SAFE

By Suzanne Dottino

One Friday afternoon in August, when Helena Butler was driving alone back to New York City from New Paltz, her car broke down on the New York State Thruway. She was twenty-one years old, a pretty girl, who just two years ago had been elected, “Most likely to fly to the moon in their lifetime.” 

Helena was one of those people who preferred the life of thought to that of reality. Her teachers would tap their pencils on her desk, ‘Earth to Helena,’ to which she would ‘awake,’ staring back with her purple/black eyes, shrug her shoulders, and yawn. When she would leave her wallet and keys behind, her actor boyfriend, Jackson, teased her, “My little space cadette. You’re the only one I know who can be here and not be here at the same time!”

But being stranded on the side of the highway in the rain with just three hours to get to Greenwich Village to make it to the opening night of Jackson’s play, her world was very real. She made desperate signals to the cars and trucks that sped past her in the now stormy weather, until finally the driver of a refrigerated truck filled with batteries took pity on her. The driver got out of the car and walked over to her. He was wearing a pair of blue Carhart pants, a dirty cowboy hat and a white cotton shirt that flapped in the wind, like ribbon. He had a beautiful smile and eyes were as bright as cornflowers. The interesting, elongated shape of his boots made her think that maybe he was European. And more curious was that the prints his boots left in the mud as he walked seemed to glow, or maybe it was just the flashing lights of the passing cars? Helena couldn’t tell.  

"Can I help you?" the man asked.

"My car broke down," Helena said. "I don't know what to do. It just gave up on me. I don’t have triple A. My boyfriend’s going to be "–“

The man lifted his palm. "Don't worry," he said, "I'll help you."

The man got into Helena’s car and turned the keys. Your battery is dead, he said. “Oh,” Helena said. That was bad, she thought. The man offered to drive her to the nearest gas-food-lodging exit that was a mere five miles aways to get jumper cables. He helped Helena into the van, all the while he was humming “What a Difference a Day Makes,” the Dinah Washington song her father had loved, and which was playing on the radio on the day her parents were killed in a car accident. Helena was just nine years old and in the back seat of the car when it crashed. Only she survived.  

“You from around this area?” the man asked. 

“Not far from here,” she said hoping her answer was friendly enough. She didn’t want to offend him, but she also didn’t want to get into details or logistics, she just wanted to get back on the road to Manhattan.   

“This weather!” he exclaimed. “It has a vitality to it; it exists, clearly, but you or I or anyone, we can’t touch it.”

Helena laughed, “It touched me while I was waiting on the side of the road! I’m soaked!” 

“I like your answer,” he said. “We understand what you are saying.” 

We? Did he just make a terrible mistake in grammar because English might not be his first language. She glanced at his chin, his hair, his pants while pretending to be looking ahead at the road. Maybe he was from Spain, or France, or Finland? 

He pressed his boot on the accelerator. 

“You know it, too,” he said. 

Did he just wink? 

They drove in silence to where her car had broken down. And in no time the car was up and running. 

"Thank you so much for your help," Helena said, suddenly shivering.  Her body felt sluggish. "I don't know what I would have done without you." 

"You're welcome," the man said. "I'm glad I could help."

The man took the jumper cables, got back into his van, and drove away. As Helena watched him go, she felt a strange sense of relief. She no longer felt like a person defined by loss. Her mind was on fire. She got into her car and draped her arms over the steering wheel, she had never felt more tired or hungry in her life. She bought a large coffee from Starbucks, chocolate covered espresso beans and two pieces of pound cake to keep her awake during the drive. 

When Helena arrived in Manhattan, she miraculously found a parking spot in front of the theater where Jackson was performing. She even had time to stop at the corner bodega to buy him a bunch of opening night flowers. As she waited in the line to pay, she noticed that the date on the New York Post was Saturday! That’s weird, she thought. Today was Friday, maybe the Post had an early edition? With just a few minutes to get to the theater, pick up a ticket and find a seat, she’d figure it out later. 

Helena sat in the front row of the little theater feeling so proud of Jackson as she watched him onstage portraying a brooding artist who finds redemption after selling his soul to the devil. They had met during her freshman (humanities), and his Senior (acting) year at New Paltz college. He had been the anchor in her life that she had needed. She was in awe of how he knew what his life’s calling was and went for it. After the show she found him backstage in his dressing room. He was overjoyed to see her.

"I'm so glad you're here," he said, hugging her tightly. "I was worried about you. It’s been crazy what’s happened to me I called you, but I figured you wanted to spend Saturday hiking, the weather was so good – “

“What? Saturday? No. Oh! The car. Yeah. I’m okay,” Helena said, surprised that he knew about the incident with the car. 

“During last night’s show -”

“- last night?”

