Ohio, The Heart of It All

Part Two

8

Med-Ohio is in a lousy part of the city, but the nurse at the Shredders recommended it and Octavia needs her tetanus shot. The waiting room reminds Octavia of a marriage license bureau, the manila walls, the linoleum floor patterned to match a spoiled potato. Everyone in the waiting area is quiet, the way you are when you're entering into a big mistake. The patients, stymied and irritated by their fill-in sheets, are so downtrodden and unsightly that at first Octavia thinks it's a joke, something intentional in the spirit of Halloween, tooths crayoned out, skin afflictions pasted on, sewn-in fright hair under the John Deere caps. Welcome to the primary care-less crowd. She's one of them. No personal physician to write down on her fill-out sheet. Octavia slumps in the orange plastic bench and stares down at the dark spoils in the linoleum.

   It's not that these people were destined to look this way, not judging by the prettiness of the little girl skipping toward her. It's just that they've taken their package of natural gifts and stomped all over them. In a re markable way they've made the very least of what they have. Octavia jerks to attention when she hears a mother snap, "Get over here so I can spank you." Of course she's going to come now, Octavia wants to respond to the woman. It's beyond her what the little girl has done. Something, must have been something, in the split second Octavia spaced out. The girl refuses to march toward her spanking and now she's in for it. Octavia keeps her head down, her heart beginning to thump. The mother probably senses Octavia as a disapproving interloper; she might take it out further on her kid if they make eye contact.

   Once again she's back standing in line at a 7-Eleven in Framingham, idly thinking to herself, I think I'm the only one here who hasn't been recently deinstitutionalized. She remembers how she even glanced outside for the bus and the reintegration counselor. Everyone in line had fortyouncers or cigarettes, they coughed up precancer phlegm when they talked, their flamboyantly filthy hands and nails fished for change in each one of their dirty pockets. Then a man walked into the store, a gun was produced, and Octavia thought, He's going to choose me, the normal one, sticking out like a sore thumb. Did he choose her, or did she imagine that he chose her? Was the gun at her head? She stood there not believing what had happened. Only seconds afterwards, the lady next in line pushed her Colt 45 to the register as if nothing had occurred. "You're gonna have to wait a fucking minute," the counter guy told her. Their untreated cavities snarled at each other. "Aren't we brave now, asshole," a thin and corroded man called out in a friendly sort of way, but the counter guy didn't like it, and that started it, a shouting match and threats to knock some teeth out. And then the lady tried to leave without paying for her Colt 45 and the counter guy grabbed her and they were on the floor. Soon everyone was on the floor, although Octavia doesn't think she was on the floor. There was still a gun pointed at her head, just hovering there.

   From there it was almost a beeline to Byron's bed—despite the wife she knew about (she didn't know about the pregnancy, although that would explain Byron's increasing albeit absolutely nice urgency).

   In her moments of inner truth-telling, Octavia knows she upped the ante on the traumatic effect of the robbery even though the robber was perfectly civil—except for the pistol to her head, which she may or may not have imagined. She knows she was just looking for an excuse to be with Byron. Being temporarily detained with those other customers while she waited to give her statement to the police (which diverged so remarkably from what others were saying that she almost believed she might be delusional; what she witnessed was gun, gun at my head, give me money, thank you, have a good day, good-bye everyone). What she witnessed of her fellow human beings there in the 7-Eleven made Byron a god among men. But then again she was Miss America compared to them—and Madame Curie and also Jackie Joyner Kersee.

   The swat is over—well, two swats and a rather forceful tug on the shoulder—and the little girl is crying."She's gotta learn," the mother says. Octavia is repulsed by the mother's showoffy pride, and the way a woman across from her murmurs "hmm-mmm" as if to a powerful preaching. Octavia watches the floor in misery. She can feel it in the air, the little girl's stubbornness; as soon as the crying dies down she's going to do something else. She wants to telegraph her a message: Don't do it. It's not worth it. It's a bicycle against a car.

   But the sun is shining when she finally escapes outside, and she's received her tetanus shot, and her left arm is already sore, and life is great again or at least passably good. She can keep on living. That's the main thing. She feels the full heat of an Indian summer. The good-bad throbbing of life.

   Next to the Med-Ohio is a discount card shop. She strides inside and finds a once-expensive foam costume of a red M&M reduced to $8. She saw the same M&M costume somewhere else for $29.99.

   She's excited about Halloween. She's already gathered some cornstalks across the road from the Shredders and bundled them together to make an autumn decoration for her front porch. Around her neighborhood the houses have started to come alive with preparations: trash-bag pumpkins swollen big and round with leaves, spider-web ropes curtaining porches, plastic skeletons frozen in mid-dance. This is great, she thinks. She makes two trips to the grocery before she decides on what candy to buy: miniature boxes of Nerds, miniature Snickers, miniature Three Musketeers, and full-size bubble-gum Pops. She can't wait to see, she has to admit, what Ohio has to offer for Halloween. The heartland, after all.

   She can't believe that John isn't letting everyone at the Shredders off early. Trick-or-Treat is from five to seven. She can't believe the world isn't tingling with anticipation.

   John doesn't even know it's Trick-or-Treat. Good thing he's now living with her—the kids would be soaping his windows and trashing his front yard. Out of the blue he asked if he could stay with her until he found a new place. She didn't mind, she has a big house to herself, and John was partly responsible for how she lucked into it. He was the one who helped her find a place, driving her through all the neighborhoods he thought she'd like, Grandview, German Village, Bexley, Clintonville, the Short North. There was some interesting stuff going on once you got outside the staid 'burbs of Upper Arlington where her parents live. They parked the car and walked the streets of the Short North; she could see the buildings of downtown not a mile away. The neighborhood was bustling. A lot of good-looking guys were out, although most were walking with other good-looking guys. Everyone was strolling the sidewalks, enjoying the day, getting ready to pick out their restaurant. The places with outdoor seating were already jammed. The weather was brilliant, with a touch, just a touch, of early autumn sadness: the light fading that much more quickly, the heat and sunshine like a final hug at the airport. On a whim they walked into a realtor's office and the lady there took them down the street to two apartments above the High Street shops. She was expecting something cramped and Bostony, but the roomy apartments bloomed out like one huge mushroom after another. The floor-to-ceiling window and the blond wood added an intoxicating sunshine to the place and she was ready to say okay on the spot but John had stationed himself behind the realtor and was flopping his head to and fro—no, no, no. Let me take a day or two to think about it, Octavia demurred. John led her down the side streets and they walked some more. That place was perfect! she told him. Why did you do that? John just shook his head.

   On one of the corners sat a brick house, so new the porch and its pillars were still wrapped in plastic, awaiting their coat of paint. The house was funky and high-tech but styled to fit in with the older brick houses. In the small front yard a woman with spiked blond hair unloaded rhododendron bushes from a Toyota truck. She surged with friendliness and energy and told them about the house, how she had designed and built it—one of several houses she had done, in fact. "Isn't it fun!" she said about the house. She offered to show them inside and they introduced themselves in between enthusing about her house, her sense of style, her great bathrooms, her open-air designs. The woman said she was buying this house herself she loved it so much.

   Her name was Connie and she took them to another house she had built down the street. The owners were professors, going abroad for a year, and their rental deal long struck with a visiting professor from Wellesley had just fallen through when the woman was abruptly diagnosed with leukemia. That's where I went to school, Octavia wanted to say, but it quickly seemed out of place. The couple was leaving in a week, leaving it for Connie to rent after they departed.

   Octavia took it immediately. It had three bedrooms upstairs with three full baths, and the open-air feel of Connie's other house. Her grand father would have liked the glass-block kitchen counter; he could have perhaps started an alligator farm in there. The rent was $950 a month, a price she'd be lucky to score for a studio in Boston. Octavia remembered how things like this had routinely happened to her in Spain. It was the way most things had come about in Spain, walking around, happening into things, the next place to live, the next job, the next set of friends. Plus, she would just be staying there, housesitting for the couple, and the psychological factor was addictive, she was not living there, she could leave any time. For her friends back in Boston who kept feigning ignorance about Ohio (was it a state? where was it exactly? did people or just cows live there? did the abacus work as fast as the cash register?) she could now apply these words: housesitting, temporary, doing someone a favor. Only doing that, until it was time to go back to New England.

   Her house (she quickly liked it enough to start using the possessive) had a master bedroom far from the other two. Guests could stay at the house and she wouldn't even know they were there, so when John asked a few weeks later if he could stay there for a while, she could hardly say no. She had seen the place he was living in. She knew he had a house somewhere else but he hadn't offered to show it to her. Perhaps because he would then feel obliged to follow it up with a conversation about Elise. She understood what he was doing, creating a deliberate limbo so he wouldn't have to make a choice. His second-floor apartment was a gloomy tube of bedrooms recarved into living room and kitchen. It was never meant to be the apartment it was trying to be but that, she supposed, was why it suited John.

   That kind of apartment meant you were free of obligations, free of rudimentary social awareness. It was no wonder John had no idea when Trick-or-Treat was. That was okay, she's been happy in fact to take care of it, leaving work early to make sure to be at her station at five o'clock, arm wrapped around a big bowl of candy, waiting for the throng of Trick-or Treaters. She has on her red M&M outfit. The weather is an autumn blessing, warm enough for T-shirts. She stands outside on her porch and sees that her other neighbors have done the same. Down the street she can see them; like her, all of them are costumed, some elaborately. She hears spooky organ music coming from one porch. What will be the big costume among the kids this year? she wonders. Pokemon, Harry Potter, Scooby Doo? What will be the original costumes, the ones the kids have thought up and created themselves, robots made out of boxes, tunics their mothers have helped to sew. She likes those best. She stands ready.

John can barely see the eyes within the chocolaty chewy inside of the M&M. He stoops down and draws closer to the two eyeholes. The rapid blinking he manages to see he interprets as surprise. He's pretty sure he mentioned this in advance, but Octavia's red arms flex their irritation. He's reminded of marriage and the negotiation that goes into all acts that otherwise wouldn't be given a second thought. He's happy not to have Kevin in his hair, but now in living with Octavia all his free will is subject to a second opinion. Not that this particular activity qualifies as something negligible. It is Octavia's washer after all (or rather the people she's housesitting for's washer), and as far as the double date with Tony and Hayley Badecker, he guesses that's not exactly negligible either. Maybe he should have mentioned both items. In advance. But that Hayley Badecker comes on so strong. Since Tony was already going to be here . . . One night, two birds.

   "Sorry. Thought I mentioned it," John says.

   "No you didn't think you mentioned it." Octavia sounds truly irritated. He scoots away so he won't hear the next sentence. It probably will have the world wife in it.

   Out of habit he goes upstairs and prepares to shower, then remembers what he's about to do. He doesn't need to be clean for this. He puts on a pair of yellow Playtex gloves. He looks up when he hears stomping, but it's Halloween beggars. He's sitting on the couch looking at his yellow hands when he hears Tony's voice go "Trick or treat!" Tony is zipped up to his neck in his blue jumpsuit. In his hand is his own Hefty bag of money.

   John ties a grease-reeking bandana around his face and leads the way. Spread on the floor of the basement are disposable pie tins growing cultures since last night. A few bills are in each pie tin and on top of these are ladled different liquids whose odor-removing properties will now be tested. Last night Octavia got into the swing of it, searching through her cosmetics for perfume samples, nail-polish remover, hair spray, et cetera. They searched the house for weird chemicals the owners might have on hand.

   As they clomp down the basement stairs, John imagines that he can smell it, the fumes of putrefaction rising higher and stronger than the other smells that assault his senses: the Go-Jo and grease from his bandana meets cheap perfume meets mothballs meets garlic meets ammonia cleanser.

   First he checks the washer. The load he put in this morning has cycled through. The damp bills cling to the tub sides like paint splotches. He pulls off a freshly laundered twenty, brings it to his nose and pulls down the bandana. Ah . . . yuck.

   "Your turn," he sputters to Tony.

   Tony moves to the first tin, a U. S. Grant sprayed with shaving cream.

   "No, right?" John asks.

   "No is right," Tony says.

   "Wishful thinking."

   In the next tin a twenty is buried in a bog of chewing tobacco and cooking brandy. Another twenty is drowning in Jovan Musk John found in the clearance bin at CVS. "Yo!" Tony shouts out. "Smells like two dead dogs checked into a cheap motel."

   "No, huh?"

   "No is correct," Tony says. "Who will be next?" he asks, strolling down the aisle like a county fair judge. Strawberry potpourri, cider vinegar, lime tile cleaner, English Leather (another clearance-bin item), rug cleaner, cat pee deodorizer, Lestoil, Chinese fish oil (possibly more rancid than the bills), and Korean chili paste that dyes the bill a garlicky, suppurating red.

   Tony gasps, "Lestoil's the best so far." He runs up the basement steps for air.

At the stroke of five, a battalion of Trick-or-Treaters briefly scattered in attack formation. One, two, three, four groups, one right after the other. It was only 5:05 and Octavia was panicking that she'd run out of candy. She started to ration it—instead of four items, one of each type, she cut it down to two.

