A man with a bushy black beard walks up to the guitar and waves at me through the window. “Come in! Come in!” His voice is booming, even though it’s muffled by the glass.
I turn away, pretend I haven’t seen him. Walk fast, head down, as if just looking was a crime. Like my need for that guitar could ooze through my skin and melt the sidewalk. I rub my thumb and ring finger together to feel the callus that will wear away soon. When it’s gone, there won’t be anything about me that’s special anymore.
My face hurts from the cold. I press my palm to my nose to warm it, but my hands are freezing too. I walk to Woolworth’s and order a pretzel and a cup of hot water at the lunch counter so I can thaw out before I walk back to the campground. I eat the pretzel slowly, taking tiny bites, chewing carefully. It reminds me of Margo. I lick my thumb and use it to pick up the big white chunks of salt left on the paper plate. After I get every last one, I pick a quarter from the change on the counter, leave the rest for tip.
I call from the pay phone outside. She picks up on the first ring.
“Margo’s Diner, today’s special is chili con carne.”
I don’t make a sound.
“Where are you?” she asks.
“Can’t say.”
“Hon, you can trust me.”
“You can’t feel bad about not telling people what you don’t know anyway,” I say, because I’ve seen the toll it takes on her when she can’t tell the truth about important things.
“You’re safe? Ten fingers, ten toes? Not sleeping on the street?”
“I’m fine.” There’s a row of chewed up gum along the top of the phone. The wads are different sizes, but they’re lined up perfectly. Pink, white, green, yellow, blue. I wonder who put them there—if it was one person or a group effort.
Margo sighs like there’s air leaking from her tires. “You’re making me prematurely grey, girlie,” she says.
I don’t know how Margo would ever know if she does go grey. She’s been dyeing her hair Cinnamon Red Hot for as long as I’ve known her. But I still feel bad. I can picture the worry crease she gets between her eyebrows before one of her sick headaches sets in.
“Did you talk to him?” I ask.
“Haven’t worn him down all the way yet.” She sighs. “He says if you bring the car back by the weekend he won’t file a report. Bought you a little time, at least.”
“You know I won’t be back by the weekend.”
“Gary’s gonna talk to him. Thinks it’s a man-to-man thing. Gary’s pulling for you too, you know. Says if he had a daughter he wouldn’t give her reason to run off in the first place.”
“Thanks.”
“Saw that Matty Spencer. He made me promise if I talked to you I would say to call.”
My heart beats crazy when I think about Matty. I don’t say anything.
“He’s walking around like someone pumped his puppy full of buckshot,” Margo says, clucking her tongue. She starts to say something, but stops and takes a deep breath instead. “You won’t call him, will you?”
“Don’t think so.” My nose stings. The phone crackles and a voice tells me to deposit ten cents to keep talking. I only have a few pennies in my pocket.
“I have to go,” I say. “No change.”
Margo says, “You call me. Promise you—” before the connection drops.
I keep the phone to my ear for a little while longer and pretend she’s still on the line telling me about the new beer Gary is serving, or how someone accidentally put a tomato on Ida Winton’s sandwich and she freaked out again right in the middle of the diner.
There’s a phone book on a shelf under the booth. I hang up and check for Sawicki, just in case. Find an Alice, a Paul, and a D. Sawick, but no Autumn. I look up her maiden name, but it’s Johnson. There are like seventy million A. Johnsons, and again no Autumn. This is just one phone book in one city. There are millions of phone books and she could be anywhere. She could be married again with a new name, maybe even a new daughter, and it occurs to me that I’ll probably never see her again. Good thing I don’t want to anyway.
On the walk back to the campground, I count out of state license plates to pass the time. Two from Pennsylvania. One from Michigan. Vermont. Texas. New Mexico. Massachusetts. Ithaca College stickers in back windows. I wonder what it would be like to have your mom and dad pack up your car and send you off to college, ship you packages of cookies through the mail. Ask about your grades and threaten to pull your allowance for making C’s. That actually happens to real people. To these people. It isn’t only something you see on TV. These kids aren’t looking for their moms in a phone book.