The makeup was my first mistake. I thought it would make me look older, and it did, a little. But I’m not good at it, and by the time I had it evened out I was wearing a lot. The girl next to me on the bus had her eyes done the same way, and she was really nice to me. Her boyfriend picked her up in Kansas City, where my ticket ran out, and they gave me a ride across most of Kansas. She was going to let me stay the night with them in her little hometown out there, but her boyfriend wanted them to be alone. They argued, and I got left by the highway.
From there I started hitchhiking, which was the second mistake. The truck driver found me outside Pueblo, Colo., the next day. The two of those mistakes together, that was what he meant when he leaned close and said, “Don’t play it like that, I know how you are.”
I saw my reflection floating beside me in the side mirror, glowing yellow from the lights around the cab. I looked at the dark circles around the eyes, smudged by then, and saw just what he saw; dumb 15-year-old slut, a runaway who can’t go to the cops, riding with a man she doesn’t know anything about. Deserves what she gets.
By then we were in the empty lands on the other side of Utah. I tried to thread my way through it, the way I always had with Bill, but there was nothing I could use against him without the risk of making things worse. There was Bill’s gun in my backpack, probably loaded, and I thought about whether I could use it and how bad he would hurt me if I couldn’t. I only took it to pawn so I could buy the rest of my bus ticket. I didn’t even know how to shoot it.
I tried to change the subject. There was a picture taped to the dashboard that showed him with a wife and four kids, and I asked about them. But it backfired–he didn’t like me talking about his family. He tore the picture down and told me to shut my mouth. Then he pulled off the highway so fast I thought we would crash.
While the truck was still bouncing through the field I took my chance, but he had me by the arm as soon as I opened the door. At first, when he didn’t hit me, I thought there might be hope. But when I fought him over my pants he hit me and pulled a knife from his belt. He put it at my throat and told me not to move. His hand shook like crazy. Maybe it scared him too.
I looked up at him once and that will always be the worst part. He was near the end and had forgotten all about me–so far gone inside himself you could see what he was really like, how ugly it was in there. I don’t think I will ever let anybody see me like that.
I didn’t even dress. Just grabbed as many of my things as I could, making sure about the shoes and the backpack and scrambled out the door while he was rolled over catching his breath. As soon as I got far enough into the darkness I dug out the pistol and pointed it at the truck until it finally drove away.
– – –
Behind a sagebrush I find a little patch of snow so hard I can’t claw it loose with my nails. I pull the soggy sleeping bag close around my shoulders, then stand up and rake at the snow with my heel until it breaks into little dry chunks. The sharp grains scrape my face as I scrub, but it feels good, like it’s the only way in the world to really get clean. Even the water that melts against my skin feels sharp and clean, and all that goo runs off in tiny black rivers. Steam rises off my face into the empty sky.
Nevada, I guess. There are mountains ahead of me and mountains behind me and the highway runs straight out of one set and straight into the other. Between them, where I stand, is flatland covered with sagebrush. A whole, huge valley and no river anywhere. No town, no buildings, not even a side road. The sun is coming up, but it’s starting from a lot farther away than it does in Illinois. It gives the sky a pinkish light that fades to silvery blue above me and then to bruised gray and a few stars over the far mountains. I lay my head back and roll my eyes across the million-mile sweep of that sky; pink to deep gray and back. My cheeks warm a little, the sharp red fading from them until they are same soft pink as the sky in the East. I can tell they’re that color without seeing them. Everything is. It’s the kind of light that washes over things and makes them go its way. It makes the frosty sagebrush look like they have warm coals glowing down inside them somewhere.
The sleeping bag is almost useless, wet from the frost and matted down until it isn’t much thicker than a sheet. I dreamed it was a wet towel. Bill was watching me in the shower and I ran into the night and had to sleep there with just the towel and the darkness to cover me.