   Then, suddenly, after the initial flurry it stopped. She stood on her empty porch. All was quiet. She heard the detonations of a monster's laugh beating from the house across the street. There were some outstanding costumes—good thing Octavia remembered her camera. The witch gave her an evil grin—neon-green face makeup, greener lips, a wart on the nose, a shiny witch's hat and cape. She snapped Dracula in full regalia: red cape, teeth dripping in bloody canines, an exaggerated widow's peak shoe-polished into his slicked-back hair. The Bride of Frankenstein had wrapped her own long hair around a cage made from a plastic flowerpot.

   Excellent.

   There was just one problem. All the outfits were worn by the adults passing out the candy. The kids didn't bother with costumes. They wore their street clothes. They didn't bother to say "trick or treat." They moved quickly but with blank expressions, like marathoners at a water station, zapped into a type of fervent nothingness.

   "What are you?" Octavia asked one of them.

   "I'm a pirate," said a kid in T-shirt and jeans.

   "No you aren't," Octavia said.

   He took his candy and moved on.

   Now it's 5:30 and there is not a soul in sight. Against the unseasonable warmth the thickening darkness feels good. Octavia feels a summer-night loneliness, the kind of loneliness you don't take seriously, the kind that fills you with possibilities. The homeowners in their costumes have moved from their porches to the sidewalk. Everyone starts to gather, and the talk is the same: we're the only ones who dressed up, it's so different than when I was a kid, I spent weeks working on my costume, our neighbor made homemade brownies and wrapped them—ooh, can't do that now. Octavia moves down the street, still carrying her bowl of candy— she has an overflow of the stuff, same as everyone else.

   On the corner she finds Connie and a group of her friends celebrating Halloween in high style. An electric piano has been dragged onto her long wraparound porch (the pillars still wrapped in plastic), and a man dressed as the Phantom of the Opera pretends to play as the Broadway album blasts from a speaker. Connie herself has gelled her already spiked hair into thicker spikes and sprayed them and her face silver. She's going for the medieval mallet look.

   On the porch sits a bowl as big as a sink filled with candy. "Take some! Take lots!" Connie encourages Octavia. "Isn't this fun! How are you enjoying the house? Isn't it great?"

   Octavia heads back down the street to her own house. Tony is outside. He's huddled on the front porch, curled over the railing like a seasick man lurching his vomit into the ocean. He explains the problem. Well, she knew it wasn't going to work, the money will stop smelling when it stops smelling. John with his ideas. She watched him march down to the basement with an armload of stuff, squirt a shaving cream snowman on top of U. S. Grant—what was he thinking? Contact lens cleaner? That is not going to do anything. Moth crystals? They'll keep away the moths. Chili paste? It'll make it spicy. Still, it was sort of fun and she got into it. They went hunting through the house and garage and dug up some interestingly foul liquids with potential deodorizing capabilities. In bed she thought of more things—lime juice, Alka-Seltzer, rubbing alcohol. She half-dreamed them, then fell asleep.

   Now Tony tells her they're going to run a load of wash using Lestoil.

   "You're not putting Lestoil in the washing machine," Octavia informs him. "You're not putting Lestoil in the washing machine," she repeats to John who's just come out. His bandit's bandana and yellow Playtex gloves work pretty well as a costume—a hell of a lot better than anything she's seen on the kids.

   "It says you can put it in the washing machine," John reads from the label.

   "You are not putting Lestoil in the washing machine."

   "He already ran a load of money in it."

   "You did what!"

   "It's an experiment," Tony explains.

   "How could you?"

   "Regular detergent," John says. "No harm done."

   "This is my house. You are not putting Lestoil in the washing machine."

   Tony says, "All I want is money that doesn't stink when I take it into a store and spend it."

   "Do you think Lestoil doesn't stink?" Octavia shouts.

   John removes a glove and sinks his hand into the bowl of candy. "Let's get back," he says to Tony.

   "You are not putting Lestoil in the washing machine."

   "Do you want me not to put Lestoil in the washing machine, Otty?"

   Octavia marches angrily away from them, to the sidewalk and then down the street and all the way to the corner and then back and around an alley. She has to muster smiles for the drifts of stranded adults, and the smiles actually help to soothe her and she heads home and goes inside and drops her red M&M costume to the floor. John doesn't even know it's Halloween and he doesn't care, it's not on his blip screen, but she knows and she cares and it makes her mad. Oh yeah, and the stupid kids, they want the candy bad enough but none of the ceremony that goes with it.

   She plops down on the couch and clicks on the TV. She switches to a cable access show, because that's her mood. A storefront church service is going on, camcorded in bad light. She checks out the home-shopping channels to see if Marie Osmond is talking up her doll collection or Susan Lucci her cosmetics or Richard Simmons his Deal-a-Meal. You'd think that on Halloween Joan Rivers would be on—selling on the Home Shopping Club is the only time she's seen Joan Rivers act nice to people, and it is scary, Halloween scary, she seems even more perverse trying to be sweet. Octavia checks all three shopping clubs. Nobody pathetically famous is shilling tonight.

   She switches back to the church service. The lighting is so dingy and cheap-looking. As if light itself, when you're poor, comes in a remaindered spectrum.

   She can't believe that John did any of the things he did today, from start to finish. If that was the way he lived his married days, no wonder Elise left him.

   On the cable access station the camcorder's wide-screen shot wobbles to a close-up of the pastor, a mountain of a black woman dwarfing her podium, knocking it around like a broom handle. Her parishioners sit in metal fold-up chairs. They're both black and white, it's a healthy mix, and Octavia is always curious about this, when she sees poor blacks and poor whites together—what is it that connects them? The pastor pushes out from her podium, which bangs to the floor. She prepares to heal. The clank of metal chairs as the people line up.

   The doorbell rings. Octavia grabs her bowl and runs. A pair of preteen girls dressed in street clothes, one black, one white, lovely as only preteens can be, stand mutely on her porch. Octavia meets their silence with her own, pretending she has no idea why they're here. They smile. They're too cute. Octavia gives in. "What do you say?" Octavia prompts.

   "Trick or treat."

   "So what are you dressed as?" she asks.

   "I'm a cheerleader," says the one with long, shiny blond hair.

   "You are not," Octavia says.

   The girl points to her sweater and skirt.

   "Where are your pom-poms?"

   "What are those?" the girl asks.

   "What's your name?"

   "Sarah."

   "Sarah, you are not a cheerleader."

   "I think I am."

   "How old are you?"

   "Twelve."

   "Can't you think of something else besides cheerleader? Or princess?"

   "I was a princess last year," Sarah says.

   "You know what, if you keep dressing up as princesses and cheerleaders you're just going to be dressing up as a housewife pretty soon except it won't be Halloween. What are you?" she asks the other girl.

   "A rap singer."

   "No, you're not. What's your name?"

   "Jamelle."

   "What are you really, Jamelle?"

   "Pocahontas," the girl says.

   "No, you're not. Where are your pigtails?"

   "I don't like pigtails. They don't look good on me."

   "Well, the Indians wore pigtails."

   Jamelle looks at her; she seems to be wondering whether she should smile.

   "So what are you really?"

   "A Powderpuff Girl."

   "No you're not."

   "She's Hermione Granger," Sarah says.

   "Who's that?"

   "Harry Potter's friend. But she won't say 'cause somebody ragged on her about Hermione Granger is white."

   "And she's got buck teeth," Jamelle adds.

   "Yeah but she gets those fixed," Sarah said.

   "Does Hermione Granger wear Old Navy T-shirts?" Octavia asks.

   The two girls stare at her.

   "Hermione Granger is British, isn't she?"

   "I don't know."

   "If she's Harry Potter's friend, she must be British."

   The two girls look at her.

   "So what exactly is so Hermione Granger about your T-shirt and pants?" Octavia asks. She watches them try to make eye contact with each other without moving their heads. "Is Old Navy a British company?" They don't answer. She holds out the bowl. "Take as much as you want."

   "We can come back and visit you sometime," Sarah says.

   "Sure," Octavia says.

   The healing is in full throttle when she returns to the TV. Two bulky strong men, too muscular to fit nicely into their suits, help to catch the healed. They're young and black-pride bald. They seem intensely conscious of themselves, their own role-model professionalism. Octavia has never had to be anyone but herself, she's been no one's role model. There's plenty more where she came from. Plenty more educated white girls sprawled on a couch, currently hungry for take-out sushi.

   The next person up in the healing is large and white, a woman, Octavia believes, with a man's Brillcreamed haircut. She takes her healing hard on the forehead and tumbles back with a vulgar groan. She sprawls backward over metal chairs, crash-folding them on top of herself and the two assistants, and bringing down to the floor with her a domino row of the faithful. The screen goes black, fuzzes, then returns to an image of the poorly lit next person getting healed.

   Octavia turns off the TV. She's suddenly had her own vision of healing: baking soda and vinegar. That's the thing that'll do it. That will fix the money right up.

   She halts as soon as she starts down the stairs. Ooh . . . Parfum de Cadavre, still going strong. She backs up, finds a wool muffler in the closet, bandages it around her face and tries again. In the basement John has collapsed onto his haunches, his back against the chilly basement wall. Now Tony is working with Didi Seven, a miracle cleaner that comes in a tube like toothpaste. Octavia found it in one of the cupboards. He complains that chili paste has turned one of the bills red. A hundred-dollar bill. He wants to clean it.

   In an empty tin can Octavia spreads out a twenty. She sprinkles a mound of baking soda on top, then pours on the vinegar. A hissing foam gobbles the bills.

   "Ow!" Tony yelps.

   As the bubbles fizz to a flat cream, Octavia watches the face of Alexander Hamilton ebb from sight. Tony squats beside her. He holds out the hundred rubbed with Didi Seven and demonstrates. Benjamin Franklin's face smears between his thumb and forefinger into a greenish red fingerpaint.

   Octavia looks at her twenty, then at Tony's hundred. She looks over at John, still collapsed. He looks up.

   "You put Lestoil in my washing machine for nothing. It's all counterfeit."

9

Sucked in. Now that the money is counterfeit, she's totally into it. How pathetic is that? Already schemes are traipsing about in her imagination. Just once, just one time, she wants to spend fifty or a hundred dollars of counterfeit money and get away with it. She imagines pulling back her hair, lowering on a Reds baseball cap, and with heavy lipstick and eye shadow and lots of zirconia around her neck to trick the camera's reflection, walking into a 7-Eleven—except probably a United Dairy Farmer around here—and passing on a counterfeit bill. She'd never go back to the store again. They'd never make her—isn't that what they say? She'd buy a forty-ouncer of Colt 45 like everybody else and they'd never figure her for who she was no matter how many times they looked at their security camera. It's not so much the money as the revenge fantasy it allows her to have. The robbery wasn't that bad, but it could have been a disaster. She's a victim of a tragedy that might have been.

   John goes upstairs to call Hayley Badecker and cancel the dinner date. They're too roiled up to do anything tonight but attend to this problem. He leaves a message on Hayley's machine. It's rude to cancel at the last minute, but in a moment they forget all about her. The counterfeit problem has pushed another problem to the surface: Greenslade, what to do about.

   She sees that by the time this is over Greenslade will be a new entry in all their lexicons: Greenslade: 1. (n) an affliction; 2. (n) a crisis characterized by defective personnel or equipment.

   John goes up to take a shower and Octavia follows Tony outside where he unzips himself out of his jumpsuit. Considerately, he stands on the sidewalk and throws the uniform into his trunk. He's not so bad, Octavia thinks. He's a little bit thoughtful, a little bit honest, and you need somebody like that for your partner in crime.

   It's not yet seven o'clock. Although Trick-or-Treat is still ongoing, technically, the street is dead. All the adults have given up and gone inside and stripped off their costumes with her selfsame dejection. The sadness revisits. Come on, she tells herself, it's such a stupid holiday. It's Halloween. It's not Christmas or Thanksgiving or Passover or even the Fourth of July. It's meaningless. And orange.

   She blows out the jack-o'-lantern she carved while sitting on the steps, hoping kids would wander by and sit with her (they didn't). She throws her cornstalks to the ground. No, it's not, she decides. Halloween is not totally meaningless. The words breach of contract pop into her head. Children have a contract with the world, too; they're not without responsibilities. They have a contract with their own childhood. And nobody tonight fulfilled their childhood duties.

   It makes Octavia feel older to worry about children; she's always been a child, a daughter: that's her identity. She's not sure she wants to move up a notch into the next generation. She picks up the cornstalks, stands them back upon the porch.

   A half-slip of a whistle pivots her around. Tony catches her attention, shakes his head over thataway. A Mercedes is parking across the street.

   "No," Octavia whisper-moans. "She's here."

   Tony shrugs. He moves in closer to her. "I can go out to Greenjeans myself and you two can go with her."

   "I'd rather go to Greenslade's, believe me," she says.

   "Well, come on then." His hand reaches out and almost pulls her by the waist. He stops himself so abruptly neither can pretend it was a casual gesture. "Come with me then," he says.

   But now it means something to go with him, so for that reason she can't go. Across the street Hayley Badecker waves to them. The pool of light from a street lamp has blackened her into a trim silhouette. She bends inside her Mercedes to retrieve something, and when she does Tony's hand finds the small of Octavia's back. The hand blocks Octavia's retreat when he leans in and kisses her. Then both hands briefly rise up to caress her waist but quickly, fearfully drop away. He's afraid to touch her, she senses; he's afraid even to press his lips too hard. His kiss to her has been a girl's kiss, and Tony's face when he pulls away is a girl's face, embarrassed and tormented.

