Finding Lisa

As we coasted the rental car slowly down PaloAlto's main, tree-lined boulevard, late morning sun refracted harshly off the picture glass of designer clothing boutiques, bookstores and coffee-bars, a university town in the doldrums of summer session. We had come at Elliot's urging. "Maybe she'll respond to you," he had said, "You're not on her black list."
"This is hopeless," I said as we turned left on to a side street, "We've got a plane to catch. What time is it?"
"It's 10:35. Just try one more street and we'll get back on the highway," said Jane from the seat beside me.
"Well, at least I can say we tried," I said, thoughts turning to the comforting, linear thoughts of work and travel.
"Oh my God, that's her," Jane said abruptly, a blur of a figure having passed by unnoticed an instant before.
"What? Are you kidding?" I groaned, apprehension rising. She had to be mistaken.
"We caught eyes. She hid when she saw us."
The woman had darted into an alley as we pulled the car to the curb and emerged from another opening fifty yards in front of us pushing a shopping cart with a desktop computer monitor in the carriage. She stopped for a moment at an intersection where a second shopping cart stood, overflowing with a bizarre variety of possessions. She wore a denim jacket that appeared to be a size or two small and clean khaki chinos with blue, low top tennis shoes neatly laced. As we walked towards her from behind she seemed to sense our presence and without looking back began to push one of the carts around the corner. "Lisa?" I called out as we turned the corner. She was walking back towards us now but was looking through us, and passed between us without speaking. A few seconds later she re-appeared from around the corner behind her other cart, pushing through us again.
"Lisa, please. Please stop. We want to help you," I pleaded as we converged at the next intersection, reaching to touch her shoulder.
"Get away from me! get away from me or I'll call the police. I mean it, Benjamin," she hissed as she jerked her arm away, short, unevenly cut hair poking out from beneath a red baseball cap with no insignia. "You too, Jane. I know who you are, " she accused, moving away from us into the street.
She was coherent, so sharp. This is not what I had expected. Just what had I expected? Elliot's warnings over the phone the night before should have prepared me, but the childhood images I held of her could only be shaken by experience.
"Excuse me, Sir?" she yelled at a man passing by, "These people are harassing me and will not leave me alone. Have them arrested!" The man looked from Lisa to Jane and me and back to Lisa and kept on walking.
"Lisa," I tried again, "We just want you to know that we are here for you. We love you."
But I was speaking to her back as she hurried away pushing her overflowing cart, head crouched in determined retreat. It was the last time I would ever see my sister.