Into the Valley (14 page)

“You can't wear that with the heels,” she told the girl.

“Relax,” the girl said. “Don't worry so much. They'll never see.”

The bank was at the end of a two-block street. The girl had already retrieved the checkbook from the glove compartment, ripped one out and written on it with her bubbled writing. She stepped out of the car without a word. B. watched the long solid back of the powder-blue dress, set off by the girl's tan, the white pumps and the anklet. They disappeared through the glass doors.

On the road she had thought again of a house. With the girl. This time far up at the northern edge of the valley, where she'd never been, hundreds of miles away from the realtors and beauty salons and university men. The afternoon light in the windows as clear to her as if she'd seen it in person. A grove of eucalyptus and orange trees in back. A porch. And the girl in the afternoon light. “Come with me to a house,” B. had imagined saying in this fantasy. “Come with me and we can sort things out.”

When the girl sat back in the car, B. had the knife ready. She stuck the point at the girl's ribs.

“Take the money and move on.”

The girl sat momentarily stunned. Then she tried to turn. B. pressed the knife further in.

“Fuck you and your twisted Donna Reed show,” the girl finally whispered. She grabbed the knapsack and got out of the car and kicked off the white pumps and threw them at the door.

“You crazy old cunt!”

B. did not look back. She imagined the gi
rl barefoot in the ank
let and powder-blue d
ress, receding.

The road seemed a series of waves moving her forward. She drove past billboards for casinos and ski resorts (like a practical joke in the heat) and knew she was heading into the mountains. She wondered for a moment if the girl might report her but decided she would not risk being shipped back to Fontana. B.
thought of the girl's mother—intent over the porcelain, dusting the petticoats, waiting for the girl to return. B. laid on the gas. The car sloped up and up, she could see the pines ahead. Surrounding her on all sides the spots of oak, gentle and lulling, drawing her on. She would tell the girl's mother how she had tried to visit the bridge, to sit in the mission chapel, to take in the hummingbirds and crocuses. But that only the banks had worked. The carsickness was a violent and spinning nausea as she drove. B. imagined the girl's mother
would understand. Who had worn the kid gloves and sat for the wash-and-sets. Who had lost the daughter with the long loose hair and bare feet.
What have you learned from this experience?
The vault clocks ticked through B.'s mind. She saw
she could just continue on, higher into the mountains, until she
was through. Until she was out.

She skidded to a stop in the middle of the road. The gentle bending grass alongside her and the dark jagged mountains
ahead.

She brought the steering wheel around its column, turning the car in one single movement onto the shoulder and back in the other direction. Back into the valley.

III

&$9

27.

In an al
l-night laundromat, s
he drank a bottle of
Coke from a machine.
She put the cool glass b
etween her legs. Out of
the foothills her crotc
h had begun itching v
iolently and in the l
adies' room at the lau
ndromat, she'd discov
ered a forgotten las
t tampon. How many day
s? She no longer knew. S
ince before the night w
ith the university profe
ssor. Forgetting this
necessary feminine cere
mony, and so it had been inadve
rtently rammed inside
her and left to fester th
ere, disintegrating, gat
hering its bacteria. S
he dug for several minut
es for the string. The
tampon halted on the w
ay out, dry and bloa
ted to twice its size
, making her wince. She
washed her fingers raw
with the powdered soap
. On the lip of the si
nk she had fanned out
the bills (she'd collecte
d everything from und
er the front seat, find
ing the sweaty cellophan
e-wrapped doughnuts too). She d
id not want to count t
he bills but to separate
out the newest ones and
roll these into her b
ra strap as she had t
hat first day, under
standing now their p
ower as a totem next t
o her skin. Back in he
r blue plastic seat, sh
e tensed her thighs
together to stop the
itching but it raged. T
he only other person in
the laundromat was a
woman folding endle
ss pairs of shorts,
some the size of napki
ns, and B. thought mo
mentarily of striking
up some conversation, but
a slovenly aspect in
the woman—a burst seam
in her pedal pushers,
a missing button on h
er blouse—made B. avo
id her. She was too tire
d to drive to a motel. S
he preferred to sit a
nd watch the suds in th
e washer tumble and chu
rn. She might even pla
n a route as she watc
hed, map out how she
could conduct the banks
in a prudent and logical
manner this time, str
ategically.