   Hayley, her insouciant man's kiss ready to unleash itself again, is heading their way.

   "I shouldn't have done that," Tony says.

   "Oh well."

   "Should I have done it?"

   "Hello!" Hayley Badecker calls. "Thought I'd spare you a pickup."

   "You didn't get your message," Tony says. Octavia notices how he clears his throat, trying to sound normal.

   "What message? I came straight from work."

   Octavia says, "We called you a little while ago. To cancel. Unfortunately, something's come up."

   Hayley Badecker's smile doesn't falter. She charges ahead, brimming with confidence. Octavia realizes that she's a little afraid of this chroni cally upbeat woman. She realizes something else: Hayley Badecker knows right where she lives.

   "What's come up?" she asks. Hayley's beautifully white teeth aim their grin from one to the other until they are compelled to answer.

   "A big problem with our night watchman," Octavia says.

   "That strange little man?"

   "One of them."

   "Oh dear. That's not good."

   "No, it's not. Unfortunately."

   "You haven't been robbed, have you?"

   "I don't think so," says Octavia. And she knows about the 7-Eleven, she thinks. She knows all my secrets.

   "Actually, we don't know that yet," Tony adds.

   "He's not hurt, is he? Fighting off the criminals?"

   Octavia shrugs.

   "Let's do this," Hayley Badecker suggests in her aerobics instructor's voice, cheerful, hortatory, invincible, unrefusable. "I'll go inside and use your powder room and then we can figure this out and still have a nice dinner. It's Friday. Time to party, boys and girls."

   Octavia shoots a glance to Tony, Tony shoots one to her. It doesn't go unnoticed by Hayley Badecker. Octavia watches Hayley register their furtiveness. It doesn't flatten her smile or scorch the enthusiasm. Actually it seems to encourage her. "Okay!" she says.

   Octavia was hoping Tony was a better liar than he was. She was counting on his forcefulness. But as Hayley Badecker strides through the door with the two of them dragging behind, she understands she's not getting out of this. An abysmal smell has exploded in her house. The individual odors have fought through the basement. Octavia retreats, unable to take a full breath until she's back outside.

   Hayley Badecker asks, "Do you have roaches, is that it? You're doing the right thing, bombing them. This'll kill them. We need to go out to eat because you certainly can't stay here."

   "We have a problem," is all Octavia can manage to say.

John drives them all to Greenslade's house. He wonders if it's his fault Greenslade is bedridden. Was it the flu shot or was it coming on anyway? The Shredders has been passing its nights unattended, and each night John has taken about forty thousand dollars home with him and slept with it in one of Octavia's bedrooms. He hasn't told Octavia yet. He doesn't know if this would make her nervous. He assumes it wouldn't, but he has no confidence in any of his character assumptions these days.

   Hayley Badecker rides beside him in the front seat. Octavia and Tony sit silently in the back. He has to check the rearview mirror to make sure they're there. Sometimes he sees his own eyes when he angles his head up. Hayley's doing a lot of talking, but that's no surprise. Elise liked to talk, too, but it wasn't so noticeable. Maybe because he liked listening to what she had to say. He's not sure how smart Hayley is, though it strikes him that she could be very successful running her own company or even running for office. The company would have to involve the marketing of some product no one wanted—because Hayley would make them want it. She's got that kind of talent—talent to get you to do the things you don't want to do. Like right now, for example. None of them wants to do this except Hayley. Suddenly Hayley Badecker is fully involved in their strategy sessions. Suddenly she's in there with them making plans. (Well, he doesn't care, really, not if she can solve it. If she can come up with something to get them out of this fiasco, he'll be happy.) First thing, Hayley says, biting her lip fiercely, the wheels turning, first thing is to get the money out of that strange old man's hands. Because he'll be committing a crime if he spends it—and here she leans intimately into John's shoul der as they drive in the dark, she and he in their own front-seat shell of darkness and twosomeness, the silent duo in back almost not there—and who cares if he commits a crime, she adds, but it'll come back to you, John. And will you have committed a crime? Will you be an accomplice, is that what it'll mean?

   Until now John hasn't much cared what Tony or Joe Greenslade would do with the money. But now he is starting to cringe. If Greenslade screws up, and with Greenslade that's pretty much a given, they might all be in trouble. John can't trust Greenslade to get rid of the money. John has to get the money himself, he has to have the money in his own hands, he has to watch the money burn up in smoke before he can relax. He imagines the smoke skywriting its good-bye in the air. On the wings of that smoke will drift the last remnants of a husband and wife, two doomed Smalltown, Ohio, schemers. And that's not a metaphor. He directs this thought to Elise. Not a metaphor. A fact. Those counterfeit bills are stained with the DNA of a would-be Bonnie and Clyde. People thinking of going into a life of crime should have their genes tested, to make sure they have the Bonnie-and-Clyde gene. Those two didn't; they were genetically coded for disaster.

   The porch light shines on Joe Greenslade's unit-sized house. Four or five pumpkins, stair-stepped in size, still flicker their ghoulish faces. Mrs. Greenslade meets them at the door, holding a jumbo pack of miniature Tootsies.

   "Mrs. Greenslade, it's John Bonner."

   "Who?" she barks out.

   "John Bonner. Your husband works for me."

   "Thought you was some more Trick-or-Treaters. Well, come on in. I guess that's what you're here for."

   "We came to see Joe."

   "He's in bed."

   "We need to talk to him, Mrs. Greenslade."

   "We was supposed to went to Dayton to buy a car, but he's too sick. He's real sick."

   "Why do you have to go to Dayton to buy a car?" Octavia asks.

   "You give him that flu shot and he got kicked in the stomach with the flu."

   "Aren't there cars in Columbus?" Octavia says.

   John gives her a look: drop it.

   "I know you meant well though, but what's done is done." Mrs. Greenslade removes a tissue from inside her sleeve and puts her mouth to it.

   "Has he been to the doctor?"

   "What did she just put into that Kleenex?" Hayley Badecker is holding fearfully on to Octavia, whispering too loudly into her ear. John motions the two women to follow him. When they are several steps away, he says, "Stay here until I call you, please."

   "Doctor says he's got the walking pneumonia," Mrs. Greenslade says.

   John says, "Mrs. Greenslade, I don't know how to tell you this, but if you were going to buy a car with that money Joe, you know, found . . ."

   "It's not real money," Tony says.

   "What? Is this Tony? Are you Tony? Joe talks about you. Now you are someone he likes."

   From several steps away come Octavia chuckles.

   "Look at this here." Tony takes out a fresh twenty, squirts some Didi Seven on it and smears Alexander Hamilton's face into mush. "See? It's not real money."

   "Who're these other two?" Mrs. Greenslade asks, suddenly noticing the women's huddled shadow.

   "Can we come over now, John?" Octavia asks.

   John introduces Octavia and Hayley Badecker.

   "Y'all look like Trick-or-Treaters. That's what I thought you was." Mrs.

Greenslade turns to Hayley. "Why're you dressed like that if you're not Trick-or-Treating?"

   "Oh, you are a darling, you really are," Hayley Badecker says.

   "That's her work costume," Octavia says.

   A delighted Hayley Badecker plunks her head on Octavia's shoulder and leaves it there. John watches Octavia's jostle, but the head stays put.

   "It's late to be working," Mrs. Greenslade says. "Unless you got the night shift."

   "I wish," John hears Hayley reply, her head still on Octavia's shoulder, and then he feels a meaningful squeeze of his biceps. He guesses he should be flattered. She's the type to have fun with—fun with a capital F. Everything they did would be fun. Hayley Badecker has the fun gene.

   "Can we see that husband of yours?" Tony asks.

   "You mean Joe?"

   "Yes," Tony says. "You know, me and him are buddies. I need to see that old buzzard."

   Mrs. Greenslade starts laughing. "Now you he likes," she says. "You're one of the ones he likes. Well. Well, come on in and talk to him. You're Tony, right? He likes you. Joe!" she calls. "He's in bed," she says.

   John follows her past the living room into the squat of a hallway. There are two small bedrooms, one of them used for storage from what John can see. In the other lies Joe. The famous portrait of Jesus hangs at the entrance. This version of Jesus, the movie-star handsome version, is so popular he never thinks twice about it, but tonight it gives him a queer sensation, as though he's entering this dark chamber to administer last rites.

   "Joe!" John hails him in an overly loud and cheerful voice.

   Greenslade grins and thumbs the air victoriously.

   "Look at this," Tony says and holds up the smeared bill in the dimness.

   "You're confusing him," John tells Tony. "Step by step. Joe," he says, "Can I turn on the light?"

   "Sure," Greenslade croaks.

   "How're you feeling?"

   "Great." The raspy assurance is hacked out without irony. He gives them the high sign again.

   "You remember that money we found?" Tony asks.

   Greenslade grins.

   "It's counterfeit."

   Greenslade laughs happily.

   "You understand what I'm saying?" Tony turns to John. "Does he understand what we're saying?"

   "I don't know," John says.

   John leaves to find the interpreter and Mrs. Greenslade is in the living room talking about the pieces on her mantel to Octavia and Hayley. The living room is surrounded by exposed wallboard. The wallpaper has been steamed off, leaving yellowish glue patches. Pringles potato chip cans line the other end of the mantel like votive candles. Hayley Badecker is explaining to Mrs. Greenslade that she should put her collection of Camel cigarette lighters on an online auction.

   "What do you need, honey?" Mrs. Greenslade asks John.

   "We need help in here," he tells her.

   "What's he doing now, is he dying or anything?"

   "No, he's just having trouble . . ."

   "Breathing? Nothing to worry about."

   "No no, he's fine."

   "Then what is it?" Mrs. Greenslade does a finger twirl at her temple, and her raised eyebrows complete the question.

   "Something like that," John agrees.

   "I know how to talk to him," Mrs. Greenslade assures them. Like a shopkeeper delighted to be overburdened with so many customers, she directs Octavia and Hayley to another collection, on the TV hutch, and then attends to John.

   "Can you ask him where the money is? We're having trouble getting through to him."

   Mrs. Greenslade moves to the bedside and puts her hands on her hips. "Joe, now you tell them where the money is and stop fooling around. These people are busy and I got one of them going to help me with an auction so I don't have time for this. Joe, are you listening to me?"

   He looks up at her.

   "Tell them where the money is. Right now."

   "The money!" Tony yips.

   "The money you come back with in that trash bag I said don't bring in here 'cause it smells worse than a skunk. That money. You know what I'm talking about."

   Joe chuckles to himself.

   "Don't play stupid with me, old man. Stop your foolishness and answer them."

   Joe holds up a finger, his throat hitching several times.

   Mrs. Greenslade shakes her head. "Don't know why I bothered to marry him. I'm sorry, boys. Joe!" She leans down and shakes his shoulders. "I thought these boys was Trick-or-Treaters!"

   Greenslade's stutter finds its way into a sentence: "I put it in the storage shed."

   "Why'd you put it in there?" Mrs. Greenslade asks.

   "Where's the storage shed?" John asks.

   "Why'd you put it in there? I got things in there I don't want stunk up. I told you not to put it in anywhere where my stuff is going to be impounded by it. I explained it to you how bad it was. Says he has something for me, I'm supposed to be happy because he's happy about something he got from you boys at work. Well excuse me, I've seen what comes out of that place. And I'm not having that in my home."

   "Right," Tony says. "You're absolutely right, Mrs. Greenslade."

   "How'd it come to get stunk up so bad?"

   "You don't want to know."

   "Just sitting around that dirty job site too long," John says. "It can be a rather greasy place. So—is the storage shed back here in the yard?"

   "Go out the kitchen door, honey. You need to clean up your Shredders, John Junior, take some pride in your work. You need a porch light on?"

   The well of light reveals on its far perimeter a storage shed designed like a minibarn. The door is trimmed in white with a white diagonal slash across its top half. It's every bit of craft-cute and cozy that Greenslade's house is not. Mrs. Greenslade goes to fetch the key, but drawing closer, John sees that the hasp hangs loose. He unhooks the lock from the door and opens it. He doesn't smell anything. Instantly he's worried. "Bring a flashlight," he calls to Tony. When he turns around, he sees the light in the bus go off, the bus that sits in the garden. He sees the curtain draw back. It's black where a face would be, but he knows the daughter is watching him.

   When they scope the inside with a weak flashlight, they find a battery lantern. The three of them, John, Tony, and Mrs. Greenslade—Otty and Hayley hang back on the porch—search the shed. The odor is there but not strongly. It was there briefly. John knows the bag is gone.

   "Who might have taken it?" he asks.

   "Nobody would've tooken it." Mrs. Greenslade is still looking. "I can smell it," she says. "It's here."

   "No, it's gone," John tells her. "Trust me. If it were here, we'd know."

   "I smell it pretty good," Mrs. Greenslade says. "I told him not to bring

it in here. I said I don't want no more roadkill in my house. I'm tired of that."

   "Who might have taken it?"

   "Well who would take it?" Mrs. Greenslade says.

   "Who would?"

   "Who would want it all stunk up like that?"

   "Is your daughter here?"

   "Sylvia? Sylvia wouldn't want it. She keeps her place too nice and neat to bring in something like that."

   "Can I talk with her?" John asks.

