Between her allergies and hyper-olfaction, Flora spent most of her time indoors. And most of that time was spent in her room, the hum of the air purifier a constant. She was curled up against pillows on the window seat rereading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, probably for the fifth time, when movement outside caught her eye. Old Mrs. Johnson was wheeling a trash bin down to the end of her driveway in her hunched, slow shuffle, a fragile but determined little machine of a woman. She had just managed the bin out onto the street and was turning it to place it next to the driveway, when she lost her footing. Flora watched frightened and stunned as the woman yelped, grasped frantically at the bin that rolled away from her and fell to the pavement.
Flora leapt up, letting the book fall and ran out of her room, down the stairs, out the front door and across the street. Smells, a swarm of smells, a stampede of smells of all kind came at her at once. She gagged in the invisible fumes, toxic only to her, breathed through her mouth and willed herself to keep going. She could already feel her skin itching from the grass and pollen.
“Mrs. Johnson! Mrs. Johnson, are you okay?” she yelled “Somebody help!”
She knelt down. The old woman was still.
“Please don’t be dead,” Flora whispered. She put her hand over the woman’s mouth and felt a warm breath. Thank god.
That’s when she realized she had run out of the house so quickly she hadn’t brought her cellphone.
“Help! Somebody! An injured woman! Call 911! Help,” she screamed.
“Oh no,” came a deep voice. Suddenly kneeling on the other side of Mrs. Johnson’s limp body was Jake De Meola.
“Mrs. Johnson?”
He gently took her knobby hand in one of his. In the other, he held his cellphone, 911 already dialed. Flora had never been this close to him before. Close enough to see his eyelashes and that his lips were dry.
He gave the dispatcher the address.
“Yes, I’ll stay on the line,” he said, finally glancing at Flora for the first time. “Did you see what happened?”