When they were finished eating lunch, Brad paid the bill and Lisa went to the ladies'room. When she came out and joined Brad outside near the entrance, she found him talking to a tall blond woman dressed in blue jeans and a cream-colored blouse; both garments looked stained with dirt. The woman looked like she had been crying recently, tearstains had tracked rough furrows in the remnants of her makeup and made her mascara run. Resting on a small concrete ledge by the woman was a travel bag, a diaper bag, and a baby seat with an infant swaddled in a blanket. The infant was awake, its eyes staring upward, making cooing sounds. Brad turned to Lisa as she stepped out. "Do you have any change?" Brad said. "I've only got large bills and-"
"Sure," Lisa said, reaching to her wallet automatically. She looked curiously at the woman. "What fort
The woman turned toward Lisa, her features pleading. "1'm sorry to bother you, ma'am, but… I… I asked your husband if he could spare some change. I'm..
Homeless, Lisa thought. Her fingers dosed over her wallet. She hesitated, her eyes meeting Brad's. She normally didn't give money to homeless people. All they did was buy booze or drugs with it anyway. Besides, there were shelters and organizations designed to help those legitimately in need. If this woman was really homeless, why didn't she just go to a shelter? "Let me see what I have" Lisa said, opening her wallet.
'I really appreciate it," the woman said. She looked defeated, ragged and tired. "I've… I'm so sorry to have bothered you.. "She sounded on the verge on tears.
"It's okay," Lisa said, flipping through her bills. Something about the woman's tone of voice spiked through her emotions. The baby started to cry.
"Shhh, it's okay, Mandy," the woman said to the infant, crooning to her. "Mommy will feed you in a minute."
Lisa flipped through ones, fives, a few tens, and rested on a twenty. She glanced at Brad; she knew Brad had twenties, but knew he was apprehensive about giving homeless people such large sums of money, too. However, this woman seemed different. She truly looked like she was in a desperate situation.
Lisa pulled the twenty out and handed it to the woman. "Here. I hope this can help"
At the sight of the bill, the woman's eyes widened. "Oh, thank you! This is-I don't know how to thank you. I've… I've never… I never thought this would happen to me and-" She burst into sudden tears.
Brad shuffled awkwardly, looking uncomfortable. Lisa felt uncomfortable, too. "Everything will be okay," she said. She sounded stupid saying it. Obviously, the way the woman was crying indicated that everything was not okay in her world.
"1'm sorry." The tears suddenly stopped and the woman pulled a ragged Kleenex from her purse and dried her eyes with it. She struggled to hold the tears in. "I'm sorry, it's just that… I never thought this would happen to me. 'Fwo weeks ago I wasn't homeless and I had a job and now.. " Her features screwed up, threatening to unleash a flood of tears again, but she fought them down. She looked at them through tear-filled eyes. "I'm sorry. You don't need to hear my sob story."
"It's okay," Brad said, embarrassed. He reached into his wallet and rifled through it. He handed her another twenty. "Here, maybe you can get a motel room for the night."
The woman looked at the offered twenty, then slowly took it. "'Thank you," she whispered.
Lisa couldn't help but be affected by the woman's plight. Homeless and with a small infant, she didn't appear to be the typical homeless person she encountered from time to time when she had to drive into downtown Los Angeles or Santa Ana for court appearances. The homeless people she encountered there were dirty, ugly, smelly, and lazy. This woman reminded Lisa of herself in a way; she appeared intelligent and headstrong. The fact that she mentioned that she had once held a job told Lisa that the woman had the ability to earn a living. She wondered if drugs had caused her downfall. She glanced at the infant, who had reduced her crying back down to simple mewling. The baby seemed fine, not the kind of baby she thought would have been born to a drugaddicted mother.
"There's YWCA centers all over the place," Lisa heard herself say. "% can help you find one if you want!
"No, that's okay.' The woman shook her head. She had gotten herself under control now She shoved the two twenties into her purse. "I've already tried them, but… they're all filled up. I've been doing okay, really. I've only had to sleep in my car for the past two nights. I was staying with a friend, but her husband told her that she didn't want Mandy and me to stay with them anymore, and I ran out of money three days ago."
