with Violet and, on venturing out, had looked at little more than her own shoes,
she was seeing the town for the first time. It both charmed and thrilled her.
At one o’clock, in Alameda Park within sight of the pond, she sat on a bench
near three ancient and massive date palms. Her feet were getting sore, but she
did not intend to go home early. She opened the paper bag and began lunch with
the yellow apple. Never had anything tasted half as delicious. Famished, she
quickly ate the orange, too, dropping the pieces of peel into the bag, and she
was starting on the first of the oatmeal cookies when Art Streck sat down beside
her.
“Hello, prettiness.”
He was wearing only blue running shorts, running shoes, and thick white athletic
socks. However, he clearly hadn’t been running, for he wasn’t sweating. He was
muscular with a broad chest, deeply tanned, exceedingly masculine. The whole
purpose of his attire was to display his physique, so Nora at once averted her
eyes.
“Shy?” he asked.
She could not speak because the bite she had taken from the oatmeal cookie was
stuck in her mouth. She couldn’t work up any saliva. She was afraid she would
choke if she tried to swallow the piece of cookie, but she couldn’t very well
just spit it out.
“My sweet, shy Nora,” Streck said.
Looking down, she saw how badly her right hand was trembling. The cookie was
being shaken to pieces in her fingers; bits of it dropped onto the paving
between her feet.
She had told herself that she would go for a daylong walk as a first step toward
liberation, but now she had to admit there had been another reason for getting
out of the house. She had been trying to avoid Streck’s attentions. She was
afraid to stay home, afraid that he’d call and call and call. But now he had
found her in the open, beyond the protection of her locked windows and bolted
doors, which was worse than the telephone, infinitely worse.
“Look at me, Nora.”
No.
“Look at me.”
The last of the disintegrating cookie fell from her right hand.
Streck took her left hand, and she tried to resist him, but he squeezed,
grinding the bones of her fingers, so she surrendered. He put her hand palm down
on his bare thigh. His flesh was firm and hot.
Her stomach twisted, and her heart thumped, and she did not know which she would
do first—puke or pass out.
Moving her hand slowly up and down his bare thigh, he said, “I’m what you need,
prettiness. I can take care of you.”
As if it were a wad of paste, the oatmeal cookie glued her mouth shut. She kept
her head down, but she raised her eyes to look out from under her brow. She
hoped to see someone nearby to whom she could call for help, but there were only
two young mothers with their small children, and even they were too far away to
be of assistance.
Lifting her hand from his thigh, putting it on his bare chest, Streck said,
“Having a nice stroll today? Did you like the mission? Hmmm? And weren’t the
yucca blossoms pretty at the courthouse?”
He rambled on in that cool, smug voice, asking her how she had liked other
things she’d seen, and she realized he had been following her all morning,
either in his car or on foot. She hadn’t seen him, but there was no doubt he bad
been there because he knew every move she had made since leaving the house,
which frightened and infuriated her more than anything else he had done.
She was breathing hard and fast, yet she felt as if she could not get her
breath. Her ears were ringing, yet she could hear every word he said too
clearly. Though she thought she might strike him and claw at his eyes, she was
also paralyzed, on the verge of striking but unable to strike, simultaneously
strong with rage and weak with fear. She wanted to scream, not for help but in
frustration.
“Now,” he said, “you’ve had a real nice stroll, a nice lunch in the park, and