As the girl drove along Interstate 15, the brightly lighted hotels appeared against the sky in the distance, and minutes later the town rose up around her. She was afraid to stop, but she was too tired not to. She had been up since sunrise, spent the day on her feet, and then been forced to defend herself from Mary's ugly demands and clean up afterward. The hours of driving since then had drained the last of her nervous energy.

She saw the exit for the Mandalay Bay hotel, and then she was on it, and then in the thick traffic on the strip. The first place where she was able to make a right turn was the entrance to the MGM Grand, so she gave her car to the parking attendant there and watched him drive it into the parking structure.

She wanted to check into a hotel and sleep, but she didn't dare. If the police were searching for her, one of the things they would do right away was get in touch with the Las Vegas hotels. She was hungry, so she went inside to the long promenade where the restaurants were and looked into a few. The customers had all moved into the drinking phase of the evening, so she kept going.

She found a coffee shop farther on the promenade, bought a piece of lemon cake she saw in the gla.s.s case, and ate it. She rested her eyes and cradled her head in her arms for a moment. When she awoke, there was a tall man in a dark blue suit standing over her. As he leaned closer, she could hear low-volume radio chatter coming from his coat pocket. He said, "Miss? Are you all right?"

"Huh? Oh my gosh," she said. "I must have dozed off."

His sympathetic concern vanished. This was not a medical emergency. "You can't sleep here." It was as though he had already heard and penetrated the lie she had not told yet.

She stood, took her purse, and strode off. She had the feeling that he was behind her, talking into the radio about her. She never decreased her speed until she was out of the building.

For the next few hours she was one of the thousands of people walking from casino to casino. She had stopped in Las Vegas to rest, but there seemed to be no way for her to do it. When she was too tired to keep walking she would sit at a table in a bar and order a soft drink. She caught another catnap at six A.M. A.M. on the couch in a ladies' room in Caesars, but the attendant politely woke her as soon as she had entered deep sleep. Later in the morning she ate brunch at the Aladdin. When big groups of people began to check out of the hotels at ten-thirty, she joined the line at the entrance to the MGM and had the valet retrieve her car. on the couch in a ladies' room in Caesars, but the attendant politely woke her as soon as she had entered deep sleep. Later in the morning she ate brunch at the Aladdin. When big groups of people began to check out of the hotels at ten-thirty, she joined the line at the entrance to the MGM and had the valet retrieve her car.

She drove out the Boulder Highway toward Henderson, and stopped at a shopping mall. She left her car inside the parking structure, where it would be less visible, and walked to the mall's cinema complex. She bought a ticket to the first movie that was showing. It was an awful film about two evil children, and there were few other people in the theater to watch it, so she found a seat in the middle of a row and fell asleep. She spent the whole afternoon and evening in the complex, going from one small theater to the next, each time sleeping for an hour or two and waking when the lights came up and people shuffled out.

When she felt that she was able to drive again, she ate dinner in a Denny's in Henderson. It was eleven-thirty when she drove into the desert to the east. She had wasted a whole day in Las Vegas, and she was nearly as tired as she had been when she had arrived.

Her troubles were building up. She had done a rash, unconsidered thing, but it had not really been her fault. She had not set out to kill Mary Tilson. She just had not been able to think of a way to avoid it. Mary Tilson wouldn't shut up, and she wouldn't leave her alone, and she couldn't be dissuaded from calling the police.

She was just a regular person who had always wanted what everybody else wanted-to be happy. She had been smart in school and had been accepted to the University of Illinois. She remembered that the letter had arrived in April, and she had taped it to the wall of her bedroom so she could look at it every morning when she woke up, and every night when she went to bed. The habit had lasted until June. It was a Sunday when everything had changed.

She remembered waking up and seeing the letter that morning: "Dear Charlene Buckner: It is my pleasure to inform you . . ." She had used a single small piece of tape on the top so she could take it down in September and bring it with her in case she needed to prove that she had been accepted.