   "You're gonna have to talk to her about it," Mrs. Greenslade says. "She's got a neat place, you'll see. She wouldn't want that in her place."

   "Is she here?"

   "Sure, she's here. She's not off running around if that's what you mean."

   "I remember meeting her. I'd like to speak with her," John says.

   "You want me to go get her?"

   "Thank you, yes," John says.

   "Hold on then," Mrs. Greenslade says. She shuffles back into the lighted perimeter toward the back porch where Octavia and Hayley continue their silent, rather dumbfounded watch. "Well, all right," she says, moving past them to the side of the house. "She can be difficult. She's got her own side to her."

   John follows but he lingers several steps behind so as not to appear too pushy. But really he's ready to push. He's ready to push them all off a cliff. He wants the bag of money and he wants to leave. Monday, he starts looking for a new night watchman. He wants Greenslade out of his life, yes he does. He's startled by the anger he's about to spit up. This was stupid. How did he get involved in something so stupid?

   "You're talking to yourself," Octavia whispers as he passes.

   "I'm about to solve this thing. Don't say anything to her."

   "To who?"

   "The daughter."

   "There's a daughter? Where is she?" Octavia whispers.

   "She lives in the bus," John answers. "I'm warning you. When you see her . . . Don't say anything."

   "This is getting better and better," Octavia says.

   "You're not the one going to jail over this," John says.

   "You're right," Octavia says.

   Mrs. Greenslade knocks on the door of her daughter's abode. The bus is still a bright yellow. It hasn't rusted into the ground yet. It's a school bus, and when the double doors suck inward to open, a stop sign juts out and nearly swipes John on the jaw. When he trips back, he feels something squish under his foot. He puts his foot down again and something else squishes. The flashlight reveals dead goldfish on patterned steppingstones. He quickly switches off the light. He doesn't want to give Mrs. Greenslade any excuse to veer off the topic. "Hi Sylvia," John says. "We met a few days ago."

   Mrs. Greenslade says, "Sylvia, this here's that John Bonner Daddy works for and this here's Tony who Daddy's always talking about. Now I want you to be nice to them. Daddy likes Tony a lot." She turns to Tony. "It'd be nice if you two could be friends."

   "I hope we can be friends," Tony says.

   "Did you hear that, Sylvia? Tony wants to be your friend."

   John says, "Hi, Sylvia, we met, remember? Sure hope you're not getting the flu your daddy's got." He doesn't know why he's talking like this, as if the girl is fifteen years old and he's their good ol' neighbor farmboy. He reaches out his hand but she doesn't shake it this time. Her stomach swings over her belt. Her hair is slicked back. And all the while, all the things he's noticing about her make him worry about Octavia and Hayley. He just knows one of them is going to say something.

   "You gonna invite your new friends inside?" Mrs. Greenslade asks her.

   "Maybe."

   "Maybe yes," Mrs. Greenslade says. "Maybe yes you'd better show your manners, missy. Come on," she tells the boys. As they step up into her bus, as if for a ride to school, she adds,"I taught her better'n that. But she's got Joe on the other end."

   John scrapes his shoes against the step to wipe off the goldfish. The yellow bus: sense memory of elementary school, chilly mornings, groups of kids, a knapsack on his back. Another memory as he steps inside: his teacher reading Arabian Nights. For entering Sylvia's bus is like entering a sheik's tent that expands magically, genie-like, into an immense oasis of lush riches and fruits. Inside, the bus is gold. Gold.

   Gold everywhere.

   Gold draperies pad the windows. Gold valances swim above them like fairy-tale mermaids. In place of bus seats is a living-room suite: sofa and two easy chairs extraordinarily vinyled in shining, molten gold.

   A huge, gilt-framed painting of white horses in golden bridles covers the bus's rear window, where the children once turned to make faces at the car behind them. On a faux-marble table is a bowl of candy and golden apples.

   The only thing not gold is Sylvia herself. Head hanging, shoulders slumped, she stands looking at the floor, Sylvia with her Brillcreamed hair, her work pants sliding under her belly. This room is the woman Sylvia cannot be. The bus is telling all her secrets. It's as bad as if he invaded her underwear drawer.

   Her mother says, "This here's that Tony your daddy's always talking about. He didn't say Tony was so good-looking. Did he, Sylvia? What do you say to Tony?"

   Sylvia hangs her head.

   "That's all right," Tony says. "I'm shy, too."

Suddenly the bus rocks, and then rocks again.

   "What was that?"

   "Sylvia," Mrs. Greenslade warns.

   John feels bad for Sylvia, but he doesn't have time tonight for any walk a mile in my shoes stuff. He needs to get down to business. He decides to come right out and ask her. Do you know anything about the money your father found at work? Something like that. Direct, yet not too confrontational. Instead he hears, "All right, Sylvie, where is it and don't lie." Mrs. Greenslade has beaten him to it.

   Sylvia's head keeps hanging. Her muteness is one loud decibel of pain.

   "Answer me now."

   Sylvia mumbles.

   "What? Look at me! Did I raise you like this!"

   "Gone," she mumbles.

   "You know what I'm talking about then, right?"

   Sylvia nods, still eyeing the floor.

   Tony steps down on the bus steps. "What happens now?" he whispers.

   John follows him out. "It's just never easy," he says.

Ever since the waiting room at Med-Ohio Octavia has been burdened with the illusion that everyone is in their Halloween costumes, everyone of course but the very children who should be in them, and now she is traveling in the back seat of a car, pressed next to the most confusing costume of all: a person going to the party as a Neither. For it's neither man nor woman next to her. Sylvia, the name is, a hyperfeminine name. Greenslade's daughter. John has invited her out to eat—"to eat," a new form of the infinitive "to interrogate, to torture, to elicit a confession." Maybe Sylvia has spent the money. Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe they should leave her alone.

   Sitting beside her in the darkened car, Octavia sees only the thighs and big kneecaps protruding through the pants. She uses the passing headlights to check for hair—sideburn hair, the buzzed hair on the neck and above the ears. Her morbid fascination is fueled by physical hunger. Abruptly, as they left the Greenslades she was hit by hunger, and now she pictures the bag of Tootsies Mrs. Greenslade held in her hand and she wishes she had dived in and taken a handful. She wishes she had filled her pockets with her own candy—Snickers, Three Musketeers—every year she buys candy she doesn't like so she won't eat it. Every year she eats it anyway.

   This half of the ride finds Tony in the front with John. So that means Hayley Badecker is in the back with her and Sylvia, and H. B. is really enjoying herself. Octavia can feel H. B.'s mockery of Sylvia in the way her hands are boldly and recklessly attempting to roam Octavia's body. Octavia pins one hand down and then the other as they engage in an increasingly fearsome patty-cake. She tries sitting on Hayley Badecker's hands but that doesn't work for obvious reasons, and she lets out a yelp that sends John's eyes to the rearview mirror. Thank god for that mirror, or a pair of lips would be on a relentless foraging mission. Whatever happened in the bus between John and Sylvia she has no idea because Hayley Badecker led her to the other side of the bus (why did she follow, did she think there was another door?) and then she found herself pushed once more against scrap metal (she's starting to glean an m.o. here) and so strongly held there she was shoving and flailing while trying to keep absolutely quiet. They nearly knocked the bus off its support blocks, and she nearly chipped a tooth.

   Now they are inside a Mexican restaurant and Octavia keeps touching her lip to check for bleeding. Of course Hayley Badecker is staring lovestruck at Octavia but she refuses to look her way and instead renews her inspection of Sylvia. Compared to the darkness of the car, the dim light of the restaurant is like a searchlight. Sylvia's skin is pimpleless and clear, yet the pores are so big and deep her whole face appears dimpled like a golf ball. The face is featureless, no bone structure in sight, as if God in His Irony threw a ball of oatmeal and called it Woman. Yet she isn't ugly, Octavia finally decides, not at all, not really. Stare enough and there's something sweet in the effect as a whole. A sweetness shines out of her. Suddenly she likes Sylvia, and just as suddenly comes her worry that everyone else is about to ridicule her. When Sylvia leaves to go to the little girls' room, there is total silence at the table.

   "I'm so hungry," Octavia finally says.

   "Me, too, darling," says Hayley Badecker, who has been slowed by hunger to a sultry pace. Now every sentence addressed to Octavia has a smoky "darling" attached to it.

   "I wonder what she did with the money," John says.

   "She's not getting back to her house until she tells us," Tony says.

   "Stop right there, Tony," Octavia says.

   Tony holds up his hands. "I'm only interested in the money."

   "She's got it hidden somewhere."

   "Order her an extra-strong margarita," Hayley says.

   Just as she says this, a waitress dressed up as a cat brings them a tray of unordered Dos Equis. When Octavia finds herself introduced as John's sister, the waitress drops to her knees and puts her chin on the table, the penciled whiskers twitching up at Octavia. The black kitten ears of her headband perk up. Octavia doesn't know how to react. Meow? The waitress is wearing a forearm's length of costume jewelry on each arm. Her sleeveless shirt reveals henna tattoos of mythical creatures. The young woman says dreamily how much she has been wanting to meet Octavia.

   "This is my friend Amy," John says.

   "And I'll be your waitress tonight." Amy laughs, her eyes still riveted on Octavia.

   "We're going to need a round of margaritas, too," Hayley orders. "Yoohoo, over here."

   Amy's little whiskers crinkle in her direction. "Okay," she says agreeably. She pulls her chin off the table to register Sylvia politely standing behind her. She scoots out of the way, still on her knees, to let Sylvia in. "Hi," she says with such conviction that Sylvia answers back.

   "Hi," says Sylvia, and her colorless face is quickly aflame.

   Amy writes A-M-Y on the paper placemat and shows it to Sylvia. "I'm going to be your waitress. That's my name."

   "This is Sylvia," John says.

   "Hi, Sylvia. I'm so happy to meet you." Then Amy on her knees addresses the group, chin back on the table, the lilt in her voice turning her comments into questions."I just want to tell everyone that I'm multitasking tonight? I'm waiting tables, I'm breaking up with my boyfriend, I'm trying to get into college, and I'm on two medications?"

   "Just do your best," John tells her.

   Hayley holds up the beers. "You're making a good start. Margaritas, too, okay?"

   "Okay, I just wanted everyone to know." She smiles extra at Sylvia and pats her forearm. "I'm a little distracted tonight? I'm filling out a college application? Oh!" she exclaims. "What a beautiful bracelet, Sylvia!" She gets on her feet for this, leans over the table and fingers Sylvia's bracelet, a gold band with an oval of turquoise.

   "It's Navajo." Sylvia has mustered the courage to speak. Her nervous smile at Amy makes Octavia's heart begin to crack.

   "I love it so much, Sylvia. Was it expensive?" Amy asks.

   "Five hundred and fifty dollars," Sylvia says.

   "What!" Hayley Badecker screams, banging across the table to grab Sylvia's wrist.

   "No, no, no," Amy admonishes gently, putting her hand over the bracelet. "This belongs to Sylvia."

   "I just want to see," Hayley Badecker says. "I just want to see and shriek. My god, honey, I've got a bridge to sell you!"

   Octavia sneaks a glance at the bracelet, and what she sees of it is not five hundred and fifty dollars' worth of bauble. She says, "I guess we're ready to order, aren't we?"

   "What are your specials?" Tony asks.

   "Oh I don't know," Amy says.

   "Try," Tony encourages.

   "We have a Halloween special."

   "Which is?" Tony throws up his hands."Somebody tonight get with it."

   "Oh frighten us, darling," Hayley Badecker purrs.

   Octavia says, "We don't need the specials, we can order off the menu, come on, everybody ready to go?" Tony throws her a hound-dog look. "I just want to get some food." Tony eyes her for an extra beat, but she won't acknowledge him.

   After they give their orders, Hayley suggests a pinball game to everyone, but her eyes are on Octavia. Octavia stands to get everyone else to stand, and then she sits down. Tony and Sylvia and Hayley Badecker take their drinks and squeeze toward the game corner. "I think she likes pinball," Hayley Badecker, great big conspiratorial smile on her face, theatrically whispers to Octavia as she departs.

   "This dinner is not going to work," John tells Octavia when it's the two of them. "I thought maybe if I got her alone."

   "What? That you could work your charms? Because she's so ugly she would melt at the sound of a man's compliment?"

   "I didn't say she was ugly."

   "You did, basically."

   "How?" John demands. "How did I basically do that? You're assuming that I think she's ugly. You're the one who thinks she's ugly."

   "No I don't," Octavia says.

   "Yes you do. You women are worse than any man."

   "Forget it," Octavia says. She remembers a transgendered man who used to come to the Framingham rec center. He was in all the classes, the Raku pottery class, the macrame class, the cartooning class, and the women's aerobics class. Then he began using the women's restroom. He was undergoing hormone therapy and was required to live as a woman for a year before any further steps would be taken. Octavia overheard the other women deciding whether the man was a he or a she or an it. They wondered what to call him. They decided on a word combining she and it: shit. She has to admit, she never heard the men utter a single remark.

   "I'll have to think of something else," John says.

   "Get Amy to ask her."

   "Did you see how she volunteered a sentence to her?"

   "What's her story anyway? Is she for real?"

   "Amy? Yeah. It's hard to say. Troubled. Hard to say."

   "The kneeling on the floor stuff. Is that because she's a cat?"

