“I didn’t know you were still in town,” the woman said.
Allie wondered if she should ask the woman’s name, but a sad flickering of reality in her gut reminded her their friendship was destined to be brief.
“Not still, exactly. Again. We made a little . . . surprise side trip.”
“Those are the best kind.”
Allie wandered into the shop with her laptop computer under her arm.
“I actually came to ask a favor. Can I plug my computer into your electricity?”
“Sure. You want to check your e-mail?”
“Not exactly. I have to restore this thing to the factory settings so I can sell it.”
That stopped the conversation cold.
Allie sat awkwardly on the floor, cross-legged, painfully aware of how long it had been since she had showered, brushed her teeth, changed her clothes. She felt out of place suddenly. Physically and otherwise. No one spoke for a long time.
“Everything okay with you and your grandmother?” the woman asked, startling her.
“Yeah. Why? Why do you ask?”
“Um. Let’s see. Maybe because you don’t have access to power and you’re about to sell your laptop?”
“Oh. Right. Well. We’re camping. It’s kind of an adventure. And yeah, we need all the gas money we can get. But it’s fine. She gets her Social Security check on the third of every month. We’ll manage.”
In the silence that followed, Allie felt herself crash. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Psychically. The speed of the change alarmed her. The last of the relief surrounding her escape had drained away now, leaving a crushing sense of rock-bottom depression it its wake.
The store owner seemed to notice, but said nothing.
“I guess this’ll take a minute,” Allie said, staring at the screen. It seemed like a lot of trouble, the speaking thing.
“How long are you and your grandmother out on the road?”
“Hard to say.”
“You have parents to go back to?”
“I have parents. Yeah.” A long pause. Then, “They’re in jail.”
“I’m sorry. That’s too bad. Lucky for you that you have your grandmother.”
“Yeah,” Allie said, still feeling the drag of the sudden depression. “I mean, yes and no. She’s not the easiest person. She’s not very . . . open. You know? She’s kind of closed off to everything. But I need to have somebody, so . . . yeah. I guess I’m lucky.”
“How long have you two been traveling together?”
“Just a couple of days.”
“Maybe you can help her open up a little.”
Allie lifted her head and looked into the older woman’s eyes, which were frank, unguarded, and very blue. She hadn’t considered that possibility.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Then she stared at her screen and waited, not having the energy to say or do much more.
“Where are you two staying tonight?” the woman asked after a time.
“Not sure.”
“You want to stay the night at my house? I’d have to run it by my husband, but I can’t imagine he’d object. You could take a hot shower and sleep in a real bed. I have a guest room with twins.”
Hot shower. The words struck Allie as something grand. They wrapped around her sore gut and held on. As though the woman had said “nirvana” or “eternal happiness.”
“Let me ask my grandmother.”
Allie stuck her head into the van. It wasn’t locked, which surprised her.
“Hey,” she said to Bea, who lay sprawled on her easy chair, fully reclined, a book lying open on her chest.
“What?”
“You want to stay at this lady and her husband’s house tonight?”
Bea lifted her head to level Allie with a withering gaze. “Absolutely not. Why on earth would I want that?”
“Because she has a shower.”
“I do fine taking sponge baths in gas station restrooms. You really should cultivate the talent. It works well enough. Look, I took off in this van because I want my own space. Lately I have you in it, which seems to be a blessing and a curse in equal measure. But now you want to drag me somewhere completely unfamiliar and throw in a whole family of strangers. No thank you.”
“I could totally use the shower.”
“Fine. You go.”
“Promise not to drive off without me?”
“Not really.”
Allie sighed. The sense of depression, which had lifted ever so slightly at the thought of a bed and a shower, settled back into her belly with a painful thump. She backed out of the van and slammed the door behind her.
“Thanks anyway,” Allie said, sitting down on the floor of the little store again, beside her computer. “But, like I said, she’s not very open. It’s too bad. I could have used that shower.”
“The San Simeon State Park campground has showers. Is that where you’re staying tonight?”
“Oh. I don’t know. Where is it?”
“Just a couple miles north of here. You’ll see the sign.”
“Do you know how much it costs?”
“Not sure. It might’ve gone up lately. Might be twenty. Might be twenty-five.”
“Yeah, okay. Thanks. Maybe we’ll stay there.”
But, inside, Allie’s gut dipped lower. Because she knew Bea would never go for that. Too expensive when they could just park anywhere and sleep for free.
They sat in silence for a long time. A couple came in, paid for their gas, bought ice cream sandwiches and sodas, and left again.
Then, much to her surprise, Allie asked, “How do I help her?” The whole room seemed surprised by the question. For a moment, silence hung heavy. “I mean, how do you help somebody be more . . . you know . . . open?”
“Good question. In a very real sense, I guess you don’t.”
“Right. I thought that was too good to be true.”
“But people can change. And sometimes they can change because of what they see in you. The way you are can inspire somebody. So I would say . . . just be a really good, clear example of what you hope both of you can be.”
Allie sat with that a moment, waiting to see if her drooping and exhausted insides could take it in. Before she answered the question to her satisfaction, the restore process completed on her computer. She found herself staring at a screen just like the one she’d seen when her parents first gave her the computer two Christmases ago. It was another deep loss she could not afford. A year and a half of the recording of her online world, her communications. Allie felt as though a giant eraser was rubbing out her life. Or maybe her life was right here, right now, sitting on the hard boards of a little general store in a tiny town, and everything that had passed before had only been an illusion.
“Thanks for the electricity,” Allie said. “And the advice.”
“You want to take some fried chicken for you and your grandmother? It’s the end of the day and I can’t hold it over anyway. You’re welcome to it. I either have to eat it myself and feed it to my husband, or it gets thrown away. Some nights I have a homeless guy who comes around for it, but I haven’t seen him for a while. I hope he’s okay.”