I guess he won after all. Three years of Bill in our house, Bill watching my boobs grow, Bill rubbing against me in the hallway, Bill hiding in the bathroom, quiet when I knock then acting surprised when I come in and find him with it in his hand. And when Mom finally gets sober and starts acting like she might find the guts to get rid of him, he tells me, Okay, sweetie, I’ll let your mama alone. Just as soon as you let me in your pants. And I ran from it, because even if I believed him I wouldn’t do that for her. She doesn’t have that much credit left with me.
But it happened anyhow. I ran all this way and it still happened. It might as well have been Bill.
– – –
The first car that comes is a little Japanese one, and I’m sure things are getting better because it is a woman and she is going all the way to San Francisco. As we talk through the passenger window I turn my face to hide what is probably a black eye by now. She looks Mexican, with a lot of beautiful black hair in a ponytail, and she smiles when I slide into the seat. She’s about my mom’s age and as pretty, though she looks even better because of her dark eyes and because life has been easier on her. She wears fancy jeans and those tiny sneakers that are cute but no good for anything except walking around inside. Teachers wear them when they are trying to be casual, and I think she might be a teacher. I hope so, because school has always been the best place for me. But I don’t ask because once we pull away she doesn’t want to talk. She’s thinking really hard about something.
The car climbs into the mountains, the ones that had stars above them when I first saw them, and the curves give her a chance to look me over. Every time we hook to the right I can feel her eyes on me, checking out my clothes, my backpack, my hair, my face, everything. It’s me she’s thinking about, who I am and why I was out there so early in the morning. It’s lucky he backhanded me–it puts the shiner on the side she can’t see. I slouch the way popular girls do, trying to seem older, and at the curves I toss my hair. I look for my face in the mirror to see if it’s really clean, but the angle is wrong.
We round the last uphill curve onto a straight section that goes over the crest of the mountains and she finally comes out with it.
“What happened back there? Did you have some trouble?”
My head is tipped back looking at pure blue sky. Then the car comes over the crest and tilts down so I see the land, and–the most amazing thing–it is exactly like the other side. Another row of blue-gray mountains on the other side of another flat valley with no trees and no river. And when I look closer at the new mountains I see it’s more than one row. Dark ones in front, and behind them the tops of another, lighter-colored row.
“Gosh,” I say, trying to sound light, “It’s such amazing country. Just mountains piled behind mountains.”
“They call it Basin and Range topography,” she says, and her tone agrees with me about it being interesting. “The earth is being pulled apart here, so much tension that it breaks. The mountains rise along the faults. Rows and rows of them, lined up like ocean waves.”
“Really, that’s so interesting,” I say, my voice high and silly, “Are you a teacher?” We drop toward the next valley, and the sharp sunlight makes everything stand out. All the lines–mountains against the sky, ridges against their own shadows, sagebrush flatland against the dark mountains–are so clear it looks like they are cut into glass. Everything is so pure and open, I can see why no one lives here. A place like this could break your heart so easily.
“No,” she says, “I just got interested in the geology because I drive this road so much. You see, my boyfriend was transferred to Utah and we’re trying to keep things going.” Just when I think she will forget me and go off about her relationship, she stops and her voice gets low and serious. “Actually,” she says, “I’m a social worker.”
I am looking at her when she says it, which is bad because I know what happens to my face. I look away–too fast–and say, “Really? That must be such difficult work.”
I know exactly what kind of work it is, and I know social workers know that everybody is lying, especially kids. Most of them are too tired to fight you over it, but this pretty, dark-eyed lady is not like that, I can tell. She’s the kind who gets to the bottom of things, does what’s right, and all that. Well, good for them, the ones like that, but it isn’t like they have any power either. It’s still just two options–back to Mom or into foster care. Maybe Mom will stay sober and maybe she really will get rid of Bill. But with me running away–and stealing a gun, too–I wouldn’t count on her to resist him or the booze. And they make foster care sound like such a good idea, but it doesn’t work out that way. When Mom hit the bottom, before Bill, I was in foster care for eight months. At first I thought it would be okay living with the Eversons; having a sister to talk to and a whole family to show my report cards. I even thought being a Christian might be good, with lots of people around who didn’t drink. But there are things people have inside them they would never show anyone but a foster child, the most powerless person in the world. And to have to see inside someone else’s family and be that helpless person–it scares me more than getting sent back to Bill.
