AT THE END OF THE TWINE DRIVEWAY I TURNED LEFT, toward Washington, D.C.
“I hope you’d just as soon go to Washington,” I said to Josie.
“Why not?” she said. “That’s my motto, why not. Little Joe got me some license plates with that on ’em, for my birthday once. That was one of the nicest presents he ever gave me.”
Josie began to watch me as we drove toward Dallas. I had a feeling she was more intelligent than I had first supposed her to be. Also, she seemed kind.
“How come you’re not happy?” she asked. “You sure got a nice car.”
“Do you think anybody’s really happy?” I asked. I had a feeling that the one person I knew who was really happy was Belinda Arber. Her sister Beverly had traces of doubt in her eyes, traces of anxiety, but Belinda had none. In all likelihood, Belinda simply wouldn’t tolerate unhappiness; for all I knew it might never touch her, or touch her at most momentarily.
“Shoot, my baby sister’s happy as a frog,” Josie said. “She’s real pretty and she knows how to take up for herself. She ain’t but eighteen and she’s already had more boyfriends than I’ve had in my whole life. She don’t take nothing off any of them, either, unless it’s something she wants. If one of them don’t do right she just kicks him out of bed and gets another.”
“Was Little Joe ever nice?” I asked.
Josie considered for a moment, looking out at the pale plains.
“Well, he wasn’t mean,” she said. “Little Joe ain’t never been mean. That’s something. All he really wanted to do was get away from Big Joe. We was gonna run off, but shoot, we never stood a chance. They wasn’t about to let Little Joe loose or nothing.”
Josie sighed. “Actually, he was kinda sweet for a while,” she said. “He still is kinda sweet, only now he just takes dope all the time. You wouldn’t believe how much that man spends on dope. If he was a normal person he’d be broke in no time.”
She sighed again, a small quiet sigh. The next time I looked at her she was asleep.
I hit I-30 and drove across East Texas, leaving the plains and entering the pines. By four in the morning I was into Arkansas, and a little tired. The first real stopping place inside Arkansas is a little town called Hope, where I often stopped. Why Hope was called Hope has always interested me. The pioneers who settled it must have been in a good mood the day they arrived there, so they named it Hope. But most of their descendants, the residents of present-day Hope, looked as if they wished their ancestors had kept on trucking. They did not seem rich in the quality for which the town was named.
In the faint light of the dashboard Josie Twine looked very young—a girl, really. One whose hair had recently been dyed several times.
I drove over to the Holiday Inn and asked for a room with two beds.
When I came out, Josie was sitting up, looking blankly at the motel.
“I went to sleep,” she said, in the tones of a child. “Where are we?”
“Arkansas,” I said.
“My momma was born in Fayetteville,” Josie said. “Are we anywhere near there?”
“It’s not too far,” I said.
“I’m gonna send her a postcard,” Josie said. “She loves to get postcards. You think it’s too late to buy one now?”
“No, but it won’t go off until tomorrow,” I said.
“Okay, but don’t let me forget,” Josie said. “I gotta take advantage of my opportunities.”
In the room, Josie went right to the TV set and turned it on. Naturally all she got was snow. There is nothing happening on TV at four in the morning in Arkansas. Josie flipped through all the channels with mild disbelief.
“Shoot, we are out in the sticks,” she said. “They ain’t even on the cable. We’ve been on the cable for over a year. Now little Joe’s got one of them $7,000 discs and we can get 120 channels. He can watch live fucking straight from Denmark. I don’t know what we’d do without the cable.”
At the mention of fucking she looked at me with sort of a puzzled expression, as if she were not sure what ought to happen next. The mere fact that we were driving around America together did not necessarily mean we were going to get involved. However, the fact that we were also in a bedroom together carried implications. I sat down on one bed, drained of will. Josie stood in front of the TV set, as if she hoped a program would suddenly come on and break the silence. What I mostly felt was an urge to brush my teeth, only I had forgotten to bring in my traveling kit.
“Excuse me,” I said, getting up. “I forgot my toothbrush and stuff.”
Just as I opened my car door to get my kit from the back seat the phone rang.
