She dug in her backpack, found her cell phone, and checked for coverage. It was kind of lame in Morganville, truthfully, out in the middle of the prairie, in the middle of Texas, which was about as middle of nowhere as it was possible to get unless you wanted to go to Mongolia or something. Two bars. Not great, but it'd do.
Claire started dialing numbers. The first person told her that they'd already found somebody, and hung up before she could even say, "Thanks." The second one sounded like a weird old guy. The third one was a weird old lady. The fourth one...well, the fourth one was just plain weird.
The fifth listing down read,
THREE ROOMMATES SEEKING FOURTH, huge old house, privacy assured, reasonable rent and utilities.
Which...okay, she wasn't sure that she could afford "reasonable" - she was more looking for "dirt cheap" - but at least it sounded less weird than the others. Three roommates. That meant three more people who'd maybe take up for her if Monica and company came sniffing around...or at least take up for the house. Hmmmmm.
She called, and got an answering machine with a mellow-sounding, young-sounding male voice.
"Hello, you've reached the Glass House. If you're looking for Michael, he sleeps days. If you're looking for Shane, good luck with that, 'cause we never know where the hell he is" - distant laughter from at least two people - "and if you're looking for Eve, you'll probably get her on her cell phone or at the shop. But hey. Leave a message. And if you're looking to audition for the room, come on by. It's 716
West Lot Street." A totally different voice, a female one lightened up by giggles like bubbles in soda, said, "Yeah, just look for the mansion." And then a third voice, male again. "Gone with the Wind meets The Munsters." More laughter, and a beep.
Claire blinked, coughed, and finally said, "Um...hi. My name is Claire? Claire Danvers? And I was, um, calling about the, um, room thing. Sorry." And hung up in a panic. Those three people sounded...normal.
But they sounded pretty close, too. And in her experience, groups of friends like that just didn't open up to include underage, undersized geeks like her. They hadn't sounded mean; they just sounded - self-confident. Something she wasn't.
She checked the rest of the listings, and felt her heart actually sink a little. Maybe an inch and a half, with a slight sideways twist. God, I'm dead. She couldn't sleep out here on a bench like some homeless loser, and she couldn't go back to the dorm; she had to do something.
Fine, she thought, and snapped her phone shut, then open again to dial a cab.
Seven sixteen Lot Street. Gone with the Wind meets The Munsters. Right.
Maybe they'd at least feel sorry enough for her to put her up for one lousy night.
The cabbie - she figured he was just about the only cabdriver in Morganville, which apart from the campus at TPU on the edge of town had only about ten thousand people in it - took an hour to show up.
Claire hadn't been in a car in six weeks, since her parents had driven her into town. She hadn't been much beyond a block of the campus, either, and then just to buy used books for class.
"You meeting someone?" the cabbie asked. She was staring out the window at the storefronts: used-clothing shops, used-book shops, computer stores, stores that sold nothing but wooden Greek letters. All catering to the college.
"No," she said. "Why?"
The cabbie shrugged. "Usually you kids are meeting up with friends. If you're looking for a good time - "
She shivered. "I'm not. I'm - yes, I'm meeting some people. If you could hurry, please...?"
He grunted and took a right turn, and the cab went from Collegetown to Creepytown in one block flat.
She couldn't define how it happened exactly - the buildings were pretty much the same, but they looked dim and old, and the few people moving on the streets had their heads down and were walking fast. Even when people were walking in twos or threes, they weren't chatting. When the cab passed, people looked up, then down again, as if they'd been looking for another kind of car.
A little girl was walking with her hand in her mother's, and as the cab stopped for a light, the girl waved, just a little. Claire waved back.
The girl's mother looked up, alarmed, and hustled her kid away into the black mouth of a store that sold used electronics. Wow, Claire thought. Do I look that scary? Maybe she did. Or maybe Morganville was just ultracareful of its kids.
Funny, now that she thought about it, there was something missing in this town. Signs. She'd seen them all her life stapled to telephone poles...advertisements for lost dogs, missing kids or adults.
Nothing here. Nothing.
"Lot Street," the cabbie announced, and squealed to a stop. "Ten fifty."
For a five-minute ride? Claire thought, amazed, but she paid up. She thought about shooting him the finger as he drove away, but he looked kind of dangerous, and besides, she really wasn't the kind of girl who did that sort of thing. Usually. It was a bad day, though.
She hoisted her backpack again, hit a bruise on her shoulder, and nearly dropped the weight on her foot.
Tears stung at her eyes. All of a sudden she felt tired and shaky again, scared.... At least on campus she'd kind of been on relatively familiar ground, but out here in town it was like being a stranger, all over again.