried that,” Jonas said. They sat in the kitchen where the oldest phone in the United States was attached to the wall. It was olive green, all but the warped and tangled cord that had somehow turned greenish brown over the years.
Jonas’s mom had been exclusively cell phones and Internet for quite a while now, even though she was completely tech-challenged. She had to call Jonas every time she wanted to record a show on the DVR. She asked Jonas to set up her cell phone. She hardly used the computer at all, and if she wasn’t phobic to it before, she was now.
Jonas couldn’t have explained, even to himself, why he had begun printing out his father’s e-mails. He hadn’t printed the first one he discovered open on his dad’s desktop, but after that, Jonas had to hack into his father’s AOL account and search for them. Was that why he started printing them? The sheer effort?
It took only one guess to find the password: KELLY , his father’s first and only family dog. Jonas, of course, had never known Kelly, but he had heard the stories. They all had. His father talked about Kelly often, whenever they watched a dog movie, or whenever they met someone on the street with a similar-looking dog. There was even a picture on
Everybody was wary — of strangers, of perverts, of thieves. There had been a rash of people stealing iPhones right out of people’s hands on the subway.
Laura — Laura, right? — didn’t have a cell phone visible. She probably hid it. Or she was one of those Neo-Luddites he had heard about, in which case she would hate him. But more likely she
was
just wary. He had been too forward. She’d never talk to him now.
“No,” she answered. “I live upstate. I’m just visiting my dad. My parents are divorced. Oh, God, did I just say that?”
So she wasn’t wary. She wasn’t from New York, that’s why.
Jonas laughed. “Mine are, too. No worries. I’m —”
Still, if he got off when
she
got off, if he, oh, just coincidentally, was going where
she
was going, then she might start to worry. But he needed to do something quickly, and the Facebook thing hadn’t worked last time.
“Can I text you? You want my cell number?”
She crinkled her brow. Her eyes were brown and her lashes short but dark, and there were so many of them.
“Your what?”
“My number? So you could call me. Or I could call you?”
“Oh.” Laura smiled. “Sure. At my dad’s?”
That caught Jonas off-guard for a minute, like maybe she was one of those religious girls and she needed her father’s permission, or she was just screwing around with him. Yanking his chain, pretending to be interested. Pretending to be nice. Several scenarios ran through his head, but you can’t pretend to be so pretty, so he said, “Yeah, your dad’s house is good.”
She stood up. “Is this the Fifty-ninth Street stop?” She was nervous.
It made him feel good to answer. “Yeah, Fifty-ninth. And Lexington. Between Park and Third.”
Good God, stop talking.
For a second Jonas racked his brain for a reason he could be getting off here, too. He put his hand on his camera bag. He hoped she didn’t think it was a man purse or anything.
“This is a camera,” he said.
“I know,” Laura said. She started out the open doors. “So you want my dad’s phone number?” And she gave it to him, area code and all. Just like that. He had her name. And her phone number, albeit her
dad’s
phone number.
She got off the train, and as fast as he could, he pulled out his phone and keyed it in.
New contact:
Laura.
HE tried every configuration. He must have typed it in wrong. Reversed a number or something. It had to be.
“I think she was just dicking you around,” Nick said.
“No way.”
They were at Nick’s house because there was a chance (or a hope) you needed a landline to call another landline, and Jonas’s mom — to save money — didn’t have one.
“OK, then, maybe it’s a 718 number,” Nick tried.
“I tried that,” Jonas said. They sat in the kitchen where the oldest phone in the United States was attached to the wall. It was olive green, all but the warped and tangled cord that had somehow turned greenish brown over the years.
Jonas’s mom had been exclusively cell phones and Internet for quite a while now, even though she was completely tech-challenged. She had to call Jonas every time she wanted to record a show on the DVR. She asked Jonas to set up her cell phone. She hardly used the computer at all, and if she wasn’t phobic to it before, she was now.
Jonas couldn’t have explained, even to himself, why he had begun printing out his father’s e-mails. He hadn’t printed the first one he discovered open on his dad’s desktop, but after that, Jonas had to hack into his father’s AOL account and search for them. Was that why he started printing them? The sheer effort?
It took only one guess to find the password: KELLY , his father’s first and only family dog. Jonas, of course, had never known Kelly, but he had heard the stories. They all had. His father talked about Kelly often, whenever they watched a dog movie, or whenever they met someone on the street with a similar-looking dog. There was even a picture on
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