Into Thin Air (4 page)

The elevator came almost immediately, but it was so packed, most of the people waiting just stepped back, resigned, “This is just goddamned great,” the man standing by Lee said. Lee couldn't wait for another elevator; she didn't think she could make it down a half flight of stairs, let alone four. The elevator door was slowly sliding shut when Lee edged her way in, pushing against a woman who angrily rolled her eyes at Lee, who hissed out a long breath as she stepped farther back into the elevator. “Who do you think you are?” she said. Lee was pinned against the door, nudged forward, and when the door finally opened she was popped out, the other passengers rushing past her. She was sweating, nearly crazy with nerves, and so weak she was sure that any second she would simply collapse to the floor. She kept expecting to see Jim making his way toward her, she imagined nurses, starched and stiff in white, taking her back to bed, staying beside her, holding her hand as firmly as a steel cuff, until it was time to go home. And then she'd be trapped in an overheated house with a baby who'd remind her of everything she was losing, every road she might be traveling on, every heart that might be out there beating for her with a passion so strong and stormy it would make her forget who she was.

She could see the revolving door in front, she could see the taxis just waiting by the curb. But with every step the front door seemed to recede instead of get closer, and for a moment she began to panic. She forced herself to go faster, she lunged forward and gripped the front door and spun through, and as soon as she was outside the hospital, she wanted to lie right down on the tarry sidewalk and sleep. Instead she braced her hand against the railing and then lifted her hand to hail a cab.

It was the middle of the day, and everything hurt. She slid into the cab, letting her head fall back against the back seat, which was taped up with blue vinyl. “Train station,” she said, resting both hands on her stomach.

The driver was hunched around the steering wheel. When she glanced up at the rearview mirror she caught his eyes slanting with fury at her. He drove like a crazy person, toppling orange road barriers as he swerved past, dipping and slicing in. She pulled the cap down over her hair; she put on a pair of sunglasses. She watched as the road disappeared behind her. She rummaged in her purse to get the money ready for the fare so she wouldn't waste a second, and when the cab finally pulled into the train station, she stuffed bills into his hand and pushed herself out into the light and noise.

She went to the first ticket window she saw. What did it matter where she went as long as it was miles away? “What's leaving right now?” she asked the ticket clerk, ignoring the way he raised one brow at her. “Come on, what?” she said hoarsely. “Richmond,” he told her, taking his time, “five minutes, track two,” She fished out her money, grabbed for the ticket, and then she was pushing her way as best she could through the crowd that seemed to shove around her, barring her path. Track two.

There was a throng of people already climbing down the stairs toward the train, kissing good-byes, calling and waving, and Lee blended herself among them. If she cried now, no one would think anything was funny. No one would think anything other than that she was already homesick for someone or something she was leaving behind. She stepped aboard the Richmond train, moving to the very back, by the window, sinking low on her seat, her cap pulled low. “Don't sit beside me, pass by, pass by,” Lee murmured to the people threading past and the seat beside her remained empty.

She didn't start to relax until the train pulled out of the station, and then, slowly, slowly, Jim and the baby began to recede, their clamoring, blaming voices growing faint. She tugged off her wedding band and held it up to the light. When she was in high school, they had forced all the girls to take home economics. “This is the most important course you will ever take,” her teacher had told the class. “Don't talk to me about science or math. Forget history. You really think it matters who won the War of 1812? Do you know? I'm not one bit ashamed to admit I don't. You think anyone really cares? This class gets you on your way to the only degree there is—the one you girls are born for.” She paused dramatically and then scrawled it across the length of the blackboard. “Your M-R-S,” she said, underlining each letter triumphantly. Mrs. Haynes, her teacher's name was, and she told them she had gotten her “degree” with her very first boyfriend, which just went to show you how much she knew her stuff. She was only in her twenties and already had three kids and helmet-shaped hair that was dyed a matte black. She used to lecture the class on beauty tips guaranteed to land and keep a husband. Cold cream in white gloves worn to bed every night. Lemon juice rinsed through your hair. “It's good to be a little secretive,” she had told the class, “keep up a little mystery.” Lee flipped the ring in her hand. She bet she could get some money for it.

