by myself before.'
Sue shrugged. 'It's something you get used to.' She started walking again. 'So what was the emergency? Why did you have to find me?'
'I didn't. It's just that, you know, my dad didn't come home after work again, and my mom started taking it out on me, so I had to get out of there. I thought I'd go with you to the movie.'
'Now you wish you'd stayed home, right?'
Shelly didn't smile. 'No,' she said. 'It's starting to get bad. I was going to wait to leave until I could afford someplace decent, get my own trailer or something, but now I'm thinking it's better to get out no matter what. I have a half day tomorrow, and I was wondering if you wanted to come with me and see how much apartments are.'
'That'll take ten minutes. What are there, those new ones over on Sagebrush, those old ones on Copperhead?'
Shelly shrugged. 'I don't know. I thought we'd get a paper and look.'
'Yeah, I'll go.' Sue looked at her friend. 'What about tonight? Are you going back? You could.. stay over at my house.' 'Yeah, right.'
'You could sleep in my room.' 'Sue, your parents don't like me. They wouldn't let me stay overnight.'
'Yes, they would.'
Shelly shook her head. 'No, they wouldn't. Besides, I'm going home.
My dad's probably back by now, and if they're fighting, I'll be able to slip in without being noticed.'
Sue said nothing, did not look at her friend. Shelly was right. Her parents didn't like her. She had never been sure if that was because Shelly was not Chinese or because she had not made the kinds of grades in school that they considered appropriate for a friend of their daughter's. Her parents would have let Shelly stay overnight, and they would have been polite to her, but she herself would have received an extensive grilling about the details of Shelly's home life after her friend had left.
'Come on,' Shelly said. 'I got my car. I'll give you a ride home.'
'All right
The parking lot was empty save for Shelly's broken down Dart and a Toyota pickup near the far side of the theater. Once again, Sue smelled mesquite, and she wondered if it was from the dude ranch or a lone camper sleeping overnight in the surrounding desert.
Shelly unlocked the passenger door of the car. Sue got in, then leaned across the seat to unlock the driver's side. She buckled her seat belt while Shelly started the car and pushed in a Clint Black tape.
Sue groaned. 'Not that country crap.' ::' Shelly grinned. 'If it ain't country, it ain't music.' Sue stared out the window at the darkened buildings as the Dart sped up 370 toward Center. In the west, the silhouette of Apache Peak looked black even against the darkness of the sky. They drove in silence, listening to the music. This morning her grandmother had stated that today would not be a good day, and although Sue had dismissed the prediction at the time, she wondered now what her grandmother had meant. It was obvious that the old woman had had some sort of dream that she believed foreshadowed an important event. Had she been thinking of the crisis within Shelly's family, or had it been something else? She would have to asL : The car pulled to a stop in front of Sue's hot and she got out, walking around to Shelly's window. ''Do you want to come in for a while, just stay until things cool down?' Shelly shook her head. 'It's been two hours.
Either everything's okay, or the whole night's shot, and they'll be arguing until dawn.' She smiled tiredly. ''Or my dad hit the road and is heading down the highway singing
'By the time I Get to Phoenix.' '
'Call me tomorrow then.'
'I will.'
Sue stood on the cracked sidewalk and watched the taillights of her friend's car shrink in the distance, turn a corner, and disappear. She walked up the steps to the front porch. The door was opened before she had finished taking her key out of her purse. Her grandmother stood in the doorway, backlit by the light in the hall, her frizzy hair forming a dark halo around her head. The rest of the house was dark. Everyone else, including her mother, had already gone to bed.
'I'm glad you are safe,' her grandmother said in Chinese. 'I have been waiting. I thought something might have happened to you.'
'I'm fine,' Sue said, walking inside, taking off her shoes and closing the door behind her. But the troubled expression'i was worried.' n her grandmother's face did not disappear.
'About what?'
The old woman patted her shoulder. 'We will talk in the morning. It is late now. I am old and need my rest. You are young and need your rest. We should both be in bed.'
'Okay,' Sue said The two of them walked down the hall, stopping before the door to Sue's room. Sue yawned, then smiled. 'Good night, Grandmother,' she said.
Her grandmother nodded, said good night, but she looked troubled and did not smile as she continued down the hall.
A always, Rich Carter awoke with the dawn.
He opened his eyes, yawned, stretched. The drapes were closed, but the bedroom was filled with hazy diffused light, a curtain-filtered distillation of the powerful Indian summer sunrise outside. Next to him, on the bed, Corrie still slept, one arm thrown over her eyes as though some part of her brain had known morning was coming and had ordered her body to preserve the illusion of darkness for as long as possible. He watched her for a moment. Asleep, she appeared almost happy, more content than she ever did when awake. The set of her mouth was softened, the lines of tension in her forehead smoothed away. She looked ten years younger, the way she had when they'd first met.
Sometimes he felt guilty for bringing her here.
Rich reached over and carefully cracked open the curtains, peeking outside. Through the chain-link fence, between the corner of the garage and the palo verde tree at the far end of the backyard, he could see the desert- the flat land, the far-off mesas, and the closer red sandstone buttes. Yellow morning sunlight threw saguaros and ocotillos into clear relief and highlighted the oversize boulders which covered the range of high hills to the north, illuminating aspects of the landscape that could only be seen at this hour on this kind of day. It was mornings like this, when the sky was clear and blue and cloud less and even the most overt intrusions of civilization seemed like only temporary incursions on a beautiful un changing land, that he felt most acutely the tightness of his decision to return to Rio Verde.
Corrie would not agree. Which was one reason why he did not wake her up to share this moment. Corrie hated the desert. Well, maybe hate was too strong a word. But to her the beauty of the desert was not apparent, and the uniqueness of light and sky and landscape had virtually no effect on her. She had gotten used to Rio Verde, but she still required frequent weekend trips to Phoenix and drives to Flagstaff or Randall or Payson. Upon her first view of the town, he recalled, she'd instantly declared it the ugliest place she'd ever seen. Her views had modified somewhat--she now claimed to have seen several towns uglier than Rio Verde, all of them within the county--but she had never grown to love the community the way he'd hoped she would.
The way he did.
On that first trip back, he had thought the town the most welcome sight he'd ever seen. After the Valley, after Southern California, the familiar view of the ribbon of cottonwoods lining the river, the streets and structures built atop the low desert foothills fronting Sinagua Bluffs was one which filled him with comforting pleasure and a sense of contentment. He had been so happy to be back that he had rationalized Corrie's feelings, claiming that they had driven in on 370 instead of 95, coming in from the ugly east end of town, and that this had skewed her initial perceptions. But he'd known then as he knew now that she was a city girl and that life in a small town would take some getting used to. He'd thought it would be easier than this, though.
Rich let the curtain fall. Anna was already up. He could hear the theme music for Sesarr Street from the living room. He pushed off the blankets and got out of bed, careful not to disturb Corrie. He went to the bathroom, then pulled on a robe and walked down the short hallway to the living room. 'Hey, sweetie,' he said, picking up Anna from the couch and giving her a quick kiss on the forehead.
She giggled and wiped the kiss away. 'Knock it off,
Daddy. I have to watch my show.'
