I don't know. I thought of making Lainie a mail-order bride. Or a green-card bride. Or just to be wierd, that her family back in the Old Country had sold her to pay off a debt of some sort. But that's too wierd.
Lainie asked if I minded if she smoked, and I said go right ahead. She tried blowing smoke out the window, though some of it kept coming back in. "You think I'm cheap," she said.
"No," I answered, trying to sound like I meant it. "I don't think that."
"Because you don't know me. You don't know my life."
"No," I said, waving off the smoke. "You're a complete mystery."
"Don't be smart," she said. "Your mother raised you better."
"What do you know about my mother?"
"I know she raised you better than that," she said, and glanced at the coal of the cigarette. There was a note of certainty in her voice which I liked a lot, and I took comfort from it. I wondered what Janice would say if she knew I was driving a total stranger to work in the middle of the night.
"Where does your accent come from?" I asked.
"Macedonia," she said. "Ever hear of it?"
"Yes, I have. From school." There was perfume in the way she said that word. Perfume and rivers and the smoke of a thousand raging fires. And I felt like I was going to cry or maybe start shouting from the pressure in my throat. And suddenly I wanted uncounted impossible things. And I didn't care. And I wanted the night to go on forever.
Where did this come from? I have no idea. By the way, Barbara, that is a perfectly amazing picture.
Bob:-)
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