'What color is the part of the turnpike we're on now?'
'Green. '
'What color is the part going through the city?'
'Dotted green. It's . . . oh, Christ! It's under
'That's right. The world-famous 784 extension. Girl, you'll never get to Las Vegas if you don't read the key to your map.'
She bent over it, her nose almost touching the paper. Her skin was clear, perhaps normally milky, but now the cold had brought a bloom to her cheeks and forehead. The tip of her nose was red, and a small drop of water hung beside her left nostril. Her hair was clipped short, and not very well. A home job. A pretty chestnut color. Too bad to cut it, worse to cut it badly. What was that Christmas story by O. Henry? 'The Gift of the Magi.' Who did you buy a watch chain for, little wanderer?
'The solid green picks up at a place called Landy,' she said. 'How far is that from where this part ends?'
'About thirty miles.'
'Oh Christ. '
She puzzled over the map some more. Exit 15 flashed by.
'What's the bypass road?' she asked finally. 'It just looks like a snarl to me. '
'Route 7's best,' he said. 'It's at the last exit, the one they call Westgate.' He hesitated. 'But you'd do better to just hang it up for the night. There's a Holiday Inn. We won't get there until almost dark, and you don't want to try hitching up Route 7 after dark.'
'Why not?' she asked, looking over at him. Her eyes were green and disconcerting; an eye color you read about occasionally but rarely see.
'It's a city bypass road,' he said, taking charge of the passing lane and roaring past a whole line of vehicles doing fifty. Several of them honked at him angrily. 'Four lanes with a little bitty concrete divider between them. Two lanes west toward Landy, two lanes east into the city. Lots of shopping centers and hamburger stands and bowling alleys and all that. Everybody is going in short hops. No one wants to stop.'
'Yeah.' She sighed. 'Is there a bus to Landy?'
'There used to be a city bus, but it went bankrupt. I guess there must be a Greyhound--
'Oh, fuck it. ' She squidged the map back together and stuffed it into her pocket. She stared at the road, looking put out and worried.
'Can't afford a motel room?'
'Mister, I've got thirteen bucks. I couldn't rent a doghouse.'
'You can stay at my house if you want,' he said.
'Yeah, and maybe you better let me out right here.'
'Never mind. I withdraw the offer.'
'Besides, what would your wife think?' She looked pointedly at the wedding ring on his finger. It was a look that suggested she thought he might also hang around school play yards after the monitor had gone home for the day.
'My wife and I are separated.'
'Recently?'
'Yes. As of December first.'
'And now you've got all these hang-ups that you could use some help with,' she said. There was contempt in her voice but it was an old contempt, not aimed specifically at him. 'Especially some help from a young chick.'
'I don't want to lay anybody,' he said truthfully. 'I don't even think I could get it up.' He realized he had just used two terms that he had never used before a woman in his life, but it seemed all right. Not good or bad but all right, like discussing the weather.
'Is that supposed to be a challenge?' she asked. She drew deeply on her cigarette and exhaled more smoke.
'No,' he said. 'I suppose it sounds like a line if you're looking for lines. I suppose a girl on her own has to be looking for them all the time.'
'This must be part three,' she said. There was still mild contempt and hostility in her tone, but now it was cut with a certain tired amusement. 'How did a nice girl like you get in a car like this?'
'Oh, to hell with it,' he said. 'You're impossible.'
'That's right, I am.' She snuffed her cigarette in his ashtray and then wrinkled her nose. 'Look at this. Full of candy wrappers and cellophane and every other kind of shit. Why don't you get a litterbag?'
'Because I don't smoke. If you had just called ahead and said, Barton old boy, I intend to be hitching the turnpike today so give me a ride, would you? And by the way, clear the shit out of your ashtray because I intend to smoke-then I would have emptied it. Why don't you just throw it out the window?'
She was smiling. 'You have a nice sense of irony.'
'It's my sad life.'
'Do you know how long it takes filter tips to biodegrade? Two hundred years, that's how long. By that time your grandchildren will be dead.'