She slept all the way to Richmond, deep and dreamless, and by the time the train finally pulled into the station, it was evening. She woke feverish, her dress pasted along her back. By now there must be a bulletin out for her, and she was more than aware that she hadn't had as much leeway as she had wanted. The thing to do was rush and get another ticket, put more distance between her and her past, but as soon as her legs hit pavement, they buckled under her. She didn't know what was going on. She had known about the bleeding, had known that her breasts might leak milk for a while, probably ruining every blouse she had, embarrassing her so much she'd take to wearing blouses three sizes too baggy. But she hadn't expected fever, burning her up so that she was soaked, her vision smearing so she felt she was walking blind. She had cramps, too, thin high wires of pain that doubled her over so badly she thought she might be going into labor again. People were rushing to make connections, flinging themselves into sets of outstretched arms, and it was all Lee could do to sit on a dirty ledge and wait for enough energy to return to carry her to a ticket window. She put her head in her two hands, just for a moment, and as soon as her eyes were covered, she felt a touch. Startled, she turned toward it. A woman in a sleeveless black dress had her head cocked in concern. “Are you all right? Do you need me to get a porter?” the woman said. “I'm fine,” Lee said, forcing herself to stand, to walk as if she could go another ten miles without feeling a single cramp. “Well, you don't look fine to me,” the woman called after her, vaguely annoyed. When Lee glanced around in back of her, the woman in black was still standing, watching silently, and when she spotted Lee looking at her, she waved energetically. Lee picked up her pace. She couldn't travel if people were going to notice her, and illness was something you'd remember. For a moment she panicked again, and then she thought she could check into a motel, just for a night. She could get some aspirin; she could sleep, and as soon as she felt better she'd be gone.

There was a drugstore right outside the station. She bought a family-size bottle of aspirins, extra-strength; she bought rubbing alcohol and a hot-water bottle. It made her anxious being in a crowded store like this, and she suddenly felt nervous, too, about checking into a motel that was only a state away from Maryland, She was on her way to the checkout counter, making her way up aisle four, when she grabbed up a small pair of sewing scissors, a new pair of dark glasses. Right at the counter was a whole stack of tabloids,
WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO KITTENS
, it read. Underneath the headline was a blurred photograph of a woman sitting up in bed, holding something swaddled in blankets. Beside that was a drawing of kitten-faced babies,
ARTIST'S DEPICTION
, it said.

She ended up at a Holiday Inn in town, prepaying the room so she could leave whenever she wanted. As soon as she walked into the room, she saw the TV, the cabinet so large it took up nearly a quarter of the wall. She didn't have to turn it on, she told herself, she didn't have to think about anything, and then she tumbled across the rose chintz bed and fell asleep, not waking until almost midnight. Her cramps seemed worse. She had this odd feeling that she was being punished, that all the pain was there to keep her from forgetting that back in Baltimore she had given birth to a daughter, that it was meant to work the way a splinter in your foot did, reminding you at every step. Next door she heard a couple arguing; something heavy thudded onto the floor. She heard a burst of applause from someone's TV set. “Why, Mary Avery of Provo, Utah, you just won ten thousand dollars!” someone cried. “What are you going to do with all that cash?” She got up, riffling in her purse for loose bills for dinner later, for the aspirin bottle. Tilting it toward her mouth, she spilled out two pills on her tongue. In the bathroom mirror, her skin looked translucent. She lifted up her hair. “Mood hair,” Jim called it, like those cheap rings that turned colors on your finger depending on your frame of mind. It was curlier some days than others, losing an inch with the curl. It seemed to get darker right before her period. He had loved it, had made her promise not to cut it, But the girl who had sat behind her in geometry had disagreed. “Don't you ever comb your hair? We could send you a CARE package. A hairbrush or something. CARE. You need it.” Lee leaned over and ran the water in the sink, splashing it onto her face.

