“Thank you…Elwood,” said Vera Bundle.

Vera tied her scarf around her neck, buttoned her coat over the scarf, pulled Norville’s woolen watch cap out of her coat pocket, and tugged it down over her ears. “Good thing, Elwood, I brought my husband’s wool cap, don’t you think?” asked Vera in the form of a peace offering.

“Sure is,” answered Elwood cheerfully, leaning on his elbows.

With her handbag swinging from the crook of her arm, Vera Bundle went out the hotel’s entrance and made a left. At Eighth Avenue she made another left and started walking. At the very next corner, while waiting for the light to change, she was bumped rather severely by a rude young tough carrying some dry cleaning over his arm. The collision almost knocked Vera down. The young tough needed a shave and wore a black watch cap pulled down over his forehead and ears. Instead of apologizing, the hoodlum glared at her and, shifting the dry cleaning he was carrying over his arm, walked away.

Somewhere in the fifties, Vera Bundle stopped another young man and asked where Central Park might be. This young man was tall and thin with a sweet face. He told Vera the best thing for her would be to cross Eighth Avenue and go in that direction—he pointed east—until she hit Sixth Avenue. “Then take a left and walk until you see the park. But I think instead of goin’ to the park you should be goin’ home, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so, ma’am.”

“Oh, pshaw,” was Vera’s reply.

“Then maybe you ought to be closin’ your pocketbook, ma’am. I wouldn’t walk around the city with your pocketbook open like that. Lots of bad guys might get to pokin’ around in there when you ain’t lookin’, tryin’ to find your wallet.”

Vera Bundle was shocked at the sight of her open handbag. She always kept it closed. “Funny thing is,” she said to the tall boy with the sweet face, “I don’t remember opening it. My goodness.”

“You probably opened it to get somethin’ and just forgot to close it.”

“Well, I appreciate your telling me, young man. What is your name?”

“Jimmy Joel Jenks, ma’am. What’s yours?”

“Mrs. Vera Bundle. Are you a New Yorker, Mr. Jenks?”

“No, ma’am. I’m from Knoxville.”

“I’m from out of town too. I’m from Steubenville.”

“Don’t know where that is.”

“Steubenville’s in Ohio. Well, thank you for the directions, Mr. Jenks.”

“No problem. Take care, Vera,” said Jimmy Joel, and walked away.

Vera reached Sixth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street at five fifteen. It was dark and beginning to snow. The temperature was falling almost as fast as Vera’s spirits. She couldn’t help but wonder what had prompted her to take this godforsaken trip to New York in the first place. Vera hated to admit it, but Esther Wigton was right. God, was she ever. Vera wished she was back in her armchair under the Tiffany lamp right now, sipping a cup of tea laced with scotch and perusing a volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.