of Hollywood? That didn’t mean he’d gotten there, or that he’d stayed there.
And how far had she walked? Three miles? Four?
She kept walking, determined not to turn around. She was not going to go back and admit she’d made a mistake by leaving. She couldn’t stand this life anymore. Period.
But Ant would wake up and miss her. He’d think he was easy to leave, that there was something wrong with him. Loreda knew that because it was how she’d felt when Daddy had left.
She didn’t want to hurt her brother.
She saw headlights in front of her, coming up the road. A truck rolled up to her and stopped. It was an old-fashioned truck, with a square wooden and glass cab that appeared to have been stuck on the truck’s black chassis. The hinged windshield was open.
The driver reached over and rolled down the passenger window. He was as old as Mom, with a face that was like most men’s these days—sharp and bony. He needed to shave, but Loreda wouldn’t call him bearded. Just scruffy. “What’re you doing out here all by yourself? It’s midnight.”
“Nothing.”
His gaze flicked down to her suitcase. “You look like a girl who is running away.”
“What do you care?”
“Where are your parents? It’s dangerous out here.”
“None of your business. Besides, I’m sixteen. I can go where I want.”
“Yeah, kid. And I’m Errol Flynn. Where are you headed?”
“Anywhere but here.”
He looked up the road. It was at least a minute before he looked at her again. “There’s a bus station in Bakersfield. I’m headed north. I can give you a lift. I just have to make a stop along the way.”
“Thanks, mister!” Loreda tossed her suitcase in the back of the truck and climbed in.
TWENTY-FIVE
“I’m Jack Valen,” the man said.
“Loreda Martinelli.”
He put the truck in gear and they drove north. The suspension on the truck was shot. The leather seat burped up and down at every bump.
Loreda stared out the window. In the brief flash of their headlights or in the glare of billboards lit up by streetlights, she saw people camped on the side of the road, and hobos walking with packs slung over their backs.
They passed the school and the hospital and the squatter’s camp, which lay shrouded in darkness.
And then they were past the places Loreda knew, past the town of Welty. Out here, there was nothing but road.
“Hey, what do you have to do this late at night?” she said. It occurred to her suddenly that she could have put herself in danger.
The man lit a cigarette, exhaled a stream of blue-gray smoke through his open window. “Same as you, I imagine.”
“What do you mean?”
He turned. For the first time she saw his entire face, the tanned roughness of it, the sharp nose and black eyes. “You’re running away from something. Or someone.”
“And you are, too?”
“Kid, if you aren’t running away these days, you aren’t paying attention. But no, I’m not running.” He smiled in a way that made him almost handsome. “I don’t want to get caught out here, either.”
“My dad did that.”
“Did what?”
“Ran out in the middle of the night. Never came back.”
“Well … that’s a hell of a thing,” he said at last. “What about your mom?”
“What about her?”
He turned onto a long dirt road.
Darkness.
Loreda didn’t see lights anywhere, just blackness. No houses, no streetlights, no other cars on the road.
“W-where are we going?”
“I told you I had a stop to make before I dropped you at the bus station.”
“Out here? In the middle of nowhere?”
He let the truck roll to a stop. “I need your word, kid. You won’t talk about this place. Or me. Or anything you see here.”
They were in a huge grassy field. A barn stood alongside a dilapidated ranch house, both bathed in moonlight. A dozen or so cars and trucks were parked in the grass, their headlights off. Thin yellow lines in between the boards of the barn indicated that there was something going on inside. “No one listens to people like me,” Loreda said. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word she meant: Okies.
“If you don’t give me your word, I’ll turn around right now and drop you off on the main road.”
Loreda looked at him. He was impatient with her, she could tell. A tic pulled at the corner of his eyes, but otherwise he appeared calm. He was waiting for her to decide, but he wouldn’t wait long.
She should tell him to turn around right now, take her back to