“Oh no, I love my work,” she says. Then her voice gets low and serious again. “Now, did you have some trouble back there?” The way she says it I know she expects the truth.
“Well, it wasn’t really–it was just–” She tries to look at me, but she is driving down the curvy mountain road and can’t stare for long. I remember the first time I got left along the road, by the girl from the bus and her boyfriend, and see something that might work.
“It was just a fight with my boyfriend. Well, not just a fight. The fight to end all fights. Of course, I never thought he would leave me out there. I mean, I told him to just pull over and let me out, but I didn’t think he would actually do it.” My voice is still high and nervous, but that’s okay because it makes me sound like one of those stupid girls who’s always talking about fights with their boyfriends, the way Cindy Everson used to when I was living with them. It seems like a pretty good lie while I’m saying it. If I looked five years older, and if my face hadn’t dropped when she said “a social worker” I might have a chance. But when I stop I can feel her judging the story, thinking runaway.
“It’s just so crazy. I love him, I really do. He’s the only boyfriend I’ve ever had. Since junior year.” I keep talking, holding this stupid girl like a shield between the social worker and the real me. “He really doesn’t want me to move to California, even if he was willing to drive me out there. I understand, really, I mean, we’ve been so special to each other. But this is such a great opportunity for me. My cousin, she’s so great, she’s a painter and she teaches drawing at this community college, and I can live with her and go to the community college for practically nothing until I have my whole first two years done. Then I’ll have in-state tuition and the California schools are so good. But my boyfriend, sometimes he can’t see what’s good for me, at all.” And then I make Cindy Everson’s pathetic noise, that sighing, moaning “Oh ew ew,” like she got stuck between “oh poor me” and “boo hoo hoo” but was just too demoralized to actually make words. This part sounds pretty convincing, I think, because no girl who’s been in Family Services has ever made that noise.
She nods her head, and I can tell she’s feeling sorry for me. I relax and the next voice sounds more like me.
“I just didn’t think he would really do that to me. God, it was so cold.” I cry a little and her eyes open wide. She can’t question me while I’m crying, so I fake some more, but it takes over, real crying from way down inside. Sobs shake my whole body, and my breaths sound like someone screaming. It’s not a 19-year-old crying from a fight with her boyfriend, it’s a 15-year-old runaway who got raped at knifepoint. I’m showing her everything, but I can’t stop.
When it finally lets up she has pulled off the road and has her arms around me. I don’t remember that at all. My face is buried in her chest, and her sweater is soaked from tears and snot. She has big, soft boobs and she’s rocking me. I should be embarrassed, but it feels so good I stay there for a long time, even after I know where I am.
I finally sit up and wipe my eyes. I know exactly what I should say, Gosh I’m sorry, needed a good cry, you’re so sweet to me and all that. Instead I say, in my own flat voice, “I made a mess of your sweater.”
She doesn’t care. She hands me a tissue and uses another to clean herself. When my tissue is loaded she hands me the whole pack.
“Last night,” she says, “I threw dinner plates at my boyfriend. My first time–throwing plates.” She laughs at this, but then gets uncomfortable. She starts the car and pulls back onto the highway. “Then I drove off into the desert and got a motel room in some little town. That’s why I’m out here so early. If things had gone well I’d still be in Utah. It must be fate that I would be the one to find you. The two of us with our boyfriend problems.”
I am so disappointed in her. I thought the crying would give everything away, but instead she’s bonding with the stupid girl.
“Maybe I was sent out here to give you some advice. I’ve been in a few relationships myself, and I see things in my work, and I can tell you, Jenny–” she looks at me and for a second I panic. I don’t think I told her Jenny. I think I said Suzy. “Our relationships tend to repeat certain patterns, and when those patterns are unhealthy you have to be willing to break them. It takes courage, believe me, I know, but you have to be willing to stand up and say, ‘No more.’ Can you do that, Jenny? Can you say right now that you won’t ever let anybody treat you like that again?”
