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  “Is there a difference?” I was smiling big at him, and he leaned over and kissed me, surprising me, full on the mouth.

  “I sort of wanted to do that since I met you,” he said.

  “No!”

  “I don’t know, I just had this . . . intuition.”

  I flashed on Run, but, well, I just have this feeling I’ll never see Run again, and it’s true, Andy is pretty cute, and so I said to him softly, “Well, maybe it’s too bad I’m not sticking around to see where that intuition goes.”

  He stepped back and grinned. “Well, Cynda, you owe me fifty bucks now—maybe you’ll repay me someday.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I’ll sure as hell try.”

  And that was that. One of the total straights—counselor named Jay—gave me a lift to the crossroads, asked if I didn’t want the bus stop instead, but seemed happy to be rid of me when I said no. And here I am.

  You know, you throw out your thumb in California, especially if you’re a chick, and the car wheels start squealing to pull up and give you a lift. But that’s not the case here in northern Minnesota. Mostly I get families, father driving, mother shotgun, couple kids in the back, in some kind of Ford or Chevy, and when they see me, the wife reaches over and pushes down the car lock—yeah, like I’m gonna run across the highway and yank open your door and kidnap your kids. Or . . . maybe I’ll rape your pudgy, double-chinned husband. Ugh! All these families passing me by start reminding me of my own family back in Oregon, and that makes me really want to get the hell out of here.

  Even the truckers blow past me. What’m I doing wrong? Here’s this hippie chick with her long blonde hair flying free, and so what I’m still wearing Run’s clothes, I look damn good in ’em, the pants loose but not concealing the swing of my hips, the shirt open at the collar and . . . well, why not? and I unhook another button—that makes three buttons down.

  Ah, that seems to do it. Up pulls a roaring yellow Dodge, and when I run over to it, I see a young guy about my age with a leathery tan and a full-brim cowboy hat.

  “Hey, sugar, where you headin’?”

  I start to pull open the passenger door, but I see the guy’s chewing a toothpick, and that sort of throws me—don’t know why.

  “South,” I say. “Down to, well, whatever state’s south of here.”

  “Let’s see, I think that’d be I-o-way.” Chew, chew on that toothpick. I see a tattoo on his neck, just the top of it above a black T-shirt: a fork of lightning.

  “And you’re headed?” I say.

  He winks at me and says, “Wherever you want to go, sugar. I’m here to take you there.”

  Something catches me, yeah, the toothpick, and his whole lazy-mouth drawling thing; and I just know that I take a ride with this guy, it’s going to be more trouble than it’s worth.

  “That doesn’t sound far enough for me,” I say, backing up and shutting the door.

  “What do you mean?” His foot is on the accelerator, and he gives it a push. The Dodge rumbles and shakes, drowning out whatever he says next.

  “Well, thanks anyway,” I say, and then I freeze.

  “I say, ‘Come on, sweetheart, get in,’ ” he says, and I see in his hand a long knife, which with a snap he flicks open. Jesus! It’s at least six inches long.

  “Yeah, pretty, isn’t it?” His eyes are dark and hard. “Now just open the door and step on in.”

  O.K., no way I’m doing that, but there’s nothing out here in the middle of the northern prairie to run to, so I just stand pat. I’m figuring if he gets out of the car, I’ll do my best to get away from him; I’ll certainly make a scene. And then one of those families might pull up in their Ford and wonder why I’m yelling so.

  His door opens. Oh, shit! I’m on the other side of the car from him, and I’m trying to judge how fast he might be when he steps all the way out. The knife is loose in his right hand.

  He swings around the front of the car, and I move to the tail. I’ve dropped my duffel bag, and when the guy gets to it, he tugs on the zipper and reaches in.

  “Got some nice undies in here, sweetheart?”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re thinking,” I shout out, “but if you’re smart, you’ll drop my bag and get the fuck out of here.”

  His eyes go wide. “Ooooh, sugar, such language. Course I could tell from when I first saw you that you were a bad girl. Yeah, a bad, bad girl. Just waiting for me.”

  “I mean it!”

