"Underwear, exactly! The same with me. What does that say about girls on the run? With me it's not hard to figure outbeing clean again. Taking a shower, then putting on fresh underpants and a bra is always a total psychic lift. Sounds silly, but it never fails to make me feel new again. And I definitely needed to feel new after what'd been going on those last weeks.

"I drove into Glenside about nine that night. First thing I did was cruise by our house, but no lights were on and no car was in the driveway. It brought me way down. If only the place had been lit up like it was when I was young. Walking home in the winter after volleyball practice when you were tired and cold, you'd come over the hill at Teresa Schueller's house and there was your home, lit up and warmlooking, the yellow porch lights on in front, maybe smoke coming out of the chimney. Mom would be in the living room reading her book till you came in, we'd kiss, and she'd go to the kitchen to finish cooking dinner now that everyone was home...

"She was dead and my father was probably down at the Masonic Hall with his buddies or with a dull woman who was as sad and stupid as him. Driving there, I thought I'd had no expectations other than to see the place and then move on to wherever the rest of my life would happen. But there was our house and it was dark, smaller than I remembered, and the bushes in front had been cut down so low they had no more shape. Those stumpy bushes started me crying, and I peeled out of there like a kid in a drag race.

"I drove to a bar in town and was there about fifteen minutes when a guy named Mark Elsen came up and said hi. Mark was one of those sweet guys from high school who are kind of drippy but have a crush on you. Most of them go into the Army after graduation, but eventually end up back in town afterward running the family appliance store. In school I knew he liked me and would come over to talk whenever he got up the nerve. He was actually rather goodlooking and nice, but dull as an empty cardboard box.

"On the other hand, who was I to talk? There I was at the bar, ladies and gentlemen, Miss Lily Vincent, half a day away from a marvelous life as a burntout, dopedup loser who'd spent last night in a stranger's bed as baksheesh for a drug deal, most likely.

"Mark was probably both the best and the worst person I could have b.u.mped into that night on the face of the earth. He was so delighted to see me, so happy I'd come home and we'd b.u.mped into each other. I felt adored ."

"Wasn't that good for your ego?"

"Yes, for about an hour, but then reality came back, and no matter what he thought, I knew who I was and how close the demons were."To make matters worse, I did the most pathetic thing and could not stop myself. He kept asking what I was up to in 'the Big Apple.' He kept referring to it like that, like he was hip too 'cause he knew the nickname. Which only made him more heartbreaking. 'So what's going on with you up in the Big Apple? Acting school, huh? Got a Hollywood contract yet?' Not an ounce of cynicism in the way he said it. He a.s.sumed I was already a great success and would be out in L.A. knocking 'em dead in no time.

Know what I did? Started lying. Told him the most outrageous whoppers and fantasies. Like I was in this elite acting cla.s.s at NYU taught by Dustin Hoffman. I was going to be in an Andy Warhol film soon, and I hung around the Factory with Lou Reed... It embarra.s.ses me even now to think about it. Later he admitted he didn't know half the people I'd mentioned, but it sounded tremendous. That was his word: tremendous. Whatever I said, he'd say, 'Tremendous, Lily. That's tremendous.' He bought me drinks and a steak sandwich while I slung the bulls.h.i.t. He kept shaking his head and saying 'tremendous,' like he couldn't get over my magnificence. Such a nice guy. I didn't have to do that. He thought I was great without any fluff. I could just as easily have cried on his shoulder and told him what was really happening.

He would've been sympathetic."

"You said those lies for yourself, not him. You wanted life to be the way you described it. It was a performance. For him, you were the actor in the Warhol film, the girl who knocked them dead in New York. Nothing wrong with that."

"No, nothing wrong. Sad. Endoftheline sad. It got so bad that he was asking me what Warren Beatty was like. I sat there with a cigarette in my hand, looking off into deep s.p.a.ce like I was seriously considering his question, and said, 'I like him, but I know people who don't.' "

That made me laugh. Lily joined in and it was as if a wave of relief flooded over us both in the dark nervous bedroom. I knew what was coming, knew we were moving toward it like the top of a long staircase, but this laughter now let us stop and catch our breath before the last push.