   "No."

   "She always does that?"

   "Mm-hmm."

   Octavia says abruptly, "Do you think Dad has ever been unfaithful to Mom?"

   "Why are you asking me that?"

   "I've been thinking about it."

   "Why?"

   "Well, do you?"

   "No."

   "He's so predictable. What about Mom?'

   He pauses. "Harder to say."

   Octavia feels the same way.

   "Too conventional," he decides.

   "Aren't conventional ones the ones that do it?"

   "I don't know. I'm conventional and I don't."

   "And I'm unconventional, and I do."

   "You've got to be married first."

   "One of you has to be," she says, giving him a brief but piercing look.

   John heads quickly to his beer. He gets half a bottle down, then says, "Am I cramping your lifestyle by staying with you?"

   "No. It was a singular event."

   "It's over now?"

   "Duh."

   "You're better now?"

   "Duh."

   "I don't have to stay with you."

   "What does that have to do with anything?"

   "I can go. If you need your privacy, I can find another place."

   "What?"

   "I can go."

   "It was in Boston, John. So far I have no need for privacy here."

   "Okay, so duh means Boston. Just let me in on your vocabulary from time to time."

   Octavia shakes her head.

   "I can go," he says.

   "Duh means Boston, John. Shut up already. I like you there even though you're starting to take over."

   "Take over?"

   "Lestoil. Number one. You're arranging my evenings for me. Number two. Don't do that. Don't arrange any more double dates with Hayley. God, please. First it's tetanus, then it's dental work."

   "You know, Octavia, you talk in circles and you think it's really cute when I don't understand."

   "No Lestoil in my washing machine. Does that sound like a circle?"

   "What's the tetanus shit about?"

   "She threw me up against some scrap metal. I cut myself. It's not going to end."

   "You're . . . So . . . What you're saying is that she wants attention."

   "Yeah . . ."

   "I thought so," John says. "All right, I'll take her out from now on. You don't have to worry about her."

   "It's not you she's after."

   "It's certainly not Tony."

   Octavia sinks back in her chair, rolling her eyes.

   "You?" John asks incredulously.

   "Duh."

   His eyes widen, then narrow in an attempt to control his amusement. He checks her margarita to see how much she's drunk.

   "Pay attention, John. The woman's practically raped me. I had to get a tetanus shot because of that tart. I actually went to Med-Ohio and got a tetanus shot this afternoon. My left arm is killing me and you're laughing at me."

   "I'm laughing at the word tart."

   "Why are you laughing? Because lesbians can only look like Sylvia?"

   "I didn't say Sylvia was a lesbian."

   "Neither did I."

   "As a matter of fact I don't think she is."

   "Neither do I."

   "You just told me she tried to kiss you."

   "The vampire! The vampire tried to kiss me. The one you think is flirting with you."

   "She's a vampire now."

   "You didn't notice we practically pushed the bus over. That was us."

   Now Octavia's the one who gets to laugh as she watches him carefully tuck his expression into neutral.

   "Yeah. Her idea of a romantic overture. Attack! Look at my lip. And I'm sure my ass has a giant bruise on it."

   "Why don't you just go for it?" he asks. "She has a great body."

   "Because I don't like her."

   "You don't like her because she's a lesbian?"

   "I don't like her because I don't like her. She's a weirdo. Did I say she was a lesbian? I didn't say that. I have no idea whether she's a lesbian. She's just a whatever-bian."

   "She's after me, too," John says.

   "No she's not."

   "Yes she is. If she's omnivorous, she wants me, too."

   "No she doesn't."

   "Why? Does it make you feel less special?"

   "Just forget it, John."

   He shrugs.

   Octavia leans back and howls. "That was such a Dad shrug," she says. "Total Dad shrug. Just watch," she says.     "Just watch her."

10

Saturday afternoon and Tony and John are at the Short North Tavern for lunch. John has asked Tony to wear sweats so he'll look like a personal trainer. Except for the sweatshirt picturing Wynonna at the Ohio State Fair, he could easily pass. He's buff, John thinks, looking him over. He seems to be naturally buff, hard-work buff. John wonders if he augments with weights.

   "So you said you had a plan," Tony says.

   "I do."

   "Why am I a personal trainer?"

   "This is awkward," John says.

   Tony doesn't help him out.

   "You know I'm divorced, right?"

   "You're divorced divorced? I didn't know that."

   John shrugs.

   "Forget it," Tony says. "I've never been married, never been divorced.

Forget it." He looks around. "Where's Octavia?" he finally asks. "You told me we were meeting about the money."

   "I never told you that. We're meeting so you can act like a personal trainer. You added the rest in your own mind."

   "That's why I'm acting like a personal trainer, right? It has something to do with the money."

   "No."

   "Then why?"

   "I'm meeting this girl. I want you to be a personal trainer."

   "I don't want to be a personal trainer."

   "Just be one." John goes back to his beer. "Just be one for one minute and then leave."

   "What about the money? What about Greenjeans? We gotta get it back. This could cause problems."

   "We will."

   "How?"When John doesn't answer, Tony makes as if to leave."No personal trainer."

   "All right, I have a plan."

   "And?"

   "I'm going back out there to talk sense to them."

   "That won't work."

   "Well, Tony, they seem to like you an awful lot. You go out there. Sweet-talk Joe's wife."

   Tony shakes his head. "No. Hell fucking no."

   John pushes a beer at him. "No thanks," Tony says. Then he says, "Actually I'm going back out there this afternoon. I promised to fix their goddam carport roof."

   "Great. See what you can do." John downs the rest of his beer. He eats from the basket of free nachos.

   Tony says, "It's that girl the one who has it."

   They check each other out. No one will go first.

   "She's that one, that uh—"

   "Lives in the bus."

   "The daughter."

   "Right."

   "Yeah, I agree, she's the one. She's got the money. And a big crush on you."

   Tony says, "The mother has a crush on me. Not the daughter. Octavia should be here. We need everybody's input." Tony gets up from their booth and wanders. He keeps glancing around. He's got it for Octavia, that's clear. It's good she's not here, not with his Wynonna Judd sweatshirt. Way too hillbilly for Otty. John recognizes the horny energy in Tony's pacing as he skitters up and down the bar, grabbing a handful of peanuts. John checks out himself and understands that his tapping foot is more than a foot tapping. His glances at the tavern door are not just glances at a door.

   Her name is Crystal. She usually runs with another petite brunette. The two triathletes of Goodale Park, both of them in unearthly shape. Two days ago John spotted her alone. She was way ahead of him. He shortcutted through the park to catch up. He'd been running for a while. His endorphins had kicked in, he had broken a nice sweat and was getting hot enough to wish he'd donned a T instead of a sweatshirt. He was buzzed by a conceivably false confidence but it was real enough to make him do it. He ran up beside her. He really had to haul ass to keep up, and then he barely had enough left for conversation.

   The weather was chilly and the wind was blowing. Crystal's skin was beaten red as if someone had slapped her. She still wore a jogging halter and lycra shorts despite the sunless cold. Her hair was longish short and tied back like Paul Revere's. The too-short bangs stood up like a brush cut.

   "Getting cold!" he blew out.

   "I hate to see it end," she called over.

   "What end?"

   "Good weather!"

   "Do you keep running through winter?"

   "Yeah of course," she called over.

   "I mean, what do you do about the snow and ice?" He paused. He didn't want to sound out of breath. Or wimpy.        "I'm too worried about another ACL injury." He made that point—another.

   "There's always the treadmill," Crystal shouted over her shoulder. She had speeded up to take the sharp turn around the corner and he coasted back to negotiate it wide and slow and keep the pressure off his knee. Then the hill started. Though it didn't look like much of a hill until you had to run it. She was already ten feet in front. He added a lunge to his pace but he was falling farther back. She was doing some kind of wind sprint up the hill. He settled in behind and when they turned again by the pond and the ground leveled out, he galloped harder until he was shoulder to shoulder. Her bare skin flared with fierce poinsettia blossoms. No sweat on her except her neck. The cold blotted the moisture as soon as it started.

   "Just a few days off and you feel it," he heaved.

   "I thought I missed you."

   "You did. Work." The word burst out of his lungs like vomit.

   She had enough breath to laugh. "What do you do?"

   "Own a business. Scrap processing."

   "Wow," she said. "What's that?"

   "Third-generation." Huff huff. "Industry. We buy scrap, like. Maybe leftovers from the Honda plant. Like that. Sell it to a foundry. For a profit."

   "Much of a profit?"

   "With volume, yeah."

   "Great!" she said.

   "We're like rare-book dealers."

    "Oh," she said.

   "But more. Like the stock market."

   "Oh!" she said.

   "What do you do?" he asked.

   "Sales," she yelled. "Restaurant supplies. One more?"

   "Whatever you want." When they got to the downhill, John pulled ahead because of his longer legs. His pace dawdled until she caught up. "Hard on my knee," he explained.

   "What do you do about a real hill?" she said.

   "This is real enough for me." He added, "My buddy's a personal trainer. He takes me on during the winter when I can't run. He says it's not good to do the same thing all the time."

   "That's true," she agreed.

   "You have to vary your routine."

   She said, "I use a personal trainer. I do some personal training myself. What's your friend's name?"

   "Tony. You wouldn't know him. He does these small towns. You know. Farmer wives. Even. Nursing homes. Get people started. Not athletes. Health."

   John had no idea why he was saying all this. Oxygen deprivation to the brain. But then it became clear when he added, "But he'll kill you if he thinks you're in shape. Nobody can keep up with him."

   "Sounds good," she said.

   "I don't know, maybe he could give you and your running partner. Trial run. At least it'd keep your workout varied."

   "Yeah maybe."

   "We could meet somewhere. I could introduce you. He's either too nice or too mean."

"I don't know about this guy."

   "Workout-wise, I mean. I mean, he could go a little harder on the farmers' wives, and a little easier on people like you."

   "I like it hard."

   "Okay," he said. He waited for her to correct the implication, but she didn't. "Gotta stop." His lungs spat out the words. They didn't seem to come from him. He hung down and grabbed the fleece of his sweatpants.

   Now in the Short North Tavern he checks his watch. Tony has gone off to a pay phone when she shows up. Over her shoulder swings a leather handbag, big as a workout sack. She struts right to his table, swinging her bag. "I was afraid I wouldn't recognize you," she said.

   "I recognize you."

   "People who wear hats and all that shit. I never know them in street clothes. People say hi to me and I'm like . . . okay . . ."

   John laughs agreeably. Crystal's hair is still Paul Revere so it's not just an exercise convenience. The bangs start way back and end as soon as her hairline begins. Her tan is still dark from all her summer running. Maybe she helps it along.

   "Tony, the workout guy? He's on the phone. He'll be here." He waves, trying to get Tony's attention.

   "You know, I was thinking about it. I'm not sure I need a second personal trainer. And my friend's still on a business trip. So I don't know if she wants it. I could ask her when she gets back. How much does he charge? I don't know, maybe she'll want . . ."

   "That's all right."

   "I didn't want to sound like I was promising . . ."

   "It's okay, I got him a couple of other gigs right around the corner."

   "Wow, I'd like to have a friend like you."

   "I think he's even getting too booked up. He needs to see how this works out first."

   "Good, 'cause I don't want to—uh . . . You know."

   John says, "That's fine. Really. Can I get you something to drink?"

   He's not surprised she turns down beer. Beer turns to fat. Apparently vodka does not. She orders it straight. He goes up to the bar to place the order, then moves to the pay phone between the two restrooms. Tony is hanging up, sliding the quarter out, dialing again.

   "You can leave," John tells him.

   "She's not there."

   "Who?"

   "Your sister."

   "Better go find her. She never answers her phone. Now just tell this girl you'll give her your card if she changes her mind."

   "I don't have a card."

   "Fish for it, then say,'oh shit.' And then leave." He pushes Tony toward the door, almost feeling bad. He's the one who forced him here. They detour to his booth. "This is Tony," he tells Crystal.

   "Hi, Tony."

   "Hi."

   "If you change your mind . . ." Tony pats his pocketless sweats.

   "You told him?" Crystal asks.

   "Yeah."

   "The first session is free if you change your mind."

   "I might do that," Crystal says. "I didn't mean to back out . . ."

   "If you don't have your card, I can get her the information." John makes a show of looking at the clock. "Don't forget. You've got the address, right?"

   "On my way," Tony says. "Satisfied?"

   "Nice meeting you," Crystal says.

   "I got my sister and her girlfriends to sign up and then he nearly forgets." John shakes his head.

"Does he like the Judds or something?" she asks.

"Who?"

She pokes at her chest.

   "Oh that sweatshirt? Present from one of the farmers' wives."

   "Lays potato chips. Eat just one."

   "What?"

   "Wynonna Judd," Crystal says. "Lays potato chips. Eat just one."

   "Yeah," John laughs. He's not quite sure at what.

   "The mother's okay, though. And the sister."

   "Yeah," John says.

   "Poison," she says. "We are so addicted to junk food, our society."

   "You don't look like someone addicted to junk food."

   "No, I'm not, but society is."

   He watches her pour the vodka into the temple undefiled by junk food, where collarbones punch out of the shirt and the delicate neck is tough and corded and the jawline sweeps tight with bursting health. But the conversation moves like his muscles, not hers. Thick, too poorly defined. Luckily she goes for a second vodka. He's got himself a party girl. A party workout girl. He waits for the second vodka to ransack the temple. "How do you get your abs like that?" he says straight out.

