Free Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos Page A

sleeping woman, she ran out of the room. When she had gulped in enough air to speak, Clare called herself a cab.
    She had the driver pick her up in her next-door neighbors’ driveway. The Cohens were a couple in their late sixties, who spent their winters on a Caribbean island the name of which they made a big deal about keeping secret, but which Mr. Cohen had once told Clare because he liked her so much. “Keep it under your hat, sis,” he’d said, winking. “If the whole town starts showing up, we’ll have to find a new place.” This made Clare wonder what the Cohens did down there that they didn’t want their neighbors to find out about. But, except for writing the name down in her notebook, Clare did keep it under her hat. The Cohens were away now, but there were some men replacing slate shingles on their roof. One of the men waved at Clare. He was young, with a tan face and yellow hair like a surfer, and Clare thought someone so summery looking must be especially cold up there on the roof. She waved back.
    The cab driver was a tiny person sitting in the center of an enormous puffed-up parka. He looked too young to be driving, but Clare saw his cabbie license posted on the little window that separated the back and front seats, so she asked him to take her to the bank downtown. During the drive they didn’t speak, but sat listening to a woman sing opera; Clare could tell by the way the woman’s voice soared and then dropped quite suddenly that, whatever had happened to the woman, she had started out angry and ended up sad.
    Clare’s mother usually bought things with credit cards, but when she and Clare were going someplace together, Clare’s mother would let Clare get cash with her ATM card because Clare was still young enough to find the process magical. The password was Clare’s own birthday. Clare entered the numbers and stopped cold, staring at the four Xs on the screen: 1202. December second; today was the third.
    Clare felt a pang of self-pity, then made herself shrug. “Whatever,” she told the four Xs—a word most kids said all the time and one that, for this reason, Clare chose never to use, but she felt the power of it now. Refusal, short, sharp, and hard, like a silver pin that could take the air out of anything; something to add to her arsenal. She pushed another button, and the four Xs disappeared. For most of her life, Clare hadn’t had much occasion to feel sorry for herself but, standing at the ATM, she realized that this feeling loomed huge and possible, like a forest she stood on the edge of. If she entered it, she might never be able to leave.
    When her mother’s name appeared on the little screen, Clare felt like a thief and an imposter, but she got the money out anyway, because she had to. Clare didn’t know much about being alone in the world, but she knew that people alone needed money. A hundred dollars. A lot of money—more than Clare had ever held in her hand before. Quickly she folded it into her change purse, dropped it deep inside her backpack, and started off down the street away from the bank.
     
     
     
    Clare’s downtown was really just one long street lined with pretty shops and restaurants. Even the hardware store was pretty, with its wooden sign shaped like a saw and gold lettering on the window. Clare hadn’t been to that many places, but she knew enough about downtowns to understand that this one wasn’t typical. The sidewalks were brick, for one thing, and there were giant stone planters here and there with plants that changed with the seasons. Today, they were full of greenery and tiny Christmas trees strung with lights.
    There was a toy store full of handmade wooden toys, astonishing old-fashioned Lionel trains, and dolls with smocked dresses and the faces of real children. There was a clothing boutique her mother called “Instant WASP” that sold crisp, expensive clothes in candy pink, daisy-eye yellow, tree-frog green, and also sold matching