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Wearing her swimsuit for underwear and holding all of Max’s and her possessions in one hand, she stood at a payphone several blocks from the Starlight Motel. Max played nearby. With the highway heading out of town only a few feet away, and nothing but flat land and low shrubs all around, she felt like a target. She could hardly believe Manuel hadn’t already pulled up and ordered her and Max to get in the car.
A flash of movement told her Max was too close to the road. “Hey, get back,” she called, leaning out of the phone booth to make sure he obeyed. When he started digging in the flower beds again, something she was sure the owner of the gas station wouldn’t be too thrilled to see, she put the phone back to her ear. At least digging in the flower beds kept him low to the ground and out of the street.
“I think you must have the wrong number,” a voice said on the other end of the line.
The person she’d called had picked up. “I’m sorry. I was talking to my son.”
“Oh.”
“I’m contacting you about the car you have for sale in the paper.”
“I’m afraid that’s already been sold. Larry Beecham wanted it for his teenage son.”
The woman gave Larry Beecham’s name as though she expected Emma to know him. This was a small town. Too small. And Emma was growing desperate. If she couldn’t get a car, she’d have to spend another night here, or hitchhike.
She wondered if maybe she could buy a couple of sleeping bags and camp out in the wilderness. She knew she’d feel safer beneath the stars in some remote location than she would if she got another motel room in town. But with her luck, it’d rain. Or she’d encounter a rattlesnake.
She focused on her call. “Has Larry picked up the car already?”
“No, I don’t think he has. Milt promised to install a better stereo first.”
“So it’s running.”
“Oh, yes.”
“I’ll pay you an extra hundred if you’ll sell it to me instead.” Emma felt like a heel trying to buy some kid’s car out from under him. But she knew Larry’s son couldn’t need it as badly as she did.
“I can’t do that, young lady. I’ve already given my word.”
“I’d be really grateful,” Emma said hopefully, but the woman hung up.
With a heartfelt sigh, she crossed off the two-line ad that read “1979 Camaro, rebuilt engine, new tires, only $1500.”
Unfortunately, Ely didn’t have a big used-car market. She’d already called the small Ford dealership across town. They had no cars in her price range, which wasn’t really a surprise, and there weren’t many automobiles for less than two thousand dollars listed in the newspaper. Two had already been sold. Another three weren’t working. Your husband puts a little elbow grease into this baby and you’ll have yourself a fine vehicle.
What had she expected for the price?
She glanced at the motorcycles for sale and wished she knew how to drive one. At this point, she’d risk just about anything, even taking a bus. But, as she’d guessed, there wasn’t any Greyhound service in Ely.
She fingered her diamond earrings. They’d been a birthday gift from Manuel. They held no sentimental value, but she’d worn them when she left San Diego because she could pawn them under desperate circumstances.
Circumstances couldn’t get much worse, but there wasn’t anything in Ely’s narrow phone book under “pawnshop.” She’d already checked.
Her eyes flicked over the For Sale ads again, focusing on newer cars, more expensive cars. Could she talk someone into trading a car for a pair of diamond earrings? The earrings had been appraised at ten thousand dollars, but she didn’t imagine anyone would take her word on that. Maybe if she could find a jeweler in town to corroborate their value…
She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and turned to the Js. A trade might actually be the smartest way to go. In college, a friend had to pawn his camera and got only ten percent of its value. With a trade, she might net forty, perhaps fifty percent.
Max knocked on the outside of the booth, even though she’d left the door open. “Mommy, I’m hot!”
He couldn’t be as hot as she was. At least where he was playing, the slight breeze could cool him. The old-style phone booth cut much of the highway noise, but it acted like a huge magnifying glass in the hot August sun. Beads of sweat rolled between Emma’s br**sts, and the air was so tight and close, she felt she might spontaneously combust if she didn’t get out soon.
She pressed the folding door open another two inches, but it only bounced back. “We’ll buy a diet soda in a few minutes. Hang on, okay, pal?”
“But we’ve been here forever.”
“It won’t be much longer.”
Shoving his hands into his pockets, he kicked dejectedly at a dirt clod that broke apart. “I want to go home.”
Emma tucked her sweat-dampened hair behind her ears. “Come on, Max, don’t start. I know this hasn’t been an easy day for you, but I can’t fix it right now.”
“Why can’t we just go back?”
This wasn’t a good time to have the talk Emma knew they needed to have. But her “pick up and move and Max will simply forget” plan suddenly didn’t seem fair to him. Young though he was, he deserved an explanation for why his life had been turned upside down. Maybe he even deserved a small say in it.
Holding the door of the phone booth open by putting her back to it, she squatted to face him. “I’m afraid I can’t live with your daddy anymore, Max.”
His eyebrows gathered over his green eyes. “Why not?”
“He isn’t nice to me. I—I can’t be happy when I’m with him. Do you understand?”
He scuffed one sandal against the other.
“Max?”
“What?” he said without looking at her.
“You mean more to me than anything in this world. If I thought you’d be better off, I would’ve stayed with your dad, even though I didn’t like being with him myself. But I don’t think you’d be better off. Your dad is…changing.”
No response. Emma wondered if she was going too far with her little talk, if she was beginning to unburden herself at Max’s expense. She didn’t want to make the situation any more difficult for him. “At least you and I are together. That’s about all I can offer at the moment. You want to be with me, don’t you?” she asked.