   "You want me to show you?"

   "Yeah."

   They get up from the booth. He does a movie thing where you jam your hand into your pocket and pull out too much money and throw it on the table without caring for the change. He's sure he's going back to her apartment but he finds himself following her to Goodale Park instead. His hopes swing low. He might actually have to date her now. They're right across the street from Goodale Park where they both do their running, and he's preparing himself to feign enthusiasm over the public demo she'll be giving under the trees, like the Tai Chi club that moves across the green like a slowly spreading stain, when she turns in a different direction. His hopes swing high. He follows her to one of the new townhouses overlooking the park. She fishes in her large bag for a key. They walk inside an apartment whose living room and kitchen have been zapped by a neatness gun, it's as sleek and shipshape and scary otherworldly as her body, and he asks again how she gets her abs like that and she shows him, taking out weights hidden in a home entertainment center. She lies down on her back and asks him to stand by her head. She grabs his ankles and brings her legs straight up. "Push them down," she says. He stands over her and drives her legs down. They spring back up. "Push them sideways," she says. "Push. Push!" He forces them down again and again. Feeling-good grunts intensify into no-pain-no-gain grunts. "Fifty!" she exclaims. "Wow," he says. "Okay, so now I know the secret."

   She acts baffled and disbelieving and scrunches her face. "You're kidding, right?"

   "Of course," he says.

   "That's just the start."

   She pulls herself halfway into a sitting position and holds it, then rocks in a crescent that barely twinkles an inch up, an inch down. "Doesn't look like much," she says, "does it? Try it." John obediently contorts according to her directions. He manages to last the duration. "Now this way," she instructs. She lifts one stiff leg in the air and holds the other straight out a few inches from the floor. "Come on," she says. Just the leg pose is hard enough. She raises herself for those one-inch isometric rockings. He knows right away he won't be able to reach the finish line on this one."Hard, isn't it?" she preens."Men can't do it." He craps out after thirty seconds, feeling like he's popped a hernia.

   "That one gets you right there," he says.

   "I know. Feel that right here."

   He touches her stomach through her shirt and encounters stony ridges. Her prideful gaze lies in wait. At his amazed appreciation she chuckles her assent. She does crunches with one leg up and the other leg down, then both legs up.

   "I'd like to become a professional one day," she gasps.

   "A professional what?"He catches himself."I thought you already were."

   "No, I sell kitchen supplies, remember?"

   "I just meant, you could have fooled me."

   "You're sweet," she says.

   She asks him for the ten-pound weight. She lays it on her chest and starts in with typical crunches. He keeps his hand over her shirt to feel the squirming of muscle. He begins to roll the shirt up. He affects a detached, clinical manner as he does this. He stops rolling at her diaphragm. He takes his hands away. He leans over on his fists studying her torso as if it's a bathtub and he's checking the plug. She's gasping now with the effort. Her short bangs flop up and down. His hand hovers over her naked stomach. He lowers it lightly until palm meets skin and the fingers spider out in their search. He listens to another heave expel from deep within her. He begins to move his fingers in and out of the six-pack muscle, admiring, feeling. Sweat has gathered in the ridges. Her tanned stomach shines. He bends down and begins to lick the sweat and his tongue sucks upon the new terrain. Each ab muscle becomes a small breast in his mouth. She's about to moan and his hand is about to move lower when she raises herself up and says she's going to shower and he says okay. She shuts the bathroom door but it doesn't click. Door meets jamb but they don't lock together and the air soon begins to crack it open. He walks into her bedroom and opens the closet and a queue of headless people are hanging there to greet him: all her workout outfits arranged on hangers. Each hanger has a number that matches the number she has written inside the lycra halter or pants. There are twenty-five outfits standing at attention, all in a row, in numerical order.

   Good, he thinks. She won't want me to stay too long. He goes back toward the bathroom. The shower turns off.

   The air has blown the door a peek wider. He pushes it open. She's coming out of the shower and she sees him and keeps coming. He takes a towel and wraps it around her shoulders and begins to wipe her, drying some spots and leaving the others wet for him.

11

T he statue Sylvia could win is just like some of the ones in ancient Greece. It's a goddess leaning back to accept a proffer of ambrosia, her long tresses splashing. Made of gleaming marble, or a material just like it.

   Finally Sylvia Greenslade is going to be a winner.

   Hearing her friend Nikki describe the statue over the phone ("ambrosia, the food of the gods") is better than any catalogue photograph. Already Sylvia has grown so excited she interrupts the description with a torrent of redecorating ideas. It will only take a little rearranging to make room for the statue. It would look great in the bus. It could fit in the back, next to the big painting of the horses. What's that called when all the pieces of furniture bounce off each other in the right way? The lady in the furniture store explained it to her. Dialogue. Sylvia remembers it now. Good furniture dialogue.

   Or she could really do it right, take the painting down and in its place erect Grecian columns. Two Grecian columns, one on each side of the statue. Sylvia asks Nikki about buying something like that to go along with the statue she might win, and Nikki says Grecian columns? You mean like a Doric pillar on a marble-like pedestal? Nikki promises that if she can't locate genuine Doric pillars she's going to go straight to the president of the company and see what he can do about it.

   Now how about the Navajo bracelet? Nikki asks.

   Sylvia says how her friend Amy just loves it!

   And don't forget about the Chevrolet Astro Van, Nikki adds.

   She's got a future now thanks to Nikki, a future she looks forward to. But right now is the present and she's got to get that straightened out. Yes, her bus would look nice with an ancient statue of a goddess in it. Yes, it would look great with Doric pillars. But first things first and when push comes shoving her back to her senses, she knows she needs a brand-new twenty-five-thousand-dollar Chevrolet Astro Van that looks just as nice as a coupe but does all the hard work of a truck. And she also knows she's almost there. She's almost in line for the top prize.

   Almost.

   But she's not dumb either, and as Nikki has told her, almost doesn't count except in horseshoes (and especially not in sex, Nikki laughed, or girl, she'd have almost been in trouble so many times—you know what she's saying, right? Oh, don't I! Sylvia burped back). The twenty-five hundred dollars Sylvia has already sent in so far will be no better than somebody else's measly three hundred dollars, 'cause they'll both go into the general drawing. The chances then are not good at all that she'll win the van. She might not even win the statue at that point. She might win the home-care products, and even though they are excellent products, they represent the lowest rung of prizes.

   In a weak moment Nikki confessed that as it stands now, all things being equal, without sending in any more money, Sylvia would probably get the home-care products. Not even the statue at this point. Nikki was just trying to help her out. I'm telling you this on the Q.T., Nikki said. She lowered her voice to a whisper. Look, Sylvie, the odds are not good if you stay in the midrange of product purchase. I'm not supposed to tell you this, I'd get in trouble if they knew I was giving away company secrets, but I want to see you get the van. Because, like you, the Chevrolet Astro Van plays to win. You're both winners. It's got standard seating for up to eight with plenty of cargo space. It's got all the room you need, Sylvia, and with its versatility it's the undisputed champ—just like you'll be the undisputed champ when you receive your prize. Sylvie, you two deserve each other, you know that as well as I do. You're almost there, Sylvie. Another forty-five hundred dollars of product purchase from our catalogues should do it. Another forty-five hundred and you'll be in line to win the top prize.

   Three hours they've been talking and Sylvia is so happy to hear from her again. She doesn't feel hunger or time passing or miss her soap when it comes and goes. She only feels Nikki there beside her. She feels the electricity of her own life, of someone also named Sylvia Greenslade, yes it's herself and she's living a different life, not moment-to-moment living but something way beyond that. She's skydiving, that's what it's like. Nikki makes that happen. Nikki makes her life—her real life—happen. Nikki puts her future in gear. They're old pals by now. Nikki even calls her by a nickname, Sylvie, and Sylvia keeps trying to think up a nickname for Nikki but Nikki already sounds like a nickname.

   One time on an earlier call they talked for hours and Sylvia had to go to the bathroom so bad she didn't know what to do. She didn't want to have to hang up. She opened the bus door and threw out her goldfish which landed squirming on a daffodil-patterned stepping-stone (a previous purchase), and peed into the emptied bowl. But now she's so certain of Nikki's friendship she can come right out and confess it and not be ashamed. She clears her throat and says matter-of-factly, she says, Nikki, I need to go to the bathroom.

   What Nikki answers back surprises her. Nikki says, So do I, honey, but I was afraid you'd hang up on me if I took a break.

   Imagine Nikki being worried that Sylvia wouldn't wait for her! That Sylvia doesn't care enough about her to tolerate being put on hold!

   Then she bump-runs out of the bus and into her parents' house. Her mom is scissoring something at the kitchen table, the overhead light on against the afternoon dimness. Seeing her mother's ugly mouth pruning in and out, and the light fixture above her like an upside-down cake, Sylvia is thrust out of that electrical abandon that floats her own life high above her. Her tether to Nikki is snapped, and now she is surrounded by the muddy walls of herself and she can't get out. She has to go to the bathroom, bad, and she's hungry and her stomach rumbles like a freighter. She hasn't even eaten lunch. Nikki made her forget all about it. She opens the bread drawer and finds a frosted angel food cake. She takes it with her to the bathroom. She thuds down the hallway, sees her dad still in bed."Why aren't you at work?" her mother calls. She closes the door. There's a red tag stuck on the plastic wrapping of the cake, buy one get one free, so that means she can have this one and her mother can have the other. She's not paying her mother back because she's eating the free one. She tears off a piece; she likes the way angel food cake tears in your hand; she imagines clouds that way.

   Sometimes she wonders what Nikki looks like. She doesn't even know if Nikki is white or black. She does know, her imagination is so strong on this point she just knows this for sure, that Nikki's got manicured hands, real long fingernails painted a different color every week, probably with little jewel studs in them. She's got style and she's the type who'd be really creative. Even if she had to wear the same shirt two days in a row she'd wear it with a scarf so that no one could tell. When she thinks about Nikki's hair—a long auburn mane she styles differently each day, up in a French twist, down in a cascade, braided, ponytailed—she pictures a white woman, someone like Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. But when she thinks about Nikki's hands, she imagines the elegant shiny hands of a beautiful black woman.

   Okay, I'm back. Sylvia exhales breathlessly into the receiver and pushes herself into the driver's seat of her bus. I hope you didn't mind waiting, Nikki.

   Of course not, darling. You wait for me.

   I waited all week for your call. I figured you forgot about me.

   Oh, honey. I had to go back to Mississippi to bury my daddy. That's why I haven't call you for a while. I thought maybe you didn't notice because you were at work.

   I'm sort of laid off. I guess I didn't tell you that.

   Oh no, Sylvie, you've been laid off? Not that road crew job. What happened, girl?

   It wasn't my fault.

   I know it wasn't. What'd they do to you? Cause if they did something, they're going to have to answer to me. That's when I get involved. I don't stand around and look the other way when my friends are being mistreated.

   They just haven't called, Sylvia says. It's not exactly laid off. They call me when they need me and they haven't called.

   The road crew? They haven't called you? It's not because of that time you put the GOD in their stop-go sign, is it? Because I thought that was really sweet. Who else would think to draw a D after GO except you, girl? I know at least one person in those passing cars got witnessed to that day. You know what?

   What?

   I was glad you felt close enough to me to confide about changing that GO sign to GOD. It made me feel closer to you. I felt our relationship moved up a notch after that.

I felt that way, too, Sylvia tells her.

   Until then, girl, I sensed you had a spiritual side, but I didn't want to ask—you know? I'm born again, too, but I don't go there unless I'm invited.

   Why not? I don't mind what you say to me.

   Religion and politics. A lot of people have that fence there.

   Oh, Sylvia says.

   Why? Nikki asks.

   I thought maybe you didn't ask me because you thought . . . 'cause . . .

   Why, Sylvia? What are you thinking? That I thought you were an atheist?

   An atheist! Sylvia exclaims. I'm not an atheist!

   I know you're not.

   Did you think I was an atheist?

   Of course not, honey. I didn't think you were an atheist.

   Even for a minute?

   Not even for a minute.

   Sylvia says, I bet you thought I was a party girl or something.

   Why do you say that?

   Because we're always talking about having fun together. Like maybe you think that's the only thing I do.

   Good heavens, Nikki says. I have really failed if that's the impression I've been giving. I like you because you're Sylvia and the Sylvia I know is special and sincere. You're not just out for yourself.

   I'm not, Sylvia agrees.

   I know you're not. You really care about people and you go out of your way to show it. You're a winner, Sylvia, and so's the Astro Van. Like you, it plays to win. Sylvia, you're both the undisputed champs in your fields. Okay? You understand what I'm telling you?

   I don't know.

   I don't know. Sylvia hears how Nikki repeats her words, I don't know, with an exasperated cough.

   What? Sylvia asks, afraid for a moment that she's annoyed her.