"It is funny, isn't it? We talked for another couple of hours and got a little drunk. Not much, but enough to make him more impressed and me more daring. I was the one who suggested we go out and take a drive somewhere. Out in the parking lot, he asked if I'd like to go in his car. When I said yes, he pointed to a brandnew Camaro Z28. A really beautiful, soupedup thing that sounded like a jet plane when he started it. I remember 'Z28 ' because it sounded so technical and dangerous, like a weapon, but when I asked Mark what it meant, he didn't know.

"We drove around and he told me more about what'd been going on in town since I'd left: who married who, who moved away, what stores had changed, smalltown news. You think you don't care about that once you've left and are out in the big world, but when you hear it you're fascinated.

"We ended up at Dairy Queen eating banana splits. Mark kept asking about different famous people he was sure I knew. Oh, the tales I told! How he ate them up. You're right, it was a performance and I loved it. I remember him listening so intently that he held a spoonful of ice cream in front of his face for minutes, not eating it because he was too enthralled with what I was saying. That handsome face, his mouth hanging open like a kid's, chocolate sauce dripping onto the table." She went silent, sighed, cleared her throat. "I put my hand over his and said I wanted to f.u.c.k him."

"You didn't! That's bad."

"Sssh. Let me talk. I thought: What the h.e.l.l, I'm going to act this out to its total end both for me and for him. We got back in his car and I told him to drive to the parking lot behind the high school.

There were famous town rumors and jokes about people doing it back there, but you knew none of them were true, because it was too dangerous; the police patrolled the area about five times a night. They followed no fixed schedule, so no one ever knew when they'd come next. Mark knew what I was getting at and got scared. He didn't want to go, but I said either there or no place, deal's off. If he'd said no, and was more scared of the cops than hot to have me, it would've been the crowning blow to my ego.

As it was, he hesitated a long time before turning the car around and going back. But that was the whole point of telling him to go there! It had to be dangerous, there had to be risk involved. Who'd remember just another f.u.c.k at the end of a dark country road? I wanted it to be a solidgold memory. One that'd make him chuckle and shake his head when he was fiftyeight and sitting on a porch with arthritis and not much else. How many of those do we have?""I've noticed something. You keep using the word 'f.u.c.k.' That's not a 'you' word. Plus, you make it sound like you're trying to club something with it. 'Who'd remember just another f.u.c.k' Why are you talking like that?"

"Because that's what this wasf.u.c.king. f.u.c.khard, fast, get to the point and then get off. Men like to f.u.c.k. f.u.c.k and come. That's what I wanted to do with Markf.u.c.k him like he'd never had it before, and then disappear in a puff of smoke. A dream come true and gone a moment later before any of its glitter fell. Let him remember me that way. This one night in the back seat of his new car behind the school when he finally got to f.u.c.k Lily Vincent and she was a firecracker deluxe."

"Were you a firecracker?"

"More! As soon as we got there, I straddled him and took my clothes off as s.e.xily as I knew how.

When he reached out to touch me, I wouldn't let him, because I wanted him like corn in hot oil. Know how it sizzles and dances around in the pan right before it explodes into popcorn? I wanted him scrinching around in the seat and going crazy with s.e.x for me. I wanted someone to want me ! And he did."

"Were you wonderful?"

"I was."

"Were you turned on?"

"A little toward the end. But no, not much. It was too much like gymnastics. I was working too hard to make him hot and think he was driving me crazy."

"I'm jealous."

I heard her turn. Her voice was high and excited when she spoke. "Really? Why? It was so long ago and I was faking the whole thing."

"Because jealousy is greed. I want it all and don't want to share any of it ever. Sometimes when I think about it, I'm jealous of the men in your past and what they did with you. I'd like to go back and take all of the kisses and f.u.c.ks away from them and keep them for myself."

"That's nice, Max. I never thought of it that way."

"I do. Go on, firecracker."

"Well, we did it a couple of times and I think I was satisfying. You asked before if it was good and I said a little, but that's untrue. It was good because I threw myself into it totally. I licked him and kissed him and hugged and groaned. At first, I was thinking: What else will make him hot, what else'll make him howl at the moon? But you get caught up in it, even when it's a performance. I liked it and it was good.