"I'm sorry," Lisa said, softly.
The woman looked at Lisa with a strong resolve. "It's okay. I… he's a jerk anyway. He's friends with my former boyfriend. He's the one that kicked us out of the house and fired me. He was cheating on me the whole time I was pregnant with our daughter. I didn't find out until three weeks ago. When I confronted him with it, he got angry and had me fired, then he threw us out of the house.'
"How could he have you fired?" Brad asked.
"Easy; the woman said, turning to Brad. "He was my boss at my job. It was stupid of me to fall in love with the guy who hired me, but I did. I thought we had a good thing going, especially when I found out I was pregnant." She sighed. "1 was so stupid! He came across as so lonely and broke and… I helped pay his bills. I literally ran the limit of my credit cards up to help him out, and now… She shook her head. "He took me for a fool"
"What about your parents?" Lisa asked.
"My mom died ten years ago and my dad disowned me not long after,' she said. "He has his own problems. The chief one being he's a dosed-minded, bigoted preacher. I was married once before and left my hus band for the same reason that got me kicked out of Richard's house. My father sees marriage as this strict thing. If you leave your spouse, you're committing adultery if you remarry. I started dating right away and…" She shrugged. He disowned me. We haven't spoken in seven years. I called him when Mandy was born, but he refused to speak to me."
Lisa felt heartbroken over the woman's story. She joined Brad, feeling awkward and embarrassed.
The woman turned to them. She looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry I burdened you with this. Thank you for helping me out. I promise you that the money will be put to good use. I've got a little one that is more of a concern to me right now."
"Are you sure there's nothing else we can do?" Brad asked.
The woman shook her head. "I'll be fine. I'm sure I'll be able to get work soon, even though I don't have a permanent address. My friend Christie told me I could use their address for a reference, and I'm sure she'll pick up whatever mail I get there. If I can do that, I'll be able to get a job-even a temp job-and move into a motel or something until I can get back on my feet"
Lisa offered the woman a smile. "I'm glad we could help. Good luck to you."
The woman smiled for the first time; it was a beautiful smile." hank you"
"Your baby's name is Mandy?" Lisa asked.
"Yes" The woman nodded. "Amanda Jane." "
'That's a pretty name."
Mank you."
"What's your name?"
"Alicia."
Lisa smiled. "I'm Lisa, and this is my husband, Brad."
Brad smiled and offered his hand. Alicia shook it. "Thank you," she said. "Both of you." "
"Take care, okay?" Lisa said, taking Brad's hand.
"1 will.,
*Will you be able to get a place tonight?" Brad asked, glancing at the baby in the car seat. "There's a motel across the street, you know."
Alicia nodded. "1 think so. For the past two nights, Mandy and I have been sleeping in my car. It's that blue Datsun over there." She pointed and Lisa saw it, parked ten feet from them, the back of it filled with suitcases and clothes. "I've been parking on Douglas Street off Ventura Boulevard. Its nice and quiet there. Thank God it's summer."
"Yeah, really," Lisa said. She smiled at Alicia again. "Well, good luck to you, and take care of your baby.'
"I will," Alicia said. "Thank you."
Brad and Lisa turned and headed b
ack toward their car.
They were silent on the drive back to the freeway. Once they had merged back into traffic, Lisa broke the silence. "'chat was so sad"
"I know."
'Part of me wishes that we had done something more to help her,' Lisa said. 'I felt so sorry for her.'
"Me too. I almost didn't want to at first, but… well…"
'She really needed help. You could tell."
"Yes" Brad kept his eyes on the road ahead of him, hands on the steering wheel.
Lisa thought about her own baby that was now growing inside her. The minute she had seen Alicia and her baby, she immediately thought of helping and protecting the baby more than the mother. But then she saw that Alicia was truly a woman who was down-and-out, a woman who, through circumstances beyond her control, had been dumped on the streets with no support and a baby to take care of. She hoped the money they gave Alicia today would help. "I hope they'll be okay," she said.
