The heat, more than oppressive, was almost heavy on her skin. It had been bad enough inside the car, the weak air-conditioning going full-blast, but now, outside, the weight of the hot air almost hurt, pulling on her. The sunshine was also too much, even for her sunglasses—the bright, almost white light nearly blinding.
“Jesus Christ,” Gwen whispered to herself. Why would anyone live here? Why would any human with the ability to leave submit themselves to this?
She was surprised to see that she could pay at the pump—she thought only cities had that kind of thing. She moved toward the back of the car, realizing as she did that she’d neglected to pop the little gas hatch from inside. At least I remembered to check which side it was on, she thought. The idea of having to move the car now was almost too much to imagine.
After she finally got the gas going, the little dial on the pump turned so slowly at first that she wasn’t sure it was on. A few pennies finally appeared on the total line, then a few more. She put her ear near the pump and could hear something moving inside, almost groaning.
“I feel ya,” she told it.
She sighed. Should she wait inside the little store? She knew it would have dusty, unappealing local snacks, a pruney old-timer with too much time on his hands, and a toilet in need of cleaning. She dreaded the old-timer the most, the kind of questions he’d ask and the comments he’d make. She’d heard them before.
She waited another thirty seconds before realizing that if she stood out here much longer, she would fall over dead or catch on fire. Sleigh bells jangled as she opened the flimsy door, and she had to stop entirely to let her eyes adjust to the dim, almost murky light. It was cooler in here, but only a little—no air-conditioning in evidence.
“Hot enough for ya?” the old man asked.
She made herself chuckle and slid off her sunglasses. “It’s a scorcher, all right.”
“Sorry about the slow pump out there. Always acts up in the heat.”
“No problem.” Was it always acting up?
“Ladies’ is in the back,” he said, gesturing. “Though it’s also the men’s.” He seemed to find this remark funny, and she forced a smile.
Still nearly blind, she almost walked into a stand of some local jerky, then staggered to the back of the little store between shelves of things she would never buy, even in her wildest, hungriest desperation.
The toilet, at least, wasn’t what she’d expected. It was small, yes, smelly, yes, but the bowl had clearly been cleaned recently with a bottle of bleach sitting next to it, and she spotted a bonus: toilet paper.
“Jackpot.”
Years on the job had trained her bladder to wait for hours and hours. She hadn’t planned on going, so she had to sit there for a while before her body recognized what she was doing. This was good, she thought, washing her hands. Since she’d gone now, she wouldn’t have to stop again anytime soon. And despite her terrible morning, she felt good, fresh. She might even make it until eight or nine tonight, if the gas held out that long. She checked her watch. Just after eleven, so maybe not. This tank had lasted only a little more than four hours.
Back in the store, eyes adjusted, she spent a few minutes surveying the saleable goods, putting off the inevitable small talk as long as she could to give the gas pump time to finish its job. She didn’t recognize most of the brands on the shelves—odd, cheap knock-offs with strange, punny names. Not that she would have bought any of it, brand-recognition or not. She didn’t eat crap like this. Still, she needed to waste some more time, so she picked up a bag of bright-orange Cheese Grenades as if interested in purchasing them. The sell-by date was February 1, 1997—more than four months ago. She set them down as if changing her mind and surreptitiously wiped the dust off on her jeans.
The lone cooler was shuddering and loud, by all evidence on its last leg, and when she opened the door for the only appealing beverage inside—generic water—the air that escaped was barely cool. Knowing she could dawdle no longer, she carried a bottle up to the front counter, digging her wallet out of her back pocket.
“That all you need?” he asked.
“That’s it,” she said. If I needed anything else, I’d have it, she thought. She took her change, bracing herself for what would come next.
“Those are some interesting tattoos.” His expression—suspicion, maybe disgust—suggested he thought they were anything but.
“Thanks.”
“You have those done all at once or—”
“Over the years.”
Luckily, he left it at that, but he couldn’t seem to keep himself from talking, moving on to her next dreaded topic almost at once.
“So where you headed?”
“Phoenix,” she lied.
He whistled. “Got a piece to go, then, huh?”
“Yes.”
“You from there?”
She knew from his tone and from the careful, squinty way he was staring at her what he meant. The implication was the same no matter what city she said or who asked: she didn’t look like she was from there. Some of this maybe wasn’t his fault. Friends over the years had told her, gently or not, that with her mixed heritage, she didn’t seem Asian or Hispanic, and not really a blend, either. She was something else, something unfamiliar. New people, especially older ones like this guy, always stared at her a beat too long, assessing her, trying to figure her out. Still, she wondered, not for the first time, where people like this man thought she was from.
“Yes,” she said, once again bracing herself for the next question.
“Where are you really from? I mean, where were you born?”
“Phoenix.”
