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I assume she’s the ringleader of this ragtag group, because she nudges the others, compelling them to take a look. They shake their heads, murmur, look away.
“Thanks,” I say. “I appreciate it.”
Under the watchful gaze of the smokers, I make my way into the building. Just inside the door is an empty waiting area and a registration desk behind a shield of scuffed reinforced glass. On the other side sits a plump woman who studies me with the same disdain as the women outside.
“Excuse me,” I say. “I was wondering if you could help me.”
“Are you in need of shelter?”
“No,” I say. “I’m looking for someone. A friend.”
“Has she entered herself into the shelter system?” the woman asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Is she under the age of twenty-one? Because that means she’d be at a different facility.”
“She’s over twenty-one,” I say.
“If she has children or is currently pregnant, she’d be at one of our PATH shelters,” the woman adds. “There are also separate facilities for victims of domestic violence. If she’s been on the street awhile, you might find her at a drop-in center.”
I lean back, overwhelmed not just by the sheer number of locations and designations but the fact that there’s a need for all of them. Once more, it makes me feel fortunate that I found the Bartholomew. It also makes me fear what will happen once I leave.
“No kids,” I tell the woman. “Single. No abuse.”
That I know of.
The realization blasts into my thoughts like a radio at full volume. Just because Ingrid didn’t mention abuse doesn’t mean there wasn’t any. I again think of the many places she’s lived, the endless moving, the gun she bought—possibly when she assumed running was no longer an option.
“Then she’d have come here,” the woman says.
I press my phone against the glass so she can see the photo I showed the smokers outside. After a moment’s contemplation, she says, “She doesn’t look familiar, sweetie. But I’m only here during the day. This place fills up at night, so there’s a chance she’s here then and I just missed her.”
“Is it possible to talk to someone whoishere at night? Maybe they’d recognize her.”
She gestures to a pair of double doors opposite the desk. “There’s a few of them still in there. You’re welcome to take a look.”
I push through the doors into a gymnasium that’s been turned into a space for two hundred people. An army of temporary tenants. Identical cots have been spread across the gym floor in untidy rows of twenty each.
I walk among the cots, seeking out the few that are occupied just in case one of them is Ingrid. At the end of the row, a woman sits straight-backed on the edge of her cot. She stares at a nearby set of roll-away bleachers that have been pressed against the wall. Taped to it is an inspirational poster. A field of lavender swaying in the breeze. At the bottom is a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt.
With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.
“Every day, before I leave for work, I sit and stare at this poster, hoping that Eleanor is right,” the woman says. “But so far, each new day only brings the same old shit.”
“It could be worse,” I blurt out before I can think better of it. “We could be dead.”
“Gotta say, I wouldn’t mind seeingthaton an inspirational poster.” The woman slaps her thigh and lets out a raucous laugh that fills our side of the gymnasium. “I haven’t seen you before. You new?”
“Just visiting,” I say.
“Lucky you.”
I take that to mean she’s been here awhile. A surprise, seeing how she doesn’t look homeless. Her clothes are clean and well-pressed. Khaki pants, white shirt, blue cardigan. All of them in bettercondition than what I’m wearing. My sweater has a hole at the cuff that I cover with my left hand as I hold out the phone with my right.
“I’m looking for someone who might be staying here. This is a recent picture of her.”
The woman eyes the photo of Ingrid and me with curiosity. “Her face doesn’t ring any bells. And I’ve been here a month. Waiting for assisted housing to free up. ‘Any day now,’ they tell me. Like it’s a UPS package and not a damn place to live.”