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II. THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
She had a great many bad moments during the first weeks of her new life, but even at what was very nearly the worst of them all-getting off the bus at three in the morning and entering a terminal four times the size of Portside-she did not regret her decision. She was, however, terrified. Rosie stood just inside the doorway of Gate 62, clutching her handbag tightly in both hands and looking around with wide eyes as people rushed past in riptides, some dragging suitcases, some balancing string-tied cardboard boxes on their shoulders, some with their arms around the shoulders of their girlfriends or the waists of their boyfriends. As she watched, a man sprinted toward a woman who had just gotten off Rosie’s bus, seized her, and spun her around so violently that her feet left the ground. The woman crowed with delight and terror, her cry as bright as a flashgun in the crowded, confused terminal. There was a bank of video games to Rosie’s right, and although it was the darkest hour of the morning, kids-most with their baseball caps turned around backward and at least eighty per cent of their hair buzzed off-were bellied up to all of them.
“Try again, Space Cadet!” the one nearest to Rosie invited in a grinding, inhuman voice.
“Try again, Space Cadet! Try again, Space Cadet!” She walked slowly past the video games and into the terminal, sure of only one thing: she didn’t dare go out at this hour of the morning. She felt the chances were excellent that she would be raped, killed, and stuffed into the nearest garbage can if she did. She glanced left and saw a pair of uniformed policemen coming down the escalator from the upper level. One was twirling his nightstick in a complex pattern. The other was gri
She’d had a cheeseburger and a lemonade when the bus made a rest-stop around six o’clock the previous evening, nothing since then, and she was hungry. She sat in the TV alcove until the hands of the big clock made it around to four, then decided she’d better get a bite. She crossed to the small cafeteria near the ticket windows, stepping over several sleeping people on her way. Many of them had their arms curled protectively around bulging, tape-mended plastic garbage bags, and by the time Rosie got coffee and juice and a bowl of Special K, she understood that she had been needlessly worried about being kicked out by the cops. These sleepers weren’t through-travelers; they were homeless people camping out in the bus terminal. Rosie felt sorry for them, but she also felt perversely comforted-it was good to know there would be a place for her tomorrow night, if she really needed one. And if he comes here, to this city, where do you think he’ll check first? What do you think will be his very first stop? That was silly-he wasn’t going to find her, there was absolutely no way he could find her-but the thought still sent a cold finger up her back, tracing the curve of her spine. The food made her feel better, stronger and more awake. When she had finished (lingering over her coffee until she saw the Chicano busboy looking at her with unconcealed impatience), she started slowly back to the TV alcove. On the way, she caught sight of a blue-and-white circle over a booth near the rental-car kiosks. The words bending their way around the circle’s blue outer stripe were TRAVELERS AID, and Rosie thought, not without a twinkle of humor, that if there had ever been a traveler in the history of the world who needed aid, it was her. She took a step toward the lighted circle. There was a man sitting inside the booth under it, she saw-a middle-aged guy with thi
“Excuse me?” she asked in a small voice, and the man in the booth raised his head. Please let his eyes be kind, she thought suddenly. Even if he can’t do anything, please let his eyes be kind… and let them see me, me, the real person who is standing here with nothing but the strap of this Kmart bag to hold onto. And, she saw, his eyes were kind. Weak and swimmy behind the thick lenses of his glasses… but kind.