“Really?”
She had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping at him. She was lying, yes, and she’d been in some version of this conversation so many times in her life she knew she shouldn’t let it bother her, but it always did. It didn’t matter where she was, whether at home or on the road, or who she was with—no one believed her. She was too foreign-looking for any of the places she mentioned.
“Really,” she managed.
Some of her anger must have surfaced on her face, as the man held up his hands. “No offense.”
She managed to nod and turned to leave.
“Have a nice day!” he called.
“No thanks to you,” she said, loud enough for him to hear.
The heat was almost a relief after that exchange, and she paused outside, hands on her hips, breathing deeply to calm down. She was making progress. Six months ago, that guy wouldn’t have gotten the snide, passive remark thrown over her shoulder. He would have been in trouble. Dr. Leichman would be proud of her for not kicking the shit out of him.
She smiled at the thought and pressed the slightly cool bottle of water to her forehead, realizing a moment too late that the dye from the coloring on the label had leaked onto her hand.
“Shit,” she said, wiping her forehead. Her fingers came away smudged and blue.
Great. Now, on top of everything, she was probably marked blue for life—all thanks to a two-dollar bottle of shitty, lukewarm water.
She heard the gas stop pumping as she approached the car and noticed for the first time the enormous markup on the gas here—almost a dollar higher than it had been in town this morning. Between the water and the gas, she’d dumped almost forty dollars on this one stop.
Still, in this case, she had no one to blame but herself. She hadn’t been paying attention—too distracted from this morning. In fact, by the time she’d realized she needed gas, she couldn’t have said how long the car’s gas light had been on. Even if she’d been aware of the price of gasoline here, she’d been forced to stop at the first place she’d seen—this dump. God knew how far the next one would be. That’s what you got from avoiding the interstate.
She opened the car door, and a blast of heat rolled out of it like a hot wind. She closed her eyes against it, rocking back a step, then forced herself to climb in. She immediately rolled the window down. If this morning was any indication, it would take the damn thing thirty minutes to cool down again inside. The car had no cup holders, so she threw the bottle onto the passenger’s seat, unconcerned about the dye hurting the upholstery. No one would even notice in an old jalopy like this, and anyway, it wasn’t her car. She used a tissue and a little spit to clean the blue off her forehead, surprised when it all rubbed away.
Doing some quick math, she thought she’d probably hit El Paso in an hour, maybe less. She’d meant to ask the guy inside how far it was, but judging from the time and her usual speed, she must be close. From there, she’d head north into New Mexico, and that would give her a little breathing room, a little time to make some choices. Getting out of Texas was the first step.
She turned the key and the engine failed to roll over, grinding and complaining. She had a hot flash of desperate panic, and then it finally sputtered to life. Her heart sputtered with relief, tight and painful in her chest. Her hands were shaking and sweaty when she threw the car into gear, and she spun the wheels, squealing out of the station and back into the little one-lane highway. She sped crazily for a few minutes and then forced herself to slow down, setting the car at a mile or two over the posted limit. No reason to get herself pulled over now—not when she was this close to escape.
The blacktop stretched out in front of her, doing that funny mirage thing in the distance. There was nothing to see on either side of the car, the sun too blinding, the landscape too bleak. A few long irrigation machines sat in brown fields, growing dirt, as far as she could tell. Only a lone bird in the sky or an occasional pickup truck indicated anything was alive out here. Finally, she spotted a mile-marker sign. El Paso: 47 miles.
“Thank Christ,” she whispered, finally feeling a bit of tension seep out of her shoulders. Not far now.
Despite the hazy heat, she saw the figure long before she reached it. She even knew what to expect: a hitchhiker. She’d passed several of them already this morning. Broken men with ratty clothes, an occasional college kid with a patchy beard and a guitar. All of them held a cardboard sign with destinations, or pleas of some kind. She was usually going too fast to read them but would catch a word or two: Help or Going To and the name of some city. Not that she would ever consider stopping, not on her own, and not this close to the border, but it gave her something to think about for a while. She liked imagining their lives, what had brought them to stand on the side of the road, out here of all places. She’d been trained to make educated guesses about people from a single glance, and she was very good at it. Going by someone at 55 miles an hour didn’t usually give her much to go on, but it passed the time.
This hitchhiker was different; she could see that right away. For one thing, the person was walking away from her. Usually this close, close enough to hear her car, they would turn around and hold up a sign. This one didn’t. Also, she could see even from here that this person was slight, short even, and dressed inappropriately for walking along the side of the road.
It was a woman.