As she always did, she lay in her bed, looked at the tone of the light, and touched the wall beside her bed to see if it was warm or cool, because that side was the outer wall of the house. She could feel that it was warm. In those few seconds she sensed that something was wrong. The house was more than quiet. It was a vacuum, because something big had moved on, and nothing had yet filled the s.p.a.ce. She knew what it was.

She got up and stepped to the door of her mother's bedroom. The drawers of the dresser were still open, a little askew and out of their tracks because her mother had been in a hurry to empty them.

Charlene walked through the little house, moving from room to room and looking. She was not exactly searching for her mother, just looking at her world to see what it looked like without her. There was a note on the kitchen table, a gla.s.s placed on it to hold it down, as though a wind might blow through and take it. Charlene picked up the gla.s.s and smelled the strong, turpentine scent of whiskey, so she set it in the sink with the other dirty dishes.

She picked up the note. "Dear Char, I had an unexpected opportunity, and I had to take it. If you need to reach me, write to me care of my sister Rose. I'll check with her later. Don't forget to ask the college for scholarship money. Bye for now. Mommy." The o o had a smiling face drawn in it. Charlene put the note in the garbage bag and began to clean up. had a smiling face drawn in it. Charlene put the note in the garbage bag and began to clean up.

She rinsed the dishes and put them in the sink with very hot water and detergent to soak a bit while she went outside to pick up the Sunday newspaper from the sidewalk. She had always done that to keep the neighbors from noticing that her mother stayed out late and slept for the first half of the day. It was a warm, sunny morning, and there were flowers blooming in the neighbors' yards. She went back inside, closed the door, and locked it.

She was halfway through the dishes before she really felt what had happened to her. She was as alone as a person in a raft in the middle of the ocean. She spent a few minutes thinking about how it must have happened.

Her mother had been in one of her depressions lately, because of her most recent boyfriend, Ray. About two months ago, Ray had hit her and then left. The next day she had pretended that she had gotten tired of Ray and made him leave, then b.u.mped into a kitchen cupboard in the dark because she'd been trying to get a gla.s.s of water in the middle of the night without waking Charlene. But Charlene had awakened and heard her sobbing, pleading with Ray not to leave: "Ray, I wasn't even interested in him that way. It just happened. It didn't mean anything. Please don't leave. I'll never do it again." Her mother's voice had been the shrill kind that carried, but Ray was a mutterer, with a deep voice, so Charlene couldn't make out anything he was saying. She hadn't needed to.

Charlene's mother had hated being alone. It wasn't clear to Charlene from the contradictory stories she told when she had ever been alone, but the experience must have been terrible, because she was willing to do anything to keep from being alone again. Some of the time when a boyfriend moved out, she had heard her mother saying, "I'll do anything," and known that she meant it. Charlene was sure she knew what the opportunity in the note had been. Somebody had offered her a chance not to be alone.

It struck Charlene at first that since her mother was so scared of being alone, it was odd that she would abandon Charlene. But she always had been that way. If the weather was hot, then she was hotter than other people. If there was only one piece of meat left, then she was hungrier than anyone else. Charlene should have seen this coming, from the moment when she had received her letter from the college. Her mother had read the letter on the wall too, and to her it had meant that Charlene was going away.

Charlene didn't like her mother very much, but she missed her in some deep, awful way. After another day, however, she realized she still had to get herself through the rest of June and graduate, then find a way to survive July and August on her own and get to college. The remark about a scholarship in her mother's letter had been her only mention of money. That had been her way of saying that she had not left Charlene any.

That morning, as soon as Charlene was showered and dressed, she went to the only place she could think of in Wheatfield to find work. It was the Dairy Princess on Highway 19. It looked almost exactly like a Dairy Queen place, but it actually wasn't. It was a transparent counterfeit, relying on the notion that people would see what it was imitating and then pull over, exactly as though it were a Dairy Queen. They would realize that it wasn't, but they would forgive the small imposture.

The summer manager was a boy named Tim she remembered from high school; he was two years older than she was, and was already off for the summer. There was a line at the order window, so she waited until it was her turn. She said she wanted to see Tim.

When he came to the window, he said, "Hi, Charlene. What can I get you?"