"Me too," Brad said.
They headed north, and after five minutes the plight of Alicia and her baby daughter were forgotten.
Two
They noticed the van shortly after they pulled out of the rest stop.
They had pulled over at the rest stop just inside the Ventura County limits for bathroom breaks and a quick rest before heading on the road again. The hour-anda-half drive from North Hollywood where they had met up with Alicia and her infant daughter had been spent mostly in silence.
The radio station they were listening to, alternative rock station KROQ, was now fizzling in static, so five minutes into arriving at the rest stop Lisa had put in a Blondie CD. Brad had thought about Alicia for about thirty minutes after leaving her and the baby, and for the last forty minutes or so had been thinking about the long weekend ahead of them. The bathroom breaks were a long time coming, and upon meeting outside the lavatories, they meandered over to a picnic area with tables and benches. They shot a couple of photos of each other for posterity, including one photograph of Lisa posing by a sign warning of the dangers of rattlesnakes, which were plentiful in the area. Then they got back into the Lexus and continued on toward their destination.
Brad switched lanes to pass a slow-moving car towing a trailer in the slow lane. Lisa was consulting the map. 'Looks like we've got another two hours."
"Piece of cake," Brad said, as they climbed the hill.
"Its so nice up here. I wonder iI
"What the hell is this sonofabitch doing?"
Lisa looked over her shoulder. The entire rear window of their Lexus was filled with the metallic grille of a red van. Brad's grip on the steering wheel tightened. "What the fuck is wrong with people? I'm already doing seventy and this guy has the whole fucking road to pass me!"
"Let him pass us if he wants to get around."
"That's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm not speeding up for him.'
They reached the crest of the hill, and Brad took his foot off the accelerator as they wound down Interstate 5. They picked up speed, creeping to eighty. Some cars continued whizzing past at ninety or faster. Brad checked his rearview mirror, saw that it was dear, and moved back into the slow lane, his foot tapping the brake to slow down a little. The van stayed on his tail, moving to the slow lane right on his back bumper.
"You motherfucker." Brad's foot was riding the brake. His heart was pounding rapidly as his eyes darted from the rearview mirror to the road ahead of him. Their speed dropped gradually to seventy, then sixty. The van receded slightly, then sped up and tailgated them again. It was hard to see the driver through the tinted glass of his windshield, but Brad already had a mental image of him: Judging by the vehicle, he was probably another repressed, thirtysomething hothead with an ax to grind because Brad wasn't going fast enough to suit his needs. He can fuck off as far as I'm concerned. Brad thought.
"What is this guy's problem?" Lisa wondered, craning her neck to look out the rear window
"I don't know You have the cell phone with us?"
"Yeah. Think we should call the police?"
"I don't know. Let's see what he does first."
"Maybe we should pull over."
"Why? So he can pull up behind us and shoot us or something?"
Lisa opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked scared. Brad was scared himself. His mind retraced the last few minutes frantically, trying to reconnect with something that might explain why this guy was dogging their every step. Had he cut anybody off? No. When he'd passed the slow-moving car a few miles back, there hadn't been anybody in the lane next to him at all, otherwise he wouldn't have made the move. But then the guy had almost seemed to materialize out of nowhere right after he made the lane change. He must have been flying along at a hundred miles per hour, which would explain why Brad wouldn't have seen him when he checked his rear- and sideview mirrors. The guy had been coming up so fast that he hadn't been in the mirrors when Brad checked, then he was there the minute Brad made the lane change. Which means now the fuckhead behind the wheel was pissed off.
"Christ," Brad muttered, his knuckles white as his hands gripped the steering wheel. "Just what I need is some enraged asshole on my tail because he feels slighted over some stupid traffic dispute."
"He's pulling back," Lisa said.
Brad glanced in his rearview mirror. Sure enough, the van had pulled back to a more respectable distance. The afternoon sun glinted in the sky, reflecting off the van's windshield. Brad released a long sigh and felt better. "As long as he stays back there," he said.