“-it was insane. I wish you could have been here. An agent from CAA was in the audience and we went out afterwards and he said how much he loved my performance and that I was a good type, and - ” Jackson pointed to himself and gleamed, “Guess who has a new agent!” Helena was ecstatic. Jackson wrapped his arms around her. “What are the odds that an agent would come to my show on the first of a two-night run at a shit-hole theater. It’s like a miracle! Crazy!”

Helena was looking but not listening to Jackson as he went on about his performance. Instead, she was thinking, what was he talking about ‘last night’, was his opening night on Thursday and not tonight, Friday? Had she made a mistake? It wouldn’t have been the first time she turned things around, but she didn’t want to spoil Jackson's high, and she figured she would sort it all out later. “For you,” she said, handing him the sunflowers, “You were so amazing tonight.”

“You are so sweet,” he said as he ushered her out of the cramped dressing room. “Come. I want you to meet the rest of the cast.” 

The next morning Jackson suggested they start out early as it might be hard to find a brunch place without a reservation on Sunday especially. Helena laughed, “Hon, today is Saturday -” just then Helena noticed a copy of the Sunday New York Times on his neighbor’s Welcome Mat. “Never mind,” she said, hurrying ahead of him. What was going on, she thought, now truly concerned.

Having not found a brunch place they ate falafel sandwiches in Washington Square Park. Afterwards, as they walked around the Village Helena had sudden visions that the buildings, sidewalks, were on the verge of crumbling, collapsing, or burning. She saw copper colored steam rising from the subway grates. She held Jackson’s hand tightly. She felt dizzy. She suggested they get an ice cream cone and sit in Tompkins Square Park. She listened to but wasn’t hearing Jackson as he detailed their plans for the evening. Helena was thinking about how these visions weren’t something she had seen in a movie or read in a book, or conjured up in her imagination, and though there was no concrete evidence to support her feeling, they felt as real to her as the moment of being stranded on the highway, that moment right before the man with the cowboy hat came and rescued her. 

After they made love that afternoon and were lying in bed, Jackson asked what she was thinking about. Helena became animated as she told him about how interesting the man on the road was, and how grateful she was to have met him, at just that time in her life, just when she needed him the most, and how his eyes were like beacons of blue light. Jackson was skeptical at first, but Helena insisted that the man was just some good Samaritan type. 

“Yeah,” Jackson said, “but who was he?”

Helena became frightened, maybe she had done something wrong? “I should have asked, but it was pouring, and everyone else just passed me on the side of the highway." A chill ran through her body, she figured it was just an oncoming cold from having been stuck in the rain last night. She borrowed Jackson’s hoodie. She stroked Jackson’s face and reassured him that she’d never see him again and who cared anyway, she got to his show on time and the battery was fixed. 

Jackson didn't say anything. He pressed his hands on her shoulders and looked at her directly, then he hugged and kissed her. 

“So, do you still think it’s Saturday?” Jackson teased. Helena didn’t want to argue, the whole thing was so unsettling and embarrassing. “Of course not!” she lied and as she looked away. It was then that the mystery of where she had been for an entire day was known to her, not in words, but in feeling only. 

One afternoon a few weeks later, when Helena was back in her apartment, alone, and Jackson away auditioning nonstop in Manhattan, Helena was feeling particularly adrift. She wasn’t looking forward to returning to school in the fall. She had no interest in…anything. She spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about nuclear threats from Russia, China, and North Korea, she thought about the fires ravaging thousands of acres of land across the globe. She thought about people starving to death in tent cities in the dessert, eating terrorist supplied food laced with bird feces or shards of glass. She was so deep in thought she had to put Post-it notes on her refrigerator reminding her to eat. All her past enjoyments of cooking meals from the summer produce from the local farm stands, finding new clothes at the vintage shops in town or buying things from Amazon just to have something to open, were gone. If only there were jumper cables for humans, she thought. 

The following week, during a humid afternoon, when Helena was in her living room trying to read a book, she heard a knock on the door. She went to the door and standing behind the screen was the man from the highway. His presence brought about a spark of excitement in her body that she hadn’t even realized was missing. 

"Hello, Helena," the man said. 

She walked closer. "What are you doing here?" Helena asked.

"I've come to take you away," the man said.

 She was distracted by a pair of blue jays that suddenly dropped from the sky.

 "Take me away?" Helena asked. "Where?"

"To a better place," the man said.

She was scared, but she was also curious. She looked over the man’s shoulder and saw that the prints his boots made in the dirt were glowing. This man’s mark on the world was magnetic, she thought. She pressed her palms against the screen. 

“Where are you taking me?” 

“A place where you'll be safe. You’ve been there."

Helena paused. 

She dropped her hands to her side. The marks her palms made on the screen left streaks that glowed. It was true, she thought, she knew where she had been on the missing Saturday, and she was worry-free. No visions of impending doom. Safe. "Okay,” she said. 

The man took Helena’s hand, and they walked out of the house. The moon shone bright on the walkway. They drove towards the densely forested Catskill mountains.

Helene disappeared into the trees never to be seen again.