“Listen.” Wiley spoke sharply. “We paid last night when we came in. Cash.” He walked to the door, expecting her to follow.
As if he had switched stations, the radio man began talking like the newscaster, picking up some distant signal bouncing back in time from outer space. “Now we must be ready for a new danger: the atom bomb. Radiation is something we live with every day. If we know the facts and act intelligently, we'll be able to weather any storm that blows our way.”
Fascinated by the man, Erica inched closer. He grabbed her by the wrist.
“The key to survival is adequate shelter.” The man paused, looked at an imaginary explosion on the horizon. “The fallout shelter is the best defense.”
“Let me go,” Erica said. He was reminding her of her father and squeezing her arm so hard she wanted to cry out but was afraid.
“Stay off the highways,” he whispered to her. “Watch the news and read the papers. They are looking for you. The little girl said.”
“Who? What little girl?”
“You know.”
“Please let me go.” She circled her wrist with her other hand and tugged free.
“Don't talk to strangers,” he shouted as she pushed open the flimsy screendoor.
On the western side of town, they stopped for breakfast at the Yellow Rose Cantina, a neon flower visible in the gray November light. Just like Mr. Delarosa's shop, she thought. The neighbors would not recognize me, and was the radio man right, a stranger to my own mother? Before they left the car, Wiley counted their remaining cash, scooped the coins from the holder next to the ashtray, and then reached across her lap for the pistol in the glove compartment. She put her hand over his wrist and said, “Not here. Not now.” He withdrew his arm, and they went inside, trying to be inconspicuous, and seated themselves at an empty booth. Every surface—from the Naugahyde seats to the plastic menus—bore a slick of grease as fine as furniture wax, and while they waited for their server, Erica traced the AOD logo and wings with her fingertip on the table and slid a sugar canister to cover her handiwork.
The nine o'clock crowd had come and gone, leaving a few retirees in baseball caps swapping gossip in a corner booth. A solitary young woman in the corner tortured the pulp in her orange juice. She looked like the woman from Elmwood Cemetery back in Memphis, and her stare unnerved Erica until she turned away.
“You kids ready to order?” The waitress arrived dressed in mint green polyester with a glass coffeepot. Erica covered her mug with her fingertips, then turned it upside down. Though she dared not look, Erica could feel the woman's stare, knew that she was scrutinizing the crazy haircut, but orders were given and taken without pause. When she departed, the aroma of oranges lingered in the air, and from behind, her blonde hair looked like a haystack upon her neck.
“Wiley, I have something to tell you.”
“Is it about that dude back in Oklahoma? Honestly, Erica, you gotta let it go. Into each war, some blood must flow. Besides, I might have—”
The grocer appeared behind Wiley's shoulder, his bloody face a mash of anger, a butcher's cleaver in his hand, and he lifted the blade above his head like an executioner.
“No!” she screamed. Faces pivoted in their direction. She offered the half circle a small smile, and the other patrons and the waitstaff looked away, the hum and clink of conversation and cutlery resumed. “Not that,” she said. “Sorry, it was upsetting, and I don't want to upset you, not this morning, not when I have something this important I want to talk about.”
“Is it about the money? We'll get more; we can last a day or two. Enough for gas. Why don't we shoot straight through to Vegas? It's only eight or nine hundred miles, and we can sleep under the stars. Then we'll get ourselves another car, something with better mileage.”
“Not that. You remember that woman I met?”
“We met lots of people on the road, babe, and it could have gotten much, much heavier than it did. Remember that policeman when we were lost in Virginia, and those two dudes in Nashville?”
Angels had been warning us all along, she thought, telling us to turn back, go home, this was not working. Now it's too late. A man is dead, and we shot him down like an animal. She looked at the boy across the table, a hardness fixed to his features, twitching fingers tapping a staccato beat on the rim of his orange juice glass, hopped up on caffeine and Lord knows what. The baby's father.
“Wiley, I think I'm pregnant.”
The waitress arrived with a plate of French toast for her, huevos rancheros and strips of greasy bacon for him. He did not seem to notice as she set the plate before him, did not glance up once at the bouffanted blonde, no acknowledgment when she topped off his coffee, asked if there would be anything else. Stare fixed on Erica, he was seething, holding his words inside through brute force. Up to Erica to offer a word of thanks, a gesture to send away the lingering woman.