4 *

The school bell rang.
The parade of children tumbling through the doors was, each day, a bittersweet experience for Janice. It made her realize how quickly time sped by, how eventually the child of yesterday would become the adolescent of tomorrow.
Petite, lithe, innocently beautiful, ten-year-old Ivy Templeton possessed the delicacy of a porcelain doll. Like a doll, she too was fragile, with a small face and tiny nose and mouth. Her long shiny hair, was blonde, a biological gift from her mother.
Janice never ceased to marvel over the beauty of her daughter and never ceased to wonder about the genetic miracle that had formed her.
“Can I get a Coke?”
“I’ve got Cokes in the refrigerator,” Janice said, pulling Ivy’s plaid coat tighter around her neck.
Hand in hand, they started their walk up Central Park West when Janice stopped, remembering the man. Glancing over her shoulder to see which child’s hand might be linked to his, she froze. The man was standing immediately behind them, close enough to feel the plumes of his breath, and in his eyes a manic glint of desperate need – of inexpressible longing – directed exclusively at Ivy. At Ivy!
“Excuse me,” Janice gasped inanely and in shock, her heart pounding as she clutched Ivy’s arm and hurried up Central Park West toward Des Artistes, five blocks away, without once looking back to see if the man was following them.
“Who was he, Mommy?”
“I don’t know,” Janice panted.
The thought of what might have happened had she not been there to meet Ivy brought Janice to a sudden stop at the corner of their street.