“Sure,” I say, “I can do that.” She’s probably just remembering wrong about the name. Or maybe I am.
“You have to mean it, Jenny. To break the patterns you have to really mean it.” It’s the name of a book, ‘Breaking the Patterns.’ By the 12-step people.
“Oh, I mean it. I won’t let anybody treat me like that again.”
“Good. Now your boyfriend, what’s his name?”
“J — oe.”
“Juh oh,” she smiles. “Rhymes with uh oh, is that it?” It’s a little flirty, the way she says it. She has a pretty smile, white teeth against her brown skin.
“Joe,” I say. “Joe Roberts.”
She nods very seriously, and I can tell she has decided something. “Jenny, do you know what domestic violence can be like for women?”
These are the tricky questions, when I have to guess what a normal girl would know in areas where I know too much. “Well,” I say, “I saw that movie, ‘Sleeping With the Enemy.’ “
This seems such a perfect answer that it scares me. I picture a whole life of playing this dumb girl like an actress.
“Scary, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I say humbly. I didn’t see it, but I doubt it was scary. A happy ending, probably, something about breaking the patterns.
“Jenny, do you want to help Joe? Help him keep from becoming a monster like that?”
“Oh, he would never do anything like that,” I say. It’s like following a script.
“Jenny, he already has, don’t you see? What if you had frozen to death out there?”
“Well, he knew I had a sleeping bag. And I don’t think he really meant to leave me all night. Something must have happened. If you just knew him.”
“And this?” She takes my chin and turns the black eye toward her. She must have seen it when I cried. She stares hard at me, cupping my face in her hand, and for a second I feel like giving up.
“Well,” I say, pulling my head free and turning away, “He does have a temper.”
“They all do, honey.”
“You, too, I guess. You said you threw plates.” I try to do the little flirty thing to show that I’m teasing, but I don’t have the smile for it.
“Sometimes you have to show them you won’t take crap.”
“And that’s how you do it–by throwing plates?”
She flashes her eyes at me to see if my expression will tell her what I mean. What I mean is that nobody breaks more plates than my mom, and nobody takes more crap, either. But I can’t say that without looking like a case for Family Services, so I stay quiet.
She doesn’t say anything either, just looks stunned. Then she cries. Not real crying, like I did, just a little blurt with a few tears. Snot shoots out her nose, and I hand her the tissues.
“I’m sorry,” she says when she gets it back together.
“It’s nothing,” I say. “After all you’re doing for me.”
“It’s just that when I started doing social work, the man who trained me told me to always check the dishes. ‘See how many they’re throwing at each other,’ he said. And I’ve been doing it ever since, poking my nose in people’s cabinets. And now I’ve thrown them myself.”
I have mixed feelings about this confession. As a person she’s being really nice to me, even saving me from another rape for all I know, and I would help her if I could. But as a social worker she kind of deserves a lesson, because I know how they poke around when something is broken.
“Maybe this will help you understand people better,” I say.
She looks at me for a second then decides to ignore this. She’s wishing she hadn’t told me about the dishes. “Now, about Joe,” she says, stressing the name like she knows it’s a lie.
I realize that all she wants is the boyfriend she thinks I’m protecting. I have to resist her for a few minutes, then give in and tell her another name, Joe’s real name. I’m going to make it to San Francisco, where I really do have a cousin who really is a painter, and I think she might help me and not send me back.
“Jenny don’t smirk at me. You have to see how serious this is.”
“No, I wasn’t smirking. I was just thinking about him. Joe.” I say the name slowly, as if I have to think about it, which makes her eyebrows go up. It’s too easy.
“And you already said that your friend–Joe–has a bad temper. Wouldn’t you like to help him learn to control that temper?”
“Well, sure. I mean I have tried.”
“I’m talking about anger-management classes. Taught by professional counselors. That’s what he really needs.”
They always know what everyone needs. I’m tempted to bring up the plate-throwing again, but I stick to the script. “Oh, he would never go.”
“He should be made to go. You could make him go.”