   I don't know. Nikki clips out the words. Translation: No. You're telling me No, Nikki, I'm just a little nobody, I could never ever win anything not even a little ol' bitty mousetrap. Oh no, not me, not this huddled-up zero. Wow! Do you hear what you're saying about yourself, Sylvia? You don't think you're somebody, you don't think you're a winner in life, do you? Sylvie, why don't you feel good about yourself? Why? You got so much going for you. Get some self-esteem, girl! You've got to take the heart's minimum wage and give it a raise! I want to help you, Sylvie, I want to make you feel good about yourself. You know what, I'm going to have you laughing all the way to the bank. No, I am. Yes. You silly girl, you're gonna be laughing yourself silly all the way to the bank. Forget about those bozos at your job, and those skanky work shirts and work pants you got to wear to protect yourself against all that gravel and hot asphalt. No way, girl, you're going to be in high heels and a red dress laughing all the way to the bank.

   Me in a red dress and high heels? Oh no, Nikki, no no.

   You put on that red dress and strut on by all those coworkers—excoworkers. Go on, picture yourself now. They'll be working all day in hot asphalt and you'll be retired. Drive by in your new Astro Van and listen to the whistles. They'll never even suspect it's you! Girl, those castaluminum wheels be shining so bright in their eyes they won't be able to see a thing!

   When Sylvia lifts up from her tittering, the poor reflection in the windshield is of somebody else. That ugly image. It's not her. She's somebody else now.

   And when wintertime comes in your new van, you'll have a heater with a windshield defroster and front side-window defoggers and rear area heat ducts. Okay? No matter how hard Ol' Mister North Wind blows, you're never going to get cold. And on those boiling summer days—oh, girl, if Mississippi is anything like Ohio you're going to need that luxurious air-conditioning with CFC-free refrigerant. And God forbid you're in an accident, Sylvie, but if you are your driver's-side air bag will protect you. Does your car have an air bag now?

   No.

   When Sylvia falls silent, Nikki asks her, You don't think you're worth an air bag? Do you think that poorly of yourself, Sylvia Greenslade? You're willing to risk your own life? Sylvie? Tell me I'm not hearing you correctly.

   Who would care if I died?

   Sylvia! Sylvia Sylvia Sylvia! I am not even going to dignify that with a response.

   My mom wouldn't care. My mom doesn't like me. She makes me pay half of the groceries. She won't even share any of her food if I don't pay for it.

   Sylvie, like you told me so yourself, life is full of terrible trials. Isn't this trial telling you something? Isn't this trial telling you it's time to make a change?

   Yes.

   Then make a change. Get out of there, girl, and get into life, capital L-I-F-E. You gotta get out there and live. You are depriving others by not letting them get to know you. That's nothing but being selfish. You need to share yourself. Let others see who you are.

   You've said that before.

   And I'm saying it again.

   Sylvia hears her and her heart clutches. For a long time they've been beating around this bush, and it's now or never that Sylvia came out and confessed it. Because she knows Nikki's got the wrong idea about her. The complete wrong idea. Sylvia steels herself before looking directly into it, the windshield. The reflection it gives back is at least partly true. Sylvia knows it is. She knows the mirror isn't lying completely. She knows she looks at least somewhat like the ugly portrait in the glass. It's not fair to Nikki to keep this from her.

   I'm not beautiful, Sylvia tells her.

   There, it's out. It wasn't so hard to say. Didn't even come out like some embarrassing confession. It came out matter of factly, but the release Sylvia feels is anything but matter of fact. Instantly she feels lighter, an ecstasy of floating. Such a weight lifted from her. She didn't realize how heavy it had become. There. The truth. The last thing that stands between her and Nikki.

   You're beautiful on the inside, Nikki says.

   Sylvia says, Don't say that. Please, Nikki. That's what everyone says. I'm not beautiful and that's all that counts.

   All right, Sylvie, let's deal with that. Being beautiful counts. I won't disagree with you. Being beautiful counts, and you're not beautiful. Tell me why not.

   I'm fat, Sylvia says.

   You're fat, Nikki says. You mean you're overweight.

   Yeah.

   You mean you've got a weight problem.

   Yeah.

   A weight problem. That's different from being fat, isn't it? That's a lot different. A problem is something we can handle, Sylvia, can't we? A problem is something we can solve. But fat, honey, fat—that's a no-no mindset. We can't do anything about that until you throw that mind-set away.

   But I'm fat.

   Don't give me that F word. Throw it away! Right now! Throw that word away, I don't ever want to hear it. From now on that word is as bad as taking the Lord's name in vain! Don't you ever say that word to me un less you want to insult the Bible blood ministering through my veins. Do we understand each other? You have a weight problem, Sylvia. Repeat that after me.

   I have a weight problem.

   I don't want to hear the F word, you understand? I'm gonna get angry if I hear it.

   I have a weight problem, Sylvia says. She can feel it in herself as she says it, she can feel that this problem isn't as bad as being fat, this problem has a solution. She loves Nikki's righteous anger, her determination to solve this problem. She's excited, that's what Sylvia is. The last piece in her future's puzzle is being fitted into place.

   Okay, Nikki continues, now what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about this problem? Let me ask you this, say you got a MasterCard bill and maybe there's been some overspending going on, a lot of overspending you know, and now it's out of control. What are you going to do about this MasterCard bill problem? You gonna give up and keep on overspending, let it get more out of control? Don't stop me now, girl, 'cause I'm on a roll—

   —You are! Sylvia almost shouts but claps her mouth.

   No! You're going to pay off a little bit this month, then a little bit next month, and little by little, step by step, you're going to solve that problem. And soon enough you'll go down from Overspending Size to Budget Size. Can I get a witness to that, young lady?

   Amen! Sylvia wants to cry out.

   So little by little, here's what you're going to do, you're going to cut down on your eating, and little by little you're going to add exercise to your daily routine. Now the first week, maybe you cut out dessert with lunch, and you walk up and down your street once a day for exercise. And then the second week, you cut out a second thing from your eating, and you walk a little farther and then add a few arm twirls and leg lifts, you can do those lying in your bed before you go to sleep.

   The rush of joy, oh the happiness running through her just thinking about it. She is so lucky to have a problem she can mark out and identify and cut into tiny doable sections and little by little but in no time at all, solve.

   Okay, so that's your weight problem, Nikki concludes. You got any other problems that's making you think you're not beautiful?

   The way I look, Sylvia tells her.

   The way you look. All right, Sylvia, I'm going to ask you some questions, you answer them honestly.

   Sylvia loves the way Nikki has become all business. It's not Sylvie now, it's Sylvia. Okay, Sylvia says, ablaze with delight. She loves the way Nikki can take charge, oh she loves it. She can't wait for the questions.

   Do you wear makeup, Sylvia?

   No.

   Nail polish?

   No.

   Control-top panty hose?

   No.

   Demi-cup bra?

   No.

   Underwire?

   No.

   When's the last time you wore a dress?

   I don't know, Sylvia says.

   What about your hair?

   It's short, Sylvia says.

   Is it styled nice, you know, like funky or dyed or anything?

   No.

   How do you wear it?

   It's just short.

   You don't put anything on it?

   I got to cream it down because it's curly.

   You got a lot of body, in other words, Nikki says. Okay, listen here. Think about the beautiful women you know. Pick out one of them. The one you really admire. You got the picture in your head?

   Yes, Nikki, I do.

   Does that woman wear makeup, does she have these nice long eyelashes and full shining lips, does she wear her hair like a sexy woman should and have her nails done up nice? Hmm? Does she?

   Yes.

   And doesn't she have herself decked out in some kind of sweet dress?

   Yeah, Sylvia says. Except sometimes Dr. Quinn wears buckskin.

   When she wants to look pretty, though, she puts on a dress, don't she?

   Yes.

   Yes. Yes, she does. Now keep looking at the picture. Are you still looking at that picture? Now I want you to do something to that picture. First off, I want you to take out your magic eraser and wipe off all that makeup. Wipe off that blush and take away her cheekbones. Then take out your scissors and cut off all her hair. Go ahead. Make it real short. Now what's she look like? She don't look too good, does she? Would you say she's beautiful now?

   No, Sylvia says.

   No, she's not beautiful. But she can become beautiful again real quick, can't she?

   Yes.

   By doing the right things to herself. By thinking that she's worth doing the right things to. Now you hold up another picture, Sylvia. This time the picture's of you. You have in your hands a picture of Sylvia Greenslade. Now I want you to do the same thing to that picture except in reverse. I want you to add that makeup, add that long hair. I want you to put on some blush and lipstick, I want you to bring out those eyes, girl, make those lashes long and beautiful. Sylvie, you are beautiful. Girl, look at those beautiful blue eyes. The men are going to stop and stare. They are going to be memorized by them blue eyes you got.

   How'd you know I got blue eyes?

   Sylvie, I just know what you look like, girl, and I know you're beautiful. Or you could be beautiful with a little help. Because I'm your friend and I'm being honest. You need a little help. So do most folks. You need to help Mother Nature along a little bit.

   I know it.

   Start by putting some mascara on, highlight those eyes.

   I don't have any mascara.

   You ever heard of a drugstore, girl? Go in there, get some Revlon extra-lash-thickening black mascara. Start there, then add a little lipstick after you get comfortable. Are you listening to me?

   Yes.

   Are you going to do it? I'm going to sit here until I hear yes.

   Yes! Nikki, I'm going to do it, I really am!

   And what else are you going to do? What else are you going to do to make yourself a winner? I tell you what I'm going to do to make you a winner. I am going to sit here while you go get your checkbook and write me a check for forty-five hundred and you're going to tell me the number of that check and the bank it's drawn against and I'm going to give you a Federal Express COA all ready for you to send it because I am not going to sit here and let a friend waste away 'cause she don't feel no better about herself than some picayune termite got to eat rotten wood for its meal in life. I am not going to stand for a friend of mine sabotaging her chance to be a winner just because she don't have the self-esteem to climb that last rung to the top. You are going to climb that ladder. Don't stop me now, girl, don't stop me! If I have to push you to the top on my hands and knees, you are going to climb that ladder! You understand? You are going to make it to the top. Now I'm waiting.Are you still on the phone? I hear you on the phone. You're still there. Why aren't you gone, getting your checkbook out? I'm waiting here, Sylvie, and you're starting to make me mad.

   Don't get mad at me.

   You are really starting to make me mad.

   No, please don't, Nikki.

   Well, somebody's got to get mad at you, don't they? Somebody's got to put the worth in your self-worth if you won't do it yourself.

   I'll do it, Nikki, I swear. I'm already doing arm twirls with my arms while I talk and I'm going to buy that mascara at the drugstore, I promise, and by the time we meet, Nikki, you won't believe it.

   You gonna drive up and pick me up in your new Chevrolet Astro Van?

   Yes!

   Why are you still on the phone then? Why aren't you getting out your checkbook?

   I'm going right now! Don't hang up!

   I'll be here, honey, Nikki promises.

   Sylvia jerks the lever to open the bus door. She steps on each of the daffodil stepping-stones to the boy and girl birdbaths she bought from Nikki last month. She's stashed half the money under the boy and half under the girl. When she lifts the boy birdbath, something slaps against her nose but it's not too bad, it's got an earthy smell now from lying in the dirt. She knows there's forty-five hundred dollars in there because she's counted it four times and it's like a miracle that it's the exact amount Nikki needs. Somebody is looking out for her, thank God it's finally happened, some angel from the Lord has come down to tell her how much her life really matters. It's like she's right in the middle of that TV show, Touched by an Angel. She's living it but it doesn't seem real but it is real. It's real. Her life is a miracle. Everywhere it's lit up and shining. Everything, her life that's meant to be, her friend Nikki, has a halo glowing all around it.

   Her hands are shaking so bad she can barely write down Nikki's instructions. They continue to shake all the way to FedEx where she buys a box and a roll of tape and they say Hurry now we're about to close, and she runs back to her car and shivers beside the popped trunk and pours the money inside. Her hands, trembling worse. She's got to tape that box up good. She sees the man who waited on her strolling in the parking lot like there's nothing important going on. But there is! He's going toward his own car and then he gets in. No! It's only been a minute that she's been gone, maybe two. She runs up to the FedEx building, the roll of tape dangling, still stuck to the box. It's getting cold out but she's sweating, and the thick glass doors to the mailroom thud and thud but they won't open. She pounds on the glass but the glass has got like chicken wire inside it and won't make a noise loud enough for anyone to hear. She presses her face against the glass, witnessing panic, witnessing despair, and witnessing through the little octagons of chicken wire, a dozen goggled angles of the same picture, the blue ocean rolling out of her reach, farther and farther out, swallowing up the island and her statue and the Grecian columns and the way she and Nikki would sit out on their seaside patio having a gourmet breakfast hidden under plate covers of silver. Nikki said get it in tonight. She said get the money in tonight or she couldn't guarantee the top prize.

   Now the top prize is going, it's rolling away, and it was almost there for Sylvia to have. Almost.

   But almost doesn't count.

   She's glad it's dark out because nobody can see her. She's driving and driving and talking away to herself in the car, and now the tears are start ing to fall. She thinks about Jesus' torment in the garden. Jesus was in the garden and he was asking God why He had deserted him. She would never of course think to question God; it wasn't until now that she realized He had anything to do with it. And even if she had known, she never would have thought to criticize Him for making her miserable—never would she do that (Jesus was allowed to but that was different)—which means she must have passed the test and now she's being rewarded.