  He looks around. There’s nothing, nothing but the huge sky and the highway signs. “Oh, you do, do you?”

  He starts around the side of the car, and I move at his pace across from him, and that’s the game for a couple revolutions, each of us circling his yellow Dodge. I can’t get ahead of him, of course, and I can’t tell how fast he’d be if I make a break for it. So I just—

  With a leap he jumps onto the hood of his car. I scamper to the rear bumper, but the guy steps up to his roof. Weirdly, I keep waiting for it to dent, but it doesn’t. The guy’s turning as I move around the car, and it’s clear he’s ready to leap down at me, his knife brandished, and then what will I do? I take a few steps back, and he jabs the air with the knife. Right then I freeze.

  “Come on, babe, I just want to give you a ride. Just get in the car, I’ll put this big boy away.” He mimes tucking the knife into his pants.

  “I’m not going to,” I say. I try to sound brave, but I’m scared to death.

  “Well, then, I guess I’m just going to have to—” And the guy’s springy on his haunches, about to throw himself at me, when I hear a shout of “Stop it!” from behind me.

  The guy stops atop the car. I turn my head. Oh, my God! It’s Andy.

  “What’s going on here, Cynda?” He’s walking fast toward me. I look closely and see in his hand a long metal thing, a tire jack.

  “Andy, hey. Looks like I’m having a little trouble.”

  “What’s this dude want?”

  “I was just offering her a ride, man. She had her fuckin’ thumb out.”

  Andy hears that, then raises his own hand, flipping the guy off. “Here’s a fuckin’ finger, buster. Now if I were you, I’d get back in your little car and get the fuck out of here.”

  The guy doesn’t move, staying in a crouch on his car’s roof, but I see that Andy’s playing it smart; he’s hovering with his tire iron at exactly the distance the guy could possibly jump. If the guy does leap off the car at him, Andy just takes a step back and creams the creep after he crashes to the ground.

  The punk’s dumb, but not that dumb, and I can see he’s reading things right. He takes a big, grandiose step down to his car’s hood, then jumps to the ground right next to the driver’s-side door. Andy and I are on the other side.

  “Get in and drive off, bro, and that’s the end of it,” Andy says.

  The guy stares bullets at him for a moment, then as he gets into the car, raises his own hand and gives us the finger.

  “Yeah, right, tough guy,” Andy says under his breath, and like that the guy shifts into gear and, spinning his wheels, barrels out of there.

  Quiet falls like a curtain.

  “What’re you doing here?” I say. “I’m really—

  “I got worried,” Andy says. “I cooked the kids’ lunch and went out for a smoke, and I just started thinking about you. I talked to Tibbler, he loaned me the camp station wagon.” He points toward this powder-blue car. “Wanted to see if you’d gotten a ride yet—”

  “It’s amazing,” I say, trying to catch my breath. “I was doing fine, and then this guy—”

  “You’re lucky. What if you were in the car when he came at you?”

  I’m lightheaded, and breathing fast still. I’m also feeling this whole adrenaline thing rushing out of me, leaving me weak in the knees. “Naw, my intuition would’ve. . . .” I shrug. “It’s pretty good, you know.”

  “I guess.”

  “What, you don’t—”

  “I’m just worried about you, Flow
—”

  I go up to him, lift up on my toes, and give him a peck on his cheek. He takes that, leaves it there, yet gives me a firm squeeze of my shoulders. It’s a brotherly gesture and makes me feel safe.

  “So, what now, Lone Ranger?”

  “I can’t talk you out of hitchhiking, can I?”

  I take a deep breath, but don’t see what other choices I have.

  “I’d buy you a bus ticket—”

  “Yeah, but the bus is an hour away. ’Sides, I don’t know where I want to go.”

  “You—”

  “I just want to feel free, take it as it comes.” I put my hands on my hips, stand a little forward to him. “ ’Sides, nothing happened with the creep—nothing would’ve—”

  “You don’t know—”

  “You don’t want to come with me, do you?” I say impulsively.

  Well, Andy does think it over, I can tell, his crow-wing eyebrows rising and falling, but then he shakes his head. “I need the job at the camp, Cynda.”

