Twelve

Another rest stop on the same freeway, but this one was more of a park than a mere parking lot with toilets, and this time, without Lee, Kate did not have to take the closest possible spot to the block of rest rooms. Instead, she drove past the center of activity, past the RVs and dogs and cranky children, around the van giving free coffee and brochures about the dangers of drunk driving, to pull the Saab into the farthest parking spot. Silence descended. Kate reached back for her jacket, and handed Jules hers.

Outside, on the tarmac, it was cold, but a bleak afternoon sun struggled for an illusion of warmth. Jules walked off to the toilets, and Kate left the parking area to stroll up a small rise of scruffy lawn. There was a river on the other side of the grass, fast and full and gray and cold, although, when she had scrambled cautiously up onto the boulders that formed the banks, Kate could see a lone fisherman downstream near the freeway bridge. She chose a flat rock on the top of the ridge, pulled her hat down over her ears and her coat down as far as she could, and she sat, watching the water go past.

Jules came after a while, stood and looked; then she, too, sat. Her hand came up to brush at the cropped hair on the back of her head.

“Still feels funny?” Kate asked.

“I’m getting more used to it. I don’t feel so…naked anymore.”

“You sorry you did it?”

“No, I like it. It feels…How does it feel? Unprotected. Risky. Daring.”

“Freedom is always a risky business,” Kate intoned.

“Philosopher cop,” Jules jeered. “But I don’t think I’d go as far as Sinéad O’Connor. I’d get frostbite of the scalp.”

“She probably wears hats a lot, in Ireland.”

“I want a hat like yours—a nice warm hat.” Jules pulled her collar up around her unprotected ears and pushed her bare hands into her pockets. “I wonder where fishermen get their clothes,” she said after a while. “That water must be freezing.” They watched the still figure, totally swathed in hat, coat, gloves, and hip waders, standing in the water. The only bits of human being actually showing were the circles of wrinkled skin around his eyes and nose—which were surrounded by the balaclava hat—wisps of white hair straggling from underneath, and the very tips of his fingers. He noticed them watching him, and raised one hand slightly. They waved back at him. “Those are cool gloves,” Jules said, the final word accompanied by a shiver. Kate stood up. Her head was clear now, but it was beginning to ache from the cold. She handed Jules the keys.

“You get in the car; I’ll just be a minute.” Kate walked across the vacant portion of parking lot toward the ugly green cement-block building, where she gingerly eased her bare skin onto the icy toilet seat, washed her hands in water from a glacier, and walked out of the open doorway into an arctic blast and what at first glance appeared to be a tribe of Afghan gypsies with Frisbees. At least twenty college-aged kids, swathed in layers of colorful ethnic garments, had emerged from a resigned-looking bus and were spilling out across the pavement in chattering confusion. Three neon green plastic disks sailed back and forth between gloved hands while sandwiches, plastic food containers, and thermoses were pulled from nylon backpacks. The odors of damp wool, cigarettes, curry, and stale dope hit Kate’s frozen nose, and she paused to absorb the spectacle. She had been too young for the first onslaught of the true hippie movement, but each generation of university students seemed to discover it anew. Once, her second year at UC Berkeley, she had taken a trip like this, with half a dozen others to New Mexico during the winter break…

A trio of nearly identical twenty-year-olds pushed unseeing past her, three lithe bodies in boots and jeans and Mexican sweaters, carrying on a high-speed conversation.

“—think they’d have a microwave or something. My uncle has one you can plug into the cigarette lighter—”

“Yeah I mean, cold lentils are pretty gross.”

“That sauna we stopped at was pretty cool, though.”

“I don’t think that bus has a cigarette lighter—”

“Why couldn’t they put them in these rest stops? I mean, they have those hand dryers, so why not a microwave?”

“Yeah, like you could put a dime in for thirty seconds—”

“Like for a Tampax or something.”

“Why not? It’d be a public serv—Oh God!”

“Oh shit, that’s cold!”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Why can’t they heat these goddamn toilets?”

“I’d pay a dime for—”

“—Stand up on the seat like they do in—”

“God, I wish I was a man!”

