92

Northeastern Oregon

Kaye walked back from the phone booth. They had parked in a strip mall parking lot in Bend to buy food at a market. Kaye had done the shopping and then had called Maria Konig. Mitch had stayed in the car with Stella.

“Arizona still hasn’t set up an Emergency Action Office,” Kaye said.

“What about Idaho?”

“They have one as of two days ago. Canada, too.”

Stella coo-whistled in her safety seat. Mitch had changed her a few minutes before and she usually performed for a short while afterward. He was almost getting used to her musical sounds. She was already adept at making two different notes at once, splitting one note away, raising and lowering it; the effect was uncannily like two theremins arguing. Kaye looked through the window. The baby seemed in another world, lost in discovering what sounds she could make.

“They stared at me in the market,” Kaye said. “I felt like a leper. Worse, like a nigger? She kicked out the word between clenched teeth. She shoved the grocery bag into the passenger seat and dug into it with a tense hand. “I took out money at the ATM and got food and then I got these,” she said, and pulled out bottles of makeup, foundation and powder. “For our dapples. I don’t know what I’ll do about her singing.”

Mitch got behind the wheel.

“Let’s go,” Kaye said, “before somebody calls the police.”

“It isn’t that bad,” Mitch said as he started the car.

“Isn’t it?” Kaye cried. “We’re marked\ If they find us, they’ll put Stella in a camp, for Christ’s sake! God knows what Augustine has planned for us, for all the parents. Get sharp, Mitch!”

Mitch pulled the car out of the parking lot in silence.

“I’m sorry,” Kaye said, her voice breaking. “I’m sorry, Mitch, but I’m so frightened. We have to think, we have to plan.”

Clouds followed them, gray skies and light rain without break. They crossed the border into California at night, pulled off onto a lonely dirt road, and slept in the car with rain drumming on the roof.

Kaye applied makeup to Mitch in the morning. He clumsily painted her face with foundation and she touched up in the rearview mirror.

“We’ll rent a room today in a motel,” Mitch said.

“Why take the risk?”

“We look pretty good, I think,” he said, smiling encouragement. “She needs a bath and so do we. We are not animals and I refuse to act like one.”

Kaye thought about this as she nursed Stella. “All right,” she said.

“We’ll go to Arizona, and then, if necessary, we’ll go to Mexico or even farther south. We’ll find someplace we can live until things get settled down.”

“When will that be?” Kaye asked softly.

Mitch did not know, so he did not answer. He drove back along the deserted farm road onto the highway. The clouds were breaking up now and brilliant morning light fell on the forests and fields of grass to either side of the highway.

“Sun!” said Stella, and waved her fists lustily.