"Are you sure there's nothing else we can do?" Brad asked.
The woman shook her head. "I'll be fine. I'm sure I'll be able to get work soon, even though I don't have a permanent address. My friend Christie told me I could use their address for a reference, and I'm sure she'll pick up whatever mail I get there. If I can do that, I'll be able to get a job-even a temp job-and move into a motel or something until I can get back on my feet"
Lisa offered the woman a smile. "I'm glad we could help. Good luck to you."
The woman smiled for the first time; it was a beautiful smile." hank you"
"Your baby's name is Mandy?" Lisa asked.
"Yes" The woman nodded. "Amanda Jane." "
'That's a pretty name."
Mank you."
"What's your name?"
"Alicia."
Lisa smiled. "I'm Lisa, and this is my husband, Brad."
Brad smiled and offered his hand. Alicia shook it. "Thank you," she said. "Both of you." "
"Take care, okay?" Lisa said, taking Brad's hand.
"1 will.,
*Will you be able to get a place tonight?" Brad asked, glancing at the baby in the car seat. "There's a motel across the street, you know."
Alicia nodded. "1 think so. For the past two nights, Mandy and I have been sleeping in my car. It's that blue Datsun over there." She pointed and Lisa saw it, parked ten feet from them, the back of it filled with suitcases and clothes. "I've been parking on Douglas Street off Ventura Boulevard. Its nice and quiet there. Thank God it's summer."
"Yeah, really," Lisa said. She smiled at Alicia again. "Well, good luck to you, and take care of your baby.'
"I will," Alicia said. "Thank you."
Brad and Lisa turned and headed back toward their car.
They were silent on the drive back to the freeway. Once they had merged back into traffic, Lisa broke the silence. "'chat was so sad"
"I know."
'Part of me wishes that we had done something more to help her,' Lisa said. 'I felt so sorry for her.'
"Me too. I almost didn't want to at first, but… well…"
'She really needed help. You could tell."
"Yes" Brad kept his eyes on the road ahead of him, hands on the steering wheel.
Lisa thought about her own baby that was now growing inside her. The minute she had seen Alicia and her baby, she immediately thought of helping and protecting the baby more than the mother. But then she saw that Alicia was truly a woman who was down-and-out, a woman who, through circumstances beyond her control, had been dumped on the streets with no support and a baby to take care of. She hoped the money they gave Alicia today would help. "I hope they'll be okay," she said.
"Me too," Brad said.
They headed north, and after five minutes the plight of Alicia and her baby daughter were forgotten.
Two
They noticed the van shortly after they pulled out of the rest stop.
They had pulled over at the rest stop just inside the Ventura County limits for bathroom breaks and a quick rest before heading on the road again. The hour-anda-half drive from North Hollywood where they had met up with Alicia and her infant daughter had been spent mostly in silence.
The radio station they were listening to, alternative rock station KROQ, was now fizzling in static, so five minutes into arriving at the rest stop Lisa had put in a Blondie CD. Brad had thought about Alicia for about thirty minutes after leaving her and the baby, and for the last forty minutes or so had been thinking about the long weekend ahead of them. The bathroom breaks were a long time coming, and upon meeting outside the lavatories, they meandered over to a picnic area with tables and benches. They shot a couple of photos of each other for posterity, including one photograph of Lisa posing by a sign warning of the dangers of rattlesnakes, which were plentiful in the area. Then they got back into the Lexus and continued on toward their destination.
Brad switched lanes to pass a slow-moving car towing a trailer in the slow lane. Lisa was consulting the map. 'Looks like we've got another two hours."
"Piece of cake," Brad said, as they climbed the hill.
"Its so nice up here. I wonder iI
"What the hell is this sonofabitch doing?"
Lisa looked over her shoulder. The entire rear window of their Lexus was filled with the metallic grille of a red van. Brad's grip on the steering wheel tightened. "What the fuck is wrong with people? I'm already doing seventy and this guy has the whole fucking road to pass me!"
"Let him pass us if he wants to get around."
"That's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm not speeding up for him.'
They reached the crest of the hill, and Brad took his foot off the accelerator as they wound down Interstate 5. They picked up speed, creeping to eighty. Some cars continued whizzing past at ninety or faster. Brad checked his rearview mirror, saw that it was dear, and moved back into the slow lane, his foot tapping the brake to slow down a little. The van stayed on his tail, moving to the slow lane right on his back bumper.
"You motherfucker." Brad's foot was riding the brake. His heart was pounding rapidly as his eyes darted from the rearview mirror to the road ahead of him. Their speed dropped gradually to seventy, then sixty. The van receded slightly, then sped up and tailgated them again. It was hard to see the driver through the tinted glass of his windshield, but Brad already had a mental image of him: Judging by the vehicle, he was probably another repressed, thirtysomething hothead with an ax to grind because Brad wasn't going fast enough to suit his needs. He can fuck off as far as I'm concerned. Brad thought.
"What is this guy's problem?" Lisa wondered, craning her neck to look out the rear window
"I don't know You have the cell phone with us?"
"Yeah. Think we should call the police?"
"I don't know. Let's see what he does first."
"Maybe we should pull over."
"Why? So he can pull up behind us and shoot us or something?"
Lisa opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked scared. Brad was scared himself. His mind retraced the last few minutes frantically, trying to reconnect with something that might explain why this guy was dogging their every step. Had he cut anybody off? No. When he'd passed the slow-moving car a few miles back, there hadn't been anybody in the lane next to him at all, otherwise he wouldn't have made the move. But then the guy had almost seemed to materialize out of nowhere right after he made the lane change. He must have been flying along at a hundred miles per hour, which would explain why Brad wouldn't have seen him when he checked his rear- and sideview mirrors. The guy had been coming up so fast that he hadn't been in the mirrors when Brad checked, then he was there the minute Brad made the lane change. Which means now the fuckhead behind the wheel was pissed off.
"Christ," Brad muttered, his knuckles white as his hands gripped the steering wheel. "Just what I need is some enraged asshole on my tail because he feels slighted over some stupid traffic dispute."
"He's pulling back," Lisa said.
Brad glanced in his rearview mirror. Sure enough, the van had pulled back to a more respectable distance. The afternoon sun glinted in the sky, reflecting off the van's windshield. Brad released a long sigh and felt better. "As long as he stays back there," he said.
They were silent for a moment as they reached the bottom of the hill and continued on, Interstate 5 stretching out before them like a long, black snake. It was a three lane highway, bisected by a median strip of grass that separated the north and southbound lanes. Traffic was moderate. Brad kept the Lexus at a safe and legal sixtyfive and stayed in his lane. No sense trying to play speed racer now. As long as they reached the hotel in one piece, that was all that mattered.