Apparently sensing that she was awake, the dog at the foot of the bed gave a jaw-cracking yawn and began to thump her tail against Selena’s shins.
If Copper’s here, it must be okay.
There was a large map pinned to the wall beside the bed. She squinted blearily at it. It was a topographic map of somewhere or other, withUS Geological Surveyprinted in minuscule letters at the top. It wasn’t until she sawQuartz Creekdown in the corner, with a little star next to it, that the memories came crashing back down on her.
She was in a tiny town in the desert. She’d uprooted her whole life and run away, only to discover that her aunt was dead, and she had no money to get home.
Today she had to decide what to do next.
The thought made her want to pull the blanket over her head and hide, but Copper thumped down onto the floor and had the slight waddle of a dog who really needed to go outside, so Selena got up, pulled on her jeans, and went to the back door to let the dog out.
She leaned against the doorframe while Copper peed meditatively at the base of a bush. What now? She felt clearer headed for having slept, but her situation didn’t look any better in the light of day.
Her phone was still in her jeans pocket. She pulled out the little glass brick and stared at it. Her face looked back at her in the darkened glass, at an extremely unflattering angle.
If she turned it on, Walter would know where she was and just how far away she’d gone. And then ... well, then what? He’d call her, most likely. There were undoubtedly already messages waiting, probably all some variation on “What do you think you’re doing? Call me.”
She didn’t want to call him. She’d sent him an email saying that she wasn’t coming back and needed some time to herself to think things through. She’d agonized over that email for hours, as if, with just the right words, she could make everything come out right. But the real truth was that as soon as he started talking to her, she’d start second-guessing everything she was doing. The taste of freedom she’d had for that long, brutal month would turn to ashes. She would learn that she hadn’t been competent and hadn’t organized everything and hadn’t managed just fine in a difficult situation. Walter would explain it all to her and she’d realize that everyone had been taking pity on her. Then he’d sigh and say, “What am I going to do with you?” and buy her a train ticket and everything would go back to the way it had been.
Copper came back up on the wooden porch and leaned against Selena’s legs, looking up hopefully.
“Okay,” said Selena, with a distinct feeling of reprieve. “Let’s have breakfast and then I’ll worry about it.”
They shared scrambled eggs and cornbread, sitting on the back porch. Selena shuddered to think what it was going to do to the Lab’s digestion, particularly since, if she couldn’t buy dog food, it was going to be eggs for lunch and dinner as well.
And I get to share a bedroom with her. Yay.
The desert, in daylight, had reverted to hot white and drab green, and the sky was a hard, unbroken blue.
“The way I see it,” she told the dog, “I’ve got two options. I call Walter and then ... well, you know.” She scowled. “Or I don’t, and I stay here for another day or two, and see if I can scrounge up enough money to get home on my own. Ellen said she’d hold my job for me as long as she could.”
Actually, what she’d said was “I swear to god, if you’re leaving that man, I will do anything in my power to help you.”
“I thought you liked him,” Selena had said, astonished.
“I likeyou. I don’t like who you turn into when he’s in the room.”
Selena’s gratitude for that had felt almost like a panic attack, something that rolled over her and slapped her in the chest. Somebody else had seen it. It wasn’t just Selena misjudging the situation again.
She’d told Ellen that she was leaving Walter and going to stay with her aunt. Telling her made it real, somehow. But even if Selena could just walk back into her old job, she didn’t have anywhere to live while she worked, and she couldn’t very well ask Ellen to loan her thousands of dollars for first and last month’s rent. Walter owned the car, so she couldn’t even live out of one while she scraped the money together.
It seemed unlikely that she could make enough money out here to cover that. But she did have a place to stay for a day or two, and maybe she could figure something else out.
And if she couldn’t, there was always the phone call.
Selena took a deep breath, let it out, and nodded to herself. “Right, then.” Copper polished Selena’s plate with her tongue, determined to get the last remaining molecules of egg.
She had to go back into the little town. She needed dog food, and to see if there was someplace she could work. And she had to inform the postmistress that she was staying, didn’t she? At least for a few days?
She changed her clothes, drank an extra glass of water, leashed Copper, and went out.
It was hot but not yet punishing. A bird hung in the sky overhead, though Selena didn’t know a hawk from a vulture and didn’t know if it was hunting or just waiting for something to die. She heard a shrill cryand thought for a second that it might be the hawk, but then realized it was Merv the peacock.
A group of quail—Selena thought the word might becovey, but she couldn’t remember—hurried across the road in front of them, all in a line. They looked concerned about the woman and the dog approaching, but not concerned enough to do anything so crass as break formation. Copper went on high alert but was too well mannered to try to break off the leash.
Quartz Creek looked different today. Perhaps it was the angle she was approaching from. She could see more back gardens, caged in chicken wire, with a low green haze against the ground. Was it spring? She couldn’t quite remember. The final month dealing with her mother’s illness and death seemed cut apart from the rest of time. Had it still been winter outside?
If I sat down and thought about it, could I go, “It started here, in this month, and it was in this month I left”? Maybe. But it’s just easier to accept that it’s the beginning of March.
