cards, but what happens in a year when they’ve expired? What if I needed a college transcript or a reference for a job?”
“Did you agree to it?”
She shrugged. “I told him I didn’t have enough money. When I ran away I had two hundred and five thousand dollars. I paid them fifty to help me. I put up another twenty-five for expenses: that Sid Freeman guy, plane tickets, hotels, cars, hair, clothes, and I don’t remember what else. He was taking another twenty-five right then. So if I never spent anything at all—never even bought any food—I could only pay for twenty-one months. Then I thought, ‘Well, okay. Maybe I can find a job quickly, and that will buy me more time.’ Isn’t that amazing?”
“It sounds fairly sensible.”
“No, it doesn’t. What I’m telling you is that it took me maybe five seconds to hear it, and accept it, and get used to it, just like the yelling.”
“You didn’t have much choice, and you had already figured out that arguing with him tonight wasn’t going to get you anywhere.”
“I didn’t have any choice at all. I was being robbed and I couldn’t fight or yell for help. I was getting scared. I thought about running. I was in a strange city across the continent from anything or anybody I knew. I had no credit cards or licenses or identification except the ones they had given me, in a name they chose, and no hope of getting any others. How far would I get? But the big, big surprise was that it took me maybe five more seconds to see everything that had happened the way it really was.”
Jane wondered if she did. “How was it, really?”
“They had promised to make me disappear. I had thought of it as hiding, but it wasn’t. They made me cease to exist, and what was left was this woman that they had invented. Whatever they decided was all right with me, because it had to be. They owned me. I was already not really evaluating what he was telling me, because I knew it was settled. But I was listening, because I had to know what he wanted so I could do it.”
Jane guided the car onto the circular interchange for the San Diego Freeway and accelerated up the long hill to the south toward the airport. “It’s over now. Don’t blame yourself. If anybody is to blame, I guess it’s me.”
The woman looked at her with glazed eyes. “I should hate you, but I don’t seem to be able to bring back enough of myself to feel it. I think it, but it’s just something I know is appropriate, not an emotion.”
“It’s a start,” said Jane. “Being in a situation like that isn’t something that changes you into a different person. He was holding a gun on you.”
“No, he wasn’t. If you want to know what really happened, I’ll tell you. He said I would pay them five thousand a month. I said I couldn’t for very long. He said a smart girl like me would think of a way.”
“This isn’t necessary,” said Jane. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“Yes I do,” said the woman. “I said, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ So he reached out and tugged my nightgown so the hem came up over my knees. He said my legs weren’t bad, so there might be hope. I batted his hand away and pulled back from him. He just stood there and put his hand on his hip. That opened his coat so I could see the gun. He never touched it, just looked at me and waited.” She squeezed her eyes closed, and Jane saw tears stream down her cheek. “I said, ‘You don’t need the gun.’ And I started to take the nightgown off. He didn’t even have to ask. I’ve never done anything like that in my life, never thought of it. I just knew that was what I was supposed to do, and I was thinking I would save myself some little bit of nastiness if I just did it.”
Jane said, “This isn’t what I want to know.”
“But it is what I want to tell you. It took about fifteen minutes to reduce me to that. He had come to make sure I understood that I would have to do what they wanted, and this was the most painless way I had to tell him that I got the idea: he didn’t have to hit me or cut me or something. And you know what? Before it happened, I was already used to it. It had already sunk in, and seemed perfectly natural in the new order of things. I had already learned that I could get by without my money, and now I told myself I could get along without whatever this was, too. But having to be hit in the face or have an arm broken, or even having to stand there and listen to him saying it, and then have to do exactly as he said, seemed worse than just getting it over with quietly. Then you came in.”
Jane drove in silence, watching the lanes behind her. At the last second, she decided to drive past the Century Boulevard exit. The Los Angeles airport was too big, too obvious, too chancy. She kept going.
The woman said, “You’ve lost all respect for me, haven’t you?”
Jane looked at her and shook her head. “No.”
“Oh, that’s right. You didn’t have any respect for me in the first place. Why should you? I did a terrible thing and ran away. And now this.”
Jane said, “I’ve been trying to tell you that you did the best you could under the circumstances. That’s all anybody can do.”
“Not you,” she said with hatred. “You didn’t volunteer to strip for that man. You came in and zapped him. No hesitation, no fear. But I’m not like that, and if I were, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea of how to do it.”
Jane shook her head sadly. “There was lots of hesitation, and that’s why you got into trouble. I’m sorry. I misread the signs at first. The reason he wasn’t afraid that anybody would come when you made noise was that there’s nobody else living in the building yet. They undoubtedly own it, and you’re the only tenant at the moment. His car was the only one in the lot at almost midnight, so I came in. And I do feel fear.”
“No you don’t,” said the woman. “You don’t know what it is.”
“I’ve felt convinced that everything has fallen apart and I’m surrounded and outnumbered and unthinkable things are going to happen and I won’t be able to do anything. Not anymore.”
“You just decided to stop?”
“In a way. I’ve been at this a long time. The problems all have shapes now, and I try to guess what might be done to get rid of them. What I’m afraid of is that I’ll miss something, that I won’t move fast enough, or I’ll guess wrong. Those are fears I can do something about, so I do. It doesn’t leave as much space in my brain for just being frightened. It’s a trick, and you’re going to have to learn it.”
“I can’t.” The tears came again, and the big, gulpy sobs shook her body. “I can’t. I don’t know what to do.”
Jane said quietly, “I’m going to take you somewhere now. I’ll give you new identification that will hold up until I can tailor something for you. I’ll give you a quick course in how to get along.”
“And then what?”
“After that, if you’ve paid attention, you’ll get along.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
29
Jane let her choose her own name, but she didn’t know how. Jane sighed and asked, “What’s your real name?”
“Janet McAffee.”
Jane shook her head in surprise. “I’ll bet they don’t do that very often.”
“Do what?”
“Give a runner the same first name. The reason to do it is because you’re used to being a Janet, so a new last name is no big mental strain. A hundred million women have done it without much fuss, and we’re all prepared for the possibility from the age of ten. But it means they didn’t think anyone would be looking for you very hard. Now they are, so you’ll have to do better this time. With your hair and eyes you don’t have to be Irish. Is there anything else you’ve ever wanted to be?”
“I don’t know. How about French?” It was a moment or two before she admitted to herself that it was because of her college roommate, Denise Fourget. She had always envied the way Denise looked, the way she moved and talked. She spent a few seconds feeling foolish, and another few seconds asking herself whether it mattered where the name came from, then chose the name Christine Manon.
Chris Manon was not sanguine about Cleveland. It was no more run-down or dirty than Baltimore, but the old