  I nod. “That’s what I figured.”

  “O.K., here’s what I’ll do. I’ll just wait till you get a ride—a good, safe ride.”

  “How’ll you know?”

  “Oh, I’ll know.” He tilts his head back. “Cynda, one more thing. How can I get in touch with you . . . I mean, later, maybe.”

  “Why?”

  I can see him swallow. “Oh, you never know.”

  I think quick. Can’t give him my parents’ farm in Bend, don’t really have any other kind of home. And I meant it when I said I didn’t know where I was going, and didn’t want to know. Then this comes to me: “I have this, well, it’s a place I crashed in San Francisco, this nice old lady writer. Let me give you her address—”

  “Will you be there?”

  I give my head a slow shake. “But I’ll try to let her know where I am from time to time.”

  He looks straight at me, his eyes undisclosing, his big-brotherness there . . . but not there.

  And that’s where we leave it. I scribble Kay’s address on Frederick Street for Andy, then he drives the powder-blue station wagon to the other side of the road. I get myself set again and stick out my thumb. I have to say, it feels good to have Andy watching over me; sort of like my own guardian angel. But I’m ready for that safe feeling not to endure; and it doesn’t: A Mercury station wagon pulls up, and this Japanese guy leans out the window and calls to me, “Missy, where you going?”

  “South,” I say and point down the road in the obvious direction.

  The driver leans over and says something to the woman, also Japanese, in the passenger seat. I’m seeing now there are two little children playing in the very back of their wagon.

  “But what city, missy?”

  “Whatever one I get to,” I say.

  The man frowns, consults again with no doubt his wife, and then waves me over. “Not safe for a pretty girl to be out here,” he says. “Come on, get in. We give you good ride.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “We going to Missouri.”

  “That’s a long way.”

  I’m standing right by the driver now, and he peers up at me. “You’re a nice girl, right?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Then it will be an honor to help you. Come on, get in back.” He gestures to the backseat. “Children play in rear, you can have whole seat.”

  “Thank you!” I shout.

  “No problem. In, in, in!”

  When I’m settled and the car pulls off, I turn and give a discrete wave out the window to Andy. The last thing I hear is a quick toot of his horn.

  - - - - -

  Look at Flower, I’m in Puck’s, a coffee shop at a truck stop in middle of nowhere Missouri, and it’s raining harder than I’ve ever seen it—there’re hail stones pounding down, bombing the roof of this sorry place. I’m sitting on a vinyl banquette; I got my bare feet tucked up under me, my knees scrunched up right under my unbound breasts; I’m sitting here sipping a cup of hot chocolate. Outside the rain sheets down the glass. Everything out the window is gray, except for smudges of muted color—the cabs of parked trucks. And I gotta say, I got gloom bugs batting like crazy around my head.

  The ride here with the Yomishuras was great, though. They’d only been in the States six months, Mr. Yomishura coming over from Japan for work in Chicago; and now they were on their first vacation. Someone told them the Midwest was the vacation spot of America, and maybe it is, but they were heading to Paris, Mo., where Mrs. Yomishura has an aunt; and I knew that had to be a dinky burg, so I had them drop me at this truck stop. Along the way the kids played the license game, we sang Japanese folk songs, I heard all about Mito, their hometown north of Tokyo, and after a couple hours and when we were all feeling like family, they told me tales of what it was like during the war, when all they had to eat were roots and watery rice gruel. Hearing this started me thinking about Run, and his parents, and how hard the war must’ve been on everyone.

  When the Yomishuras dropped me off at the stop, they started crying—they were so much worried about me; I tried to assure them I’d be fine—but they were crying anyway, Mr., Mrs., and the two kids, and I was weeping a little too, and that just bummed me more; and then there I was standing by the side of the road again, getting truck spume kicked up in my face and nobody stopping; and then the rain and hail started, driving me into the coffee shop; and here I am wishing like heck I had marshmallows in the hot chocolate like the way Kay made them . . . and that brings up this whole wash of feeling teary and sad about everything I’ve left behind, all my new friends and loves and adventures. . . .