But as she
watched, the swirling li
quid turned gray
. . .
the gr
ay of the city
. . .
the g
ray of the fog. And suddenl
y she was back a few day
s before the first chec
k. The day when the fo
g had never lifted, th
e day she'd left work
early to settle her e
lectric bill in person
(her electricity turn
ed off, the payment—was
it two?—forgotten, w
hen normally she stay
ed so on top of thos
e things, on things li
ke bill paying and facial masks
). The fog ha
d never
lifted that
day, hanging in gray ve
ils between buildings. T
here was a buzzing at
the back of her neck that
had begun in the mor
ning but she'd manage
d to contain it with
typing and filing to
a thin steady drone. A
s she walked the concret
e canyons and could n
ot find the bus stop, the d
roning got worse. The on
e-dimensional light b
rightening and deadeni
ng objects at the
same
time to a flat nothin
gness. She hurried past tw
o drifters on a corn
er, a man with a gui
tar in striped pants a
nd a woman in a tall,
sinister bowler hat handing o
ut carnations. When B.
finally found the sto
p, shivering in her n
avy bouclé suit, she stoo
d next to a pretty young wom
an and felt relief.

A
nd yet on closer ins
pection, the young wom
an had worn
no stock
ings, her hair long
and frizzy, braless un
der the paisley dress.
Carrying not a handbag or g
loves but a satchel ac
ross her chest and a
thick textbook title
d
Advanced Microbiolog
y
in her arm. Not a dr
ifter and yet not anyt
hing B. had ever known
before,
not anything
she recognized. For the
first time with the car
sickness she vomited.
Retched onto the side
walk. The girl tried to
offer some help, but B
. stumbled away and fo
und a taxi, mailed t
he check to the utility
company and lived for
the rest of the week with candles.

“Wh
ere's the nearest ban
k?” B. asked the woma
n folding laundry, tu
rning away from the gray suds
.

The woman explained
and it seemed to B.
that she understood e
xactly why B. had asked.
She understood the gray s
uds and the girl at the b
us stop and that the b
anks were the only answer.

&$9

She bought baby pow
der for her hair so
she would not have t
o wash it. She remembe
red from college that c
ranberry juice helped
the itching and bough
t two jars and drank
them as she drove. The
lipstick was also esse
ntial, the lipstick wi
th the diamond brooch
and the French twist (
with the baby powder).
She carefully applied
a pink or a coral r
ight before she went
in, just as she carefully
held down her shoulder
s and put on a smile an
d nodded during small
talk. In the motels, whi
le she still used them
, she hung up the ivor
y sheath and slept in
her bra and underwear. But
when she began sleeping
in the Mustang—in or
der to hoard more bill
s, and because she was
not sleeping much any
way—she kept the dress o
n. It now had creases l
ike cuts in it and an
unmistakably sour stai
n of sweat. In truck-sto
p restrooms she force
d herself to wash her a
rmpits. (Some aspect of stepping into a shower would undo everything. She used the restroom soap just enough to cover her smell.) There was o
f course the light green
poplin she had not ev
en worn yet. But the iv
ory was now a talisman
, a marker of some k
ind. The bone-colored
heels were now a light b
rown.

Three a day was
the most she manage
d because of the long
distances. Her best on
e
of the first, when
she'd fallen into ex
tended small talk wit
h a teller about the preferred rou
te to Tahoe, the girl
emphatic about takin
g Highway 50 to avoid
the trucks and come out
on the south side. Th
e girl's passion for
the distinction, her
engrossment in the nu
ances—the importance of ending up at the casinos, for example—allowing B. time
to absorb the straigh
t lines, the subdued vo
ices, the browns and
beige
s. The cool expansive fe
eling had lasted and la
sted. She had not need
ed a second bank. That da
y she had parked und
er a eucalyptus break a
nd slept peacefully in t
he shade all afternoon.

But as the days passed,
the cool expansive feel
ing began to lessen. S
he attributed this fi
rst to mitigating facto
rs: the bank that had
been near a canning p
lant and so polluted
with the awful tang of
stewed tomatoes she cou
ld not take anything el
se in. Another where sh
e'd become so distracted by
her dirty fingernails—
the black against the chi
pped pink—that she'd for
gotten her opening bit
about the weather and si
gned her own name on t
he check. (The teller had n
ot noticed.) And even when
it went off all righ
t, the cool expansive f
eeling evaporated aft
er a few minutes. Like a
drug with no kick. The
spinning and nausea r
eturned fiercer than be
fore, making her gun the
engine for the next tow
n and the next one a
fter that.

The spree
lasted five days, unt
il the morning she wal
ked into the bank and
saw the small poster w
ith the sketch.
attrac
tive blonde, early th
irties, 5'7”, 120 pounds
, wears diamond brooch.
Even then she had co
nsidered continuing o
n to the counter, fill
ing out one of the las
t checks, until a ref
lex finally kicked i
n and she walked out.