Yes, of course she knew ... but as the pressure of her bladder decreased and the stream of her urine flowed between the bricks of this back patio in a zigzag streamlet, she felt a crazy joy suddenly fill her heart. In that instant she knew what it must feel like to cross a river into a foreign country, and then set fire to the bridge behind you, and stand on the riverbank, watching and breathing deeply as your only chance of retreat went up in smoke.
5
She walked for nearly two hours, through one unfamiliar neighborhood after another, before coming to a strip mall on the west side of the city. There was a pay phone in front of Paint n Carpet World, and when she used it to call a taxi, she was amazed to discover she was no longer in the city at all, but in the suburb of Mapleton. She had big blisters on both heels, and she supposed it was no wonder—she must have walked over seven miles.
The cab arrived fifteen minutes after her call, and by then she had visited the convenience store at the far end of the strip, where she got a pair of cheap sunglasses and a colorful red rayon kerchief. She remembered Norman saying once that if you wanted to divert attention from your face, the best way was to wear something bright, something which would direct the observer’s eye in a different direction.
The cabbie was a fat man with unkempt hair, bloodshot eyes, bad breath. His baggy, faded tee-shirt showed a map of South Vietnam. WHEN I DIE I’LL GO TO HEAVEN ’CAUSE I SERVED MY TIME IN HELL, the words beneath the map read. IRON TRIANGLE, 1969. His beady red eyes scanned her quickly, passing from her lips to her breasts to her hips before appearing to lose interest.
“Where we going, dear?” he asked.
“Can you take me to the Greyhound depot?”
“You mean Portside?”
“Is that the bus terminal?”
“Yep.” He looked up and used the rear-view mirror to meet her eyes. “That’s on the other side of the city, though. A twenty-buck fare, easy. Can you afford that?”
“Of course,” she said, then took a deep breath and added: “Can you find a Merchant’s Bank ATM machine along the way, do you think?”
“All life’s problems should be so easy,” he said, and dropped the flag on his taximeter. $2.50, it read. BASE FARE.
She dated the beginning of her new life from the moment the numbers in the taximeter window clicked from $2.50 to $2.75 and the words BASE FARE disappeared. She would not be Rose Daniels anymore, unless she had to be—not just because Daniels was his name, and therefore dangerous, but because she had cast him aside. She would be Rosie McClendon again, the girl who had disappeared into hell at the age of eighteen. There might be times when she would be forced to use her married name, she supposed, but even then she would continue to be Rosie McClendon in her heart and mind.
I’m really Rosie, she thought as the cabbie drove across the Trunkatawny Bridge, and smiled as Maurice Sendak’s words and Carole King’s voice floated through her mind like a pair of ghosts. And I’m Rosie Real.
Was she, though? Was she real?
This is where I start finding out, she thought. Right here and right now.
6
The cabbie stopped in Iroquois Square and pointed to a line of cash machines standing in a plaza which came equipped with a fountain and a brushed-chrome sculpture that didn’t look like anything in particular. The machine on the far left was bright green.
“That do ya?” he asked.
“Yes, thanks. I’ll just be a minute.”
But she was a little longer than that. First she couldn’t seem to punch in the pin-number correctly, in spite of the machine’s large keypads, and when she finally succeeded in that part of the operation, she couldn’t decide how much to take. She pressed seven-five-decimal-zero-zero, hesitated over the TRANSACT button, then pulled her hand back. He would beat her up for running away if he caught her—no question about that. If he beat her badly enough to land her in the hospital, though (or to kill you, a small voice murmured, he might actually kill you, Rosie, and you’re a fool if you forget that), it would be because she had dared to steal his ATM card ... and to use it. Did she want to risk that sort of retribution