Grinning hugely, Kate tucked her hands under her armpits and walked back to the Saab. Another group of refugees from middle-class America were on the ridge overlooking the river, one of the girls looking like a sheep with a camera. She waved her furry arms to arrange her victims, two boys and a girl wearing a glorious coat, into a pose of buffoonery, and when she was satisfied, she snapped two pictures, took one of the frozen fisherman, and turned to take two or three more of her companions below, arrayed around the sides of the bus. Jules was still standing outside the car, shivering and watching the activity with the half-envious interest of a younger generation. Kate shook her head at lost youth, got in behind the wheel, and started the car. They drove off beneath a shower of Frisbees.

The car warmed up rapidly, as did they. Kate’s cold-induced headache did not fade, however, and she was torn between the desire for fresh air and the soothing stuffiness of the heaters. Then, when half an hour later Jules suggested they stop for dinner early, her stomach gave a lurch at the thought of food, and her heart sank.

“Well,” she said in resignation, aware now that she really was beginning to feel ill, “I had thought we’d make it to Portland tonight.”

“That’s okay then,” Jules said. “I’m not starving.”

“No, I mean I don’t think we’ll make it. I’m afraid we’re going to have to stop, anyway.”

Through the incipient nausea and the tightening throb of her peripheral vision, Kate saw Jules look at her quickly.

“Your head?”

“I’m afraid so. I haven’t had one for nearly a week; I thought they were over. Sorry.”

“Oh God, Kate, don’t apologize. Just stop.”

“I could go on for another hour, I think.”

“Why?”

Why indeed?

“We can’t just stop. It’ll have to be a place for the night, so I can go to bed. I’ll be fine in the morning,” she lied. She would be shaky and distant tomorrow, but functional.

“There’re a couple of motels and restaurants two exits from now—that’s what made me mention dinner. The sign said five miles.”

“Would that suit you?”

“Sure. I have a book.”

“I’m really sorry about this.”

“Oh hey, it’s a real hardship, stopping at four o’clock instead of seven. Like, major downer, man, I just can’t stand it; I’ll have to walk to Portland without you.”

“Is downer back in? I’ve heard cool and even bummer, which was out of it by the time I was growing up. Bad trip will be revived next.” Kate was trying, but it was getting bad fast.

“Cool is cool, but out of it is out of it,” Jules informed her.

“Wouldn’t you know?” she said lightly, and in a few minutes, she asked, “Which do you want, Best Western, Motel Six, or TraveLodge?”

“Which one has cable? This one says it does, but that one is farther from the freeway, so it’d be quieter.”

“Jules, choose. Now.”

“Turn right.”

Kate signed the register with unsteady hands, one small and fading part of her carrying on in the onslaught inside her tender skull, arranging cable for Jules’s room, arranging meals on the bill, taking the keys, aware of Jules, solicitous and worried at her elbow, practically guiding Kate up the stairs and dumping Kate’s bag on the chair.

“Can I do anything for you?”

“Pull the curtains shut, would you? That’s better.”

“Do you want a doctor or something?”

“Jules, please, I just need to be alone and quiet.” She squinted across the room at the girl and saw the fear in her eyes. “Jules, I promise you, I’m okay. It’s just a kind of spasm that happens. I’ve had them before, and I’ll probably have them again. They’re”—she had to hunt for the word—“temporary. In the morning, I will be fine. Now, you go have some dinner.” The lurch of her stomach was almost uncontrollable this time, and she swallowed the rush of saliva in her mouth. “Watch MTV until midnight, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Did I give you the car key?”

“Yes. I have it. And should I take your room key, just in case…?”

“I really don’t want you to come over, Jules, but if it makes you feel better, take it.” And go! she wanted to shriek. Jules either saw the thought or sensed it, because she picked up Kate’s room key and went to the door.

“Jules, I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t worry, Kate. I hope you sleep well.”

“G’night.” The door started to close, but one last stir of her carrying-on self urged Kate to say, “Jules?” and the girl stuck her head back in. “Don’t go anywhere, will you? Other than the restaurant.”

“Of course not,” the girl said, and closed the door firmly behind her.

Kate took six rapid steps to the toilet, where she was comprehensively sick. Afterward, she washed her face with tender care, brought each shoe up to untie the laces before stepping on the heels to pull them off, and then slid gratefully between the stiff, sterile sheets. And slept and slept.

In the morning when she woke, Jules was missing.