They were silent for a moment as they reached the bottom of the hill and continued on, Interstate 5 stretching out before them like a long, black snake. It was a three lane highway, bisected by a median strip of grass that separated the north and southbound lanes. Traffic was moderate. Brad kept the Lexus at a safe and legal sixtyfive and stayed in his lane. No sense trying to play speed racer now. As long as they reached the hotel in one piece, that was all that mattered.
Lisa turned the Blondie CD back on. Debbie Harry began singing about being an X Offender.
They were relaxed enough now to make small talk. Lisa started talking about a transgression that had occurred at the office. Brad listened, wondering silently how his wife put up with those incompetent assholes at the law office. "So all they want to do is complain about all the work they have-like nobody else does? — and then they sit around and file their nails and gossip all day, and then complain about all the work they have and how they can never get anything done. George Brooks doesn't even notice what's going on. He spends all day in his office. And meanwhile, I'm trying to hold the department together, and Amy won't do anything to pare the deadweight down, and-"
Brad was listening, but he was monitoring the traffic behind him. The van was still behind them at a good distance. They were drawing dose to another slow-moving vehiclean old Ford piloted by a little old lady with blue hair and thick spectacles, barely tall enough to peer over the dashboard. Brad signaled for a lane change, checked his mirrors, and swung into the next lane to pass the Ford. The van changed lanes also, still a safe distance behind them.
He's changing lanes because he sees the Ford is crawling at a snail's pace. Brad thought. He tried to reassure himself with this thought, but a small part of him suggested that wasn't so. That part suggested that the faceless driver of the van still had a burr up his ass and was trying to be discreet about following them.
When Brad saw that he was at a comfortable distance past the Ford, he signaled for another lane change and merged back into the slow lane. The van did likewise, still a respectable distance behind him.
"So I just don't know what to do anymore," Lisa was saying, looking out at the road ahead of them. "Sometimes I wonder if l should just go directly to Debbie and-"
He listened. And he nodded and responded at the appropriate times. And he watched the road ahead of him and monitored the van behind them. It stayed a good distance back, never retreating nor accelerating to catch up.
And every time Brad c
hanged lanes to pass a slower vehicle, the van did likewise. After three times Brad began to get an eerie feeling that the driver of the van hadn't forgotten the minor transgression fifteen minutes back. It was a feeling that gnawed at him, creating a pit of unease in his belly.
Lisa appeared not to notice what was going on. And I won't say anything, Brad thought. It'll just freak her out. Besides, it's probably just my imagination. I mean, why would-
'The van suddenly sped up, closing the gap between them. Brad expected it to tailgate him again, but it didn't. It crept up to one car length away and then eased up, widening the gap between them. Lisa, who had been talking about work, noticed the change of expression on Brad's face as the van accelerated, and glanced in her sideview mirror. "What the hell is he doing now?"
"1 don't know. But he's been following us the whole way."
"Are you serious?" Lisa watched the van out of her sideview mirror.
"Yeah. Every time we change lanes, he does the same thing. I almost get the feeling he's… well… stalking us."
"Why don't we pull over?" Lisa said, turning to Brad now with a scared expression. "Let's just get off at the next exit, pull into a gas station or something, and call the police."
"What for? The guy hasn't actually done anything"
Lisa looked like she was at a loss for words. "Well, at least we could see if he pulls off the road, too. It's better than nothing."
Brad nodded, eyes on the road, glancing back at the van behind them. For the past twenty minutes or so, the van had kept a safe distance behind them, never out of their sight even when other cars were in front of it. That was what worried him.
"I don't know. It's probably nothing. I mean, it's not like 1-"
"'There's a cop up ahead"
Brad looked. Parked in the grassy median between the north and south lanes was a California Highway Patrol car, as if the officer was laying a speed trap. Brad selfconsciously checked his speed-he was well within the speed limit-,and then they were zooming past the police car. His eyes darted to the rearview mirror just in time to see the patrol car pull into the highway behind them. It's just a coincidence, Brad thought. Surely he can't be lying in wait for us-
Survivor Page 2