"When we were totally exhausted and done, we got dressed and sat there not speaking. After counting slowly to a hundred, I said I wanted him to go now and leave me here. I wanted to walk back through town alone to my car. He was flabbergasted. Go away? How could I say such a thing after what had happened? I started growing impatient, wanting to be out of his car and alone again. He said he loved me, and besides, how could I have done it so wonderfully if I didn't feel anything for him? I didn't answer, but began to resent him although the whole spiel had been my doing. He got desperate and asked, was it a time thing? It had happened so quickly and spontaneously, was it just that I needed some time alone to sort out what'd happened? Luckily he supplied that excuse to escape, because I was in no mood or shape to cook one up. Yes, you're right, Mark, I am confused and want to be alone to think.

That calmed him. Ever since then I've wondered what would have happened if he had said no. Just been strong and absolutely insisted I stay with him the rest of the night. But old sweetie Mark Elson didn't do it. Instead, he got out of the car and raced around to open my door. We kissed goodbye. He pulled me close and out in the middle of that big empty parking lot whispered, 'What's going on, Lily?' Which was a bull'seye question, because I hadn't the slightest idea, and had come today hoping to find a way home.

Or else I did know what was going on: me breaking apart, faster than the speed of light. I pushed him away and started running in the opposite direction. He called me, but when I didn't stop, he yelled out, 'I'll be at the store tomorrow, if you need me!' I needed him, all right. I needed everyone in the whole world holding one of those giant firemen's nets people fall into when they jump from a burning building.

But it was too late."

"Why? Why was it too late?""Because by then I was so far gone, I was jumping from every corner of the building, not just one.

They wouldn't have had enough nets to catch me.

"Running felt good. As I moved, for half an instant I considered going home and asking Dad to let me spend the night. What a laugh! Home, Sweet, Dark Home.

"I could feel Mark's warm sperm begin to run down the inside of my leg. I thought of babies. All those Markbabies that would never be. No babies would ever come out of me. The sickness and the scars had put an end to that. Another possibility down, how many more to go? It had been so long since I'd thought of children. This was the town where I'd been a child, but I was running from it now, running from my life, running out of life, and knowing there was nothing to run to. I would never be able to create life. It hit me so hard then.

"I ran and ran. It was about three miles from school back to the bar but I got there fast. Gasping, I hopped into the car and started it up. It bucked backward into a retaining wall because I'd forgotten to take it out of gear when I turned it off. That lurch scared me into clearness a little. I put my hands on my face and rubbed up and down till it got hot. Then I started the motor again and drove slowly out of the lot.

"It was still dark when I left, but morning birds were singing. I started crying as I pa.s.sed by different places in town. I said goodbye to them. Bye, library, Beaver College, Marilyn Zodda's house.

Some were important, others only part of my life's map. They were all about to disappear forever. I knew I'd never go back there, so this was it. Byebye, Howard Johnson's. I actually rolled down the window and waved at that stupid restaurant! Bye, fried clams and cigarettes after school there with Marilyn and Lynda Jones in our favorite booth. Bones Jones. Goodbye goodbye goodbye. Boomend of Glenside days. I rolled out on that highway and drove .

"Until the car died an hour later. Smoke began pouring out from under the hood and, poof, it stopped. I was calm, rolled it onto the shoulder and turned it off. It was a beautiful morning. I got out and stood beside the car while the sun came up over those hazy blue fields. Not many cars drove by but that was okay because I didn't feel like flagging one down yet. I a.s.sumed the Opel was a goner, which meant I'd have to start out again some other way. The idea left me blank.

"A truck driver pulled over and took me to the next town. I got a mechanic at a gas station to come back and look. Amazingly, it was only a broken fan belt, a ninedollar repair. Plus, the man had the part with him in his van. I should've been ecstatic, but when he told me, I had nothing to say. He must have thought I was a zombie. A zombie who was suddenly hungry. While he worked on the car, I asked if there was a good place to get breakfast in town. He recommended the Garamond Grill."

"Garamond? Garamond, Pennsylvania?" This was it: Brendan Wade Meier was kidnapped there.

"Do you know the town?"

"No, but I know what you did there."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean Garamond. I mean Anwen and Gregory Meier and their son Brendan, age about nine and a half now. Last seen in a baby carriage outside a store at the Garamond Shopping Plaza. I know what you did, Lily, I know you kidnapped him ." I turned on the light next to the bed and lay back down.

