Water. She could hear it below. Two hundred feet below, she reminded herself. That’s what it said in the brochure.

Opening her eyes (barely, just barely), Sam peeked past the toes of her sneakers into the water. It churned like the brew of some demented witch, a brew in which Sam—in a matter of seconds—was about to become a small, insignificant, and very dead ingredient. She closed her eyes again, and prepared to leap.

“Hey!” she heard (what sounded to her, at least, in her dazed state) like an ethereal voice from below. Funny, she thought. I would have thought an angel’s voice would come from above.

She looked down. A man was standing on the bridge.

“That’s right—down here! Come down!” He was waving his arms. “Please?”

Sam considered it. She had really believed all civility in humanity had been lost—but this gentleman had actually said “please.” She decided she’d go down.

Maybe it really was a magic word.

She started to climb down, feeling like a very big and clumsy spider. She made it safely (if she was one thing, it was quick-footed) and started walking toward the man who had said, “please.” As she got closer she could see that he was a well-dressed man, one that looked like he either belonged on Wall Street or in the mob. A closer inspection suggested he belonged in both worlds, although Sam couldn’t say why. She wasn’t sure, but she could swear he was Benjamin Peck, the Wall Street banker who’d gotten himself killed by the mob. He looked just like the man she’d seen on the news, anyway.

His manner of dress, as expensive and tasteful and elegant as it was, took on the same gaudy quality on him that it did on all members of the mob. Sam had a hard time deciding if it was his meaty frame or the tailored way every article of clothing was placed on it. His cashmere-wool-blend coat matched his cashmere grey scarf. His suit—maybe Armani, maybe not—was tailored to an exact fit. A silk tie, studded shirt cuffs. Two-toned shoes. He even wore a pinky ring.

“Hi,” Sam said, smiling. Two minutes ago she would have been fish food, but instead she was alive (alive!) and she felt a rush of gratitude for him, for the word “please,” and for his use of it. She stuck out her hand. “I’m—“

“Euphoria,” the man said.

“No, actually, I’m Sam,” she answered.

The man closed his eyes. He was older—in his early fifties, maybe—and aging in an attractive way that some men do. Women age like bread, men age like wine, Sam’s mother had once told her, and Sam had once believed it. She pushed the thought away.

“No,” he said after a moment. He seemed to be fighting for patience. “You’re experiencing euphoria. It’s a common reaction for people whose lives have just been saved.” He reached into his coat pocket and produced a pack of American Spirits. “Cigarette?”

“Oh—no thanks, I don’t smoke.”

“Why not?”

“Because I could get cancer and—“

“Die?”

“Er—yeah.” She took a cigarette.

He lit it for her.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re quite welcome,” he answered. “Once the car gets here, you can add a drink to that.”

“But it’s four thirty in the morning.”

Benjamin looked at Sam. “So?” “Oh. Right. I’m not supposed to care.”

“”No, it’s not that. I just—oh, good. There’s the car.” A black stretch limousine was coming to a stop in front of them. "We’re going to need to go to my place, where you’re going to take a shower and put on some clean clothes. In the meantime, I’ll be having a refreshing drink, reminding myself I had good reason to be standing on a bridge at 4:30 in the morning talking to a woman who has no idea who I am. Haven’t you recognized me yet?”

“I think so. Aren’t you Benjamin ‘Wolfhound’ Peck? The Wall Street banker who was killed by the mob? I mean, obviously, they didn’t kill you, or you wouldn’t be standing here. Unless—“

A horrible thought occurred to Sam. What if she jumped and died and just didn’t remember, and she was meeting Benjamin Peck in the afterlife? It’s not a good sign when the first person you meet in the afterlife is a former mob member. Probably that means—

Sam took in an involuntary gasp and stepped away from Mr. Peck. “Oh, God, you’re not really alive, are you? I’m meeting you in the afterlife, and if I’m meeting you in the afterlife, a former mob member, that probably means I’m going to hell!” She felt a pinch on her arm. “Ow!”

“No,” he answered. “I wasn’t killed by the mob. I’m alive and well, and my heart is still beating, and I really, really need a drink. And I don’t have time to explain anything now. I’ll explain everything in the car. Will you please get in?” He opened the car door for her.

“But you are Benjamin Peck, right?” She didn’t move.

“I am Benjamin Peck, and I did work on Wall Street and I did get mixed up with the mob, although I don’t remember ever being nicknamed ‘Wolfhound.’ I like that, though. Has a nice ring to it. I think I’ll keep it. But, as you can see, I was not killed.” He took her hand and placed it on his chest. “Heart’s still beating, see?”

