She woke up the next morning and ordered pancakes that she didn’t eat, then slept and stared at the television all day and all night. Twenty-four hours went by and she kept the blackout shades drawn. From the TV she learned that there had been another slashing. The fifth. So far people had been attacked on the R train, the 3 train, the sidewalk near the Astor Place station, the F train, and now a platform under the Barclays Center. The first victim was a teenage tourist from Missouri; the second a stay-at-home mom from Park Slope; the third a sophomore doing theater at Tisch. The teenager was leaving The Lion King with her parents, headed back to their Airbnb in Astoria. The mom was part of a group celebrating fortieth birthdays. The sophomore was apparently standing on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette and talking to her dad on the phone when the man appeared and ran a box cutter across her face. All but one of the victims were women and all the victims survived, but the news had all kinds of people talking about blood and screaming, and the police were still trying to get a decent description of the guy. Over and over Claudia read the word, heard the word: victim. The victim’s mother says her life will never be the same. The victim’s husband says her children are afraid. The victim the victim the victim. The word had spikes.

She turned off the TV but the suck of sudden silence, the loneliness, roared in her ears. She flipped it back on, lowered the volume, and lay down on the sofa, letting her eyes glaze and tear, letting herself cry. What happens next? She couldn’t see anything past her headache; her hot, wet face; her mouth wide open on that video.

She slept through the afternoon again and awoke to see the red and orange lights of midtown glowing beneath the curtains. Claudia got off the couch and walked to the window. She looked down at the mirrored glass and the glare off the river: it was beautiful. She was ugly now; sick, infected—but the world was still full of beauty. And that made her mad.

The bar at Bubba Gump’s was crowded but there was an open stool at the end, and she slid in between the tray of garnishes and a blonde. Claudia knew she looked young but she also knew her ID was good. She asked for a vodka and soda and a menu. The blonde smiled at her.

“Can I ask you somethin’?”

“Sure,” said Claudia.

“It one hundred percent counts as catfishin’ if you fake the profile photo and the age, right?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“See!” she shouted at the bartender, whose name tag read Frankie. Frankie put up his hands in mock surrender.

“Girl, we been through this before.”