Closing my eyes, I told her how I'd gone through the house after her bizarre and suspicious behavior when Lincoln was in the hospital. How I'd found her newspaper clippings about the Meiers and hired the detective to investigate. Then about my trip East, meeting the desolate couple, being shot at on the New Jersey Turnpike.

It was my turn to talk. I didn't care about backseat f.u.c.ks, Marilyn Zodda, or twentyoneyearolds having nervous breakdowns. They were momentous to Lily, the stars making up the constellation of her life. Telling me was her way of positioning them, ordering their past chaos so they would make sense for both of us.

But I didn't care, because I knew things now that she didn't. In the end, it came down to a fundamental fact: She had kidnapped her son. Torn open the fabric of sanity and reached deep into the darkness behind it for an act she thought would save her from falling into that dark altogether. The horrors we're capable of doing to save ourselves.In itself, it made everything else in life, much less her story, supremely unimportant.

Later in pa.s.sing, in anecdotes, in latenight confessions and midday conversations, I heard the rest of the story. She fled with the infant across Pennsylvania, often with it on her lap, the hum and b.u.mping of the car over the roads a natural rockabyebaby that kept it quiet or gurgling happily. It liked to shake its hands or take her little finger in its mouth and suck noisily. It, he (it was a while before she thought of the child as a boy) enjoyed music and often jiggled frantically when rock and roll was on the radio.

She "christened" him Lincoln after a week on the road. To pa.s.s the time while driving, she thought for hours about different men's names. Twice when the weather got nasty she stopped at a cheap motel and spent a contented evening scanning local phone books and newspapers for names, then saying interesting ones aloud to herself and the child nearby on the bed. But "Lincoln Vincent" didn't sound good. Since she had to change her last name now, she decided to find one that fit well with "Lincoln."

"Aaron" came to her somewhere near Pepper Pike, Ohio.

At first she had driven west as fast as possible without breaking the speed limit. However, once across the border into Ohio, she moseyed around the back roads of the state, each morning poring over a map and then aiming toward towns whose names interested her: Mingo Junction, Tipp City, Wyoming.

After buying the car, Lily began the trip with a little over six hundred dollars. She tried to spend it carefully, but there was gas and food and so many things to buy for Lincoln that her money was gone in three weeks. She stopped in Gambier, Ohio, and took a job at a combined occult bookstore/head shop that catered to Kenyon College students. She told the hippie who owned the place she was running from a junkie husband back East who beat her. The boss said only, "b.u.mmer," and allowed her to bring the child to work. She rented a tiny apartment near campus and, when not working, learned how to take care of a baby.

From the beginning, people were kind and accommodating. She didn't know if that was because her luck had changed or because they saw how happy she was with her radiant, chuckling child. Joy brings you quickly into the hearts of others. She knew what she'd done was monstrous, but she'd never been so happy. Her life had two exclusive purposes now which, miraculously, played against each other wonderfully and excitingly: she was a new mother, she was a criminal.

Lincoln and Lily Aaron lived in Gambier almost two years. The small college town was the perfect place for them. It was rural but stimulating, liberal and diverse enough so that a pretty young single mother and her toddler didn't raise eyebrows. Of course, she was careful about what she said. If pressed, only with the greatest reluctance would she tell the story of husband Rick back in New York who'd caused them to flee in the first place.

When the bookstore went broke after a year, she began working as day manager and hostess at a steak house in town. That meant putting Lincoln in a daycare center, but the one in Gambier was a lovely lightfilled place, full of teachers overflowing with a leftover 1960sish enthusiasm for the care and education of young children. At the same time, Lily was able to learn more about a business she had really grown to love. She made friends and for a short time had a boyfriend who was an exchange student from Vietnam. He was gentle and smart and an extraordinarily good lover. When he suggested she go back to New York, divorce Rick Aaron, and return to marry him, she left Ohio instead.

On a hot, quiet Sat.u.r.day in August when everyone was out of town or inside hiding from the sun, she and her stolen child got into the loaded Opel (which had been checked and tuned for the occasion) and drove away. She told Lincoln they were going on an adventure to someplace new and different, and if they liked it there, they'd stay. That was fine with him, so long as she was around. Whether it came from not knowing his father or an inherently unsure nature, Lincoln did not like to be separated from Lily for long. It was all right at the daycare center because he liked the people there and it was clear they liked him. But his mother was the undisputed center of his universe. It didn't matter if he liked life here: if Mom said it was time to go and it would be fun where they were going, he was the first one in the car. So long as she was there, so long as he knew she was always an arm's length away, it was okay.

