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It's fun talking. So I go on.

"Look, just in case we miss each other at Macy's, what's your phone number at home, so I could call you sometime?"

"COney 7-1218."

"O.K. Well, good-bye. I'll be right over. To Macy's, I mean."

I grab my coat and check to see if I've got money.

Pop asks if I'm going to bring her home for dinner.

"Gee, I don't know." I hadn't given a thought to what we'd do. "I guess so, maybe, if her mother hasn't come by then. I'll call you if we do anything else."

"O.K.," Pop says.

I go out and hustle through the evening rush-hour crowds to the subway.

The stores are all open evenings now, for Christmas, so the crowds are going both ways.

I get to the right corner of Macy's, and I see Mary right away.

Everyone else is rushing about and muttering to themselves, and she's standing there looking lost.

In fact she looks so much like a waif that the first thing I say is, "Hi! Shall we go get something to eat?"

"Yes, I'm starved. I was just going to get a doughnut when I found I'd run out of money."

"Let's go home and you can have dinner with us then. But what about your mother? Won't she be looking for you?"

Mary shifts her feet and looks tired.

"I don't know. Probably if she came and I wasn't here, she'd figure I'd gone home."

I try to think a minute, which is hard to do with all these people shoving around you.

Mary starts to pick up her two enormous shopping bags, and I take them from her, still trying to think.

At the subway entrance I see the phone booth.

"That's the thing," I say.

"Why don't you call your house and see if your mother left a message or something?"

"Well...."

Mary stands by the phone looking confused and in fact about ready to cry.

I suddenly decide the best thing we can do is get home and sit down where it's quiet.

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