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"I don't know. I'll have to contact the landlord to get into my place in Chelsea. If I can get money to my boss, maybe she can get a cashier's check for me? The least I can do is go to the meeting and explain what happened and ask for her help. If she won't help, then I'll call my dad."
"Call me as soon as you know what's happening. When you get back, we can get drunk."
"I'm not coming back," I said, a little too firmly. I took in a deep cleansing breath, trying to calm myself. "If I have to come back, I'm just going to do it all again, and you know it, so I might as well soldier on."
"I do know it. Why you can't be happy here I'll never know. What's Concord? Chopped liver?"
"It's not Manhattan. Manhattan is where the literary world lives."
"I know, I know. Call me collect as soon as you know what's going on. Love you."
Steph ended the call so I hung up the payphone receiver and stood there for a moment, debating whether to call my father now or later. I had about $4.95 in my pocket and wanted to save that in case I needed to eat or make another call.
First on my agenda – find a library so I could use a computer to let Sharon, my boss, know I was going to be late. Then, I had to go to the closest police precinct and report the theft.
I found a nearby public library and sat at a terminal, thankful that there was some public access to the internet in the city. I had less than five dollars in my pocket and didn't want to have to buy a coffee just to use the internet café down the street.
I opened my Gmail and sent Sharon a note, wanting to ensure that I hadn't been scammed about the internship on top of everything else. I didn't believe Sharon was a fake boss, but after the start to my morning, I was beginning to think I was the most naïve person alive.
I walked the ten blocks to the 17th Precinct and stopped at the front desk.
"I need to report a crime."
The duty officer, tall and older with thick dark hair shot through with grey, looked up from his roster and stared at me through his reading glasses.
"What crime?"
"I was robbed. In Grand Central Station."
He looked me over and I could tell from the expression on his face that he could barely keep from laughing out loud.
"You're in luck. We're unusually quiet right now. Fill out a form and you'll meet with an officer to give a statement." He turned to the large room where several police officers sat at their desks.
"Hey, Barnesy," he called out to a police officer sitting a few desks over. "I've got a live one for you."
Barnesy – aka Sgt. Barnes – was equally unsympathetic to my plight. Middle-aged, balding, with a tiny red swizzle stick clamped tightly between his teeth, Barnes sat at his desk and hesitated when I related to him what happened. I could see him trying to hold back a grin.
He took the swizzle stick out of his mouth and jabbed the air with it. "So, you say you sat down at a bench, and an older woman approached you and asked for help with a transit map."
"Yes. Exactly. She seemed nice and sweet. Like a grandmother, a recent immigrant. All dressed in black like an old widow. She sat beside me and opened this big map of the subway system. I leaned over and tried to figure it out."
"And on your second day in Manhattan, you felt capable of explaining the transit system to someone else?" he asked, an expectant expression on his not-sympathetic face.
I shrugged one shoulder, feeling like a total idiot.
"I wanted to help an old lady. You know, be kind to your elders? Besides, I spent hours studying the transit map
before I came here, so I know it pretty well. We tried to figure it out together. Or so I thought..."
He finally cracked a smile, but it wasn't a mean smile. I thought I saw some sympathy in his eyes. He turned back to his computer keyboard. "What did she look like?"
I gave him details about the woman and watched while he typed with two fingers on his keyboard. Elderly with grey hair pulled back into a ponytail, and a black scarf over top. Blue eyes. Slavic accent. Thick black overcoat. I didn't really look at her too much, wanting to be polite.
"And when did you realize your backpack was gone?"
"After the woman left. She seemed in a hurry to leave but she didn't take the train I said she should take. I reached down to get my backpack to catch my own train and it was gone."
He glanced at his computer screen over his reading glasses. "It's a common scam in public transit spaces. Distract the target, then snag the purse or bag. Happens pretty much every day." He typed on his keyboard for a moment.