   Just when she thinks it's all over for her, she drives down a street that leads her to the bright fruity colors of the Mexican restaurant, yellow, orange, and lime, and the shoe-repair store next to it with the iguana in the window, and the dancing-girls place next to that. This is where her daddy's boss took her. This is where she met Amy. Many times she has relived the moment when Amy wrote A-M-Y on the table mat just for her. The others had to read it upside down.

   She gets out of the car. The two girls in the window of the dancing place push off their stools and stand up and slink close to the glass, and Sylvia pauses, she can't help it. The girls have seen her and now they beckon. It's like they're underwater the way that they move, undulating and slow. They keep pushing their hips against the glass and motion to Sylvia to move closer, which she does, that's what they asked her to do. Then they both stop without finishing the dance and their arms squiggle down and Sylvia can tell by the way their chins flick that they've caught themselves in a mistake. People do sometimes. It's because she wears her hair so short. And because, too—Sylvia has to admit this and it's not hard since it will soon change—because her stomach pushes out farther than her breasts. The girls have taken delayed notice of her breasts. They pause before going back to their stools; it's like they don't want to be rude to her. They want her to think they do a little dance for everybody.

   A third woman is standing in the doorway smoking a cigarette. As she inhales, she raises her jaw toward Sylvia. She takes the cigarette away, ex hales, flexes her jaw again. Sylvia raises her hand in a tentative greeting; her fingers curl into her palm.

   The woman nods. "Hey," she says, almost a whisper, smoky and low. The two dancers from the window join her in the doorway. They droop into three slinky Ss and stare at her.

   Sylvia decides she'll walk to a drugstore and get some mascara before she sees Amy and that way she'll get in her exercise, too. Go on, she hears Nikki's voice telling her. Go on and share yourself with the world. "Is there a drugstore here?" Sylvia asks the woman in the doorway.

   "Down the street." The woman waves her cigarette. Sylvia tries to follow its direction, but the path of smoke leads back to the dancing window.

   "Okay, thank you," she whispers.

   "What you gonna buy?" she hears one of them ask.

   "Mascara," Sylvia says. "I have to put some on before I go into the restaurant."

   "That one there?"

   "Yes, ma'am," Sylvia answers.

   "Come here, honey," the woman says.

   Sylvia moves forward until she steps into the light. The woman tucks her hand under Sylvia's chin and pulls and lifts and examines her face. Sylvia's not even embarrassed. She likes how it feels. She likes the important look on the woman's face, the way she peers like a surgeon at her face—a face that Sylvia knows, she's not afraid to admit it, is less than perfect. It's the face Mother Nature gave her, but that doesn't mean you just shut up and accept it. Like Nikki says, there's nothing wrong with helping Mother Nature along.

   The two dancers peer over the woman's shoulder during the examination.

   "Yeah, you got purty eyes," the woman says. "Don't she?"

   "Yeah," the two dancers say.

   The woman takes her hand away, letting Sylvia's chin drop, and reaches for a coin purse she's got tucked into her belt and she opens it and pulls out a tube. "Look up there toward the light again, just like you was doing."

   Sylvia raises her head and the woman's wrist flicks up and down like she's painting a beautiful painting. She feels the feathery kisses of her own miraculous eyelashes. She is watching an artist make a portrait but the portrait is herself, Sylvia Greenslade. She loves this feeling and wishes it would go on forever. She carries the feeling all the way to the restaurant and it gives her the strength to stand, just stand, at the please wait to be seated sign. The Sylvia Greenslade of the Past would have turned tail and run.

   "Hi, Sylvia," calls Amy, rushing by. "Be with you in a moment."

   Sylvia reels. Oh my god, she thinks, oh my god. She'd never counted on this. Not only does Amy recognize her, she remembers her name. The pulse in her neck is shouting out to the world. Amy has greeted her like an old friend.

   Instead of Amy, a man seats her at the table and he says, "Your waitress will be with you in a moment," and she says, "Is it Amy?" but the man is gone and now all Sylvia can do is wait. She sits back and waits. She breathes deeply to let the noise in her temples die down. She stretches out her palms and fingers on her lap, on the table, on the edge of the chairs where she grasps round the edges and feels hard sticky nuggets of gum. She tries not to crane, to look desperate, she tries to stretch out her fingers to relax herself.

   She spots Amy. She watches her. Amy rushes back and forth, and then freezes in midgush at a table. She falls gently to her knees and takes their order. Sylvia loves the way she does this. Amy folding into prayer. Amy who cares about you. Amy who is so sweet to everyone.

   A heavenly swish, stride, swish, and there is Amy again. She's down on her knees beside Sylvia, and then her chin is propped on the edge of the table and Amy's eyes are looking up at her. Beseeching her, Sylvia understands, and Sylvia wants to say Yes I'll be your friend, but it's hard with all these people here and it's very loud in here and she would have to shout. YES I'LL BE YOUR FRIEND! is not the kind of thing you shout, unless it's from the mountaintop.

   "How are you?" Amy asks. She toys with the Navajo bracelet on Sylvia's wrist.

   Sylvia is dumbstruck. Forget about saying I'm your friend, she can't even say Hi.

   "It's great to see you—oh, you know what, I'm so proud of myself today, I found out I'm going to be accepted to take classes at Columbus State and they'll provide me with a computer and I've already spoken to Enrique and he's told me I can arrange my schedule 'cause I have . . ."

   Sylvia can barely follow the words, not because they are spoken so fast or because Amy's words must weave through the tray of beers she has rested on the table. The sweating brown bottles barricade Amy's face and all Sylvia can see are Amy's eyes, neon planets coursing home to Sylvia. Caught up in the enthusiasm, Sylvia says it even though it's probably not true anymore, she says, "Guess what, I'm probably going to win a free van in two weeks." And then she hears herself going further, saying that she could even give Amy a ride to Columbus State. She tells herself to shut her mouth, she brings her hand up to stop herself, and she is almost glad, really, when Amy has to pull herself away to wait on the other tables.

   When the food arrives, served by the man, she gulps her burrito even though there's no reason to. She should be killing time, not using it up so fast. After she pays, even leaving a dollar tip which feels weird to leave a tip for your friend, she gets in her car to wait.

   It's a long wait. Sylvia can stand it. She's stood for hours with her stop sign keeping cars at bay, the tar's heat against her back like a bed of nails.

   Finally Amy comes out of the restaurant. She's swinging her little knapsack, happy. Sylvia can see that she'll make a good college student. She'll be friendly to all her classmates, and when the teacher is talking, she'll listen with enthusiasm. Sylvia can already picture how the teacher will like Amy the best of all her students; she'll always call on her and when none of the other students has the right answer the teacher will say something like "Let's let Amy tell us." That'll be a really good thing for Amy's self-confidence, because that's all that's missing from Amy's list of talents. When Sylvia picks her up from school Amy will jump into the van bursting with the news of the day—and Sylvia will be right there, sitting next to her. Every day she'll be able to watch Amy take another step forward as she grows into a self-confident, successful woman.

   Amy lives only a block and a half away from the restaurant. It's a big brick house she walks into. Sylvia wonders how she can afford such a big place; then she sees another door. The house must be divided up. Maybe Amy has to have roommates to afford the rent. The downstairs light is on and it illuminates the paisley pattern of the sheet spread over the picture window. When Amy moves close to the window, Sylvia can see her shadow.

   Why had Sylvia hesitated? Why hadn't she called out to her?

   She gets out of the car and determines her way up the walk to the door. She's going to knock. She raises her hand way before she gets there. She tries to be quiet but it's impossible. The porch is wooden. A log-drum of reverberations shakes loose when her foot presses, her thigh follows, her butt and shoulder heave upon it. Too much noise. One of her mother's other complaints: that Sylvia's too noisy even when standing still, that the bus itself makes a racket when she's inside. Her mother says she can't go to sleep because of it. The liar. The mean ugly lady.

   Now it's her mother, not Nikki, whispering in her ear. She won't repeat the words even to herself, but she hears them, she knows what they mean to say. Awful things. To the daughter she's supposed to love.

   She's retreating down the steps when she hears the shouting. It's Amy's voice, sliding up and down a scale of pain and ending with a pure white out: the screech is so high and wretched it travels into nothing and Sylvia can no longer hear it, but she can feel it stab into her.

   She presses her face to the glass of the picture window and peers through the loose threads of the paisley sheet. What she sees makes her cry out in the dark. It's Amy, and Amy has a knife and she is swiping the air, closing in on a figure cowering against the refrigerator, a thick Vogue magazine raised as a shield.

   Sylvia discovers her own self screaming No, Amy no! and then she's pounding fists against the door and the door pushes open. It's Sylvia who bumps into the kitchen and steps in between Amy and the slashed magazine parrying up, to the side, parrying down. Sylvia hardly registers the boy behind the magazine. What she is aware of is how graceful she is. Her floundering self has somehow darted to the rescue with a marvel of catsure speed, and she knows this: it is God's good grace that has sent her here, and she is not afraid.

   Oh my god, Amy cries, collapsing into a ball, the knife clattering to the floor.

   Sylvia picks up the knife and turns angrily to the boy. What did you do to her? she demands and the boy waves his head and he says I don't know, I don't know. I don't know, his bewildered voice repeats.

   Amy is looking up, her face aglow with gratitude, and she says, Sylvia, hi. She says, It's okay. It's happened before.

   What has? Sylvia asks.

   Never like this, the boy says.

   Within these few seconds, or what seems like seconds, the police arrive, and Sylvia, still a marvel of sureness, has the presence of mind to slip the knife into its drawer, and though blood drips from the boy's hand and is smeared on the collarbone exposed by his ripped T-shirt, the boy says he had an accident with broken glass. Amy has not picked herself up from the floor yet and after she babbles happily to the police she laughs without stopping, and after she laughs she cries so hard the police turn to Sylvia and the boy and say, Can one of you get her to stop? An ambulance arrives. Sylvia is starting to panic. Where are they taking her? she keeps asking. Someone says Hilltop and Sylvia knows what that means, and someone else is dangling a white suit jacket and asking if she needs selfprotection but someone else decides it isn't necessary.

   Sylvia, will you come and visit me? Amy asks politely.

   Oh yes, Sylvia says. The boy is crying and can offer Amy none of the support she needs. It's up to Sylvia. Sylvia, calling upon God to give her strength, leans in as two men help Amy to her feet. She says to Amy, You need to look after yourself now. You've got your classes at Columbus State to think of. You've been trying to please everybody but yourself.

   Sylvia, you're so wise. You're so right.

   I'll come to visit you.

   I need to talk to you, Amy says. You're so wise, I need to talk to you!

   It's the last thing Amy says before getting into the ambulance.

   Sylvia drives away quickly, afraid the police will return for her. What has she done? She needs to stop somewhere and think it over. She is crying. When she looks in the mirror to wipe the tears, she sees someone ugly with black puddles on her cheeks. She needs to stop, but there is traffic here. The crying worsens. She doesn't even try to hide it. Let them look. So many cars. She needs to be alone. She heads out to the country, to the state routes everyone bypasses in favor of the highway. She knows just where to go now. They work so slow they probably haven't moved from the spot where they were working the last time she was there. She gets out and finds her old stop sign tucked inside a bulldozer. She sits among the slumbering equipment, the dinosaur shadows they throw, but she's not scared. The sky is no longer a bottomless hole. The stars are out. She is alone in her Gethsemane. The stars are watching her. God's twinkling spies—yes, so pretty but they are sentinels of the Bible, mirthless, ruthless, not like Nikki, not like Amy, rules are rules and this is the time she makes her choice and lives or dies by it. It is no accident she has come here. She has been sent here to do something.

   What?

   Think.

   The weeping keeps her warm. The tears flood down her chin and fall to her chest. Her chest warms against the hot wetness. Pain. It's so painful but it's beautiful too. She's above herself, she's not down there trapped inside the muddy walls of Sylvia Greenslade. The stars are calling her. From each star hangs an invisible string and all the strings together become visible and strong and they pull her up, high, she's weightless and flying toward the voice that calls her. She understands now, she tells them. The stars ease her down. Her feet touch the ground. It takes several moments to get her balance back.

   She goes to the car and takes out the box of money, the roll of tape still stuck and wheeling out from it. She's happy ripping the box open and pouring the bills over the spongy tongue of road, the tar so fresh it leaves acrid grounds in her nose, and like bubblegum sticks to her shoes. Her shirt is wetter and wetter from soaking up the tears. She empties the box, then throws it blindly into the air. She hears the ping-thud as the cardboard knocks against an orange barrel. She knows where the hide-a-key is and she slides it out from under the seat and uses the key to start up the roller. She knows how to operate it. It's something they didn't know about her, like a lot of things. She rolls over and over the money with the grader, flattening the swell of bills into something like a picture. A picture of her past. Her past and her money, they're both part of the road now. She's gotten rid of the money and she's moving toward her future. She's happy. The tears are flooding her body. She feels her shirt. Wetness all over. The clouds shirk from the moon and she holds her hand under the glow. A dark hand, covered with dark liquid. She checks her shirt again, lifts it up. It's wetter on the inside. Her white stomach is covered with it. It's blood. Blood, she finally understands. She lifts the rolls of flesh one by one until she finds it, the wound Amy left there. It's in the same place where the Roman soldier's spear found Christ. The same place, Sylvia whispers. She leans back in the grader and watches the stars. The strings are hanging from them, pulling her up.