"I'd better not go in there if I want to save what appetite I have," she said apologetically.
Larry suspected he could find some cured meat inside - salami, pepperoni, something like that - but after running across "John Bearsford Tipton" four blocks back, he didn't want to leave her alone for even the short time it would take to go in and check. So they found a bench half a block west, and ate dehydrated fruit and dehydrated strips of bacon. They finished with cheese spread on Ritz crackers and passed a thermos of iced coffee back and forth.
"This time I was really hungry," she said proudly.
He smiled back, feeling better. Just to be on the move, to be taking some positive action - that was good. He had told her she would feel better when they got out of New York. At the time it had just been something to say. Now, consulting the rise in his own spirits., he guessed it was true. Being in New York was like being in a graveyard where the dead were not yet quiet. The sooner they got out, the better it would be. She would perhaps revert to the way she had been that first day in the park. They would go to Maine on the secondary roads and set up housekeeping in one of those rich-bitch summer houses. North now, and south in September or October. Boothbay Harbor in the summer, Key Biscayne in the winter. It had a nice ring. Occupied with his thoughts, he didn't see her grimace of pain as he stood up and shouldered the rifle he had insisted on bringing.
They were moving west now, their shadows behind them - at first as squat as frogs, beginning to lengthen out as the afternoon progressed. They passed the Avenue of the Americas, Seventh Avenue, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth. The streets were crammed and silent, frozen rivers of automobiles in every color, predominated by the yellow of the taxicabs. Many of the cars had become hearses, their decaying drivers still leaning behind the wheels, their passengers slumped as if, weary of the traffic jam, they had fallen asleep. Larry started to think that maybe they'd want to pick up a couple of motorcycles once they got out of the city. That would give them both mobility and a fighting chance to skirt the worst of the clots of dead vehicles which must litter the highways everywhere.
Always assuming she can run a bike, he thought. And the way things were going, it would turn out she couldn't. Life with Rita was turning out to be a real pain in the butt, at least in some of its aspects. But if push came down to shove, he supposed she could ride pillion behind him.
At the intersection of Thirty-ninth and Seventh, they saw a young man wearing cutoff denim shorts and nothing else lying atop a Ding-Dong Taxi.
"Is he dead?" Rita asked, and at the sound of her voice the young man sat up, looked around, saw them, and waved. They waved back. The young man lay placidly back down.
It was just after two o'clock when they crossed Eleventh Avenue. Larry heard a muffled cry of pain behind him and realized Rita was no longer walking on his left.
She was down on one knee, holding her foot. With something like horror, Larry noticed for the first time that she was wearing expensive open-toed sandals, probably in the eighty-dollar range, just the thing for a four-block stroll along Fifth Avenue while window-shopping, but for a long walk - a hike, really - like the one they hart been making...
The ankle-straps had chafed through her skin. Blood was trickling down her ankles.
"Larry, I'm s - "
He jerked her abruptly to her feet. "What were you thinking about?" he shouted into her face. He felt a moment's shame at the miserable way she recoiled, but also a mean sort of pleasure. "Did you think you could cab back to your apartment if your feet got tired?"
"I never thought - "
"Well, Christ!" He ran his hands through his hair. "I guess you didn't. You're bleeding, Rita. How long has it been hurting?"
Her voice was so low and husky that he had trouble hearing her even in the preternatural silence. "Since... well, since about Fifth and Forty-ninth, I guess."
"Your feet have been hurting you for twenty f**king blocks and you didn't say anything? "
"I thought... it might... go away... not hurt anymore... I didn't want to... we were making such good time... getting out of the city... I just thought..."
"You didn't think at all," he said angrily. "How much good time are we going to make with you like this? Your f**king feet look like you got f**king crucified."
"Don't swear at me, Larry," she said, beginning to sob. "Please don't... it makes me feel so bad when you... please don't swear at me."