Lady Vanishes Read Free Page A

been its neighbor to the south, a squat little hovel painted aqua so that on the occasion when it wasn’t your first stop, you still couldn’t miss it, not even if you’d been drinking for a million years.
    In its previous life, Harbor View had been a hotel for seamen, a place where they could keep a watchful eye on the river while waiting to sail again. I didn’t need the AIA Guide to New York City or Greenwich Village, How It Got That Way to tell me that. It was written in stone, right over the front door. Harbor View, it said. And under that, Seaman’s Rest. Harry hadn’t changed the name.
    It was a neat little building, four stories, about fifty or sixty feet wide, red brick with that stone trim over the door and the windows. There was a narrow alley on either side, leading, I supposed, to a rear yard. Half the rooms would face the back, a quiet oasis in a noisy city. The others looked out over the river, the very view that made the price of housing along West Street so high.
    I stopped in front to let Dashiell drink from the squirt bottle I carried for both of us. There was a young man standing in the skinny window to the right of the doorway, a sidelight with a rectangle of stained glass at the top, blue for the sea, yellow for the sun. He seemed to be looking at us, but I doubted he was. More than likely his view was inward, to some dark place only he was privy to.
    I rang the bell. A moment later, Venus opened the door.
    “Ready to begin?” she asked.
    I nodded, too hot to speak, glancing at the man in the window, my eyes drawn to his hands because of the bandages, his fingers sticking out beyond the waterproof tape tap-tap-tapping against each other as if they were piano keys. Venus touched him lightly on his shoulder, then headed for her office, to the right of the front door. Dashiell and I followed behind her.
    “You’re going to have to work one-on-one to begin with. We don’t know exactly how the kids will react to Dashiell. Some of them won’t see him. Maybe not for the first few visits. Charlotte, when she gets overstimulated, scared, whatever, she acts out, beats herself on the chest, moans, rocks. Just let her be. She’ll stop on her own.
    “If it goes on for more than a few minutes, you can takeher to the squeeze machine. It’s on the second floor. You can’t miss it, the door is always open. Are you familiar with them?”
    “Is it something like the thing they use on farm animals, to keep them calm during veterinary procedures?”
    Venus nodded. “Works here, too. Most of the autistic kids know when they need it and control the machine themselves. They determine how much pressure and for how long.”
    “It’s like a mechanical hug?”
    She nodded. “They can’t take—”
    “I know that part,” I told her. “Only I found it wasn’t true across the board. One of the kids I worked with, a real kid, she was eleven, we got to where I could hug her.”
    Venus looked as if she wanted to say something but was holding back.
    “I know they’re not all the same,” I said.
    “Just go slowly,” she said. “Don’t expect too much.”
    “Okay.”
    “And if you have any doubts about how to proceed, or if you should proceed at all, don’t be shy about asking. You’ll never bother me with a question, Rachel. It’s what I’m here for. For them. And for anyone working with them.”
    “Good. Thanks.”
    “You’re not working alone—on any of this.”
    I nodded, holding her eyes for a moment. They were nearly black, her gaze steady and serious, as if she’d seen a lot, maybe more than was good for her.
    “So,” she said, “if Charlotte reacts well to Dashiell, you can take her out for a walk, let her hold his leash. She’ll love that. It’ll help her to trust you, too, the three of you going out together.
    Jackson will probably ignore you and keep on painting. But he’ll know Dash is there.
    “Some of them speak, once they trust you. Some of them don’t. And there’ll be