The fecal odor receded. Wander and the other drivers relaxed. The sun came out. Quiet returned, just the sounds of the road, the tires kalump-ing, the wind finding its way into the van. Everybody carried a sheen of perspiration in the humidity like a second layer of skin until the air filled with dust, dry enough to tickle her nose and make her sneeze. Three times. She heard Nana. “Always sneeze three times. Twice for the saints and once for good luck.”
She remembered The Grapes of Wrath, a book Nana had owned. Tom Joad, she thought. The Dust Bowl. California, here we come. If Tulsa doesn’t work out. Where are you today, Tom Joad? “Among us, among us, among us,” she heard Nana say, a chant Serena had long forgotten. She had traveled endless highways it seemed like forever with Nana, but they had never left the Dakotas or Minnesota.
The clouds, she remembered. Like mountains.
A sadness like a cold in the middle of summer; she could feel tears on one cheek. The van had bad shocks. Her stomach grumbled again. For some reason she imagined a boat tumbling about on high water. Please, Stomach, don’t give me trouble, she pleaded, road weary, exhausted with anxiety when she thought about Tulsa, that bright dream of paradise fading into fog. Possible trouble in Tulsa—finding a room, finding work, staying safe, always the same shit—braided with images of Nana in hospice, dying in striped flannel jammies, sipping water, one sip at a time, sucking on slivers of ice, slipping into some other universe beyond Serena’s ken, coming back alert to grip her hand in fright.
“Are you there?” she would say, eyes open but something wrong with her sight. The hospice workers, kind, professional, told her what to expect; it didn’t help Nana. “Just be with her,” one said, stroking Serena’s hair, tied with a braid in back. “It matters.”
The kind words didn’t soften the blow when it came. It was a bright day. A hopeful day, Serena had thought, walking just after dawn to the hospice. Lots of light in the room. The stale, medicinal smells had been scrubbed away. A flicker of shadow on the white walls. No drama. The aroma of a bouquet of flowers she had brought with her. A spear of sunlight flashed into and through a pitcher of drinking water. Low-cadenced voices in the hall. The clink of dishes and silverware. Strings of music someplace, a kind of waltz. Outside a big truck braked. Somebody shouted, irritated. The music stopped.
Nana breathed out, a sigh. Serena squeezed her hand with skin like rice paper and blue, collapsed veins. “The clouds are mountains,” she said. A rasp. Serena stroked the still hand, a breath in. “Let’s climb the clouds,” she said. A moan, though barely audible. A rasp. Another breath out. A great sigh. Nana’s face relaxed. And relaxed.
And didn’t breathe back in.
Serena waited, holding her own breath. “Nana?”
She squeezed, hard. “Nana!”
***
Ava, in Tulsa, was in rehab. A minor mishap with heroin. Almost over now. The sweats gone, the pukes faded, the craving under control with methadone, though she promised herself she would kick that too, and soon. A few more days. Back on the wagon, once again a dear friend of Bill. Tess, her counselor, a woman with perpetually tangled ginger hair and a rigorous method but a tender smile, had helped her pull through.
The two of them shared a slice of chocolate cake.
“Sugar’s good,” Tess said.
“S-u-g-a-r,” Ava said. Five letters. On a keyboard, four typed with the left hand, one with the right: That puts me ahead, 4–1. She did the math and pictured her fingers typing without really thinking about it. It was mild OCD, a strange new tic that came with sobriety—the number of letters, the keyboard, the contest between left and right hand, a winning hand announced in her head. If the left hand won, the goddess was placated; if the right, she felt bound to count another word. “Damn straight,” she said, putting aside the mind clamor. “I had a diet once. No sugar. No carbohydrates.”
Tess laughed, a pretty sound, and touched the dangling turquoise earring on one ear with slender fingers. “What kind of diet is that? And how did it go?”
“The wrong kind,” Ava said. “It went bad. Believe you me. Supposed to clean me out.”
“Ah,” Tess said. “All kinds of crazy out there. You’re too bony for that kind of diet. You need a diet that puts meat on your butt. Get yourself one of those Brazilian butt lifts.”
They joked like that until Ava grew quiet. A thought struck her. “I came here,” she said, “to find my daughter. Serena.” This was an old story by now to Tess. “But you know what? Been so long I don’t think I’d know her if I saw her.”
Tess thought about that, chewed on cake. Ava wanted those earrings. E-a-r-r-i-n-g-s. Would Tess make them a gift to her if she asked? “She might know you.” It was the kind of thing Tess said.
Ava didn’t think it made sense. The first time they had this conversation, the withdrawal fogging everything, she had argued. “How the hell would you know? And why would she know me if I don’t know her?” Tess had shrugged. Reassurance was the biscuit she offered. Now Ava had wised up, didn’t argue, just nodded. “Maybe.”
“Sure,” Tess said. “Why don’t you put some fliers around town with your phone number? Looking for my daughter Serena. Information appreciated. Call this number. Can’t hurt. Include a picture. You can draw it yourself. From memory. Extrapolate. Make her look the way she might. Fliers help. And Craigslist. Can’t go wrong there.”