"I need a job, thanks. Do you have one that's open?"

Tim looked at her for a long time. She could see him trying to calculate, and he actually looked worried, as though he couldn't figure out the answer. "If you're willing to work hard, there's one left."

"Okay," she said.

She started right away. At first she worked only on weekends, because that was when most people wanted ice cream and hamburgers. When graduation came and summer began, she worked six days a week, from twelve until nine. She got minimum wage, which wasn't much, but she ate something during her break each night that served as dinner, and once in a while some man would give her a tip.

She took her mother's advice and wrote a letter to the admissions office at the university, informing them that she was going to need a scholarship. She told them that the reason she had not applied before was that her mother had never managed to fill out the Parents' Confidential Statement about her finances, but that her mother's finances no longer mattered because her mother had moved on. Two weeks into the summer she received a gently worded letter that said it was too late for this year, and included some application forms for federal loans.

Charlene remembered sitting in her empty house at the kitchen table reading the forms and feeling absolutely bereft. The next two nights she came home tired and worked on the forms. The third night, she finished at midnight and walked to the letter box outside the post office to mail them.

Charlene made a friend at the Dairy Princess named Alice. She was a woman of about twenty-nine who had a little boy but lived with her parents not far from where Charlene lived. At seven each night they went outside, away from the heat and the smells, and while Alice smoked, they talked. She had seen Charlene staring at Tim when he wasn't looking.

Charlene had not let her thoughts about Tim get beyond the speculation stage, where she felt a small tingle when he was near her in the narrow, hot kitchen and they accidentally brushed against each other as she was carrying food to the pickup window. She didn't have any room in her life for another person. But Alice had caught her looking at him, and from that day she spoke to Charlene about her crush on Tim.

One night when Charlene left at her usual time, Alice offered to close the store so Tim could go too. Charlene noticed him walking along the street twenty feet behind her, so she slowed and gradually they began to walk together.

He said, "Alice told me you're having a hard time saving the money you need to start at college."

She was alarmed, humiliated. She had not formed close relationships with other girls in high school, because they always seemed to turn any confidence into gossip. Alice was so much older that Charlene had a.s.sumed she wouldn't behave that way or betray her. She fought the panic and answered, "I guess it's true. I've got to pay my own living expenses, because my mother is away right now."

"I heard that too. It must be hard."

"I don't miss the company. I'm out most of the time anyway. It's just that I got used to having her pay for things."

They walked along the dark streets toward her house. They talked about the day's customers who had looked strange, or acted superior, and about the pressure Tim felt to keep the receipts at the Princess high so the owner, Mr. Kallen, wouldn't give him a bad recommendation when he left in the fall. He knew he wouldn't be fired in the middle of the summer, and his parents had enough money to pay his tuition at Purdue whether he worked or not, but he was convinced that a bad recommendation in his first supervisory job would ruin his future.

Charlene walked along beside him, most comfortable while he was talking but feeling something like stage fright whenever a topic had been exhausted and another hadn't replaced it. She became ashamed of the fact that the items that occupied her mind weren't theories or ideas, only the personal obsessions and problems that consumed her-the fact that she wasn't paying the rent on the house or the utility bills, just trying to ignore the increasingly ominous late notices and not answering the telephone in the hope that she wouldn't be evicted before September, the fear that people would know she was alone in the house and too young to have any rights-and she didn't want him to know any of them.

When they reached her house they stood for a moment in silence on the porch in the dark, and he kissed her. It was a shock for her, a soft, sweet moment in a life that had turned into an emergency. She had come to expect days full of sweat and the smell of burning grease and overflowing, fly-swarmed garbage cans. As he held her, she seemed to be floating, her eyes closed. When he released her, she stood motionless for a few seconds.

He said, "I've been thinking about you a lot. I watch you in the Princess."

"You do?"

"Yeah. You're the best-looking girl in Wheatfield."

"Of course, Wheatfield is so huge. There must be twelve girls. And I'm not, anyway."

"I'm serious. Everybody knows it. I remember when you came into high school. I was a junior. Everybody was blown away."