They drove north because of a man she had learned about and contacted in Milwaukee who could create false papers and pa.s.sports for her and the child. Not having been near a big city for two years, she found the clash and clamor of it jarring. Once the forged papers were ready they headed north again,ending up in Appleton, Wisconsin. Lawrence University was there, and although it was a much larger town than Gambier, she liked it and they stayed.

Portland, Oregon, was the last stop before the Aaron family landed in Los Angeles three years ago. Almost immediately after arriving, she saw an ad in the L.A. Weekly for a job in a restaurant. It had been placed by Ibrahim Safid.

"Why didn't you tell me you knew?"

"Lily, if you were in my position, what would you have done?"

"Run away long ago. But that's because I've been running for ten years. The slightest blip on the screen and I'm outta there." Naked, she sat in the lotus position facing me. "Have you told anyone?"

"No one. Look at me! Believe that: I've told no one."

"All right. What can I say, I have to believe it. What are you going to do, Max? I cannot believe this; you know . You know about it. What are you going to do?"

I put a hand on her throat and gently pushed her back down. Lifting myself, I climbed on top and, spreading her legs with a knee, slipped very carefully inside her v.a.g.i.n.a. Her eyes widened but she didn't speak. I pushed until I was as deep as I could go, then moved her arms over her head and covered them with my own. Silently, we lay like that for some time. The moment and the knowledge between us transcended s.e.x, yet I was very hard. Her mouth was to my ear when she spoke barely above a whisper.

"I love you. No matter what you do to us, or me, know I love you more than I've ever loved anyone."

"I do know that."

"It's so tragic. This is all I ever wanted from life: you here, Lincoln sleeping in his room. I was just praying, but stopped because I didn't know what for. Praying you won't tell, praying you'll never stop loving me. It's all mixed up. And who am I to pray? What G.o.d do I go to for help? People say they want justice, but that's not true. We only want things to work for us and no one else. Even now, a big part of me keeps saying I don't deserve this 'cause I'm a nice person. I do good things for others. Isn't that crazy? Isn't that sick? Oh, Max, what are you going to do? Do you know?"

"Yes. I'm going to marry you and try to be a good father to Lincoln."

"Oh G.o.d. Oh G.o.d." She began breathing oddly, as if she were panting. Our faces were inches away and we stared into each other's eyes. Neither of us smiled, there was no joy in or near us. No matter how much she hoped for it, I don't think she was prepared for what I had said. Keeping her unforgivable secret meant giving up most of what I believed.

"You would do that? You'd do that for me?"

"Yes, Lily. It wasn't a hard decision to make."

She wrapped me in her arms and, rocking us from side to side, started saying, "Oh G.o.d. Oh G.o.d," again.

PART THREE. BEE HEES FOREVER.

"Let us cover, O Silent One, with a sheet of fine linen, the stiff, dead profile of our imperfection."

Fernando Pessoa.

Mary and I watched the three of them cross the front lawn and walk toward the house.

"How old is Lincoln now?"

"He'll be seventeen in a few weeks."

"Good Lord, that's all? He looks a hundred."

"I know."

"Good, clean living will do it every time, huh, Max?"

If it had been anyone else, I would have snapped back something mean, but Mary did not need more meanness. Her husband had died two months before and, tough as she appeared, her core was melting down toward pure hopelessness."What does his Tshirt say? Am I reading what I think I'm reading?"

" 'f.u.c.k DancingLet's f.u.c.k.' It's one of his favorites."

"Oh, Max, you let him walk out of the house in that?"

"No. He walked out of the house wearing something different this morning. Probably had the shirt in his bag and changed at school. We used to fight about these things, but he wised up and does it all different now. Diversionary tactics; the art of the end run. Never, ever argue, but if you don't like what's said, figure out a detour around that lets you do exactly what you want. Our son is an expert sneak."

"And the leather jacket is Elvis Packard?"

"Right. The girl is Little White."

"Why does that name sound so sinister? She looks like a woodp.e.c.k.e.r. What does her shirt say?"

" 'Nine Inch Nails.' That's a rock group, in case you don't have their alb.u.m."