“Maybe you should go,” B. said.
The girl turned to the window. “Maybe.”
They drove through an eerie stretch of wooden stakes high in the ground. Unnaturally bright green vines climbing up the brown wood. B. finally understood they were hops. She had the sensation from the stakes that she and the girl were filing through enemy lines, row by row bellying to the other side.
She could feel the girl staring at her now. “You’re pretty,” the girl observed in her impassive tone. “Like a movie star.”
B. fingered the diamond brooch. “Thank you.”
“I’d rather look like something,” the girl went on. “Like Janis Joplin.”
“You don’t seem like a drifter,” she added.
“I’m not drifting. I’m visiting. I might stay.” B.’s mind folded up the defeats of the realtor, the university man, the grocery store in her mind. She made herself see the valley as a long golden plane and herself golden in it. She deliberately did not think of the checks or the banks.
“Driving, drifting, whatever. . You still don’t seem the type.”
The golden image vanished. “What about you?” B. said testily. “You’re drifting.”
“But I’m young,” the girl concluded in her flat tone.
The inside of B.’s head lurched.
“I haven’t decided my plans yet,” B. said.
“This country has it all wrong,” the girl said. “I’m going to Spain. Andalusia.”
“Spain is ruled by a dictator. It’s authoritarian.”
“And then to Morocco. India, China, Istanbul, you get it? Forget this apple pie bullshit.”
“The Chinese are Communists,” B. said faintly.
The girl brought her feet up on the dashboard, picking at the calluses on her toes. She whistled “Yankee Doodle Dandy” through her teeth as she pulled at small springy strips of dead skin.
B. realized then that a black car had been in the rearview for some time. A kind of sedan.
The girl closed her eyes and scratched her legs absentmindedly.
B. had not seen any other black sedans in the valley.
The girl was raking her nails up and down, eyes still closed, and B. saw then the scabs like raspberries across her skin.
“That’s poison oak,” B. said. “You need ointment.”
“Ointment,” the girl repeated.
She opened her eyes and looked irritatedly at B. “I left my mother in Fontana.”
“I’m just telling you, that’s poison oak. We should find a druggist.”
The girl sat up and examined her shins. She sucked at her teeth. “When the fuck did that happen?”
“You don’t wear any stockings.”
“Are you kidding me?”
B. glanced back at the black sedan. It was several lengths behind them. She continued on the two-lane highway. She would try to avoid the freeways now, she decided. At the first intersection the gas station attendant with his large green-peaked pimples pointed them east for a pharmacy. B. drove and when she realized the black sedan was no longer behind them, she felt no relief.
They reached the town and the pharmacy and B. stepped out of the car, smoothing her dress out of habit, the wrinkles now deep in the fabric. The girl crossed her arms, slouching in her seat.
“I don’t like doctors.”
“It’s not a doctor, don’t be silly. It’s just poison oak. He’ll give you some medicine.”
“What do you care?”
“You can’t walk around with poison oak.”
B. went inside, the girl following reluctantly. It was an old pharmacy with wooden counters and hundreds of drawers, a dusty film in the air blown around by table fans. B. approached the short bald man behind the counter. “We need something for poison oak, please. Do you have any calamine lotion?”
“I don’t serve those types.”
“Excuse me?”
He flicked his chin at the girl. “No shirt, no service. We’re not over the bridge here.”
“I’m paying,” B. said.
He scrutinized B. for a moment. “Alright. But I don’t want her in my store.”
The girl was revolving a rack of support hose in the corner. The firm white sides of her breasts visible through the vest. B. whispered to her that it might be better if she waited outside, and the girl leered at the pharmacist. “Fucking pig,” she said but walked out.
The man watched the door after the girl was gone. B. shoved some roadhouse money onto the counter and took the calamine lotion and cotton balls.
“Asshole bourgeois capitalist pig.” The girl spat at the sidewalk.
B. did not think the girl knew what the words meant.
“Apple pie bullshit.”
B. handed the girl the bottle and bag. The girl stood with them, unmoving.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know how to do it.”
“You’ve never put on calamine lotion? For a mosquito bite?”
“I dunno.”
The girl looked at her expressionlessly. The druggist was right to be wary of such a foreign, feckless creature, B. thought. B. pulled a cotton ball out of the bag and kneeled to the girl’s legs. Over each red patch she dabbed the milk and blew gently. “Just let it dry. It will help the itching. If you scratch, you’ll spread it.”
The girl stared down at her plastered legs.
They walked to the car in silence and the girl slouched in her seat, the white-splotched shins up against her. B. felt an unexpected lift. As if something had passed between them, small but important. Her head felt momentarily still, her body free from nausea.
“I can drive, you know,” the girl said. “If you want a break.”
“I like to drive.”
The girl began chattering, as if she’d felt the lift too. “Jed wants to get a motorcycle, to ride around Spain. . I’m gonna learn the guitar and how to sing. We’ll ride around and earn bread playing on the streets, you know, and we’ll see the country — see, go, see.”
B. was trying to get inside the statements now. “But where will you stay?”
“We’ll bring a tent,” the girl said. “We’ll live like gypsies. Be in nature and be with the people.”
B. pictured the girl in a bright flamenco dress with the tiers of ruffles, a large flower in her hair. She felt a pang of envy. But it was ridiculous, wasn’t it? For anyone to live that way.
“A chick I met near Fresno lived on the land with her old man. They were on a real reservation, you know, camped with the Indians. The Indians just dug what these two were getting at, they didn’t even charge them. Anyway, the chick learned all kinds of prayers and dances. She taught me some.” The girl ran her fingers over the braids. Her eyes narrowed as if she was deep in thought. “I think we should do one of the Indian prayers.”
B. laughed. Then she saw the girl was serious.
“I thought you’d be hip to it. Being out on the road and all,” the girl said.
Blood rose to B.’s cheeks. “Well, I guess so.” She did not believe the girl knew a true Indian prayer. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.”
The girl smiled for the first time since B. had picked her up. “Pull over here,” the girl directed.
They were next to a pear orchard. The trees were larger than in the other orchards and B. was secretly relieved they’d be hidden at least. The girl disappeared into one of the rows. B. followed. Halfway in, the girl picked up a stick and started carving a large circle in the dirt. “Take your shoes off,” she commanded. B. removed the bone-colored heels. She did not know why she was following along.