Dolores began to hum two notes over and over. It was something she did when she could feel her heart beating too fast. She was going to have to decide what to do but she couldn’t think in here with the TV and Leonard scratching his head and laughing too loud in all the wrong places. She grunted as she leaned over and picked up the cups from the floor and then she pulled herself to her feet and shuffled away as fast as her swollen legs would carry her.
Back in her room, she tore a sheet from the steno pad Dr. Bradford gave her at their first session. She was supposed to be using it for a journal, writing about all the times she felt angry and all the times she felt sad. But the pages were mostly empty and every time he asked her about it she just hummed a bit andstared at the floor while he gripped the desk so hard his fingers went white.
She reached between the mattress and the box spring and fished out a silver pen she’d found on Dr. Bradford’s desk one day when he was looking at something in her file. After scribbling a few words on the paper, she reached into the crevice under the radiator where she’d hidden the blank stamped envelope she’d found a few weeks ago at the nursing station when the matron had gone to the bathroom. She addressed it to Bryce Campion, Three Crowns Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, and then tucked it into the zippered compartment of her bag. They were releasing her to the group home tomorrow and she’d be able to slip out and mail it once the social worker was through talking to her. She sat on the edge of the bed for a minute or two and then reached behind the radiator again to check the money hidden in there. She liked to think of it as her nest egg. That’s what her grandmother had called the money in the cookie tin she kept high up on the shelf over the icebox. Dolores had stood on a chair and reached for the tin one day when she thought her grandmother was lying down in the next room. It slipped out of her fingers, and the coins had clattered to the floor. Her grandmother had shot into the room and yanked the chair right out from under Dolores making her crack her head on the table as she fell. The social worker had asked how she’d hurt herself, but she never said. Not that time. Not ever.
Dolores stepped out of the cool of the Greyhound Bus Terminal onto South Main and caught her breath. The noise and heat and brilliant sunshine jumbled together inside her head and made it hard to think clearly. She shuffled a few blocks before she dropped her pack onto the sidewalk and leaned against the wall of an office building. She put both hands behind her and pushed hard against the wall, feeling the stucco bite into her fingers, trying to read the bumps as if they were Braille. She took a deep breath and tried to think about the mantra Dr. Bradford had taught her, but sounds and images were jittering around in her mind so fast she couldn’t remember how it began. After a while she rummaged in her bag for a jam jar of water and with a fewsips she felt strong enough to push away from the wall and pick up her pack again. She stood for a moment and tried to get her bearings. In her letter she’d described the donut shop where he should meet her. It was one she’d discovered last year when she’d come here to be with him. But she didn’t want to think about that time and had to hum very loud to keep it out of her head only the trouble with that was it kept the location of the donut shop out of her head as well. But it was on the Strip, that much she could remember, so she set off again humming even louder to take her mind off her heartbeat and her sore ankles.
When she’d gone to the group home the social worker had watched her unpack her bag and fold things into the dresser drawer. Dolores smiled, remembering how easy it had been to push everything back in the bag and drop it from the window the next day. When she walked out the front door she’d called to Stella, who was in the kitchen making lunch, and told her she was just going for a walk and then she’d gone around back, picked up her pack and walked to the bus terminal. It took most of her nest egg to buy the one-way ticket.
Dolores walked on, stumbling a bit every once in a while, holding onto the walls of buildings when she was afraid she might fall. She thought about Dr. Bradford and how he made everything he said sound like he was talking to a child. “Doris,” he’d said, always calling her Doris even though she’d corrected him so many times. “Doris, sometimes people think they have a connection to people they’ve never met. Especially celebrities. Some even believe they’re married to well-known men like Bryce Campion.” He’d looked sad when he said it, like it was one of the big tragedies of the world. “You understand you’re not married to him, don’t you?” He’d twisted his pencil between his lips, making it squeak and then he’d pulled it out with a wet popping sound and leaned forward, trying to catch her eye. “You can get rid of this obsession, Doris. You have the power to make yourself better.” She’d had to hum hard into her pillow that night, remembering the little frown between his eyebrows that made an upside-down V like the pitched roof on her grandmother’s hen house. But she didn’t really blame Dr. Bradford. He didn’t know any better. He hadn’t seen the look Bryce had given her that night in the movie theatre. He hadn’t been there the night Bryce had asked her to marry him. She couldstill remember it as clear as day. She was sitting in the second row and he was looking down at her from the shiny, pebbly screen. There was a hurt look on his face, as though afraid she’d refuse. “Dolores,” he’d said, “Marry me, Dolores. Please.” She’d said yes right there, out loud. Some people in the audience laughed, but she didn’t care. He’d said the words she’d been waiting to hear all her adult life. After that she’d watched every movie he ever made. And she’d gone to the library and looked through all the movie and entertainment magazines in hopes of finding a photo of him. When they stopped making musical films he’d taken a job in Las Vegas, singing in one of the smaller hotels. And she’d gone along last year to be with him. But it hurt to think about that right now.
She’d managed to make her way to the area known as the Strip with its confusing jumble of moving lights and jangly music that hurt her head. The pack was scraping against her so she put it down on the sidewalk and slumped onto it, splaying out her legs.
“Hey, watch it.” A young girl veered around her, her roller blades screeching on the sidewalk just inches from Dolores’s worn plastic thongs. The girl flipped her hair and a barrette dropped to the sidewalk.
“Watch it yourself,” she shouted back, scooping up the barrette and running her fingers along its surface. It was just the right size to fit into one of the fluted paper cups she had stacked in her bag. She shoved it into a side pocket and struggled to her feet again. She had to find the donut shop fast in case Bryce was waiting for her. She stared along the Strip, humming to keep her heart from pounding. It was packed with people looking in shops and restaurants, but they weren’t looking at her so that was okay. She walked on, stumbling a bit with fatigue and confusion and then she spotted it, just a little way down a little side street, nestled between an adult video store and a newspaper shop.
It was wonderfully cool inside. She dropped her bag into a booth and peeled a couple of dollars from what was left of the nest egg in her pocket. A young man with acne and a tattoo of an alligator on his left arm took her order for three chocolate glazed and a large coffee and then, balancing her meal in both hands, she squeezed between the moulded chair and table andbegan the serious business of eating. Dr. Bradford would have a fit if he saw her. He’d handed her some diet sheets at one of their last sessions and made her promise to read them. Easy for him to eat all those fruits and vegetables, half of which she’d never even heard of. He didn’t have to live on the little bit of money she got from welfare.
“Mind if I share your table?” A young woman with black hair swept back into a wide red ribbon made Dolores jump. She looked around the restaurant but almost all the other tables were empty.