Don’t Look Back. Laura Lippman
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steeped in centuries of history to be reduced to banal homilies. This isn’t a partisan position,’ she said, almost as if rehearsing her own talking points. ‘It’s an intellectual one. These issues must be addressed with gravitas.’
Eliza didn’t disagree. She felt the same way, only her concerns were domestic. The world was moving too swiftly, although it was strange to hear that complaint from caffeinated Vonnie. Iso and Albie were growing up too fast, Peter’s new job gobbled up twelve, fourteen hours a day, in exchange for promises that they might be rich, truly rich, within a year or two.
Her own days, however, were molasses slow. They were full, with places to go and things to do, and she was exhausted at the end of them. But they trundled along like dinosaurs. The sauropod or the stegosaurus, which, according to Albie, were the slowest of the dinosaurs.
After listening sympathetically to her sister for another fifteen minutes, agreeing with virtually everything she said, Eliza begged off, saying she was tired. Yet she remained at the computer, writing. She was self-aware enough to realize that it was not incidental that she suddenly found the words she wanted to write to Walter. She was still at the computer when Peter returned an hour later, although she quickly closed the file, reluctant to discuss the matter again this evening, even with his sympathetic ear. She was, she decided, Waltered-out.
Chapter Ten
1985
She had never gone to the bathroom outside before. She knew it was an odd point on which to fixate, given what was happening to her, but it was embarrassing. She tried to persuade the man that she would behave if he would allow her to use a restroom at a gas station or fast-food place, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He wasn’t harsh or cruel. He simply shook his head and said, ‘No, that won’t work.’
They had been in the truck about three hours at this point. He had stopped and gassed up, but he had pumped his own gas and told her beforehand that it would be a bad idea for her to try to get out. ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said, as if she were in control, as if her behavior would determine what he did. He pulled the passenger side of the truck very close to the pump; if she opened the door, there would barely be room for her to squeeze out, and even then, she would be between the door and the hose. Of course, she could go out the other way, the driver’s side. As the gas pump clicked away – it was an older pump, at a dusty, no-name place, and the dollars mounted slowly, cent by cent – she tested his reactions, leaning slowly toward the left. He was at the driver’s-side door faster than she would have thought possible.
‘You need something?’
‘I was going to change the radio station.’
‘It isn’t on,’ he pointed out. ‘I don’t leave the key in the ignition when I pump gas. I knew a guy, once, he left his key in the ignition and the car blew up. He was a fireball, running in circles.’
‘I was going to change it for later,’ she said, almost apologetically. Why did she feel guilty about switching a radio station? He had kidnapped her. But the odd thing about this man was that he didn’t act as if he were doing anything wrong. He reminded her a little of Vonnie in that way, especially when they were younger. Vonnie would do something cruel, then profess amazement at Elizabeth’s reaction, focusing on some small misdeed by Elizabeth to excuse her behavior. When Elizabeth was three, Vonnie had tied her to a tree in the backyard and left her there all afternoon. Admonished by their parents, Vonnie had said: ‘She was playing with my Spirograph and she wouldn’t stop putting pieces in her mouth. I just wanted to keep her from choking.’ One April Fools’ Day, she had volunteered to fix Elizabeth milk with Ovaltine, then given her a vile concoction with cough syrup and cayenne pepper hidden beneath the pale brown milk. As Elizabeth had coughed and retched, Vonnie had said: ‘You spilled a little.’ As if the stains from the drink were more damning than the devious imagination of the person who had prepared it.
‘You don’t like my music?’
She weighed her answer. They had been listening to country music, which was uncool according to most people she knew. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘But I like other stuff, too.’
‘What do you listen to?’
‘C-c-c-current stuff.’
‘Madonna,’ he said, looking at her fingerless lace mitts. ‘I’m guessing Madonna.’
‘Well, yeah,’ she said. ‘But also—’ She racked her mind for the music she liked. ‘Whitney Houston. Scritti Politti. Kate Bush.’
Except for the first name, these were Vonnie’s musical choices, and Elizabeth wasn’t sure why she was appropriating them. Because they made her seem older, wiser? Or because she sensed that the man wouldn’t know most of them and that would give her some sort of power?
‘She’s a bad girl,’ he said.
‘Kate Bush?’
‘Whitney Houston. “Saving all my love for you,” right? She’s having an affair with a married man. That’s wrong.’
‘But she loves him. And isn’t what he’s doing more wrong?’
‘Women are better than men. Most, anyway. Men are weak, so women need to be strong.’ He reached in and punched a button on the radio, returning it to his station, although she had never touched it. The gas pump clicked off, and she hoped he might have to go inside to pay the attendant and then she would – she looked around. What would she do? It was surprising how quickly the landscape had turned into out-and-out country, real hicksville. If she had the chance to jump from the truck, where would she go? Later, when he pulled into a drive-through to buy her a hamburger, she had tried to announce to the attendant that she had been kidnapped, but he had placed his hand over hers, squeezing hard, and said: ‘Don’t make jokes about things like that, Elizabeth.’ (She had given him her name at his insistence, but he had yet to share his.) The cashier, a teenager not much older than Elizabeth, had looked bored, as if she saw such things every day. She even seemed a little resentful, tired of couples playing out their dramas and private jokes in front of her. The girl had bad acne and frizzy hair, and her uniform pulled tightly across her broad torso. Elizabeth wanted to say: ‘He’s not my boyfriend! I’ve never had a boyfriend! I’m more like you than you think, except I’m not old enough to work or drive a car.’
He had kept squeezing her hand. It seemed to her at the time that he managed to exert just enough pressure to let her know that, in the next squeeze, he would crush every bone in her hand if she disobeyed him. Then he stroked her arm, along the inside. She remembered a game she played with her friends, where you closed your eyes and tried to guess when a trailing finger landed in the crook of your elbow. Depending on where it stopped, you were oversexed or undersexed. Everyone screamed in protest if they got oversexed, but, of course, that was the thing to be.
Elizabeth always ended up being undersexed, begging for the finger to stop well short of the elbow hollow.
The gas tank full, they drove on. An hour later, she asked if she could go to the bathroom. She expected him to scold her, as her father might have, for not asking when they were at the gas station. But he just sighed and said: ‘Okay, I’ll find a place where you can have some privacy.’
It took her a second to get it.
‘Why can’t I just go to a gas station or a fast-food place? Or even a restaurant.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so.’ This was his way, she was learning. He said no, but, unlike her parents, he never explained his reasons, didn’t provide enough information to allow argument.
‘I’ll be good,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to go to the bathroom outside.’
‘Number one or number two?’ he asked.
She thought about lying, but she didn’t think the answer would change his mind. ‘Number one.’
‘If I were you,’ he said, ‘I’d take my panties off. Some girls leave ’em on one leg, but if you want to stay clean, it’s better