Part 4 (1/2)

”Clothes, toilet articles, your books.”

”How about my record alb.u.ms?”

”I guess Dothan kept those.”

I hadn't expected this, although I should have. I'd been awake two days and Dothan hadn't come around. Maybe I didn't expect it because I hadn't thought about it on purpose.

”Did he send over my black Tony Lamas?”

Lydia's head turned and she blew smoke at me. ”You mean the boots with the pint of Yukon in the right toe?”

We looked at each other a moment. Lydia and I had never messed in each other's personal moralities before. When I thought I wanted an abortion way back when, she didn't lay out any version of right or wrong, just offered to pay for it and drive me to the clinic. I didn't say ”Poor Hank” the time she had an affair, or ”Give the old man a break” when her dad was laid up by a stroke and she went cold on all of us.

”Your kidneys will crumple again,” she said.

I held the sheet hem with both hands. ”The jerk is taking my baby from me. Isn't that reason enough to need a drink?”

”There will always be a reason.”

”Just bring me my d.a.m.n boots.”

I didn't need a drink so much as I needed a drink close by. Jack smelled like a friend, and I took one sip to prove I could, then I screwed his top back on. Comfort isn't so much drinking whiskey as knowing where the next whiskey will come from.

I showered while Lydia fixed lunch. The water was so nice I sat in the tub and let it run over my head till the hot turned tepid. When Lydia brought the cold cheese sandwiches into the bedroom she found me dressed and ready, right down to my black Tony Lama boots.

She stood in the door with the tray in her hands. Lydia has these unbelievably long fingers. If she'd been born a man, she would have been a surgeon instead of a TV watcher.

”Going out?” she asked.

”Do you guys have a tent I could borrow? I need a tent.” I had on jeans and a long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt that Sam had given me for one holiday or another.

”Petey called this morning. He said Annabel hasn't been told about your escapades-he called them escapades-but you're welcome to live at home awhile.”

”That's nice of him.”

”You'd have to pretend Dothan's at a religious retreat.”

I wondered where I should pretend Auburn was, but it didn't matter enough to ask.

Lydia set the tray on the bed and took a bite of my sandwich. ”Hank will need help at the ranch this summer. You could live there.”

”About the tent.”

”For that matter, you can stay here. Women Against the Bomb can always use another envelope licker.” It'd been Mothers Against the Bomb until Lydia volunteered her way up to director. She changed the name so no one could accuse her of being a mother.

I talked as I loaded the bare necessities into Sam's old day pack. Tampons, toothbrush, flashlight, spare panties, pocketknife, notebook, pen, all the candy bars in Lydia's house, Stuart Little by E. B. White, and the Yukon. ”I appreciate all you've done, Lydia. I really do, but I need to be near Auburn. He's my only connection. I'll be back every day to shower and change.”

Lydia sat next to the tray and drank my milk. ”Doc Petrov didn't want to release you to me, he wanted you in an inst.i.tution.”

”Mental or prison?”

”He didn't say. What I mean is, if you behave the least bit strangely out there, Dothan's going to nail your body to the wall. As it is, you have ninety days without a son. One colorful action and we're talking lifetime.”

I thought about what she said, I really did. I just couldn't differentiate between ninety days and a lifetime.

”Look, Lydia, what I need most is a postcard. You got any postcards around the house?”

Dear Dad, I'm sorry I haven't written in six days. The whole family has been so busy I haven't had time to think. Auburn has an earache and he's teething and Dothan picked this of all weeks to go on a religious retreat. I even missed Paul Harvey.

Be careful, Dad. San Francisco can be weird in the summer. Don't buy chemicals from people you can't trust.

Love, Maurey

6.

The town tone reared its ugly head the moment I walked into Zion's Own Hardware. Men cut their eyes at me, women whispered. I felt surrounded by a four-foot buffer zone that no one dared enter. All I'd done was drink and mess up; I wondered how big a zone they'd give a person who did something truly awful-Charles Manson or Liz Taylor or somebody. The whole town, buildings and all, would shrink away.

I picked up three stakes, because Lydia'd said Sam's backpacking tent was short, some twine, and a canteen and went to the front of the store, where my buffer zone chased off the line at the cash register.

I placed my purchases on the counter, then slapped Charley down with his barrel pointed at Johnny Jenkins's belt line.

”Centerfire, 140 grain, silvertip if you got any, Johnny.”

He put both hands on the counter. Whenever a salesperson decides they aren't going to sell you something, be it drugstore, liquor store, or dynamite outlet, they all hit the same pose-both hands flat on the counter, feet slightly spread and evenly balanced. It's a training thing.

”I can't do that, Mrs. Talbot,” Johnny said.

I played dumb. ”Oh, h.e.l.l, I'll take hollow point, then.”

”Dothan telephoned and said not to sell you any bullets or sharp objects.”

”You always do what my husband says?”

Johnny kind of sighed. He's really not such a bad guy, for a Church of Christ deacon. He wasn't taking pleasure from my humiliation. Lots of people would have taken pleasure. ”Mrs. Talbot, can you tell me anything other than tragedy that could come of selling you bullets?”