Page 2 of Two is a Pattern

Annie had thought seriously about going to UC Berkeley, had even tentatively filled out the form to accept, but at the last minute, she’d mailed the one to UCLA instead. Berkeleyhad more accolades, but UCLA’s program allowed her to earn a master’s through the law school without having to become a lawyer. The more temperate climate of Los Angeles was a factor as well, as was the anonymity of a sprawling city like Los Angeles. It was a shame that Lori wouldn’t be closer, but, realistically, they’d have little time to spend together anyhow, not like they once had. No movie marathons, no nights at the bar. Lori had a family, and Annie, having one master’s degree under her belt already, knew exactly how much work was in store for her.

Too nervous to sleep, she rose an hour before her alarm, well before anyone else in the house stirred. She took a quick hot shower, then carefully braided her hair so it would be manageable during the day. Her natural hair was strawberry blonde—not quite red. She had bleached it for her job in an effort to dim her most memorable feature—not the worst thing she’d ever done for the Company—and right now, she had about three inches of strawberry roots. She was happy to see her true color coming through again.

She studied herself in the mirror. Her braid stretched the skin of her forehead back. Her face was shiny, and she looked tired. For the longest time, she had looked school-age, ambiguously so. If she wore something that pushed her tits up high, she was often mistaken for a coed or a high schooler or the harried grad student she once was. But now time was catching up. She rubbed lotion into the skin around her eyes and onto the dry patch on her forehead.

Walking back to her room, her towel wrapped tightly around her, Annie saw light filtering up the stairs and heard the chug of the coffee maker coming alive. Her parents never bought new things just because they could; they always waited for things to die first. The coffee maker was big, old, and slow, but it still made coffee, so it stayed.

She dressed in jeans, pulled a pair of socks up to her knees. She wore her soft, gray bra, the one that wouldn’t dig into her shoulders and poke her in the ribs with the bent, out-of-shape underwire. A long-sleeved white shirt and her sweatshirt over that. She’d be too hot later when the sun came up, but right now she was worried more about comfort. She could always pull over and dig out a T-shirt later.

Her mom was in the kitchen, a pink, quilted robe over her white nightgown. Her hair, mostly white now, stuck up everywhere except at the back of her head, where it had rested all night against her pillow. Her mother greeted her with a smile. It was maybe too early for her to remember that she was sad and hurt and out of sorts.

“Pretty girl,” her mother said. “Do you want some coffee?”

She accepted a small cup and sipped it slowly. She wanted to down the whole pot but didn’t want to have to stop thirty minutes into her trip to find a bathroom to pee in, or worse.

A little while later, her dad got up. They’d mostly packed the car the night before, filling the trunk and back seat with boxes of clothes, shoes, and books. In the passenger seat was a laundry basket filled with toiletries, towels, and other odds and ends. She’d sold most of the stuff in her apartment when she’d moved back to Ohio, so other than clothes and books, odds and ends were all she had left. And her car, of course, which was by far the nicest thing she owned.

Now her dad loaded the rest, tucking things in wherever there was space. Her mother offered to fix her breakfast, but she waved it away, too nervous to eat.

She didn’t want to drag out the goodbyes. She didn’t feel ready to leave, but she knew she needed to go and it was time to rip the Band-Aid off, get on the road, and put some miles in before the day got away from her.

There were long hugs and tears, of course. Her dad slipped her two hundred-dollar bills while her mom was busy wiping her eyes. Then her mom slipped her a crisp fifty while her dad was double-checking that the trunk was closed up tight.

Just before she got into the car, her dad handed her the map and handwritten directions he had prepared for her, the addresses and phone numbers of the scheduled motels written in his slanted scrawl. He’d used the astronaut pen. Annie recognized the ink.

Her throat felt thick as she drove away, watching them get smaller in the rearview mirror.

But she didn’t cry. Annie was an expert at leaving.

* * *

She stopped the first night in Kansas City after driving nearly eleven hours. It was just a Motel6, but the lobby was clean, and she was weary and rumpled and starving half to death. The man behind the desk barely looked at her, uninterested in a woman traveling alone.

He gave her the key, pointed at the glass door to the lobby, and said, “Go to the left and park over by the fence. You’re on the second floor.”

She thanked him, returned to her car, and parked where he had indicated.

After checking that the car was locked and nothing valuable showed through the windows, she lugged her suitcase up the stairs and into her room. Then she stepped out to use the pay phone at the end of the walkway.

Her mother picked up after one ring. “Anabelle?” she asked anxiously.

“Yes, it’s me,” Annie said, equal parts exasperated and grateful. It was quite a burden, all the love her family heaped on her. Shedidn’t always feel like she deserved it, and carrying the weight was sometimes a struggle. “I made it to Kansas City.”

They chitchatted briefly as her dad yelled from another room and her mother repeated what Annie had said. She spent another minute and a half trying to extricate herself from the call, promising to rest tonight and drive safely tomorrow, reassuring them that the car hadn’t made any funny sounds. Annie had been making good money when she bought the car new a few years back, and she had been out of the country as much as she’d been in it, so the car mostly had sat in her garage. This trip would be the most miles she’d put on it yet.

She hung up and listened as her coin clinked down to the bottom of the pay phone. She froze when she heard footsteps shuffle on the ground below. She moved quietly to the railing and looked down but couldn’t see anything. Had someone been listening to her? Not much to hear, really, but it was hard to shake the prickly feeling along the back of her neck.

Then she saw the glow of a cigarette as it arced out and landed on the parking lot blacktop. She heard steps and the sound of a door opening and closing below.

Paranoid, that’s what she was. There was no longer any reason to look around corners, to double back to make sure no one was following her, but she found herself doing it all the time. Even here in the States, where she was just another fair-haired and corn-fed American. Nothing special anymore.

That was the way that she wanted it, why she’d left.

She returned to her room and pulled on her hooded sweatshirt. Picked up the canvas shoulder bag that she used for a purse and slung the strap over her head. She had to find dinner, and if her car weren’t full of crap and low on gas, she’d drive somewhere. Instead, she walked across the dark parking lot toward the nearest fast-food joint with her hood up and the sleeves of her sweatshirt pulled down to her fingertips.

She bought a sack of greasy fries, a cheeseburger, and a bright blue slushy drink that was so sweet it made her teeth hurt and her blood sing. Sugar could right any manner of wrongs. She walked back to her room with the smell of fries driving her slowly insane, then ate every scrap of food in the bag before falling asleep with the TV on.

She woke up after midnight and stumbled into the bathroom. After she washed her hands and face, she looked in the mirror and saw that the slushy had stained her entire mouth blue.

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