Chapter Nine
Elena stumbled on the street tearing her hose on the uneven sidewalk. With the packages spilling from her hands and her purse opening on the pavement, she struggled to bring everything back into place. Leaving a quarter, some kid reached in to give it to her as she stood up. She smiled at his round face, and let him keep the coin. She shook him off, mumbling something to him even she didn’t understand. She was too dazzled to think.
She had to sit, somewhere in the park perhaps, and still her pounding heart. A look down at her body she made sure that she wasn’t half naked, clothed in the stretchy red dress that she wore in her dreams. Wandering aimlessly down the street, she stopped at the first bench she found, and collapsed onto the seat. She’d stay there long enough to reg
