Margot on the Doorstep (10-minute Free Write)

Hard to drop you into the middle of this, but I'll give you what I can to set this scene: Walt has been avoiding his family and their family business -- a very large charitable concern -- for many years. They live a long way away, in a remote town called North Center, and he has been moving around the United States for years avoiding their attempts to find him. What he is unaware of is that a crisis is developing back home -- one that threatens everything his father (and many fathers before him) has built. In this scene, Margot, Walt's first (and deepest) love, has taken it upon herself to find him and make a plea for his return to North Center.

***

As he crossed Sheridan from the shady to bright side of the street, he was struck by how feeble the sun’s rays suddenly felt: despite a cloudless sky and all evidence that summer was still here, it was as if the cosmos suddenly took the brightness for a hoax and in only a few weeks the warmth would be revealed for the fleeting weakling it truly is. This desperation suddenly passed through Walt like an unconscious panic and without realizing it he breezed by MightyBean, deferring caffeine in favor of the safety of his apartment. In his mind, he was already in the sunroom, kneeling on the futon to draw the blinds and see if the Weather Channel could help him sort out this sudden queasiness of the heart, to show him trends and fronts moving eastward through his life to account for this elusive feeling.

His legs working faster, pulling him across a normally busy intersection that was unusually empty the moment he crossed, which was a good thing because now his body was moving on auto-pilot toward home as he puzzled over this distant cousin to paranoia sweeping over him. He instinctively glanced around for a telltale emissary even though he knew this sense was different. He thrust his hands in his pockets. That felt safer.

Through the open gate into his courtyard, head down, shoes cracking the bush trimmings never cleaned up from that morning’s “landscaping.” The right hand in his pocket closing around his keys, two fingertips already unconsciously defining the outer door key, the process being interrupted by a soft “hi” up ahead, certainly not meant for him, except that there was no one else here.

He looked up as he pulled the keys out. A woman stood at his doorway, arms folded across her stomach as if she was bracing for an impact. In a short moment, he squinted, puzzled, recognized her, smiled, and then the smile gave way to fear. Walt stopped.

“Hi,” Margot said again, and then cleared her throat and said it a third time, trying to find the right conviction and warmth. She saw where his face was going and quickly blurted: “Everything is alright.”

He snorted. “I’d believe that, except that you’re standing on my doorstep.” She had no retort to this, just a slight shrug of the shoulders. He looked up into the empty sky for lack of a better place to gather thoughts. “Happened to be in the neighborhood?”

”I’m worried about you,” she said.

“You must be very worried. You came a long way to just check on me.”

“We’re all worried. No one knows anything, how you’re doing, what you’re doing….”

“That’s not my fault, is it?” he said, and his eyes flared. “Apparently you can’t find a decent emissary anymore to spy on me.”

“You know Fran called them off, Walt. After what you did to the last one.” Suddenly, he did know this, realizing it had been weeks since he’d positively I.D.’d an emissary. Dealing with Lu Ellen’s accident had brought his guard down. The exhaustion of helping everyone in the brownstone hold it together had freed him from that paranoia. It was strangely relieving, this trauma.

“So instead of hiring strangers to keep an eye on me, she’s enlisted you?” As he said this, Walt locked his eyes on Margot again, and he was struck now by how much older she looked. How long had it been? A decade or more, at least. She looked shorter than he remembered, and though her eyes held the same soothing warmth that had calmed him then, the skin across her face appeared more taut, the jaw and cheekbones a little more angular, gaunt. The softer face of the child was giving way to the harder face of a lifetime resident of North Center. Her hair was much darker than the blonde he remembered, duller too.

“Coming here was my idea,” Margot said evenly. “And I didn’t decide lightly, Walt. I know how badly you want to stay away from North Center. But things are getting really …” She sighed. “Things are really hairy right now. I thought you needed to know it. I mean, really know it, because I know Fran says she’s been telling you in the letters, but I’m not sure you realize how bad things are at North Center.”

“What do you mean by ‘bad?’” he asked.

“What do you mean, what do I mean? She really hasn’t told you?” Walt looked at her blankly. Suddenly a look came across Margot’s face. “Oh my God. Walt, you have read her letters, haven’t you?” And now he looked down at the ground. “Oh, Walt, please don’t tell me that you don’t….” Her voice trailed, broke, and that little crack seemed to dig under him, just as it had those years ago, and the urge to hold her came right back, except that the setting was wrong, the timing was wrong, everything was wrong to be able to actually do anything. Except get her out of this courtyard. Yes, they couldn’t just stand out here in this useless sunshine. Without another word, he slipped the key in the outer door, held it open with his foot while opening the inner door, and then held both doors open until Margot passed through both and stood at the bottom of the stairs. She followed him when he started the climb up.