“Me. Why would he listen to me? Especially, if we’re through.”
“I mean by filing charges, Jenny. A judge would order him to take the classes, I’m sure of it.”
I should fight this suggestion for a while, but I’m tired of being this girl, so I speed things up. “Would I have to go back there? You know, and testify?”
“I don’t think so. There are victim-protection laws. At least there are in California. I’ll have to check and see what they have in Denver. Is it really Denver?”
“Yeah.”
“And is it really Joe Roberts?”
I hang my head, then shake it. “John Anderson.”
“Okay, then. We’ll arrange it all when we get to California. I’ll take you to your cousin’s. I’ll want to talk to her, of course. Not that I don’t trust you, but you’re going to need support to carry through with this.”
My cousin isn’t exactly expecting me. I met her at my grandmother’s when I was little, and she seemed like the only person in my family who had ever listened to me. We sat under a tree in the yard, me on her lap, and she taught me about drawing. She told me I could write to her and visit her in California someday. I did write, not too often because it made Mom jealous, but in my head I wrote long letters, and for years every drawing I did was meant for her. It had only been Christmas cards lately, and she hadn’t answered for two years, but the cards hadn’t been returned so the address must still be good.
“Sure,” I say, “We’ll set it all up.”
– – –
Finally we cross a river, and the pattern of mountains and dry valleys breaks up. There are billboards and more cars on the road. We stop for gas and a meal someplace near a military base. Fighter planes are taking off, and the little restaurant is full of slot machines and guys in uniforms. It’s not even a restaurant, really, just a big convenience store with a microwave and some booths. I apologize that my money was in luggage that left with the imaginary boyfriend, which gives her a chance to point out once more how badly he treated me. She buys me a salami sandwich that goes soggy in the microwave.
The throbbing pain is getting worse, and I’m cramping from my period. The military guys stare, especially the one in the booth across from us. He has terrible acne and is reading Penthouse, holding it so I can see. He turns a page and looks at it, then looks at me, staring even when I stare back. Especially when I stare back. I take a bite of the sandwich and almost puke. Keeping the food down makes me dizzy, and I feel like I could fall apart completely.
The guy with the Penthouse gets a cocky grin. He’s enjoying making me uncomfortable. The social worker is tearing into a greasy microwave pizza, and my stomach turns again when I look at her. She freezes with a bite of pizza showing in her open mouth, and her eyes go soft. It’s like she sees how much I’m hurting for the first time. At first I think she sees it all, but it’s not quite like that. It’s just the first time she’s really looked at me, without wondering if I’m lying or if I’m listening to her lectures. It scares me to have her look at me so gently. I look away and catch the eyes of the guy with the Penthouse, who looks cockier than ever. Then I look straight at the table.
When she sees what’s going on and looks at him, he tries the same thing on her. His eyes go back and forth between her and the magazine about three times, then he looks straight at her and raises his eyebrows like a girl trying to be slutty. She swallows her pizza and throws her napkin down so hard it bounces off the table. Then she marches straight up to him, lays a pen and piece of paper on his table and says, “Soldier, write your commanding officer’s name and the number where I can reach him. And your name and rank, too.” He looks at her like an idiot, with his mouth hanging open. She is tiny, standing above him with her hands on her hips, and I already know he is going to stand up and knock her flat. But what happens instead is he takes the paper and writes. She reads it and checks something on his uniform, then flips her phone open and dials. He rolls up his magazine and leaves without saying a word. I watch to make sure he doesn’t hang around outside and can hardly believe it when he crosses the road and walks away without looking back.
“I grew up around military bases,” she says when she’s off the phone. “My dad taught me I never had to take crap from a soldier.” She’s proud of herself, doing the role model thing for me, but I’m still impressed. “Of course,” she says, “You can get into trouble if you push things in the wrong situation. You have to know your ground. My dad retired a major so I feel pretty safe around military people.”
