Free Psychology and Other Stories by C. P. Boyko Page A

It was still in her head, still stuck in the same old grooves.
    Stop that scratching , it said.
    Slim yanked down the sleeve. She had already scratched more today than she normally permitted herself in an entire week. If she kept it up she was going to break the skin. But it was not her fault; she was, she reminded herself, under some stress.
    It was, beyond dispute, Missy who had made them miss the bus. On finding the toilet at the filling station locked, she’d gone off in search of another. Missy, of all people—with her air of world-weariness and her talk of going to live with her real father in the city—Missy did not know that sometimes you had to ask for the key! But Slim knew better than to make a federal case of it. Missy had, of course, when she’d come back and found the busgone, given Slim a look of accusation, but even then she had not dared say anything. For she knew what Slim’s reply would have been.
    â€œYou can’t seriously expect me to hold up a busful of people just for the two of us?”
    Missy could blame her all she wanted with her eyes, but Slim, who knew that she was in the right, did not have to say anything, and could thus savor both her righteousness and her restraint.
    According to the woman inside, the next bus was not due till the same time tomorrow. The bus company would hold their bags at the depot, but the girls had no way of getting into the city, and no money to pay for a hotel room—if there even was a hotel around these parts. When Slim had asked the woman the name of this place so she could try to find it on her map, the woman had replied, “Highway 9.” They were nowhere.
    A semi-trailer hurtled by, about two feet away, and let out a blast of its horn. This shocked Slim no less than the vulgar insult had done, and she had to close her eyes tightly for a moment to muster her nerve.
    When she turned around, Missy was no longer sitting under the sign but had moved to the edge of the road. She stood there sloppily, as if her torso had been dumped onto her legs, and stuck her thumb out at a passing car. The car stopped.
    There were three people inside. Missy peered in and said, “Sorry, we thought you were someone else. We’re waiting for our friends.” The car drove off.
    Slim rejoined her friend. “What’re you doing?”
    â€œWhat’s it look like?”
    Another car approached and Missy pointed her thumb at it, but this one drove past without slowing.
    â€œWhat’d you tell them we were waiting for someone for?”
    Missy hummed through her teeth. This was one of her all-purpose sounds, which she used in a variety of situations to express boredom or disdain. She stared at Slim with dulled compassion.
    â€œI didn’t like the look of them,” she explained at last. “There was three of them.”
    Slim clucked her tongue vaguely.
    â€œThere’s two of us,” said Missy.
    â€œNo kidding.”
    â€œYou want to get murdered and raped?”
    This, like many of Missy’s questions, could not be answered by anything but a blasé or violent non sequitur. “Christ on a stick,” Slim grumbled, “I’d kill for a cigarette.”
    â€œNo you wouldn’t,” said Missy. Because she had introduced Slim to smoking, she liked to treat her as a mere dabbler.
    â€œYou ladies in need of a ride?”
    A car going in the wrong direction had pulled over on the opposite side of the road. The solitary driver, a man in a bright red T-shirt, was leaning out his window as though trying to climb through it.
    Missy showed Slim her sardonic, unsurprised face, the one she used to say that she alone knew the answers to the questions that everyone else around her had not yet even formulated.
    â€œWhich way you heading?,” Missy shouted back.
    Slim was, despite herself, impressed by Missy’s lackadaisical use of the word “heading,” which would never have occurred to her.