Was that a sarcasm? Ava acknowledged the attempt to help with a shrug. Therapy included painting, but not representational art. Would she be able to draw a face that looked real? She thought about it. Maybe. It had been a long time since she painted figures but, good or bad, it would fill the time until they gave her walking papers and helped her find a halfway house. Halfway room more like it, Ava thought, rueful. H-a-l-f-w-a-y. She would have to draw a self-portrait, though. How could she draw a young woman she hadn’t seen for so many years?
***
The trailer park where Wander stopped was inside Tulsa, on the Arkansas River south of downtown. They were tested for the latest virus before the Police allowed them inside the city, but it would be a long walk to those Art Deco buildings she imagined she could see in the distance like the magic city of Oz. Wander checked into the park at a booth and backed into an open spot small enough for large vans, close to the public toilets and showers. Serena had just enough space outside the van to set up her tiny tent for the night. Wander didn’t mind. The park manager—a wiry woman in khaki with a thousand smoker’s wrinkles and short, cropped hair—folded her arms and squinted her eyes fiercely, as if affronted, at the tent when making the rounds but let it be when she spied Serena standing woebegone beside it.
Serena could only imagine what she looked like after days on the road without hygiene or decent rest. Her lower back ached when she tried to stand straight. She begged a few ibuprofen from Wander, who had a giant jar of pain pills that she dispersed like candy to her passengers. “All you have to do is ask,” she said. Wander had lived on the road for years. It was her way of life. Serena felt sorry, though, for Man and Woman in the back of the van, though Wander was in no hurry to send them packing. There was room enough for Wander to sleep with the two of them, skinny as rails, sleeping to regather whatever strength they had left after eating the last of the thin gruel.
Goodbye to all that, Serena thought, what she thought too often when her Nana came to mind. She decided to thank Wander with a walk to the convenience store located at the park entrance to purchase a pack of hot dogs and some buns and a large cardboard urn of coffee.
***
Ava left the halfway house and stayed for weeks with Tess, in a storeroom attached to her garage that had a mattress on the floor. Tess helped her put an ad in Craigslist: Hi. I’m looking for a room by the month to rent. Friend of Bill. Prefer female landlord. Can’t go wrong with Craigslist. Tess had meant it, although Ava also saw the effort as a message from Tess: Don’t get too comfortable here. Tess also put her in touch with a recovery group. “Tulsa’s not an expensive town,” Tess said, pouring the two of them cups of boiling water over English Breakfast tea, “so long as you stay away from posh.”
“But posh is my middle name,” Ava said, tilting her head and blinking fast while pouting her lips.
It got the laugh she wanted. I can make her laugh, she thought. It’s been a long time. Tess took a good, hard look at Ava’s body.
What’s this? Ava thought. Not that.
“You look about my size,” she said. “Take off your shirt and jeans. Be right back.” She left the room. Her cup of tea turned cold. Ava sat in her panties, taking deep conscious breaths and sipping her tea. She imagined herself in a diner painting by Edward Hopper. When she noticed that Tess’s tea had turned cold, she nuked it in a small microwave over the stove and retrieved it just as Tess returned. “Thank you for that,” Tess said. She carried an armful of clothes. “Old stuff,” she said, “but still quality. Let’s have a fashion show.”
Ava modeled the clothes. Tess was right. They fit her like a glove. It might have been a lark, two girls having some fun, but Tess, sipping her nuked tea, stared at Ava as she posed and strutted as if the two of them were after a cure for cancer.
“They’ll do,” Tess said, still unsmiling.
Tess turned out to be a joker even in bed. The sex was pleasant, the aftermath less so. When Ava felt rage building and Tess started snoring up a storm, she thought about crawling off to sleep in the bath—the image an echo from some ancient song she could no longer remember—and instead gathered up her things, including the clothing from Tess and, to assuage her rage, the pair of turquoise earrings that Tess has placed inside a bedside drawer, and found her way to the mattress in the garage, where she surprised herself by sleeping like a stone until dawn.
***
Serena stood in the shower as long as she could before somebody shouted at her to get the hell done so somebody else could have a go. The hot water cleaned off the sweat and stink of the road but knocked her out. She crawled into her tent, put the duffel under her head, tucked the pack beside her as if cradling a lover to keep it safe, and went deaf and dumb for a good, long time. When she woke, it was midmorning.
Wander had a pot of coffee keeping warm on the propane burner placed on a card table with folding legs that she had set up outside like a lemonade stand. She motioned to Serena, who was groggy, and the two of them sat with coffee mugs and took in the sights. The two young women who had sat up front with Wander were gone. “One has a boyfriend here,” Wander said. “They might or might not be back anytime soon.” When Serena asked about the old couple, Wander pulled one of her ludicrous jet-black pigtails as if tugging on her brain pan with it and rolled her eyes. “God only knows. I’ve put out word around camp that they need something more permanent at their age than I can provide.” She stared off into the middle distance; Serena followed her gaze but saw nothing except a cascade of vans, tents, and RVs, with stunted trees here and there. “Don’t get me wrong,” Wander said. “They’ve paid their way. Up-front. Social Security and something in the bank. I’m happy for it, but I’m no caretaker.”
Serena was only half listening. “Huh,” she said, hoping the grunt sounded commiserative. “I want to beat it today, go downtown, find a room if I can. You have any ideas?”