She looked down, afraid that she might be blushing and that he could see it, even though they were under the porch roof, so the moonlight didn't reach them. She couldn't think of anything to say, so she said, "Thank you."

They kissed again, and she began to feel her nervousness being replaced by a relaxed, lazy sensation that she sensed might be a sign of danger. If she didn't stop, she was going to let him go too far. She broke off the kiss. "I'd better go in now. Thanks for walking me home." Then she grinned. "And everything."

She found her key chain in her purse and turned to unlock the door. He said, "Can I come in?"

She said, "I'm sorry. I can't tonight. See you tomorrow." She slipped inside and locked the door.

The next day Alice watched her and watched Tim during the day. At three, when they were outside for their break, she said, "Tell me exactly what happened." After some hesitation, Charlene did tell Alice.

Alice said, "That's it? That was all?" She seemed disappointed.

Charlene was slightly offended, but she realized that a woman twelve years older than she was, with a child, was probably used to more than that. She was tempted to embellish the story, but she didn't know what to say that would be satisfactory, so she decided to wait and see whether anything else happened.

That Sat.u.r.day, Charlene stayed late to help Tim lock up, so that he would walk her home again.

This time when they reached the porch, she said, "Would you like to come in for a minute?" He came in. She felt the heat of shame as he looked around him. She had always been aware that the house was smaller and less fancy than other people's houses, and her mother's boyfriends had been a problem, because she didn't want to introduce them and then have to explain who they were and what they were doing here. Now they were gone, and she had spent hours over the past few days cleaning the house, washing curtains, arranging furniture, and putting fresh flowers from the front yard in jars.

She reminded herself that it was different now. She was only seventeen and this was her own place, where she could do anything she wanted. Tim still lived with his parents, and he was two years older. She had bought a six-pack of cola, so she offered him a drink, and brought it in one of the gla.s.ses her mother had only used for adults. Then she sat on the couch with him.

He kissed her, but it wasn't the same as it had been the first night. He seemed more eager, but not more affectionate. He was insistent, implacable, barely letting her take a breath. She still liked him, but tonight she was a little bit afraid. She let him unb.u.t.ton her uniform shirt, but then he took it all the way off, and her bra too. Once he had done that, it didn't matter when she put her hands on his and tried to keep him from taking her other things off too. He just did it. She whispered, "At least turn the lights off," but he said, "No. I like to see you this way."

Pretty soon he picked her up, carried her into her bedroom, and set her on her bed. She said, "Tim, I don't think we should do this. I don't want to. I'm still a virgin," and "Stop. Don't." Finally he hesitated, and she thought he had realized it wasn't a good idea, but he had only paused to slip on a condom. And then he took her.

When it was over, she wrapped herself in the covers and lay there, quietly crying. He put on his clothes right away and tried stroking her hair and her bare shoulder, saying softly, "Please don't cry. I'm sorry. I really like you, and I couldn't help it. I thought you liked me too."

Charlene hated him, and she loved him, and she hurt. She wanted him to go away, and to die, and to stay forever, being nice to her now that he'd had what he wanted. Then, without expecting to, she stopped crying. It was like a fever that abruptly broke. "Go home now," she said. She heard his heavy steps on the floor as he walked out of the room, then heard her front door open and close.

The next day she didn't go to work. The day after that, she went in at the usual time, started working, and wouldn't look at Tim or answer him when he spoke. She didn't go and sit outside with Alice during the three o'clock break, because she couldn't bear to answer her questions.

At quitting time she left without a word. He left too, and walked beside her. As soon as they were on a dark street and alone, he said quietly, "I really care about you, Charlene. I want you to know I couldn't sleep for the last two nights. I didn't mean to make you hate me or anything." They walked on for a dozen steps. "Charlene?"

"What?"

"Aren't you going to say anything?"

"Okay." She walked in silence for another few seconds. "You raped me."

"No, I didn't. It was just-"

"You did. I said no, and you did it anyway."

"I thought you were just saying that, like 'no, no, no-oh,' and then you stopped saying it. I thought that meant you really wanted to."

"I was crying, Tim. You didn't even notice."