“Actually, you can feel a better pulse on the…wrist,” Sam said, taking her hand away and delicately pinching his left wrist. Mr. Peck’s expression changed again, but this time she couldn’t read it. Was he flirting with me? she thought. But she almost immediately pushed the thought away. Right. Like he would flirt with a woman who was just about to commit suicide. “Ah, yes,” she said finally. “I can feel a pulse.”

“Well, that’s good,” he said. She could swear she saw his mouth twitch, as if he was trying not to laugh. Well, let him laugh, she thought. You’ve dealt with that before. But she couldn’t help but feel her heart sink a little. If she was going to be treated the same way as before... She turned and looked almost longingly at the railing to the bridge.

“Sam,” he said gently, and touched her shoulder. “Things won’t be like before. Things will be different. I can’t explain it now, but I can if you get in the car. Please get in.” His voice had taken on a slight tone of pleading.

“But it said on the news you were killed.”

“I know it did. But I wasn’t. I’m…” He seemed to be searching for a word. Then he smiled. “I’m…reformed. Please get in, Sam. Welcome to the Independents.”

“The what?”

“The Independents. Look, I don’t have time to explain right now. We have to get in the car.”

Sam still hesitated. “It sounds almost like you’re giving me a job.”

“I am. And superpowers.”

“Wow, superpowers? Cool.”

Tinges of light were beginning to show at the edges of the horizon. Dawn was coming. Benjamin looked around, his eyes darting a little. Sam thought he looked—if not afraid—a touch wary. “I’ll explain more in the car. Let’s go.”

And Sam, the same Sam who had never taken a risk in her entire life (her old life, she reminded herself), who had no real idea who this man was, who didn’t know what was going to happen to her, got in the car—and started her new life.

The limo ride was nice. As promised, Mr. Peck (“Benji, please,” he had requested she call him, but she wasn’t ready to be on a first-name basis with him. Some old habits die hard, she guessed), made her a refreshing drink—two, actually. Cosmopolitans to be exact. They made her a little tipsy, what with the cigarette and all. Once you threw in the factor that she’d barely eaten anything in the past three days, and you had one fairly drunk Sam on your hands. Sam I am. Sam I am on your hands. She giggled.

This is dangerous, she thought dimly, as the alcohol took hold. It was the voice of reason, she knew, but she ignored it. Fifteen minutes ago, she really thought she was going to die. It wasn’t that she wanted to die, it was just that…she couldn’t go on the way she was going, that was all. One more week of going to work, stacking books, and going home to a TV dinner and the television set, and she would have—well, jumped off a bridge. Instead, she was sitting here in a nice limo with a nice-looking man who was smiling at her (a little), drinking her favorite drink. He could kill her now and she’d only be grateful for this extra fifteen minutes.

“So. Mr. Pecker. I—“

“It’s Peck,” he reminded her gently. Sam was too drunk now to be embarrassed.

“Okay, Mr. Peck, you said you were going to explain some things to me?”

“Please, call me Benjamin, or Benji.” We might as well be on a first-name basis. We’re going to get to know each other quite well.”

Oh, we are, are we? said the voice that served not only as Sam’s voice of reason, but as her alarm against sleazy come-ons. But she ignored the voice again. That voice may have protected her, but it also kept her from trying new things, from having new experiences. Basically, that voice had always kept her from having any fun. Besides, he hadn’t sounded sleazy. He actually sounded…nice.

“So we’ll be working together?” “Yes. That is, if you want the job.”

“I’m in—wait. What is the job?”

“Research, mostly.”

“Oh,” Sam said, disappointed.

“But there will be other things you’ll be doing,” Benji said in a tone of voice that suggested he knew what she was thinking.

“Like what? Stacking books?”

“You’ll be spending time with books.”

“Look, why don’t you let me out? I can just go back to my old job on Monday, if this is going to be the same old, same old.”

The car stopped. Sam started to get out.

Benji leaned forward and took her hand. “It won’t be the same, Sam. I promise. Things will be different now. Besides, do you really think you can go back to the same life that drove you to that bridge?”

“It sounds like it would be the same.”

“It won’t be. Look, why don’t you let me explain the job in more detail before you decide what to do? We’ll go back to my place and you can eat, take a bath maybe (Sam reddened a little at this suggestion), and get a good night’s sleep. In the morning, I’ll explain everything.”

