1999 Read Online Free Page A

dramas. From within her snowsuit she produced a squashed roll of toilet paper, and with it a similarly flattened pack of Dentyne. “Gum?”
    Once everyone was chewing she told Sonya, “Pop the trunk, I’ll change the flat.”
    Out on the street, the three women stood together and scanned the shadows for threats – holding their breath, listening. Nothing: no explosions or gunfire or sounds of any kind. The city was still and cold. “Go pee,” whispered Mrs. Mendelbaum, blowing into her hands. While she dug out the jack and spare and got down to business, Sonya and Esme walked arm in arm into the shadows, huddling together for heat.
    Before she squatted, Esme reached into her sweatshirt pocket and pulled out the cardboard box she’d stolen from the rest stop. Sonya’s guts did a little tumble at the sight of it.
    Esme’s voice trembled out of the shadows: “Do you know how these things work?”

    DAYLIGHT WAS JUST BREAKING as the Audi crossed over the Canadian border, spare tire struggling alongside the three chrome-capped wheels. On both sides of the highway were great walls of trees, pine and birch, larch and poplars and cedar, everything heavy with snow. Esme had fallen asleep, draped across the back seat. Ms. Jorgenssen (she’d reverted, in a blaze of self-satisfaction, to her maiden name) was a jumble of half-removed snowsuit, head lolling against the window, drooling steadily. The radio was off. The only sound was the gentle purr of the engine, and the forest was pierced here and there with spears of light from the rising sun.
    Where were they going? What were they looking for? Sonya wasn’t sure. She was just happy to be driving, out in the world, alive. There was no one else on the highway. She was confident they wouldn’t see anyone. It was just the three of them. And maybe that was enough.
    Looking once again at the blue dot on the testing stick that Esme had stuck to the dashboard with gum, Sonya recalled, how, only hours ago, her heart had fluttered at the sight of it. There had been something so proud and brave and terrified about the way Esme had fixed it there, and afterward Mrs. Mendelbaum had hauled them both into her arms for a mildly suffocating group hug – and then, releasing them, been reborn as Jorgenssen.
    In the rear-view mirror Sonya could see Esme sleeping in the back seat. The girl lay there, curled up, with the hood of her sweatshirt pulled over her head. From it a wisp of hair had tumbled out along her nose, hanging by her mouth, and this wavered as she breathed: with each inhalation it clung to her face, was released as she exhaled, trembled for a moment, and then was sucked back in.
    The car moved steadily over the road, through the forest, the snow glittering in the rising sun. And here on the dash was hope – that little blue dot. Sonya thought again of the log cabin she’d long dreamt about. It could be tucked away anywhere along here, behind and among the trees, out of sight and secret. It would be a quiet, simple little shack, and warm once they got a good fire going that lit the room golden, smoke curling up from the chimney.
    They’d find a supermarket or convenience store along the way and load up on groceries. Later that day when they reached this place, down some dirt track to a clearing in the trees, inside the three of them would cuddle under woolly blankets while their dinner heated on the fire. They’d spoon steaming Chef Boyardee Ravioli and Chunky Soup straight from the can, pass everything around so everyone got a taste. The food would be good and real in the way that bad and fake things are often so good and so real, in the way that when people come together sometimes that sort of thing is just what you need.

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