I was almost crying. I knew the second I opened my mouth it would be out there, the salt sting and ache of it, my throat clamped with fear. Just wishing I was anywhere, anywhere, else.

“What’s going on?” he said. Now he was wide awake.

“I’m in this parking lot, and there are these men,” I said. “They’re not doing anything, I mean, but they closed—”

“What guys? What are they doing?”

“They’re just—it’s this closed lot . . .”

“Are you—Do you think they might hurt you?”

“I think they want to scare me,” I said. “I think they might want that.”

I didn’t say the words “homeless” or “black,” though I could see they were both. This wasn’t about that. This was about women and men together in the dark, what might happen.

“I need to go,” I said.

“Call me back, alright? To let me know you’re okay?”

I hung up. I called Abe. He picked up on the fourth ring.

“I’m sorry,” I said. My voice was shaking. “I know it’s late. It’s Stella.”

“You sound strange.”

“I’m at the parking lot on Bryant. There are some guys. I need you to come.”

“I’m—Jesus Christ. Yeah. I’m coming. Are you—I mean—are you hurt? Did someone hurt you?”

“Just come,” I said. “Please?”

I hung up the phone but kept it close to my ear. I called my own answering machine so it would look like I was talking to someone. I kept checking the rearview mirror. The guys had wandered a little farther from the fence, but it was still closed. They hadn’t wandered far. One of them climbed onto a small blue sedan and started jumping on the hood.

This is Alice calling your Connecticut cave…This is your mother and I think you’re on the road…This is Tilly, I think the beep already happened, I think you’re coming home at three…

I hung up. I checked the mirror again. Now the man was cross-legged on the roof. He hurled his bottle at the window of a nearby car. There was the high, fragile crackle of glass breaking, then the frantic thrumming of the music once more. I checked the sidewalk both ways. I closed my eyes. I’d count to twenty and then I’d open them. There had to be a way to make the moments pass faster. To get through them, any way I could, that was all.

I heard tapping. I put my fist into my mouth to stop the sound in my throat. I was an animal, my stomach rising raw and fast. I wasn’t making choices, just listening to the fear.