I already know the concept–the part about knowing when you have enough power to use it–but I never would have guessed you could use the military against its own guys. As soon as I see it, though, it makes perfect sense. Everybody’s tied to some kind of system, like Bill living off Mom’s disability. It didn’t give me enough power to stop all of it, because whenever I told Mom about his little games it was all slaps and hysterics and me trying to sabotage her only happiness with my lies. But he couldn’t go too far because he knew I’d go straight to the hospital and get the rape kit. Watching the social worker handle the soldier it seems possible to learn enough about how the world works to stay safe. Or at least to manage a standoff like I had with Bill.
“Thanks,” I tell her, “He was really upsetting me.”
In the bathroom I swallow five aspirin, then roll my awful tampon into layers and layers of clean toilet paper and put it in the pocket of my jacket. I sit on the toilet, fanning myself with my hand for the cool, soft breeze.
– – –
When I go out to the car something is wrong. The social worker is leaning against it, arms folded over her chest, watching me cross the parking lot. I smile, acting stupid, but see my backpack beside her on the hood.
“I was moving your bag, Jenny,” she says as I stop in front of her. She pats the lump on the side. “I wasn’t searching it, I want you know that, but it was obvious what this is.”
“Oh, the gun,” I say, and this comes off pretty well because I had almost forgotten about it. “It’s my Dad’s. He wouldn’t let me go without it. He has this idea about California being so dangerous.”
She relaxes, but she’s still put out. “It’s a .357 Magnum,” she says, like she’s talking to a child. “Do you even know how to use it?”
“Yes,” I say, “A little.” This is true. In the morning, after I cleaned myself up with snow, I shot it to make sure I could. I figured out the safety and pointed it at the mountains, holding it with two hands and ready for it to knock me over. I locked my arms and squeezed the trigger gently, the way you’re supposed to, and it jumped straight at the sky like it was alive. At first the explosion hurt my ears, but then it carried over all that empty space, echoing like thunder. It trailed off so gently you couldn’t tell exactly when it stopped. It felt good to make a noise like that, and I shot it twice more. It was warm afterwards and I cradled it until my cold hands relaxed.
“Well, you should have proper training. It’s probably more dangerous to you than to any attacker. I could show you statistics.” I try to look sheepish, but I know it’s okay, she’s already winding down. “It will have to stay in the trunk if you’re going to ride with me.”
“Sure,” I say, “No problem.”
As we drive away I worry that the gun will make her suspicious again. But she smiles and says, “I’m sorry to get angry, Jenny. It’s just that I see guns cause so much trouble in my work. They almost never help anyone, and I wish your father hadn’t given you one.”
She’s enjoying telling me what she thinks, and I realize I’m helping her, too. She likes having me with her, listening to her advice and admiring the way she handled the soldier. So she can get comfortable with herself again after the fight with her boyfriend.
I want to ask about her boyfriend–not to throw it in her face like I did before, just to give her a chance to talk about it. Now that she’s more relaxed she would probably like to. I start to ask and realize I don’t know her name. I was too nervous to catch what she said when I first got in the car. Now that she’s been calling me Jenny for so long, I don’t want to admit I don’t know.
I try to remember, but all I can think of is the name I do know, the one that complicates everything so much: Jerry Morgenthayer, Orem, Utah. I read it on the door of the truck when I first climbed up to the cab. I was going to slip it into the conversation about his family, so he’d see he had something to lose, too. I was even ready to use it when he was pulling at my belt, just blurt out “Jerry Morgenthayer, Orem, Utah,” like magic words that could put him under my spell. But then he pulled the knife, and knowing who he was seemed too dangerous.
The nurse who taught us sex education told us how much easier it is for girls now. With the rape kit to prove force and collect DNA samples, cases like mine were simple. No more having them say she wanted it, no more saying it could have been anybody. And no more having to be this stupid girl with the stupid boyfriend and keeping this social worker away from the real me. Just a quick confession and crying into her warm soft chest for as long as I want, then going to the hospital and having everyone treat me very gently. And getting to say it to the police, “Jerry Morgenthayer, Orem, Utah.”
And becoming a ward of the state. Or going back to live with Bill and having him know about it.
