the way he feels inside, and wash away his worries. Maybe he can get on the plane tomorrow at nine twenty-five, smile at the flight attendant, then catch a couple of hours' sleep before he has to report into the office.
In his line of work, Gary is trained to notice things, but he can't quite believe what he's seeing now. Part of the reason for this is that he's been imagining Sally everywhere he goes. He thought he spied her at a crosswalk on the Turnpike as he was driving here, and again in the fried-chicken place, and now here she is in the parking lot. She's probably another illusion, what he wants to see rather than what's right in front of him. Gary walks closer to the Honda and narrows his eyes. That's Sally's car, it is, and that's her, there behind the wheel, honking the horn at him.
Gary opens the car door, gets into the passenger seat, and slams the door shut. His hair and his clothes are damp, and the bucket of chicken he has with him is steamy hot and smells like oil.
'I thought it was you,' he says.
He needs to fold his legs up to fit in this car; he balances the bucket of chicken on his lap.
'It was Jimmy's ring,' Sally says.
She didn't plan to spill it immediately, but maybe it's just as well. She's staring at Gary for his reaction, but he's simply looking back at her. God, she wishes she smoked or drank or something. The tension is so bad that it feels as though it were at least a hundred and thirty degrees inside the car. Sally is surprised she doesn't just burst into flame.
'Well?' she says finally. 'We were lying to you. That ring in my kitchen belonged to James Hawkins.'
'I know.' Gary sounds even more worried now than before. She's the one, and he knows it. Under certain circumstances, he might be willing to give up everything for Sally Owens. He might be willing to leap headlong into this ravine he feels coming up, without considering how fast he'd be falling or how brutal the moment of impact might be. Gary combs his wet hair back with his fingers and, for a moment, the whole car smells like rain. 'Have you had dinner?' He lifts the bucket of chicken. He's also got onion rings and fries.
'I couldn't eat,' Sally tells him.
Gary opens the door and sets the bucket outside in the rain. He has definitely lost his appetite for chicken.
'I might pass out,' Sally warns him. 'I feel like I'm going to have a stroke.'
'Is that because you understand I have to ask if you or your sister know where Hawkins is?'
That is not the reason. Sally is hot right down to her fingertips. She takes her hands off the steering wheel so steam doesn't rise from beneath her cuticles, and places both hands in her lap. 'I'll tell you where he is.' Gary Hallet is looking at her as if the Hide-A-Way Motel and all the rest of the Turnpike didn't even exist. 'Dead,' Sally says.
Gary thinks this over while the rain taps against the roof of the car. They can't see out the windshield, and the windows are fogged up.
'It was an accident,' Sally says now. 'Not that he didn't deserve it. Not that he wasn't the biggest pig alive.'
'He went to my high school.' Gary speaks slowly, with an ache in his voice. 'He was always bad news. People say that he shot twelve ponies at a ranch that refused to hire him for a summer job. Shot them in the head, one by one.'
'There you go,' Sally says. 'There you have it.'
'You want me to forget about him? Is that what you're asking me to do?'
'He won't hurt anyone anymore,' Sally says. 'That's the important thing.'
The woman who works in the motel office has run outside, wearing a black rain poncho and carrying a broom she'll use to try to unclog the gutters before tomorrow's predicted storm. Sally herself isn't thinking about her gutters. She's not wondering if her girls thought to close the windows, and at this moment she doesn't care if her roof will make it through gale-force winds.
'The only way he'll hurt someone is if you keep looking for him,' Sally adds. 'Then my sister will get hurt, and I will, too, and it will all be for nothing.'
She's got the sort of logic Gary can't argue with. The sky is getting darker, and when Gary looks at Sally he sees only her eyes. What's right and what's wrong have somehow gotten confused. 'I don't know what to do,' he admits. 'In all of this, I seem to have a problem. I'm not impartial. I can pretend to be, but I'm not.'
He's staring at her the way he did when she first answered the door. Sally can feel his intentions and his torment both; she's well aware of what he wants.
Gary Hallet is getting leg cramps sitting in the Honda, but he's not going anywhere yet. His grandfather used to tell him that most folks had it all wrong: The truth of the matter was, you could lead a horse to water, and if the water was cool enough, if it was truly clear and sweet, you wouldn't have to force him to drink. Tonight Gary feels a whole lot more like the horse than the rider. He has stumbled into love, and now he's stuck there. He's fairly used to not getting what he wants, and he's dealt with it, yet he can't help but wonder if that's only because he didn't want anything too badly. Well, he does now. He looks out at the parking lot. By afternoon he'll be back where he belongs; his dogs will go crazy when they see him, his mail will be waiting outside his front door, the milk in his refrigerator will still be fresh enough to use in his coffee. The hitch is, he doesn't want to go. He'd rather be here, crammed into this tiny Honda, his stomach growling with hunger, his desire so bad he doesn't know if he could stand up straight. His eyes are burning hot, and he knows he can never stop himself when he's going to cry. He'd better not even try.
'Oh, don't,' Sally says. She moves closer to him, pulled by gravity, pulled by forces she couldn't begin to control.
'I just do this,' Gary says in that sad, deep voice. He shakes his head, disgusted with himself. This time he'd prefer to do almost anything but cry. 'Pay no attention.'
But she does. She can't help herself. She shifts toward him, meaning to wipe at his tears, but instead she loops her arms around his neck, and once she does that, he holds her closer.
'Sally,' he says.
It's music, it's a sound that is absurdly beautiful in his mouth, but she won't pay attention. She knows from the time she spent on the back stairs of the aunts' house that most things men say are lies. Don't listen, she tells herself. None of it's true and none of it matters, because he's whispering that he's been looking for her forever. She's halfway onto his lap, facing him, and when he touches her, his hands are so hot on her skin she can't believe it. She can't listen to anything he tells her and she certainly can't think, because if she did she might just think she'd better stop.
This is what it must be like to be drunk, Sally finds herself thinking, as Gary presses against her. His hands are on her skin, and she doesn't stop him. They're under her T-shirt, they're into her shorts, and still she doesn't stop him. She wants the heat he's making her feel; she, who can't function without directions and a map, wants to get lost right now. She can feel herself giving in to his kisses; she's ready to do just about anything. This is what it must be like to be crazy, she guesses. Everything she's doing is so unlike her usual self that when Sally catches sight of her image in the cloudy side-view mirror, she's stunned. It's a woman who could fall in love if she let herself, a woman who doesn't stop Gary when he lifts her dark hair away, then presses his mouth to the hollow of her throat.
What good would it do her to get involved with someone like him? She'd have to feel so much, and she's not that kind. She couldn't abide those poor, incoherent women who came to the aunts' back door, and she could not stand to be one of them now, wild with grief, overcome with what some people call love.
She pulls away from Gary, out of breath, her mouth hot, the rest of her burning. She has managed to exist this long without; she can keep on doing it. She can make herself go cold, from the inside out. The drizzle is letting up, but the sky has become as dark as a pot of ink. In the east, thunder sounds as the storm moves in from the sea.
'Maybe I'm letting you do this so you'll stop the investigation,' Sally says. 'Did you ever think of that? Maybe I'm so desperate I'd fuck anyone, including you.'
Her mouth tastes bitter and cruel, but she doesn't care. She wants to see that wounded look on his face. She wants to stop this before that option is no longer hers. Before what she feels takes hold and she's trapped, like those women at the aunts' back door.
'Sally,' Gary says. 'You're not like that.'
'Oh, really?' Sally says. 'You don't know me. You just think you do.'