"I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry," he said. "I didn't think I was doing anything you didn't want me to. If I'd thought I was, I would have stopped."

They were at her house now. She climbed the porch steps and turned to face him, but he stayed down in the shadows by the railing. She took her keys out of her purse and unlocked the door. "Come in."

"That's okay," he said.

"No. It's not okay. You're coming inside. Now."

She held it open, and the light from the lamp she had left on so she wouldn't have to come in alone in the dark was shining on his face. He looked down, but he came up the steps and followed her into the house.

Charlene shut the door and locked it. She didn't turn on any more lights or offer him a drink. She said, "You were horrible. I liked you so much, but you hurt me and treated me like you didn't care what I felt. You were like an animal or something, and you made me feel like one too. You were a pig."

"I feel terrible. I don't know how to make it up to you."

"You've done it. You can't undo it. But you're not going to leave me feeling like this."

"I can't go back to two days ago. What am I supposed to do now?"

"You're going to do it one more time. People say the first time is awful for everybody, but once you're past that, it's nice. You have to be sweet to me. Do it the right way this time, not mean."

All these years later, she remembered the look on Tim's face-shock, then something like relief. He treated her gently, as though she were made of porcelain, like the dolls in the window of the antique store. He was very slow and cautious, very patient. This time it was the way she had always imagined it would be, and she almost liked him. He stayed until three-thirty, then hurried home so he would be asleep before his parents woke.

For the rest of the summer, she allowed him to think of her as his girlfriend. At the Dairy Princess he did all of the heavy lifting that was involved in her job, then did the cleanup and walked her to the local hangout, where his friends were already drinking and talking with older girls.

Alice began to resent Charlene. She made a remark about how nice it must be having somebody to do her share of the work. Once when Charlene yawned, Alice told her she should sleep alone sometimes, then turned and went to the order window, leaving her alone. Charlene felt as though she had been slapped. She thought about it for a while, and then decided that Alice didn't matter. Charlene just had to endure a few weeks, and summer would be over.

By mid-August, Charlene's unpaid bills had all been turned over to collection agencies, and their attempts to get the money from her became more aggressive. She had to unplug the telephone to keep from being called all the time, but then when she plugged it in to make a call, it wouldn't work.

The customers of the Dairy Princess had moved into the strange frenzy that seemed to hit people just before each summer ended, and made them frantic and selfish. She knew they were trying to get the last few days of pleasure before things turned dark and cold and wet again, so they lined up at the Princess in surly, sweating queues, crowding the lot in front of the store on the way home from some activity that had left them discontented. The sweet residue of ice cream and sugary drinks they spilled made the wasps drunk and vicious.

Charlene waited one night until she and Tim were alone and cleaning up before she said, "Tim, I'm pregnant."

His mouth was open and he seemed to reel, as though he didn't have enough air. She waited a few seconds, then said more loudly, "I'm pregnant."

"I heard you," he said, the slightest tinge of irritation slipping into his voice. She waited for him to say it, and he said it, exactly as she had imagined he would: "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know, exactly," she said. "What are you going to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're the only one I was with," she said. "Ever. It's yours too."

"I know that." This time the irritation had shaded off into sadness. "Of course I'll do what I can. What do you want me to do?"

His suffering resignation inspired her to torment him. "I guess we could get married. I'll be eighteen in a few months."

She could see that behind his widened eyes a film was running at great speed. It was about the things he wanted desperately-education, good jobs, prosperity, a beautiful young wife who would come into his life in about ten years-moving beyond his reach forever. He looked faint. "I don't know. I want to marry you," he lied. "But that's-I don't know. You're not even eighteen, and I'm only twenty. We don't even have a job after the first of the month."

"Wouldn't your parents help us? They must have some money."

"I don't know. My father will be p.i.s.sed. My mother-G.o.d, I can't tell her this."

"It's their grandchild. I'm pregnant, and I can't even afford vitamins." She was very proud of that one.

"Oh, G.o.d," he said. "We always used protection. How did this happen?"

She looked at him with distaste. "Obviously, once it didn't work. It leaked or something."