“Where are you?” Cindy said. “I called you a lot of times yesterday. Then I called you tonight. You said I could call you any time but it isn’t true.”
She sounded very distraught.
“I’ve been driving for most of the last eight hours,” I said. “You could have got me.”
“Yeah, but I was afraid to call then,” she said. “Spud was supposed to come and I didn’t want him to walk in and find me talking to you. I only can call at times when I know he’s not supposed to come. And then I never get you even though you said I could get you anytime.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said. “Now and then I’m out of the car. What’s the matter?”
“This is the most terrible thing that’s ever happened to me,” Cindy said. “I wish it had never happened.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” she said. “He hasn’t come to see me yet. His secretary called and said he was coming about four this afternoon, but he didn’t.”
I was secretly glad, but I thought it best to conceal this.
“How soon can you get here?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, a little surprised. “I’ve got to sleep for a while. I guess I could get there in a day and a half.”
“You don’t have to drive everywhere,” she said. “Just go somewhere and take an airplane. I’ll be crazy in a day and a half.”
“Why don’t you just go on back to Washington?” I said. “Why sit around Miami if the man isn’t even going to come and see you? He made you go there, you know. I think it’s terrible behavior.”
“I didn’t call to listen to you criticize him,” she said, anger replacing hurt in her voice.
“Well, you have to admit he’s behaved terribly,” I said.
“I don’t know why you think you have any room to talk,” Cindy said. “You said I could get you anytime but it wasn’t true.
“You were impotent, too,” she reminded me. “You have no right to criticize anybody.”
“I was impotent once,” I pointed out.
There was silence on the line. Our conversation was getting nowhere.
“I cried for hours,” Cindy said. “Now I’m puffy. He probably won’t sleep with me now even if he does come.”
“I doubt he’ll come this time of night,” I said. “What do you suppose he’s doing?”
“He’s with Betsy,” Cindy said.
“Who’s Betsy?”
“His wife. I told you that. Can’t you remember anything?” Cindy said.
“Why did he bring his wife if he wanted to see you?” I asked. “I think you should leave on the first plane in the morning.”
“I didn’t ask for your advice,” Cindy said. “Just come and help me.”
“Help you do what?” I asked.
“Help me wait.”
“How’s that supposed to work? If I’m sitting there helping you wait and Spud shows up he might be a little annoyed, don’t you think?”
“You won’t be in the room with me,” Cindy said.
“Then where will I be?”
“You could be somewhere in the hotel,” she said. “In another room.”
“How would that help you wait?” I asked.
“I never thought you’d ask so many questions,” Cindy said. “God, you ask a lot of questions.”
“Well, it seems strange,” I said. “What help can I be if I’m in another room?”
“Because you’ll be there if I give up,” she said. “I don’t want to give up, but I might.”
She said it in a voice that was not quite in control of itself. It was clear she was not that far from giving up, even as we spoke.
I was silent for a moment.
“Jack, are you there?” she asked.
She had rarely used my name in speaking to me.
“I’m here,” I said.
“Can’t you just do it and not ask questions?” she said. “That’s our problem, you know.”
“What is?”
“We talk too much,” Cindy said. “We should just do things and not talk so much.”
“Can I just ask you one more question?” I said.
“What?”
“What if I start to Miami and Spud shows up while I’m in transit? He may just be planning to let you suffer and then surprise you. How am I gonna know?”
“I wish you didn’t make everything so complicated,” Cindy said.
I was silent again.
“I feel like I’m about to give up,” she said. “You know how you sometimes feel you’re about to vomit? I feel that way, only I’m about to give up.”
“Listen,” I said. “I’ve been driving too long. I’ve got to sleep. You should sleep too. Then call me. If you give up you could fly to someplace and I’ll meet you.”
“Okay,” Cindy said, meekly. “I hope you’re gonna be reliable this time. I hope I can get you if I call.”
“I have to eat,” I said. “I’m sometimes out of the car for a few minutes. But you can keep trying. You’ll get me.”
“Okay, Jack,” Cindy said, “Do you love me?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Okay, Jack,” she said again, and hung up.