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“But how do you keep them from, you know?”
“You’ve got to be picky about who you ride with.” Victoria enjoyed having Ro
Ro
Ro
“Go for guys in ties.”
“Guys in ties?”
“Yeah, and boring cars like your dad drives.”
Ro
“You want a businessman, like. A guy who will freak if you scream, or say you’re going to tell or go to the police. With a young guy, a guy closer to your age, he’s not scared of getting in trouble, so you got no-what’s the word?”
“What word?”
“That word for when you have control over another person?”
Ro
“Anyway, don’t go with anyone under thirty. Oh, and don’t stick your thumb out.”
“But I thought that’s what hitchhikers did.”
“It’s not your thumb that gets you the ride,” Victoria said. “Turn your back to the traffic, and walk as if you mean to be walking. But twitch.”
She demonstrated. Victoria was a large, fleshy girl who wore tight jeans. Her bottom did shift a bit as she walked, but it just looked uncomfortable, as if it wished it weren’t packed so tight.
Out on the street, Ro
She was almost past the golf course when she got the first offer. The boy was cute on first glance, and he drove one of those little Jeep-like cars, the sort of thing Ro
The next guy was older, behind the wheel of a van with the name of a painting company stenciled on the side, and he was freckled with paint. Not a van, Ro
The third one was just right, everything Victoria said. A tie and a four-door black car, not new, but not old. His face was shiny and red, although the interior of his car felt cool through the window he lowered to talk to Ro
“You need a ride?”
“Well-I was just going up to the bus stop.”
“How far are you going?”
“Pretty far,” Ro
“Outside the Beltway?”
“No, in. Near-” What was it near? It wasn’t just that her parents had moved, it was that Ro
“So it’s on the city-county line?”
“Just over, in the county.” Her mother had been so proud about crossing that line.
“That’s not so far, if you know the right shortcuts. Hop in.”
She did, arranging her black nylon overnight bag so it filled her lap.
“You can put that in the back.”
“I’m okay.”
“Or in the trunk.”
“I’m okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
It was only once they were under way that Ro
“I go to… Towson,” she said, hoping it was the name of a high school.
“Yeah? My cousin goes there.” He said a name, but of course she didn’t know it. He named more names. She just kept shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders. Maybe it was good for him to think she was stupid and didn’t know anyone at high school.
“How is it,” he said at last, “that you go to Towson High, but your parents live over in Southwest Baltimore?”
She thought of the answer her doctor had told her she could use, when asked about her past. “It’s really complicated.”
“Oh, yeah, I know how that works. Use a fake address to get into a better school. I went to Calvert Hall myself.” He seemed pleased with himself, but it meant nothing to Ro
They had been driving west-she could tell by the sun-and the landscape of houses had been shifting constantly, from very rich to very poor. They had passed a hospital, and the racetrack. She was keeping tabs because you never knew, Victoria said, where you might get put out. Now it looked like the neighborhood where Ro
The driver-he had said his name was Bill-took several quick turns and they ended up on a narrow road along a stream. The car slowed, and Ro
“Well, I’ll be,” her driver said. “I forgot they closed this off.”
But he didn’t try to turn around, just put the car in park and reached across her to the glove compartment, opening it and taking out a small bottle of clear liquid. If it had not been for the black bag on her lap, he would have rubbed his arm against Ro
“This is Leakin Park,” she said. “My house is just on the other side of these hills.”
“Right. But we’ll have to backtrack, go the long way around via Forest Park.”
“Why is the road closed?”
His hand was in his lap, the tip of his tongue protruded between his lips, but he was otherwise the same shiny-faced man who had picked her up, the man named Bill who had gone to Calvert Hall, whose cousin had gone to Towson High.