“I’ll hitch. You stand behind me. They’ll stop for me. They stop for a girl, if she’s pretty.”
I couldn’t argue with her about that and didn’t want to. Love at first sight? Maybe not. But it was something. Can you get that wave?
“Here,” she said, “you forgot these.” She held out my gloves.
She hadn’t gone back inside, and that meant she’d had them all along. She’d known she was coming with me. It gave me an eerie feeling. I put on my gloves and we walked up the access road to the turnpike ramp.
She was right about the ride. We got one with the first car that swung onto the ramp.
We didn’t say anything else while we waited, but it seemed as if we did. I won’t give you a load of bull about ESP and that stuff; you know what I’m talking about. You’ve felt it yourself if you’ve ever been with someone you were really close to, or if you’ve taken one of those drugs with initials for a name. You don’t have to talk. Communication seems to shift over to some high-frequency emotional band. A twist of the hand does it all. We were strangers. I only knew her first name and now that I think back I don’t believe I ever told her mine at all. But we were doing it. It wasn’t love. I hate to keep repeating that, but I feel I have to. I wouldn’t dirty that word with whatever we had — not after what we did, not after Castle Rock, not after the dreams.
A high, wailing shriek filled the cold silence of the night, rising and falling.
“That’s an ambulance I think,” I said.
“Yes.”
Silence again. The moon’s light was fading behind a thickening membrane of cloud. I thought the ring around the moon hadn’t lied; we would have snow before the night was over.
Lights poked over the hill.
I stood behind her without having to be told She brushed her hair back and raised that beautiful face. As I watched the car signal for the entrance ramp I was swept with a feeling of unreality — it was unreal that this beautiful girl had elected to come with me, it was unreal that I had beaten a man to the point where an ambulance had to be called for him, it was unreal to think I might be in jail by morning. Unreal. I felt caught in a spiderweb. But who was the spider?
Nona put out her thumb. The car, a Chevrolet sedan, went by us and I thought it was going to keep right on going. Then the taillights flashed and Nona grabbed my hand. “Come on, we got a ride!” She grinned at me with childish delight and I grinned back at her.
The guy was reaching enthusiastically acros? the seat I0 open the door for her. When the dome light flashed on I could see him — a fairly big man in an expensive camel’s hair coat, graying around the edges of his hat, prosperous features softened by years of good meals. A businessman or a salesman. Alone. When he saw me he did a double take, but it was a second or two too late to put the car back in gear and haul ass. And it was easier for him this way. Later he could fib himself into believing he had seen both of us, that he was a truly good-hearted soul giving a young couple a break.
“Cold night,” he said as Nona slid in beside him and I got in beside her.
“It certainly is,” Nona said sweetly. “Thank you!”
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” And we were off, leaving sirens, busted-up truckers, and Joe’s Good Eats behind us.
I had gotten kicked off the interstate at seven-thirty. It was only eight-thirty then. It’s amazing how much you can do in a short time, or how much can be done to you.
We were approaching the yellow flashing lights that signal the Augusta toll station.
“How far are you going?” the driver asked.
That was a stumper. I had been hoping to make it as far as Kittery and crash with an acquaintance who was teaching school there. It still seemed as good an answer as any and I was opening my mouth to give it when Nona said: