Free I'd Know You Anywhere: A Novel by Laura Lippman Page B

time. I can’t wait for the morning paper anymore, or even CNN. I hate how swiftly the world moves now, how glib everyone has become. We need to think more, not more quickly. Someone—the secretary of state, administration officials—will be on all the news programs tomorrow, delivering up these great gobs of sound bites, and people will be blogging like mad. It’s not productive. Foreign policy is too nuanced, too steeped in centuries of history to be reduced to banal homilies. This isn’t a partisan position,” she said, almost as if rehearsing her own talking points. “It’s an intellectual one. These issues must be addressed with gravitas.”
    Eliza didn’t disagree. She felt the same way, only her concernswere domestic. The world was moving too swiftly, although it was strange to hear that complaint from caffeinated Vonnie. Iso and Albie were growing up too fast, Peter’s new job gobbled up twelve, fourteen hours a day, in exchange for promises that they might be rich, truly rich, within a year or two.
    Her own days, however, were molasses slow. They were full, with places to go and things to do, and she was exhausted at the end of them. But they trundled along like dinosaurs. The sauropod or the stegosaurus, which, according to Albie, were the slowest of the dinosaurs.
    After listening sympathetically to her sister for another fifteen minutes, agreeing with virtually everything she said, Eliza begged off, saying she was tired. Yet she remained at the computer, writing. She was self-aware enough to realize that it was not incidental that she suddenly found the words she wanted to write to Walter. She was still at the computer when Peter returned an hour later, although she quickly closed the file, reluctant to discuss the matter again this evening, even with his sympathetic ear. She was, she decided, Waltered-out.

10
    1985
    SHE HAD NEVER GONE to the bathroom outside before. She knew it was an odd point on which to fixate, given what was happening to her, but it was embarrassing. She tried to persuade the man that she would behave if he would allow her to use a restroom at a gas station or fast-food place, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He wasn’t harsh or cruel. He simply shook his head and said, “No, that won’t work.”
    They had been in the truck about three hours at this point. He had stopped and gassed up, but he had pumped his own gas and told her beforehand that it would be a bad idea for her to try to get out. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, as if she werein control, as if her behavior would determine what he did. He pulled the passenger side of the truck very close to the pump; if she opened the door, there would barely be room for her to squeeze out, and even then, she would be between the door and the hose. Of course, she could go out the other way, the driver’s side. As the gas pump clicked away—it was an older pump, at a dusty, no-name place, and the dollars mounted slowly, cent by cent—she tested his reactions, leaning slowly toward the left. He was at the driver’s-side door faster than she would have thought possible.
    â€œYou need something?”
    â€œI was going to change the radio station.”
    â€œIt isn’t on,” he pointed out. “I don’t leave the key in the ignition when I pump gas. I knew a guy, once, he left his key in the ignition and the car blew up. He was a fireball, running in circles.”
    â€œI was going to change it for later,” she said, almost apologetically. Why did she feel guilty about switching a radio station? He had kidnapped her. But the odd thing about this man was that he didn’t act as if he were doing anything wrong. He reminded her a little of Vonnie in that way, especially when they were younger. Vonnie would do something cruel, then profess amazement at Elizabeth’s reaction, focusing on some small misdeed by Elizabeth to excuse her