Free Desire Lines by Christina Baker Kline Page B

being left behind. She procrastinated filling out college applications until the last possible week, scrambling to ask for recommendations, dashing off the personal essay. It seemed to her like a school assignment, an exercise; it was impossible to imagine that it might actually be her ticket out.
Being a teenager was like being a member of a large, disparate tribewith its own language, a patois invented from the necessity of deceit. The kids hid things from teachers and parents and each other, and sometimes, without even knowing it, from themselves. High school was all about deception. Otherwise, how would any of them have survived it? If Kathryn had told her parents the truth about her life, they would never have let her out of the house. As it was, they were suspicious, setting curfews and quizzing her about her friends, extracting meaningless pledges and promises, checking up when possible. Kathryn quickly learned to recite the catechism they wanted to hear: I’m the good girl, the conscience of the group, the one with common sense. I would never do drugs I have sex in someone’s car I sit between two friends, unbelted, in the back of a hatchback that’s passing a truck at ninety miles an hour up a hill on a two-lane road. I would never take the kinds of chances that could get me killed, because I know how precious my life is to you, how shattered you would be to lose me.
She let them believe this, and they let themselves trust her—and as long as nothing terrible happened, they could all convince themselves that Kathryn deserved that trust.
WALKING AROUND THE mall now, Kathryn’s feet are beginning to drag. The mall always makes her tired; she wonders if there’s something in the air-conditioning that zaps people’s energy and keeps them there longer, like drugged captives. Finally she summons her energy and makes her way to the car, then drives the five hundred yards to the cineplex across the street. Scanning a list of titles and playing times, she finds an action-adventure movie starring Mel Gibson that’s starting in eight minutes. She buys popcorn and another Diet Coke and settles into a seat in the empty theater. When the previews begin, she leans back, soaking up the bright images and sounds in front of her like a sun-worshipper at the beach.
The movie is fast-moving and visceral, and for two hours she thinks of nothing but the drama onscreen. When the lights come up, it takesher a moment to orient herself, and then she does: she’s in a deserted movie theater at three o’clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday. In her hometown, living with her mother. With nine hundred dollars to her name, a student loan to repay, and no job to speak of, driving her mother’s car. On the way out of the theater she slips into another movie that’s just starting, but it’s about a guy who loses his wife and his job and decides to drink himself to death, and she’s pretty sure she’s not in the frame of mind to see it.

Chapter 6
“S o, my darling,” Kathryn’s mother says several days later when she finds her sitting at the kitchen table in boxer shorts and a Women’s Studies T-shirt, reading the paper. “Do you know what time it is?”
Kathryn glances at the clock. “Eleven forty-five.”
Her mother looks at her.
“What? Did the time change?”
“It’s eleven forty-five,” her mother says. “The morning’s almost gone.”
Kathryn looks at her over the top of the paper.
“You’ve been here almost a week now, Kathryn, and I wasn’t going to say anything, but I just can’t stand by any longer without telling you what I think.”
Kathryn lowers the paper and folds it slowly, avoiding her mother’s eyes. “Fine. Go ahead.”
“Well …” She takes Kathryn’s empty mug off the table. “More coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
“I think I’ll have some.” She goes over to the counter, takes down a Maine Black Bears mug, and fills it from the pot. “This is what I have observed,” she says, opening two