  Ohhhhhhh! Probably, it’s just the rain. I’ve decided if it ever stops, I’ll get as fast as I can to someplace sunny; I’m thinking the Southwest. Arizona, New Mexico—how great will that be? Nothing but blues skies, eh?

  But even thinking that is hoping for just a tiny glimmer of silver light in the midst of my gray storm, and I pull my knees closer to my chest and just rock back and forth on that vinyl seat and feel so empty and hollow that I might as well not exist.

  This hectoring voice comes booming down at me: “You got to put some shoes on, miss.”

  Huh?

  “You can’t be barefoot like that in a public establishment.” I had changed clothes, going back to a white dress with a flowing skirt.

  Oh, God, it’s the waitress, this high-haired round-faced meaty-armed dolly with a name tag that says hilda on it.

  “What’re you, one of them hippies?” She’s scowling at me, and the way she loudly barks out that final word, other people in the truck stop look around at me. She gives everyone around a big look as if she’s proud of herself, then gazes at me more closely. “What, you’re not wearing a bra?”

  I’m a little lightheaded as I rise out of my gloom into a fierce brightness, but then I’m right there, and I say, “Yes, Hilda, I am.” I smile wickedly up at her.

  “You is what?”

  “Hilda, I am one of those hippies.”

  “You’re—” That gets her sputtering.

  “Just like you see on the news, Hilda. A long-haired, dope-smoking, filthy hippie. I can’t remember the last time I took a bath.” I smile, then add, “And, you know, Jesus himself always went everywhere barefoot—”

  Well, her jaw literally drops, and she utters, “Well, I never.”

  “Hilda, you got trouble down there?” This from a guy behind the counter in a grease-stained tall chef’s hat.

  “I gotta little girl with a mouth, Delbert.”

  “That hippie girl, right?”

  “She’s a nasty little thing.”

  “You got her to get her shoes on?”

  “She’s just giving me mouth.” Hilda wipes saliva from her chin. “Delbert, what should I do? Should we ask her to leave?”

  “Miss, why don’t you just put your shoes back on,” a guy in the booth behind me leans forward and says. He sounds friendly. Meanwhile, I’ve dug my feet in and have decided if
they want me out of here, back into that rain, they’ll have to drag me.

  “ ’Cuz it’s a free country,” I say, sounding stupid even to myself. I hate people who say, Because it’s a free country.

  “Miss, I don’t see no need for trouble—where’s it gonna get you?” the man says. He’s probably around 45, and he’s wearing a baseball cap and has slightly long brown hair dangling out from underneath it. His nose is slender, two tight little brown eyes peep at me, and a couple days’ worth of stubble sits on his leathery face.

  “What business is it of yours?” I say. There’s something about him that reminds me of my father.

  “Now, now, missy,” he says, and his voice is rich and soothing; not like Dad’s at all, at least these days. “I’m just trying to help. No reason I can see to rile anyone up.”

  “I’m not trying to rile anybody. I just want to wait out the rain and sip my hot chocolate. And . . . I’d be a damn sight happier if it had some marshmallows in it.”

  The leathery guy lifts his head. “Hilda, you got any marshmallows for the girl?”

  The waitress is glaring at me, and now she’s glaring at him.

  “Here we go, it’s the United Nations, and I’m U Thant,” the guy says. “Now Delbert, what say you send down a plate of marshmallows, and if you do, I’ll get Daisy Mae here to put her Mary Janes back on.”

  The chef glares at both of us, but reaches down, then holds up a saucer with some white lumps in it. He shrugs. Hilda goes and gets the marshmallows, and pretty soon they’re floating in my hot chocolate.

  “Why don’t you put your shoes on now, miss,” the guy says.

  Well, I’m still feeling riled up, but all of a sudden this is so, well, reasonable that I slip on my Keds.

  “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “Who are you?” I say.

  “I’m Dan.” The guy leans over the booth and extends his hand.

  “And?”

  “I drive a truck.” He shrugs. “And stop wars.”

  I laugh and say, “You want to join me?”

  “I’m just finishing up my joe.” He gives a nod out the window. “Got a load of hog meat on its way to where the sun shines.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Albuquerque.”