It took her a while to get up the nerve to cut her hair, First she just snipped at the ends, a bit at a time. But that didn't really make her hair look much different, and she wanted to feel unfindable. She hesitated for a minute, and then she grabbed her hair up into one heavy tail and simply sheared it off at her fist. Her face in the steamy bathroom mirror looked as pale as a piece of white paper. Her eyes were dull as slate, and her hair looked raggedly cut. She had no idea what to do with the hair; she couldn't just leave it in the bathroom for the maid—a thing like a tail of hair would surely attract attention, She stuffed it into her purse, told herself she'd get rid of it someplace. She stared solemnly at her reflection again, thinking of Samson, his strength clipped short along with his hair; she remembered when she was a little girl, she had once become suddenly fascinated with voodoo. She wouldn't clip her nails or cut her hair because she knew all someone had to do was get hold of a part of her and they could cast spells. “Transformation is inward,” her stepmother had once told her when Lee was walking out the door in a skirt so short she was sent home before she even made it through first period French, She touched her ragged hair shyly and went back to sleep.

When she woke the first thing she saw was the TV. It didn't matter that she didn't once turn it on all that morning, that hours when the news was broadcast she tried to be sleeping or out. She swore she could hear the news anyway, she swore she could hear her name, coming through the papered wall from the people next door, mixed in with the game shows they had on, the comedies. Even on “I Love Lucy.” “Lucy, I dun't want you or Lee coming to the club,” Ricky said, the words clipped and Cuban and so clear they were dazzling, She started, clicking on the set, finding the channel, but now Lucy and Ethel were dressed in a cow suit, lumbering into a makeshift mambo at Ricky's club, while Ricky stared stupefied, and her name wasn't being mentioned at all. Every time there were footsteps outside, she stiffened. When she left the room she imagined the cleaning lady pocketing clues, casually mentioning to someone that the woman in 4D had left so many long blond hairs all over everything that they ought to send her a cleaning bill.

She began to feel better in the evening. She needed to eat something healthy, needed to get herself tough, And she needed to change hotels now. She walked right out past the bored hotel clerk, three blocks away to the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge. “Annie Peters,” she signed in, smiling at the clerk because she felt a little livelier, because Jim's voice seemed to be fainter, somehow less alive. The woman at the desk was bored, wanting talk, a history she could pin down. “Where you from?” she said.

“California,” said Lee. “Los Angeles.”

The woman squinted. “You are not,” she said. “Why, you aren't even as tan as I am, and I'm practically Casper the Ghost.” She pushed up the sleeve of the red blazer she wore, showing Lee her freckled arm.

Lee reached for the key, again prepaying the room. “Anybody knows the sun is bad for your skin,” Lee said.

“Oh, pooh,” the woman said. “Only people who can't tan good say malarkey like that.”

This room was smaller than the other, with only one large double bed in it instead of two, but the TV was in the far corner and small enough so she could turn it to the wall.

When she went to the Moon Man that night, it was nearly dinnertime. The menu was blue Leatherette and five pages long with unnaturally colored photographs of all the meals she didn't want. Sneezing, she reached into her purse for a tissue and her fingers found her tail of hair. Instantly her hand recoiled.

The ladies' room was in the far corner. The Big Dipper, it said on the door she assumed was the men's. She pushed open the door marked Little Dipper. Inside there were two giggling teenage girls at the mirror, frosting pink shadow on their lids, trading a melted-looking red lipstick back and forth. They were both dressed completely in black, both with small stick-on tattoos on their bare forearms. When Lee walked in their conversation stopped in midsentence, and then one of them stared frankly. “Nice haircut,” the girl nearest Lee said finally, and her friend jabbed her, smirking. Lee touched her butchered hair and then went into the farthest stall in the corner. She locked the door, waiting for the giggling to start up again, the cloud of conversation you might be able to move through and be ignored. The stall was fairly clean, but there was graffiti all over the wall. “Paul is my all,” someone had written inside a crudely drawn heart, and Lee wondered just how long that had lasted, just whose heart had broken.