Sam sat back. Food. She’d almost forgotten about food. In her preparations to committing suicide, Sam had eaten only haphazardly for the past two or three days. She had to make out her will, bequeathing her few possessions to her sister in Sarasota (her most prized being her collection of fiction—almost all first editions), whom she barely knew. In a rush of guilt of never having taken the time to get to know her, Sam decided to give them to her, along with all of her old jazz albums that gave her no joy anymore. Her cat, Clemens, was to go to the next-door neighbor, a sweet, lonely old woman who sometimes fed him tuna on the sly. The last paycheck scheduled to go into Sam’s bank account was to be bequeathed to the library as a donation—hell, it was theirs, anyway. The rest of her things—clothes, shoes, furniture, things of that nature—were sorted and donated to the appropriate charities.

The last step was burning her novel—the sole source of real joy to her for the past year. She enjoyed working on it, and for a long time it had a healing influence on her. But in its final days, it seemed to turn vicious, like a pet dog infected by rabies. She made a fire in the old fireplace and burned the pages one by one. She felt no pain. When it was time (she had scheduled herself to be at the bridge at a certain time, thinking that maybe she was giving the term deadline a whole new and perhaps too obviously a literal meaning), she stood up, put on her coat, and walked to the bridge, counting her steps.

But at the bridge she’d chickened out. Or perhaps she just hadn’t really wanted to die. It didn’t matter now. The job may have sounded the same, but she reminded herself she didn’t really know much about it yet.

“Okay. Explain,” she said…and fell asleep. When she woke up the next morning in a huge bedroom (in what she was sure a huge apartment) with no windows and the smell of breakfast, it was exactly twenty-four hours after she thought she would be dead. Benji was cooking. Or maybe his chef was cooking.

Benji was nice-looking. Really nice-looking. He had dark hair that was attractively graying at the temples, and a trimmed, neat beard—the kind Sam had always liked. And he seemed really nice and—Oh stop it, Sam, she thought disgustedly. You don’t need to start developing some school-girl crush on a guy you barely know. This guy was once affiliated with the mob, for God’s sake. He’s probably killed people.

She got up and found a bathroom and showered. When she came out, her hair wrapped in a thick towel and a too-big robe wrapped around her, she found her clothes had been washed and dried and laid out for her. She even found a hairbrush, a toothbrush, and her purse (with nothing missing from it; she knew because she checked its contents—although from the looks of the apartment, Benji was certainly better off than she). She combed and dried her hair and finished dressing and wandered off to find the kitchen, following the good smell of frying eggs.
[new chapter]

Benji woke in the morning, earlier than usual, and immediately got up. His mind, as it always was, was on the business at hand. Well—mostly. Thoughts of Sam were creeping in to his already overcrowded head, and he groaned. Girl was getting under his skin. He didn’t need this. Not now, when everything with the Independents was picking up. He needed to focus.

Instead he found himself washing and drying her clothes, reading the paper while he waited for them to finish. When they did, he knocked softly on the bedroom door to give them to her. No answer. Then he realized he heard the shower running, and he carefully laid her clothes out on the bed.

His next surprise was when he found himself telling the chef to take the morning off, instead making a huge breakfast for Sam by himself.

“Hi,” he heard behind him as he was buttering some toast.

“Hi yourself,” he said. “Sit down. I’ll have everything ready in a minute.” His voice was rather clipped. As he turned back to the stove, he saw her mock-salute him. Girl was strange.

Sam sat down, wondering if she’d said or done anything weird earlier, when she was drunk. Judging by his manner, she probably had. Or maybe he was offended by the mock-salute. Nice going, Sam. Remember you’ll be working with the guy, okay?

He brought her a plate piled high with steaming food: eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, toast. She started to get up to get herself some coffee, but he motioned (rather impatiently, she thought) for her to sit down.

“I’ll get it,” he said.

“But you don’t know what I—“

“Yes, I do,” he replied. “You want coffee.” One corner of his mouth turned up in a small smile. Bastard, she thought. You’re doing it on purpose.

“Ah—but do you know how I like it?” she challenged, and immediately felt her face go red. It sounded too sexual.

He paused. “I’m guessing probably with lots of cream.” It seemed to her he emphasized that word.

She raised her eyebrows. “Sugar.”

“What do you say?”

“Sugar and cream.”

“What’s the magic word?”

“Oh,” she said, her face freshly reddening again. “Please.”

“That’s better. See? It really is a magic word.”

She stared at him. “How did you—“ she started to ask, then stopped herself. If he knows what I’m thinking, I’d rather not be embarrassed by it, she thought. “You were going to tell me about the job,” she said instead, in what she hoped was her most business-like, don’t-fuck-with-me tone.

“Yes,” he said. He sounded happy.

“So?”

“So. It’s like this.” And he told her.