Free Into the Valley by Ruth Galm

a plan in reaction. But she sensed for the first time that something dire might occur if she stopped to do this, if she stopped to examine any of it. What was so terrible about wanting to move forward? she thought.
    Cheered by this slant on things and the coffee, B. borrowed a pen from the waitress and began sketching on a napkin the stucco house and the dining room table. When her pancakes came, she noticed a girl sitting alone in a corner booth, also writing, in a notebook. The girl sat with a cup of coffee and a few balled-up dollar bills, a large knapsack at her feet. It was unclear whether she’d eaten or not. Her skin was deeply tanned, her long hair falling in greasy sections to the table. She wore fraying blue jeans, dirty at the hems, a loose peasant blouse, and a choker made of leather. Her feet were bare. She seemed like a brown and wind-tangled child just come in from the beach, except for the frown lines in her forehead and the shadows under her eyes.
    â€œI’d appreciate it oh so much if I could get more coffee the same as everyone else,” the girl said to the waitress, who seemed to be ignoring her. “Jesus Christ. You’d think I wasn’t paying .”
    A LIFE magazine protruded from underneath the girl’s knapsack; she ran her toes back and forth over the gloss. B. had seen the cover everywhere in the spring: the bride in a mushroom cloud of white veil, cascading white and yellow roses, the groom’s hair slicked carefully to the side, ascot gray and black. The young senator’s daughter and the young wealthy family’s son. A picture making all the sense in the world.
    Except that after the cover appeared, B. had begun having the same dream. Her graduation luncheon, the white-linened tables and camellias in glass bowls, the early humidity glazing her face. (The yellow dress her mother had insisted on to complement her hair sometimes lavender, sometimes blue.) What upset her in the dream was that the speech was never intelligible. The Rotarian’s or Junior Leaguer’s or fundraising committee chair’s words always cut off by a faint high-pitched scream, a terrified animal shriek B. imagined might occur during a stabbing or a rape. What came through made no sense: “Take the higher road . . . gentle abiding . . . look happy, now . . . ” What could it mean?
    B. woke from these dreams with her nightgown sweat through.
    The girl arranged sugar packets in a circle on the table. She seemed engrossed in getting the white packets to curve out smoothly, widening larger and larger until she ran out. The waitress returned and said something under her breath, not refilling the girl’s cup, and at that moment the girl casually swept her arm across the table and dropped all the sugar packets onto the floor.
    B. gaped at the scattered packets.
    â€œYou should pick those up.” She had not meant to say it out loud.
    â€œWhy?”
    The girl seemed to look right through her. The blank stare frightened B. She jumped up from her booth, knocking over the silverware, trying to get out. On the way to the register she dropped her purse, the ostrich skin strangely flesh-like against the orange-flecked linoleum, her lipstick rolling onto the floor, the checkbook slipping out. B. scrambled to gather them and pay. Outside, the air was still hot and dry. The town in the dusk looked even more empty. She walked quickly down a few blocks, the white packets raining on the floor and the girl’s sullen blank eyes on her, and when she passed underneath a decorative Spanish arch, there was only the same empty street on the other side.

16.
    The next morning, in the motel bed, she fingered the collar of the powder-blue dress. She had not meant to sleep in it. There was a coffee stain at her breast and a pungent dampness under her arms. The night before she’d had the intention of washing her underthings. She’d laid out her bra and panties next to the sink and found