Probably I’ll get caught anyway. My cousin won’t be there, or won’t help me, and I’ll end up on the streets for a few weeks and get caught or give up. And the evidence will be healed and Jerry Morgenthayer’s semen dried up and gone, and I’ll have to spend the rest of my life thinking about him at home, humping his wife and telling her how much he missed her while he was on the road.
– – –
We drive through rolling gold hills as the suns sets. Cars are all around, flowing with us like a river. Then we come over a hill and I see the ocean for the first time. It is glassy and calm between two arms of land. Not the real ocean, I know, but the bay seems even better. The shore lights circle around it in the dusk, and the reflection of the orange sky makes it like looking through a window in the earth. Further out I can see the bridge. Past that is the Pacific, the sun dropping into it with burning clouds all around and waves cutting shadowed streaks in the water. The waves make me think of the rows of basin and range mountains, where everything is so clear and heartbreaking. I look at the social worker, who carried me through that strange place. The orange light is beautiful on her brown skin, dark and fiery at the same time.
“Can you do me a favor when we get to my cousin’s?” I ask. “Let me go in first and explain things. I told her I was coming with my boyfriend, and if she sees you she’ll think I’m a lesbian or something.”
When I got such a crush on Ms. Sheldon in the 6th grade I thought I was a lesbian. But the next crush was on Mr. Wilkins, who loaned me his own books, and sometime that year I started having what the sex-education people called a “normal interest” in boys. The crushes were different. They were for the people who showed me the world was bigger than I thought, with more ways to understand it and more places a person might fit. I didn’t want the normal interests, just crushes on faraway, perfect people like my cousin.
It’s funny to have a crush on this social worker, who’s preachy and not too bright, and who I have lied to from the start. She’s brave though, and I’m sure you can trust her to do what she says. She probably really does help people sometimes, even if she doesn’t understand how complicated things can be. And, of course, she’s right about filing charges, it’s the right thing to do and could protect other girls.
I tell her my cousin’s street in Albany and read her the directions I downloaded at the library. We circle the bay, dropping down so I can’t see the water. Then we pick our way through neighborhoods of small houses with neat yards full of trees and bright flowers that stand out in the dusk. It’s so early for flowers it seems like a miracle. I think it’s just for me, a new start, the way spring is supposed to be. But then I realize Jerry Morgenthayer is probably in California by now, that he’s seeing spring, too. I ride along with no idea what I’m going to do.
The social worker stops in front of the address I give her, a stucco cottage with flower boxes lining the porch rail. I walk to the trunk and rap on the rear windshield. Nothing happens, and I’m about to go without my pack when the trunk finally pops open. I walk onto the little porch with the pack slung over my shoulder. I raise my hand to knock, then stop and turn toward the car. The yard is so small I’m only 10 feet from it. “I think I hear someone around back,” I tell her.
I come down from the porch, doing my best to look happy and excited and head for a side gate that opens to the back yard. She rolls the car forward so she can watch me pass along the side of the house.
But they are in the back yard. Not my cousin, of course, because I added 200 to the address, but an old couple on their patio, staring hard at me through the dim light. I stop dead. The man is wearing an apron and holding barbecue tongs. The woman looks back and forth between him and me. He waves the tongs at me but can’t think of what to say. I take a few steps toward them, enough to be out of the social worker’s view and say, “Oh gosh, I’m sorry. I must have the wrong house.” I slip my other arm into the pack and head for their back fence. It’s only waist high, and I jump into an alley. I look back and say, “I am so sorry.” The stupid girl’s last words.
Then I walk into the night, free, just like him.
———-
Rick Craig’s short stories have appeared in Camas, Quarterly West, The Redneck Review, The Seattle Review and Mountain Gazette. He was awarded a fiction fellowship in 2000 from Writers at Work. Craig was born in South Dakota in 1963 and grew up mostly in the Southwest. After an abbreviated university career he spent 12 years as a wilderness guide and instructor, teaching kayaking, mountaineering and back-country travel skills on three continents. He lives in Missoula, Mont., with his family.