As her car roared past, she turned her head toward the woman outside, and their eyes met—it was less than a second, but it was enough. Gwen moved her gaze back to the road, unaccountably gripping the wheel, her knuckles so tight they drained of blood. What was that woman doing out there? Why on earth was someone like that walking alone on the side of the road? Where had she come from? Even with a glance, she’d seen that the woman’s hair and clothes had been nice—formal even, as if she’d just walked out of the office for a cup of coffee. In fact, the only thing off about her had been her eyes. She’d looked terrified.
“Shit,” she said, slamming the steering wheel with her hand. Already, her foot had moved to the brake, almost unconsciously, and her car gradually came to a stop as she pulled off to the side of the road. She was well beyond the woman, now a tiny speck in the rearview mirror, so she took a second to think. Was she really going to do this? Helping her would delay everything.
“Motherfucker,” she said, and turned her car around.
She slowed down as she reached the woman, shooting past her slightly to turn back. This far from nowhere, she basically had the road to herself. The woman had stopped now to watch, and when Gwen got her car pointed in the right direction, the woman put up a thumb. She pulled over a few feet in front of her and rolled down the passenger window. The woman outside hesitated, still standing some ten feet behind the car, staring at her, but she finally walked over and leaned down, peering inside, her fingertips on the edge of the window.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi. You need a ride?”
The woman hesitated, her glance darting around as if searching for something. Up close, her clothes were even nicer than they’d seemed while driving past. She was like a fashion plate for a businesswoman in her dark-blue skirt-suit and stark-white silk shirt. She had a little matching purse tucked under one arm, the thin strap over her shoulder. Her blond hair was pulled up into a neat, stylish coif, and she wore tasteful, delicate makeup. She seemed fresh and clean despite the heat, only a thin sheen of sweat on her upper lip reflecting some slight discomfort. Finally, she stopped her nervous search of the car and rested her gaze on Gwen’s face, assessing, reading it.
Finally, she nodded. “Yes. Please.”
“Get in.”
The woman continued to stare at her evenly for a moment longer, and then she stood up and opened the door. She was about to sit down when she spotted the water bottle on the seat.
Gwen grabbed it. “Sorry. Forgot that was there.”
“No problem,” the woman said. She was wearing low, white heels, and she climbed inside carefully, almost daintily. She buckled her seat belt and then sat there, eyes straight ahead, rigid and almost completely still. She’d consciously or unconsciously clutched her purse against her body with her right hand.
“You can have the bottle if you want it. Hasn’t been opened yet.” She offered the water to her.
The woman shook her head. “No, thanks.”
Wary, careful, Gwen thought. Still scared, but smart.
“Where you headed?”
The woman didn’t reply, still staring ahead, but finally her head turned toward her, eyes suspicious.
“Why?”
Gwen laughed. “So I know where to drop you off!”
Some of the tension left the woman’s shoulders, and she gave a weak smile. “Oh, yes, of course. Sorry. Anywhere, for now. I need a telephone.”
“We’re almost to El Paso. That work for you?”
The woman nodded, staring at the road again.
She shook her head, baffled, and pulled back onto the road, not bothering to check her mirror or give a signal. Five minutes out here and nothing had passed them.
She let the silence stretch out for several minutes. She could see the woman in her peripheral vision, tense and still next to her. It’s fine, she thought. I don’t want to make small talk, either. Still, she couldn’t help the almost overwhelming curiosity gnawing at her. Where had this woman come from? Nothing was out here—no houses, no towns, no businesses, nothing at all. She’d have passed the woman’s car if she’d had a flat tire or engine problem, and she hadn’t seen anything like that all morning. It was possible she’d come from a different road, a side road to this one, but Gwen didn’t think so. The only other explanations were far-fetched. Either she’d come from one of those broken-down farms she’d passed—and one glance at her was enough to suggest otherwise—or someone had dropped her off there on the side of the road. Either way, it was strange. And that expression, the one she’d seen when she first drove past her, had been telling. If she herself had been walking along this road, with no water and no car, she’d have been desperate to flag down the first car or truck she’d seen, alone or not. This woman hadn’t even tried. And she’d been scared—more than scared. She’d watched her as if expecting something or someone else.
Finally, too curious to stop herself, she asked, “You have a name?”
The woman continued to stare straight ahead, her shoulders, if anything, tensing even further. Finally, she nodded, her eyes flicking sideways to meet hers. “Yes. Abby.”
“Nice to meet you, Abby. I’m Gwen.”
Abby didn’t reply. She sat there, still rigid, eyes still rooted to the road in front of them. This response didn’t bother Gwen. She’d expected this exact behavior, so it simply confirmed what she’d already known. The longer she sat here with this woman, the more she knew about her. Abby wanted nothing to do with her, and she was giving nothing away. She was frightened, terrified of something, someone. She simply wanted to get somewhere safe, away from whatever or whoever it was. She’d lied about her name, but again, Gwen had expected that. Something was clearly up with this chick. But what?