Dreamland(44)

But after that?

The trail would come to an end, because she and Tommie had hitched a ride with a woman in a station wagon. The woman who knew enough not to ask questions.

Could he find the woman? And the carpet salesman who smelled of Old Spice?

Doubtful.

But could there have been other cameras on the highway? Like traffic cameras? Cameras that recorded license plates?

Possibly.

Even if she assumed the absolute worst, the impossible worst—that Gary, somehow, had tracked her to this town—what then? He might check the motel, might go to the diner, might even speak with the waitress, but the trail would grow even colder after that. The waitress hadn’t known she wanted to find a place to live, and aside from the owner of the house, no one knew they were in town at all. For all Gary knew, she had caught yet another ride with someone else, heading in an entirely different direction.

Gary might be dogged and intelligent and able to leverage the power of federal and state governments to a point that would scare even the bravest ordinary citizen, but he wasn’t God.

“I am safe,” she said in her most convincing voice. “There is no way he can find me.”





Still, the anxiety was slow to pass, even when she went over everything again, just to make sure. She was on edge, no doubt about it, or maybe it was more like a super-high tightrope with no safety net, but either way, she knew she wasn’t thinking right. She was dwelling too much on certain ideas and forgetting other things completely, and she had to think normally again, if not for her, then for Tommie. He needed her and they were starting over and the orange walls of the kitchen seemed to be pressing in, giving her the beginnings of a headache.

“I need to paint the kitchen,” she whispered. “That will make me feel better.”

Rising from the table, she retrieved one of the paintbrushes, along with a roller and pan. As she had the day before, she stripped off her shirt and jeans, unwilling to ruin them with paint spatters. She used a butter knife to pry open the can of primer. Paint stores had a machine that shook the cans, but since that wasn’t an option, she found a wooden spatula in one of the drawers and used that to stir. The primer was thicker at the bottom, like the goo in a swamp bed, but she stirred and stirred, trying to coax it back to life so she could make the orange on the walls of the kitchen disappear for good.

Who in their right mind would have chosen that god-awful color in the first place? How was it possible to examine all the paint samples the stores had to offer—all the pretty neutrals or pastels or spring colors—and think, I want my kitchen walls to look like a Halloween jack-o’-lantern?

The primer seemed as ready as it ever would be, so she poured some into the pan, then pushed the roller back and forth, absorbing the liquid. She rolled the primer onto the walls, striping the jack-o’-lantern and getting as close to the cupboards as she could. After that she used the brush, pleased to discover how easy it was to cut right to the cupboards without leaving so much as the tiniest of smudges.

“I should get a job painting ugly kitchens,” she said with a giggle.

Leaving the primer to dry, she rinsed the brush and roller and set them near the water heater on the back porch to dry. She poured the rest of the primer back into the can, rinsed the pan and dried it with a paper towel, then added glossy white paint to it. She retrieved another brush and roller and turned her attention to the cupboards, immersed in her task. When she was finished, she stood in the middle of the kitchen, taking it all in.

The cupboards looked great, almost like new. But the ugly orange color had seeped through the primer, making the walls gray and dirty. She felt the stirrings of a headache.

I should get Tommie some clothes, she reminded herself.

Not only because she didn’t want the other kids to tease him, but because she didn’t want the teacher to notice. That might lead to a meeting, and the last thing either she or Tommie needed right now was to be noticed by anyone.

Checking the clock, she calculated how much time she would need to get to town, find a place to shop, and get back. If she left soon, there was still time, so after quickly rinsing the paintbrush and roller, she went upstairs and put on the wig and baseball hat and wrapped her breasts in the Ace bandage. She retrieved some money from her stash and left the house, her feet kicking up dust on the gravel road as she walked. And walked. And walked. As she passed the store where she’d bought the groceries and neared the diner and motel, she wondered if those two businesses had cameras. And if they did, how long would the recordings generally be kept? A couple of days? A week? A month? They wouldn’t be kept forever, would they?

In any case, she needed to keep the lowest profile possible. With that in mind, she crossed the street, keeping her baseball hat pulled low as she passed the diner, then crossed the street again when she passed the motel. Out of an abundance of caution, she stopped and pretended to tie her shoe. She peeked toward the diner and then the motel to see if anyone had stepped out the door to watch her. But there was nothing out of the ordinary, and she reminded herself to be equally careful on the return trip.

She began to walk again, eventually reaching the outer limits of the commercial district. Little by little, businesses crowded either side of the road, and she wished she still had a phone, so she could find the address of the thrift store. Instead, she asked strangers for help. Both were women. The first had been filling up her tank with gas; the second one had been leaving a Hardee’s restaurant. Even outside, Beverly could smell the aroma of fried food, and she regretted that she hadn’t eaten breakfast. The woman outside of Hardee’s told her the thrift store was two blocks farther, in a strip mall set back from the road.