“I feel better,” he announced when Ambrose returned.
“Then I’m not going to say another word. Let’s not mess it up.”
Standing up, Russ was reminded of how short his nemesis was. He looked like a long-haired boy with a bandito costume mustache. Russ suspected that his hatred was merely subdued, not vanquished, but his clarity was holding. He felt no envy of the shelves of gifts the teenagers had given Ambrose. On the lower shelf was a long feather, doubtless from Arizona, the tail feather of a hawk. He picked it up and twirled the quill between his fingers. It was better to have nothing. Better to be like the Navajos, the Diné, as they called themselves, in Diné Bikéyah, among the four sacred mountains. The Diné had nothing. In their hogans, they lived with almost nothing. Even in better times, before the Europeans came, they had never had much. But spiritually they were the richest people he’d ever known.
“I want to go to Arizona,” he said.
Becky was literally following in Laura Dobrinsky’s steps. Behind the drugstore, she found a single set of deep footprints leading up a flight of wooden stairs. At the top of them, outside a weather-beaten door, she looked down to make sure Clem hadn’t followed her. She was very afraid of Laura, but she had no time to waste. She knocked on the door and waited. Hearing nothing from within, she knocked again and tried the doorknob. It wasn’t locked.
Stepping inside, into a kitchenette, she saw Laura kneeling on a floor carpeted in tangerine shag. She was wearing her biker jacket and stuffing a fiberfill sleeping bag into a nylon sack. Beside it was a jumble of toiletries, a stack of books, and a military-style backpack, a sweater sleeve dangling from its mouth. An electrical space heater was scenting the air with burned dust.
“Laura?”
Laura stiffened, not turning her head.
“I know you don’t want to see me,” Becky said, “but this isn’t about me. This is about Tanner’s career. He really needs you to play tonight. Will you please do that?”
“Get the fuck out of my house.”
“I talked to the agent. I talked to Gig, and you know why he’s here? Because of you. I mean, you’re such an amazing singer. I know you must be hurt, but—Gig’s dying to hear you.”
“I know you must be hurt,” Laura echoed in a babyish voice. She punched the last of the sleeping bag into the nylon sack and tightened the drawstring.
“I’m sorry,” Becky said, moving toward her. “I wish I could take every thing back. I wish I’d known yesterday—that there’s a right path. A right way to live. I was on the wrong path.”
“And praise be to Jesus for showing you the way.”
Becky struggled to forbear. “My point is, you shouldn’t take it out on Tanner. It’s my fault, not his. Can’t you take one hour to help him when he truly needs you?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m splitting. Going to San Francisco.”
“I’m saying right now, though.”
“Right now is when I’m doing it.”
“Now? There’s like a foot of snow out there.”
“No better time to thumb a ride. Everybody wants to help a stranger.”
Laura loosened straps on the backpack and pushed the sleeping bag under them. Tanner had said it himself—she was radical.
“I just think,” Becky said, “if you cared enough about Tanner to be with him for however long—”
“Four years, sister.”
“Don’t you still want the best for him?”
Laura looked up through her pink lenses. “Are you out of your mind?”
“No, I get that you’re angry. I get that I did a bad thing. But we both love Tanner—”
“Oh really. You love him.”
“I—think so.”
“Well, isn’t that the sweetest thing.”
Laura rooted in the pile of toiletries, and something came flying at Becky’s face. She caught it defensively. It was a toothpaste tube, halfway rolled up from the bottom. Seeing the word Gynol, she dropped it. Not toothpaste.
“A little present for you,” Laura said. “Unless—Jesus. You’re probably on the Pill.”
Becky’s hand felt dirtied. She rubbed it on her coat.
“Not that a cheerleader would care, but you do realize you’re just buying into the male-industrial complex? Messing with your hormones for their pleasure? There’s nothing a dick loves better than trouble-free access. Even Tanner tried to get me on the Pill. You’re going to make him sorry he ever bothered with me.”