Innocence by Lee Savino

war’s most recent victim. Once glance at the marred face and Cora got up so suddenly her chair fell over.
    “May I help, miss?” the manager and waiter rushed to her side, but she had already righted her chair, mumbling to herself.
    “Everything okay?” the young mother was nearby with toddler and stroller in tow. For now Cora was shuffling the newspaper, a pathetic attempt to reorder them, to hide the face of the man who had come to her that night to warn her.
    “Yes, I’m fine. Here,” Cora gave up with the paper and gestured to the table laden with food. “You can have this. I didn’t touch it.” The young mother looked startled.
    “She can have it all,” Cora told the manager and waiter, and, while they stared, picked up her purse and fled.
    As she left the café, she noticed a white van parked near the café, somehow out of place. Even in her distress, Cora paused to think what seemed wrong about it: the butcher the van might have been making deliveries to was on the opposite side of the street. There was a man standing by it, taking a smoke break. Or maybe that was what it was supposed to look like— the cigarette wasn’t lit and he never brought it to his mouth. Instead, the delivery man, if that’s who he was, was watching her. Shrugging deeper into her coat and flipping up the coat collar, she turned and hurried down the nearest alley.
    The journey back home somehow seemed even longer. In the day’s declining hours, she made her way back across the city by a few landmarks. Tiredness was taking over, but she was sure that the white van was following her. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of it around a corner or at a stoplight. At some point, the white van disappeared and a black car took over, cruising slowly enough to be noticed.
    She ignored it. If Sharo was coming to pick her up, let him make the first move and stop the pretending. She would play the game as well as they did.
    When she finally hit familiar roads, she hailed a taxi. Arriving at her apartment at dusk, Cora showered and dressed. The second-hand clothes, so dingy beside her other wardrobe, went in a bottom drawer for later. The cell phone Marcus had given her—left behind for the day—was blinking with messages. As if he didn’t have other ways of finding out where she was. She chewed her lip for a moment. All this attention, was it flattering or creepy? When did love cross a line?
    She would find out. Tucking her wet hair behind her ears, she turned on all the lights. Then she sat on the couch, and waited.
    Not five minutes later the doorbell rang. She closed her eyes, suddenly too tired to move. A second knock, a pause and then the jingling of keys. He let himself in and came to her on noiseless shoes.
    “Cora.”
    She looked up at him. Dressed as usual in grey suit and tie, he stood with his hands in his pockets and looked her over. She waited, but he had no questions. There was expectancy on his handsome face.
    She could play the game. “How was your day?”
    “Business as usual. Yours?”
    Tiredness overtook resolve. “I was out,” she admitted. “All day. I just needed some time to think…Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I thought I could get tired walking.”
    He waited to see if that was all. Cora felt pathetic. Marcus was looking down at her like a parent with a disobedient child.   
    But he didn’t chastise her. Taking a seat next to her on the couch, he leaned forward with hands clasped, studying the floor.
    “Last night was…a dream come true. I wanted to sweep you off your feet, this great crescendo up to the ring, right up to when you said yes.” He was twisting a ring he wore on his finger, not looking at her. “I’ve done everything I know to do for you, Cora. I’ve never felt this way with any girl. And, last night, I guess…” he paused. “I just got carried away. I wanted it to be perfect.”
    “It was perfect,” Cora said in a soft voice. Marcus finally looked at her.
    “I want you. I…love