She hung up when she heard him, and then fell against the brick, a long road from anywhere, too small to be alone, the sky a gathering storm she could not outrun. Her brother saying hello, quiet like he was in on a secret, and her unable to find a word, not a single word to say to him, not even sorry for what she had done and what she would do.
She spent her last two bucks on milk and a dry bagel.
She sat there four hours, the sun crawling its arc, the hand of a clock that pushed morning to the blaze of afternoon. In the gas station a woman worked the counter, a magazine hidden behind, her head down and tired. She wore large glasses and had a stain on her shirt. She gave Duchess the key to the restroom, smiled quick as she did, like she knew the crossroads the girl lived at and had seen so many like her before.
Inside smelled bad, graffiti scrawled on every surface, romantic declarations Tom & Betty-Laurel Fucked Here, numbers to call for a good time. Duchess carefully stripped off her T-shirt and jeans, washed herself with soap she pumped from the dispenser then dried off with paper towels. She splashed icy water onto her face, the tired creeped from her eyes.
Outside she watched truckers, trying to select the right one based on nothing more than a gut instinct that had not steered her all that well in the past.
An hour later she settled on a big guy with a plaid shirt and handlebar mustache. He drove a clean rig, the name Annie-Beth on the hood, a heart on either side.
She approached him and he smiled, took in her wet hair, Stetson, small bag and ninety-pound frame.
“Where do you need to get?”
“Maybe Vegas.”
“Vegas, huh.”
“Yeah.”
“You a runaway?”
“No.”
“I could get in trouble.”
“I’m not a runaway. I’m eighteen.”
He laughed at that.
“I’m passing Fish Lake.”
“Where’s that?”
“Utah.”
“Alright.”
As they drove she watched the world, view high and commanding. The cab smelled of leather. The big guy was Malcolm, like his parents expected him to stop growing at five seven and work accounts. There was a plant on the dash, she took that as a good sign. And a photo of a girl not much older than her and a woman beside.
“Is that Annie-Beth?” she said.
“My girl.”
“Pretty.”
“Sure is. That’s old now … nineteen. University, political science.” Pride colored every word. “I check in with her every night. She’s just, she’s so smart we didn’t even know where it came from. A blessing.”
“That your wife with her?”
“Used to be. I liked to drink.” He pointed to a pin on the dash. “Eighteen months sober.”
“Maybe she’ll take you back.”
“Not on the cards for me yet. I got a plant, cactus, I keep that healthy for six months then maybe. It’s all about taking it back, right.”
She looked at the cactus on the dash, long dead. She wondered if he knew, and also just how hard it was to kill a cactus.
He tried asking her a little, she gave nothing so he quit, pushed his visor down to cull the bright and then rode mile after mile.
She slept a little, woke with such a start he told her it was alright. She saw red rock, dried-out yellows and orange, sunset on a road so long and straight she wondered if she was dreaming.
At a truck stop he told her that was all. She thanked him and he wished her well.
“Go home,” he said.
“I am.”
At the edge of a town that did not have a clear name, Duchess walked beneath a silver sky, her feet so heavy it was all she could do to keep them moving. Tall buildings either side, painted colors that lightened with each step. Yellow planters and sapling trees, dying stores and floating noise, a bar across the street that fluttered neon. Sounds that told her not to go in. She stood there, her bag pulling the skin from her shoulder, eyes so tired edges blurred and streetlights smothered. Across, each step wayward and hard to point. She breathed in stammers, not knowing how to be any longer, her hands numb from the weight, the occasional memory of Robin lighting up her chest, all fire and hatred for the man who had stolen her old life and discarded it so carelessly, like litter in the wind.
She pushed the door against better judgment, fought her way to the bar, the men, and some women, parting, the light all red.
The bartender was old and she asked for a Coke before she realized she didn’t have enough. As she fished in her pockets he set it down, read her well and then pushed it toward her in an act of kindness so distant she had almost forgotten it existed.
She found a corner and put her bag down, sat on a low stool and closed her eyes to the sweet drink. A man with a guitar held the other corner, and he called on regulars and together they played and sang and the bustling crowd watched and sometimes laughed. There wasn’t one that could hold a tune, but Duchess stared on like she hadn’t heard music in the longest time.
For a moment she closed her eyes, wiped dirt and sweat that crossed her face and found her mother, holding Robin up to the stars like he was something blessed instead of another mistake.
And then she found herself on her feet, and she was moving and again the people parted, the women watching her like she was a child, the men watching her
