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To her, his eyes looked dark and menacing. “No!” she shrieked. “I want out!” Her fingers had turned clumsy with fear, and the door handle refused to give. She pushed harder, trying to throw the force of her body against it. The cat, disturbed by all the activity, arched his back and spat, then sank his front claws into the man's thigh.
The man gave a yelp of pain and pushed at the animal. The cat yeowed and sank his claws deeper.
“Leave him alone,” Francesca shouted, turning her attention from the door to the assault on her cat. She slapped at the man's arm while the cat maintained its bloody grip on his leg, hissing and spitting all the time.
“Get him off me!” the man yelled. He threw up his elbow to defend himself and accidentally knocked the cigarette out of his mouth. Before he could catch it, the cigarette wedged itself inside the open collar of his shirt. He swatted at it with his hand, yelling again as the burning tip began to sear his skin.
His elbow hit the horn.
Francesca pounded on his chest.
The cat began to climb his arm.
“Get out of here!” he screamed.
She grabbed for the door handle. This time it gave, and as it swung open, she vaulted out, the cat springing after her.
“You're crazy, you know that, lady!” the man screamed, yanking the cigarette from his shirt with one hand and rubbing at his leg with the other.
She spotted her case, abandoned on the seat, and raced forward with her arm extended to claim it. He saw what she was doing and immediately slid across the seat to pull the door shut before she could reach it.
“Give me my case,” she yelled.
“Get it yourself!” He flipped her his middle finger, threw the car into gear, and hit the accelerator. The tires spun, spitting
out a great cloud of dust that immediately engulfed her.
“My case!” she yelled as he peeled away. “I need my case!” She began running after the Cadillac, choking in the dust and calling out. She ran until the car had faded to a small dot on the horizon. Then she collapsed to her knees in the middle of the road.
Her heart was pumping like a piston in her chest. She caught her breath and laughed, a wild, broken sound that was barely human. Now she'd done it. Now she'd really done it. And this time there was no good-looking blond savior to come to her rescue. A deep-throated rasp sounded next to her. She was alone except for a walleyed cat.
She started to shake and crossed her arms over her chest as if she could hold herself together. The cat wandered off to the side of the road and began picking its way delicately through the brush. A jackrabbit darted out from a clump of dried grass. She felt as if chunks of her body were flying away into the hot, cloudless sky—pieces of her arms and legs, her hair, her face.... Since she had come to this country, she had lost everything. Everything she owned. Everything she was. She had lost it all, and now she had lost herself....
Twisted verses from the Bible invaded her brain, verses half learned from long-forgotten nannies, something about Saul on the road to Damascus, struck down into the dirt, blinded and then reborn. At that moment Francesca wanted to be reborn. She felt the dirt beneath her hands and wanted a miracle that would make her new again, a miracle of biblical proportions... a divine voice calling down to her with a message. She waited, and she, who never thought to pray, began to pray. “Please, God... make a miracle for me. Please, God... send me a voice. Send me a messenger....”
Her prayer was fierce and strong, her faith—the faith of despair—immediate and boundless. God would answer her. God must answer her. She waited for her messénger to appear in white robes with a seraphic voice to point out the path to a new life. “I've learned my lesson, God. Really I have. I'll never be spoiled and selfish again.” She waited, eyes squeezed shut, tears making paths in the dust on her cheeks. She waited for the messenger to appear, and an image began to form in her mind, vague at first and then growing more solid. She strained to look into the dimmest corners of her consciousness, strained to peer at her messenger. She strained and saw...
Scarlett O'Hara.
She saw Scarlett lying in the dirt, silhouetted against a Technicolor hillside. Scarlett crying out, “As God is my witness, FU never go hungry again.”
Francesca choked on her tears and a hysterical bubble of laughter rose from her chest. She fell back onto her heels and slowly let the laughter consume her. How typical, she thought. And how appropriate. Other people prayed and got thunderbolts and angels. She got Scarlett O'Hara.
She stood up and started to walk, not knowing where she was going, just moving. The dust drifted like powder over her sandals and settled between her toes. She felt something in her back pocket and, reaching in to investigate, pulled out a quarter. She gazed down at the coin in her hand. Alone in a foreign country, homeless, possibly pregnant—mustn't forget that calamity waiting to happen—she stood in the middle of a Texas road with only the clothes on her back, twenty-five cents in her hand, and a vision of Scarlett O'Hara in her head.
A strange euphoria began to consume her—an audaciousness, a sense of limitless possibilities. This was America, land of opportunity. She was tired of herself, tired of what she had become, ready to begin anew. And in all the history of civilization, had anyone ever been given such an opportunity for a fresh start as she faced at this precise moment?
Black Jack's daughter looked down at the money in her hand, tested its weight for a moment, and considered her future. If this was to be a fresh start, she wouldn't carry any baggage from the past. Without giving herself a chance to reconsider, she drew back her arm and flung the quarter away.
The country was so vast, the sky so tall, that she couldn't even hear it land.
Chapter
17
Holly Grace sat on the green wooden bench at the driving range and watched Dallie hitting practice balls with his two-iron. It was his fourth basket of balls, and he was still slicing all his shots to the right—not a nice power fade but an ugly slice. Skeet was slouched down at the other end of the bench, his old Stetson pulled down over his eyes so he wouldn't have to watch.
“What's wrong with him?” Holly Grace asked, pushing her sunglasses up on top of her head. “I've seen him play with a hangover lots of times, but not like this. He's not even trying to correct himself; he's just hitting the same shot over and over.”
