Wheels

would be briefly in Detroit during an absence from the racing circuit.

***

'Something's wrong,' Erica said. 'I know it is, so why don't you tell me?'

Pierre appeared uncertain and embarrassed. Along with his boyishness, he had a transparent manner which revealed his moods.

He said, in bed beside her, 'It's nothing, I guess.'

Erica propped herself on an elbow. The motel room was darkened because they had drawn the drapes on coming in. Even so, enough light filtered through for her to see the surroundings clearly, which were much like those of other motels they had been in - characterless, with mass-produced furniture and cheap hardware. She glanced at her watch. It was two in the afternoon, and they were in the suburb of Birmingham because Pierre had said he would not have time to drive across the river into Canada.

Outside, the day was dull and the midday forecast had predicted rain.

She turned back to study Pierre whose face she could see clearly too.

He flashed a smile, though with a touch of wariness, Erica thought. She noticed that his shock of blond hair was mussed, undoubtedly because she had run her hands through it during their recent love-making.

She had grown genuinely fond of Pierre. For all his lack of intellectual depth, he had proved agreeable, and sexually was every inch a man, which was what Erica had wanted after all. Even the occasional arrogance - the star syndrome she had been aware of at their first meeting - seemed to fit the masculinity.

'Don't mess about,' Erica insisted. 'Tell me whatever's on your mind.'

Pierre turned away, reaching for his trousers beside the bed and searched in their pockets for cigarettes. 'Well,' he said, not looking at her directly, 'I guess it's us.'

'What about us?'

He had a cigarette alight and blew smoke toward the ceiling. 'From now on I'll be more often at the tracks. Won't get to Detroit as much. Thought I ought to tell you.'

There was a silence between them as a coldness gripped Erica which she struggled not to show. At length she said, 'Is that all, or are you trying to tell me something else?'

Pierre looked uneasy. 'Like what?'

'I should think you'd be the one to know that.'

'It's just . . . well, we've been seeing a lot of each other. For a long time.'

'It certainly is a long time.' Erica tried to keep her voice light, knowing hostility would be a mistake. 'It's every bit of two and a half months.'

'Gee! Is that all?' His surprise seemed genuine.

'Obviously, to you it seems longer.'

Pierre managed a smile. 'It isn't like that.'

'Then just how is it?'

'Hell, Erica, all it is - we won't be seeing each other for a while.'

'For how long? A month? Six months? Even a year?'

He answered vaguely, 'Depends how things go, I guess.'

'What things?'

Pierre shrugged.

'And afterward,' Erica persisted, 'after this indefinite time, will you call me or shall I call you?' She knew she was pushing too hard but had become impatient with his indirectness. When he didn't answer, she added,

'Is the band playing, 'It's Time to Say Goodbye'? Is this the brush-off?

If it is, why not say so and have done with it?'

Clearly, Pierre decided to grasp the opportunity presented. 'Yes,' he said, I guess you could say that's the way it is.'

Erica took a deep breath. 'Thank you for finally giving me an honest answer. Now, at least, I know where I stand.'

She supposed she could scarcely complain. She had insisted on knowing and now had been told, even though, from the beginning of the conversation, Erica had sensed the intention in Pierre's mind. At this moment she had a mixture of emotions - the foremost, hurt pride because she had assumed that if either of them chose to end the affair it would be herself. But she wasn't ready to end it, and now, along with the hurt she had a sense of loss, sadness, an awareness of loneliness to come. She was realist enough to know that nothing would be gained by pleading or argument. One thing Erica had learned about Pierre was that he had all the women he needed or wanted; she knew, too, there were others whom Pierre had tired of ahead of herself. Suddenly she felt like crying at the thought of being one more, but willed herself not to. She'd be damned if she would feed his ego by letting him see how much she really minded.

Erica said coolly, 'Under the circumstances there doesn't seem much point in staying here.'

'Hey!' Pierre said. 'Don't be mad.' He reached under the bedclothes for her, but she evaded him and slipped from the bed, taking her clothes to the bathroom to dress. Earlier in their relationship, Pierre would have scrambled after her, seized her, and forced her playfully back to the bed, as had happened once before when they quarreled. Now he didn't, though she had been half-hoping that he would.

Instead, when Erica came out of the bathroom, Pierre was dressed too, and only minutes later they kissed briefly, almost perfunctorily, and parted. He seemed relieved, she thought, that their leave-taking had been accomplished with so little trouble.

Pierre drove away in his car, reaching speed with a squeal of tires as he left the motel parking lot. Erica followed more slowly in her convertible.

Her last glimpse of him was as he waved and smiled.

By the time she reached the first intersection, Pierre's car was out of sight.

She drove another block and a half before realizing she had not the slightest notion where she was going. It was close to three in the afternoon and was now raining drearily, as the forecast said it would. Where to go, what to do? . . . with the rest of the day, with the rest of her life. Suddenly, like a pent-up flood released, the anguish, disappointment, bitterness, all of which she had postponed in the motel, swept over her. She had a sense of rejection and despair as her eyes filled with tears, which she let course down her cheeks unchecked. Still driving the car, mechanically, Erica continued through Birmingham, uncaring where she went.

One place she did not want to go was home to the house at Quarton Lake.

It held too many memories, an excess of unfinished business, problems she had no capacity to cope with now. She drove a few more blocks, turned several corners, then realized she had come to Somerset Mall, in Troy, the shopping plaza where, almost a year ago, she had taken the perfume - her first act of shoplifting. It had been the occasion on which she had learned that a combination of intelligence, quickness, and nerve could be rewarding in diverse ways. She parked the car and walked through the rain to the indoor mall.

Inside, she wiped the rain and the tears together from her face.

Most stores within the shopping plaza were moderately busy. Erica wandered into several, glancing at Bally shoes, a display of F.A.O. Schwarz toys, the colorful miscellany of a boutique. But she was going through motions only, wanting nothing that she saw, her mood increasingly listless and depressed. In a luggage store she browsed, and was about to leave when a briefcase caught her attention. It was of English cowhide, gleaming brown.

It lay on a glass-topped table at the rear of the store. Erica's eyes moved on, then inexplicably returned. She thought: there was no reason in the world why she should possess a briefcase; she had never needed one, nor was ever likely to. Besides, a briefcase was a symbol of so much that she detested - the tyranny of work brought home, the evenings Adam spent with his own briefcase opened, the countless hours which he and Erica had never shared. Yet she wanted the briefcase she had just seen, wanted it - irrationally - here and now. And intended to have it.

Perhaps Erica thought, she would give the briefcase to Adam as a parting, splendidly sardonic gift.

But was it necessary to pay for it? She could pay, of course, except that it would be more challenging to take what she wanted and walk away, as she had done so skillfully the other times. Doing so would add some zest